001nice to be here um she bought her own stuffed animal that's a shiny owl with like sequins you know that like flip either way you know yeah [Music] good evening everybody welcome to the october 7th 2021 ford business and conference meeting of the school district of haverford township if we could rise for the pledge of allegiance please allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation so we call the roll please dr crispin here mr fleischer here ms larson ms minji here mr cinto here mr schwartz here ms snodgrass here ms wiedemann yeah mr feinberg here miss larson had a business uh commitment this evening and uh i'd just like to also say that the board had a chance to meet some of our
002new teachers uh before the meeting uh out in the lobby this evening and it uh it's always great uh to to see all that new energy so we welcome them and we're so pleased to have them also uh we're welcoming back to the board table our our student reps this evening and we'll introduce them as uh as we get to their parts in the program i'll accept a motion to approve the official minutes from the september 23rd 2021 regular public board meeting second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you next is our student reports and first up we have our middle school student ian savage here good evening everyone my name is ian slavik and i am the middle school representative for tonight i want to
003thank the board for allowing me to present everyone is happy to be back in school and in the school building school is still a little bit different but we are still making the best of it our athletic teams have been begin have began competing last week stu the student athletes are happy to be playing we have been very successful on the courts and on the field for her this season f activities and clubs start this week there are lots of fun things for students to do before and after school we are we were happy to support the high school's sports fight for life events this week we appreciate the opportunity to help families in our school community and township thank you for allowing me to present thank you ian ian it's great to see to
004actually see you here in person with us the board members will remember we often uh heard from ian via zoom last year so it's nice to have a chance to see you here in person thank you dr roshi and i i understand you're also a member or going to be a member of the gaming club so you'll have to tell us about that on one of your future visits all right i'll try to remember that rm ig bye great thanks next up uh we have our high school student report and this evening we have amelia gonzalez and mia dywald hello my name is emilia gonzalez and i'm a senior at harvardford high school i'm looking forward to representing the students at these meetings for the 2021-2022 school year in addition to being a school board
005representative i'm a part of a few clubs at haverford including student senate radio and best buddies outside of school i tutor neighborhood children and of course work on college applications senior year is always the busiest but the most exciting too haverford successfully completed the first month of school it is so wonderful to be back in school full time and to learn in person our new addition to the building is a wonderful enhancement to the growing haberford population and is home to many of our science spanish and health classrooms our juniors and seniors are signing up for college visits making good first impressions with the admissions officers next week the psat and sat will be administered on october 13th we know our students will excel our fall sports teams continue to make us proud many teams
006have had their senior nights and it is always tough to say goodbye to our senior leaders and talented players the varsity football team is playing the ford's fight for life game tomorrow night at our stadium and as always the haberford community will produce an amazing turnout to cheer on our fords all jerseys are sold out but we are still we still have t-shirts on sale we do a pep rally outdoors tomorrow with our band cheerleaders and team to honor those in the community battling cancer presently our football boys and girls soccer field hockey and volleyball teams are ranked in district 1 and looking to be a contender in district 1 playoffs our cross country teams are in the top three of central league and are looking forward to the central league championship meet our clubs
007and back are back and have already started having in-person meetings the club activities fair is tomorrow and all officers will be proudly representing their clubs to attract members the fair is a great place for students especially the freshmen to see all the opportunities haverford has to offer the options are endless the teacher sponsors are always enthusiastic to represent a meaningful activity this school year has brought back cheerful faces like never before and haverford will continue to conquer any challenges that it encounters thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some updates thanks sorry thanks for your report amelia and my thank you for joining us we look forward to hearing from you uh in the in the future as well and for the benefit of the public our our students will rotate uh the
008evenings that they will attend and sometimes that may change depending on the number of activities and commitments that they are involved in but we will always have someone from the high school here to share out the happenings in the high school as well as our middle school student bringing us news from the middle school great next item is public comment for items that are on the agenda we have two speakers signed up when i call your name if you could come to the mic state your name and address and you'll have three minutes first speaker is todd hall good evening i'm todd hall 535 country club lane i'm addressing the board tonight regarding sage wellness group llc's proposal for service services i have a few concerns about the proposal for using their services too and
009i quote from the agenda to support the school district of haverford township in achieving its goals to incorporating comprehensive and culturally relevant equity-based techniques into the district's daily practices at a cost not to exceed eighteen thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars on july 23 2020 this district's board approved a contract for using their services to support the district's goals and i quote in achieving its goals related to incorporating comprehensive and culturally relevant equity-based and anti-racist techniques for thirteen thousand dollars i see two key changes and i raised two questions last year's proposal included to assist with incorporating anti-racist techniques this year's proposal does not include incorporating anti-racist techniques so does the group no longer teach this was sufficient progress made in teaching anti-racism last year the community has seen no report of the consultant's results
