001uh [Music] good evening everybody welcome to the september 1st 2022 board meeting of the school district of haverford township who could rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all martha could you call the roll please dr crispin here dr king here dr larson here dr mckay here mr schwartz snodgrass here is vitaly yeah mr feinberg here ms wiedemann miss wiedemann and mr schwartz are both out of town on vacation before we move into the agenda i'd just like to welcome everybody for the new school year and have a few a few numbers to roll out it's my understanding that our student census this year is which
002is the highest it's ever been i can remember not too long ago when we broke six thousand so people continue to choose the school district we have 132 new employees this year so we we thank them for stepping up and we certainly thank the administration for doing all the work that's involved in recruiting and onboarding 132 new employees on the cyber charter side last year we had 33 students in cyber charter schools this year we're down to 19 so that'll save some tax dollars i certainly want to thank the taxpayers of haverford township who foot the bill for all of this if if you are a new kindergarten family i just want to tell you everything's going to be all uh right if you're a new senior uh go for it make the most out
003of it and we'll look forward to shaking your hands in june so uh thanks to everybody for for all the work and we'll look forward to a great new school year [Music] i'll accept a motion to approve the official minutes from the august 18th 2022 regular public board meeting person moved vitaly second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries no report from students this meeting but will we see them next uh next meeting uh but probably the meeting after yeah by the next meeting they'll just be in school for about two weeks so i think it's the first meeting in october okay we'll look forward to that next up superintendent's comments dr rishi thanks mr feinberg uh we welcomed new teachers last week there are almost 50 in that group
004they were here for days of in-service and uh this week we welcomed all staff back there's such a feeling of positivity across the district i think everyone is really appreciative of being in an environment that's more familiar to them and comfortable to them than than has been the last few years as mr feinberg mentioned there you know over 130 new staff members across the district so that involved quite a bit of interviewing and processing of applications and paperwork through our hr office and also at the schools with the building administrators leading the way with a lot of that i know i've said it before but i feel like i can't say it enough to thank all the the employees and in the many offices who have us situated quite well to welcome kids and start
005the school year next next tuesday our maintenance and custodial the business office curriculum office pupil services and transportation and just a public service announcement you know we ask families to give us at least the first two weeks to let things sort of settle in to the schedules with uh with transportation uh to and to see how things uh how things work out and just to alert people that our uh many buses will be out traveling those roads uh as of as of tuesday morning so thank you next the agenda item is a public comment for items on the agenda no one has signed up to speak in that section and there will be an additional public comment uh section later in the agenda next item is board committee report dr crispin yes uh thank you
006so the curriculum committee met last thursday um our first presentation was from nicole battistelli about the cyclical monitoring monitoring for continuous improvement cmci hopefully i got that right it's required by pennsylvania department of education every six years reviewing three years of data um it was very clear from the presentation this is a very rigorous process and it sounds like a very time consuming process on behalf of staff in the district it includes a self-assessment surveys and interviews on-site visits and on-site file reviews um it sounded like our district had had a very successful audit i believe the direct quote was a very healthy audit and we received commendations for some of our inclusion initiatives including best buddies special olympics and unified sports so that was really great to hear areas for improvement um esy documentation
007barriers to special education students participating in general education classrooms and participation of special education students in the pssas so there were some there was some discussion in the presentation about next steps that involved including a development of a corrective action plan and that will be submitted to pde addressing the plans for these three different areas of improvement we also had a presentation about the special education ela audit and update by natalia adelizi um it was they have completed their internal audit um and then they're they're discussing family feedback and the external audit from the internal audit strengths um it sounded like there were many strong resources for reading fluency and many resources for reading comprehension some areas for improvement additional resources for students who are one to three years behind grade level some more materials
008and resources for phonics instruction and for writing instruction it sounded like the family feedback strengths were very strong communication with and from the special education teachers and then some identified areas for improvement working on explaining how students learn to read and why they struggle with reading and then engaging children in literacy instruction from all of this there's not an ask for tonight's meeting but it sounds like we'll be hearing in the future about some additional materials and resources that we might need to vote on um and always i remind everybody on the board and in the public um if you weren't at the meeting it's on youtube it's recorded so anyone's welcome to to go back and watch those great presentations so thank you thank you next item is the bill list i'll accept the
