001good evening it's my pleasure to call the thursday august 4th 2022 regular board meeting of the school district of haverford township to order we'll begin with 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 and now will ms martha q our board secretary caller dr crispin here dr king here dr larson here dr mckay here mr schwartz here ms snodgrass is vitaly here mr feinberg here ms wiedemann here and uh miss negras is away on vacation and i realize i forgot our mission and goal so we'll return to that thank you the mission of the school district of haverford township is to educate and and to inspire a community
002of 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 and community members whole child development is vital to our educational system supports and conditions exists whereby all students have opportunities to grow and excel in the areas of academic technical and career and social emotional learning our decision-making process is student-centered and student voice is valued the 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 to 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 establish a culturally diverse and
003inclusive educational experience that develops socio-cultural proficiency thank you next item is the minutes i will accept a motion to approve the official minutes from the july 14th 2022 regular public board meeting feinberg moved larsen ii moved in second did any discussion all in favor aye aye aye any opposed minutes are approved um we still don't yet have student reports we'll look forward to having those when the school year resumes um and then tonight you may have noticed that we have our assistant superintendent jenn saxa here to give the superintendent report thank you so much ms wiedemann uh it's my pleasure to be here this evening i have two items in the superintendent's report and for the first i'd like to welcome to the podium mr arthur shuba if you'd like to head on up i'm
004going to introduce mr shuba uh also known as art shuba is a 1968 haverford graduate and a member of the 1968 central league championship baseball team he went on to have an outstanding teaching and coaching career in kentucky he uh has taken it upon himself to research and document the achievements of haverford athletics starting from 1914. he is presently serving as a committee member of the haverford high sports hall of fame as their historian which we i i'm sure believe is the appropriate spot for him uh as mr shuba described in an earlier communication that he sent to us the last time he was here he presented dr rushi with a three-volume set of his research project it's called a century of haverford high school athletics uh since then it has grown to a five
005volume set for 1 318 pages full of color pictures athletic stories both team and individuals statistics team stories and educational backgrounds of athletes each year he updates the volumes and new copies are distributed to the superintendent's office the principal's office the haverford high school athletic director's office as well as the haverford township historical society i believe he also gives portions of those books to our graduating seniors as they go along as well so we are very happy this evening to welcome mr shuba again to the board meeting and look forward to hearing a brief presentation of this very prolific work well thank you um first of all uh there's been a shoe in this school since 1937 or a descendant and the last one graduated in 2015. oh i got the microphone over here i
006didn't put that in front of me sorry anyway uh the same year that last one graduated uh my father also passed away that was the last of the family members and mrs patterson approached me about a scholarship and i felt kind of obligated to do something like that so after lengthy discussion i agreed to do two scholarships one for the male one for the female athletes okay and uh as long as i had money uh i'm not gonna take out my back pocket but financial resources like officiating track meets substitute teaching that kind of thing okay so now the first part of this little presentation i want to try to move quickly uh the uh part i want up there chris is the no not that when the oakmont there we go a little history
007here a couple things i bring up here i want you to imagine you're across the street looking at the oakmont building the front where you go into the main area plus four windows to the left that's the original oakmont building in 1914. actually 1911 the first graduating class out of building was 1914. jimmy dikes a philadelphia player graduated in that class then they added four window the four windows to the right so now you've got some people like what the brookline school looked like and then in 1931 you have the wings i call this the auditorium wing and the wing way up there is the cafeteria wing when i was here okay um and at that time somewhere up until 1929 now don't be embarrassed if you don't know this i didn't even know until
008i get in this haverford was not known as the fords they were known as the warriors and it was inappropriate to call the girls warriors they were called the the lassies or the red and gold gals of haverford or harford's girls teams gene shirley was an athlete who was in the olympics in 1928 her junior year and then graduated in uh third in uh but anyway uh the in throughout the newspaper articles and in the um your books they were inadvertently uh interchangeably using fords and warriors even in the same paragraph so eventually it came out they were going to be called the fort now there is a letter sweater up there as you can see we have this on display in the high school there is a h at the bottom of the h
009on one side is a w and the other side is a c that stands for warriors club when i was going to school was called the letterman's club i don't know if they have anything like that today but back then that's the proof that there was a warriors club in all city articles with it also be on the hall of fame and on the hall of fame committee i came back and looked around and 85 the asbestos contamination 95 there was a flood and 2000 uh the renovation for the new part of the school a lot of things were thrown away destroyed whatever and i went on a little spree with mrs patterson we went through the school she wanted a favor done i got rid of all the old trophies that she had stored
010down the second down the basement and we found the gene charlie uh girls mvp basketball trophy and right away that little spark into her and i said well i want to update and and uh refurbish um bring back to life the heritage of these trophies because mvp stands for something most valuable player when i got done the football one is i put it in the front office the first thing pete donaghy did when he came in there and turned it around look for his son's name the second thing was greg comes in there he was at time of teacher no cross coach he sees his name on there other teachers welcome by i know this person this is a spectator or a fan or a parent's highlight the cedar sun all these things we put
011them in there i got them all finished found all the recipients put them on there it didn't cost a whole lot of money and again track officiating substitute teaching i was giving back it was a win-win i was getting officiate i was giving back the money at haverford i wasn't pocketing anything i was doing something for haverford there and according they also did this book it started as a two volume set if you ever see the back end of a book of these books with nothing on them that's the two volume set and the three volume set had a red backing with black lettering so you can't go get into one and get third it is everything in the two but spread out because of all the additions to each one of the chapters the
012four volume set was a yellow background with a red lettering and now we have this is some teachers called haverford's rendition of war and peace some people call it a labor of love i call it a work of art but anyway i've already got the sixth the sixth volume uh highlight i've already got worked out because what happens this this four volume set is only a uh a two-year thing i thought it was going to last for more than that but over 200 pages were added to it and i i couldn't fit them all into just four volumes so i had to go into another volume and could chris go to the uh yellow page here is the table of contents the very top part before it gets those five little columns that's in every
013book that's the history of haverford the facilities education certain things that stand out everything even has the olympics in there then the bottom part is the hall of fame and the uh appendix for the athletes and the um [Music] teams the five things you see in the middle there volume one says football and baseball volume two is basketball cheerleaders and wrestling i believe i can't read that far away but each volume has specific sports in it eventually what's going to happen to give you an idea i looked at future the baseball have to come out of volume one football be all volume 1. track and field cross country is going to be all of volume 4 and lacrosse field hockey will be all volume 3. maybe that's there are some sample pages i give you