010so i don't know r is the phrase anti-racism being removed because this is a phrase that has concerned some parents and the actually the teaching will continue um secondly the price for the services increased 50 from one year to the next uh why i think any of us for any type of uh item that costs money would question a 50 percent rise in the cost from one year to the next and then furthermore there are some issues that concern me in our schools that this contract fails to address our restroom facilities have been repeatedly vandalized by students at the middle school many are closed water fountains are off so we have an environment where the children have impeded breathing less access to water less access to facilities for bodily functions and i'm not sure how
011a nineteen thousand dollar contract contract will remedy this we learned of a bus malfunction causing pollutants to spill into children and a response from the driver that further compromised their safety i'm not sure how this contract will help i'm not sure how the spending of nineteen thousand dollars will help with the psychological damage to children from not being allowed to express themselves with their facial expressions these situations make it evident that i think the priorities and spending should be elsewhere and finally given recent events i need to disclaim that i speak as a concerned parent and taxpayer this is not harassment or intimidation as discussed by the u.s department of justice this speech is not a form of quote domestic terrorism or hate crimes as your professional group the national school board association describe the
012actions of concerns parents in a september 29 letter to the united states president the only time a threat of violence has been mentioned in recent meetings was when a false accusation was made by a school board member that a constituent stated that he had a gun this is how the school board member chose to deal with this agreement of the board's policies thank you our next speaker is lynn trondsteiner of brutzo lynn my name is lena bruzo i live 52 woodbine avenue in havertown and my statement's very brief i just want to thank the school board for actually um considering i'm also commenting on the same issue on the um sorry on the um the contract to seek to bring in more diversity in the schools i'd like to comment i'd like to commend the
013school board for doing this even though there seems to be irrational pushback on things like this but by doing this you will be able to encourage the children to learn beyond what is being what is happening right now and to become more open and broad-minded so thank you very much thank you next item on our agenda is superintendent's remarks dr rishi thank you mr feinberg as i visited uh our transportation department this uh this afternoon i i am happy to report that it was encouraging to hear that they have had an additional two applicants for the bus driver vacancies um there are still many vacant many vacant positions available uh but those two are encouraging uh that folks would be interested in in doing that work and supporting bringing our children to school members of
014our administrative team will participate in the haverford partnership for economic development job fair which is going to be held next week october 12th between the hours of 4 and 7 p.m and that's going to be held right at the crep so we're hopeful we're going to have representatives from transportation from food services our custodial maintenance our of course our human uh resources office uh and hopefully we'll be able to get some app encourage uh some increased applications on in to fill those vacancies uh along the lines of covid a brief update here we have had 14 instances when positive case cases were in the building during the contagious period but we are not quarantining as many in areas where we've already been able to remove the plexiglas so that's an improvement there as well we
015continue to work alongside other districts throughout delaware county to look at the logistics associated with a test to stay program and what that would enable us to do is to provide covered testing of course with parent permission when an individual has been identified as a close contact so in lieu of quarantine if we were able to con to conduct the coveted testing to allow the child to stay in school the pennsylvania department of health is requiring some changes which will go into effect on monday october 11th and the number one the first change that we're experiencing is that our buildings and as a district will no longer be naming ident um individuals who have tested positive for covid when we submit our report to the department of health right now we provide names we are
016not and that's not our choice that is a change that's coming a directive coming from the department of health they simply want numbers they want the numbers of those who are positive the numbers who are quarantining and the numbers who are are in isolation what a change that parents and guardians will see is that the they will no longer be contacted by the department of health either contacted by telephone or contacted uh with their communication about isolation and quarantine that communication has now been provided to the district on department of health letterhead and the district bears the responsibility to get that information out the directions for quarantining and how to abide by those expectations so we'll be sending communication out to let folks know about that but i just wanted to bring that up uh
017this evening and even though not required we will maintain the dashboard that is on on our website we can see that folks do check that periodically so we will continue to uh to maintain that that's it thank you and if i could just uh repeat uh you know the the announcement for the job fair if you have family friends or neighbors who might be interested we we sure could use some help all districts throughout the country need bus drivers and most of them need maintenance workers and food service workers so any help you could provide would be great i'll accept a motion to approve disbursements from the general fund totaling 1 million nineteen thousand nine hundred twenty seven dollars and forty seven cents move fleischer first then second moved in second any discussion all in
018favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the recommendation of the project architect kcba and associates inc and our owner's representative cb development services inc and authorized the change orders totaling eighteen thousand five hundred sixty one dollars and thirty seven cents as listed ninja second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to award the bid for haverford high school renovations project two general construction to sb conrad inc at a total cost not to exceed four million nine hundred thirty nine thousand dollars including alternate numbers 1 2 3 8 9 10 and 11 contingent upon approval of bonds and insurance and subject to audit any discussion i i just wanted to add that um for the public's benefit we did receive a presentation on
