05/19/22 School Board Meeting

001[Music] good evening it's my pleasure to call the thursday may 19 2022 regular board meeting of the school district of haverford township to order we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance i pledge [Music] for which allegiance stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice the mission of the school district of haverford township is to educate and to inspire a community of lifelong learners who become well-rounded global citizens the pillars of our educational system are our school environment is safe and nurturing excellence in education is a shared responsibility in partnership with all district and community members whole child development is vital to our educational system supports and conditions exist whereby all students have opportunities to grow and excel in the areas of academic technical and career and social emotional learning and our decision-making process

002is student-centered and student voice is valued 2020 through 2025 district goals number one social social and emotional wellness to produce a community of empathetic and resilient learners with skills to socially and emotionally flourish number two to prepare contemporary citizens modernize and expand learning experiences to prepare students as critical thinkers problem solvers innovators and designers within a complex global society and number three diversity and inclusion to establish a culturally diverse and inclusive educational experience that develops sociocultural proficiency thank you and now the roll call dr crispin here dr king here dr larson here dr mckay mr schwartz here mrs snodgrass here ms vitale yeah mr feinberg here ms wiedemann here ms um or dr mckay is traveling today the next item on the agenda is the official minutes i will accept a motion to approve the

003official minutes from the may 5th 2022 regular public board meeting crispin move vitaly second moved and seconded any discussion hearing none all in favor aye any opposed the minutes are approved and now we get to our favorite part of the agenda all the student reports dr rushy would you like to start at gilbert oh mrs mcgilfrey right to get started with our linwood students hello good evening school board good evening families and community members i'm jillian mcgilvery i'm the proud principal of lynnwood elementary school and i am thrilled to be here with some wonderful student leaders these are some of our fifth graders who have done some really really great work at linwood over the course of the year they're going to share that with you tonight good evening dr rushi and school board members

004i am molly moore president of linwood student ambassadors the cabinet members and i along with some green team representatives are here today to tell you about what we've been up to at linwood this year in the past two students from each class in fourth and fifth grade were selected to be in the student ambassadors which led to few committees and teachers doing most of the work this year however in fifth grade the fifth grade students were selected to be committee leaders and any fifth or fourth graders were allowed to join any committee they had interest in this created much more of us much more student involvement allowed for a greater number of students to participate in school the purpose of linwood student ambassadors is to help students have more of a say in what happens

005in our school and gives students leadership opportunities our main goals this year to get a gaga ball pit for our recess yard and help with the super bowl of caring fundraiser we have successfully met our goals and we hope to continue to make linwood and habertown a better place now i'll hand it over to the vice president hello my name is emily roach and i am the vice president part of my leadership is to lead the bigs and littles committee bigs and littles is an activity our school does where younger kids will hang out with older kids and do fun activities they will do this for about 30 minutes once a month our committee plans what they'll be doing and they'll make sure everything works out and that they have fun thank you for your

006time and next up is our school treasurer hi my name is emily captainer and i am the i am in the fundraising committee um we helped donate for the super bowl of caring the super bowl of caring is based on a food and food donation by students that and we give to people in need each student got specific food to bring each grade got specific food to bring in if they choose to in the years past it was great against grade to win the super bowl the fundraising committee came up with the idea for slime wars slammers was a fundraiser's fundraiser toward getting a gaga ball pit if each student chose to they would bring in some money to give to the great to that great team of teachers in the end the fifth grade

007teachers and our principal miss mcgillivray won this this won and got slimed with real slime the extra money that we got was got some will be added to the student ambassador budget and will be donating children of ukraine the student ambassador budget is extra money that we keep to use for things like bigs and middles arts and crafts next up is the inclusion coordinator hi i'm allison cannon and i'm the inclusion coordinator things we did this year was we delivered boxes full supplies to kids who were new to the school this year we collected posters of some linwood lions family traditions and we hung up posters all around the school with kindness quotes now i'm passing this off to the historian good evening i'm gene diehl and i'm the leader of the historian committee i

008have 10 people in my group including me in my committee we take pictures of classes in each specific grade for our group we have a max of four people per group um my committee and i we take photos of the kids from kindergarten to fifth grade my committee and i work together and then separate into groups to take the best photos possible we take photos of special events or dates and head to every classroom we take the pictures that we have got and put them in the yearbook now on to public relation my name is graham rizzo and i'm in charge of the public relations committee our committee is on the morning announcements every morning around 8 47 for around one minute we talk about the weather for the day the sports updates that will

009happen that day jokes and more interesting facts we spread the joy and lighten up the day here is the art director hello my name is stone and i'm the art director this is what the art committee has done so far we have made a lonewood pride sign we have encouraging processes around the school and we have photo booth props for literacy night another bonus is that we have safety posters around the school so people know how to be safe next up is uh the green team hi everybody i am elsa jansen i'm carly o'hara we are on the green team on the screen you can see what the green what the green team is and what we've done we held it we had a campus cleanup where all the grades cleaned up our playground and

010fields the green team made posters for the younger grades so they could understand recycling burst trash we had a walk or bike to school day it was so successful that they had to park their bikes on the light post because the bike rack was so full now we're going to hand it off to this safety committee director hi my name is gracie rogan and i am the leader of the safety committee this year we are fourth and fifth grader safety committee members in the hallway in the morning and afternoons to encourage student students to follow expected behaviors i had meetings with staff members to organize safety committee members on the buses we also visited morning meetings to talk about what staff behaviors look like we collaborated with the art committee to create posters for the

011hallway encouraging safe behaviors finally we collaborated with the pr committee to have safety reminders on the morning announcements now i will pass it on to the recess director hi my name is delaney keenan and i'm the leader of the recess committee this year our committee made videos demonstrating how to use the new recess equipment safely we also worked with the fundraising committee to raise enough money to have a goggleball pet at school finally our fifth graders participated in a basketball game against the linwood staff we what we learned about our leadership from this experience is that anyone can be your leader as long as they are determined and willing to put in the hard work and effort what we learned about working in a group is that you don't have to do everything yourself a

012good team works together well and makes the job fun in the future we hope to be leaders in our jobs such as doctors presidents sports players coaches teachers actors and much more thank you as you can see we have a very very strong group of leaders here mr horan they are ready for you ready for the middle school they're going to continue to do great things we've had so much fun together at linwood with the different activities and special events they've planned and they're just a wonderful wonderful group of students so thank you for having us here tonight to share i i'd just like to say that it sounds like your committees are a lot more fun than our poetry and maybe somebody maybe you could talk to me about the green slime thing because