014on your packet of what some of the pages look like the color and some of the stories i did different things just to give you an idea uh emma taylor's in there steve jowackum i forget some of the other things but i get put some of those in here uh this was a win-win situation for me doing something for haveford they were allowed me to officiate their track meets and substitute teaching i'm getting two old subs to teach i'm 73 and me and education what it was when i grew up you know you think about the front of the middle school there's three steps to go up to that middle corridor i got a week's detention for running up three steps and i wasn't running fast i was just going faster than a walk but
015that discipline's changed a lot since then so i'm i'm too old school with the discipline but the hardest part of this book is the statistics and that's why i'm going to dwell a little bit on tonight that i don't get all the help from the coaches i i deserve to do this because 75 years from now we're probably all going to be dead and gone but who's going to carry over making sure those statistics are still intact that that's what's important here those statistics belong to the children the children are the forwards all right they don't belong to the coach the coach just gets the win loss record and the accolades of just enjoying all that but some of the coaches take those score books with them and they don't ever turn into statistics next
016you know we have some things missing i worked with a coach on one specific athlete and he said i can't find that scorebook i've lost it if it turned into the school at the end of the season it would have been there okay and uh one year as a coach told me we didn't keep a scorebook why not now see these athletes have hall of fame credentials statistics records uh when i started doing this the track and field was only a half of a page the track and field statistics are now five pages long leaderboards you know top 10 things like that and and when you don't give in some of the statistics we have a problem with some of the kids don't see that when i talk about pete donaghy seeing his child in
017the back of that trophy because that's where his son's name was jack well uh these children need to see their name they look this is how good this year in track and field we had people breaking records that stood for 50 some years against atheists that were all-time greats that you would never think would those those records would be broken but they were broken and on top of it some moved up into the leaderboards over tenths of a second or 100th of a second from being number one and some were still coming back next year some of these records i some of these statistics that i can find online like for example swimming golf track and field cross country because they have a certain way of posting but basketball and baseball and things like that
018some coaches don't even give them to me i'm i'm lucky something has to be done where i can continue doing this and and keeping the book going this no other school has something like this i wouldn't if upper darby approached me it would offer me a 500 grand i'd say no some of you think i'm stupid for that but i i don't love that school one bit you can tell i said so but but this is this is what i love haverford i did this for hereford it you know someone said it's a labor of love i kind of agree but i love harifa and that's why i do it and i'm giving something back to her i'm an educator i'm a coach i worked full time around the clock for the children and did
019everything good i'm from the 49th worst paying state for teacher salaries kentucky mississippi is the worst texas is not far behind up here i say up here because i'm so used to being kentucky you're two times more than the sorry i was getting in kentucky and they're poor i'm having to help those children all the time okay and that's what other coaches do you would never consider doing that up here your retirement for teachers up here is by far two times the amount well my retirement is from kentucky so whatever little i can do and i i'm used to giving back so me officiating track meets which i appreciate i was able to fund the scholarship uh the substitute teaching this book uh the rewards from staples i get this book the trophies uh refurbish
020i think that was when we cleaned out their trophy cases last thanksgiving the athletic called me over and uh we cleaned them out and we kept in there only the quality trophies that were supposed to be kept there and we found a place for all those mvp trophies wrestling belonged in the wrestling trophy case baseball belonged to baseball football belonged to the baseball and you could see the names and the children come by there they can see their names if they want an award it goes to the banquet when trey blair received the mvp he gets a picture with it he takes it home he's got the picture the trophy stays in the school and his name's on there the last thing i want to read this is a fun thing it's called did you
021know all right since 1914 284 conference championship teams 151 conference runner-up teams 75 those teams were undefeated 61 teams were district championship team 13 were district runner-up teams 21 were district final four teams that's always a big thing for uh 17 delco championship teams seven runner-up delco teams five delco final four teams 23 pi double a state championship teams 14 pia state runner-up teams 142 individual conference champions 24 individual conference runner-up athletes 32 individual conference champions 88 individual district champions six individual district runner-up athletes 12 individual district final four finishers 44 individual delco champions 12 individual delco runner-up athletes four individual delco final four finishers 56 individual piaa state champions 36 individual pi double-a state runner-up athletes 48 high school all-american athletes eight olympic athletes former haverford athletes have played on an ncaa olympic or
022professional championship team two former athletes have coached an ncaa for olympic or professional team seven former haverford athletes were individual ncaa olympic or professional champions i kind of like doing things it tells you great coaching one other thing if for everybody in here things you have it bad or something's not quite right i'm going to tell you right now this school is to me one of the best i'm not saying it's the best because i don't know what the best is but i've been to san diego been to florida been to alabama been northern in new york ohio kentucky tennessee and there's no school in the ones i've seen that compare to this school system so you've got it made and they under the board of education over the years have done everything they can
023to keep things up to date and improving the facilities compared to uh what it was a long time ago there's plenty of history whoops in this book does anyone help you hold this and get these pictures this is kind of neat little thing here nobody wants to yeah as you prepare for pictures mr schubert i just want to uh thank you for uh that comprehensive overview of of the work um i think it's safe to say that you are the mvp of our athletics history here uh we are pleased oh there you can't have a mad order there we go right that's great here we go know one thing the one thing i i found you know somewhat fascinating by just reading through this quickly um i always wondered and i never figured it out
024why the mascot the car had a hat on why why the the the mascot was wearing a hat the car had the hat on him i didn't ever oh yeah well it's in here but go ahead a friend in uh and and uh when the change to the forge he asked his friend in highway to give us a comical looking forward which is what it is today and the students recommended putting the sailor's hat on the top corner of the fort in honor of the uh military veterans in world war ii 1939 right is when it was done yeah that's that's i find that fascinating i always think it's going to change once in a while because that that's old time but i want you to see this somebody sent me a birthday card one
025time and i was impressed with this colorful fort why can't we change things back to mascot the war today is world war ii is over we still have war this is good i think this is better it takes away from some of that but it's something to think about it's not my recommendation you have to come from administrative and board of education athletic people that that's something i thought put that in there because i needed another thing for a page any other questions not a question but um did want to just appreciate all the you know the research and work back in my high school days i was a yearbook editor so i like value and know how much effort goes into laying out all those pages and putting it together but i was gonna
