001everybody welcome to the july 22nd 2021 board business and conference meeting of the school district of haverford township could rise for the the pledges states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with the liberty of justice for all here mr sinto here here ms snodgrass here here thank you very much must not be anything good on tv tonight this is frontline democracy so it's great to see everybody out here our board meetings are business meetings and we hope to run them in a business like fashion i would ask that members of the public and board members uh be respectful in in their conversations and avoid interrupting i will also say that if we have any issues as we did at the last meeting where the room starts
002to get out of order and does not respond across the order we will recess and and there some gentlemen here who will help escort folks out uh if they need to be escorted out and i hope we can conduct a meeting without that this is uh probably my 400 400th or so board meeting in this school district and the only other time that i remember a commotion like that was when we egregiously voted not to let the cheerleaders go to florida so that being said a couple of couple of business items board members when you when you make motions this evening or seconds could you please also state your last name so marth until martha gets to know you so that she can keep the minutes accurately we have 22 speakers uh for public session
003this evening so when you when you when your name is called if you come to the podium the microphone um name and address three minutes and we're going to be a little tighter on the three minutes considering that we have so many speakers one other thing that i i would like to mention and i know that they're as with the last meeting there are a number of folks that are concerned about uh taxes and tax appeals i'd just like to remind you that the deadline for the well the deadline for the current tax bill that you got at the beginning of the month has already passed but if you're interested in appealing uh your tax bill for next year you need to do that by august 1st the delaware county assessment office phone number is
004610-891-4879 and they can assist you in how to proceed with that appeal our i'll accept a motion to approve the official minutes from the july 8th board meeting center contrast second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion queries okay our first speaker this evening is danielle danielle camerota danielle good evening danielle cameron of italy and i live at 22 springhouse lane in aberdeen i am here tonight to thank dr brushy and jen saxa for reversing their decision to end or reduce level classes in our school district it was announced during the may 20th meeting of this year that the district will be moving quote heterogeneous groupings of students and quote in math and language arts meaning that they would be eliminating and refining level classes in these subjects so
005rather than having a level one a level two and a level three class in language arts for instance there would just be a single grade level class offered as a parent in the district i was highly concerned when i heard this announcement my two sons at haverford middle school in particular my oldest have greatly benefited from the honors level classes that they have been in without the elevated pace and increased requirements and expectations honors classes provide my oldest definitely would have been under stimulated and frequently bored in some classes on the flip side a friend contacted me regarding her middle schooler who was in a level 3 language arts class that provided extra support she was extremely worried about her child being placed in a class with grade level and honor students and not being
006able to keep up because he was not getting the extra support and attention he needed interestingly three district teachers that i have never met contacted me through mutual friends to voice their own concerns about how ending level classes was harmful to our students in district one haverford middle school teacher worried about how she was going to challenge students previously in a level one honors class while simultaneously supporting students previously in a level three class in the same class at the same time all the while making sure that students at grade level were getting the attention they needed other than pandemic education issues i have never encountered a topic so discussed amongst my friends neighbors acquaintances and even strangers as the districts move to end or reduce level of classes honestly no one could understand who
007benefited from such a drastic change our children are all unique individuals with their own unique strengths and weaknesses and i believe it's our job as a district to enhance our students strengths and address their weaknesses lumping everyone together with no regard for their individual abilities would be a disservice to our students so i thank you very much for listening to the community and reversing your decision thank you our next speaker is nicholas finelli good evening everyone my name is nick vinelli i reside at 811 nailer's run road in harbor town i've lived in this township probably longer than a lot of people in this room have been alive i graduated 1970 from haverford high school my two children my daughter my son went through the entire harvard school system my two granddaughters are now in
008the system and my grandson will be in next year amazing what the school district has done for us the two greatest influences on any child are their parents and their schools of choice for over 200 years the american educational system has molded our children in the successful citizens while parents built the foundation for their moral fabric this must continue common sense the harford township school district has been in the top 20 public school systems in the us for years by teaching with excellence the three r's reading writing and arithmetic common sense what is concerning to the parents in this township today is the introduction of the new three reparations revenge and racism our elected school board members sitting before us have a duty to keep politics out of any decisions that they make common sense
009every decision this board makes and any future boards have a lifelong impression on every one of our children common sense must be your guiding light the last meeting a board member made a comment that people applauding the speaker or followers that board member was 100 percent correct the followers are the individuals all have common sense next speaker is stacy thomas check i'm stacy smashick i live at 204 arlington road in havertown i'm here this evening to express my support and my appreciation to the district for initiating and maintaining the bases program i'm a mom of two sons ages nine and six who attend chatham park elementary school i'm not a politician i don't consider myself an activist but i feel very strongly about supporting programs such as basis because i'm so grateful to be raising
010my children in the community that cares so much about its children i'm no professional affiliation with the basis for the school district for the past few months i've been seeing references to basis in social media groups and it seemed to be heated topics so i looked it up to learn exactly what it was and i'll share what i learned as a reminder and reference to everyone here in attendance basis stands for belonging and socio-cultural identities in schools basis's purpose is to achieve and incorporate belonging in our school district for all members of the school district of havert township community i emphasize all because this is the core of why i am so grateful for this program to be put into place at its core basis is protecting and supporting our children as a community we
011have an obligation to be supporting and protecting all of our children this includes children who are different from our own children and friends even if we don't understand it they are our children and they need to be supported earlier this week a friend from a different district in a different state talked to me about her son coming home from camp and he was very confused because one of his fellow campers identified themselves as non-binary he had no idea what it was and my friend had no idea either and she couldn't explain to him at that moment what it was but she just said be nice be friends if you want to be friends don't but just be nice and it's okay for us to not understand something just be nice and be accepting at chatham
012park our principal dr whitehead repeats every day that we all matter we deserve all deserved dignity and this is what i interpret basis goal to be be open to learning about other people's lives be nurturing to all of our children and their unique experiences and circumstances basis cultivates a nurturing and supporting environment during the school day for our evolving children basis organizes special field trips and events to broaden our understanding and appreciation of our diverse population of students and their families basis provides training and support to our teachers to provide them the tools to support our children support for basis is support for our children i look forward to seeing basis in action in our schools and in my children's lives i look forward to continuing to support the message of inclusion and empathy in
013my and all of our children these children are our future doctors and teachers there are future politicians social workers and business owners these children are our future and more of them who are healthy of mind and body the better our community will thank you next speaker is tracy lira hi i'm tracy lira and i live at 1729 hawthorne avenue i am the parent of two elementary students at chestnut wild according to the cdc depression and anxiety rates in children ages 6 to 17 have been increasing from 5.4 in 2003 to 8.4 in 2012. i suspect that with the pandemic these numbers have only increased further students who are not part of the majority identity group by race religion sexual orientation etc are more likely to experience depression and anxiety it's important to recognize and validate
014their identities this is what basis attempts to do it's critical to have a supportive and inclusive school environment for all of the children they should each feel like they are uniquely valued and that they belong having teachers and staff trained and participating in activities such as the rainbow alliance day of silence can go a long way in helping children feel included our schools are preparing our children for the future a future that includes all kinds of people providing them a well-rounded school experience will enable them to be caring empathetic members of their community basis is a key component to this positive school experience and i'm thankful that our school district has made it a priority our next speaker is erica eazold hi my name is eric easel i live at 309 kathmeer road in havertown
015i have two sons my oldest is entering fourth grade at chatham park and my youngest is joining him this year in first grade he's so excited to be a bulldog i wanted to come tonight to express my support for the basis program whose goal of incorporating belonging in our school district i profoundly appreciate in addition to my own children i am also an aunt to two district students one of whom is a non-binary lesbian they have found a phenomenal group of friends in high school because of the lte lgbtq plus group they are truly one of the most self possessed almost 15 year olds i have ever met and this is largely because they are in a safe and welcoming environment every day i asked my nibbling and that is the non-binary word for nice
016if i could mention them tonight and if so what they would want people listening here to understand they said everyone that is in the lgbtq plus group at my school has found support there and also everyone in that group has been through immense trauma this is not a choice i don't mean to say that being gay isn't wonderful because it is but why would we choose to put ourselves an experience in a position to experience hate my nibbling lives every day knowing that there are people in this township who believe they don't deserve the same rights to be called by the correct pronouns or participate in sports should they want to as straight kids that is a pretty big burden for a 15 year old to bear our schools can and should be spaces that
017feel safe for all of our children to learn they should be spaces that support diversity and foster empathy that is how we ensure the next generation enters the world able to think critically and creatively and how we build stronger communities this is why i'm glad that the school district has made the work of the basis program a priority thank you next speaker is patrick good evening my name is patrick plunkett and i live at 7 44 lorraine street when the athletic director sent me an email on july 13th i realized after a quick review my inbox this was just the third direct communication from them so our child participated in an activity every season during the past year the first was in september about cdc recommendations and the second in may was with information about
018physicals for the need for next year i was curious i wondered if the email was a reminder encouraging students to continue to follow coronavirus protocols during summer practices to ensure their well-being a year in summary recognizing the accomplishments of all the haverford teams for a simple note to commend them for demonstrating a great deal of grit while representing haverford during the past year i was surprised to read the track teams would have a new coach next year for my daughter it would be her fourth coach in four years i was troubled by the need to explain the communication was delayed because power school was now working the day before although i'm pretty sure i remember being sent another email from the district on the same day i was not surprised to learn the students who
019were coached by coach meyers started a petition to reinstate their coach from my observations coach mars was a clear communicator better than me who worked well with able colleagues like coach bauer a career educator a member of the new jersey state athletic hall of fame whose past employer recognized his dedication and achievements by naming a facility after him similar to what haverford did for coach chunger coach myers also demonstrated the ability to inspire students from the most talented to those who experience little to no athletic success to commit to being their best self the framework to improve and expertise in coaching this result in him in fielding competitive teams where boys and girls of varying abilities made big gains achieving over a hundred personal bests in a season limited by the coronavirus where a diverse