009motion to approve disbursements from the following funds as listed crisp and move king second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the recommendation of the project architect kcba and associates inc and owner's representative cb development services inc and authorized the change orders totaling 1 495 dollars as listed mckay moved crisp and second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries human resources i'll accept a motion to accept the following resignations as listed king moved larsen second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed promotion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following non-acceptance of appointment move moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion
010to approve the following appointments as listed below contingent upon receipt of all necessary clearances including act 168 of 2014. okay moved in second any discussion in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the leave request as listed king moved crisp second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept the motion for the board of directors to approve the educational services agreements for students in the district with special needs the agreements cover reimbursement for educational services as listed crisp in a second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational contract for a student attending out of district esy placement for the summer of 2022. the tally moved second moved in second
011any discussion can we get a little bit of explanation for the public um why this is for summer 2022 and it's now the end of summer 2022 and we're proving it now they just sent us the contract last week but the child went to esy they just did it without having a signed contract the child received services yes thank you all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational service contracts for services provided to students and or staff with the district vitaly move chris ben second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational contract for a student attending out of district placement for the 2022-23 school year crispin move second moved in second any
012discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept the motion to approve the following student educational excursions as listed below mckay moved natalie second moved in second any discussion this looks great it's good it's good to see agenda items talking about cross-country teams and boys volleyball teams so uh good to see all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the first reading of policy 901 communications and ar administrative regulations saw grass moved first second moved in second any discussion i'll just give a really quick update of this um so this is part of our ongoing policy audit that we started at the beginning of this calendar year where we're going through the policies um to update them most of them haven't been reviewed in more than a decade
013so this is part of that policy 901 is an important one it's about communications with the district and the older policy was kind of all over the place just as a reminder the policy committee talked about this at at least one of the policy committee meetings so um for a really in-depth discussion of you know the differences between 901 as it is as you can see on board docs the 901 as we're presenting to the board today that is a really good discussion um but even just as a high level overview the was sort of before kind of threading this needle of being very specific but also very broad in a way that didn't make a whole lot of sense to us and so um the policy committee reviewed this and really the the purpose
014now of the um section 901 is for the um the administration to create a school community communications plan and um that basically the policy sort of just really gives way to for the for the district to do that and same thing with the administrative regulation uh the district would appoint a chief communications representative to oversee the creation of the plan and the implementation of the plan so um you know this makes a lot more sense than the board sort of delineating a couple things that need to be done but then you know sort of just not having direction for a lot of other communication matters so the policy committee thought this was a good um update to this policy which we think is obviously of a lot of importance to the public and to all
015of our um to all of the the people in our schools if anyone has any questions on um the proposed language i'm happy to discuss or anyone else you know from the policy committee to discuss as well any other comments from the board all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the first reading of policy 914 relations with intermediate unit natalie second moved in second any discussion i'll give another recap this is another one that is an existing policy that the committee reviewed and made quite quite a few changes to really to update it and try and reflect the the practice of how the district is relating to the iu um this would have the um the board review let me see here um take an annual review of
016the the proposed iu budget which was in there it was something that we discussed at the committee about how that looks and um and really it's something that we thought was really important the iu offers a lot to our district and so having having that continue to be part of the policy so that everyone on the board everyone in the district and the community can see what we're getting from our contribution towards the iu what they're giving giving back to our students other than that the changes that you see are really again just to reflect maybe some more current practices with you know how we communicate with iu and i don't think there was an ar for this one so it's just really the policy any other comments all in favor aye any opposed motion
017carries i'll accept a motion to accept the first reading of policy 916 volunteers and 916 ar administrative regulations green mode snyder a second moved in second any discussion me again um you're really shepherding us through this larry so i appreciate it um i know this is the most exciting part of the meeting for everyone um this this is another policy that i think is really important um let me see i don't know when it was uh last reviewed um it's not not too long ago not as long as some of the other ones but um it was an important one that we that we wanted to reflect again um the goals of the district and to really make sure that people reading the policy understand the policy and that's a lot of what the policy