026make a suggestion i know we've heard this year about a new group that started at the high school for the um sports media and the kids who are broadcasting the games and doing the journalism i think we have one of them right back here um they are going to the games and keeping the stats and reporting on them they may be a good resource to help you with your projects so just wanted to make that connection um and maybe get some students involved in your big project yes the season ending stick to statistics from the coaches i i need those because and some coaches are great other coaches it's like they don't care and not say don't care they just don't bother it's not part of their job i guess that's what they think i'm
027not sure but something has to change where i continue to get this and keep it updated because you start talk what happens i faced a couple lawsuits in this book one person said well i belong i said not according to what i have you need to prove it to me give me an article and they they started arguing back and forth about uh i won this race and i had the fastest time and i'm thinking well the coaches said it was too windy uh me being a track official i said did you have a win gage they said no well then that person shot the record i had to come up with a solution to that problem to make sure there was no lawsuits on me and and the other one has to do with
028scoring in basketball a thousand points that was an argument and a half i'm not going to go into that but all kinds of things you run into doing this i'm the perfect person for doing this because i can read it right down the line and say here's the perfect solution i appreciate being here and i hope i didn't take too much time but i'm sorry if i did thank you so much maybe you'll have seven volumes the next time i don't know we'll look forward to that well uh mrs battistelli now has the honor of following such a presentation she is here this evening to give an overview of the health and safety plan that is required for 2022-23 school year evening miss saxon ms wiedemann members of the board community members and colleagues this
029evening i'm going to present the draft of the 2223 health and safety plan we are required along with every other school district in the state of pennsylvania to have a health and safety plan for the 22-23 school year every district in pennsylvania has received essar funding and therefore every district in pennsylvania is completing the health and safety plan before i get started i just wanted to say that i'm keeping with tradition of presenting a health and safety plan on a thursday at a school board meeting this morning chop released updated guidance this afternoon the pennsylvania department of education told us that next week we will get updated guidance um so with that being said i'm going to present the plan as is and if anything happens between now and 10 o'clock at night tonight i'm
030sure somebody else will change guidance but uh we're just going to go right into it and i do have the oh the clicker sorry that's on me there's not a chance they already clicked too fast okay so um the first and this is not this is all um i'm just going to skip because this is all the language provided by the state this is not our stuff okay there we go the first section here outlines our plan for in person learning for the school year of course students to opt to participate in haverford online will participate in that virtual program that has been a program in place long before covent and will continue to be a program in fact i can make that note on the document for the next meeting if you would like
031that we plan to be all in person those who choose haverford online can remain online all students this year will have in-person instruction if a student is not able to participate in in-person instruction temporarily due to covet isolation teachers will work with families to set up appropriate instruction for students based on the need of the students the developmental level the students and agreed upon work between the parents the students and the teachers this could be using canvas to have our course materials available while students are home students could listen in to a classroom instruction or simply the student might just not be able to attend school and not be able to do school work because they were sick and that's happens and they're allowed to be sick and our teachers are there to support them
032when they return to school after being out for an extended period of time during um due to i also wanted to note there is a typo in this section and i will correct that there is a spelling error i will correct that in the version that comes before the board next week you've also noticed that we've added the delaware county health department to the list of health agencies we've recently received draft guidance from our local health department and there's an upcoming meeting for uh in delaware county to discuss this guidance once it's published we'll utilize that guidance in our schools as well you might ask who is the health authority that we answer to i'm assuming i will get that answer when we have a meeting with the health department in the next two weeks
033but also i would make an educated guess that because we now have a local health department that we would answer to our local health department the reason we abided by the pde and pa department of health guidance was we did not have a local health department so other districts that had a local health department they were told to you know refer to the local health authority we did not have that option so we had to contact the pa department of health okay this is the bulk of the plan that we've been going over um as it's been updated so section three is divided into multiple sections and i'm going to go through those sections the first section is masking there's currently no mask mandate so we will continue to support students who choose to wear
034masks and will continue to supply mass in our buildings but there is no mass mandate in our buildings and there's no mandate from any health authority at this time we obviously will implement any mandate that comes from a health authority the next section refers to physical distancing unless mandated physical distancing will not be in place for the 22-23 school year if you would like we can add the caveat of unless mandated uh to the section prior to the vote this week just so that it's very clear that we don't plan to have physical um distancing but if it's mandated we would have to we're gonna move on to hand washing and obviously we're going to continue to encourage everyone to wash their hands as that's always a good practice and then the next section outlines
035cleaning procedures we continue to utilize epa approved cleaning supplies we additionally clean an area we are notified of a positive cova case being present in that area but realistically we are always cleaning with these epa approved cleaning supplies we may consider leaving the just the first sentence in this section because i do think it covers us because we're always cleaning all areas of our buildings the next section is labeled contact tracing isolation and quarantine the district will contact trace when mandated by a health authority in addition we'll provide a list of close contacts the health authority if we are mandated at towards the end of the school year i can't remember at what time it changed but we were no longer to report close contacts to the health department we continue to ask anyone that
036has positive cooperating they stay home and they contact the appropriate district personnel as soon as possible this allows us to set up plans for those who will be out for an extended period of time so we do want that information as soon as we can have it so that we can get a sub in place if in the case of a staff member a change we might want to consider to the language here is that it right now reflects that parents should report to the school principal but realistically we're reporting to the school nurse so um if you would like i can make that change prior to the next board meeting and our nurses will continue to provide families with information regarding the most recent recommendations for quarantine and isolation i did not include what