019this at the last board meeting and went through the project itself and the bid process so you can look back at that meeting for more information thanks bridget all in favor aye aye any opposed motion cars i'll accept a motion to award the bid for the haverford high school renovations project 2 mechanical construction to try county mechanical inc at a total cost not to exceed 2 million hundred sixty five thousand thirty seven dollars and fifty cents including alternate numbers six seven twelve and thirteen contingent upon approval of bonds and insurance and subject to audit fleischer moves second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to award the bid for the haverford high school renovations project 2 plumbing construction to j.r reynolds inc at a
020total cost not to exceed 395 contingent upon approval of bonds and insurance and subject to audit second moved in second any discussion i was just going to interject one other thing in the reading of that where it says upon approval of bonds just to clarify that that would mean the contractors payment and performance bonds not on the it's not contingent on the district raising additional funds through a bond offering um but just on on the qualification of each of these contractors thanks bridget all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the recommendation from owner's representative cb development for a budget extension for david blackmore and associates inc for additional inspections and testing services the recommendation is for an extension of fifteen thousand dollars to the current ninety one
021thousand dollars for a new total budget of one hundred and six thousand dollars moved fleischer fourth second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed yep i'm sorry i'm going back uh to the electrical bid i'll accept a motion to award the bid for haverford high school renovations project two electrical construction to westcott electric company at a total cost not to exceed nine hundred thirty two thousand three hundred dollars including alternate numbers six seven and eight contingent upon approval of bonds and insurance and subject to audit snot grass moved crispin second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the psba policy maintenance program participation agreement for the july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 program year and subsequent years as an
022optional program with the annual membership wiedemann moved twice your second moved in second any discussion can i just hear how this is different from um what we get now from psba for our policy i know we get the policy news network and they give us sample policies and so just hearing about how how that this is different or if it's different there is no difference in the in the in the program this is just an additional documentation that pspa implemented this year it is part of the um all member membership that we you provided earlier in the year okay thank you i'll accept a motion to accept the recommendation of council and to authorize administration to take steps necessary to consent to the resolution of pending litigation by the district's insurance provider at no cost
023to the district moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the resignations as listed moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the following appointment appointments as listed and point of order is there an amendment or yes uh it's my understanding that there is one appointment that is being removed from the list it is ms o'donnell the medical billing assistant to be removed from the appointments list so the motion to move forward will be without that item on the list okay i'll accept a motion to accept the appointments as listed with the exception of the item that's just been highlighted it's not grass moved moved in second any discussion so if i heard
024you correctly there's one person on this list who is not accepting employment correct approving all the others yes okay great all in favor aye aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve rates of compensation for athletics activities events for the 2021-2022 school year as listed in appendix b fleischer moves ninja second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept a motion to approve legal settlement of administrative proceeding between former employee number 3327 and the school district of haverford township under the terms of the written settlement agreement and release prepared by the district solicitor congress moved crispin second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational service contracts for
025services provided to students and or staff with the district moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the professional services agreement with sage wellness group llc to support the school district of haverford township in achieving its goals to incorporating comprehensive and culturally relevant equity-based techniques into the district's daily practices at a cost not to exceed eighteen thousand nine hundred and ninety five dollars sports moved brisbane second moved in second any discussion what's the time frame on this contract this uh this school year just for the calendar school year yes got it will we be privy to a uh report or a summary or presentation upon its completion uh yes there will be as last year we had done a presentation i believe it might
026have been in february and included this within other things so we'll absolutely do that again highlighting that work does this provider do any other work in the philadelphia area yes in several other school districts within the greater philadelphia area and some very local to us as well that we learned of this provider through our colleagues in lower marion school district is it safe to say you're extremely happy with this provider's past performance and work done in sdht yes we are i know we did get a report on some of the equity initiatives in progress um earlier this calendar year could you speak a bit about just the work that sage did with the district previously and how this contract will build upon that representatives from sage wellness have worked with our district equity team and
027it was more of a turnaround model this past year in that the building principles along with two or three other educators from the building participated in monthly meetings then they in turn would work with the faculty at each one of their buildings now we're going to have the representatives from sage wellness work directly with the with each of the building teams and move away so that they can do work that is more specific to their particular buildings thank you any other discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries we're ready for our public comment on other items we have one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven people signed up to speak when i call your name please come to the microphone state your name and address and you'll have
028three minutes uh first speaker is matthew scullin matthew how are you tonight matthew scotland 552 royal avenue thank you for letting me speak tonight i've lived in havertown since 1979 74 excuse me and i am a product of haverford school district i currently have two sons who are seniors in the high school and i have a son in seventh grade i am a history teacher currently at a nearby district i have been for over 20 years personally i am disgusted and ashamed of the behavior i have witnessed during the public comment portion of recent school board meetings last week however pushed me over the edge reading sections of a novel from the middle school library and using these words to criticize and critique our schools and our school board is not only irresponsible it's dangerous
