001Swift flag. Well, good evening. I would like to call this June 5th, 2025 regular board meeting to order. May we all stand for the pledge. [Music] I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for [Music] all. I lost internet. Sorry, I lost my screen. My screen froze. I will now ask members of the board to read the the district mission and vision. I lost my The mission of the school district of Havford Township is to educate and to inspire a community of lifelong learners who become well-rounded global citizens. The pillars of our educational system are our school environment is safe and nurturing. Excellence in education is a shared responsibility and partnership with all district
002and community members. Whole child development is vital to our educational system. Supports and conditions exist whereby all students have opportunities to grow and excel in the areas of academic, technical, and career and in social emotional learning. Our decision-making process is student centered and student voice is valued. Our 2020 2025 district goals are social emotional wellness to produce a community of empathetic and resilient learners with skills to socially and emotionally flourish to prepare contemporary citizens modernize and expand learning experiences to prepare students as critical thinkers, problem solvers, innovators, and designers within a complex global society. and diversity and inclusion to establish a culturally diverse and inclusive educational experience to develop social c cultural proficiency. Thank you. Mr. Tessa can call the attendance. Miss Lee here. Dr. McCay here. Mr. Schwarz here. Dr. Shelton here. Miss Snaggress
003here. Miss Vitali. Miss Weedman here. Dr. Larson here. Dr. King present. Uh, Miss Fatali is absent due to illness. I'll now move to the official minutes. Can I have a motion to approve the official minutes from the May 22nd, 2025 regular board meeting? Shelton second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? The motion passes. We'll continue on to the second section which is our report from our students. We'll start with Hford Middle School student representative Aaron [Music] Gugan. Hello board. I would just like to congratulate Dr. Rishi on being an amazing superintendent and on her retirement. Anyways, these last two weeks have been awesome here at HMS, especially for me as a sixth grader. I've gone to camp cadensus and experienced my first Potter Cup. Let's dive in to more about
004camp. Everyone was enthusiastic on the 2hour ride up to camp. We settled into our cabins, unpacked our things, and set up our bunks for the next two days to come. While the weather was mostly rainy during day one, everyone fought through and had an eventful day of fun. The food didn't look very appetizing at a glance, but it was very fulfilling overall. This was my This was also the first year that a color war took place at camp. Not the color war you saw on TV shows, but the ones where you were awarded points for kindness and bravery. Each team will be awarded for something for someone doing something brave/kind. For example, overcoming your fears of something or helping someone out. Your team would be awarded a point. Each team had different color shorts shirts
005than we wore on to camp on the first day and some people wore it as well on the second day. Your activity groups were randomized and you got random people in your grade in your group. I thought it was a good learning experience because I got to make some good friends in that group. Now, I thought it was rigged for a little second when my two friends got put together, but I know it's probably not true. Each group was assigned a series of activities that we do during the span of the two days. Personally, my group rock climbed, did the beast challenge, and kayaked in the pouring rain. Let's just say I'll be kayaking more in sunny weather. We also tie-dyed, swam, fish, hung down the foam pit, and did many other activities that were
006led by the staff there and some teachers here at HMS. The students loved all the activities and were sad to leave. Though it took a little time to get back to camp after some tech technical difficulties with the buses, we made it back all in one piece. Enjoyed camp a lot. Potter Cup. Something that also happened that same week was Potter Cup. Now, I know you all know what Potter Cup is and what it focuses on. Let me tell you a brief explanation of what Potter Cup is about. Potter Cup is a fundraiser between the two schools HMS and Paxton Hollow for Alex's Lemonade Stand. Alex's Lemonade Stand is a charity to help people with cancer. The school raised $30,000 this year between the two. There is a bunch of there was a bunch of
007inflatables in the field near Golf Road and the lines were long but quick in my opinion. There was a lemonade stamper providing pink and normal lemonade. The lemonade was a hit and there was a line down the down the track. Everyone wanted the free lemonade. HMS provided good food such as pizza, chicken fingers and fries and two different kinds of salad. I got the pizza and was good and filled me up for the up for the hours to come. I like how you could do whatever you want for most of the time and didn't have to sit in the stands for the whole time. We all watched and cheered on the track meet and won the track meet by 129 points to 45. Though sadly HMS lost lost Potter Cup to Pax and it was
008a eventful but fun day. Now, I've been mostly talking about big events that that have been happening here at HMS. Let's talk about what's been going on outside those things. The spring sports season just finished. They did a fantastic job and won some hard games and lost them as well. The school is counting down to the days till summer. Teachers are nonetheless up the hood and are putting as much knowledge in our brain till the bell rings on June 17th. Speaking of summer, I would just like to point out a national holiday that's coming up. So mark your calendar people and start a countdown because on June 21st a national a national holiday is taking place. My birthday. Thank you all for listening to me tonight. Before this ends, make sure you take out your
009phones and put the event on your calendar and name it Aaron G's Aaron G's 12th birthday on June 21st. Thank you and go forwards. Thank you, Aaron. Next, we'll have um Austin McConnell for our Hford High School student representative. Good evening, everyone. Now, this is going to be a tough speech to beat after that warm welcome to this national holiday. I mean, first I'm hearing about it, but I should put on my calendar now. Um we're coming down to the home stretch of the school year, and there's been a lot happening around the building these last few days. So, let's take a minute to recap everything going on and look ahead to what's coming up. Before I get into all the jazz that's been going on at Hafford, I'd like to thank everyone across the
010board here, as well as administrators at Hford High School for granting me the opportunity to serve as one of our illustrious school board representatives for the past 2 years. It has truly been a wonderful experience, and I could not be more grateful to have this experience going into my future education. Now, for the fun stuff. Ear this earlier this week, the class of 2025 celebrated senior decision day with a breakfast and their annual walkthrough of the elementary and middle schools. I walked through Chattam Park where I got to see some of the great construction that's going on. And it's it's going to be a nice elementary school. I'm kind of sad I'm graduating. Um, it was a great chance for the seniors to visit their former schools and see their younger teachers and classmates one
011last time, as well as connect with fellow students, sorry, as well as connect with fellow students for future endeavors as they pursue higher education. Tonight, we'll be holding our senior awards at the high school auditorium. We'll be recognizing students for academic, athletic, and service achievements throughout their time at Habford. Congratulations to all of the awards recipients. Senior finals exams officially kicked off today and will continue tomorrow morning with first and second block finals. After tomorrow's exams, seniors will pick up their cap and gowns in the auditorium as long as all obligations have been cleared, which includes a return return of their schoolisssued Chromebook and charger as well dues being paid. On that note, graduation is coming up fast. It is happening on Tuesday, June 10th at 5:00 p.m. at AG Cornog Stadium. Students should have
012received their seven outdoor tickets in their email to distribute to their family and friends. And in the event of inclement weather, the students also have two indoor tickets for the ceremony to be hosted within the younger gymnasium. Continuously, the ceremony will also be livereamed for anyone who cannot attend in person. Mandatory graduation t practice will take place this coming Monday, June 9th, at 9:00 a.m. Seniors, remember you must attend practice in order to participate in the ceremony. For underclassman and final exams are around the corner as well with blocks one and two taking place on Friday, June 13th and blocks third and fourth taking place on Monday, June 16th. Make sure you're on top of your studying and finishing the year strong. To flip the script, athletics had a great spring season. Special shout outs
013to track and field Olivia Cack who took home two state gold medals and to both our baseball and softball teams for finishing their seasons with some of the strongest record we've seen in years. On that note, Hford boasted an impressive total of 39 athletes being recognized as all district team recipients. We also hosted our fall sports nights this past Tuesday, the 3rd, at 6 p.m. in the auditorium, where up and cominging fall athletes and families gain valuable information about how they can register for the 2025 2026 athletic season. One more thing, if you're looking to grab some Habford gear, both the football team store and the athletics team store are open online. The football store closes tomorrow, June 6th, at 8:00 a.m. So, get your orders in tonight. And the athletic store stays open until
014June 10th. Check the school website for the links if you haven't already. Lastly, I would like to offer a special thank you and congratulations to Dr. Rushi on her impressive career as the superintendent here here at Habford. Her dedication, leadership, and unwavering commitment to the success and well-being of our students, educators, and community have left a lasting impact. As she embarks on the next chapter of her journey, we celebrate her many achievements and the legacy of the excellence she leaves behind. Habford is forever grateful for her vision and her service. Congratulations. That's all for now, Fords. Let's finish the week strong and keep making the most of these final days together. Have a great night, everyone. Thank you, Austin. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Rushi for the superintendent report. And Dr. King, if
015you'll join me at the podium, we will start off with uh recognition of our retirees. I need you. Sure. Thanks, Anna. Um, a bittersweet time of the year for sure. Um recognizing the dedication of those who have spent in some cases much of their professional career um in our school district supporting children in the classroom uh supporting staff in offices, taking great care of us on our buses, our grounds, our custodial crew across the district. So tonight we ask you to indulge us for a few moments um as we recognize some of the individuals u who were able to join us tonight. We recognize anyone who has who um retired from July 1 of 2024 until June 30 of 2025. That's the ac that is the uh year for us. In total, there are 28
016employees who retired during that period of time, representing 566 years um of total service to the district. Uh several of of our former colleagues were not able to join us this evening. I'm going to guess that they are well entrenched in retirement uh and and thoroughly enjoying that and and hopefully are not here because they're uh out on traveling or or doing something else with family and friends. But we're thrilled to have um several individuals with us tonight uh to give us the opportunity uh to recognize them. And first is Lisa Brazelloo uh for 19 years of service to our district. Lisa began her 19-year journey with the district as an instructional aid at Chestnutwald. Yeah, come on up. Back in 2006, and she continues to serve students and families of the Chestnutwald community um
017throughout the end of end of this year. So, think of the number of children you've interacted with um Lisa and thank you for your dedication. Sandy Connelly. Uh Sandy joined the district in 2016 and and worked with our team of curriculum administrators as the K to2 humanities coordinator. She has worked with staff in each of the schools and at every grade level across the district. Her career in education began back in 1993 teaching kindergarten. Why does that not surprise us? Uh we've been lucky to have you here with us, Sandy, sharing your wealth of knowledge uh here at Hford for the last nine years. Um and wish you all the best. Angela Campilli. Angela has been 21 years in the district with us. Angela is retiring as an instructional assistant from Lynwood Elementary after 21
018years of service with Habford. She started in that same position back in 2004. During her time, she's always willing to work additional time, including coverages during during summer school. So, again, think of all of the children with whom you've you've crossed paths. We're really fortunate. You will. Yeah. And I bet they'll miss you as well. Thank you for your years with Mara Fiser, Lynwood Elementary, 11 years. Lynwood is going to be partially empty. Mara is another instructional assistant retiring from Lynwood. She's been assisting children at this location for 11 years. Um, and I know that the Lynwood community will miss her. Um we wish you luck in the next chapter of your of your life. Um and all the best for you. Thank you. Joe Gity, 31 and a half years with our district. Joe
019has an impressive 31 and a half years in our in the district. He started with our facilities department as a substitute custodian in November of 1993 and quickly transitioned to the lead custodian at the high school in January of 1994. We can honestly say that the high school is not going to be the same without you. Your warm smile um and greeting to all who come in, Joe. Thank you. Jerry Kelly. Jerry has been with our transportation department since 2017. He's retiring from his position as bus assistant at the end of this school year will close out eight years of of service. His presence will surely be missed on not only on the bus but also around the transportation department where he certainly contributes to the camaraderie uh in that room. So thank you John
020Kathy Schulster. Kathy has 37 years of service to Habford School District. She has helped so many families and students working her jobs as a bus driver and bus assistant. Kathy actually retired back in August shortly after helping us to ring in the 2425 school year. And we're lucky to have you back here tonight giving us the opportunity to celebrate the 37 years of dedication to the district. C the Williams. Thea started at Havford in 2001 as an instructional assistant at the middle school where she has stayed the 23 years of her of her career. Thea has helped countless students and families of the Habtown community by way of her instructional assistant position and summer school assignments as well as working after school at Lynwood as part of our COVID compens COVID compensatory services group back
021in 2021. We wish you all the best of luck and thank you for your service. Again, congratulations to our retirees. Um, for you, I have to retire. So, I'm gonna ask Dr. Larson, can you join me up here? So, um, Dr. Rushi, I would just like to take this opportunity to thank you for your commitment to the school district of Hadford Township and the surrounding community. Um, as a board member and a new board president, I've appreciated the ability for open dialogue, collaborative thinking, your years of educational experience, and your sincere investment in the progress of this district. Your leadership and service has positively impacted the district, and your tenure as superintendent should be celebrated. Um, Dr. Larson has some brief remarks as well as other board members. Thank you, Dr. King. Okay. Thank you,
022Dr. King. The average tenure of school superintendent in Pennsylvania is 5 to six years and that number has decreased since the pandemic. Havford has been fortunate that Dr. Rushi has been an exception to that rule. For the past 10 years, Dr. Moren Rushi has led the school district of Habford Township on a path of continued growth and success. Her steady leadership has helped our students, teachers, administrators, staff, and families navigate the opportunities and challenges of the past decade. During her tenure, Dr. Rushi has worked with five different Habford school boards and four different schoolboard presidents. She spearheaded the district's belonging work, increased the number of diverse staff working in the district, attracted and retained top education talent, increased student achievement in many areas. navigated a global pandemic and led us through the intersections of public
023schooling and culture wars. She did this all while keeping the district's mission and vision at the forefront and students at the center of all of her decisions. Because of the great things that Habford has achieved and continues to aspire to under Dr. Rushi's leadership, our new superintendent, Dr. Hayes, is inheriting an outstanding district with a bright future. Dr. Roui, thank you for sharing your time, talents, leadership, and expertise with our community. We wish you nothing but the best in retirement. You will be missed, but your legacy will continue to shine brightly, and we won't be mad if you come back to visit us. Congratulations And I do want to allow an opportunity for other board members to speak as well. Anyone else? I just want to thank you Dr. Brushi and especially during the pandemic,
024you know, um it was really, you know, a trying period and I remember sitting in the audience, you know, with some of these meetings and um you know, navigating that, you know, that that and you know, how to adjust and and keep uh the excellence in our schools during that difficult period. So, thank you. I was just going to add uh to the appreciation for Dr. Rishi's tenure and her commitment to the excellence in our district, the contributions to our students and add um a personal note of thanks. Um in my time on the board and in board leadership, uh we've been through some things there. we had to to navigate things and I so appreciated being able to get you on the phone and know that um you were someone who was a a
025wise counselor, gave good advice, kept the focus, kept us steady um but also were able to vent and I got to see that you have a quick wit and a little snark and sass which made me respect and like you all the more. Um it was a pleasure to work with you indeed. um an honor and a pleasure and as has been noted your contributions will be long lasting in the district um but also just personally for me I just wanted to to thank you for the um special guidance and uh relationship that we've been able to have in this work we've done together we often call ourselves a team of 10 and uh it's and Dr. you are the longest tenure now of of anybody up here in the in the team of 10.