037is the current isolation and quarantine criteria on the cdc website because as i said as we get started that is subject to change so i'd just rather reference that we will always communicate the most recent recommendations so families are aware and that's what our nurses have been doing and the district's going to discontinue the use of the district dashboard on our website and this is consistent with the direction we believe other districts are going with in the county the next section refers to diagnostic and screening testing and many of you are aware that we were fortunate enough to have access to 19 test through chops project acen we continue to have a good supply of covid19 test through that program so as long as we are continuing to receive that supply we will continue to
038offer that testing of symptomatic staff and students obviously with consent if they become symptomatic in our buildings the next section labeled efforts to provide vaccinations to school communities remains the same as in last year we did have vaccine clinics when the vaccine wasn't easily accessible and we continue to have the vaccine.gov information on our website obviously now it's very accessible to make an appointment at your local pharmacy the next few sections there's not change in language we're going to continue to provide accommodations for students who need them and we're continue to work with our local and state health authorities i realize that is not at all easy to read if anyone has questions i'm happy to take them so just to be clear if a student has covet they wouldn't automatically there used to be
039a policy in the past zoom in to live instruction that would have to be that could happen but that's not yeah it's not always developmentally appropriate for children to do that it's also um at the high school i'm just thinking of the high school right now too is that they have canvas so a lot of the stuff's easily accessible to them they wouldn't have to zoom in and also we just want to consider that if you're home with covid you might not want to to do that and would the same recommendations go for just someone who is quarantining because they were close contact not available department of health today they have a new website and it talked about weekly reporting of covid numbers to the state i was just curious like was that a continuation
040of what happened last year and you mentioned about not having the dashboard like if if that number is being collected and reported to the state might we want to have it be available so that number is reported to the state by the nurse in each building it is reported based on information you know we we have access to so it's if somebody reports to us that they have coven 19 it was put on pause by the health department towards the end of the school year but they did just issue that they're going to ask us to do that again i don't know that that having it on the website really um it's just not the direction that most districts are going in um because i think it's just that it's kind of prevalent and when
041it's prevalent in the community it's prevalent every you know it's just a more common um i mean we're a few years into it so that's now you know more common to deal with which is again why i think the cleaning we're always doing that cleaning so we don't know if someone had covered the day before and so we're always cleaning anyhow um yes yeah i think um one of the takeaways from this plan for this year is that um we are moving like you said most of the state most of the districts in the state to a realm in which we're treating this like other infectious communicable diseases and we have protocols and policies that have long been in place for schools to identify cases or if they become aware of cases that fall under
042those rules and regulations that they get reported we get guidance from the department of health um and so covid is now in in that suite of illnesses that the district has always kind of had to deal with in different ways and i think you're right like just the prevalence of it it's it is out and around will still you know all the members of the community have the ability to look to the cdc and the community transmission levels community risk levels for covid and they have guidance there about making decisions that are best for each person's health and socialization and masking and other protocols um but uh yeah for the district it's it's now trying to move it into a more routine kind of illness than the disruptions that it has cost caused in the
043past and our nurses will continue to reach out with the health department when they have questions or anything you know out of the ordinary comes up they've been doing that with other diseases for as long as they've been here so it's now um that's no uh different for them so they're used to doing that um now with the delaware county health department i'm guessing we'll probably be reaching out to them in place of the pa doh as we were last year for the um last year was a little bit confusing i think at times because it was like if you're vaccinated then this is what you do and if you're not vaccinated this is what you do and then it was like if you're vaccinated but not boosted this is it got very confusing is
044there is there any clarification on that like is it just here is what you do now no matter the cdc website has a calculation like okay you answer questions you calculate your isolation that's been what we've shared it's been on our website um it's still you know not the most easy to follow you know it's still the if this then that type of situation i'm not sure we'll see what the delaware county health department puts out if there's anything different about that um but that's still on the cdc website which is what we would share like please review these guidance you know and see where you fit into this uh grid yeah okay yeah i'm just thinking about like communications out to parents and families as the school year is starting like what they might
045need to think about in terms of if you're a close contact versus if you actually are testing positive or if you're symptomatic or yeah and i don't think so it's not exactly this because that's not yeah and i'd be hesitant as a school district to like put our own graphic or something together like that because it is the cdc recommendations that are right on their website and that's what should be followed until we may have you know guidance from the health department then those go on our website and that's what's followed um but that i wouldn't recommend that we create a different document yeah thank you and nicole just to clarify i believe um masking on school buses is no longer mandated that is not mandated yeah well thank you for sharing all this has
046do you know why the state hasn't updated the template though i just find that kind of that's a great question kristen no i do not have the answer for that and just um kind of a public service announcement again um the kind of the responsibility that we all have to be able to keep our kids and staff safely in school is to follow the best practices with monitoring symptoms be aware of close contacts testing and then staying home when you're sick and following the isolation and quarantine protocols um i think it's helpful any chance that we get to reiterate that and and know that that's a common responsibility to care for each other and just to be able to keep our schools safely open any other questions so this comes back to the board uh
047for approval at the august 18th meeting correct yes yes and we may expect to see some changes based on whatever new guidance comes out yes and that's i whatever new guidance comes out we did keep this to adapt to new guidance so that it wouldn't have to be changed every time something changes we're just going to follow the recommendation okay all right thank you anything else from yourself that's all i have thank you okay um the next item on the agenda is public comment for items pertaining tonight's agenda and we had nobody submit to comments so we'll move on to board committee reports there's also not a board committee that met in the last um since the board last board meeting um i'll just note that we now that we're into august the schedule is
048picking up again with our regular committee um cycles and so next thursday is a finance and facility committee meeting we'll look forward to that report at the next board meeting so item six on the agenda is for finance and facilities item a is the bill list i will welcome a motion to approve disbursements from the following funds as listed king moved crisp in second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye any opposed bill list approved item b is for change orders i will accept a motion to accept the recommendation of the project architect kcba and associates inc and owner's representative cb development services inc and authorize the change orders totaling 116 thousand eight hundred forty seven dollars and seventy seven cents as listed i heard a larson moved short second short second any