013i think there's a lot of slime if you were somebody who poured slime on a teacher's or a principal's head raise your hand it was a great day at linwood that's a lot of slime i know i just want to say as someone who has a second grader at linwood i think it's amazing all the fun stuff that you guys have put together for the students my second grader loves it and graham when you're saying the announcements you share interesting information all your sports information that you share my little guy comes home and sometimes he'll be like when is that sixers game on tonight and before we even ask alexa he'll be like oh yeah the morning announcements they told me it's 6 45. he knows he loves it so you guys are doing an

014awesome job thank you fun question i so i don't know what gaga ball is or gekko ball pit is and i it's a big deal i understand i and i don't just try and figure it out but is lumpy now the first school that has said gaga ball pits we're going to say yes we think yes these students have worked so hard and all kindergarten through fifth graders have worked for it and they had some setbacks just like when ordering anything right now it was a little delayed they had to change courses they had to gather together and select a different model and the one that they chose but they were very determined to have it installed while they were still fifth graders so that they could play with that so it happened a couple

015weeks ago it's been great all right well done thank you and then you might want to stick around for just a couple things we'll have the middle school and the high school report after we recognize our student representatives for the board um but then after that i will be sure to make sure you will all be invited to exit if you want to not stick around for the rest of the business portion right before all those committee reports that some of us are bored by okay great thanks mrs wiedemann well it's that time of the year again where we are recognizing our students who have dedicated so much of their time all throughout the school year for the purpose of keeping the board informed of the many different happenings that are occurring all throughout the

016schools that they attend and they cover not just what they themselves are interested and participate in but they find out a lot of other things that are happening in in the schools as i said share that that information with us tonight each evening so tonight we want to recognize their dedication and express our appreciation for the time that they have have spent here with us and they've been able to do this amidst all of the other activities that they are involved in our first student that we're going to recognize from the middle school ian slavich and ian not only is he a board reporter but as an eighth grade student he's very involved with the unified sports basketball and handball he's an active boy scout we saw him very interested attend most of the day

017of the bus rodeo down at our transportation transportation garage and i know that the drivers appreciated having you there cheering them on so ian on behalf of the the board i would like to say thank you for the time that you've spent and the reporting that you have delivered so nicely anytime all right wiedemann mr feinberg you want to stop and we'll start to get a picture great okay isabella casaito also attends our board meetings keeping us informed amidst all of her activities as an eighth grade student uh she is part of the heritage appreciation club she's a member of the cheerleading squad the lacrosse team and we again appreciate all of the time that isabella spends out here with us there you go i can't really say i'm not real tall myself you are

018very welcome thank you [Applause] seventh grade student liam pinder in addition to being a board representative is a member of the soccer team the wrestling team um he clearly enjoys chess he's part of the chess club and vice president of the best buddies club at the middle school so liam thank you for fitting us in among all of the activities [Applause] bianca salerno is a sixth grade student uh who has fit us in among her activities of being peer assistance group a member of the chorus member of chamber choir she's an actor an acting a dancer she plays the piano and we've often said we could learn a little bit of public speaking when she's when she starts uh so thank you for again fitting us in among your busy schedule [Applause] and these are

019the individuals the young people who have served in the capacity of school board representative for the 22 20 21 school year [Applause] okay thank you [Applause] we also have two students from our high school who regularly attend uh our board meetings and again keep us up to date on all of the happenings at the high school which we can see hear from them every time they report is an extremely busy place to report upon so in addition to reporting on activities that they themselves may be involved in they are also actively finding out what else again is taking place throughout the school they've got many activities that they are involved in themselves as recent as yesterday i saw mia at the delaware county intermediate unit for a student forum participating in in that as well

020so there's a lot that our students are involved in and continue to be involved in we're hopeful that we will have so our high school students um back with us in some capacity but for now we want to thank emilia gonzalez for joining us and and reporting is amelia here [Applause] and mia dywall [Applause] so [Applause] and now we will hear from those student reporters and we will start with our middle school student reporter tonight bianca solano good evening everybody my name is bianca salerno and i'm so happy to be here tonight i'm on what some might call an adrenaline rush and some might call flat out craziness because i just sprinted here from the 6th grade spring concert where i was so grateful to have a solo in the concert ended at 7 29

021and this started at 7 30 so you can imagine my dilemma time to shake off those jitters and get right into this everyone in chorus is so talented and we're so lucky for our incredible mrs langley and the whole musical staff it wouldn't be the end of the year at hms without potter cup i can still hear the cheers of hms students for our teams and the screaming of our favorite songs at the dj booth two really is better than one when hms united with paxton hollow middle school to raise money for alex's lemonade stand even though it's completely entirely 100 about the fun of it hms did win this year one of the many things i love about our school is the opportunity for everyone to make a difference and be a part of

022something that's why the peer assistance group pag was recognized by the delaware county intermediate unit for the making a difference award pag has always been so special to me and i have so much fun interacting with all my friends and learning about each other it seems as if just yesterday i was at this meeting telling all of you about how we can't wait for camp canadensis coming up in the future but now it's really here 6th 7th and 8th grades will be riding up to camp canadensis on separate days the 6th grade trip is in 11 days and 11 hours but who's counting definitely not me the season of giving is truly all year round because we are collecting new and gently used middle school-sized clothing for cradles to crowns during the week of may

02323rd with a saturday may 28 drop-off time as well and we can't forget about the district art show that is scheduled for may 24th to 26th and will be held at haverford middle school in gym d all the paint stained clothing of students will finally pay off when you see all the hard work grades k-12 put in their art it is a great pride and honor that our seventh heaven choir ensemble will be performing the national anthem at the phillies game on tuesday may 31st as a person who aspires to be in seventh heaven next year i'm so proud of this accomplishment and we can't wait to see them shine as the school year takes its final stretch a lot will be happening to ensure maximum learning and fun are locked into our memories to

024look back on during summer especially for eighth grade which will be moving up to the trusted hands of haverford high school in 9th grade middle school is a huge part of youth and we will be celebrating all of these 8th graders who've worked so hard with a dance honors night and clap out thank you so much for allowing me to speak today and all the previous times as well enjoy the rest of your night and go fords [Applause] and our high school student reporter tonight is mia good evening everyone my name is mia dewald and i thank you for allowing me to present on behalf of the high school tonight it has been a busy week for students ap testing wrapped up last week and although it isn't my favorite time of year teachers prepared

025me very well and i'm eagerly awaiting receiving my scores in july underclassmen began their keystones for algebra english and biology earlier this week with under a month left of school students have definitely been working harder than ever this past tuesday was the annual senior breakfast where seniors were given a chance to celebrate their hard work and begin some of the end of year festivities next friday will be a half day in which students will participate in a new wellness block giving students time to unwind and practice some mindfulness while spending time with the teacher of their choice during this time i will be going to visit my english teacher from my freshman year for some coloring which i'm honestly very excited for this past weekend haverford science academy held their annual discover day and hosted