018committee is doing with this audit to make sure we're looking at it as if you're a parent or a community member and you want to volunteer you know how do you do that you look at the policy and you want to make sure that it makes sense so you know a lot of these i think were um were more minor revisions to this policy but i think they're important ones because we really classify you know specific types of volunteers and then that will help you when you're looking at you know what kind of volunteer am i you know do i need um you know this clearance do i need that you know what what kind of job is this uh you know or volunteer position is this um so i just think it gives a
019little bit more clarity uh to to really you know real life about you know when you're going to to volunteer and that's that's reflected um in the ars as well so the ars had very minimal um revisions to them and it was really you know the policy group making it uh more clear and um insurance that a quick question i like the the separation between position volunteer and guest volunteer i was just curious and it was very clear which fell in um and i was thinking specifically of linwood for parents who run after school clubs but they're not a coach i'm like is that an activity advisor with that's more do they even fall in this um because this is something we've tackled in the past so i was just specifically thinking about them it's
020after school hours voluntary activity volunteer activity the first one the position volunteer right so you know you would go under there right so i think you can sort of think of this in two buckets and um if you think maybe we can if you if you think we could add another example to that that would make it more clear but i think the buckets are like this position volunteer which is sort of like ongoing something that would have like recurring contact with the students whereas like a guest volunteer you know the example that we use in the policy is like a career day right until you're a parent coming in for career day or maybe it's um you know a very specific event something like that i thought it felt more with based on your
021great definitions the position volunteer i just started thinking i wonder even if they need to be so they would need to be a position volunteer that was more my confusion do they even count because it's after school and it's not an official district activity like a coach who is running the soccer team or field hockey team i think it does um because we're having it in our school buildings with students um it's a sort of like an activity advisor you know area um so i would think that that would fall in thank you yeah how is this policy communicated to um families parents adults who do want to volunteer i mean so maybe it's not this policy because we haven't approved it yet but in the past how has the volunteer policy been communicated through
022the through the building principles okay and ptos like they're the other yeah since they're the ones grabbing most of the volunteers they're um for like parties and shepherd like they're the ones always pumping out handing your clearances and keeping track of who can go into the building to help out with parties we appreciate all the work that ptos do for sure yeah any other discussion before we vote i would just like to acknowledge the good work of the entire policy committee uh the help of our solicitor and antoinette i was going to thank you but i think you enjoy this i do enjoy we're happy to have more people show up to our policy committees and thank you because it's very necessary work and um it's great that you're uh shepherding it through for us
023so thanks again all in favor aye any opposed motion carries next item i'll accept a motion to approve the resolution adopting the psba principles for governance and leadership snodgrass moved vitaly second moved in second any discussion can can we say re-adopting is that appropriate because we already adopted these correct but we're re-adopting them as a newly a new board or new board with a new constitution is that right i don't know if that matters okay i'm just curious because we did i think legally it doesn't matter okay i'm just curious but it's an important point that we have reviewed these before in the past we thought they were important to acknowledge as a board um you know the psva quite clearly lays out you know being committed to the highest ideals of excellence of student
024achievement school governance um and this is i think a really good way for us as a board to acknowledge you know how we want to hold ourselves i'll just add that once we've approved this we'll have our board members sign it and find a wall for it maybe over there [Music] all in favor aye any opposed motion carries uh next agenda item is public comment for items not on the agenda i just like to say that if folks are interested in public comment the instructions for how to sign up all that good stuff is on the website and as far as this evening goes when i call your name please come to the podium state that you're a township president and state your name you'll have three minutes to speak and when you get to
025the end of three minutes we'll ask you to finish up first speaker is dan kraut hi my name is dan croud i'm a haverford township resident and i've got a ninth grader starting at the high school next week and a fourth grader who will be starting at cooper town or returning to cooper town i'd like to thank the board for their support of basis and specifically for providing training to district staff and leadership via the recently approved contract with dignity consulting it's an important step uh towards building a more inclusive school system which will help everyone especially our marginalized students to feel like they're a part of the community and thereby help them succeed our world's increasingly diverse and the students graduate they need the skills to effectively communicate listen to and work with all