020group of students from different friend groups became teammates and demonstrated the age pride encouraged by the district that brought positive attention to the high school this was a welcome change from our child's previous track experience where coaches assembled groups by events and rarely if other gathered or practiced together spoke to an entire team she slept to an event at a meet and broker arm at a practice in an unsupervised weight room given this email from the athletic director i'm interested in how all coaches have are being supported evaluated and retained i'm curious to why the softball team's accomplishments in the pia state tournament were highlighted by the athletic director in the haverford high weekly newsletter while the boys and girls track team's participation at the pia a statement was not given similar or any attention
021i wonder if our track programs are current with best practices or designed to have coaches work together and share resources effectively i did read where former coach jay williams was successful like coach meyer was this past year coaching boys and girls simultaneously during his hall of fame career at haverford i'm forced to speculate why do other schools in the central league appear to have less turnover among track coaches and if there have excuse me and if there is a habit for grad or current student who may have competed or could compete in the olympic trials like another centrally graduate did this past spring though did not and will not because they are hindered by the coaching turnover and how the program is organized and perhaps more importantly how many students like my daughter may never
022realize that hard work is a skill that can be developed to neil results on and off the track as she did for the very same reason i respectfully actually to look at everything that happened recognize the students passion for their coach the success that they had look at the causes and effects why students why perhaps other parents are asking for your involvement in the situation review the alternatives please work at using this as a teachable moment through your leadership we get better by creating a way to reinstate a successful committed decent coach who helped our students thank you our next speaker is robert dell my name is robert dell i live at 50 57 brittany lane in bryn mawr before i start there was a 1964 supreme court decision i'm sure you've all aware of
023it it's uh new york times versus sullivan and i just want to read a little bit from that judge brandon gave the the uh the decision on this such discussion he had it must be uninhibited robust and wide open and may well include vehement caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials so just keeping that in mind the big thing tonight the most important issue of the board in my mind is the equality of treatment under law crt whatever name you choose to call it because it's metastasized and verbiage so many times it is critical race theory or crt all one mess that when one gets to the essence is nothing but critical theory advanced by karl marx and when one objectively examines marx's theory it's the same as crt as advocated
024by candy and a pile of dung by any name is still a pile of dung no matter how many times you change its name our own district has embedded kennedy in our school in our school curriculum who also has allied and closed its ties with organizations who treat candy with adulatory echoes and that is horrible how dangerous it to exalt endure a man who said this and this is directly quote from kennedy racial discriminate racial discrimination is not inherently racist the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination this town doesn't want that and i can tell you that right now we're going to start right there how bad have we turned our world where this is
025where we are stop usurping parental authority and teaching morals and political thought stop turning our little babies against each other stop imprinting your world goals that aren't shared in unanimity with our children you're out of line and you have no authority to do such you work for us and you i hope you please never forget that haverford township is a is full of diverse thought and acceptance stop imprinting your perceived issues that we don't have in our township and stop using young people to spread your message of hate that you do through surrogates and i'll leave the name out of it you've made that kid think we're all racist because we don't agree philosophically with your indoctrination of kids if we say we don't agree with you we're racist we're homophobes that's bull we all
026know it as far as the board's behavior toward constituents it's beyond horrible when mrs larson pulled last week last time there's no excuse for her annex and for those who whose children who've been separated divided demeaned and degraded for the good of our goods kids she should step down it was unacceptable what you did last meeting looked so far beyond the boundaries of civil behavior for a public servant it's beyond abysmal you're an embarrassment to our district and she's not here to face it we all know why and you're being damaged by your maniacal drive to enforce your political dogma on our residents our culture and most importantly our youth you all will say whatever you want we know that but we don't care your words like racist sex is homophobic etc hold zero emotional
027blackmail anymore because it's all you have and you're absolutely politicized our district and you are dangerous step down miss larson for the good of our youth in the township and the taxpayers who fund your dangerous social experiments that our youth have no business participating in people can come up here and use whatever words they want we've heard the eloquence oh it's inclusive as acceptance when we have kids coming home and saying what did i do wrong because i'm white or black kids coming home and saying oh i can't get anywhere because i'm black it's wrong and these people have the data they have the facts and they know what's going on when it's happening our district come back and talk but you're bringing problems where we don't have those problems and you're out of line
028thank you our next speaker is william bryan my name is william my name is william bryan i live at 210 shelbourne good evening to the board and good evening to my fellow citizens all of them i'm not here to yell at the board i'm here to speak civilly and offer my perspective i'm not a follower i speak solely for myself by design this board was meant to be apolitical well at least that was the plan all members are expected to be neutral stewards administrating the education of our most precious commodity our kids not cultural lifeguards the sport is expected to act in the best interest of all of our students and all of the community equally board actions should always reflect the will of the community and never any personal agendas many speakers have passionately
029voiced a wide range of concerns regarding taxes crt indoctrination gender issues curriculum health and more while those topics are relevant for discussion before this board not all topics are relevant or appropriate for the classroom this board has issued plenty of excuses and deflecting any real accountability but what i've yet to hear from this board is we were wrong or we made a mistake or we're going to do better i've seen t-shirts stating have you yelled at your school board i've heard glib comments about followers i've heard the audience being reminded to conduct themselves as examples to the community remember the same applies for you your examples to the community as well [Applause] you collectively need to listen and respond to the sentiments voiced by this community remember you all work for us has this board
030developed a comprehensive plan that will address the negative impact the lockdown had on all students at all levels in varying degrees please sharpen your focus math science factual history reading language arts geography and such leave parenting to the parents that's their job it's not yours please try to improve it being politically neutral openly transparent responsive and fiscally responsible i thank you for the time [Applause] next speaker is elizabeth flynn my name is elizabeth flynn i live at 145 south eagle road um thanks for the chance to speak i'll um start by saying that my daughter's had a great experience in haverford school so far and i'm so grateful for that um but i can't just assume that's the case for every family in the district and as a white parent i think it's important for
031me to participate in the conversation about basis um when i first heard about it my daughter was in her early grades and i really didn't know how it would apply so i decided to read up and learn more and everything i've seen so far has impressed me um the morning meeting which happens at the elementary schools is one example and i got to listen in from time to time this year because of online school as a simple thing at the start of each day the kids are invited to share something that's going on in their lives like a new pet a hobby a family outing just a way for them to like listen to and learn from each other and they're not required to participate but they're all invited and it means that every day
032every student in the class has a chance to be seen and heard and i didn't realize at first that this had anything to do with basis but thinking of the terms belonging and inclusion it makes sense to me now and i do think this practice of listening with respect makes a difference because later in the day the kids are less afraid to raise their hand or ask a question or make a mistake i think it does help to make them more effective and successful learners at that age i'll also add that as a parent of a daughter i'm grateful that her class spent time observing women's history month and learning stories that i never heard about in school and helping her to understand that the opportunities she enjoys today are the product of many people
033fighting for progress and change over time as a gay person who grew up in public schools just a couple miles from here i am happy to know that the high school has an lgbtq group and young people have a safe space and social outlet and the faculty and staff have the training to support them i can't begin to tell you what a difference a program like that would have made for me and friends of my generation when we were in school as a white parent it is important to me that my daughter learns history of black americans native americans asian americans and others and along with the victories and celebrations i do believe she should learn about the brutal history of racism in our country because how else could i expect her to make sense
034of the world we live in today i think it's hard to expect our kids to participate as citizens neighbors community members if we don't prepare them to grapple with difficult truths it's important because the impacts of our history are visible everywhere we look today and where we live who we interact with how we treat one another how safe we feel in different settings um and just one thing that stands out for me last summer the ace club um i think it stands for african-american cultural enrichment group from the high school organized a peaceful march through havertown in support of racial justice and i thought it was well organized well attended and just a really powerful event and to me that's a clear signal that our students are not just ready but they're eager to engage
035in these conversations as challenging as they may be and they're highly capable um and to me if we turn away from programs like basis it would be a huge disservice not just to those young leaders but to all of our students and if we want our kids to grow into thoughtful compassionate well-informed citizens then diversity equity and inclusion are not just good things to have in our schools i believe they're essential so that's why i support the basis program and i appreciate the district's commitment to it our next speaker our next speaker is angela erso good evening my name is angela erso i live at 1242 dale road at the last school board meeting i spoke about keeping crt out of our schools specifically citing a book which is currently on the summer reading list
036for high schoolers i submitted my comment before 3 p.m the day of the meeting i didn't exceed my a lot of time three minutes only to turn away and hear a school board member kristen larson call me and a bunch of other citizens in this room followers in the school board policy it states quote the role of the school board as with any other legislative body is to act collectively not individually your words so i question the board was kristen larson speaking collectively was she speaking for the board as a whole do you all share this belief that me and other citizens in the room are followers in the school board's policy it also states quote the board members right to fulfill information extends to the duty to listen to complaints citizens bring to them
037but not to solicit such complaints the right and duty to listen does not convey any right or duty to make any comment whatsoever in response to such complaint and quote your words so again i question the board why kristen larson was allowed to not follow policy not follow the rules and personally attack me and many other people in the room at the last meeting i don't know where she is like where is she but what i would like her to hear is that her alpha spoke to her true agenda her outer spoke to the fact that she was not listening to a word that i said which is a duty that she has as a board member how many other parents and taxpayers have stood up here to address the board concerned about the education