026elementary students for some exciting science demonstrations and interactive activities the drama club's production of mamma mia concluded with a bang and after being nominated for 15 cappies awards caleb schmidt and the haverford orchestral pit successfully won an award for best pit performance congratulations to them the haverford orchestras came together for the first time in two years to perform at string night just last night and concluded with the joint finale in which middle school and high school students played together i remember participating in this when i was in middle school and it was truly surreal to be on the other side of this experience especially with this being mr brennan's last concert best buddies will also be holding their annual rain rally tomorrow with the help of our wonderful fire department to support the unified bocce

027and track teams i had the privilege of attending the delaware county student forums event delco under construction at the dciu yesterday as dr rushi said and to say was informative would be an understatement over the course of a few hours i attended numerous presentations led by students and administrators discussing the importance of topics such as mental health dignity and the environment in the school place during this time i was also able to watch a presentation given by haverford's own mr smith as he talked about the importance of representation in the educational field haverford's athletes have not shown any signs of slowing down as the boys lacrosse and volleyball teams played playoff games earlier this week senior nights are once again a reminder of how quickly time is flying by with softball lacrosse having theirs earlier

028this month aubry lena weaver recently broke down don burl's county record in the 300 hurdles in the track and field world softball player emma taylor was also admitted to the pa sports hall of fame in the delco chapter earlier this week congratulations to them both for making haverford proud the girls softball team will begin their playoff tournament next week in an attempt to make it back to state finals at penn state this year as months breeze by and finals are the last hurdle left in the school year students will keep up the hard work in the classroom and on the field thank you again for allowing me time to speak tonight thank you we're now moving into the more business part of our agenda with dr ruschi's superintendent report but if you would like to

029exit now you're welcome to do so i won't take any offense thank you for bringing your children here yeah thank you thank you thank you great job jane good job guys thank you thanks son thanks so much for coming tonight good job and it looks like we'll have a little more room on this side of the meeting room if people want to move in and spread out same or you can i'm i'm all right with you dude it's just briefing up all right dr rishi time for your remarks thank you miss wiedemann uh and i'm going to get right into the two items listed below superintendent's comments first being the discussion of the revisions to the health and health and safety plan when we last updated brought forth an updated plan to the board it

030was at a point in time before the cdc had changed their metrics to what they are now terming community levels uh they have moved away from looking at uh positivity rate as a sole descriptor of you know when levels to indicate when masks would be recommended highly recommended when masking would would be required within our original plan which was based off of the pennsylvania department of health guidance and designed as a way to prevent a possible school closure based on that guidance we looked at setting up a three percent threshold if the three percent of the total building population that would include the students and the staff members in the building if the building reached a three percent threshold for a period of seven days then we would move back to masking required but we

031are no longer operating under that guidance as the pennsylvania department of health has informed us that they are now aligned with and following the new cdc guidance so the change that we are proposing tonight which by the way our current health and safety plan runs through june 30th of 2022 so any discussion that we have about this plan tonight a future vote to make a change in this plan impacts a time period from now until june 30th what will be required in terms of a health and safety plan for the 22 23 school year has yet to be determined and communicated to us we do believe that we will need a plan that one will be required but the elements of that plan have not been communicated at this point in time so i can't

032stress enough that what we are talking about now impacts between this point in time or when a vote would be taken and june 30th 2022 there is nothing that we are deciding now that will have any impact upon the opening of the 22-23 school year the cdc has has moved to something that they are def describing and they have titled community levels because the belief that that to help communities look at the prevention steps that would be taken based upon hospital admissions uh the population within a certain community the rate of cases within that community so they're not just looking at the number of positive cases but what is the implication in terms of hospitalizations something that we have no way of calculating we need to rely on an outside source for that information and

033the model that we're working with now we're doing our calculations based on counts of what is you know what's reported to us in terms of positive cases so we're using a model that essentially is outdated in terms of looking at the positivity instead of looking at what has now been termed community levels the cdc does state that when you get to that highest community level that there is the recommendation that people would be wearing masks indoors but right now delaware county is at even as recent as today if you look at the cdc website delaware county the community level is identified as low so our recommendation is that would be that we would revise that plan accordingly align it to community levels and move away from that three percent as our barometer to decide when

034people are wearing masks uh we can still encourage people to wear masks uh we certainly would not tell people to to stop wearing masks they can choose to wear a mask but we would stop that calculation of the percentage each and every day based on the cases that are reported to us that's the only change that we are proposing to make to the plan there's really no need to propose any other change given that we don't know what will be required moving forward and this is a plan that sunsets so to speak uh on june 30th so our next proposal to tonight is that we would have that's tuesday may 24th not thursday that we would have that's all right we would have a special meeting so that we not wait our next regularly scheduled

035board meeting is june 2nd and given the proximity to the close of the school year we would ask that the board would meet on tuesday may 24th we can have a special meeting that would be scheduled at 6 30 that would be the special meeting would be for the purpose of taking the vote on the recommended change to the 21 uh esther health and safety plan that runs through june 30th of 2022. questions any questions or comments from the board if you have a question dr king go ahead um so dr rishi can you clarify um what would be the our plan for a school where we're noticing an increase in numbers um whether it's a specific classroom where we're seeing an increase in positive cases or just a school particular school that we're seeing

036an increase in positive cova cases if the board wishes for us to keep a dashboard we would keep a dashboard that would identify the case count each one of those days we would stop the calculation that we're now conducting looking at seven days what is the percentage of that number based on the total enrollment and a number of adults working in that building so we can still put what are the number of cases uh and you know encourage people to monitor that but we would not be mandating at any time that people would return to masks would there still be would there be notifications sent for for schools that did have a spike we'd have to decide what the threshold is like what's the threshold if we're going to send a notif you know a

037notification uh we can do things like asking principals and the communication that they send out to remind people you know the dashboard is there you can you know take a look the dashboard is updated each day with the count that people can take a look at that and and see the count i'm just you know processing it in my mind what would what would the barometer be to say now you should pay attention to it whereas last week we didn't tell you to pay attention to that could the threshold for notification be three percent well it can be anything that we want it to be i was trying i'm trying to move away from conducting a calculation that right now we are the only ones using that there's no health authority looking at the percentage

038of people who occupy a building and the percentage of people and what the number is of people who test positive and report it so i guess what i'm wondering is um thinking about the impact like the whole point of the health and safety plan as i've said before is to keep um students and teachers and staff safe and in person um you know receiving in-person education um in person schooling so i guess my concern would be you know do we still have the same protocols like if student test positive or teacher test positive are they out for you know x number of days still is that going to start impacting like what are their options for receiving um i mean are kids completely out of school during that time um no they're out for f