026sorts of people those skills really begin with inclusivity thank you our next speaker is elena wisely good evening my name is elena wisely i am a resident of the township last year i spent many months begging for you to stop a lot of what you're doing but this year i spent many months trying to understand why you are doing it i no longer believe that you have nefarious intent i believe that you have good intentions however the road to hell is paid with good intentions and we have common goals although our opinion differs on how we may reach that goal you can easily weigh the outcome of the completion of your good intentions by measuring data that's available to you or i could do a right to know and waste taxpayer dollars and collect the
027data that you already have access to and show it to you the irony is not lost on the fact that what you have intended to do resulted in exactly the opposite our children's education is suffering drug use is up grades are down sex and violence is up morale is down you could blame the pandemic however there's a control to this experiment our children are in schools that are not using crt blm gender studies or as we call it basis and sel are not seeing these same deficits i understand that your belief system is your identity and asking you to abandon your beliefs would be catastrophic but i'm not asking you to abandon your beliefs rather be willing to work together to achieve our common goals when we unify our principles under the desired outcomes rather
028than fighting over our differing trajectories we can accomplish what we all believe is best for our children there's an old fable you might have heard it about um two peasants named ivan and boris both are poor however boris has a goat and ivan does not one day ivan came across a genie who was willing to grant him one wish i haven't wished for boris's goat to die by trying to accomplish equity for equal outcomes versus equality which is equal opportunity and improving or removing things such as sports on field day because not everyone is athletic actually harms many kids removing the use of punishment and replacing it with restorative practice creates more bad behavior by removing accountability removing levels creates an unfairness to the children who work hard and are deserving of the greater results
029they produced for themselves instead continue field day is normal but add non-athletic activities allowing kids to decide what they want to participate in childhood competition and athletic activity are more than games they are life lessons that teach problem-solving listening skills leadership teamwork empathy creative thinking critical thinking self-esteem and compassion rather than removing levels create a tutor mentor program that upperclassmen can use as community service and add to their college applications because some kids choose not to apply themselves for greatness should not result in punishing those who do not our children should also have bathroom stalls and properly working bathrooms despite bad behavior that results in them being destroyed in life we make our own success without crippling the success of others please don't kill our children's goats our next speaker is marianne butera marianne butera
030okay our last speaker is helene conroy smith good evening sorry i was a little late i was enjoying my child um i just want to talk about sunshine law and under title 65 section 2 accountability in chapter 7 open meetings 705 the recording of votes i just want to talk about all meetings and agencies the vote of each member who actually votes on any resolution rule order regulation ordinance or the setting of official policy must be cast and publicly voted on and i'm seeing that done which i appreciate but i am concerned about 706 the minutes of meetings public records and recording of meetings written meetings minutes shall be kept of all open meetings of the agencies which haverford school districts the agencies and the minutes need to include specific information date time place the
031names of members present the substance of all official actions and records and individual members of a roll call vote and then lastly the names of all citizens who appeared officially and the subject of their testimony so i'm not necessarily seeing that on the meet in the meetings that are occurring in your committee which they're still open meetings so when we have an open meeting and you're having committee meetings there is some deliberation occurring and deliberation under the law says the discussion of agency business held for making the purpose of making a decision although you're not making your final decision you are making decisions on what to bring to the board meeting the next time and a meaning is any pre-arranged gathering of an agency which is attended or participated in by a quorum of the
032members of an agency held for the purpose of deliberating agency business or taking official action so i'm just asking where are the minutes of the committee meetings since now the committee meetings have been occurring since august of 2021 the other thing i'd like to address is 710 public participation rule so everyone's able under the political subdivision or the authority created by the political subdivision shall provide a reasonable opportunity at each advertised regular meeting and advertise special meeting for residents of the political subdivision or authority to be able to have discussion my concern is that sometimes here at this meeting there's things that occur that people aren't able to then come up and and and have discussion or make comments so we've kind of limited who can come and speak um and the equity would occur
033is if like before people could just come up sign a book sign their name put their address and then speak that would be equitable also the office of open records when i spoke with them they said that they recommend that you answer some of the questions to the public even though you're not required to do so it's good practice and are we moving towards good practice and transparency in the haverford school district it's part of our mission statement and also it helps your constituents who are taxpayers of this political subdivision and it answers some of their questions so please start answering our questions thank you our next agenda item is board reports so why don't we start at that end of the table kim i had the great opportunity um on tuesday to be part