038of their children concerned about the mental health of their children concerned about children as a whole in this community and have not been heard i am asking for transparency from this board i am asking you to answer our emails and grant our right to knows i am also asking for accountability how is it that a board member was able to make such a statement and carry it on through the night and larry like you said the stuff that went on the last meeting that's her fault she caused that that's what sent everything into disruption here were her comments from the start i was the second speaker a general statement um the day after the board meeting acknowledging that what she did was wrong would have been at the very least of what most of us
039would have expected and most of us uh would have deserved how she is still sitting here even though she's not physically sitting here how she is still sitting here is it blows my mind lastly to increase transparency and accountability i'm requesting that all school board members and speakers be shown on live screen on live stream in a split screen at the same time the eye rolling the eye rolling the board members on their computers and phones dave i watched you during a whole speaker go through your notes there you were paging through them the whole time listen to us look at us i am asking that the whole school board meeting be shown on split screen so that the people at home can see the unprofessional behavior they can see the eye rolling they can
040see you looking at the phones and looking at computers people at home can't see that transparency and accountability for accountability for the children's safe i don't see either those are fundamental things that a school board needs to have thank you speaker our next speaker is katie lattis hi my name is katie ladis and i live at edgewood road in havertown i'm grateful for this opportunity to speak tonight i'm the mother of four young children two of them are toddlers and two of them are elementary school age a rising kindergartner and a rising second grader i speak tonight with their best interest at heart our family is new to the haverford school district we moved here from virginia during the heart of the pandemic we are an active duty military family proudly serving the united states
041navy out of a small base in northeast philadelphia we chose havertown of all places that we could have chosen to relocate due to the amazing things that we heard about this school district and we are very eager to experience that education for ourself through the freedoms that we so honorably defend it is my hope tonight that i might impress upon you the unique circumstances that families may have with hopefulness that you will begin this upcoming school year and maintain throughout the school year the ability for parents to use their own discretion as to whether their child should wear a mask or not in our case in particular we have four children that are trying to acclimate to a new state a new neighborhood a new school new friends all while the extra worry of covid
042is at their every turn coming from a state that did not mandate mask wearing for children under age 10 it's been disheartening to be thrust into an unreasonably stringent mask hell here in pennsylvania i urge you to draw confidence from the virginia department of health website which states just as of this week that virginia has only in the last almost 18 months now had two covid related deaths in the age group of 10 and under and they haven't been mandated for mass in the state um from the cdc's own website that states only a total in the entire united states of 0.6 percent of covet deaths have been in children under the age of 17. it is my understanding as i'm new here that dr ruschi recently stated that mass would not be enforced unless
043mandated to do so by the pennsylvania department of health or department of education correct me if i'm wrong but i am here tonight to say that i strongly support that statement if it is true about the optional mask wearing regardless of vaccination status for children i believe that mask wearing for children is more detrimental than protective for my young children i can speak for while in the classroom setting and for many reasons which i would like to elaborate on first for young children the mask hides non-verbal communication i believe that it's important for the teacher to be able to see the child's face to read their facial expression is the child confused are they bored are they nervous all of this hidden behind the mask conversely i believe it's important for the young child to
044be able to see the teacher's face and mouth as well since at such a young age they are still developing their vocabulary and learning to speak phonetically correct furthermore i believe that they are a distraction and take away attention from learning socially this would be detrimental for my children in particular as well coming to a new school not knowing anyone they wouldn't be able to see their classmates face nor would their classmates be able to see their face i believe that this will impede their social skills suppress them make them feel insecure and isolated our children are learning to become autonomous and they need to be able to express their unique identities let us have to ask you to finish up okay not to mention a warm smile from a classmate or teacher would go
045a long way in making them feel welcome um in wrapping up i just ask that you please uphold what dr rushi said and continue throughout this upcoming school year to let parents use their own discernment and discretion with the information that is out there and available to them to choose what is best for their children thank you [Applause] our next speaker is christopher welsh good evening my name is chris welsh i'm 115 water view circle havertown i'd like an explanation and i hope the board has been given an explanation as to how the health and safety plan complies with the requirements of the american rescue plan specifically how does the plan meet the arp act requirement to comply with cdc guidelines to the greatest extent possible when those guidelines require masking for all unvaccinated people
046and the district's plan does not require masking and if the haverford school plan does not i'm sorry the health and safety plan does not comply with the terms of the arp then is the district at risk for losing our funding for the upcoming school year to receive art funding local school districts are required to produce a health and safety plan that enables a safe return to in-person instruction and to achieve that purpose the arp act and the united states department of education require that the health and safety plan to the greatest extent practical implement prevention and mitigation policies in line with the most up-to-date guidance from the cdc the current cdc guidance requires universal and correct wearing of masks for anyone who is not vaccinated so by removing the mask requirement for unvaccinated people the
047district's health and safety plan clearly does not meet the ar the arp requirements to the greatest extent practical so instead of taking a best practices approach and to follow the cdc guidance to the greatest extent practicable which was clearly the intent of the law the plan appears to be taking the bare minimum approach by only requiring masks if they are mandated by state or federal authorities according to the plan students who ride buses to school have to wear the masks because those masks are mandated by the cdc but when they get to school they can take off the mask because the mask isn't mandated so that narrow interpretation of the language of the arp statute and the guidance from federal and state officials could jeopardize our funding so i'm writing to requests i'm writing i
048wrote and now i'm speaking to request an explanation to the legal analysis that led to the current iteration of this plan because the plan was changed from what it was before the last meeting to what it is now and the legal analysis i would hope is what informed that change and not only do i think you should be uh privy or know what that analysis was but i think we should too because if the money is attached to actually following the guidance not following only when it's mandated then isn't the money at risk and if we're going to lose the funding shouldn't we just follow the guidance of the cdc our next speaker is maddie mcalexander good evening my name is maddie mcalexander and i live at 67 colfax road i'm a recent graduate of
049haverford high school go forts and i'm also gay this is a part of my identity that for the most part i kept hidden during high school i really really enjoyed going to haverford and i was worried that revealing this part of me would jeopardize that enjoyment i was worried that the teachers i loved so much would treat me differently and that the friends i met at the lunch table would no longer be there there were and still are very brave students who are out at haverford but i didn't want to have to be brave every day i just wanted to go to school like everybody else haverford is an amazing school that i feel lucky to have attended but not all parts of haverford are great for everyone even though i felt like i couldn't
050be completely myself there i was still very happy and one thing that contributed to that happiness was that i was protected by my whiteness being gay made me feel like i didn't completely belong at haverford but it was something that i could hide because i looked and acted like most of my classmates and teachers so it was easy to fit in students of color at haverford do not have this privilege they cannot simply choose to hide the identities that make them different this makes for a different and objectively more difficult high school experience than that of white haverford students students of color at haverford have been patient enough to explain this to us by sharing their stories and we should be thanking them for that not pushing back i am here tonight to commend the
051school board for standing their ground with regard to the basis program but i'm also here to urge you to go further what basis does right now is not enough i'm here to tell you that sharing the amazing work of hard-working students in clubs like rainbow alliance no place for hate and the african-american cultural enrichment club as proof of haveford's work toward equity without providing these clubs and the students in them any support is exploited it identifying action steps to make haverford a more equitable school is easy to find simply go to minority students and ask them these students know what to do to make harford schools more equitable they go to school there every day i know that having my teachers wear rainbow t-shirts during pride month did not make me feel accepted i know
052that changing the health curriculum so that acknowledged experiences other than straight and cisgender ones would have if you want to make an experience for minority students that have referred better do not just flaunt their labor as an accomplishment of yours go to them directly ask them what they need and give it to them bring presentations about inclusion to haverford and have these conversations in every classroom where every student can hear and participate hire more teachers and administrators of color right now i am proud to be a haverford alum and i know haverford is an amazing school it can be even more amazing though and i know that we can do this by working together and listening to the students in the district who can accomplish this goal thank you alex speaker our next speaker is
053sarah faye i start the public home i just want to let you know that there's kind of a delay in the other room so if you call somebody's name they won't hear it until a few minutes later so anyways you know that um so my public comment is on the masking policy um i first i want to start by saying could you give us your address oh sure it's um 47 waverly road havertown pennsylvania um something very curious is happening and i know that many people in this room have noticed it too we're being used the haverford school board school boards across the country parents and millions of children were being used the cdc can't mandate mass or vaccines federally if these mandates could be enacted federally the biden administration would have put them in
054place vaccine mandates and even mass mandates can only happen at the state level since the cdc can't enforce these policies what did they decide to do they decided to drop this on the lap of school boards can school boards mandate any of these policies well that is very much debatable but lawyers are being hired to fight school boards and try that try and mandate mass and vaccines all across the country in the coming months we'll see this play out in the courts smartly our school board has said we will only mandate mass if it's mandated by the state and i want to thank you sincerely for that because i've just been really upset about this masking of children and i really want to thank you for for keeping mass optional and leaving that decision up
055to the state i think it's the right choice i just really want to ask the question why are we allowing our children and schools to be used to fight our political agendas it's wrong and our kids deserve better putting adult issues onto children is not what education is supposed to be about this is not only happening in haverford this is happening across the country and it has been happening for the past few years it is enough if you think we're raising a generation of children to think critically but literally covering their mouths and making sure they never speak to each other face to face then you are very much a confused and misguided person how do you think children growing up this way will be as adults how do you think development for say a
056five-year-old who had their face covered for two years will turn out do you think their development might be delayed emotionally how will these children fare we won't know for a while what the long-term effects to our kids are we hear about long-haul coveted but no one is speaking about the long-term effects of mass and lockdowns to children's development i want to say that there have been fewer than 250 children nationwide out of a total of 74.2 million that have died of covid to put this in perspective in 2019 there were 6 200 suicide deaths in children and teenagers the suicide rate is up 25 compared to 20 years ago that is an epidemic of our youth did we lock down the schools and declare an emergency when literally thousands of children were ending their own