026So I mean you know since I think I think you yeah you have been the longest one. So we've all worked only with you. It's going to be a bit of a transition, but um you know wanted to thank you for really you know setting the bar pretty high um through the through the you know the pandemic through everything else we that we dealt with the you know the things I've noticed are you very detail oriented like really dotting every eye and crossing every tea you know planning every single word it seems like in some cases and also just your calm demeanor that was studying in many cases because there was a lot of chaos um so really want to appreciate that and thank Thank you so much. Um, I'm surprised it's only it's only
02710 years. It feels like longer. It probably feels You probably feel like I'm longer, too. But I mean, I feel like superintendencies are kind of like dog years. Like it's like seven seven years. Exactly. Well, thank you very much, though. We really do appreciate and you'll be missed. Sorry. I'll just say one more thing. Um, anyone who knows me knows that I'm constantly trying to get to my friends to move to Htown and um, I I I tell them a lot of things about what makes our community so special. Um, but as many can imagine, a lot of my friends have young kids and the the culture is built in the schools in our public schools and that's what makes our community so great. It emanates out, you know, it starts it starts at the
028top. It starts from you. And when I moved here, I immediately felt welcomed into our community and welcomed into our schools. When I became on when I started on the board and then 3 months later, we were all virtual. Um, I never felt like there was a time that I was an outsider or that I didn't know who to talk to or I didn't have access to someone. And um, that just it comes straight from you, Dr. Rushi. you've just built this this wonderful community of culture um that is so warm and welcoming that anybody coming in from the outside whether it's to our community or to our schools or to the board feels welcome and so I thank you so much on a personal level um and also because I've been successful at moving
029two of my friends to Htown um so I think that that's helped a lot um but but really I mean long lasting it won't even describe it because you have just have have have um made such an impact on our and on me personally. So, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Just want to say there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, but may the years ahead of you be as full as the years behind you and so that you have plenty of good things to do still. Thank you. So, if you can't tell, Dr. Rushi did not know we were going to be making remarks about her this evening. Right. Right. So, um, there are a few more folks who would like to just share their thanks and recognition and congratulations with
030you this evening. Uh, so I'm going to turn it over to Anna, who's going to, uh, get us started on that. So, each of the um, professional associations uh, wanted to be here tonight, but they couldn't because of other award ceremonies in the district. So, they sent their um, their congratulations and asked me to read it on behalf of them. I'm going to slow down tonight when I read. Okay. Um, on behalf of the Habford Township Education Support Professional Association, we want to extend our heartfelt congratulations on your retirement. Throughout your tenure, we've we've seen firsthand how important strong leadership is in guiding a school district through challenges and change. We appreciate your willingness to listen, to engage in dialogue, and to recognize the essential role support staff play in keeping our schools running smoothly.
031The support staff's work is often behind the scenes, but we felt seen and valued under your leadership. We hope your retirement brings you time to rest, enjoy your family, and pursue everything you've put off while dedicating your days to the service of education. Thank you for your years of commitment and best wishes on your next chapter. Mary Beth Demarco and Beth Irwin, HTSPA co-presidents. Now, Mike Mullen recorded one for him. So, well, Mike Mullen from HCA um has a message for you. Congratulations on your retirement, Dr. Rushi. This is Mike Mullen, the president of the Havford Township Education Association. Some people believe that their relationship between a superintendent and a teachers union president is by definition adversarial, oppositional, perhaps occasionally tculent. You can imagine two warships from from opposing navies ready to do battle to
032ram each other or to sink each other. Certainly exciting. Makes for vivid copy in a newspaper. Alas, not true. At least not at Habberford. I I can assure you that my relationship with Dr. Rushi featured no armadas or flotillas. Instead, I invite you to imagine the rowboat. Dr. Rushi and I would row together. We would occasionally switch seats or switch sides as the occasion warranted. Sometimes, most of the time, the water was calm, but there were storms occasionally or fast currents. There was a big wave back in 2020 that lasted a few years and threatened to capsize our boat, but we trusted each other, rode on bravely, albeit occasionally with trepidation, and we believed more serene waters. Now, there were occasional conversations and yes, disagreements about how to row. There was the occasional commentary from
033other boats about our technique as well. There was a lot of help from other boats. The school board or PSEA would sail by in their yachts to offer encouragement or the occasional toe. The administrators, the teachers, the parents, the citizens all had their boats and sailed along with us. And they often climbed into our boat and grabbed an order. Now, I can assure you that while the journey was occasionally fraught, the destination was never in doubt. One could quibble with Dr. Rushi's choice of ore, her rowing technique or the course we took. I guess that comes with the role, but the destination always heading toward the students, their needs, their education. With Dr. Rushi, you always knew where all that rowing was taking us to them. And my hope and wish for Dr. Rushi as
034she hangs her frame door over the boat house mantelpiece is the joy of family, the serenity of alarm free sunrises and the satisfaction of achievement. One clarification, however, teachers never really retire. I'll paraphrase Sheamus Haney, the great Irish poet, that teachers are representatives of the Republic of conscience. The embassies of that republic are everywhere and no ambassador is ever relieved. You may not be a rower anymore, Dr. Rushi, but thank heaven you'll always be a teacher. Congratulations. So I think every time someone has to speak after Mike Mullen, they say, "Why do I have to go after Mike Mullen? But I'm going to go after Mike Mullen. Dr. Rushi, if we had to choose just one thing that will reflect your legacy, it would be this. A patient gardener. We didn't know you, but we've
035been told. When Dr. Rushi first stepped into a classroom as a teacher, she didn't just teach lessons. She planted seeds of curiosity, confidence, and potential. With each student, she nurtured not just academic growth, but the deeper roots of self-belief and purpose. As the years went on and your roles evolved, the gardener only grew, expanding beyond the classrooms to hallways, departments, entire schools, and finally, luckily to our district. And as a superintendent, Dr. Rushi never stopped cultivating with care, vision, and resolve. She built a culture where students could flourish, teachers felt empowered, families felt heard, sorry, and administrators felt supported. But the most beautiful thing about our gardener, she doesn't take the spotlight. She didn't force the bloom. She worked behind the scenes, tending, listening, adjusting, knowing that her work shows in the strength of all
036of us. And today, we look around and we see the garden you've grown. schools that are stronger, educators who feel supported, students who feel seen and heard, and a district that is more vibrant and more resilient because you cared. Even in challenging seasons, I guess in your rowboat, you stayed grounded. She reminded us to stay focused on what matters most, the people, especially the children who grow because of what we all do. So today, Hassa thanks you not just for leading us, but for believing in us, for trusting the process and for having the patience and persistence to help this district bloom in many ways we couldn't have imagined. Retirement may mark the end of this chapter, but we know a gardener's work never truly stops. Whether it's mentoring others, we're all still opening to
037open to your mentoring. spending time in literal gardens, reading fairy tales to grandchildren, or traveling. Your roots are forever a part of this place. Thank you, Dr. Rushi. On behalf of all of us, may this next season of life be as rich and as rewarding as the one you generally generously gave to all of us. You're welcome. Last one. So, as you've heard, Dr. Rushi's impact has been great and will be lasting. In a recent interview conducted by our very own Bianca Serno in the Heford High School Forian newspaper, Dr. Rushi described her fondest memories of her time here as the moments she got to spend with students. And while we will surely miss her presence in the classrooms, hallways, offices, meeting spaces, and boardroom, we wish her well on her new chapter. Uh to
038say goodbye, I will paraphrase one of the great philosophers and orators of the 20th century, aa Mils Winnie the Pooh, who says how lucky we are to have someone who makes saying goodbye so hard. Thank you, Dr. Rushi, and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you all. Um any success that I have experienced I have said has been because of the people. Um, I have been truly blessed uh to work with incredible staff members, family members, board members. Um, and the kids. The kids. When I first met Mike Mullen, he's the he's the person that I talk about at the new teacher orientation. When I first met Mike Mullen as we concluded the meeting, he said, "Just wait until you meet our kids." And boy, was he right. that keep us grounded and focused upon what is
039truly important in life. So I have been consider myself blessed. It has been a privilege uh to work with the caliber of individuals I have worked with here and to have the opportunity to interact with board members and family members. Um so thank you. Um now I'm supposed to like continue with this meeting but thanks Jen. Uh Dr. Larson, I'll ask if you would join me up here. We will uh we will continue. Um the next part of our our meeting, we're going to uh recognize our uh Dominic Recruit award winners. Uh and this again is another award at that we acknowledge at the close of each one of the school of the school years. Um for individuals, they're nominated. It's usually a staff member be a member of the community. uh student members. We
040try to have one representative of each um excuse me one thanks one representative from each of of those groups. U and we received many nominations from across the the district and and throughout the community. Uh and we're thrilled this evening um to recognize uh people who have been affiliated with a program that is such an incredible source of pride for us this year and that is Coffee on the Path. So, if you've not had an opportunity to get to uh the Kelly Music Facility on Wednesdays and Thursday mornings from 8:30 to 10:30, uh and uh our students from our high school are there ready to serve you coffee, uh a little snack with that as well. Uh and it's delightful to interact with them. Uh, so this evening we are recognizing Ro Edmonston, our assistant
041principal at the high school, Tom Kelly from from Kelly Music, and Jim Worster. And I'm going to read an excerpt from their nomination. They embody the strength of belief, partnership, and community in expanding opportunities for young adults with disabilities. Together they have transformed the path program into a vibrant model of inclusion with coffee on the path as a standout initiative. Ro Edmonston is the heart of the program. Her dedication goes far beyond teaching. She nurtures student independence and community connections. Playing a central role in turning a simple coffee cart idea into a thriving program. Her efforts forged key partnerships with Tom Kelly, who embraced the vision and brought coffee on the path to life at the Kelly Music Center, donating space, spreading the word, and a true champion of inclusion. Through Tom, Jim joined the
042effort, offering a gen generous support from the New Avenue Foundation's Our Community Cup coffee company, and they donate all the coffee that is served. Together, Ro, Tom, and Jim have built more than a coffee shop. They've created a living example of how collaboration and inclusion empower communities to thrive. Thank you on behalf of our and on for on to our students. Um, our first student recipient is Nicholas Legendo. And Nicholas, if I I'm sure I'm pronouncing your last name incorrectly, please tell me how to pronounce it. Len. All right. Nicholas is a compassionate and selfless young leader who exemplifies the spirit of Dominic Rudy Humanitarian Award. When Beth Mastercola, a principal at Coopertown Elementary, mentioned needing some support for a new Ukrainian student, Nicholas, who grew up speaking Russian and Ukrainian, immediately offered to help.
043He began volunteering weekly at Coopertown to support the student both academically and emotionally. Fluent in the students native language, Nicholas assists with reading, math, and social skills, helping him feel seen and included in the classrooms and beyond. Beyond academics, he patiently teaches American customs and playground games, easing the a very important thing to know at the elementary level, easing that transition into a new a new culture. Despite your busy schedule at H as a Habford High School basketball player and aspiring referee, you serve you have served out of pure empathy. Nicholas, your quiet leadership and generosity have left a lasting mark on the students and the staff alike at Cubert. You've been such a role model for both the students and the staff and honoring that legacy of Dominic Recruit. So, congratulations to you. And
044our second student student recipient um Maya Lewis Havenford High school student. Maya is a standout student leader whose advocacy, volunteerism, and civic engagement embody the Dominic Rudy Award. As founder of the Save Promise Club at Hford High School, Maya led First Bump Fist Bump Fridays and a fundraiser for the township's sunset run, promoting kindness, inclusion, and stronger school community ties. Her dedication extends to best buddies and unified track and field where she builds meaningful relationships with students of all abilities. A passionate mental health advocate. You may recall Maya spoke at one of our schoolboard meetings. She volunteers with Project Heel to support equitable eating disorder treatment. She also participates in civic life through the Young Democrats and Young Republicans Club and Congress Congresswoman Scanland's youth cabinet while developing leadership skills in future business leaders of
045America. Your commitment to inclusion to student well-being and service are a true reflection of this award. Maya, and congratulations to you. Miss Lee, if you would join me at the podium. We are proud to have an opportunity to celebrate this evening the Habford recipients of the making a difference award. This is these awards are hosted by the Delaware County Right to Education Local Task Force and recognized students and adults who exemplify the spirit of inclusion through perseverance, advocacy, and everyday actions that help to create welcoming school communities. The rece the award recipients from the school district of Habford Township received their awards and were honored last Thursday evening at a wonderful event. Miss Lee, your team is to be congratulated. But we would just like to express our appreciation to these individuals for being such
046wonderful representatives um of our district in this in this accomplishment. Uh coffee on the path hot runner tonight. Um, but our team from Coffee on the Path who who were the recipients of the Making a Difference Awards, Michelle Layman, Kath Elco, and Tom Kelly. Now, if you would come forward, we just have some flowers to give you this evening. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Another recipient of the awards was Regin Gina Corros Roza who is our lead custodian at Manoa Elementary School. Congratulations on that accomplishment, Gina. Making a Difference Awards also recognizes student accomplishments and our school district was fortunate to have two two recipients, Penelopey Williams from Coopertown Elementary and Piper Hy from Havford Middle School. Okay, great. I will now invite to the podium we have a representative here this evening from the John D.