039they are if they test positive they're out for five days and there's no virtual no hybrid no i mean i guess i'm trying to reconcile like these levels and then also like the level and quality of education that students are still able to receive um because i think if we are approaching three percent or higher um of positivity rates in our schools or classrooms like we're just it's going to really impact kids education we would still look at as we do any communicable disease so something like whooping cough is considered a communicable disease and that we reach out to the health department and they will guide us in terms of send a letter you know we've all gotten the lice letter as parents like send a letter to the classroom or send a letter to

040the school or no you don't have to send a letter based on you know it's just one one case that you have so we would still do that type of outreach for a you know communicable type disease uh i would also say that if we're finding that the three percent even now if we found the three percent of preponderance of that was in one classroom one elementary classroom that you you know would have right now the number is you know in one of the buildings is up over 20 students if that like was all within one classroom or one grade level we would be communicating that but we would communicate it because it's contained within that particular room or that particular grade level so those i'm not suggesting that we walk away from this altogether

041but i am recommending that we stop this calculation and using that number as everybody in the building must wait must wear a mask i really appreciate this move um you know throughout the past two years a lot of times we haven't had such guidance and so we do we have the guidance now from our national health authority um who is telling us this is this is sort of what has turned in to be important and so you know looking at case counts i think at one time was really really important that's what we had to go off of and that's that's what you know was the biggest indicator of the threat level um and i think moving towards again what has been recommended by the health authority would would keep us focused on what actually

042is um would would be an indicator of a potential threat level and so i think that that just puts it in line and hopefully helps folks understand what they need to be looking for for their own um calculation of whether they want to be you know wearing the mask or or um you know what what what they want to do so i really appreciate this change and you know it's a shame that it happened after our previous vote um you know i think we saw that happen a lot during the pandemic but um i think moving towards what has been recommended by our health officials is the right move i also agree with what angelinetra said i think this is the right move to to go in this direction following the guidance of the cdc

043and now as antoinette said before it was more about case counts now i think seeing how the virus has changed looking at hospitalizations that seems to make a lot more sense i do think maybe keeping the dashboard because there are going to be some families who do want that information makes sense and that would be my only recommendation um so also just looking at the way this is reading um i'm looking where the changes in the document um i'm not sure from this might just be the way i'm reading it but it doesn't quite it's not quite clear it feels like there is the actual um the way we're going to now go about things based on the cdc guidance and then after that comes the way that we should be determining how we're going

044to be looking at cdc guidance i feel like the order is out of whack there like i feel like the per the cdc update march 24th and then that first paragraph during times on the cdc cove and blah blah that would come after that afternoon it's like based on this you know this updated guidance you know we will do this during times and look at community levels just so it reads more clearly we can make that change i'm wondering if um there could be a notification when if we if our community level does change to go into the high level um the cdc website is a little bit wonky and i mean you have to i don't know maybe it's because i was looking at it on my phone today but i also checked today

045you know looking at the agenda that this was on it and we are in a low community transmission level but i'm not sure that everyone would be following it enough to know and so you know if because that would change you know it would now be highly recommended in our schools and so just to let folks know this is per the health and safety report it's now highly recommended due to the cdc categorizing us as the high level can someone else check that link because it actually just says that we're high and i'm not sure if i'm looking at the wrong things is delaware county pennsylvania's in the high i checked it earlier today and it said low i know that's what others have said but i just i don't can you just click on

046it and double check me i know it doesn't change what we're passing or does change on thursdays is when they update it at 8 20. we're getting real good now yeah no i mean this is this is creepy they're following us i just clicked on it and it says hi so i just if someone else could check that we will that's what i'm seeing okay thanks there we go are we up behind you okay that's what it looks like um wow we are at the high right now they won't have a mask it literally went it was low and i checked oh great um can i ask a question the the five percent threshold that was by the state health department is that something we still have to do or is that no longer a

047thing that's no longer like we don't have to have to do that okay so nothing happens if we get to 5 or anything really no okay okay just curious um are we are we also encouraging people when we are starting to see high levels within a classroom or within a grade level or something a building are we also encouraging people to test even if they're asymptomatic because we have not had that yet but so i would imagine that we would i mean just looking at nicole but we've not had and concentrated high percentage within one particular classroom or at one particular grade level but this nicole is saying it's it's been mostly within a family the cdc guidance is to get tested if you have symptoms not asymptomatic so we would put we can put

048some communication together if we see those percentages high i mean you know we wouldn't ignore that we would treat that like we do other communicable diseases and notify people and and then refer them at that time to the cdc website okay you can do that okay going back to miss snodgrass's point i think it would be great if you know we have this recommendation built in that when we are at the high level it is recommended you wear a mask just you know that we are informing the community when the levels do change yeah because they can change in the middle of a meeting all right so just for a point of clarification so now we're all looking at the website um if this was the case dr rushi and i guess thursday is the

049the day where they they update it you're saying like bridgette yes okay so if this was the case we come here we see this what would happen tomorrow well in the we'll be sending communication home tomorrow anyway to notify the community of this meeting tonight and the potential of a special meeting on tuesday and we will include in there that here's a link to the cdc website we are at you know we are at high so masks are highly i would use their words i won't use any of mine masking is highly recommended so i guess that's that's the part of a part that i want to be clear about so when i'm reading this it says in delaware county pennsylvania community level is high wear a mask indoors i don't see language less i'm

050missing it that says highly recommended i'm looking right underneath here so are we saying highly recommend it when it's high we're just saying we're a mask when it's high and i think we need to be very clear about um whatever is being proposed for the next votes that we're all on the same page well they're also do not have the word required in there and that's what makes a difference for us okay so we would be saying that it is highly recommended that people wear a mask indoors okay and so this is then aligning the schools with the same advice that the cdc has for people circulating in any any activity in society right that these these are not unique to schools nor are they unique to any other setting um this recommendation in high

051to wear mask um and i think it's also correct to say that this is the strategy that many of our neighboring districts and districts around the state have chosen to align with given that it's matching and consistent with cdc's now current practices and has that alignment with the recommendation for people in their daily lives in general yes um i will note that you hear it on the website it says it's updated thursdays at 8 p.m so we have for people who have been watching this um the map has changed last week you saw more of the mediums um in some of the neighboring counties and and states so um it is a you know a way to track risks and i think gives you know hopefully as is an indicator for people who want to

052make decisions about masking or about the ways that they you know how it's socializing and contact they have with people they can certainly take this into account and i think dr rushi's point about having kovid become more in the category of the other communicable diseases that schools have long dealt with we now have a new health department that hopefully you know will be a resource and and um be able to advise us if there were kind of changes or or things like that that were a concern and then that information can be communicated but um you know i think aligning it with this cdc community level which again was a concept released after we last reviewed the plan seems to make sense at this point in time just really quickly add that because we're talking