057lives in no we did not but in 2020 we did just that for a disease that very rarely affects severely affects children you could argue that you didn't know that in march but you do know that now and i understand the argument that adults were in those buildings too but now we have the vaccine available um so a lot has changed and that's why i really want to thank you again for your decision to keep mass optional at this point the cases as low as they currently are knowing the covet very rarely affects children severely any additional measures such as mass mandates or vaccine mandates are to lower adult anxiety we do have an epidemic of anxiety among adults when we're anxious we want to control we've all experienced this i've noticed a growing need
058adults have to control what other people are doing with their own children in the hopes that this will reduce their anxiety well i'm very empathetic to this feeling of overwhelming anxiety i think re restricting children's breathing in an effort to reduce our own anxiety is not what is best for our kids we need to start acting like grown-ups our kids need us to get it together for them we had childhood we had sports and proms and parties and fun with our friends growing up our anxiety and hunger for political control needs to stop we're destroying our children's lives with this nonsense our parents never did this to us what we're doing to our children and i'm frankly disgusted with it it's very good you finish up yeah i will not allow my children my child
059to be indoctrinated into fear-based thinking to make adults feel better that is abusive and i want no part of it i want to thank the board for making this decision to leave health decisions up to the state um the cdc and the federal government should never have placed this with school boards and their decision to do so was at the expense of our children thank you for your time [Applause] next speaker is john ryan john ryan 534 kathmeer road um i spoke last week two weeks ago about to the assessment process and and what went on as far as you guys not being responsible for taxes going up in the township people excessively but i do want to speak tonight to the fact that one of your agenda issues will be to approve uh more
060appeals by the school board and proving more appeals by the school board to a handful of residents is a bad maneuver a severely bad maneuver once again we will be putting the spotlight on you guys as far as being the villains in this situation which you're not the man who is recommending these i you know who isn't even here this evening pays little to no tax in property tax has a property in wilmington that he pays about eight hundred dollars in a property in rehoboth beach that he pays about eight hundred dollars you know we have properties in this township that are severely under assessed you know there's twelve properties on exeter road that are each under assessed by more than five hundred thousand dollars that's six million dollars of under assessment i'm not sure
061what the criteria is for you to go after these appeals tonight but it's not an equal criteria there is twenty thousand properties in this township what you have to understand is going after just the ones that were sold in different times is not the way to do it it's not the way to take care of the problems we have and it will do nothing when we do a new school budget and we raise the taxes or have a new school budget we once again pulled the ninth grade algebra out and we'd redivide the total value of this township by our budget and come up with a new military so you're pissing into the wind you're basically taking you're you're you're making enemies and if we are going to like talk about properties that are under
062assessed i'd like to add 10 properties 700 lorraine is 20 000 under assessed 2720 pine is 35 000 under assessed 337 glen ridge is 52 000 under assessed 321 davis is ninety thousand dollars assessed under assessed twenty twenty three all caught eighty thousand dollars under assessed twenty five twenty huntington fifty nine thousand dollars under assessed eleven oak lane a hundred thousand dollars under assess and actually not reported for the proper permits 117 east turnbull 89 thousand dollars under assessed and 121 mill road 45 000 under assessed there's a property on melrose that's over assessed so when you go to vote for this night tonight it's a handful of properties skip it this year what we should be working for is having a proper assessment for all of our township i've already talked talked to the
063township commissioners and they were slapping it off on you guys but the truth is i started talking to other ones and there is maybe a movement for us to do it ourselves and guess what you've raised a lot of smart people and you have a lot of smart adults here for us to do our own assessment as a taxing authority is not completely out of bounds and has not been ruled out by many of the different lawyers that have been involved right thank you for your time [Applause] our next speaker is courtney bone hi good evening my name is courtney bowen and i live at 108 old forest road i'm a professor of population health research at the university of pennsylvania where i conduct research and teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate level to
064document and understand population health patterns in addition to my doctoral training i have a master's in public health and worked at local public health departments for a number of years importantly i'm also a mother of young two young kids one who's a rising kindergartner at chatham park elementary as well as a rambunctious two-year-old as both a population health researcher and expert and parent of young children i'm asking the board to reconsider their plan to make masks optional this year instead i'm asking the board to consider a mass mandate in our schools especially in those classrooms where younger of younger kids where 100 of the students remain unvaccinated this past spring and summer infections in our area declined as vaccinations increased this was great news and reason to feel really good and hopeful about the start
065of the school year but the situation has evolved really rapidly over the past several weeks as new variants like delta continue to surge with even higher levels of transmissibility than previous variants in just the past seven days coveted cases in pennsylvania have increased more than 67 percent over where they were a week ago the cdc director recent recently categorized the situation as a pandemic among the unvaccinated well unfortunately our kids make up that group young kids now represent a greater proportion of infections and hospitalizations than in previous months and this is only slated to get worse if they returned to school without the mitigation efforts in place that were in the in place the last school year it's true that kids are less likely than adults to experience severe illness or death but kids have
066not been spared in this pandemic as of the first week of july 2021 more than 200 000 kids in the united states had been hospitalized with kovid and 400 had died all of them have family and loved ones too studies show a high percentage of kids under 12 who are infected with sars kobe experience long-haul symptoms the long-term consequences of covet infection on lung cardiovascular and lung and metabolic function are still unknown thankfully over the last year and a half we've learned a lot about how to reduce transmission and infections and masks have emerged as really important evidence from the cdc showed that the relatively low levels of infection in kids seen during the twenty 2020 2021 school year were in large part a result of all the work that schools did to put mitigation
067efforts in place the proven effectiveness of masks is a reason why the american academy of pediatrics recently recommended that all kids continue to wear masks in school during the coming school year our youngest kids like my two will be eligible for vaccines within the next few months so many families including my own have sacrificed time with loved ones and even in-person learning while they held out for this vaccine we shouldn't now ask these families to choose between sending their young kids to school and keeping their and keeping the kids and their immuno-compromised and otherwise vulnerable family members safe wearing a mask is a small sacrifice to make in order to ensure that school kids will remain in school in person this school year with vaccines just around the corner for these kids we can do
068we should do everything we can to prevent any more unnecessary sickness and suffering for them again i'm asking you to please rethink this plan especially for the unvaccinated students in our school district thank you our next speaker is justin ochiagroso hi um i'm justin okio grosso i live at ellis road um my comment is similar to the last one i'm happy that we're in a much better place this summer than last and that is true in many respects in our community and it is largely due to those of us who got a vaccine we're not completely out of the grips of the pandemic yet especially for those too young to be vaccinated but we made it through the hardest part i support having school five days a week this fall and i understand that doing
069proper social distancing makes five days a week hard if not impossible given space constraints not only that but kids want to see their classmates and friends on the issue of masking however i disagree with the recently published health and safety plan specifically it says that when case counts are between 0 and 49 per 100 000 masking will not be necessary then this would be quote reconsidered if cases exceed 49 per 100 000. this seems entirely reasonable if you are vaccinated and if you're not then different rules should apply and unfortunately that includes every single human being under the age of 12. so under 12 people should be masked they should begin the year masked this is what will help keep our schools open and will lower the probability that our kids get covered a previous
070speaker was talking about cdc versus yadda yadda the part they forgot to mention was that the cdc just recommended that everybody in a school who is not vaccinated should enter the building masked this is every single kid under 12 years old comprising the entirety of our elementary schools a vaccine for them is right around the corner and all we have to do is wear a mask until then the delta variant is on the rise a 94 percent increase in pediatric cases just in the last 14 days we all know how this goes we've been doing this for a year and a half all we have to do is put one little piece of cloth on our kids faces for a couple more months this cost the district nothing other than having to stand up to
071a vocal minority group in our community soon shots go in arms under 12 years old masks come off life goes on a couple more months of wearing a mask is nothing compared to what we've all been thanks next speaker is elena perry good evening my name is elena perry and my address is 34 claremont boulevard my older son graduated from havert haverford high school last month and my younger son will be attending the high school this fall this is the first time my younger son will be attending a public school in the districts so that's why i'm here to comment on haverford's student registration process it's 2021 and i'm wondering why this school district does not have an online application process or student registration system haverford is considered one of the top school districts in
072the state and yet we don't have an online process for registering new students the school district website is powered by final site a company that designs websites specifically for educational institutions i'm familiar with final site because i worked in communications at two independent schools and collaborated with final site staff to design a website for one of those schools final site offers software to create online registration forms and for managing student enrollment is it possible for the school district to purchase this software another option is powerschool which this school district uses for recording grades and attendance powerschool offers a student enrollment management system i checked lower marian school district's website and they're using powerschool system to enrolling their new students haverford's current student registration process is archaic and definitely not very user friendly in order to
073register a student parents or guardians have to download nine forms from the district website print them out and fill them out by hand and the email i received from stacy maddox the pupil registrar stated that i needed to complete those forms and then scan or take a photo of them so i could email them to her or i could have faxed the forms to her i sent emails to the school district's communications coordinator the technology director and to stacy asking why the non-forms nine forms have not been converted into fillable pdfs at the very least and why this school district doesn't have an online student registration system i received no responses to my emails and i'm not sure why these simple questions were not answered that is why i decided to comment on the student
074registration process and ask why it has not been improved as one of the top school districts in the philadelphia area it's unacceptable and quite frankly unbelievable that this school district is not using technology that is readily available to make the student registration process easier and faster for parents and guardians thank you our next speaker is elena wisely good evening my name is elena wisely i live at 612 little brook road in habertown i am here to talk to you tonight about your implementation of the racial resolution that you pay that you passed over the summer it's only implementing critical race theory into our school and i disagree with a lot of what critical race theory implements for example it says that politeness is white supremacy don't teach that to my kids please because that's not
075true it also states that leveling is racist you already had to quickly walk that back so let's hold on for a minute on all of these things that involve crt there seems to be some confusion about the difference between race and ideals you pointed out that we're a group of white people disagreeing about equity but as you can see my friends don't look alike and they agree with my ideals and that's okay this country is filled with different people who have different ideals you are not supposed to put your political ideals on our children this country was founded on our differences we embrace that we don't accept your ideals this is not your platform as i had to hear during my son's commencement you are teaching our children to only value the ideals and to