049discussion i just um did want to know we had reached out to casey or to cb development services who i see in the audience if there's any questions from the board but um these change orders do fit within the contingency and the remaining funds for the project so we are in continue to be in good shape with that but for both of the projects or the three projects that are listed here any other discussion all in favor any opposed change orders are approved in item seven of the agenda under human resources item a is a resignation i'll accept the following resignations as listed okay moved in moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion passes item b is non-acceptance of appointment i will accept a motion to approve the following non-acceptance
050of an appointment these appointments b i have been non-acceptance i have been on acceptance as well uh appointments appointment yeah disappointment see it's not acceptance all right i don't know why mine printed out differently um okay we'll do it then we'll call it b appointments i will accept a motion to approve the following appointments as listed below contingent upon receipt of all necessary clearances including act 168 of 2014. crispin second moved and seconded any discussion i have a comment um it's just exciting to see all of the new hires that are joining our staff and district here it's exciting to get ready for the upcoming school year um and just also encouraging so those gaps are being built to ensure that our students continue to be the best that they can be thank you any
051other comments i had asked i don't know if if you're able to talk about it just where we are in terms of hiring at this point um you know a month or so before school starts and if there are any um key areas i know last year we were doing some public service announcements of slots that we'd like to fill and if there's any we want to promote here sure thank you for the opportunity and dr ramundos you'll give me the eye if i report anything uh not quite correctly um right now we're in we're in very good shape as far as professional staff go we do still have i believe it's maybe five acceptances that we're looking for um we feel like we're in good shape to start the year when it comes to
052the professionals we are equipped with our bus drivers as well as our food service staff however we're always looking for more so if you are interested in food service staff or bus driving opportunities whether or not you are licensed we can help you get your license as a bus driver uh please consider passing that along to a friend if you know somebody who might be interested we would always welcome those applications as well great and thank you for all the work it has taken to attract and to scan and to interview and then to make the recommendations for these hires any other comments all in favor all right any opposed the appointments are approved so now i'll call it c the non-acceptance of appointment um i will accept a motion to approve the following non-acceptance
053of appointment vitaly moved crispin second moved in second in any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion passes so then i'm going to item d is for a leave of absence i will accept a motion to approve the following leave requests schwartz moved feinberg second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion passes item e is to approve negotiated agreement professional i will welcome a motion to approve a three-year contract negotiated between the school district of haverford township and the haverford township education association p s e a slash nea and authorized administration and special labor council to incorporate the terms into a collective bargaining agreement effective september 1st 2022 through august 31st 2025 and authorized proper officers of the board to execute said agreement subject to legal review feinberg moved
054first and second moved and seconded any discussion it's exciting news i know there was a lot of hard work that went into both sides of this to come to the agreement and to negotiate this and as a union member myself it's exciting when that collective bargaining agreement um you know passes the board and then i believe it goes to their membership for a vote or did it go first and then come to us the members did already vote uh this is the fun we're stealing the deal here yeah gotta find it very exciting so i appreciate the team of both from the hta and on the district side who negotiated um i know that is a lot of work and um i the reports to us were that it was done in a real good
055collaborative spirit and was a productive conversation that got us to this point so thanks to everybody who was involved any other comments or discussion i guess one other point that i could make is that the um the salary increase that was approved or is part of this contract was um considered as part of our budget it's something that we can accommodate and um that teachers salaries is approximately 50 of our budget is that about right the salaries by themselves are about 32 percent of the budget okay and then all the all-in staff benefits and it's it's approximately 50 so this is a considerable investment you know our people are the district and um we are in a good financial position to handle this and like i said that the contract was done and um done
056so well is is a testament to all the hard work that went into it and it's good to be at this point any other discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion is approved item f is the administrative position authorization i will welcome a motion to approve a motion authorizing the following administrative position to be included in act 80 act 93 administrators association or hasa the position is a director of safety and security that's where it's moved crisp and second moved and seconded any discussion did we discuss a little bit um you know what this role entails and um why we're looking to bring this this role on sure uh having folks in charge of certain safety and security aspects has been part of our requirements as a school district i believe since 2017 since
057then we have had several responsibilities split up between some assistant principals some folks in pupil services uh various people in facilities etc as the demands grow and the district grows the demands on those folks in all of their work grow as well as the safety and security needs i think you know we are all aware of of the the need to really make sure that our efforts are focused and by having this position we will be able to have someone who can oversee all of those aspects um rather than you know asking folks to continue to do that in addition to increased duties that they have in other areas so we are are eager to fill such a position and are looking forward to having that type of coordination in the district thank you and
058is this a position that the funding for has helped with the additional basic education funding that we received yes uh the basic education funding is something that we can use to cover uh this and it is that's funding that will recur so we don't have to worry about where will we find the money next year uh this is a position that can be funded uh throughout through that basic education funding thank you any other comments or discussion all in favor any opposed the position is approved under uh agenda area eight for people services item a is out of district educational contracts i will accept a motion to approve the following educational contracts for students attending out of district placement for the 2022-23 school year crispin move my case moved in second did any discussion all
059in favor any opposed placements are approved item b is educational service agreements i will accept a motion for this board of school directors to approve the educational services agreements for district students with special needs the agreements cover reimbursement for educational services for the school years as listed larson moved king second moved into battle for a second yep any discussion all in favor aye aye aye any opposed motion passes item c is educational services contract i will accept a motion to approve the following educational service contract for services provided to students with the district crispin move larson second moved and seconded any discussion can we just talk a little bit and i think it's helpful for the public as well um how this is consistent with our district schools is that something that you can sure
060the educational service yes with its with learn well services for hospitalized students sure absolutely um this is actually something that is uh required for us to provide educational services for students who are going to be in hospitals longer term typically it's about six weeks or more what happens is learn well actually finds students who are hospitalized finds their addresses comes to us and says we are going to provide this service to those students for this period of time in this way and um we find it it's you know certainly helping to address students who have really longer term needs and making sure they don't fall too far behind but doing so in a way that's reasonable and works with what their needs are while they are hospitalized so it's definitely a way to meet the