047McDonald Scholarship Foundation. Thank you for joining us this evening. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, the vibes in here are pretty spectacular. Uh, if this is what school board meetings are about, I don't think I'll ever miss one. Uh, my name is Johnny McDonald. I am the president of the, uh, JD Macdonald Memorial Foundation. the J.D. McDonald Memorial Foundation, a a um an organization that we formed in 2001 to honor my father uh after he passed at 62 years old, after he served 27 years on the board of commissioners as the ninth ward commissioner, after he served at the Hilltop Civic Association, and uh served on and on and on, including being one of the forces behind getting the stadium um approved and built. For the last 24 years, we have hosted a uh uh memorial
048golf, a jack's outing, an outing to support the foundation. Um the only two years we've missed was because of CO. We actually couldn't get a course. Uh we're back and we're stronger than ever. And our 22nd annual event is on Monday afternoon. We as a foundation's miss, our foundation's mission is to support only Havford Township. We bring money in from all over the region, but the contributions go out only to families in need and youth of Havford Township for academic and athletic uh endeavors. We've helped create the Havford Township Youth Football League, uh which has helped spur a cheerleading squad, uh so on and so forth. this year with one of our board members um uh uh you know creativity. We reached out to Hford High School and spoke with counselors and created a essay
049writing contest for seniors and the theme of the essay was what does community mean to me? Um, we were shouldn't say shocked because I'm a product of Havford Township schools starting back with the Manoa Mustangs. Uh but uh but we were we were blown away by the fact that uh 14 seniors submitted essays and uh we're just honored tonight to be able to we we had to rejigger the budget quite frankly because we had so many so many um uh uh uh essays received and they were all excellent. They were all excellent and and after hearing uh Aaron G and Austin, it's no surprise uh what you all have been doing and the educators have been doing to help prepare these uh young adults to be such creative and awesome uh young people. So, it
050is our honor and we're going to I I just wanted to share with you their names. Uh but it's our honor as a foundation to contribute $10,000 in scholarships at different levels, right? Uh up to $2,000 for a few of the uh recipients. And again, it's all about this community, which was the essay um subject. And 24 years for a local organization to be in existence is pretty spectacular. And that has to do not only with all the hard work from the board members, but mainly from the community here that supports the board. And uh and if two things really, this is the pitch. Uh if anybody wants to get involved with the board, we're more or with with our foundation. We're more than open to it. And secondly, um, specifically with our golf outing,
051which is our big event on Monday, there's whole sponsorships available, also a couple of forsomes left. Uh, but most as importantly, if there's anyone in the community, cuz cuz we reach out as far as we can, but we can't hit every corner. If there's anyone that you know of in the community, either a family in need, kids that want to kind of take on an entrepreneurial project, um, or anything in between, we're we're available. And that's what we're here for. Okay. So, just to I don't want to take up too much time, but um we ran this essay contest 14. Yeah. Yeah, I said that. Um Sophia the these are the names of the applicants and and the awardees. Uh, all seniors, Sophia Aub, Annie Bole, Nick Patrrui, Jimmy Fisaro, Maya Haskins, Lauren Baxter, Maxim
052Marquee, Pierce Murphy, Hannah Nagel, Michael Haskins, Vinnie Fisaro, Shannon Doerty, Avery Goagan, and Gwendalyn Reef. Okay, they you you should all be recognized. I know this is live streaming. I'm sure you're all thring it or whatever we do these days. Uh but uh those are the 14 um submissions that we got, writers that we got, and we'll be presenting them checks at McCall Golf Course uh for Jack's outing on Monday afternoon. Again, keep in mind, we're looking to give money away. Yeah, we're looking to raise it, but at the same time, we're looking to give it away. So, please reach out to us and thank you for having me. Thank you. Sure. Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks. Thanks to Sir Steven. Thank you all. I I'll use this at the event on Monday. Uh our next
053item um Mr. Ta will provide an overview of the 202526 U budget. that is an item um that the board will be voting on this evening. He has pres made this present or a similar presentation a number of times um and here tonight he's has highlighted within there any of the information that is new newer um compared to the last time he presented. So thanks Mr. Ta. There we go. Thank you. So just to give a general um details on the revenue for the 2526 budget. Um local revenue the millillage in the budget currently is at 4%. Um that equates to about a 3.73% in millillage because we did have some property assessment changes uh during the calendar year. So that does impact um the overall revenue that we would receive on taxes. Um, your
054state revenue, basic ed funding. It's the smallest increase that we've seen in over 10 years, and that's for schools throughout Pennsylvania. Um, Hford is getting about $100,000 in addition um for uh state the basic ed funding revenue, but with not receiving any charter school revenue, which was about $50,000 this year, we're only seeing a net increase of $50,000 on that state side. Um, special ed funding for the district was actually a little bit less than what we're receiving this year. So a lot of that's driven by um just the number of students, the um severity of students and um kind of our share of that special ed pie. So that has decreased for next year. The state property tax reduction. So this is the money that comes in through the gaming revenue. Um we did
055see an increase this year in the total receipt of uh over 373,000. So, for the uh taxpayer that does qualify and has applied for the homestead reduction, they would see a $284 credit on their tax bill. So, that's um I think that's up about $28 from those that got the homestead credit in the uh this current tax year. Um your federal revenue, I know there's some concerns about federal revenues and where they might go. Um for Hford, it's about 1% of our total revenue budget. Um and that comprises our IDA programs, access and our title programs. For as far as current expenditure expenditures going into this budget, um we are maintaining all current programs with no cuts or reductions. Um we're maintaining all contractual obligations and associated benefit cost. Um some of the increases we've
056seen in your non- salary categories um or IU services for students that are receive services outside of the district. um tuition to non-public schools, utility cost, some curriculum cost, and then debt service which is related to the facility improvement projects throughout the district. As far as the final budget summary is concerned, um the total revenue is coming in at 155,548,000 um with total expenditures which includes capital projects transfers for um smaller projects throughout the district at 159 million. Um there's about a budget shortfall of 3.9 million and I'll go into a next slide about how that is supported. Final expenditures. So you can see um overall the expenditures are going up about 3.34%. Um capital projects again we're allocating about 1.1 million for those projects that will generally occur over the summer. So, as far
057as fund balance is concerned, um how we're going to cover that shortfall for the upcoming budget, um we're going to use unassigned fund balance in the amount of 2.2 million. Um summer projects, again, that's the 1.1 million that comes from a committed fund balance. So, as there has been funds available at the end of each fiscal year, um there has been a decision to move some of those into um the committed fund balance to allow for those capital projects. Um, and then we'll also pull another 500,000 from that source to cover the shortfall. As far as a three-year projection, um, and this just a general projection looking at revenues, um, maintaining flat revenues, expenditures increasing about 3%. Um, this would just show us how that would carry out over those years. And then projected fund
058balance. So, uh, we're going to end, we look to end this year with about a 5.28%, um, unassigned fund balance. So, it's just whatever our unassigned fund balance is as a percentage of the budgeted expenditures. Um, so this just kind of tracks what that would look like. Um, just with everything being what it is today. Um, and really no increase in the uh, state funding. And then I'll just open that up for questions from the board. Um just a a goodness. Um just a a comment here. I think the the budget we've gone over and had it presented in finance and facilities committees and to the um to the board as a whole before. So, this isn't uh any new information or a surprise, but it continues to be uh indicative of a tougher environment.
059Um that our financial condition is tightening and um revenues from state and federal sources aren't keeping up. We're a district that largely relies on local tax base. So, um it looks like we are in for uh some years where we need to think hard about uh the revenue sources, maybe be creative on ways to to bring more um support for the program so we can maintain them. Or else we'll be in a position of needing to uh look at, you know, tightening up on the expenditure side, which is painful, you know, to consider changes to the quality of the programs and the services that we provide our students. But um I think for me that's one of these one of the the takeaways um that we are you know at a budget we can support
060this year but it's it's digging into um the surpluses the funds that we've been able to retain in prior years. And so it's a pivot point for us to be able to think hard about what um what we'll be able to support the we able to bring additional support to the district to continue to support the level of programs and services that we we want our students to have. Okay. Thank you. Um looking at the three-year projection slide. Sorry Mr. Tessa, it's a little slow to the draw here. Um the three-year projection slide with the federal funding. Um again, what I've been hearing and hearing, right, not not official, but that federal funding will go into next budget year and then after that there's a potential for at least some title programs to be cut.
061Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but I'm just wondering um given that potential that would impact our fund balance um in subsequent years beyond the numbers that are shown here. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. And there's the guidance we've been given is that there's no immediate impact. So to not react for this upcoming year, but then maybe think about planning for the year beyond that. All right. Thank you. Mr. T, I just had a question around um as the federal budget gets finalized and then subsequently the state budget which you know supposed to be finalized this summer but what what are the options later in the year for um adjustments if if you know state and federal funding if there are big changes what is that process? Certainly we experience changes
062a lot of times. Um there are times when it does come in higher than what we have anticipated. Um so just kind of thinking about how you would you know allocate those additional funds or would it just put less of a strain on the fund balance usage in that year. Thank you, Mr. Ta. Um, the next item is an information item from our uh our principles, some teachers uh looking at the process of unleveling um a fourth and fifth grade English language arts. I just have to good evening Hford Township community. Good evening Dr. Rushi and school board members. We are very thrilled tonight to be here to share this information with you uh by a direction that's long overdue. Uh but with us tonight, I want to make sure I introduce the teachers and
063our principles who are here with us who've been putting in the time and work on this committee. So, we have uh Ellen Donovan, Hannah Carol, Grace Gerardano, Miss Christy Richie, and Julie Parkerson. That missing one. And then our principles, obviously, Beth Mastercola, Natalia, Lizzy, I was missing his name, Ashley. We really do like each other. By the way, it's been a long night. It's been a long night. We've been talking a lot today. Uh so Dr. Julian McGovery. All right. I think that covers that's us. But uh seriously, um one of the things that we are really looking forward to is making this shift again that's long overdue. From a historical context, leveling tracking has its roots in segregation. And with that being said, the idea is that when we know better, we do better.
064Just like Dr. Maya Angelou uh quoted, it's quoted. And then on top of that, where we are in space and time, I just think back to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was in jail in Birmingham writing to the clergy about the whole idea of not operating with spirit of gradualism again because it's long overdue. Um quick story before we move forward. I remember being a fourth grade teacher and I taught a student coron. We didn't level in our earlier grades at K through four and it was a high performance school district but one year later the students would be leveled in fifth grade. Corion was a bright, brilliant, smiling, energetic student. No behavioral issues. A student, high quality work. One year later, one down the hallway, leveling began. That year I began to
065see Corion in detentions, suspensions, and missing out all other learning opportunities that could have been afforded to him. Maybe there's plenty other factors, but what I know for certain is that is not the student we experience K to 4. Then there's the whole idea of the gatekeeping that's around this. From my time as administrator at K to 12, I think of being in the hallways, especially in secondary ed where the classes are changing and you can see the demeanor and expression of the teachers as they receive the different level of students coming into their classrooms. I can hear the conversations then the street data of being outside the cafeteria as students are coming to lunches and you can actually hear their experiences as learners as they've traveled through school together because of the lanes that
066we're separated by. So that's the foundation of basis we're speaking through tonight. As principles, we feel a heavy sense of complicity that we would like to unload by doing the right thing. And so we're now going to turn over to the Well, first of all, I want to go through the important terms. If we go to the next slide. Sorry. Just clarification. I know there's some terms. Uh it's me. Oh, you got it. Yeah, the clickers here. All right. Nope. Wrong way. All right. important terms. So you heard about leveling which tracking ability grouping is typically what leveling grouping them based on their ability or perceived ability. Unleveling is the opposite looking to stop or cease to practice. Heterogeneous grouping mixed ability grouping students. Homogeneous grouping again is same ability putting them all together. uh
067MTSS you'll hear that which is also our win time but it's the multi-tier system of support our intervention opportunities for students win time is we put in childfriendly language because it's what I need and it's our job to service the students during a time on a daily basis 45minute blocks 5 days a week and then ELA you hear about English language arts which is the subject area which is the target for this opportunity So we move to the background. We've been discussing tracking for many years but primarily it really came back to the forefront. We had an opportunity during COVID where we we had these smaller co cohorts in the classrooms and because of the distancing and things we need to do, the teachers were able to have students unlevel for across the board and
068it began to initiate conversations from their experiences. Uh, I know in my building at Chattam Park, the teachers were just were really somewhat of a aha moment, but also a sense of validation from what their thought process was all along and being able to see it amongst those learners. Then there's our own professional development and other uh from other districts and engaging with others in our network or attending conferences or even in my role as an adjunk professor at St. Joe's we have opportunity to teach a doctoral program many administrators from different uh communities school districts the same feedback learning from their experiences and the practices that are around u whether at conferences learning from across the region DCIU or different IUs intermediate units feedback from teachers and then conversations that we've already had because
069I know we it's very important to gain input from our stakeholders our parents who trusted with the every day PT uh PTO and also at home and school association at Chatt. And then the background of that we stopped leveling in third grade here um in ELA in 2018 and I'll turn this over to Miss Bash. Okay, so this this um slide represents just how many people were involved. All the elementary principles and assistant principles were very passionate about this. When we started speaking within our schools, teachers step forward and if you can see from the list, third, fourth, fifth grade teachers in every building were really really interested in in becoming a part of this work. Obviously, some of the teachers are here tonight um and and you're going to hear from them, which we
070all believe is the most important part of this presentation. So, we want to talk a little bit about the process. Jabari kind of stole the show a little bit with that with during it's okay Jabari during the pandemic um you know we unleveled and you know as principles we just told the teachers to do it but what happened at the end of that year is the teachers came to us saying that was an incredible experience what I saw happening in my classroom was something we really need to talk more about well we kind of knew that we were also creating the MTSS structure so we didn't have the ability to dig into both. So you know all the uh principles went back to our building. So we started MTSS which we described as also being
071win. Um and you know that was a big undertaking and the teachers took it on and they were excellent at it and we've seen great results and it gives us wonderful opportunity to meet our enrichment learners and also our struggling learners. it's you know where that can happen and we have it built into the schedule and we are full speed ahead with our win programming. Um so then with some time on our hands um we wanted to revisit it revisit unleveling. So again the principles went we met with the teachers we spoke in our buildings and we got a lot of great feedback and we also um under some guidance of our leaders were told do some research in the other districts. So we'll be sharing more of that later as well. um winter of
0722025, just this year, we started, we pulled our team together. Like I said, a lot of them are behind us now. And with that momentum, we started talking to our community. Each one of us spoke to our PTO. And I can say at my meeting at Coopertown um following the meeting I received an email from one of my parents who has children in our gifted services who's also a professor at Herford College and wrote very eloquently about the fact that they tried to level at and in at Herford College for their biology initial program at for freshmen and it wasn't successful. They did a lot of research they unleveled. So, you know, with permission from the parent, I can share that with you as well. But it really kind of gave us a lot of
073confidence that, okay, our community is behind this and and people really do see the value. Um, so luckily, you know, after speaking with Jen and and others, we were given the opportunity to present to all of you tonight. So, here we are. Um, so why unlevel elementary ELA? Well, we really feel strongly actually this is Jabari's slide, but you want me to do it? Okay. Um, as I said, we're very confident in the MTSS win time as being an excellent opportunity to enrich, but also to meet the needs of all learners. um Witten Wisdom, which is the new ELA um program that we've started this year, is built on the belief that all children can access complex texts and ideas with the right supports. And there are opportunities built within that curriculum for extension and
074knowledge to be shared. Um all students deserve rigor and the opportunity to not be tracked at a young age. Okay, this is our favorite one. As we stated before, we had the opportunity to do our research, check in with best practices and benchmark ourselves against other districts to see especially districts that we may compare ourselves to or or have like populations and we're able to go through and each column represents the grade levels of ELA and we also have math. We're focused on ELA right now and you can see the blanks obviously means that they're not leveling and the X's mean those are those are areas where leveling is occurring. Um just make you aware I am a parent and we live in the Rose Street Media School District. I have two students with GIEPS.