076adopt them as their own my neighbor's daughter came home from school and demanded that her mother take down the trump flag this really concerned me because it was the american flag you're allowing your teachers to supplement their lessons as long as it aligns with your beliefs but the problem is the video that depicted police are police officers who are here to serve and protect us as villains that video was created by a political group who says the following about our american flag when we see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around when we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist when we see this flag we know that it represents hatred you stand right before that flag at every meeting and pledge your
077allegiance to it do you really believe that this group belongs in our schools teaching our students this garbage and if you do where does your allegiance stand because it is not with that flag school boards are to be apolitical and you say that you are but everything you do says the opposite and we all know that actions speak louder than words our school's library comes up with articles and i found the one that said this this is a concentrated backlash ibm x candy on anti-racism is under attack conservatives have made the whitewashing of u.s history the latest front in the culture wars this was published by the guardian that sounds really political to me no matter your political affiliation all parties agree that this is toxic you are causing irreversible psychological damage to our children
078with an experimental political movement a state representative introduced me as from the dark side and i told him that the funny thing about good and evil is that both sides always believe they are the good guys are you thank you [Applause] next speaker our next speaker is joe anzuena my name is joe enzo and i live at 310 oxford road members of the board two weeks ago a woman stood in front of a microphone here and bemoaned the idea that her kids might potentially be exposed some adult content she cherry-picked a passage from a book that is optional on a list for high school students and held it up as evidence of indoctrination or some other nonsense she warned you not to dare expose her kids to anything she might not approve what are high
079school students supposed to be doing coloring honestly it was so sad to me as a parent that another parent would think so little of their child's intelligence or so little of the job they've done as a parent in preparing a teenager to meet the world that they might come out here and pick this hill to die on as i watched i really could not fathom what would cause a person to do such a thing but then the applause came and the commenter smiled wide and it became clear who she was really addressing and it was not you our audience was the mob that come from springfield be quiet please please be quiet please order please her audience was the mob who'd come from springfield and ridley and king of prussia people who gather online and
080who followed and i'm using that word specifically followed a herd of actors whose true interests have nothing to do with kids in this district they came to intimidate you and to intimidate anyone else who might dare to question their expectation that volume not reason might determine how decisions are made in this district they came because you let them and continue to allow them to use this form for their own purposes problem is not that this mother spoke or what she said certainly residents have the right to address the board with honest comments and sound intentions problems that our school board meetings have become a circus and where prior it was just embarrassing to see the kind of thinly veiled racism that's only possible in a town as diverse as a gallon of milk it has
081continued to escalate last meeting there was a violent threat that was followed by a published threat to bring an ar to the next meeting need i be explicit with an audience of educators about the tacit message that attaches to an ar and a school building look around the room notice the security is this the 700 level is this a board meeting none of us can change the format of how the board meets nor how can we can change how the community engages with the administration lord knows we've tried dr rushi has been masterful in her ability to dodge actual live conversation with parents perhaps that's one reason why people organize online and then come in here so fired up doesn't need to be fixed but the urgent need is that you need to immediately find
082a way to stop our school business from being such a right target for miscreant sideshows of charlatans and hucksters to swing by and use our kids as pawns every two weeks you could move public comment to the end of the meeting and hear only registered speakers who check in on time you could decide to limit the size of the gallery due to delta not a bad idea however you handle it it is incumbent upon the nine of you to address the responsibility you have in correcting the fact that this room under your watch has become a dangerous place or you'll acknowledge it legally in the case that god forbid things go another step and somebody gets hurt or worse we're already having violent threats in a room full of people followed up by gun specific
083rhetoric posted publicly online my question to the board is when do you intend to act thank you [Music] our next speaker our next speaker is marianne butera i'm sorry i'm not speaking i never signed up to speak but me and elliot my daughter hi my name is nepali i live at 17 woodcroft road i am here to talk about the inappropriate and unprofessional comment ms larson made at the previous meeting in response to a public speaker all nine more board members are elected officials and it is your job to work to provide every student the opportunity to grow and achieve but to also engage the community by seeking input and promoting open honest and respectful dialogue with them at the start of the previous meeting mr feinberg provided the board and members of the public
084a reminder stating we as elected officials and participating community members have a responsibility to model the behaviors our students strive to develop as we engage in our meeting this evening let us be mindful that we serve as role models of citizens we hope that our students will become as a resident of the township miss urso had the right to express her concerns regarding the book stamped as an elected board member miss larson should be acting to fulfill her professional obligations in promoting respectful dialogue with the community rather miss larson allowed her personal views to come into play and demonstrated a significant lack of respect for members of the community who showed support for mrs urso's concerns miss larson demeaned these residents remarking there seemed to be a lot of followers in this room as someone
085who should be modeling the behavior you strive to instill in your students you certainly failed each of us miss larson additionally i would like to talk about a statement made by colin mcrossen at the july 8th meeting as well colin claimed that residents are demanding to see evidence of racism asking if they are going to put black kids on trial and interrogate them about what they have experienced colin went on to say the hypocrisy about that is when their own white children say they need they have been bullied in school that burden of proof magically disappears i guess they don't need to have evidence for that in making that statement colin discredited the experience of many white students who were and are victims of bullying in haverford school district one of those victims was my
086brother who was bullied for over six years until my mother was left with no choice but to remove him from the school district my mother wrote countless emails begging teachers and administrators for help my brother filled many incidents reports but however no appropriate action was ever taken against the bullies because there was just not enough evidence to support my brother's claims the police should have been notified on several occasions however they weren't and the physical and verbal harassments went unaddressed and therefore continued and got worse so in speaking about topics such as bullying please be respectful of each individual's experiences and please don't minimize these experiences by bringing people's color into it when it is not relevant or helpful i hope moving forward members of the board and public commenters will be mindful of what
087they say and how their statements can impact others that's it for public session i want to thank everybody who came out to speak this evening we may not necessarily agree on some of these issues but we're certainly here to listen thank you next item on our agenda forward liaison report and it looks like uh we just have facilities this evening dave sorry a pretty short report tonight the phase one in the high school expansion is continuing and still on schedule we're going to be asked to vote on phase two of the expansion this evening the plans have had been finalized uh it will consist primarily of renovations and expansion of music and fitness areas including the hvac renovations to the gym in addition um we discussed a previous board meeting about some some other additions
088um or some other changes improvements to the staging areas the green rooms and enlarging and improving the restrooms phase one came in under budget phase two for a lot of these reasons the additions came in over budget sorry can we have the door closed so that we can hear our meetings thank you and uh this evening we will see presentation from kcba and cb development to explain precisely what what these um what does phase two will will entail go ahead i just add a clarifying um clear what we're asked about thank you for bid um we're not i apologize yes yes yes the plans have been done the bids have been received this evening busy evening for us we're going to have a number of presentations i just wanted to sort of wrap up an
089introduction of all of them before i start with the health of health and safety uh with our strategic planning update uh this evening we're going to hear the progress that has been made by those ladies who have been working that work was started some time ago and then came to a screeching halt as a result of covet that we've been able to get that worker going again um so we will be hearing more about that status of what they have been able to plan for and look at possibly achieving over the next 18 months we will also talk about our health and safety plan this evening and i think the key word here as we learned quite evidently last year is flexibility since even since our last meeting we received updated guidance as was mentioned
090by a number of folks tonight uh from cdc uh and that's uh followed up by patient from the pennsylvania department of health uh that we should not be expecting any additional guidance from the pennsylvania department of health but they are recommending that what we use is the guidance that has been issued out through the cdc so the presentation is intact tonight the cha any changes or modifications that were made to it or what i will specifically talk about uh and this when there's a slide that is the same as it was two weeks ago when we when it was presented i will you know simply mention that so uh and again as was mentioned uh we are required to submit a health and safety plan as part of receipt of funds through the american rescue
091plan elementary and secondary schools um act this year that plan is due by july by july twenty thirtieth july twenty one and on our website you can so on pde's website you can see that each elea that's the local education agency must create a health and safety that addresses how it will maintain health and safety student leaders and other staff and which will serve as local guidelines i do think it's important to mention that what we received from cdc are guidelines there's no requirement um it is not a mandate from and we have engaged in legal counsel to ensure that what we are submitting is alignment with those requirements the document i'm sorry pde website right on there does state the health and safety should be tailored to the uniqueness of lea and school so
092what would you move on now so we're going to be looking at what kind of flexibility are we going to need and i imagine that we will be talking about this plan more than just the seat unlike last year hopefully it won't be every single thursday night that we will be we'll be meeting as we did last summer but i am confident that we will be having discussions as we move seven weeks today our children will be coming home after having spent their first days it seems like it's not that far away but again i'm going to say in terms of david that's a long time we are all very encouraged by the data particularly the data for delaware county we are encouraged by vaccine rates you know across across the but we know that
093there's a possibility within a seven week time period that that cert would change we are going to monitor and within whatever time period the data are available to us we will monitor positivity rates we know that's going to be available at the county level through cdc the incident rate will be available to us by county via the cdc vaccination rates there's been discussion about being able to get that information not that we would be collecting it but that a source would potentially be providing that if that's provided to us that's something else that we will we'll take a look at if we get to a point where the data that we receive are specific to haverford township that's going to take priority over the delaware county data because it's more you know reflective of of
094our community i think it's important to note as paul badestelli did mention two weeks ago the chester county health department is no longer our health authority as of august 1st and while that makes some people happy that's where we were obtaining data relative to each township so we're not sure if there's going to be a source to provide that data relative to uh to each one each township moving forward we're just showing people where we look right now at those data points out of cdc if you go right to their website look at community transmission specifically within uh within delaware county you can pull that up by county even with low numbers cdc has us identified as at ma at a moderate level we would think would be low with some of the numbers that