029censoring and calling for books to be removed from school curriculum and school libraries is nothing new in our country in our culture but i'm shocked and i'm disappointed that individuals are using this strategy to promote a political agenda and campaign for future political elections censoring books is a strategy of communists and marxists i would hope individuals who call themselves conservatives would understand the illogical and flawed aspects of this argument classic books like native sun to kill a mockingbird the catcher in the rye even plays by shakespeare have been targets of censorship seriously enough is enough i admire the school board and any decisions they have made moving our school district forward during incredibly difficult times personally i think you deserve a lot of credit i think you've worked hard to ensure that safety of all
030of our children i am proud of the work you have done and i am glad that my sons are in a district that embraces guidelines issued by doctors and government agencies whose job it is to educate and advise americans about public health these are the individuals who should be establishing rules and procedures during a pandemic and i thank you for adopting their suggestions in our schools lastly i i need to address the misused phrase critical race theory and the misguided concept that the teachers and administrators in our schools are forcing a progressive value system on our children honestly this is not the case and pushing this conspiracy is not only ignorant it's lazy there is currently an achievement gap in schools throughout the country and haverford is no exception teachers and administrators are working to
031address this achievement gap to help all of our students become analytical and critical thinkers we are not promoting political agendas in fact the teachers that my sons have had have helped my sons develop an ability to evaluate bias and fashion their own opinions and ideas i am proud of the education that my sons are receiving and i am proud of the excellent educational opportunities in the haverford school district one last thing i do not believe that a school board public forum is the appropriate place to advocate or stump for a political position this space is intended to be an open discourse for current community members to discuss current school business and current issues with the district it is not a place to campaign for a political uh position just a bad look thank you thank
032you our next speaker is william bryan william william brian 210 shelbourne good evening to the board our esteemed law enforcement officers my fellow residents both pro and con and any embedded department of justice employees president it's certainly apparent that this board has some very strong disdain for any robust pointed criticism as well as those residents who would dare stand and speak or hold an opposing point of view please be clear this is not a closed door monopoly although at times it most certainly has appeared to be exactly that this in fact is a stake holder body it is holy and exclusively for the benefit of our students the community and it's not your exclusive domain to rule over it's time that we realized that we all have an equal right to voice our opposition and
033offer feedback as board members your personal opinions actually amount to very little it's not about individual feelings it's about our children it's not about your collective individual agendas it's about our community it really does matter what really does matter is the voice of every individual in attendance see we have once attempted to silence us and you've yet we're the ones that haven't tried to silence anybody time has come to come to terms with the fact it's actually who is in charge it's not you your elected stewards of our children are tax dollars and not to be the children's parents they already have parents you should represent everyone not radicals not special interest groups not political parties but the community in its entirety without exception we're not asking or demanding or expecting that you walk on
034water or be flawless but the community excuse me we do demand transparency accountability professional non-biased conduct we would ask that you reflect a bit and realize that you were charged to do the bidding of the people your term in office is finite and your powers are far from infinite the schools are ours the students are ours and this board works for us we respectfully refuse to sit down shut up or go away thank you our next speaker is erica eazold erica hello i'm short sorry my name is erica eazl and i live at 309 kathmeer road i have two sons in the district at chatham elementary go bulldogs it's spirit week they're very excited first i want to thank the board for approving the sage wellness contract and continuing your commitment and the district's commitment
035to dei work which is vital in our community i wanted to come and speak tonight because i've been very concerned lately about the comments at these meetings about what books are in our school libraries and on the school reading list i think it's extremely important that we prioritize a diversity of literature in both places children are empowered by seeing themselves in books but also children's world views are expanded by seeing people who are different from themselves represented in books as a parent of white children i believe this is extremely important i do not want them living in a bubble of belief that everyone looks and thinks like them i can't think of anything more disturbing than censoring reading material i don't agree with everything i read and neither should my children but i hope that
036whatever my children choose to read with the assistance and guidance of our excellent educators sparks questions and discussions in our home thank you our next speaker is tom thornton tom good evening everyone thank you for allowing me to speak mr scotland probably will not approve of me being here but i am running for school board and i think it's important that people have the chance to get up here and speak about things that concern them in the community and the ironic thing is that i think when you look at these school board meetings you see the divisiveness uh that that resides here in these school board meetings and i think it's unfortunate and that is one of the reasons why i decided to run again because quite frankly i wasn't going to run again and
037it was very disheartening for somebody like me and i'm not even going to go off script right now because i'm thinking about a lot of things that are going through my head and it's very disheartening to watch what's going on in this town right now you have people on this side and this side and nobody willing to bring them together that's why i decided to run again and when i spoke to people i spoke to people on both sides because yes i'm running as a republican but more importantly i'm running as tom thornton the human being that cares about havertown cares about the children okay cares about the best for this community and i've lived my life up to that standard everything that i do in this township is always township first community first anybody