034of the opening day um and i just want to say thank you to all the staff and the students who came out to make the morning really possible with such a sense of celebration um and although dr rushi and bridget did a great job i had to say the star of the morning was mike mullen with his guitar in scene and i your joyous energy was palpable i think in the room and i really appreciated the some of the rewording that you you made um when it was in one of the songs the rewarding was i'll be the safe place that will harbor you and that just really struck me um i think it's important to be clear that the dignity and belonging training that was one of the things that was part of that
035morning was asked for by administrators and teachers who had previously been to a workshop by the facilitators and really was a message of belonging is the goal and dignity is the action and i just think it was a really great way of starting the year to set that tone um and i just want to say in general diversity equity and inclusion are part of our mission statement that we read and it's not something you can just check a box on it's something that agencies and schools with this in their mission must be deliberate and intentional and i just want to say thank you again to the administration for prioritizing dignity and belonging with this training and it is important that as we go into the future that diversity equity and inclusion continue to be prioritized
036um with future trainings and workshops thanks kim kristen yeah i just wanted to um wish everyone a wonderful school year um we are thrilled to have our daughter joining the chestnut weld community she's going to first grade we had the opportunity to visit the school yesterday um she got to you know tour the classrooms brought her toddler with us as well i think he's ready for kindergarten um so just thank you to the peto thank you to uh mr dental's back and chestnut wall for all the work they put into and the teachers as well the classrooms look amazing and we're just very excited for tuesday to come so we're excited for this school year and we wish you all a wonderful year as well thanks daniel um i also had the opportunity today to
037go to linwood for their sneak peek and it was very exciting to see all the kids all the teachers i mean the building's still new and gorgeous so it's um just as good as i remember it back in june but it was nice to see all the classrooms and the happy happy faces and i think we're excited for the next school year that's it great thanks antoinette thanks yeah i just want to say to everyone enjoy the last weekend of summer um have you know some free time not thinking about school and then come tuesday i have kids who are very excited to join their new school communities so i'm i know everyone else does too and you know couldn't happen without the great staff and administration that just works all summer long to prepare
038for the the first day and beyond so just a heartfelt thank you to everyone um thanks to all of our bus drivers learning the roots and you know being prepared for transporting a lot of kids um you know it's it's it's really an honor to be part of this community and uh you know we look forward to another great year thanks antoinette dr king so um i will continue with the sentiment related to returning to school i also have a fourth grader coming back to chess level he's pretty excited about that he's checked his school supply list several times he was thrilled when he got his teacher assignment and he wants to make sure that he's all prepared and ready to go i'm hopeful that our teachers have had a restful summer and excited to
039return back to have another amazing year thank you dr crispin i'm gonna break the trend and give you an update from the delaware county community college um but before i do that i will say uh yeah my um incoming first grader to lynnwood very excited very excited so um it's gonna be a good year and hopefully with a lot of normalcy um that's i think what everyone is hoping for and wishing for and looking forward to so the delaware county community college two updates one of them is for the community one of them is for my colleagues on the board for members of the community there is a trustee vacancy a member of the board of trustees of delaware county community college their term is up and they are not running or not seeking to
040be to continue with their terms so the delaware county community college is seeking a candidate for this vacancy on the board of trustees um there's a long list um and maybe this is something we could put on the website or something is that it's a long list i don't know that reading it is a great choice um but basically um they're they're looking for people that are enthusiastic about community colleges that are willing to commit time to attend all of the various meetings and special events um who can work well with the group and um who would be an ambassador for the college within their community you can be a member of any of the sponsoring school districts which includes ours current school board members officers solicitors are not eligible to apply but members of
041the community can so if we can post this um there's an email address and a phone number for anybody who wants more information um i do believe a resident of haverford township recently yeah was recently um chosen for a position so it would be kind of exciting if we had another one um but uh if anybody is interested i'll put this out there for everyone um the other update i had um i do believe that everybody um all the members of the board should have received an email from the community college and if not i can figure out a way to get that to you it's just a um let me find out real quick it's a strategic planning survey since we are a sponsoring district they're interested in hearing from board members from sponsoring
042districts just about um you know your thoughts about their mission and about their upcoming planning so um if you can fill that out i know that they would greatly appreciate your feedback so those are my two updates for you um did you all receive that by chance did anyone else sound familiar okay um so i'll get it to dr arushi and then she can send it out to all of you so great thanks great thanks everybody um the the board met in executive session prior to the meeting with council to discuss construction-related litigation our next regular public board meeting is scheduled to be held on september 15 at 7 30 p.m in the boardroom of the oakmont administration building and with that i'll accept a motion to adjourn thank you good night everybody