095we are experiencing but that's the category that we're falling into there on each one of those breakdowns you can go ahead anna sorry each one of those indicators for low moderate substantial and high uh are presented right on the the website there so if you look at you know anywhere below nine new cases per 100 000 in a seven day period that would is what would be considered low uh 10 to 49.9 for the moderate transmission 50 to 99.9 substantial and anything that would be 100 or over is going to be considered high tren high transmission so there are the data points that we will be looking at we'll be referencing that and letting the community know and they'll have ac you all have access to it as well and that is supposed to be
096updated each week so what we'll be getting there will be numbers for each one each one of the weeks you'll also be able to obtain vaccine data broken down by population so looking at the population 12 years of age and period those 18 and greater 65 years and we can look at those what are the percentages for one dose percentages who are fully vaccinated and again if we are able to get that information moving forward we'll we'll keep that for our district as well there was a question that was asked before about would the district collect it and certainly we could collect it on a voluntary basis but i'm concerned about what perception that might create in terms we would be reporting on we would only be able to report that information which is disclosed
097to us so it could create a false sense of security or a false sense that there aren't as many people vaccinated so for that reason we've not made a decision now to start collecting that information we posted the health and safety plan on our district website uh back in june we then sent another email out email blast so to speak uh out reminding people the way it was posted with a link to that and created a comment form so if people didn't want to come to the board meeting there was a comment form that they could just you know put a comment regarding the plan we received roughly 156 comments from community members uh every comment was about mass even though there are many other components to the plan every comment that we received was
098about asking 112 indicated the desire for staff students to wear masks when they are indoors some indicated that should be required for all staff and students and some indicated that it could be required for those who are not fully vaccinated 44 indicated a desire for masking to just be optional for uh for staff and students not connected in any way to a vaccine the cdc guidance states that schools should work with local public health efficient officials consistent with applicable laws and regulations including to those related to privacy to determine the prevention strategies needed in the area by monitoring levels of community transmission so we would look at looking at monitoring our community transition and as i had mentioned earlier during times of low and moderate transmission masks would be optional for all staff and students
099and we will support all individuals who wish to continue wearing a mask we will communicate that it is the recommendation of the cdc that those who are not back wear masks we will still can we are not going to be discouraging anyone from from wearing a mask at this time we're looking at leaving that in the choice of the family however if we move into a high you know a high rate of transmission within our community in in particular we feel that it is the responsible thing for us to to then look at requiring masks for unvaccinated staff and students the question right now how would we check that i do not have the rubric for how we're going to you know to check that at this point in time but that's what we would
100be looking to move to if those transmission rates do go up high again it is a federal order that masks are required on school buses regardless of uh vaccination status we are already during the summer adhering to that with our summer programs and as i mentioned cdc does recommend individuals not fully vaccinated and we recommend uh indoor masking for those who are not are not fully vaccinated this is one of those slides that has not changed since two is it was initially presented two weeks ago uh modifying allowing for physical distancing um we're maintaining three feet of physical distancing where that is possible that is in the vast majority of our district three feet of physical distancing is possible uh where it does become complex is you know again for lunch uh but we're not
101going to use with very clear in all communication that we're receiving that the goal is to have schools open five days full-time for all students so we'll be looking to see you know what we can do in certain areas get the maximum uh distancing between between our students we will continue to focus upon on the importance of handwashing this is has not changed since it was presented two weeks ago there's nothing that is is different there we will continue the cleaning and maintenance that was initiated this past year so we have no plans to reduce that in any way or minimize changes to their this is exactly as it was presented contact tracing quarantine and isolation that is exactly what was shared publicly two weeks ago what has been on in the in the plan
102so that that has no changes since that was presented diagnostic and screening and testing uh we have been told that uh testing will be made available to schools uh we signed up to learn more about it and get you know on that list if should we be able to receive anything uh that testing of course would not be initiated without said so it would you know the parent would be contacted uh and the parent would give consent that's not something we would say we're mandating in and that is again that's the same as what we presented two weeks ago and the efforts to make sure that people are aware of vaccinations and to how they can get vaccine we'll continue to do that once vaccines become available for elementary age students we will do what
103we did before if those opportunities are available to us and and that is we will partner uh with other districts because of that collaboration works well when we have one facility and we send staff from all of our schools and look to get kids back get kids vaccinated so we'll continue to do those pieces moving forward the accommodations for students with disabilities with respect to our health and safety policies that's exactly as it was presented on two weeks ago nothing has changed there and the next slide as well is exactly the same about coordinating coordinating with state local officials uh and finally um we are submitting one of our items on the agenda this evening is what's referred to as an instructional time template uh and that is that the board is approving five full
104days of instruction for the 21 22 uh school year so that's a piece that we you know added in there as an explanation for that agenda item questions from the board you have plan b waiting in case things change b in case they change for the like with the whichever way the wind blows do you have a plan b i have plan b if the incidence rate gets really high and then we'll require we will require the map i have a question related to transmission within our schools um i know that with last year it was required by the state that if if transmission within the school itself reached a certain level that the school building had to close um my understanding is that there is not that requirement from the state this year and
105i'm just wondering how that factors into not necessarily a school closure but if we do start seeing community transmission within our schools if that would factor into a new asking decision um particularly with the younger levels that are not currently able to be fixed and that's what i mentioned earlier that i see us revisiting this and and taking a look at it because just as it would be very helpful for us to have data for just our township if we have a school that has alcohol like some kind of an outbreak or very high significant then yes we would be making changes and we might make changes that just impact that school or you know we'd have to look give some consideration to that because the kids in the school maybe at other levels sit
106with siblings so we'd have to you know think about that but we will react and respond whether it's a mandate from any health agency we would be treating it as if whooping cough and like the way that we would treat any other communicable disease um and then you know another part that struck me um with the three feet of distancing i remember um that the issues were largely with the three feet of distancing in our secondary schools um where right now the majority of students are eligible to be vaccinated um and so i know that there's not currently a plan for voluntary disclosure of vaccination um but you know i would just um offer that as a potential um you know if we are thinking about doing that in the future something that could be
107reduced um you know that three feet of reduced if we know that uh you know a certain population is is fully vaccinated which they um which they are now allowed to or you know have the have the ability to do um i also know uh with masking that most at most many companies are asking for voluntary vaccination status in order to not need a mask in the building and so you know if if again um if it comes to the point where we are having a high transmission high high uh community transmission um that is another area that if we were going to um ask for voluntary vaccination status could potentially relieve people of needing the mass if if they are willing to sit to improve vaccination um and at this point i would just
108say uh for the community that a lot of what we saw is based on community transmission and when we were in the same spot last july um looking at what we were going to do for the year we had no real defenses against this virus and we are very lucky that over the last year we have had a defense the vaccines which is why we're in this building today because of the vaccines so i would just really first thank everyone in the community that has gotten a vaccination um for allowing us to be here today and having the hopeful start of a normal school year but really also just plead with the community to protect our community protect our children and get the life-saving vaccine i think that is what shows that how we can
109stop this virus and how we can keep our schools open with no precautions which i will tell you is what i would prefer what my daughters would prefer um but that is the way to do it and so i really do just if you have not gotten vaccinated yet and if you if you some know someone who has not gotten vaccinated yet please do so um that is what's going to help us keep our schools open keep our schools open without any pandemic precautions and thank you dr ushi to you and your team for putting this together if i'm if i may um i and i may have not heard you correct so if i'm wrong i apologize you mentioned about the uh three feet of social distancing being the greatest challenge at the secondary
110level that was in the cafeterias right only not like we're okay throughout the building but in the cat in the cafeterias they had to be six feet right so that was what that's why we had the challenge at secondary with the size of the enrollment in both of our buildings we could not accommodate six feet of social distancing um and feeding all of the children any other questions or comments regarding parents or guardians of choose to wear a mask um what supports help are we providing mr that this particular child their parent or guardian prefers some square mass um i'm just envisioning a situation where the kid gets off the bus and out of the parents site and immediately take their map off even though that's what the individual prefers so especially at the younger
111um so i'm just wondering you know how we're going to navigate that situation are the teachers going to be aware of which students are opting into maths and which students are not necessarily and so out uh first thing that you had asked about you know what else would we provide our teachers particularly at the elementary level on this i think you know that's where we're going to have probably more mass wearing um we'll start off talking about that that idea of morning meeting or however their sense of community is formed in that classroom you're talking about individual choices and we respect those choices when uh when they're wearing the masks so we already know that we're going to put an emphasis on the beginning of the year about making that okay what everyone any individual
112chooses you know chooses to do um i would imagine similar to like i send my child to school with a coat and they didn't wear the coat you know outside you know for a period of time teacher may encourage the child to wear something and then they reach out to the parents and you know they're not wearing it is this something that we can you know work on together and then um thanks for mentioning about local data the local data hyper local data about our township was so helpful and so important because although we're in low to moderate right now in delaware county the last data i remember seeing i've been tracking the local council to there was one week we had zero new cases in our township and there was one week the last
113data i saw there was two new faces so looking at that data that hyper like that made me feel comfortable but then when i looked at the delaware county data that made me feel less miserable so um if there's any way we can get more hide i don't know where any of this comes from or who's who we report to and how all of that works but if there's any way that we can get that data the more local data i think that is really important so i know it could be influential in our decision making yeah i absolutely think so um and then just to request um with so many changes coming it was really helpful last summer to have dr reuben dr brennan a variety of other health experts come so we could