061students essentially where they are to continue with their educational goals absolutely and trying to trying to keep some sort of normal environment for students where they can continue to learn then then we have a service that can help them do that thank you any other discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion passes under area nine curriculum and instruction item a is dignity consulting llc proposal i will accept a motion to approve the professional services proposal with dignity consulting llc to develop a shared commitment to a climate of belonging and a culture of dignity in the district larson moved in second moved and seconded any discussion i actually had a couple things on this i'm looking at the what the in-service entailed i was just wondering did any does anyone ever ask the teachers what
062they would like to be in service done not the administration but the teachers is that yeah we do that annually we do a um it's called a pd needs assessment as well as a feedback survey so teachers provide feedback on the prior year and then they also indicate what their what they believe their needs might be or what they might be interested in for professional development this area of culture belonging all of those things does come up as something that teachers are interested in doing particularly this year as it pertains to mental and emotional well-being for students as well because they they notice that students are still adjusting to being back in the classroom and are looking for ways to support all students as they return to a regular classroom experience i guess i was
063just when i was looking at the numbers it did seem a little high to me and it was explained that the author of the book would be speaking so and i get that when you have a representative on someone's behalf that lowers the cost versus the author but when i was i don't know how long they're speaking it just seemed high and you know i haven't finished the book that you've given me yet so maybe that'll change when i'm done but i guess what i struggle with is you know that we're going to be giving this amount of money for this in-service to talk about equity but we don't have enough books in some of our classrooms and i can speak from this from my personal experience i have amazon paperback books for my middle
064schoolers um because there's not enough copies to go home and that to me that's an equity issue because not everyone you know i was annoyed to do it um but i can do it and i did do it and friends have done it and now that some people can't do that and that or maybe they don't even know about it i mean and paperback books um i mean i've done it because some there's enough copies to go home i've done it for one of my sons because copies of the book were scanned so you had to read them on a chromebook and he said you know it really hurts my eyes to read these photocopies of the novel we're reading because there's not a copy to go home and you know i'm like no i
065don't want you to do that to your eyes i'll amazon it'll be here tomorrow i've had friends who've ordered honors chemistry textbooks there's not enough to go home when one friend's son was struggling so this isn't just you know it's my personal experience and experience of friends and that's what i kind of have a trouble getting past you know spending all this for someone to talk about like what do you want i don't think like we could be doing more with that money to help with actual equity and that's just my um and also i you know i'm glad you i didn't want to know what the teachers were thinking if this is one of their needs and that's important to me um to me do we ever get like a printout of what the
066teachers like you're saying you get it is that something the board could look at sure we couldn't we could report out on that yeah okay that's just my little issue and if i could just um just share we would certainly be eager to know of circumstances where students do not have a copy of the paperback and that's needed uh there are times when we have ordered class sets of things uh based on knowing how many kids are enrolled at a time and maybe they don't all need them at the same time but we certainly would want to know if there is an instance where folks do not have access to a book we can look into getting additional copies and and work through that so certainly i encourage anyone who finds themselves in that and
067i think this is definitely because like i said i've done it numerous times this isn't just this one time i had an amazon it's not a situation like this it is um not at the elementary level to be clear this is more a middle school high school okay and and again i'll just encourage folks if you find yourselves in that situation to reach out to your child's teacher find out if there are additional copies uh what's happening there and and or the child's principle uh and then that will always make it up to us and we can we can take a look at it from there so thank you yeah thanks for making us aware of that if i can just make a comment um you know earlier in the meeting dr crispin and i
068start off with the mission statement and the district goals and we do this every school board meeting and one of the things that our district is passionate about is the sense of belonging for students and what does it really mean to have diversity in our classrooms provide equitable opportunities and have inclusive spaces and as i sit here on this board as the only person of color i can tell you that there is no price tag to put on a sense of belonging and culture and dignity and there's no price tag to what that feels like for the child that may not feel as if they don't belong um and certainly i recognize the need for school supplies and books but if someone is uncomfortable they can't learn and if just one child is uncomfortable and
069they can't learn then we are doing a disservice and so i'm excited for this proposal i'm excited for what it can offer i'm excited that our teachers want this experience i'm excited that our board welcomes it and that we have the resources to be able to move forward and truly live up to the mission and goals that we have set forth so thank you any other comments or discussion thank you all in favor aye aye any opposed aye motion passes item b is a student educational excursion i will welcome a motion to approve the middle school 7th and 8th grade band and strings 7th heaven 6th grade chamber choir 4 debts choir fortissimo choir totaling approximately 275 students to attend hershey park in hershey pennsylvania for performances on may 19 2023 i love that they're
070planning so far ahead short second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor any opposed motion passes the next item of the agenda um where we have a topic is item 12 public comment for items not on tonight's agenda the board values public comment as an essential component of school governance that adds information for the deliberation of the important and complex matters that come before the board it is an opportunity for members of the community to address the board it is not a question and answer period while we conduct our business in open public meetings according to the sunshine act it is not a meeting with the public our public comment is divided into two sections this time is for items of other school related topics not on the agenda residents of the township may
071in advance of the meeting sign up to make public comment by emailing public comment at haverfordsd.net in order to give everyone equal opportunity to speak and per our board policy you will have three minutes to address the board at the three minute point a timer will sound and you will be asked to conclude your remarks please begin your comments by stating your name and confirming your residency in haverford township if you have any materials to distribute to the board please leave them at the end of the table your name and the topic of your comments will be recorded in the meeting minutes we had five people sign up for public comments and the first one is ms elena wisely i don't see that she's in the room the second name is helene conroy smith good
072evening my name is helene conray conray-smith and i do live here in haverford i just want to say on may 27th 2022 i've requested meeting minutes of an ad hoc equity committee i asked for meeting notes and details the school board was asked to pay for an equity audit on march 24 2022 by cameron bush so that's part of the ad hoc committee specific infra detailed information was not publicly provided and i requested emails because they said there was no such meetings and let me behold there were meetings so cameron bush is a teacher she presented a google form to school district employees including jabori whitehead elizabeth master cola rebecca smith from dciu and sarah christensen former s school district employee and now dciu employee so there was a meeting on february 16th at 3