075Um, I will say it hasn't helped uh my son take better showers or bring the trash can up from the curb and it has my help my daughter bring the laundry off the floor in her room and not leave socks all over the house. But I just the reason I'm stating that is the because there's two children gaps the the notion of them being held back by other learners or someone who may not be as the same level of readiness for as they may be is has just continue to be false is a fallacy. Um and I think we have to be very careful about the limiting stories we tell ourselves. But again, this is the information we uh be able to gather about practices and we're going to move forward with discussing our practices
076here with Hannah Carol. We talk about current practices. Hi, my name is Hannah Carol. I'm a third grade teacher at Chestnut Wald Elementary School. Hi. Sorry. Um, I'm also a resident of Hford Township, uh, just recently and I'm very excited about it. And my son will be going to Chadam in the fall. Um, as a third grade teacher, I teach an unlevelled ELA class. I have learners at all different reading, writing, and confidence levels. Even before the implementation of Whiten Wisdom, this model has been extremely successful. In their heterogeneous groupings, students experience deep conversations, are exposed to a variety of perspectives, and had endless opportunities to learn from each other. We meet the needs of these diverse learners through differentiated instruction. The Wit and Wisdom curriculum is specifically designed with this in mind. There's always
077more to uncover, analyze, and develop. Scaffolds are built in as needed for those who require extra support. Some examples of how we differentiate are graphic organizers, checklists, sentence stems, and pre-recorded passages. Students deserve the opportunity to gain knowledge and perspective from peers at all levels. This year, through my observations, classroom assessments, and MAP scores, I have seen tremendous growth from all students, including those performing above grade level. With the implementation of Witten Wisdom, I have become even more passionate about the importance of unlevel ELA in the upper elementary grades. As ELA is first leveled in fourth grade, third grade teachers are responsible for placing students on a track they will most likely continue on for the rest of elementary school and potentially beyond. When placing students into classes, we consider MAP, Ames, Web, and classroom
078assessments, but also rely heavily on teacher observations. Last year, we had to split our students into five ELA classes with two of them being considered enrichment. It is extremely difficult and uncomfortable to sit in a room and try to argue why one 9-year-old student actually deserves an enrichment spot over another 9-year-old. We know that when a student is placed in enrichment, they typically stay on that track. On the other hand, if a student is placed in a grade level class, it becomes increasingly harder each year for them to be moved to enrichment. In short, we are deciding when a student is 9 years old, sometimes eight, what track they should be on for the rest of elementary school and sometimes beyond that. According to a research from the book Yardsticks by Chipwood located on the
079responsive classroom website, 9 to 11 year olds, which is the age of students in fourth and fifth grade, are critical of themselves and others. They need encouragement. They are peer focused. They gain identity through groups. They are hardworking and take pride in their work. This is a pivotal age where students decide whether they like school. They are learning how to be learners. They are relying on feedback from their peers and teachers to help them decide what type of learner they can be. When we separate students at this age into levels, we take the decision away from them. We send the message to ch to children that we don't believe in them. Our goal is to change this practice. Okay. Hi. Hello. I'm Grace Jordano. I'm a fourth grade English language arts teacher at Lynwood Elementary
080School. I'm also a product of the Havford School District where I was a student from kindergarten through 12th grade. I'm also a resident of Havford Township and my two young sons will be going to Monoa when they're old enough. And yes, I left. I went to St. Joe's, so I didn't go too far. Um, but to say that I'm invested in our community and our students is an understatement. Everybody, no matter their ability, their PSSA score, their MAP score, has something valuable to contribute. We want a classroom full of learners and diverse back of diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives. We diminish the ability to create these robust classes when we level. Research shows that leveled groups can lead to fixed mindsets limiting student potential at a young age, 8 to 9 years old. Leveling practices
081frequently correlate more with socioeconomic status and teacher expectations rather than with actual ability. One of our district goals is to connect to social is connected to social emotional wellness with the goal of producing a community of empathetic and resilient learners with skills to socially and emotionally flourish. Leveling young learners does not exactly align with this goal. Hearing a fourth grader refer to their class as the low class is devastating and has a ripple effect. I have per person personally witnessed an unassuming classmate hear such talk and ask me if it's true. Am I in the low class? Herford teachers want to build a community of confident and positive learners and it is difficult to do so when we are placing students in a leveling track at such a young age. Academic self-efficacy influences academic emotions
082and plays a key role in the academic achievement, motivation, and performance. Stronger academic self-efficacy leads to stronger belief in oneself and better emotional and academic outcomes. I am now speaking on behalf of Emily Stfansky, a fourth grade language arts teacher at Monoa. She was unable to make it tonight. As a fourth grade teacher for seven years in a school district that didn't level and here during co Emily has seen firsthand the benefits of heterogeneous groupings, especially on a student's self-efficacy and emotional well-being. In these environments, she observed students helping each other and learning from each other on a daily basis. She didn't hear students making sigh comments about the smart class or the low class. She saw more students contributing confidently to class discussions and believing in their limitless potential because they weren't boxed into
083a particular level as a nine-year-old based on assessment data. We believe that introducing heterogeneous groupings supported with differentiated instruction can help advance the level of self-efficacy, collaboration, and worldliness throughout the Habford entire Habford student population. The benefits of heterogeneous grouping for our grade level students and our developing readers are indisputable. However, there are often concerns about holding back our advanced learners when classes are not tracked. Research has backed what teachers have observed, particularly when we our classes were heterogeneously mixed during our COVID hybrid year. Research shows that leveled groups can lead to fixed mindsets. Um, we're one more. Sorry. No, we must have done that. Okay, there we go. Sorry. Yep. My fault. Um, high quality. Nope. Still back one. You would think I don't do this at all during the classroom. High-quality mixedability instruction
084can improve outcomes for all students when paired with differentiation. Students benefit from peer modeling and diverse perspectives in heterogeneous groups. And studies have shown that advanced students do not experience negative academic outcomes in well ststructured heterogeneous classrooms. Our witten wisdom program and win time offer opportunities for differentiation. Providing enrichment in reading class does not equate with moving faster or reading more books. I like to think of it more as lateral enrichment. When we take a student and we guide them into a deeper understanding of a text, when we think of the depths of knowledge, we move from answers that are right there into more analysis. Our wisdom program cultivates these challenge opportunities for students within the framework of a lesson. I have a special education teacher, a wonderful blessing to my class that pushes in.
085She works with students and provides the scaffolds that Grace uh mentioned already and and Hannah mentioned as well. Um while she's doing that, I'm able to work with other students in the class. One of the groups I may be able to work with is some of my advanced readers. We take time not only to um continue to enrich them, to dive deeper into the text. In addition, I get to sort of teach them how to be an independent reader, how they can look at what they've written and offer each other feedback on it. Um, again, moving them to a deeper understanding of the text that they've been reading. Highquality mixed ability instruction can improve outcomes for all students when paired with differentiation. Students benefit from peer modeling and diverse perspectives in heterogeneous groups and advanced
086students do not experience negative academic outcomes in well ststructured heterogeneous classrooms. During a wit and wisdom professional development workshop, our trainer said, "Sometimes a student needs to hear it from a 10-year-old, not a 40-year-old. I found this to be true. There have been times when my ELA grade partner and I have mixed our classes together to work on a more difficult assignment. Students are able to help support each other and make connections that they may not have been able to in their leveled classes. Both my grade level class and my enrichment class contain so much prior knowledge and I think that they would both benefit from hearing from different students. Research shows that mixed ability grouping increases the need for effective differentiation which can be challenging for teachers and may lead to uneven support for
087students. But I can address that high achieving students may feel unchallenged and disengaged while lower achieving students may feel overwhelmed if lessons are not appropriately tailored. As Christie mentioned, WIT and Wisdom has built-in scaffolding for aspiring readers as well as enrichment opportunity for above level students. Herford's ELA curriculum document lists the support and challenge offerings in each module. An example of differentiation for a struggling writer is to work with a small group of students to do a group write using the guided questions below. What is the setting like? What is happening in the story? How does the character speaker feel because of the setting? Be sure to model your thinking as you ask questions. Meanwhile, the highquality texts within the program are enriching within themselves. Looking at the fourth grade module one, students read Love
088That Dog, which is written for grades 3 to 7. And in module two, students read Hatchet, which is for grades nine and up. And in module three, students read Toiver's Secret, which is for students in grades 3 to seven, which shows that students from grades three to grade seven have something to learn and something to gain from reading these texts. Our enrichment readers will be guided to read the texts and explore more deeply. They will analyze character development and themes. The nature of the text and wit and wisdom lead themselves to differentiated levels of comprehension and instruction within a class. Between the high quality text and win time, high achieving student needs will be met. Just as a final followup, we've already received lots of training in witten wisdom. Uh as we move into our
089second year of teaching wit and wisdom, I think the teachers are going to be even more ready for the differentiation that we'll be needing to do in a classroom. um our training with our coaches, our drop-in meetings, PLC's will all prepare us not only to um add the scaffolds that we need to continue to add, but also to enrich our advanced learners. And I think we'll be ready to face that challenge next year. Hello, I am Julie Parkerson, a fifth grade special education teacher at Lynwood Elementary. I have been teaching in Havford Township for 21 years, but for the past 3 years, I have been co-eing fifth grade English language arts. While our class is currently leveled, my students are working at a different level than the remainder of the students in this classroom. Something
090my co-teer and I discuss daily in our planning is how we can meet the needs of our students. How can we help those who need extra support while also enriching the students who need a little bit more? In my experience, heterogeneous grouping gives students the opportunity to shine and show their strengths even while getting additional support to meet their individual needs. As this slide indicates, our core curriculum is intentionally designed to include embedded supports, scaffolds, and extensions that allow all students, regardless of readiness level, to access grade level content. These scaffolds and extensions are simple, built directly into the curriculum, and not difficult to implement. For example, this year, our class read the Phantom Toll Booth. The goal in one lesson was to help students understand how the author introduces the theme of boredom through
091figurative language and setting. Students who needed a sentence frame were given this. In this part of the story, Milo feels blank because blank. The phrase doldrums means blank. This shows that Milo is feeling blank. Students who easily answered the question without the sentence frame were given an opportunity to extend their understanding by making connections to other stories they have read by identifying instances of figurative language from another text or even a movie or a show and analyzing how these tools are used to convey tone and theme. All students worked simultaneously at their own level analyzing the same rigorous text. The best part was when the students shared their responses. All students in the class began making connections and identifying figurative language and other text, even the ones who hadn't completed the extension activity. Activities like
092this also allow us to formatively assess student understanding. And the curriculum provides us with tools to easily adjust our instruction to provide additional support or enrichment based on student progress. Good evening. My name is Ellen Dunovan and I've been teaching for 10 years at Monoa Elementary. Go Mustangs. And uh I've also taught for uh 15 years in city of Philadelphia for Mastery Charter School System for the city of Chesterfield in Richmond, Virginia and also in upstate New York. And I am also a proud resident of Htown. Uh I've taught heterogeneous classrooms where students with varying abilities background and backgrounds and learning needs offer many benefits especially in elementary schools. Currently, my ELA classroom includes learning support students and a specialed teacher that pushes in for 5 days a week. Flexible grouping strategies are essential in
093a Witten Wisdom classroom to support differentiation without compromising the integrity of the core text or the lesson objectives. Witten wisdom encourages all students to engage with complex grade level texts, but teachers can implement flexible grouping to support comprehension, writing, and discussion at different levels of readiness. We want to encourage peer learning. Students learn from one another through discussion, collaboration, and modeling of skills and strategies. Flexible grouping strategies within the classroom allow students to work at their instructional level and when appropriate while still benefiting from their collaboration with a diverse group of peers. Using a core curriculum like Wit and Wisdom which is intentionally designed to support whole group, small group, partner, and individual reading opportunities, teachers can create dynamic learning experiences tailored to the students needs. These groupings shift based on the lesson objective, skill
094focus, or student progress, enabling all learners to access rich grade level text with appropriate scaffolds or extensions. This approach fosters academic growth, peer support, and equitable participation, and a heterogeneous classroom. Students gain exposure to a wide range of ideas and skills, which encourages all students to stretch their thinking. Some effective grouping strategies aligned with witten wisdom are peer peer pairs or a turn and talk that's used during annotating close reading or think pair share activities. Pairing students heterogeneously with one higher and one developing reader promotes peer modeling and then rotating those pairs often to keep those interactions fresh. Small groups for scaffolding are used during vocabulary work, text dependent questions or TDQs or writing tasks. For instance, after a readaloud or shared reading of a complex text, regroup students to work with a set of
095TDQs, or you can pre-teach or retach vocabulary, provide sentence frames, or model, excuse me, fi model finding evidence. I'd like to mention that by meeting students needs by having heterogeneous classrooms promotes increased empathy. Students develop respect for differences and learn to value diverse perspectives. It also improves collaboration. Working with peers of ver of varying strengths fosters communication, cooperation, and patience. It's also a confidence builder. Struggling students benefit from seeing their contributions valued and advanced learners grow by helping the others. I'd just like to share a personal experience in my classroom and that's um I have a student who is has a GIP who is in the gifted program and he loves STEM and STEM activities and he talks about space and he talks about the cosmos and he talks about everything he could possibly get
096his hands on to talk and read about math and science. And because he's doing that in my classroom, I have children that are um that have IEPs for um reading and writing um and they're asking him if they can borrow their co his Cosmo book next. And if he wasn't in that class with them, they would probably have no idea that this was out there for them. and also that he feels so good about himself that he's promoting this that my whole class calls him Albert Einstein. We knew that hearing from the teachers was the most important part of this presentation for two reasons. They know the children best. They also obviously displayed how well and familiar they are teaching wit and wisdom at this point. They're eager to learn more. And of course, we're
097all growing with wit and wisdom, but I I think they display just how how ready they are and how enable they are to reach all of our learners. We also knew an important piece was our gifted support program. And so one of our gifted teachers, Sarah Shaman from Chattam Park, prepared a short video to share with all of you how she feels the gifted program will only be strengthened with heterogeneous grouping. Are you able to play that video, please? Or do I do it? Oh, thanks. Good evening. My name is Sarah Shaman and as the gifted support teacher at Chattam Park and a former fifth grade ELA teacher for more than 25 years, I am excited to be here to advocate for unleveling in fourth and fifth grade ELA as a means to promote instructional
098equity and academic growth for all of our learners. With professional learning on differentiation at the forefront of the 2526 school year, we are committed to embracing productive struggle and deepening student engagement through enriched and scaffolded instruction. Continued use of our win time will ensure that students receive targeted support and extension opportunities outside of the core ELA blocks. By collaborating closely with our classroom teachers, seminar teachers embedded within the building will help facilitate flexible grouping and responsive instruction. I look forward to working with teachers and students using wit and wisdom to support our enrichment students. This model not only allows for deeper exploration of content, but it also builds capacity across staff for effective inclusive practices. research supports ongoing coaching and professional development are critical for the success of unleveling initiatives and I am eager to
099support this transition every step of the way. Thank you and have a good night. I love how we start every board meeting with the reading of the district goals. I've been passionately involved in our strategic plan goals since 2019 when we organized to write the initial plan. I'm a co-chair of the diversity and inclusion goal and my assignment was priority one decrease disproportionality of minority students in enrichment and higher level courses. To be honest with you, it's been frustrating to be on this goal at times because, as we've shared, when you start leveling students in the elementary schools, becomes even harder to meet this goal in the middle and high school level. Um, I'm embarking on it again for the 2025 goals and um I'm still allin to make this priority a reality. I hope