038has come to me and asked for something i always help i always step up okay this is my opportunity to step up and get on that board and unify people unify this township it's nine zero democrat republican zero nine democrats you know you can say what you want about it you can say the politics aren't involved but they are unfortunately and anybody that knows me knows that i am right in the middle and i deal with everybody i probably have more democratic friends in harford township than i do republican and i never look at people as a d or an r i don't care i look at people for substance okay what i can offer for the board is somebody that's willing to do the work to bring all these people on each side together
039okay because i don't see it i haven't seen it for quite some time and i don't know who's willing to do that but i know that i am you know what i'm just gonna this doesn't even matter anymore okay november 2nd do what you want okay but i'll tell you one thing right now we need to bring people back together we need to get balance on this school board we need to have two different sides coming together for the children it's not about politics it's not about power it's not about right and wrong it's about doing what's right for the kids that's all i got good night [Applause] our next speaker is nicholas finelli good evening everyone my name is nick vinelli i reside at 811 nars run road i'm a 57-year resident of havertown
040graduated from hartford high school both my kids went right through the system from kindergarten high school i have three grandchildren two were at manila school the third one will be coming in excuse me the oldest will be entering the middle school next year as an 11 year old this book here is called out of darkness it's available it's available in the middle school library the publisher recommends on their website 9th to 12th grade on the spine this is from the library the harvard township library it says teen why is it in the middle school the book is loaded with racial slurs offensive language murders rapes violence and even masturbation the villain is a white man who is betrayed as a racist the reviews that are on the cover of this book the first one a
041powerful layered tale of forbidden love in times of unrelenting racism excuse me second one anyone who dares read this agonizing star-crossed love story will end up in about 6 billion numb and tiny pieces that's on this book this is in our middle school library really i could see it in the high school under supervision and i'm not advocating like this gentleman said to ban books that's atrocious but we need to monitor what's going on with this kind of stuff if i was permitted to ask you guys questions which were not we were promised that we were going to have a question period two months ago i haven't heard a word about it here's the questions i would ask is the board aware of this book that it's in the middle school library did you guys
042approve this book is there an appraisal process an approval process for books that go into the school libraries there would be the questions that i would ask you it is very sad to watch this board every two weeks ignore the comments made by the residents of this community i can guarantee you if you guys continue with this your political agenda you will all be replaced the tide is turning people are waking up in this township we will replace you with people that represent the residents thank you our next speaker is danielle vitale danielle good evening my name is danielle vitale and i live at 22 spring counseling although i'm running as candidate for school board i'm here tonight as the parent of children in our district i'm asking the board on behalf of myself and
043other parents to reinstate the academic standards that we help pre-covet last year our teachers did an amazing job across the board during unprecedented circumstances but i believe the district policies hindered their ability to educate our students and quite a few district teachers at the middle and high school levels have expressed me to the concerns i am presenting here tonight last year in middle school there were virtually no expectations and standards with a few exceptions there was virtually no homework projects that used to be done at home such as science in the news were done during class time tests were by and large open book and open note there were no real penalties for turning in uh the limited latest uh attorney in late the limited assignments that students were given the amount of writing assignments
044was drastically reduced and there were unlimited test taking attempts in certain subjects until almost the end of the year i wasn't thrilled with this last year but as my middle schoolers were getting straight a's my focus was primarily on my first grader who was struggling to learn to read in a hybrid format i hope that things would change this year and while they have improved seventh grade doesn't look like seventh grade did a few short years ago my seventh grader typically comes home with zero to ten minutes of homework or night and there are other simple things like slashing the summer reading list from three books to one that are concerning there used to be two assigned books and one choice book per grade this year the seventh graders had to read stolen children which
045is previously a choice book and is honestly quite honestly a bad beach read at best as a choice book with two solid assigned options stolen children was fine but for this to be the only book required for seventh grade was a disappointment especially when the district previously selected books like 11 and restart that led to really thought-provoking discussions i had a panel discussion with the group of mothers in our district about concerns they had and one mother made a very interesting comment she believes that the district policies of limited expectations and standards last year led to mental health issues with her son she said that when her son realized that it didn't matter if assignments were turned in late or what the quality was that he checked out another mother said that when her son
046saw that some students in his class who never turned in work were able to turn in three to four assignments at the end of the quarter and get a c he figured why bother and he too became disengaged teachers in the middle and high school have expressed to me frustration that their efforts to impose some stricter standards while still being flexible we're blocked everything clicked with me after these discussions the level of apathy in our students last year was off the charts i could walk into the area where my middle school's middle school sons worked in the afternoon and see 3 out of 70 plus kids participating in a quarter class in the morning there would usually be less than half of students participating in honors level classes all people our students included do well