053about the cdc guidance the main guidance that i think is coming from the cdc and really all health authorities is to be vaccinated um and if you haven't gotten your children vaccinated or if any of your younger children have recently turned five and have become eligible for the vaccine that's really what's going to help us the most and make this you know less of a threat and i think that was part of going towards counting hospitalizations more than just counting cases because we see that people who are vaccinated very often have less severe symptoms so again you know if you're waiting if you haven't gotten your booster you know please please do that and related to that are there any booster clinics or um vaccination clinics coming up um i know we've hosted some in

054the past but are there any future plans for those uh we have not been approached nor have we reached out to anyone about the clinics i think vaccines are pretty available and so you know hopefully folks you know there is i think pennsylvania um website cdc website you can find your location for a vaccine so you should hopefully should not have an issue finding one right when we when the district did host vaccine clinics that was when it was uh newer to be eligible for school-age students right so we were able to host that and support that for our school-age students any other comments or discussion all right we will be then prepared to vote on this on tuesday may 24th 6 30 a special meeting i guess it should be clear that our current

055health and safety plan until we take that vote remains in effect and so if there are schools that go to the three percent level between now and tuesday they would they would need to follow our current health and safety plan of masking right yes there is one of our buildings the building principal did send communication to parents last evening letting them know to continue to monitor the chart because they at that time they were their third day at three percent and now it seems that we're in high so we should also be recommending broadly masking because that's the level that our community is at um figures that there's all these changes right made literally okay yes great all right um the second item that i wish to share with you this evening as an information

056okay um as an information item not for a vote tonight we would bring it forward at another time the june 2nd meeting for a vote this is the calendar for the academic year 2023 just for the benefit of the public the 2022-2023 calendar that's already been approved that's next school year's calendar so that is on the website already this would be for the following school year and point a few things to point out there uh the first day of school for students would be tuesday september 5th we also identify dates on which our facilities would not be available in the evening and observance of holidays or the day itself when the holiday is being observed that is identified on the calendar also usually of high interest this spring break week we have been able to

057identify the monday after spring break as an in-service day for teachers so that means that the children would not be in school that is april fool's day for in april of 2024 um but you know the most important target that we do look at here is the what is the last student day and in 2024 june 14th which is a friday would be the last student day one of our goals is always to end on either a thursday or friday and not have kids having to come in for one or two days that follow that following week give families the opportunity to get a clean start on these on the summer also of note in usually there's a day in may for the primary in 2024 that is not in may that's actually an april

058date so that's why you will see april 23rd which is a tuesday identified as an in-service day so students would not be in the building during the voting on that that particular year that's a bigger election that day yes election day november looks like it's also the building is closed november 7 2023 yes the building is closed that day for to students it isn't in service day thank you for noting about the election day in may because i looked on the calendar and i thought oh we're not having that and having just gone through not a big fan of students being in school especially at linwood with you know the children in the building and people being able to enter and um apparently you know it caused a lot of issues with people trying to

059access even when they were voting with the caf but the cafeteria becoming the voting center um i think someone tried to drive down during the day onto the blacktop when children were still there to park who needed easier access because it's not really easy for people to um older people people with disabilities to walk from the top parking spaces all the way down and i believe someone tried to park when the children were still there going right down onto the blacktop so i appreciate the children having the day off that day that makes a lot of sense so thank you for clarifying that so we will bring this if there's any more feedback as you take a look at it please let our board leadership know and we will bring this back for a vote

060at the june 2nd meeting okay sorry just a question about um the i guess the easter monday um april 1st so are teachers are they required to attend those days i'm just thinking if people have vacations like some teachers might extend their rights yet to be determined because we do have an element where some of our professional development is what's described as flex okay so teachers can participate in professional development for a number of hours after school sometimes depending on what they're doing even full day things on a saturday some have have been able to do that and then that counts towards a flex day so the flex day which in service days will become complex days have not been decided yet thank you all right and then we'll have to just get our heads

061around 23 24. yes all right thank you very much the next item on the agenda is uh the first public comment period we had nobody signed up for that discussion so we will go next to our board reports beginning with the facility and finance committee report from dave schwartz okay thanks so um a couple of items on the on the facility finance agenda the first one our construct our construction updates on the schools now keep it pretty short linwood is almost done a few a few things still remaining removing a few items seating we're still waiting on the fencing supply chain issues but that is on its way high school phase one is also undergoing the kind of final phases final inspections clean up those kinds of things high school phase two is uh ramping

062up right now the interior being started i believe the roof is um is up now so those things um are are are ongoing couple of items are coming up for change orders from the larger items that have been that the board has been briefed upon earlier um chatham park and cooper town are also both just starting right now some of the second shift work is being done now that's going to get started um in earnest once the school year ends and that's pretty much the update for the um for the schools also was an update on some of the um bid results and some of these and some of the um some of the things associated with the m t lot uh the the maintenance and transportation lot is being redone this year it's a

063long time coming i guess colby kind of put the brakes on that for a bit but but but we are now looking um to redo that a lot of bids were received if you're interested in looking at those those are on the facility and finance committee meeting minutes and the final item that was discussed was a food service procurement review by the state the state decided to give us a review during covet while we just changed our food service providers and change our business manager so they had a couple of suggestions of some some corrective actions that that would take regarding invoice um and reporting that is underway to to be corrected a couple of additional um recommendations were also made as well those are also being reviewed um as of right now and if

064you want more information on any of the construction updates or mt paving pick up the website thank you the next committee report is the policy committee with antoinette snodgrass great thank you um we had a great policy committee meeting this past monday um we had a very ambitious agenda um because um again we're doing a policy audit where over approximately five years we look at all of our policies so we started the audit in january of this year we have been systematically looking at them sort of by group and um right now we are in the community section looking at items like communication with the community and really how the community interacts with the district um several of the policies that we reviewed had had been discussed in committee before and we were trying to

065sort of uh complete those items and then also keep up with our ambitious policy schedule um to be able to review all of our policies within our timeline just so folks know this i don't think the board at least in the last 20 some years has had a policy audit and so several of our policies are very outdated um we had it looks like there was a big policy review in 2010 because or at least a lot of the policies are from 2010 and then we also have a lot from 1999. um so it's definitely timely and that we're doing this we first discussed two policies that we had reviewed before in the committee 919 civility and 920 communications the committee discussed the 919 proposed policy which is not a current policy of ours and

066came to the conclusion that it's not something that the district needs we have very good policies on other prohibited behavior that we felt the policy committee felt would be able to be used in any scenario that we felt was egregious enough to potentially implicate that proposed policy so we will not be moving forward and recommending for the board that policy um the other two policies that were from previous committee meetings again a proposed policy for communications um and uh a policy zero zero six point one for potentially um having either virtual component of the meeting uh such as one necessary member of the meeting presenter at the meeting participating or for having full board meetings we did not um un unfortunately come to a conclusion on either one of those so those are going back