100you can see that unleveling at the elementary level is going to stop students from saying I'm in the lower level. They don't say I'm grade level. They say I'm in the low level. And I think teacher after teacher has shared that with you. Um so we are working on these goals as we speak. We have one more meeting um in my building with priority one again and I'm hoping to go back with good news for them. So what will success look like? Jabari. Well, I'll tell you what success look like. So, almost done, young people. All right. What will success look like? Quantative measures, more students reading complex text, writing, thinking above the grade level. And that is uh based off curriculum assessments. We also can be based off the standardsbased report cards. You can
101see the grades there. So, we have those are two measures. Increase of PES growth, PE. data that we look at over the course of the summer, prepare at outside the school year with with targeted uh targeted sta standards for growth and also for our interventions. Qualitative measures we have increased student confidence, self- agency, the uh the whole idea of self-efficacy which was the theory of self-efficacy we talked about earlier and the culture of high expectations for all learners. Uh, so I just want to close with a quote from uh this text called Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday. Big Ryan Holiday fan. I don't know if you ever heard of Ryan Holiday, but it reads, "All growth is a leap in the dark. If you're afraid of that, you'll never do anything worthwhile. If you
102take counsel for your year, for your fears, you'll never take that step. Make that leap. The times you could have we could have said nothing. The bets we should have placed. I'm sorry. The times we could have said something. The bets we should have placed. The people we might have met. The lessons would have been learned. The battles that were never won. What if there was certainty? If there was a well-lit, well-defined path. If life were like this, no courage would be required. And then lastly, right thing right now says, "The longer you stand out on the edge of a diving board, the harder and less likely it becomes for you to jump. You get in your own head about it. You come up with reasons. You lose your courage. Let us not prolong our
103difficulties. Let us not shrink our obligations. Eventually, we will have to do the right thing. Make the changes. Make the apology. make the hard decisions, make the first move, so why not just get it over with? We'll have to pay the price at some point. So, let's start making the payments, not later, but right now. So, again, we thank you for giving us opportunity to share with you tonight a direction that we're uh working towards. And I'm very grateful as you can see the passion of the teachers, the knowledge. Again, I'm very impressed and uh been just very um feel very greatly about what was put together because these teachers in our time together and their planning and conversation just continue to knock it out the park because of their investment. So, thank you for
104the time and thank everyone for listening this evening. Are there any questions from the board? I have a couple questions. Thank you so much for this very thorough presentation. Um I think everyone's really passionate about this um topic and I really appreciate how much work has gone into it. Um and really starting with the goal of not tracking students I think is is a really um honorable one and a good one. And um I I have some questions. My first question is about the wit and wisdom curriculum. Um because I have heard you know I'm I'm I'm happy to hear I think in the presentation that um the teachers in front of us feel comfortable with the witten wisdom program which for the community who doesn't know this was the first year um of the
105curriculum and so I think we did experience some growing pains um from from that and and um this experience my understanding um is that it did go a little bit slower um than than hopefully it will in the future and I think that there was some frustration around on that. And so, um, you know, I just wanted wanted to learn more about, uh, what who else has been pulled about, you know, the Wit and Wisdom curriculum and how comfortable they feel teaching it now. Um, especially with this this difference, um, and specifically on the differentiation piece, which I think was a difficulty this year. So as far as the teachers and growing pains any kind of implementation always is going to draw some little bit of uncertainty. However the that's because our teachers are for
106the most part a type personality. Um they want control and they just want to do their best. So it's not for a lack of difficulty in their ability to implement but more so from the fact that they just want to get it right. And along the way through the amount of professional development from uh Sandy and our you know our our and our curriculum coaches Aaron Swift's and and everything that was provided we've seen the April Chester we've seen the amount of professional development and the training and over time in the classrooms through observation and the numerous visits to the classroom we're able to see that the teachers are able to become stronger in implementation and not clutching the annual they are able to be more well-versed the constant communications the dropins and the visits
107have been uh showing a high degree of success in moving forward as far as differentiation I think that and we talk about wisdom a lot but remember it's a program a program is not a whole by itself a curriculum so with that teachers part of responsibilities through the Danielson framework the framework for teaching and learning part of our professional responsibility is differentiation already. So this is not a new territory to head in. Uh teachers already differentiate in outcome. They differentiate in product to differentiate and standard and task of you know for those learners. So that has been in progress and that they do on a constant basis. Our culture is about continuous improvement. So, I don't think we're ever going to be a place where you're going to hear us satisfied or that there's not
108that we don't want to be able to do more or do better. And as far as feedback um in the first year, we're moving through because a curriculum or program is put in front of people is great until it meets the human, right? So, our job is to we don't our teachers know that we teach children, not content. And so so a lot of this deals with moving it forward at appropriate pace according to the children who are in front of us. So that is the key that has become more more important along the way and there was clear planning and communication through Sandy and our department about you know which modules to be able to teach the pacing guides have been revisited and you always want feedback and you usually when you implement a
109new curriculum probably around year three is really where you're making decisions about what to pull out what to move forward with and seeing the success of it along the way. So we're in still year one. So it's very tough to lock in and determine whether or not that there was complete struggle. There's there been a high degree of success and I think that's evident by the production and our student artifacts. Dr. Whitehead, if I could just jump in and kind of provide a look into the crystal ball. Um, so I work in a local school district where we use Witten Wisdom and we do have a school that is in year three of implementation and I will tell you they are taking off. The teachers are more comfortable than ever. Um, they're doing a lot
110more scaffolding and differentiation to meet the needs of special needs um, students with IEPs, students with GIEPS, and students who are English learners. And there's a very large multilingual English learner population in that district. um for our dis our schools that are in their first year of implementation. It's been a little bit shakier um but they are getting PD and we're going into next year I think really strong um with that foundation the base that's been built in year one and the year first year of implementation of any curriculum it's typical you'll see a little bit of a dip just because everyone is getting their feet wet with it. Um, the beautiful thing about Whiten Wisdom is that there you're going to see cumulative growth over the years because the curriculum builds, the modules build
111from grade level to grade level. So, if you have come into the district in kindergarten and you're getting Witten wisdom up into fifth grade, you have incredible background and prior knowledge that is really going to be honored um as you're engaging with the different texts. Um, and where was I? I had one other point. Oh, and then the your team was talking about Sorry, Miss Angress, I will hand it back over to you in a moment. Um, just the the talk about collaboration is so powerful because that is built in professional development when you're grappling with a new curriculum and you have a colleague to work through um the questions that you have, the things you're seeing for students needs, different scaffolding and differentiation that it doesn't always need to be a facilitator standing in
112front of you telling you what to do. There is built-in professional development that we can use to empower our teachers. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Larson. And with that, this just goes along with our opportunities for peer observations that we do and also with the collaboration for the fact that these the teachers are seeing each other whether it's vertically and also in our meetings across district various committees being able to communicate about it as well. Thank you. I had a question real quick. Uh uh one thing that was very eye opening to me and u um was looking at other districts our our peer districts some of whom um we're chasing and some of whom are chasing us quite frankly and you know it's striking just to see how their level you know how much
113farther along they are with the unleveling than you know than we are. I'm just curious if you can give me a general idea are most of these districts have have they been have they been doing this for quite some time or has this been more more recent about not leveling? Not yet. Yeah. So, sorry. I'm sorry. The microphone. As far as uh not leveling, I will and I this I will tell you this for certain when we speak of leveling to colleagues or peers other districts. They do look at us like something's wrong with us. And some are can be appalled at times. Uh I brought up in in many situations whether students are in front of me or but I speak specifically. So I was in um I visited the school. I visited uh
114Marian Elementary and lower Marian. And the reason why we did that is because we wanted to from our MAP growth they were Marian and Gladwin were we're considered schools for high growth and high achievement. So we want to benchmark ourselves against their best but that's but in the state. So during my visit the feedback was about they it was about math. They did not discuss a history that came prior for um leveling. That wasn't something they had gotten rid of. And in other places, it was pretty much the same theme along the way. Um so there are some people who were in a place and start peeling it back, but for the most part, we're hearing more about the peeling back of Leveling at other levels more so uh than elementary because it's not something
115that was a practice within our elementaryaries. And even as well, I'm not going to touch the um compartmentalization, but that was a different different topic. Honestly, we didn't ask school districts that question and we could get that for you if you'd like to know. I was just curious kind of how f kind of what the historic because I mean these school districts obviously had more historical data. So I be fascinating to to see how achievement has kind of changed. I mean that's it was easy to get. It's just it's yeah something I definitely want to because I know we we've had this discussion in the past and there's been kind of opinions on both sides of the you know the issue and you know seeing the research obviously is very compelling um but seeing the
116actual practices and the impacts I think would also be honestly we felt the same way. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Um I I appreciate the thought and effort that has gone into this. I really appreciate hearing from the teachers. I super appreciate the idea of scaffolding and being really conscientious and con consistently conscientious about that. Um the question I have actually is probably for more Dr. Rushi or Miss Saska of when are we considering math? Like when is that going to be something that we start considering given that we're also one of the few districts that does math? Um I know these are ELA teachers but like is that on our agenda to be considering that in the near future? Well, we did anticipate that question Dr. McKay. Um and there actually this group started talking
117about unleveling both uh and dec and and we sort of decided to focus the approach in one area so that we could learn about how that's happening. We we sort of had already made a step by unleveling ELA in third grade. So we felt like that was the next natural progression. But it is my opinion and and the opinion of my colleagues that we will learn from what happens in this process and we may very well come to you in the spring of next year to look at perhaps making a change to third grade math. Um I will say at this point there's no conversation about doing any of this at a secondary level. This is an elementary only conversation, but we are certainly open to looking at this practice for the only other place
118that we level in elementary, which is math. Although I have to say that third grade math to unlevel third grade math would be very desirable for next year. I I received I received an email from a second grade parent yesterday asking that their child be placed in the enrichment math class and we have spreadsheets that show where kids ended up as we showed 50% here 50% there and this child was about eight away from being in the enrichment class and I explained to the parent you know we we go by the guidelines and she's going to be in a grade level class and I said, "However, I'll get back to you soon. I hope I personally feel strongly that we should be not leveling so in elementary." So, I think this is really important work.
119Um, and I hope we can move towards math as soon as possible. Yeah, I agree. Just to um build off Dr. Dr. Mccay's point about math. Um, you know, personal experience, my daughter as a second grader last year, we were told at the end of the year based on her math score, she might be placed in the the higher math class if there was room. And then never heard any followup. I still don't know which class she was put in. Um, there was never any communication. So, I would just love for us to really um explore that. but also as a part of this process really looking at how are we communicating this to families um not just you know at the end of a school year when we're thinking about placement but throughout the
120school year um and I mean just looking at the research that you all cited and thank you so much for being thorough in that I mean this is an area that thankfully we're doing it now but we're clearly behind the times like some of that research is pretty old so let let's do this yeah we will after um we've had this presentation we wanted to see what questions followed and uh therefore be able to provide sort of more tailored information to families. But we will put out a communication to families of fourth and fifth grade just to tell them a little bit about the research and the steps going forward and how we'll be asking them for feedback. Can I hear a little bit more about the plan differentiation? Um I know that it's sometimes
121built into the wit and wisdom curriculum and I appreciate um Dr. Whitehead uh you know that teachers do more than that too and it's not just a curriculum you know they're they're all people um but specifically around whether there have been discussions about students who are high achieving who feel um overwhelmed or burdened by teaching their fellow students and whether there has been any sort of discussion around maybe some suggested um differentiation that is not appropriate because of those um secondary consequences. And I guess I'm specifically thinking I was told that Whiten Wisdom included um having peers teach other peers the curriculum and have that as a differentiation within Whiten Wisdom. And I know that um that can cause burden, a feeling of burden or um you know some uh difficulty for that student who
122feels responsible for the the students at their um you know table collaborating with. Yeah. So due to our visibility in classrooms through formal observation walkthroughs I will tell you firsthand that the idea of students teaching other students high achieving students as differentiation that's not a common practice nor is an expected practice. You'll see turn and talk. Uh you'll see um jigsaw. You'll see um you know randomized groups. uh could a student feel at times at any point that they have a you know a higher voice or a larger voice than someone in in the group that's that that's possible but that's not a practice that's not the go-to um usually and I know the teachers can speak to this but usually it's idea of giving them whether it's a you know higher level questions we're
123asking students to synthesize uh through our focus or so so for example we of our focus question task, right? So, it's the ability to have them synthesize at a higher level than what their peers might do. More independent practice, more time for them to be involved in application as well. Uh, comparison, contrast among different text as well, seeing it across interdisiplinary interdisiplinary lens or inquiry based approaches. Those are all options that are on the table for differentiation. But I would agree that having a child is look time is finite and one we don't want to burden and we don't want to make it the responsibility of child to teach other child however through self-efficacy one of the components to Albert Bandur one of the components is vicarious experiences and when a child sees another peer
124being successful they learn you know positive attitudes towards learning they also get the can do spirit that I could do the same thing and it's taken off the table that uh just by proximity that they're now able to uh participate and engage in that in that manner. But that that idea of making the primary a student teaching another student but and we also and I'll end with this I do we do not want if a child is trying to help someone we don't want to take that off table either but again we we have to be careful what I do here that we have to be careful that's not become the main path for them to achieve at higher level readiness. I appreciate that and and I really I I really appreciate Oh, I just
125clicked out of the slide, but I think it was the last one or maybe not. Um, but you know, about how you know what success looks like and um and I and I agreed with all of the the uh bullets points on there. Um, I'd also like to see something and and maybe, you know, next year when we've had a full year under our belt, um, if if if it could be reported to the board, you know, about the growth of high achieving students because I think, um, I know there was a slide in there that, you know, it's not negative for students. I assume that there are actually positive things for high achieving students as well as and so you know I think it would be important to to track that too and make
126sure that their growth um looks similar to um when they are being leveled and and making sure that our high achieving students aren't just staying at their high achieving level but actually also experiencing that growth. So I think that would be also a good um success point that we could track. We're able to track that through our map data. One thing that's very helpful is when a student starts a year with a teacher there there's an entry point to let you know where they came in and also where to exit and every teacher when we have those data means at the beginning the year is made aware we want that trajectory to keep going and that's where our data meetings are in place of more uh more frequent basis to be able to track that.