047with expectations and last year there weren't many when you act like something doesn't matter people start to believe it doesn't matter and that's what happened last year in our schools a lot of our older students were subjected to policies that conveyed although with the best intentions that school didn't really matter for our students academic and overall well-being i'm asking the district to reinstate the academic standards that they had pre-coveted thank you thank you the next speaker is stacy kaiser thomas check stacy hi my name is stacey kaiser tamashik i live at 204 arlington road in hampertown um thanks for letting me speak tonight i'm here to reiterate my support for the diversity equity and inclusion initiative throughout the district um thank you first for approving the sage contract the sage wellness contract diversity equity inclusion
048education is essential for our children to have a large global view we live in a bit of a bubble in havertown and while i love our bubble of habitat i love our community it's not really representative of our country or the world so in havertown we have 94 percent of our populations white in the united states just 60 percent of our population is white and in philadelphia just a few miles um east of us what is it are white i want my children to understand the world as a whole and their place in it i want them to understand the history and circumstances of their fellow students from marginalized populations i don't think they're too young even my kids in elementary school to know what racism is to know the struggles and discrimination that some
049of their fellow students and their families face you know our children walk into the classroom with beliefs that are from their families and from their neighborhoods and from their media and most of our community is tolerant and fair people and that's why i love this town but i know that that's not the case with everyone and having our teachers armed with this dei education will be able to combat any prejudice brought into the classroom and i'm not just speaking of racial prejudices or our students have a special needs they face many obstacles and prejudices i went um i want our students from our marginalized population to see themselves represented in the books they read and the teachers that educate them i want our children to go on field trips to places where they will be
050exposed to ideas and thoughts that they're not used to hearing i want them to learn about the background of all different people that make up our country and make up our world creating this environment of diversity equity and inclusion cultivates critical crucial critical thinking schools that our children need and will nurture those who do not see themselves represented today thanks for your time thank you our next speaker is alexis pasternak alexis hi good evening thank you um i'm going to just cut to the chase um just start with your name alexis pasternack i'm sorry 609 woodland drive um we have this current school board member ms larson who i am i don't think she's here um who is yet to confirm or deny that she has signed the zen education project's pledge to teach the
051truth i've already inquired about this privately and that's how i wanted to keep it but i've received no response from the district really the issue is did she sign this she does have to answer to those considering voting for her again as well as new voters according to the zen education project's website the pledge to teach the truth is an agreement formal and or informal i don't know between an educator and as an education project which in part states we the undersign educators will not be bullied we will continue our commitment to develop critical thinking that supports students to better understand problems in our society and to develop collective solutions to those problems we are for truth-telling and uplifting the power of organizing and solidarity that move us toward a more just society organizing and
052solidary sounds like activism to me um it's actually more than that and and anyone is welcome to go to that website um and if anyone is not familiar with howard zinn he was considered a communist and a radical but they can do the you know they can research themselves and decide i find it hard in this moment to believe it is not her considering her past statements at various school board meetings about how she and the board need to be mindful of their whiteness and how their she's working to become an anti-racist and it's a lifelong journey and honestly it sounds like religion at this point if it is not her i will make a public apology immediately and at the next board meeting your avid supporters frame us as people who do not want
053our children to talk about the nasty and awful parts of our nation's history that we want to whitewash our history or we are people that deny racism exist today and that it is not present in havertown we are being called bigots racists homophobic transphobic white supremacists radical right wing reactionaries and most recently domestic terrorists you are all wrong this is called freedom of conscience this is what democracy looks like [Music] thank you our next speaker is lynne okay our next speaker is angela urso angela erso1242 dell road good evening it came to my attention that recently the sixth grade health class were asked to write their pronouns on popsicle sticks i'm inquiring about this as i have an email from jen sasquez stating that sixth grade health curriculum does not include gender identity so i
054was confused after an email exchange between both the teacher and administrator i decided it was just best to request a meeting to discuss this i was offered one time to meet a time that it was impossible for me to make work i offered times i was available and instead i got a phone call from the teacher who was great and willing to have a conversation about it in this conversation he stated that recently he attended a chop training and learned that asking pronouns in the classroom reduces the suicide rate for transgendered students he also stated that this was not asking pronouns was not his decision to make he said that educators are being forced to implement this in the classroom and if i had more questions i needed to take it someone higher than him
055the administrator who was on the email chain was not part of this phone conversation and i never heard from him so i'm here tonight to express my concerns to the board i'm wondering if you could clarify for me if gender identity is part of the curriculum of sixth grade health as you know this is a sensitive topic especially to a group of 11 and 12 year olds i would have liked the opportunity to talk with my child first which is why i inquired if it was in the curriculum in the first place the teacher's defense that when he was not teaching it he was only asking for pronouns well that to me is teaching it since side conversations broke off after that um he he asked after he asked them to do this leaving a