067to committee again um communications will be replacing at least one of our policies several of our policies overlapped especially ones that had to do with the media and had to do with communications outward from the district and so we are combining uh those and really just changing that policy to be more updated more to come on that one and then zero zero six point one meetings um again the board pretty much decided that they did not want to have well we haven't decided but it there was a contingent that decided that they would not favor one single member of the board um participating virtually so again that one's going back into committee um two policies we also briefly discussed 904 public attendance at school events and 906 public complaints had become had come in front

068of the board for a first reading before but since the civility policy was still in committee and it turns out we did not pass the civility policy um to recommend it for the full board they were just to go back to committee to review based on their references to the civility policy just briefly we also discussed policy 907 school visitors policy 908 relations with parents and guardians and policy 909 municipal government relations we had the board had a lot of changes to each one of them mostly for updating um several of them had been i mean over a decade before they since they had last been reviewed so those were um those were updates that we i think we'll see in front of the board soon um not at tonight's meeting um but um but

069i think we gave our solicitors some work um to to incorporate our comments and um the board should be seeing those soon um we only did not get to one policy on our very ambitious agenda so i do want to thank everyone on the policy committee for working through that and for our president ms wiedemann for giving us a cutoff to reach too so that we didn't talk all night about policies thanks thank you all right we are now in the finance facilities portion of the agenda item six item a is the bill list i welcome a motion to approve disbursements from the following funds as listed short second second at any discussion all in favor aye any opposed the list is passed change orders item b i will accept a motion to accept the

070recommendation of the project architect kcba and associates inc and owners representative cb development services inc and authorize the change orders totaling 82 dollars and 26 cents as listed king moved in second moved and seconded any discussion these were all discussed at the yeah yes these were all the aforementioned change orders that have been discussed as till the facilities meetings some of the bigger items are the upgrading the pa system replacing the paper optics all related to high school phase two thank you any other discussion just a quick comment um i really like the spreadsheets that ken matthews has been providing on updates of all the different projects at the finance and facilities meetings i think they're really clear and i think it's um really useful information especially to compare kind of because we do it

071like every month like month over month to see the changes from month to month so good job ken pass along i appreciate a good spreadsheet so um i just i found that really helpful um i think it's like a relatively new way he's presenting that to us so i like it for what that's worth i agree i think it's a good way to track the progress and then importantly um for everybody's benefit at the bottom it has the amount that is kind of savings um you know that hasn't been already allocated to the budget that is still in our contingency and if um we get to the end of these projects uh that becomes savings for the district to apply to other capital funds and so that's nice and clear the percentage that's already billed

072and the percentage remaining it's just it's a lot of information and a compact little spreadsheet so matthews long numbers don't go negative we're in good shape okay so all in favor aye aye aye any opposed change orders pass item c is a bid award for district concrete work i will accept a motion to approve premier concrete to complete necessary concrete work around the district at the following rates weinberg move vitaly second moved in second and any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion passes item d is bid awards for the m t the maintenance and transportation paving project i welcome a motion to approve the following vendors to complete the maintenance and transportation paving project at a total cost not to exceed one million one hundred thirty seven thousand seven hundred seventy one

073dollars inclusive of a fifty thousand dollar contingency crispin move vitaly second moved in second did any discussion all in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed motion passes and the buses will get to sit on solid ground again that would be nice item seven is for human resources item a resignations i'll accept a motion to accept the following resignations as listed weinberg move crispin second moved in second in any discussion all in favor all right any opposed motion passes item b is for appointments i will welcome a motion to approve the following appointments as listed larson moved natalie second moved in second did any discussion all in favor all right any opposed the appointments are approved item c is leave of absence i'll accept a motion to approve the following leave requests king moved crisp

074and second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion passes under item eight of the agenda pupil services is item a the 2022 esy extended school year contract approvals i will welcome a motion to approve the following educational contracts for students attending out of district placements for the 2022 esy program heinberg moon first and second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion passes the next item of our agenda where we have business is in section 10 for policy and item a is to approve policy 903 public participation in board meetings i'll accept a motion to accept changes to policy 903 public participation in board meetings snoggrass moved christmas second moved and seconded any discussion um there were i think some changes between the last version and

075this one based on some comments at the last board meeting and so um i think this addresses the comments that were made to make sure that the public participation at board meetings our policy reads the way that our practice um you know follows and so um i think that um as the board members hopefully have gone a chance to review um that the the changes that were put into place um do meet those requirements yeah i think it is a better reflection of our actual practices any other comments all in favor any opposed policy is approved item b is now a second reading for school board policies 904 public attendance at school events and policy 906 public complaints i will accept a motion to acknowledge the first reading of policies 904 906 at the april

07621st 2022 board meeting and to accept the second reading of policies 904 and 906 at tonight's meeting snodgrass moved tally's second moved and seconded any discussion um just really briefly i mentioned these in my policy committee report these were um they'd come to the board for a first meeting already or for first reading already um and then we did see that um the civility policy uh was mentioned in these and had not also been before the board and so the changes between the first reading and the second reading which we have tonight will be they removed the language referring to the policy which the committee decided not to recommend for the full board thank you any other comments all in favor any opposed motion passes under item 11 of the agenda is a discussion of

077the fair funding resolution this is just for discussion purposes and i'll turn it over to larry feinberg to um explain a bit about what this resolution is and how it will help folks who've been following meetings over the years i know that i've raised this on uh several occasions uh just in terms of keeping the board abreast of the status of this lawsuit it was pending for for about 12 years the suit finally got started i guess back in november testimony concluded about six weeks ago and oral arguments uh will uh start at the end of july and then it goes to to a judge i'm just going to read a couple of the uh statements from this proposed resolution it's on website if folks want to look at it but it says whereas there

078is substantial evidence that both individual health and economic well-being are tied to educational outcomes whereas there is ample evidence that community prosperity is related to the quality of education whereas when the state fails to adequately fund education it puts an unfair responsibility on local taxpayers which cannot be met in low wealth districts even when paying higher tax rates whereas the general assembly has defined what a thorough education is by identifying educational standards the standards used in the pssa and keystone exams that all pennsylvania students are expected to meet and whereas the current school funding system in pennsylvania results in grossly different amounts of money spent on children in different districts in violation of the equal protection provisions of the state constitution with much less money spent on children in low wealth districts even though their

079students have additional educational needs so this would be a uh our board voting uh on a resolution to support the plaintiffs in that case which include parents of individual children six school districts from around the state including our neighbor william penn the pennsylvania association of rural and small schools and the pennsylvania naacp state conference so i'd be happy to uh entertain any questions from the board but i think you have uh material in your packet and that's a one question larry um he says so it's been going on for 12 years no more than 12 years uh i i'm assuming a ruling a ruling is coming this year or maybe maybe coming here after that and then it's going right to judge it's not a jury obviously is that going to be a final rule