127So it'll be very easy to to keep track of those particular students who are identified and follow and follow that trajectory. All we want to see is that line keep going up. We don't want dips, you know, we want to keep keep going. Um success not always linear, but at the same time, uh we see more more of the upward trend than going back. Nobody wants to see the step back. Yeah, I appreciate that for Steph Curry. Um and sorry I've taken up so much time, but my last question is I think I'll probably also for Jen or Dr. Rushi. Um and it is about communication specifically to fourth grade families who will be experiencing a change going into the next year. Um and also families with uh who students who have GIPS in third,
128fourth and or I guess just third and fourth grade right now. Um because that will be a change for them and there could be families who are not aware this conversation is occurring um and and were really you know assuming that that was going to be part of it. And so I would just ask like what communication is happening for those families? Yeah. So, we do have a plan to send out communication to all families in fourth and fifth grade. Uh just we'll refer to this presentation. uh we'll share some of the uh information that was shared this evening and um then we we could even we were wondering if we would need an FAQ, but we will certainly call attention to if you have a question about how this might impact your child's IEP
129or GIE, who to contact, and you know, the fact that you can request to convene an IEP or GIE meeting at any time to discuss that uh and make sure you're reopening it and and it's meeting your child's needs. So, we'll make sure to include that in the communication. Great. Thanks, Jen. And thank you to the whole team. This was a really comprehensive presentation and um really helpful to understand the meaning behind, you know, this what could be seen like a really big change. So, thank you. Thank you very much. We also like to thank Dr. Rushi and and uh Mrs. Saxa for their support in this whole step. Thanks. Thank you. Well, as this is our final meeting before the school year closes for students and teachers, there was a lot to share. So,
130um I want to thank the board for your careful attention to the presentations that were provided this evening and your engagement in the celebrations um and recognitions this evening. Uh and peace out. Thank you, Dr. Rushi. Um, that brings us to section four, which is public comment. The board values public comment. There are two opportunities on the agenda for board members, I'm sorry, 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 a board vote. The second opportunity on the agenda is towards the end of the meeting which allows members of the community to speak on any topic. Public comment allows for residents of the township to
131speak for 3 minutes. A timer will be set at the start of your comment and alarm will sound indicating that your time has been completed. Should you have any materials for members of the board, please leave them at the end of the table, Mr. Testa, 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. At the start, please state your name, confirm your residency, any time will begin for you to for your allowed threeminut remarks. First up, I have uh Anita, and I apologize if I mispronounced your last name. Hi, good evening. My name is Anita Ang. I live at 164 Morland Avenue in Hford Township. I have two kids attending schools in the district. Um, first I'm here to
132praise and provide praise and thanks for the amazing forward progress the school district has made this year towards sustainability. Um, on behalf of all the kids at the Leafy Lunch Lake in Coopertown, a huge thanks for getting composting in all our elementary schools. Yay. Um, when the kids heard the news and they're meeting back in the winter, they were very excited. It was very cute. Obviously, it's too late for them to be here to show you how excited they are. Um, the Leafy Lunch League alumni who are now in middle school are also super excited to have played a part in bringing composting into our elementary schools. Second, on behalf of all the Coopertown families, a huge thanks for approving solar panels for Coopertown. The day that decision was made, my phone completely blew up.
133And all the Coopertown parents I know are very excited, as are the Leafy Lunch League kids. And most recently, the day the Inquirer and Delco Times published the news that our district received solar schools, the solar for schools grant, my phone blew up again. We are especially grateful for this good news and positive progress given what has been going on more broadly in our country over the past five months. Uh many of us feel like the institutions that we trust and rely on are under attack, that education is under attack, and for those of us who work in science and higher education, our livelihoods are also under attack. Um many of the changes being made by the current federal administration will continue to destabilize everything, especially the economy with no clear upside. Um I've experienced
134this personally with my job coming under threat as a public health researcher. The funding was frozen, then it was unfrozen. I've had countless friends and colleagues lose their grant funding overnight, lose their jobs, have to cancel research programs, let staff go, and so on. So, from my perspective at this moment, landing a grant for nearly $300,000 is something major to celebrate and something you want to accept and spend quickly. Do not delay. Furthermore, in the context of so much instability, um, infrastructure investment such as solar panels feels particularly prudent given that we plan to continue to use electricity. As a homeowner who has solar panels, has had solar panels for many years, I've been pleasantly surprised at the consistency of the output of our solar panels year after year. It is nice to have something
135that does not change. Solar does pay for itself and then makes you money. And in the context of a highly volatile marketplace, the financial benefit of securing fixed electricity pricing for the next 30 plus years is magnified. And controlling the production of this essential resource seems wise. In addition, instability in the marketplace is likely to cause the price of materials to ratchet up precipitously over the next four years. So the sooner you acquire those materials and get the project done, the better. Finally, there's urgency due to the potential defunding of the inflation reduction act. Um, for all these reasons, I strongly encourage you to move forward with the solar project at Cadam. And despite there not being grant funding for Lynwood, I think it would be financially wise to move forward with that solar project
136as well. Please act now. Thank you. Next up, I have Victor Donnie. I'm Victor Lane. I live at 117 Rodney Circle in Herford Township. Um, every time I've come over the last year to these meetings, I'm always inspired by the commitment of the board, the teachers, the staff. It was such a pleasure to see all the awards and appreciation given out tonight. And as an educator, I loved geeking out at your brilliant presentation and thoughtful ways of trying to improve learning for all of our students. Um, so there were all these gifts given out. I wish I could be the one to present the board with the $300,000 check from the state of Pennsylvania. Um, it was such a great example of a learning organization. You did not start knowing about solar panels. you had
137a lot of questions. You did a lot of research. You had a lot of community input. And then to get your ducks in a row to be able to apply for the grant, many steps had to happen. I saw them at each meeting. The next step got approved and happened. Um other districts did not get this in order. Even though there were um four times as much grant applications as were funded, there weren't that many, I don't think, in Delaware County that got funded. So congratulations for getting that grant. I also jumped up and down on my Sunday newspaper when I read that Havford had gotten one of the grants. So please move forward with that on Chadam. I noticed in the future budget one of the increase costs for the budget is electricity. Um
138we're reading that PICO will be increasing our prices in June right now by 10%. So, the more you can do solar now, um, my kids went to Coopertown, so I'm excited with that project. Um, also, I'd encourage you to think about Lynwood. You have all the research you need. And we don't know how long the 30% federal um, rebate will last. Hopefully, it will last, but it might go after this year. So, any of these projects you can get done in the immediate future will be more savings um, for the taxpayers in the future. So again, um, thank you for engaging so well in this and congratulations on your big win. I have no one else signed up to speak. Is there anyone else that wishes to speak on item listed for vote on the
139agenda? So I have you listed for the second section for a vote. Yes. Yep. Coming up next at the end of the agenda. All right. So no one else. We're going to continue on. Section five brings us to board reports for the DCC. Dr. McCay. No report. DCIU. Miss Lee, no report. PSBA, Miss Weedman. Uh, no report other than to uh remind that if we want to appoint delegates, we would need to do that at the June the next June meeting and get that into PSBA. Thank you. For the legis legislative council, uh, Dr. Shelton, no report. Finance and facilities, Miss Weedman. Our finance and facilities committee will meet on Monday, June 9th at 6:30 back in the Oakmont building. Curriculum and people services, Dr. Larson. Okay. Um the final curriculum and people services committee
140meeting um for the school year took place on Thursday, May 29th. Um we heard two presentations from administration. Um the first was on new resource recommendations that are on the agenda this evening for board approval. U Mrs. Connelly presented on the new new humanities resources to be adopted and those include for social studies the AP African-American history text freedom on my mind third edition um which blew my mind because the final page of that um takes you to practically present day. So um it is a very very updated text. Um so excited to get that in the hands of our students. Um and it's specifically designed for the AP African-American history course. Um, we also did a presentation on ELA. Um, we took a look at the core curriculum maps that are being designed using
141the understanding by design framework. Um, and we also looked at the new middle school and high school texts again that we'll be voting on this evening. Um, Dr. Mcloin presented on the new high school and new middle school science resources. And these investments in science resources will allow our students and teachers to have access to the most updated information and resources that allow them to hit the ground running in the fall with the new steel standards. Our second set of presentations focused on the pupil services program cycle. We received an overview of the emotional support program review as well as the gifted education program review. And in the interest of time, um it is on YouTube and I encourage you to view it for more information. Thank you. Thank you. For policy, Miss Naggrath. Thanks.
142Um the policy committee meeting was held on May 15th. We discussed uh several different policies. Um many of them are on the agenda tonight for a first reading. So I won't go over those. Um but the ones that are not on a first reading tonight are um 322 and it's accompanying administrative regulation for gifts and um 350 and it's accompanied administrative regulation for prohibited controlled substance drug and alcohol use and possession. So those were discussed but had um changes that we felt like we needed more discussion on at a further committee meeting and so couldn't be moved in front of the board. and I will reserve my discussion on the remaining policies uh for the policy section of tonight's meeting. Thank you for board president's report. I invite any board members to share district events
143that you may have attended. Mr. Schwarz, I know we're pushing 10 o'clock here, so I'll try to be quick, but I but I do want to give a big thanks to the to the Chattam Park administration for um I I I I volunteered for the May 23rd and Hungry Day of Service. It was a great It was a great event. Dozens of parent uh volunteers, staff did did a great job of getting uh these different tables set up and then kids came down and had an assembly line going to assemble all these meals. I believe I heard that we assembled 12,000 which is very impressive. I think u uh soup and then cheesy rice I think were the two dishes. But yeah, kids were there had a blast assembling it. We and and the kids
144did it all. The parents were just there to kind of observe and to act like a crew announcer, you know, you know, yelling out rice, veggies, noodles, next bag. And and and I mean that the the kids had had a really good time measuring everything and sealing it. And um my son actually said that he actually adore I think is one of the favorite days. So thank you very much foring that great uh great event. Hope that's you know I look forward to seeing again moving forward. Thank you. Anyone else? Just one final word of appreciation. The making a difference awards happen. Thank you so much Dr. Rushi for coming and for your support. It's always good to see Havford um recognized in terms of you know what the good things happening in Delaware County.
145And thank you so much to Mr. Smith who's not here who was an amazing host and really represented us well. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah. Um, last night I had an opportunity to attend and provide the welcome address at the um, recruiting event forging wait for for Fords. It's called Fords. Forging outstanding relationships with diverse staff. Um, it's a really exciting initiative that Mrs. Carter and Dr. Raundos and the administrative team um have developed to create a more informal atmosphere um for candidates who are interested in finding their fit in Havford. Um and I want to say there were 35 to 40 um candidates in attendance and just really had some great conversations. Um got to learn about people and their interest in Habford. Um and just trying to see is it a good fit?
146And it was so much more than just handing someone your resume or emailing them a resume. Um, now we have faces and names and it was just a really beautiful networking event. So, kudos to the district. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, seeing none, we're going to continue to section six, which takes us to finance and facilities. Item 6A is a bill list. Can I have a motion to approve dispersements for payment totaling $613,44286? Shelton moved moved and second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Item 6B takes us to change orders. Can I have a Can I have a motion to accept the recommendation of owner's representative CB Development Services Incorporated and authorized the change totaling an amount not to exceed $35,000 $35,49457 as listed? Moved in second. Moved and
147seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Item 6 C, appointment of tax collector. Can I have a motion for the approval of Desiree or Cardelli and TD Bank as the appointed tax collectors for the school district of Hford Township for the 2025 2026 fiscal year? Morrison moved. Shelton second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Item 6D 2025 2026 final general fund budget approval and levying of taxes. Can I have a motion to approve the resolution adopting the 2025 2026 final general fund budget and levying real estate taxes at a rate of 19.6509 6509 mills. The final general budget for 2025 2026 totals 100 159,449 let me start again 100 1,59449,961. The millage rate will be 19.6509 and increased of 0.7558 mills or
1484% over the 2024 2025 millage rate. Shelton moved second. Okay. And I believe Mr. Tessa is the roll call. Oh, I forgot you're down here. Yes. Any discussion? And now for the roll call. Mr. Tessa, I can't hear anything. He says he doesn't think it's a roll call. Roll call. He said it's not a roll call, though. Yes. Larry say yes. Larry says yes. Okay. Okay. And we will do that. Miss Lee table. Yes. Dr. McKay. Yes. Mr. Schwarz. Yes. Dr. Shelton. Yes. Miss Snres. Yes. Miss Weedman. Yes. Dr. Larson. Yes. Dr. King. Yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. The motion passes. We'll continue on. Item 6E, 2025 2026 Homestead Farmstead exclusion approval. Have a motion to approve the 2025 2026 homestead and farmstead exclusion resolution establishing maximum homestead and farmstead and real
149estate assessed value inclusions of $14,484 for the 2025 2026 approved properties. Reductions in real estate tax liability for each approved property due to the homestead and farmstead exclusions will be $28462. All funds will be distributed and $112.80 will be carried forward to future years taxpayers relief. Thank you. Second or second. Short second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Item 6F, solar for schools grants project. And I have a motion to authorize administration to proceed with the next phase of the Chattam Park Elementary roof solar PV system project. Moved or second. Moved and seconded. Who moved to second? Sorry. I heard moved. Whoever moved second heard that works. It's fine. I believe I had a moved in second in I just want to get their notes for the
150person taking the uh any discussion with two items on the agenda. This one for the grant project moving ahead with the next phase and the next one being the grant contract itself. Can someone just explain what we are voting on in this item ahead of the contract? So, this first one just um shows that the board is accepting the grant that the DCED, the uh Delaware, the um Department of Community and Economic Development has awarded for the Chadam Park application for solar for schools. Um so, this just kind of sets the wheels in motion. Um the myself um and the board president will sign that agreement, the DCD will sign that agreement, and then um we will be able to start the procurement process. And then the next agenda item is the agreement that you're
151talking about. I just don't know why there's two action items. I'm sorry. So the the first one, item F is stating that um you're authorizing administration to proceed with the next phase of the project. contract. Item G will actually then approve accepting the award from the DCED and the next phase is to start acting under that grant and contract. Yes. Y so um going through the procurement process through a guaranteed energy savings program to um comply with the grant guidelines. Okay. Thank you. Um I have one clarifying question then for this one. Um since the next step is going through the procurement project like process of trying to find um I noticed Lynwood is not on the agenda tonight. So is there any just curious like is there any finan for me I would think
152there would be financial benefit to go out for both schools for a bid um instead of just doing one school. So, I'm just curious if that is at all part of the consideration in in the gathering in the next step of gathering information. It was not initially, but certainly if we're having one building done, you could um go that route. just if the committee would be interested in ex expending additional funds for another project without having that award in place for that. It just seems to me financially beneficial if we're going to do one to go and just see what the bid options are for for Lynwood to be included in that. Yeah. Certainly there's no obligation once you if you go out to see what's available. Okay. Yeah. So doc to clarify, Dr. Okay.