056bunch of 11 and 12 year olds to say whatever they wanted about the situation opening doors to bullying opening doors to misinformation administrators are not answering my emails or phone calls the board rarely answered answers my email even you dr arushi you emailed me last week and you told me that you thought the overcrowded bus situation was dealt with and that you would get to the bottom of it and contact me monday by the latest it's thursday and i have heard nothing in the meantime i have not only been picking up my own children but neighbors children and the district is blatantly violating their own policy about standing on the bus is this an another example of the district violating their own words or policy if you say it's not in the sixth grade curriculum
057then why are the sixth graders being asked their it has left many children confused and left them to come up with their own ideas so which is it and what in the world do i need to do to have my questions answered how is it okay for parents to treat it like this and ghosted by administrators and the board we are concerned parents with struggling children we just want answers to our questions so what is going on when will you be transparent with us i have four children in the district i am not going anywhere nor do i think that this is an appropriate a professional way of dealing with situations on your part by not communicating with parents appropriately you are sending a message that you do not care by violating your words and
058policy you are creating a hostile environment you are the ones that are dividing this community and i pray to god for change in november thank you thank you our next speaker is elena washley good evening my name is elena wisely i live at 612 willow brook road i had a whole bunch of questions i was prepared to ask you all tonight but i have to listen into everything that everybody else said i don't even want to ask them because i'm quickly reminded that you're not going to answer them because you don't answer them you ignore us whether we come here to ask you or if we ask you through email or if we ask you in letters that we send to your houses it doesn't matter we're completely ignored and i've never once come up
059here and said i'm running for school board because i've come up here to ask the current school board questions but i see no reason that i shouldn't do that because i am here not on a political platform as you are but because i care about the children and while people come up here and say we need to consider all children they don't really mean that because if you want to consider all children then you actually consider all children and stop pushing a narrative we are not asking you to ban books okay but 11 year olds do not need to read about the sexual acts that take place between a father and their 11 year old daughter that is actually kind of disgusting and anybody that wants to defend that i don't have words i truly
060don't have words i know that not all of you up here realized that that was there and you're probably just as disgusted as we are and i don't come up here to yell at you and i don't come up here to be villainized and accused of having weapons because that's not why we are here we are here because we care about our children i was a democrat for 19 years okay the party has gone off the rails and every political agenda being pushed by them is being pushed on our children in the schools i don't want it for my children i just want them to have a good education i want balance on the board i want transparency i want action i i'm happy danielle came up here and spoke eloquently about what our children
061need educationally because honestly that's all i care about safety and education i came up here and asked about sage wellness and sel back in june todd just came up here and talked about it tonight you voted unanimously there was a slight discussion that took place that was clearly orchestrated prior okay there were some things that were discussed which we do appreciate but we're not actually taken into consideration parents concerns parents questions and the things we are asking you're not actually taking any of that into consideration so what is the point in us coming up here during these school board meetings to talk about things that are on the agenda because do you take those things into consideration and address them when you vote it's magically a unanimous vote with zero discussion that is why we
062need balance in addition to that the transparency there's thousands upon thousands of dollars being spent what did you say 18 on that program can you just nod to confirm that that was 18 9 i just don't want to say the wrong thing you can't even confirm with a nod but you can allow another group to come in here and say to show me what democracy looks like and you will have a full conversation with that group that's not even a parent of any child in this district [Applause] next item on our agenda is board reports mr fleischer just want to make sure the community is aware that there's been some significant bathroom destruction at the middle school thanks to tick tock apparently the next challenge is touch a teacher or slap a teacher and i
063hope the district takes this seriously if anyone is caught destructing the property i hope the bill goes to the parents if anyone is caught touching a teacher inappropriately thanks to a tick tock challenge i hope they're expelled on the spot please stop this behavior in our schools [Applause] antoinette thanks um i just want to say on the over the past two weeks i've been able to participate in a couple different activities with the board and with the community um i really have enjoyed the back to school picnics i know obviously not just my children's schools having them but everyone so thank you to all of the staff teachers uh parent-teacher organizations that have helped put those on it's been really great to participate and uh to see everyone in the community uh saturday was harvard
064township day and i was able to stop by the um the booth that the district had um i really again enjoyed speaking with the community there and seeing everyone uh township day was very great to have once again so um just thank you and that's it for me thanks thanks dave i just want to start by by seconding what what fleischer said and just encourage all parents to please talk to your kids about this kind of thing these these crazy challenges on tick tock and and other sites it's just uh it boggles the mind um also as a member of the chat and park community wanted to send my wishes out to mrs ritchie who was diagnosed with an illness and we will be continuing to teach at the school i hope everybody in the
065community also wishes her well as well in in her recovery that's all i have thanks steve laura um like antoinette um i had the the pleasure of participating in some of the back to school events at linwood and that was really exciting i was also free last friday morning and i was so pleased to be able to go on a tour led by several of our fifth grade students at linwood my tour guide was absolutely hilarious and enjoyable and it was such a treat to go around the school and hear about his favorite things he got to show us his artwork we got to check out the music room the art room the gymnasium the playground he showed us his favorite his favorite activities on the playground it was great beautiful building it was such