080or it will be or will it be appealed if it's appealed what what's timeline for that or do you not is it hard it's a good question steve because you know the short answer on on the appeal most likely um you know who knows how much longer they'll stretch it out for uh i think sooner or later uh the legislature is gonna have to do something what that is remains to be seen in other states that have had similar suits that have been resolved uh generally that it puts extra pressure on the legislature to come up with uh significant additional funding and uh formulas to distribute that those funds so we'll we'll have to wait and see and that's and that's assuming that that's trying to pay for the plaintiff they would they would then

081have to put no onus on the legislature to make movement to fix the mess that up and actually what's happened i think as a result of the extra pressure from this lawsuit in the last in the current budget and last year's state budget they added a budget line for what's called level up funding where they created a budget line i think it was a hundred million dollars extra uh last year that went to uh i believe it was the hundred most underfunded districts so there has been a little bit of movement um and you know the uh you know it's palpable you know uh you know william penn is what three miles down the road from us and um in so many ways we we take we take it for granted that that the resources

082that we have in this district and what we're able to provide to our kids um and it's it's not fair that uh that students three three miles down the road are using textbooks that are incredibly outdated uh are in facilities that are in a much less state of repair let alone newer facilities so um you know i hope that there i hope there's a good outcome to this case yeah i think you know pennsylvania has such disparities and when i talk to my kids about advocating for public education i think that's an excellent example that we could walk to schools that where the kids don't have the same opportunities they don't have the same resources as we do and that's a community that has taxed all it can and isn't getting more as a result

083and the state has these mandates we talk about them often in you know the range of requirements add this do this certify that report on this but they also have these mandates on proficiency for student achievement and when there's a correlation between funding and student achievement and the state isn't fulfilling its end of the bargain to support the districts where the communities can't put more in there's real injustice there i will i mean that is certainly a driving consideration for me in this i will add that that the fair funding formula if that becomes an avenue to rectify the situation is a formula that would benefit haverford township as well that formula looks at growth in student enrollment and in students educational needs and because of our growing enrollment primarily we would stand to see

084more funding from the state as part of that reconciliation two different reasons for supporting this but i think both valid in in the argument for pennsylvania to more appropriately fund public education and currently we are funded i think by the states 18 we take yeah yeah i just want to thank um thank you mr feinberg for bringing this in front of the board because i think that a lot of folks just don't um don't realize the way that our public schools are funded and because of the state's outdated system in which they know that the money should go through the fair funding formula which has been created which has been shown to be more fair to the districts they do not funnel all of the money that goes to schools through that funding formula and

085so it is they're instead using an outdated formula that that used to work that is based on old numbers old data and is not based on the current enrollment of students the current need of students in school so it results in some schools that don't need the money getting more money than they need from the state and schools that do need the money to just educate their students not getting enough and so um if we in haverford township can raise our voices and and give um you know really a platform to let folks know that this on this type of unfair funding is currently happening but there is a way that the state knows um what to do to to make it more fair um you know i'm happy to have haverford um really promote

086this effort so thank you for bringing it can i give you a statistic i just finished teaching a public finance class and one of my students uh just wrote a paper about education funding st joe's is on our campus is half in lower marion and a half in philadelphia so he did a case study of these two school districts funding for philadelphia public schools is about sixteen thousand dollars per student funding and this is i think this past academic year um funding in lower marion is thirty three thousand dollars so more than twice as much per student um and these are communities that are literally right next to each other right um so you know i i knew that because i know a lot about education funding from being on the school board but um

087you know as he was kind of working through this this was like a real revelation for him that and everyone in the class he did a presentation and students were really shocked because i don't think they realized how inequitable the funding distribution is in our state so it's it's bad um so it's time thanks any other discussion all right we will look forward to this coming back for a board vote to make it a formal resolution great thank you item 12 is public comment and we did have someone sign up the board values public comment is 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

088a 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 section is for comments on school related topics that are not on tonight's agenda residents of the township may in advance of the meeting sign up to make public comment by emailing public comment at haverfordsd.net and for 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 please leave them on the end of the board table your name and the topic

089of your comments will be recorded in the meeting minutes and the person who signed up tonight is alexis pasternack [Music] hi thank you alexis pasternack habertown good evening board and dr vrushi the handmaid's tale is a classic novel found in many high schools across the country including haverford high school i've read the book i've read the book myself it's been a long time but the subject matter is heavy but overall i i don't have a problem with it i think the right context right setting it's appropriate what i'm here to speak about is the graphic novel version available in the high school library i did provide you with some photocopies i did take it out of the public library myself of course context is important and i would encourage you to read the book in

090its entirety yourselves what you will see are images of rape hanging suicide ideation groping a less than positive visit to the ob gyn my personal favorite a naked woman on a leash eating out of a bowl and a woman with a gun sticking in her mouth in her mouth this is disgusting i wasn't going to get upset it's disgusting i'm going to quote ramona bessinger a 23-year teacher in providence school district she teaches english she says the written word is supposed to stimulate the reader to visualize and imagine the characters places and events about which the author writes what this version has done is replaced the hard work of reading literature with a dumbed down semi pornographic comic book and really it is just feeding students someone else's interpretation this book is nothing more than

091a knockoff taking up space on our school shelves at our expense our expense and why because it's lauded by the american library association library journal school library journal as well having a book like this in the high school is a choice it's a choice you don't have to have this book here okay it's not a requirement there's nothing wrong with saying no there's nothing wrong with it it does not mean you work for censorship or for banning books mr feinberg it's not it's about appropriateness i care about our kids i went to school here my son goes here i want him to stay here i want to stay here but this this creeps me out this is icky i will go through the proper channels to have this book evaluated further i'm sure it will

092not be removed because i'll be considered against diversity equity inclusion and all that crap i think some of you needed to get down in the weeds and see what is actually available to the students and then ask yourself if literature like this is part of the hill you want to die on in the name of education please think about what you're doing thank you very much the next item on the agenda is for a report on executive session we did not meet an executive session the board did meet for an informational report oh i'm sorry i did i skipped board reports um it was at the bottom of my page i'll start with uh mr schwartz air report [Laughter] all right so um on sunday chestnut world is having their chest level chase it's adding

093to one of the many amazing fundraisers that the pto sponsors there the goal is to get a new swing set for the schools and so swings are great um it's useful for children of all ages and all abilities and so i am cheering them on they're able to reach their goal and be able to get a new swing set um at chestnut world discover day is back everyone it was awesome i took my kindergartner she had an amazing time she bug man wow bug hand she touched all different kinds of bugs she was very brave she was like the first one with her hand in the air to volunteer um i i don't know exactly how many classrooms but i would say at least 20 classrooms probably had different activities in them all different activities