073pm that meeting occurred i'd like to know where are the notes where the financial figures where the google form with that information the small presentation at the public committee meeting did not include details on december 2nd leon smith sarah christensen both for the district and diana minas from university of penns dciu had a meeting where are those notes where is that report where are those financial figures so where are we proposing to have this equity meeting what work is going to be done because we've been doing equity for so long where's the end to that so you're asking us the stakeholders to continually contribute to a large fee that's really not assisting our students in math reading or writing so why do we the public i'm asking need to write to know this information why
074are we paying attorney fees to review what can information can be provided to the taxpayers that information belongs to us as taxpayers any ad hoc committee including committees that are professional employees that create a financial request onto stakeholders using our public funds right to make decisions and then to advise school board members for you all to make a decision to create a new expenditure should be public it is public right to know as the public we should be invited to these meetings we should be seeing with these news ours we should have details that we can go in and to look at it there was an equity group consisted of parents schools theater school district staff and school board members yet where are those where's that information okay public stakeholders have the right to have
075input and this is again you're not giving the public the input when you talk about transparency that's absolutely not true i have some questions i have lots of questions we have a responsive classroom payment for 859 dollars does that come under title two is that the a part where the teacher in principle trainings and recruitments being done because we're already paying for that through dci i'm sorry not through gciu through the gvcee we're already paying for that through them and then we had this other membership so okay is it that or is it part b where we're giving math and science partnership programs to the kids and i really do hope it's math and science because that's where that money should be going and we now are hiring a safety and security director that job
076is fairly new i know that that's been you know in the realm for since 2017 but why hasn't this been discussed publicly why didn't you acknowledge that this was going to happen to the public prior to giving the budget so we're budgeted and asked for all these things and i sent an email today because last year we were 3.1 million dollars in a surplus where would that money come from public has a right to know and we're going to start asking questions thank you the next speaker is gene lutz [Music] hi i'm gene lutz i live at 169 clemson road i have two kids in the district one in sixth grade and one entering eighth grade this september i want to take a minute first just to thank you all the staff and the board
077for your service your dedication your patience and your steadiness this divisive time has been incredibly challenging i know for our educators and for all the people who support our educators everything comes to your door you're expected to protect our children from the pandemic to protect our children from gun violence to protect our children from our nation's history of racial segregation and racial violence we could go on all these things are incredibly important i want to thank you for showing up for making difficult decisions and for listening sometimes i think listening is the absolutely hardest thing to do so now that i've thanked you i'm going to lay another problem at your door i want to ask you to move forward on the solar panels for the linwood elementary school with respect i think it's taking
078you too long to figure out the right path forward despite all the goodwill and hard work in the district i've been disappointed by the lack of urgency in our actions to mitigate climate change i'd love to see us not only create an administrative position for safety and security but to create a director for sustainability for the district that's something to think about for the future but worldwide scientific consensus tells us that human-caused climate change is real and that we have a very short window of time to reduce our carbon emissions and to avoid catastrophic outcomes that will upend life as we know it it's critical that we act as soon as we can yesterday now immediately to reduce our carbon footprint and specifically now i'm talking about the carbon footprint in the district solar panels
079on linwood would be a great step one of the steps that we should be taking i noticed in my meetings that i've been in in last few years that taking bold action against climate change never feels urgent when we are worried about our children's physical safety and mental health but we can't wait until things calm down because the climate isn't calming down we have floods in kentucky wildfires in california unprecedented heatwave in britain the highest temperatures on record for several months in india the fact is climate change itself now is threatening our children's physical safety and mental health climate anxiety is now a recognized disorder and pediatricians and public health experts around the globe are telling us that our children are at risk for health problems because of excessive heat the truly terrible effects almost
080done caused by climate change aren't happening in harford township the worst consequences are being felt outside our district not within it but we are all connected and if we don't do something about this we are educating our children for a future that we are actively making worse thank you for your time we can do better we have to moving forward with the solar panels would be a great step thank you the next speaker is stacey tamashek hi my name is um stacy tamashik i live on arlington road in the district my kids are at chatham park entering second and fifth grade we're very excited um i started paying attention to the board meetings last summer if we all remember it was very angry and loud and it was about basis and i remember looking it
081up and when i researched it i was like this is amazing i am very excited about this and i started getting involved and i'm learning more and having more conversations and then i ended up having creating a organizing with a friend a community group um to promote um diversity equity and inclusion and for our students to have a sense of belonging and i came here today to say thank you for creating that space and to just inform you of how many people are in support in this community even though a lot of the voices are quiet publicly the people who support this um we're incredibly loud in numbers when i started just randomly seeing who was in uh interested in this i mean i was stunned by the stampede of people we were so it
082was incredible um we ended up having um creating a group we have a logo we're called chatham families together look us up we had two events that were incredibly um received in the entire community regardless of what people's political opinions are like this type of work this type of strive for equity and putting people who do might not feel represented in their community putting them on a platform like maybe higher than my kids because they don't have that opportunity and then so we have a lot of things in plan um so we had a culture share event and then we also had um a celebration in the park to celebrate juneteenth lgbtq pride and summer and um it was again an incredible event it was raining and we had over 100 people show up we
083had a table celebrating juneteenth with artifacts from slavery irons that actually slaves used and other things it was wonderful we had paint rockets and what was funny was because there were rumors of concerns because when you hear pride um people get concerned about indoctrination and that's what and we laughed about it because we're like did you see the flyer and the things we did to celebrate pride were we had rainbow rice krispies and i brought props another thing we did was what love means to me and everybody who showed up put what means to them on a post-it and things were like comforting um hugs or my family a flowery gift minecraft honesty kindness acceptance it was just and i brought that and i'll put it on a chair if you guys want to look