066a great opportunity members of the board were there a few members um bridgette was there dr rushi um members of the administration uh some of our township commissioners were there our police chief and some of his fellow officers were there um what a what a good morning um and what a what a really great way to welcome everybody back to lynnwood in the brand new building um i also have registered thanks for the reminder to register for advocacy day our fall virtual advocacy day is next week and that for the public who isn't aware um we've been doing these virtual advocacy meetings during covet but i actually appreciate the virtual aspect of it um so we don't have to travel to harrisburg it's an opportunity for us as school board members to meet up with
067other school board members from other districts and talk with our state representatives about public education and the needs that we have for public education to educate them about what are some of the concerns of the schools within their within their districts and um it's it's just a it's an enjoyable day to hear what they have on their legislative docket related to education so i'm glad to participate in that um and i think that's it thank you thanks laura sale no report thanks to our student representatives for uh coming out it's nice to see you back yeah thanks sal susan i i just wanted to talk a little bit about the delaware county intermediate unit as a member of the of your harvardford school board one of the jobs that i have is i go to
068the delaware county iu school they have their own school board and it's represented by one of us from every one of the delaware county districts 15. my right wing 15. and it's wonderful to get to learn about all of these programs when i was a special education supervisor i really participated a lot was working with the delaware county iu now that i'm there as a retired adult what i'm learning about mostly and what i'm going to do my best to beat the drum about is the delaware county technical school uh they built uh it's brand new right now and and um i guess this is the third year and it's just amazing what these kids do and they do it from our own district we have kids that leave our high school in i don't
069know about 10th grade 11th grade and 12th grade we bust them down they're learning about car mechanics they're learning about welding there are there are medical programs there is a cosmetology program um it's amazing all of the different opportunities that they are there and i want to keep beating the drum for it because i think that sometimes people think when they hear technical school they don't realize that this is such a wonderful opportunity for kids whether or not they want to go to college to be able to experience these kinds of different opportunities that are out there in the world and and i just feel like we need to talk about them more one of the things um that i did learn first of all there's 1250 kids from delaware county that are in attendance
070down there with the some 50 different pro products and and widener is now offering dual enrollment so the opportunity for your child our children to go down there and take a class at weidner it only costs 200 per class when it correlates with something that they're learning out at the technical school and i just think in these day and times it's just the best opportunity for kids i know lots and lots of students that have done it have taken the medical program um i know lots of kids that have worked down there and and pt ot they've got everything for the kid to learn about what it's going to be like in the professional world so i can't encourage it enough they have something called um skills usa that the delaware county intermediary is now
071going to host this year and that's competition in every technical school so they're not going down there just to learn but they're going down there to compete and there's also i'm going to say it the nocti shake your head a farm rate the nocti test that um every kid has to take to pass and then becomes part of a group with a score that will count if they decide to go to college so i i can't encourage it enough i'd love to talk to anybody about it it's a wonderful program and and it makes me very proud to be part of delaware county thanks thank you [Applause] thanks susan bridget thank you that's a tough one to follow um i in them for the last couple weeks participated with on saturday mornings once a month
072um some of the school district leaders across delco coordinated with the dciu get together and we almost call it like our therapy session our check-in but just talking about some of the issues that the different neighboring districts are experiencing we talked about bus driver shortages again trying to get the covid data by district talking about kind of the return to school different staffing challenges how to support and show appreciation for the staff and the administration that through these challenging times so it's always nice to have them as a group to check in with i also was at the lynnwood tour and got to walk around and see the building and how exciting how excited the kids and staff were by it so it was great to get in there and then i was at the
073district booth for haverford township day the district put out information about our strategic plan and it was nice to talk to members of the community about our goals and the high regard that there is for haverford township in our academics and how we're building on that with our future looking plans for preparing contemporary citizens diversity and inclusion and social emotional wellness the district also had our head of hr representatives from food services transportation and our facilities team there talking about job openings and handing out cards with qr codes maybe you can take those with you this week for the or next week for the other local jobs searching but it was a great opportunity to be out on a beautiful day and connect with the community and just in response to some of the public
074comments um tonight that had to do with curriculum matters um i just wanted to say that with the way that we've organized our business this year there are going to be curriculum focused committee meetings coming up um i think november 22nd is the first one focused on curriculum someone can check on that but um these topics about about books and academic standards and gender in the curriculum that would be a forum for those topics to get on the agenda and to have some discussion about those thanks thank you bridget the board met in executive session prior to the meeting this evening to discuss multiple litigation and confidential student matters with council our next regular public board meeting is scheduled to be held october 21st 2021 at 7 30 p.m right here in the auditorium at
075haverford high school and with that i'll accept a motion to adjourn after the meeting you're welcome to come up i'll hang out for a while second the meetings meetings adjourned but you're welcome to come up