153You're asking for more information on it because I just want the public. Well, that's where I wasn't sure for tonight's um what we're voting on because it doesn't seem like we're voting to exclude that at this point. Like there's a possibility that that could still be considered or I I just wasn't quite sure on the language. Well, the um agreeing to what we're voting on the the Lynwood grant application is the one that was awarded to us. Sorry. Yes. the Chattam um grant application is the one that was awarded. So, you're essentially voting to ex to accept that. The Lynwood one was not. If you're asking, can we get information about what you know what those what those costs would be, we can get information. It has to come back to the board because the
154dollar amount that is set aside is contingent upon several different funding sources, one of them being that grant. Yeah. So, that would have to return for a discussion. And if the board will the board would then need to vote to allocate more funds to that. Okay. Because I I guess my concern is that when we're not doing that, we're missing an opportunity to bid on two schools instead of just one. Like we're missing that opportunity of it being potentially more affordable to do two schools with one contract with one company. even though the grant is only for one school, like I I just fear that we're missing an opportunity to actually have a better contract. So, that's where I just was confused tonight that we didn't even consider Lynwood. I think there's a question of
155efficiencies in the bidding, but also just the commitment of the district to allocate funds for a second project, which isn't on the table tonight. Right. All right. I I see two things here. one being that if we put the two together um there's no guarantee that any contractor who would respond to that but you you would have to bifrocate that bidding process so it would be Lynwood by itself Chadam by itself and if the two projects were together I don't even know if that's possible but that's that that's how I would see because we couldn't assume that the price that we are given if we can't move forward with Lynwood um would be this would remain the same for the Chattam for the Chattam project. Um but I guess the conversation that needs to really
156be held is are we going to look to do the Lynwood project without grant funding? Yeah, I wish that that had come to us before trying to move forward just because I feel like we're missing an opportunity here, but I also don't want to slow this. So, if it means it's going to slow it down too much, then I'd rather us just move forward with Chadam. But, like, I really am concerned we missed an opportunity um for the bidding process to be good and to include Lynwood. I'm wondering for when we actually do the RFP, we be voting on RFP, I'd imagine. I wonder if we could put it to, you know, put those two together and give it to the contractor saying, "I want you to bid on one, the other, or both." I
157mean would that be would that be possible a bit bid alternate you could do lin so alternates can be more than okay I mean if that if that's possible to do if it's more I mean I I alternate in some cases are like catch at 20% of the other cost so I I mean but if it's possible to to do that or I mean sometimes you can put an RP out there just saying here's what you can you can bid on one bid on both I you could put that option I can almost guarantee that all contractors will give you probably, you know, all three of them, but depends on the size of the contract and and and schedule. But yeah, I tend to agree that I I mean, especially with the IRA funding that
158might run out um next year, I would like to try to see what we can get in under the under the gun, if you will. I I would advocate because we did get the grant for Chadam that we move forward, you know, to in order to, you know, take advantage of that grant as quickly as possible. I assume that we could probably get some information about Lynwood as part of that process. Yeah, I'm fine with that, Dr. Shilton. I just wanted to like name that I wish we had done more thoughtful on the inclusion, but we didn't. and I would rather move forward and not slow the process down, but really wish we had included that thought. Okay. Yeah. I will just remind the board that the um finance and facility committee did get a
159presentation of our capital fund and we saw tonight that is being dipped into to fill our operating budget. It's already being squeezed. So if we start allocating additional projects to the use of our capital resources, we're looking at some tradeoffs with other district maintenance and things. I think that decision to invest in Lynwood as a separate project for solar should be in a broader context of our capital dollars that's beyond what's on tonight's agenda. We also have to look at things structurally though at like some of I mean we we saw some fairly you know grim budget projections for next for for many years in the future and and one of the costs as indicated was an increase in electrical costs. So I mean we're talking about this could be we have to look I
160think a little bit farther beyond just just this year's budget and saying well can we save money moving forward and help to address some of the structural issues that we have w with our budget. So I I I do want to move forward with this tonight obviously, but I do I like Dr. McKay, I do not want to lose sight of Lynwood and look at the options for that one as well. If we can do them both, great. But um I I would like to see some of those information about that. We do have a fine facilities u meeting on on Monday. Yes. And be a good opportunity to have a discussion. All right, Mr. test, given the tight deadlines that we're typically under when dealing with grant funding. When is this approval due back
161to the state, what we're voting on tonight? Well, the sooner we get it back, then we can start the process, but we can't um procure anything until we have it signed by both parties. Right. And I would just remind colleagues on the board that we've had this agenda in advance of this meeting and to come here with a request like that to expand the scope of this work um I think is a bit disingenuous and I would encourage people to reach out to administration prior to coming to a meeting and asking for us to approve something that's not on the agenda and is far beyond the scope of what we're approving tonight. We've all in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Item 6G, solar for schools grant contract. Have a motion to accept the
162solar for schools grant contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development for the Chattam Park Elementary roof solar PV system project. Shelton moved. Okay. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Um I I just had a question on the contract itself. It's since it's not attached. Um was it reviewed by our solicitor and is it one of those like you have a contract but you really just have to sign it type of situation. Okay. So, I have not forwarded it to the solicitor uh yet because we just recently received it, but I will send that over for final look through. I'm sorry. Can you say that again, Tony? So, I I have just recently received it, so I will I will send it over to the solicitor just to give a final once over
163on it. Okay. But tonight, we're being asked to authorize it, right? Yes. Because we applied for it and we know, you know, the parameters of the program. Okay. So, we're the solicitor hasn't reviewed this contract, but we understand the general terms and conditions of the agreement notwithstanding that. Yes. Yes. I'm getting I'm getting a nod from Larry. Okay. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Item 6H, Havford Township bus rental agreement. Can I have a motion to approve a bus rental agreement with the Havford Township for their summer camp program? Motion moved first and second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? How many buses are we talking about? Right now, I believe it's two. Two. Yes. Have we done this before? Is this something a new area we we're venturing into? No,
164this this is something usually we are able to assist um in providing transportation and drivers. Our drivers are hired as 10 and a half month um employees. So summer work is something that is always put out and then you see what kind of response you get. Um this summer our we will experience a driver shortage in the in the summer. Um we have just enough to meet our uh ESY obliga obligations to transport children. So we let the township know that we would not be able to provide drivers for the summer camp and then they asked well if they were able to hire drivers could they get could they rent buses from us. So thank you. Mhm. And we did run this by our insurance carrier just to make sure that, you know, it was
165we were covered on all of our bases um because there would be somebody else driving our vehicles. All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Section seven brings us to human resources. 7A, retirement and resignation. Have a motion to accept the following retirement and resignations as listed. Moved. Larson second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. 7B takes us to appointments. Have a motion to approve the following appointments as listed below. Contingent upon receipt of all necessary clearances including act 168 of 2014 moved. Second moved and second. Any discussion? I'll invite uh Dr. Rundos to the board there. My favorite part. Here we go. Good evening Dr. Rushi, members of the school board, administration, and Harford community. It is my great pleasure to introduce Miss Julianne Hill
166as the new supervisor of special programs. Yeah, we can clap. Her family's been waiting here K through 12 for the Habford Township School District. A little bit about Julian's background. Julianne holds a bachelor degree in early childhood education from New University and a master's degree in special education from the University of Cincinnati. She brings over 12 years of experience in the field of education, having served in a variety of impactful roles. These include an emotional support teacher and a coordinator of extended school year in the Pendelo School District as well as a middle school autistic support teacher positions in the upper Derby School District and the Marple Education Center. We are excited to welcome Julianne to the Harford team and look forward to her expertise and dedication she brings to this important role. Let's give
167her a big hand. I took a peek inside of these swag bags. You got some wonderful books in here. Congratulations. Yeah, I know. All right. So, we're going to vote to make it official, though. We have one more. Okay. Go ahead. You want to do the second one? Go ahead. Right. Yep. Okay. It is also a great pleasure to introduce Miss Amanda Pointer as the new assistant principal at the Habford School District at our high school. Amanda holds Yeah. You can clap for her too as well. No holding back. No holding back. Amanda holds a bachelor degree in integrated media and strategic communications as well as a master degree in special education and applied disability studies, both from Maryhurst University. She also earned a certificate in educational leadership and supervision from George Washington University. With
168over a decade of experience in education, Amanda has served in a variety of leadership roles. Her background includes three years as a high school assistant principal in the school district of Philadelphia, three years as a coordinator of emotional support in Philadelphia and lead special education teacher at Kip Philadelphia public schools. We are thrilled to welcome Amanda to our administrative team and eagerly anticipate the significant contributions her expertise and dedication will bring to this pivotal role. Let's give her a big hand. long walk over. Here you go. Congratulations. All right. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? The motion passes. Congratulations. For 7C, leave of absence. I have a can I have a motion to approve the following leave request. Moved. Larson second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The
169motion passes. 7D, professional employee. I would like to recognize the following temporary professional employee who has fulfilled the three-year probationary period required by law and having received satisfactory ratings during this period, have met eligibility to receive the professional employee contract effective May 27th, 2025. Moved second. Moved and second. Any discussion? Congratulations. All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. We have nothing listed for section 8, people services. Section 9 takes us to curriculum and instruction. 9A, the new science curriculum resource purchase. Can I have a motion to accept the to approve the science materials as listed below? Okay. moved and second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? I I just had a clarification. Uh and thank you for your report, Miss Larson, on the or Dr. Larson on the um this particular item. It was
170looked at in committee. And I So my question is, and I went back to the YouTube video, but is this this is for all grade levels for the science program, Miss AA? This actually um Dr. Shelton is all the secondary materials. Sorry, I'm getting too close to the mic there. Uh we have already purchased the elementary materials over the past three years because they are such big ticket items, we had to break them up. So these cover all the secondary materials. Okay. I'm sorry. I meant sixth, seventh and eighth. Yeah. Uh sixth, seventh, eth. And then there are uh there is a chemistry book and an AP environmental science as well. Okay, great. Thanks. Uh the other uh materials were open resource materials, so they don't cost us anything, but they are new materials. Okay.
171All in favor? I. Any opposed? The motion passes. Item 9B, new ELA curriculum resources purchases. Can I have a motion to accept to approve the English language arts materials through Presbook House as listed below for a total cost of $19,336.15. Larson moved. Schlson second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? I'd like to join this class. They have some great texts on here. All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. 9 C. New social studies curriculum resources purchases. Can I have a motion to accept to approve the social studies materials listed below through Bedford Freeman and Worth for a total cost of $3,62940? Okay. Moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Section 10 takes us to policy 10 A is policy 301 creating a new position.
172I have a motion to accept the first reading of policy 301 creating a new position. Sass moved. Schultz second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Yes. Um, as promised, these are the policies that we went over at the last policy committee meeting. Um, you can see there's several here that we decided to move forward um with some changes. And um the first one here 301 is and this is kind of a theme um not just for this uh result of this committee meeting but also for several of our committee meetings now that we are trying to consolidate policies that are for all intents and purposes the same policy but with slightly different language. And previously our book was separated into um employee class. And so this one is a a proposed new consolidated policy that um
173is formerly policies 301, 401 and 501. So um you can see the changes that were made here and what we discussed the changes that we discussed and that have been implemented in this first reading um was in the guidelines we did add the sentence there about um making sure the position connects or supports the mission and goals of the district. And obviously uh you know everything that we do tries to um uh you know support that mission and goals and we thought it was important to put it directly into the policy. Um we had a couple other you know um nits here and there and and and different um language structure but but that was the big one that change that we made coming out of the policy committee. I just had one question. Um,
174under the guidelines, it says recommendations for continuing new or additional positions and wondered why continuing positions is covered in this policy for creating new positions. That word confused me when I read it. So, I just wanted to check and see its applicability. Move it. Yeah. Uh I think that's fine. It it doesn't you know this policy is about creating a new one. I guess the question is um when you're creating a new con I would think when you're creating a new position you're evaluating your current positions right and whether the this new position can be um filled or or the duties of this new position can be fulfilled efficiently with the staff that you already have. So I in my opinion I think that we could keep it but I can see where it it
175is it's that doesn't maybe at first blush seem uh that it it is directly applicable to creating a new position. So it keeps it in line with the title of the policy if we change it. Miss Nongress that was why I was saying we can change. Yeah. So perhaps we could include maybe um evaluating because I think that we're on agreement that sometimes there could be considerations for if this position could be continued if we modify it. Is that in fact creating a new position and so perhaps we can just add a word into like the title. You think like evaluation of creating a new position something like that? If we can't into the title then maybe we'll just add it under the guidelines. Oh yeah, sure. Either or for right recommendations for evaluating continuing
176new or additional positions. Okay, I see what you're saying. I like that more. Okay. Any other discussion here? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. 10B takes us to policy 308 employment contract board resolution. Can I have a motion to accept the first reading of the policy 308 employment contract board resolution? Moved. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Um so this one is another that we um have consolidated the the prior three separate policies. So 308, 408 and 508 are now um all in this one um in this one policy. And I think the discussion that that occurred on this one um we were curious and because the majority of this is about um contracted employees and employees that we have uh specific contracts with. Um and so we wanted to make sure that
177to the extent that we had at will employees that was also included within this and so you can see that it has been added here into the guidelines. Any other discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. 10 C policy 309 assignment and transfer. Have a motion to accept the first reading of policy 309 assignment and transfer along with the corresponding AR. Moved. Moved and second. Any discussion? Um, so this one didn't have very many changes at the policy level. Well, it's another consolidated one. So, formerly three separate policies, 309, 409, 509. You can see we're we're really consolidating this book. It's going to become very readable very soon. Um, but really, I mean, I think it's it's going to be a lot easier for folks to find what what is applicable to
178them. So, um, no big changes in the policy itself. In the administrative regulation, we did add um that final uh general guideline there um to discuss the collective bargaining agreements and make sure that everything that we're doing is obviously in line with the collective bargaining agreement and that will not not necessarily surpass the policy, but that our policies will not conflict with the the collective bargaining agreement. Any other additional discussion? All in favor? I I. Any oppose? The motion passes. That takes us to pol to 10D policy 323 tobacco products. Can I have a motion to accept the first reading of policy 323 tobacco products along with the corresponding AR? Sagas moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? This was a fun discussion. um especially for anyone who knows what Juul is and wanted to
179um listen to us try and figure out what Juul was. Um but anyway, you know, um we we this was a really old policy, so you can see that it was last revised in 1997, so significant revisions were made um just to include new things like vaping and E6 and that type of thing. Um but really you know a lot of the policies that come around um tobacco and other substance um policies which we discussed at the committee but I think aren't coming before the board do come from um state laws and code. So um this one was updated and I think um uh the the board discussed a lot or or the committee discussed a lot. Um, you can see all the different changes that were made, but um, what we were focusing on,
180like I said, was just to make sure that it was understandable and, um, that, uh, it reflected current practice and not, um, the reality of 1997 for employees. This is for employees. This is we're looking at the employee book. Yeah. Um, so this is this is uh, within the employee part of the handbook or the policy book. Sorry. I this is like an hour past my bedtime at this point, so I'm doing my best. Um yeah, I have a comment on this one that the policy um starts and talks about how staff have um prohibitions on on using these products. But in the policy itself, it doesn't specify that we're saying um on school grounds in school vehicles while supervising students. That is picked up um just in the guidelines. And then the guidelines have
181a couple other um just one other provision about tampering with devices to detect the use of t tobacco products. So I wondered if um it might be an opportunity to uh clarify the purpose of the policy by adding the prohibition related to school grounds and just putting in the tampering one and having it all be in one since the AR didn't add a whole lot of content or context. Yeah, I see what you're saying after the the purpose paragraph to tie that into on school grounds and at school uh sanctioned events. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that makes sense to me. Okay. I'll just ask Miss Wait a minute if you could just send that. It's a little hard to hear in here at sometimes. I don't know if it's just me. No, it
182is. I just want to make sure that we've that we've captured that or I'll send the follow. Yeah, I'll just reiterate it um for the record. Um that after the purpose paragraph, we'll we'll add something along the lines of um that that this relates to employees use of these different tobacco products on school property or for at uh school sanctioned events, that type of thing. I think we have language around that in some of our other policies, right? and it is spelled out in the AR itself. I'm just wondering if moving the language in the AR into the policy and then there's only one other provision that remains in the AR. So if we just put all that in the policy, it might be more consolidated and clear. I think that's right. And so I
183think the guidelines from the AR that reference the act 145 of 1996 maybe could just be moved to the policy itself. Right. Okay. All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. 10E, which takes us to policy 324, personnel files. Can I have a motion to accept the first reading of policy 324 personnel files? Larson moved. Snag. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? another combined policy for us. Um so formerly policies 324, 424 and 524. Um we had a good discussion on this one and um the as the board I'm sure will remember um that sometime last year we implemented a records retention policy which is policy 800. So we wanted to make sure that you know when we're talking about retention of personnel files that it is very specifically laid out within that policy
184you know the years for retention and things like that. Um and so that these policies should be should be their um linked and um that was the big change that we had made uh between what the committee discussed and this first reading. I had a comment on this one too. Um, and I'm not on the policy committee, so was curious if the committee discussed the use of the word file, and if it means paper files, which seems to be how this policy reads, or if it is also intended to include digital files. Um, there's comments about personnel who wish to review their records um shall do so in the presence of an administrator. Like, does that mean actual paper files or digital ones? And is it worthwhile to uh clarify or update our use of
185that would be a paper file actually that we keep for them and they would come in and that is it actually in some of our um collective bargaining agreements as well that they have that opportunity to come in and review and someone would have to be in the room with them as well. So they're definitely paper not electronic and there are we prohibited from having personnel files as electronic documents? Yeah they don't have them as electronic. do have onboarding documents but not in that what is in their personnel file. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um just a comment then for consideration if in this day and age the use of the world files is clearly understood to be maintenance of paper files and um that kind of recordkeeping as opposed to a digital database or something. Sorry.