084at it but i just wanted to thank you guys for the space to do this and for supporting these types of policies and including fair funding and um good luck with back to school and everybody have a great year so thank you guys thank you elizabeth flynn hi my name is elizabeth flynn i live on eagle road just just down the road from here in havertown excuse me and just have a brief comment um i wanted to thank the board for recent action i think it was at the last meeting on the 14th of july in support of the pa school board association proposal to kind of share resources that address the mental and emotional health of students going forward i just happen to be reading and hearing a great deal about that in the
085past year as i imagined you know many other folks have as well and um there's so much evidence that um kids are you know struggling just in much greater uh excuse me greater numbers than than usual um i've seen you know reports from hospitals emergency rooms everywhere from chop to other hospitals around the country um that they're just kind of being overwhelmed with kids presenting younger than before and with kind of more severe needs and obviously that that does not apply to every student but i think just recognizing that there are issues for for many kids and trying to be a little more preventive in in approach and showing that you know as a community as a district um that their mental and emotional health is important and you know trying to help them be
086healthy resilient strong so they can focus on being students and being kids is really important so as a parent and a community member i'm just grateful to see that commitment so thank you thank you i'll circle back um i don't see that she has joined us but elena wisely not here tonight okay the next item on the agenda is board reports i'll start with mr schwartz i'll just say enjoy the remainder of summer that much of it left but no report uh i will echo that enjoy the rest of summer um and i hope that all of our teachers and staff are getting as much rest as they possibly can i know there's probably never enough but um continue to have a safe and happy summer yeah i feel like the summer's gone insanely fast
087right every person i talk to is like feels faster than normal i need an extra month um have a good rest of the summer no report no report um so last night dciu had their first um their august board meeting which was the first board meeting of the 22 23 school year um so it's good to be back together um you know getting back into the work we did take july off which was you know a nice little break i'm also honored to have been named the chair of the education committee for dciu on their board so i'm looking forward to that work and collaborating with my colleagues there um also a plug i know we have a lot of job openings here but if your specialty is early childhood um if you're a power
088professional um you have a special ed background head start background dciu is hiring there will be a job fair on august 8th from 2 to 5 p.m at the marple education center and some of the positions they are looking for special educators early childhood teachers power professionals head start instructors and head start instructional assistants and um these positions are full-time or the full-time positions are eligible for health insurance peacers retirement benefits pay time off and tuition reimbursement and there's also a hiring bonus of up to 2 500 available um so if you've perused um haverford's listings and nothing appeal to you or fit your um your background please look at dciu thank you thank you um i just wanted to take a moment to clarify some remarks i made at the last school board meeting
089so during my last board report i spoke about the disappointment of numerous elementary school families mine included over the direction that field day had taken and that how given the district's emphasis on social emotional wellness i thought that other families thought that eliminating beloved elementary school traditions that promote connectivity between students and with their schools was misguided so after my remarks there was a lot of misinformation on online and a lot of outright lies i know people have access to grind but i feel really strongly that i just want to clarify a couple things number one i did not then nor would i ever criticize our phenomenal teachers or our incredible ptos and the board is not involved with field day at all so i don't know why some people would have thought that but
090i'm happy to list out every amazing teacher my sons have had at linwood at the middle school i couldn't even pick a favorite because we've been blessed with so many teachers who've gone above and beyond likewise as the former head of the linwood pto i know more than anyone the amount of effort and hours that our pto volunteers put in just for the benefit of our students i frequently speak about all the work they do during my board reports and i even during my last board report commended them for being one of the only really avenues left to provide like fun memorable activities for our elementary school students so to be clear i i was criticizing not the teachers not the ptos but i'm sorry to say our district and our administration and that's not
091to say that i don't think our school district is great i do but there's always room for improvement and there are things that need to be improved it's very similar to loving the house you live in but wanting to remodel the bathroom it's the same concept it's not difficult to understand i just want to be crystal clear field day is not a pto activity it is a district activity pto events do not happen during school days taking away from instructional time that's not to say that pto members don't come into school um during school hours to help with school events or they don't help out at district events a great example is district and elementary art shows pto volunteers hang art for the art department they display artwork it's still a district event same thing
092some schools more than others rely on pto volunteers for field day at linwood we used a lot of high school students who needed volunteer hours we did have some pto volunteers i think at chestnut wild it was always pto volunteers who supported our schools but field day is a district event that the pto support it's not reverse um you know i consider it a privilege um to help families who come to me with questions or concerns or just want to be heard i'm always happy to point them in direct the right direction and when an issue comes to me that affects a large portion of our district population as field day does i'm happy to advocate on their behalf um because that's what i would like to do with my time student welfare and is
093of the utmost importance to me and being able to speak for parents who maybe can't get to the pto meetings or a little intimidated to come and speak at a board meeting about something that they don't think is that they just don't feel comfortable speaking about um to be clear though because this came up a lot and i want i shouldn't say angered me it very much upset me um that people had a problem with this um but if republicans clap for me i don't care if democrats clap for me i don't care if no one claps for me i don't care my job here is for our schools and our students i'm not i'm not about politics if you don't like something that i say please email me i am the most open-minded middle-of-the-road
094person i will listen to what you say um but just baseless attacks to support that's just not appropriate and it shouldn't be tolerated um but i'm always happy to listen to concerns about stuff that i actually said or questions if you need clarification thank you mr feinberg everybody have a great rest of summer i'll report that report yes it's been nice that um as board members we've had a little bit of a reprieve with um lightening the committee schedule and some of the other um liaison roles that we have have taken a break this summer um i live quite in your chestnut walled and see that there's a flurry of activity outside and comings and goings inside so you can tell the calendar has turned and it is august and it it's getting more real
095so yeah just encourage everyone to enjoy the last weeks of summer and get ready for school check those um you know the books that the kids were supposed to read the math packets they're supposed to do i know that's always a labor day scramble at my house um so just a little advice to try to get that done in a less stressful manner but enjoy the rest of the summer and with that i will announce our board met in an information session prior to this meeting to receive information related to the procedure for solar power and the safety and security information and that we met in executive session to discuss confidential student matters confidential student litigation matters and confidential tax assessment appeal litigation the next regular public board meeting is scheduled to be held on
096august 18th 2022 at 7 30 pm in the boardroom here of the oakmont administrative administration building and i will now welcome a motion to adjourn moved good night thank you you