114ask questions i think it was helpful for parents and guardians and teachers and you know hear that conversation is that something that we could do we can we can absolutely put the request click the request in and if they're willing they're busy yeah okay i'm sure they're all busy if they're if they're willing to you know to do that we will okay um so many things are changing so quickly again um and it would just i think it would be helpful for us to be able to ask questions because we are not health experts so being able to ask the health experts i think would be really awesome and what you know um chop policy lab puts out uh briefs and i know there's one for you know for schools so there's a group on
115there so maybe if it wasn't dr ruben it'd be someone thank you i would really did you say seven weeks till the first day of school so seven more weeks to get your summer reading done you gotta tell your kids the other questions from the board next step high school project phase two a cva maybe the people are on the floor could just move into a seat so that we can our speakers can have more room thank you hello everyone uh we're here tonight to do a little presentation ryan has put together uh before that i just wanted to give a quick update on linwood and the high school linwood you can see the building is halfway down um we're in kind of the critical phase here obviously we have about a month to get
116to get it wrapped up start backfilling up to the main entrance so you'll start to see that happen uh saturday or monday they're going to be working pretty much six days a week at this point to to get it done so we're plowing through that inside the building they're in good shape cafeteria is just about wrapped up so we'll be cleaning up the building and getting it ready to open up uh in seven weeks so that's assuming the student reading is done right um so then the high school same same thing we're down to the wire here we got four or five weeks left um they pretty much have all the case work in the building we're getting into the finishes uh so we're working a little bit over time there as well to get
117that done parking lot should be wrapped up hopefully in the next two weeks or so so again we're pushing but everything seems to be on track including the renovations to the chemistry and bio labs on the inside of the building so that being said we can jump into kind of the second phase of the high school which is uh doing the music wing edition which we're here tonight to do an update uh costs etc schedule so ryan's going to pop in and take care of that so thank you sounds great thank you ken uh once again for those who don't know me uh ryan orr from kcba architects uh project manager and lead architect on both linwood and haverford high school both project one and two so excited to be back here in front of
118the board um we've been busy [Music] maybe if you can just click through perfect um so as as ken mentioned uh we're on schedule we're on budget uh pushing the contractors in order to finish on time for for school and this is even through uh material shortages that we have had uh as well as the harsh winter some of you might remember we had a lot of snow this winter so pushing to finish project one uh and project two uh diligent coordinating uh items from project one that will now be completed in project two we've also had project meetings with the teachers to ensure that the spaces in project two will function uh well for for their teaching areas and then other pieces around the building you might see being worked on masonry restoration around
119the building there'll be more of that happening in project two and then obviously we've completed the construction documents both specifications and drawings in order to put those out to bid ahead of putting those out to bid we've also received a third party cost estimate which we'll present the findings for a little bit later in the presentation so project one once again going well here was the initial rendering previously presented to to the township and the board and if you click to the next one you'll see it's coming along very nicely just like the the rendering show so that's what we like to see no surprises project two if you remember we're adding on uh that music edition in the existing parking lot adjacent to the gymnasium the existing band room orchestra and fitness rooms so
120when that edition is completed then we will move in internal to the building and renovate the existing band orchestra and fitness rooms into a brand new chorus room and an expanded fitness room if you go ahead and click the next one so that once again that yellow area is the new addition so that's an orchestra room with all its supporting spaces a band room with all of its supporting spaces and then the renovated chorus and fitness rooms below uh those areas we are also renovating the storage areas the keyboard classrooms and an expanded scope click one more slide of enlarging that keyboard classroom creating theater green rooms as well as enlarging the existing restrooms there so for those of you who have been at an event at the uh the high school auditorium uh would
121be there will be many more toilets now for your availability so moving to the next uh next slide uh once again a rendering of what that project two will will look like so the primary two large spaces on the corner will be the orchestra room and behind that will be the band room so these volumes are needed in order to properly teach music and and in order to to have proper acoustic properties in those areas go ahead and click to the next one part of this renovation is also incorporating the public corridors so this main corridor looking towards the light at the end of the tunnel just past that would be the main lobby in front of the gymnasium and the auditorium so this whole uh corridor gets a facelift gets new tile we have
122an alternate to provide terrazzo flooring which would match the rest of the high school public corridors but once again durable and cost-effective materials for a long life building here as the fitness room expansion and renovation includes this would be the renovated weight room so we have multiple teaching opportunities mirrors on walls durable surfaces for medicine ball exercises this is where the equipment for weight lifting aerobic training will be held also digital displays for teaching and then on the opposite side uh they're between the previous image and this image there's an operable partition so this space can be enlarged into one large space or closed off into two separate teaching spaces on the other side similarly to the middle school there will be turf on the floor for a variety of uses in teaching and similar
123digital displays mirrors on walls to facilitate physical education learning moving to the music side in the existing roughly where the existing band room is this will be converted into the new chorus room so high vaulted ceilings new windows into this space and then accrue amounts of storage offices practice rooms next slide at the corner you can see lots of natural light tall volumes for acoustics in the orchestra room and finally in the band room similarly much larger performing group so a larger room for band and lastly site so the top right of the screen top right of the screen that is where project one edition is currently being built front entrance is here so back of the building towards the field you can just click through a couple there's little yup so we're building the
124additional parking lot right now adjacent to that edition and then as we move into project one or project two excuse me uh we build the one story classroom wing uh here so the the red dash lines will be the areas that will be closed off fenced off completely during construction and once again as i said uh during the school year the addition will be built and then following the school year the contractors will move into the building once students and teachers are out of the building to renovate the the rest of those spaces we talked about so once again the the district and students and staff will have access to the rest of the site during the school year completely separated from contractors and construction for safety and that's so once again 2021 2021 2022
125school year is when the new additions being constructed all and it is a good point all the music and physical education classrooms will remain where they currently are during the summer we'll renovate them and then all these spaces will be ready for the 2022-2023 school year so cost estimate go ahead and click the next one uh previously presented when we accepted when the board accepted bids for uh project one these were the costs current at that time so project one came in a little over nine million dollars and our best estimate at the time for project two um with with an idea that the project was going to grow a little bit was around uh eight and a half million to bring that total base project uh to 17.7 million dollars uh there was also
126a desire in project two to incorporate uh the gymnasium hvac currently estimated previously estimated that was at one and a half million so that brought the total project to 19.2 million at this time we know what project one costs and bids are so that's at roughly 10 million dollars the current estimate of project two is 8.8 million dollars but if you notice below the line that includes the gymnasium hvac because that is part of the base project for project two so really we're comparing that 18.9 million dollars to the 19.2 million dollars now there are some uh wish list items we'll say alternates add alternates that uh we would like to include the district would like to include facilities directors uh would like to include which would be replacement of existing boilers which are the
127age of the building near the end of their life so if the base project comes in well we'd look to replace them also additional hvac of the locker rooms team rooms those areas and then lastly uh the building does still need more masonry restoration above and beyond what we have in the base bid so again if bids come in favorably we'll incorporate some of that work into the project as well um so again base project includes gymnasium hvac and part of that expanded scope uh which was those expanded toilet room renovations which were previously approved by the board uh and and a few of those areas keyboard classroom uh enlargement which weren't previously included in the previous numbers and then those alternates we discussed already go ahead and click so schedule all important schedules tonight
128is not the night you're you're spending a lot of money right that's that's further down the line once we receive bids make sure that everything is well tonight you're simply authorizing us to put the project out to bid to the contractors they'll submit their numbers and then we'll go from there so project will be advertised uh this coming week it'll technically be released tomorrow and then we would receive bids around that august 26th date we would be coming back to the board september 23rd all uh after reviewing with the facility liaisons coming to then asking for your approval to enter into contract agreements with the contractors then as previously talked about november we would start construction to then finish up for the 2022-2023 school year with that we'll ask any questions questions from the board
129actually for martha you have bob and jamie's playbook on how this is all playing out through uh financing and um you know all the different schedules of bonds i would assume you got that playbook okay great how long has the bid process take it'll be roughly five weeks out to the contractors to bid and then we'll have about a month to review uh with the seal facility liaisons uh which alternates we you know are advantageous for the district to take to then bring back to the board please remind the community who can bid uh eligible uh public contractors right essentially insurance requirements right be able to bond to a certain level right yeah so you have to a new person can't just come in that's not qualified other questions from the board just one thing
130i think it's important to to point out is that during constraint i believe we discussed this at the at the meeting during construction there will not be any disruptions of the current classroom setup is that correct correct yeah so all uh music and physical education classes will continue as as scheduled often your construction you think partner appearance there is something going on in this case the classroom themselves will be will be maintained yeah then they'll be completely separated from the construction site so they'll be completely safe i have a question about linwood um we've been enjoying watching it demolished um and seeing the progress every day and so i know you said they're working six days a week now to get it finished do we um is this on track is it this was anticipated
131now it was always a compressed schedule in the summer we always knew it was tight so knock on wood let's hope the the weather continues to cooperate you know those little storms at night don't hurt us so as long as we don't get continuous rain during the day but we are poised if we need to the structural fill bringing it up is what takes time we have to fill in 15 feet in front of the building so um if we are affected by weather the dirt that's underneath the existing linwood isn't great it's not it's a it's good but it's not great soil if it gets wet so that's really the only risk right now to the project and we would just spend money on getting quarry fill that you can compact in the rain
132and bring that in so hopefully so far it's been good so let's hope that continues but you know if we have to work uh seven days a week if we get to a point you know we'll do that so and then i did have another question on the cost estimate just that i understand it can we go back to oh the slides aren't numbered uh 19. okay um so i'm looking at the the boilers locker room hvac and the ad mason repair terrazzo and so that's built into this total estimated project cost but i think you said something about those would be included if bids were favorable can you just explain that a little bit more so if we if so if we have um maybe if it comes underneath that 18.9 number then we