186Are you suggesting a change in language and if so where? Um I was just asking what discussion the committee had of the use of the word files and if I'm I guess I'm putting it back for consideration if it would be helpful to somewhere define that we are talking specifically about paper files in this policy. But I think I understand from Dr. Ramundis there there are only paper files to be reviewed. So for the purpose of this policy and how we are functioning in the district for now, there is only one type of file to consider and and I and I just wouldn't want to limit us to having that definition of files. I think that it's a good practice that we have now with the paper files, but if something else comes up in
187the future or for some reason we're all virtual or something and we have to give it to them um you know via a team's meeting or something like that. Um I wouldn't want to limit us in the policy to how we can do that. So I think like leaving it open-ended the file can be both um gives us more options in the future. Hopefully we don't take like 20 years to re-update this policy, but um you know, you never know. Sorry, George. Thank you. All in favor? Any oppose? The motion passes. Policy 702, gifts, grant, and donations. Can I have a motion to accept the first reading of policy 702 gifts, grants, and donations? Lorson moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Um, yeah, there was a good discussion at the board. Um, and the
188the purpose of this is as a new policy or I guess it says it was adopted before, but um we we wanted to discuss this because there have been gifts that that have come before the board and we were discussing, you know, what is the threshold? what what what what should the board do if if they do want to reject a gift and for what reason and something like that. And so um we you can see that the changes that we made here. We did make it in the subjective view of the board. It is up to the board um to um to to accept or refuse these kinds of gifts, grants, donations, that type of thing. And um we also made sure that these types of gifts are not contingent on something else. Um,
189so a lot of the discussion was about teacher gifts and um, uh, making sure that there doesn't look like there is some sort of improper motive, improper benefit to the gift and and trying to to spell that out. Um, I don't know if Dr. you wanted to make comments on um making sure that you know our teachers understand the difference between a gift [Music] um you know you know like a PTO end ofear gift and a gift that is given with some sort of you know expectation behind it. Yes. And I think we were looking at the at the language so as not to limit like a Valentine card, right? cookies and and things like that. Yeah, exactly. Which, you know, is a common practice in our district and and is wonderful. Um but making
190sure that you know um that's okay. Yeah. That those are okay, but but gifts that that um lean more towards an individual, a large gift, uh something like that that could be really construed as a quid proquo. Um so those those were a lot of the discussions that that we had on the committee and and this is the the language that we um came up with for that. I just want to clarify that it sounds like we're talking about there was one policy that remained in committee, the 322 gifts employees that we're looking at policy 702 which is to the district. Yes. Yeah, you're right. The teacher part is about the 322. Um but we did discuss because I do have one this policy too. The quid proquo and appearance of impropriy and that's where
191that um okay that eighth guideline comes from. But I do appreciate that the teacher gifts was a discussion on more 322. Right. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. This policy was mentioned just as a discussion item at the finance and facilities committee meeting. And I think one question that came up was um is there a dollar threshold of value for which we want something to raise to be a board action to accept versus um that could just be you know accepted by the administration. Was that something considered by the policy committee? Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Um, we did discuss that as a committee and we we felt like because um it is coming to the district um that it really should be up to the board to accept any um any amount. And so, you
192know, picking an amount like what is an amount that's so nominal that that we don't need to vote on? Um you know, that was that was difficult for us to do. And um I think for transparency's sake and um for the board to understand and the public to understand what's being given to the board um we didn't feel comfortable adding something like a threshold in. And one of the items we also wanted to clarify I think through this policy is what we are willing to accept as far as um equipment or enhancements to our facilities you know and I think that you know we leave that up to the board to decide what's appropriate to accept. That's right. Yeah, it goes it's beyond money. It's it's you know supplies, equipment, um monetary contributions, things like
193that. It's it's a all-encompassing. All in favor? I. Any oppose? The motion passes. Policy 828 fraud. Can I have a motion to accept the reading of policy 828 fraud? Moved. Saga. Second. Moved and second. Any discussion? This is the last one for anyone not following along on the agenda. Um so we uh we did have a discussion here just to um make sure that we were um completely to make sure that that we were um coming up with something that that wasn't just for fraud. Um because we talk about eroding trust um and so we want to make sure that we are um uh good stewards of um the district. Sorry guys, I'm fading so fast. Okay. Um but so that's where this light this extra language comes in from that um that you can
194see added here. So um and I think the other thing that we that we made was uh we changed um we added some confidentiality pieces um to make sure that it remains confidential and that it's up to us whether we make it public or not. Um and that's about investigations of fraudulent activity. And then um finally for depositing funds, making sure that we're giving ourselves one to two business days instead of the more restrictive um like 24 to 48 hours. So those were the big changes that we discussed with fraud, but there was an overarching um discussion as well, making sure, you know, like I said, we're we're doing everything that we can to not just not actually betray the trust, but to not erode the trust of um the community as well. All in
195favor? I I any opposed? The motion passes. We have nothing listed for section 11 other items. Section 12 takes us to the second portion of public comments. Um these are for items that for any items whether whether or not they're list on the agenda for a vote. I do have Girl Scout Troop 5699. I believe that they me too. So, okay, let's keep going. Um, Marie Oo Groso, can you please just state your name, confirm your residency, you'll have 3 minutes to speak. Hi, thank you. I'm Maria Kia Groso. I'm in Hford Township. Um, I'm the parent of two children who have gone through our elementary schools, uh, totaling nine years in elementary. Um, I first want to thank the district for moving towards unleveling ELA. Board members, you've heard from me in the past
196advocating for this. It's best practices in education. We're making sure that we're um, not lowering expectations for all learners. We're reducing access to rigorous curriculum or entrenching achievement gaps. Unleveling makes equitable education. And that's our goal. I want to make sure that we're giving our teachers in this new method the equipment, the time, the training, the resources to allocate for differentiated instruction. I heard the comments. I agree. This is not something you can do and just put everybody in the same room. It has to be intentional and planful. And I hope that we roll that out um appropriately. My big ask though is transparency. In my nine years of having an elementary schooler, never once was my child's level appropriately communicated to me in advance. Never once I sat in a meeting at Coopertown PTO
197where a mother sitting next to me had no idea that their child was even leveled. She currently has an eighth grader. This is unacceptable. Transparency is essential for building equitable education. We need to have clear commu communication that is consistent to all families. In fact, it is the only way to find out your level is to ask. And that is a hidden curriculum. A system where knowledge is assumed, not shared. Access. Access is based on who you know to ask and having the capacity and the ability to take up space. That implies cultural fluency and navigating opaque structures. We marginalize communities through this method and we're not giving people accurate accurate information. This is implicit bias. It influences academic decision-m and when systems aren't transparent, we can't see where students are being placed or why.
198We want to make sure we're being equitable. By contrast, the middle school is totally transparent. We hear our children's levels in the summer. We have t time and conversations with the educators to understand and unpack the decision and the level and to potentially partner together to remediate. I am asking going forward that we clearly communicate placements for math and if we don't roll out ELA next year, ELA as well to ensure that we are partners in our children's education. I am asking that you share the criteria by which you are making these decisions. One elementary school says MAP testing is not involved at all. The other says it's a key part of the discussion. We need to know how and why these children are being placed in levels. We also need to have access to
199the assessment data. I do not receive my child's MAP testing unless I ask. I heard Dr. Whitehead speak of the value of these assessments. As an educator, I understand the value of it, but I shouldn't have to have the the capacity to take up space and to ask for it proactively. It should be given to me at the ready so that I can partner in the process. Additionally, I would ask that we create district-wide policies to ensure the same expectations and communications are rolled out across schools. I appreciate, Miss Saxa, that you're going to roll out and explain to GIP families and fourth and fifth grade families that leveling will be unlevelled in ELA. I ask that we share why we haven't shared that in the past proactively. Thank you. So, Miss Axer, just to
200note, if you could just revisit the communication process. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have uh Rich McGory. Whoops. I blew that one. I'm Rich McGloria, 1246 D Road, Htown, Pennsylvania. And I came here as a former uh reading teacher, English teacher, and law teacher in a high school. I came here to speak primarily about project lit, but I got engrossed by this discussion about leveling of classes. We did away with tracking 30 years in the school district of Philadelphia. I am enthralled of the collegial discussion about homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping and the elimination of leveling. I'm all for the elimination of leveling though there are places for homogeneous grouping and one is interventions in reading and reading specialists for kids who suffer from reading disability like my little Johnny who's in middle school
201and has a beginning reading level and does not have a reading specialist this year because we did not have one who was ready and willing to teach him how to teach beginning reading. But I want to get back to project lit. I was very enthralled two weeks ago by that presentation and not only should it be continued in the middle school. I hope it is is extended into high school. And I'll relate that to the new superintendent Dr. It is wonderful. It is needed for kids to develop their own their own interests in reading. It could even in high school be developed into a reading uh elective class. And I want to just say about Mrs. Kay and her award for Delaware Valley Excellent in teaching award. That award does not say enough about what
202Mrs. Kay did. And under the lass fair leadership of Dr. Romanos who let her create her own program. It is a wonderful program. My little Johnny did not talk when he went to there to first grade. He does now largely because of Mrs. K, her program, the inclusion of Johnny in the regular classes which he went to and paid attention fine. He developed them. The kids mentored him, took them in. There were big brothers and big sisters to him in that classroom. It is an ideal program and I assure you Mrs. Kay is I saw her every morning with all the kids in her classroom. I visited her classroom every time I was invited and she created with her par profofessionals a wonderful program which does wonders for our autistic kids and so does the
203inclusion. And if I could just say one more thing about reading specialists just give me 10 seconds more. Mrs. K would be very supportive of adding reading specialists to that program and named elementary school and in the middle school and the high school for autistic children who do not learn to talk at the same time schedule as typical student. I mean for the autistic children who do not learn to talk on the same schedules, they are on a different trajectory cognitively and they are not ready to learn to read till later ages including up into high school. And that's uh what I have to say tonight. And I noticed your eyes have not glazed over yet. Thank you. Next up, I have Michelle Phillips. Please just state your name and confirm your residency. I'm Michelle
204South Phillips. I live at 412 Lincoln Avenue in H haveford school district. um bringing forth a concern regarding the transportation that has been uh taken away from my children. Um I have a kindergartener at Lynwood. Next year I will have another kindergartener at Lynwood. Um the my children uh in my daughter enjoys taking the bus to school every morning. Um there's such camaraderie at the bus stop um with her fellow kindergarteners as well as the other students that are there. Um we have our bus stop sent a letter to the school district I believe a week and a half ago. Um I have also reached out to um the commissioner um just regarding our concerns for safety crossing Eagle Road. Um there is a uh crosswalk there and a crossing guard sometimes uh but not
205always. It is not a um school zone speed limit there at where they would need to cross the um cross Eagle Road. Um uh there's not always a crossing guard there, especially uh at CH kindergarten change times. Um at uh for Chattam Park, you have flashing lights, uh speed limit zones. Um I encourage you to work with uh the township and the police departments to make that correction for the children to be safe. Um car pooling was offered as an alternative and that's not always um feasible. Um many my children will both be in still in car seats. um going into next year. Um and uh it just doesn't make it feasible when you're adding car seats to your own car to help facilitate car pooling among families. Um and adding looking at car pooling
206would add at least just from our bus stop at least four cars at drop off and pickup time. Um just from one bus stop that's being eliminated. Um, I chose uh afternoon kindergartener kindergarten for my uh incoming kindergartener specifically so she could ride the bus home with her older sister so that the the caregiver or the parent that they're coming home to would have just one place to pick them up instead of coming getting somebody off the bus or getting somebody from Lynwood and then having to go to a kindergarten and enrichment program. Um, so it has created uh a hardship. Those things were thoughtfully planned out months and months ago. Um, so just ask that you reconsider uh changing uh and giving more time to families to figure out how to navigate those changes
207uh getting rid of bus stops. Thank you. I would just ask that a member of the administration would follow up. um with those families impacted accordingly. Dr. uh yes, we have we did send some follow-up communication out um identifying the area where the crossware walk is located and also the map of that area um and where children are bust and where children walk. Um but we can you know follow up with if there are more questions. All right. Thank you. That takes us to section 13, report on executive session. Um, the board met tonight to discuss with council a matter of agency business and potential litigation that if discussed in public would violate a lawful privilege or lead to the disclosure of information protected by law. The next regular public board meeting is scheduled to
208be held on June 26, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the boardroom of the Oakmont Administration building. Can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Oh, all moved.