094so many high school students volunteered teachers volunteered um tons of kids going through the halls lots of activities that you could take home to make later just a really fantastic day i'm so glad it's back it's so fun so thanks to everybody that was involved with that thanks to the high schoolers who helped with all the little ones who were there um it was a really great day i'm so glad um and it's coming back again in november at its usual time um so that's very exciting um and tomorrow linwood is mayday um thanks for bringing the linwood kids they were great um tomorrow's mayday at lynnwood so um we will be there mostly because i think this the soft-serve ice cream truck will be there which is gonna be very exciting um but yeah

095excited to go and uh and celebrate a pretty fantastic school year so thank you i'll start down on the other end with dr dr larson dr so-and-so um so i attended the the dcio um board committee meeting on wednesday may 11th dciu committee meetings are very rich discussions because they wrap education facilities personnel policy everything you'd imagine excuse me kristen could you lean into the mic a little better because i'm going to be 70 soon and i can't hear you understood is that better okay um so at this board committee meeting for dciu last wednesday we discussed the the project the construction planning for the delaware county technical high school at folcroft right now the board is looking at different approaches to to procurement for this project we're leaning toward a hybrid approach because that

096would allow us to get um to look at a variety of methods that allow us to get the best value for dciu as we're working on that construction project um in terms of financing that project we also reviewed different findings financing objects but um sorry options but those are in flux because of interest rates um so again these are ongoing discussions we're hoping to have some of this nail down a little bit later in the summer dciu is also working on an hvac update project they're looking at all their sites aston faulcraft marple and morton with a range of different needs so hopefully those will be addressed the personnel committee um reported out that the staff vaccination rate is um is great i mean the majority now of iu employees and cte employees are fully

097vaccinated they do have a mandate there that employees be vaccinated um so that's great news we're also doing policy work um just like we do here in haverford um the policy that is currently in front of the board is the acceptable use of internet computers and network resources they're taking um a whole slew of technology related policies and rolling them into one and making sure they're updated with current um psba recommendations and in line with you know what council requires also some great news the dciu it repair shop which came online earlier this year they are looking to bring on nine student interns um for a summer full-time summer internship that would pay twenty dollars an hour um i hope maybe we can have haverford students take advantage of this it's just so exciting to

098hear that you know students will be doing this work getting that hands-on experience so that's my report thank you um i was just gonna say it's been a little bit of a busy week at linwood we had the art show i was um lucky enough to be able to chaperone the second grade field trip this week and like dr crispin mentioned we have mayday at linwood tomorrow and so i will be there at the raffle table the candy the wheel of candy and at the entrance table for a little bit um and i would if i could just make a plug it startled me and i guess i forget because i have older boys um who are out of linwood but with my younger son so many people um and i'm sure that other elementary

099schools are seeing the same thing there's these time-honored events and traditions at all of our elementary schools and since they've been gone for two years with the pandemic a lot of people have no idea what they are and i know we've struggled to get some volunteers for mayday so um please volunteer with your pto and keep you're at your elementary school no matter which one it is there's wonderful traditions that make each of our schools unique um and it's exciting for the children to have them back i know it's the first one i couldn't believe it when he said he's never been too i mean he's been to mayday with his older brothers but um uh so to please help out your ptos and volunteer for whatever your school has um but we're excited to

100have it tomorrow thank you the report all right mr climber state legislature has been in recess uh due to the primary election that both the house and senate are due back on the 23rd significantly for the first time in 30 years the pennsylvania house of representatives uh did pass the voucher bill it's house bill 2169 uh it was a close vote and i will be moving on to the senate i'm sure that the governor would veto it if it passed in the senate but uh we're following that one closely and we'll keep you up to date all right thank you um since the last board meeting i've attended a couple of psba and local functions um at the psba monthly leadership zoom they spoke about pennsylvania um the pennsylvania school boards association has withdrawn from

101the national school boards association and it with 22 states or 22 states in total have formed a new consortium of state school board associations that is in the works and pennsylvania is looking once again to have that is a new association of states that will provide governance and training best practices have conventions and activities to support and advocate for public education so we can sounds like they've made a lot of progress already on on forming that new cosby group um and we should look forward to hearing about its more formal um kind of like leadership coming together and the governance structure that it sets up and then start looking for some activities that pennsylvania school districts could participate in um there was also a meeting of the delaware delaware county legislative council and um one

102of the things that's happening tomorrow i think several of us and dr rushi are going to the legislative breakfast um again to be held in person for the first time in a couple years so like a breakfast with like a served breakfast and it will feature the discussion on mental health in schools and we'll have representatives from state government some local districts who are talking about things happening in their districts with mental health programs and mr feinberg's going to be talking about charter reform so it should be a good event and an opportunity for the districts to connect with our local legislature to tell them some of the challenges that we're dealing with and you hear about some of the ideas that hopefully will be helping schools um and then there was another meeting of

103the psba school directors and it featured their 2022 state of education report that is based on surveys of districts across pennsylvania as well as pde and u.s department of education funding or surveys and data and looking at some of the trends affecting schools a lot of it is probably not a surprise at this point in the pandemic that there are challenges with staffing shortages and um inadequate and changing guidance from from um like the health departments and cdc on managing covid um and new challenges around budgets and and the pension crisis is one that got a particular note of the amount of funding that we are required to contribute to the um the pensions that need to come from our budgets each year so um lots of lots of topics that are being battled not

104just here in our district but across the state and so it's always good to get those updates and i also was just going to say that i am looking forward to some of these end of year activities i think next week i have a chance to go to two activities at the high school the parade of champions i also had been going to some track meets and saw some of the performances that mia you talked about i saw aubry's record-setting hurdles and i saw some super fast miles and great teamwork on relays um lots of fun to go and cheer on the fords in whatever venue um and there's also a kind of a game of life that's going to happen to teach some real life budgeting skills and i hope to help out at

105that one next week too and i think i and the rest of the board will have some opportunities at some of these year-end celebrations for the elementary schools we'll look forward to getting those on the calendar and then we'll all be looking forward to graduation not that far away um so with that now i can say that um my report on the executive session was that we did not have an executive session but the board did meet for an information session to learn more about our food services program the next regular public board meeting will be on june 2nd 2022 at 7 30 in the haverford middle school we're going to once again move move locations you got to keep up with where we'll be that is because we will be honoring our retirees and

106have a bigger group that night as noted earlier in the meeting before the next regular public board meeting we are going to host a special board meeting um with the vote on the change to the health and safety plan and that will be tuesday may 24th at 6 30 here in this room and with that i welcome a motion to adjourn second meeting is adjourned thank you