133would look to those or um i mean just explain that a little bit further sure so uh built into the project are alternate so the contractors have to supply a different number um broken out from the rest of the project and then it would be the school board's option to take those alternates [Music] no matter how the rest of the project is is bid so as you see it here those numbers are the uh additive to the base based project so right now the budget for the project is the 20.2 million obviously we're hoping that it's coming more favorably for that but if the board wasn't comfortable and wanted to revert back to that 19.2 previously presented we could scale back using those those alternatives you also use it in case bids come back unfavorably
134right so if you know at a minimum we have this base project we want you know that needs to be done so if for some reason you know they come back and let's say they're a half million dollars more then you may decide well look the boilers can make it another 10 years or whatever it is we don't have to do that now so let's not spend the money because we're over budget on construction so it kind of helps play with the budget and give options uh to every to the board uh to make a decision okay right so we're getting bids on all of these right now and then at the later time i think it was in september that's when we would be presented with all the options what the bids actually were
135and whether we want to go for the steps of taking these correct okay thank you are the lumber shortages going to end and is that going to give us a better price so i was going to we we have actually seen prices start to come down slightly and i think as more people get back to work and and and supply becomes better uh those prices should improve and we don't have really much plywood and lumber here luck right it's pretty it's non-combustible construction so it's almost all steel steel studs uh we do have an alternate for the roof joist because you can't get roof joists for potentially up to a year uh because of all the work the amazons of the world are doing in walmart so we have an alternate bit in there to
136put regular steel like an i-beam a traditional i-beam you see so there's a few things like that um so we're trying to plan ahead into our crystal ball so i'm like very fascinated by all the shortages as an economist i'm like tell me more about shortages um but don't tell me there are no more no you don't want to hear it okay yeah but it's interesting to just like the weird thing is that they're shortages on and why so okay great well that's good that's really good well that's a big part of wanting to award it by hopefully as soon as possible so if there is any material issue there is some flexibility in the schedule to still get the building done so yeah and one of the reasons we're bidding and trying to bid
137it now is we're trying to get ahead of the curve so now as all the summer projects are finishing up contractors are going to be looking for work so trying to be first in the door for next next year any other questions from the board great thank you continues to be a pleasure to drive up and down lawrence road see what's going up and what's coming down a lot of them change can we do a little board therapy project there sledgehammer a little demolition sure you're welcome to come on you gotta come over quick it'll be gone soon great thank you keeps waiting for her to be taken down she's like stairs next item on our agenda is a strategic planning overview and we're keeping our principles up late tonight yes we are and some
138of our alumni who we have in the audience today uh thank you mr feinberg members of the board of course dr rushi colleagues and community thank you for this opportunity to share with you an update to our strategic planning process for those of you who may not be familiar with the process a strategic plan is an organizational tool that is used by many school districts in order to establish or reaffirm a vision that helps guide our use of resources and energy and time over a period of years strategic planning is also a required element of the comprehensive planning process that is something that all schools in pennsylvania are required to engage in strategic planning planning usually includes some sort of needs assessment to determine the current state of the school district as well as some
139input gathering from all stakeholders who are invited to share uh what their vision is and what their priorities are for the school district and then a mission and a set of pillars as well as some goal areas are established which are then pursued for the next 18 to 36 months and tonight we're here to share our current progress on the strategic plan as well as the goals and action steps that we have drafted thus far thanks anna it is important dr roushi mentioned it at the outset but it is also important to note as part of the presentation that our strategic planning process timeline took a bit of a curve uh as a as a result of covid so we did first embark on this process in 2019 which seems like a long time ago
140but at the at that time we announced our intention to initiate a strategic plan and we began to invite input from stakeholders through various channels which i'm going to talk about in a moment this input was then gathered throughout the fall and early winter of 2019 and then in january of 2020 a representative group of stakeholders engaged in a process to revise our mission statement and pillars as well as establish those goal areas then on march 11th i mentioned the date because it may start to sound familiar our strategic action plan chairs met to kick off the work very enthusiastically get our goal committees together and prepare to get started and then two days later the governor closed all school buildings and uh we really began the work and became immersed in responding to the
141pandemic so we did pause our formal strategic planning work just until the spring of 2021 when our action team co-chairs many of whom you see here resumed working with their committees and began to really develop some action plan steps and so we're here this evening to provide those updates and to keep you informed regarding our process uh and and our progress toward achieving these goals so as i mentioned uh we did engage in a process in the fall of 2019 that invited all stakeholders to provide input into the vision for schools and the district as many districts do we worked with a facilitator who guided us through the process of conducting uh the input gathering and as you can see here if you can read it i know it might be smaller type there we
142had over 4 200 surveys completed by faculty staff students community members parents guardians and administrators our facilitator judy wilson held three community forums where attendees discussed the topics that you can see listed in the gray column there and then she also conducted individual interviews and focus groups with students including middle school students and current high school students as well as high school alumni from the classes of 2018 and 2019. other focus groups included pto leaders our bargaining unit representatives board members directors and other administrators and so all of this information was gathered in order to determine what trends might be evident and how they might be able to inform those district goals and action steps so the group that was charged with synthesizing that input in order to shape our goals was invited to participate
143very intentionally our principles identified participants who would represent various perspectives and experiences representatives from each school each district department from various socio-economic statuses and levels of involvement with school events were invited we had participants who were new to the district we had participants who had been here for 20 plus years parents and guardians of those who receive individualized education plan services and english learner services participated as did those who have gifted learners at home this group also included students two of whom who are here tonight thank you for joining us again uh as well as teachers administrators instructional and non-instructional support staff board members the list is extensive and it's here for you to see and really the goal was to ensure that we had a variety of perspectives and experiences represented as we combed
144through all that input and then shaped our goal areas so during their two days of strategic planning members of the group that we just saw learned about the process that was engaged in to gather the input they learned more about the types of skills that are and content that our graduates would need not only now but we use the the year 2035 which sounds like it's forever away but it's actually not we have students currently in our schools that will graduate in 2035 so we looked at that and beyond uh yeah right so if anyone wants to take a moment and think about that i i get that so the group analyzed data they reviewed the summaries of the interviews the um the information from the focus groups and that actually went through those 4
145200 plus surveys and read through the surveys and that that way the information was reviewed and some categories did emerge they really are teaching and learning for the future social and emotional well-being and diversity and inclusion so the group divided then into those teams to really synthesize the input specific to those areas and then to come up with what could be goal statements they brought those goal statements to the larger group who provided feedback very kindly but you know provided some feedback and those uh statements were then revised uh and then the whole group took a look then again at the mission and the pillars and taking into account all of the information that we had just learned about the future learning about what's going to be needed from the workforce about what our stakeholders
146had to say and we made some adjustments to the mission as well as the pillars they were quite frankly minor adjustments and just really wanted to align to what was in the goals now so after that the members of the team went back to their buildings and shared what the process was as well as the resulting goal statements as well as the mission and the pillars so we're pleased to share that information with you tonight and because it takes a little bit to process all those words i'm just going to ask you to indulge me and i'm going to read them out loud the mission of the school district of haverford township is to educate and inspire a community of lifelong learners who become well-rounded global citizens the pillars of our educational system are our
147school environment is safe and nurturing excellence in education is a shared responsibility and partnership with all district and community members 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 our decision-making process is student-centered and student voice is valued and whole child development is vital to our educational system and here are the goal statements that resulted from our work we will briefly review each statement in the in a minute so i'm not going to take the time to read them aloud right now but what you see here are the three areas that will be a particular focus of our work throughout the next 18 to 36 months we'll share with you now our current drafts of our action steps that
148are associated with each goal and while we will be approaching the plan with a district-wide lens our departments and our individual schools will also be finding ways to align their work to these goal areas as well so before i turn it over to my colleagues to share about each goal it is important to note that these goal statements include a lot of really important terms for which it's important that we have a common understanding so you're going to see those terms underlined and bolded when we get to the goal statement slides i just want to reassure you that our teams are continuing to research those terms and come to agreement so that we can have a refined definition of these terms that can then be shared with staff as well as with the entire community
149so now i am pleased to introduce matt stewart and sandy connelly to share more about the goal to prepare contemporary citizens sandy may seem familiar as she's spoken here before she serves as our k-12 humanities supervisor and matt may seem familiar because he is a high school math teacher as well as a champion swim coach so turn it over to them hey good evening everyone our first strategic goal to prepare contemporary citizens uh reads as follows as you can see we want to modernize and expand learning experiences to prepare students as critical thinkers problem solvers and innovative designers within a complex global society first i want to like we'd like to note that our original goal statement listed both innovators and designers as two separate terms but we revised it to just read innovative designers
150to better align with the design process and the research we also wanted to make the definition easier to remember in developing this goal our our group noticed the following we noticed a shift in jobs in the workforce particularly a shift to more self-directed work we noticed an increased need for creativity in the workforce and we noticed an increased need to connect with others to solve problems now given that we initially developed this goal in february 2020 we accelerated the use of some of these ideas given the constraints of the past school year for sure we learned quite a bit about what certain applications may entail and we recognize that we have an opportunity to seize for the sake of improving the overall educational experience of students in haverford township now my co-chair sandy conley will
151discuss how we formed our committee and she will share some insight on the research we have used as a foundation for this goal thanks matt during our data analysis and review of the surveys we noticed some overarching trends that helped us to develop this goal stakeholders were interested that we prepare students for jobs and training that we can't imagine that they should be problem solvers and critical thinkers and that they operate from a position of inquiry seeking information rather than being vessels to be filled they felt it was important that students are financially literate and that they are prepared and connected to the global world outside of haverford we chose a team that was representative of all levels and roles of the school community we have teachers of all content areas counselors and administrators the
152team was excited to begin meeting again in february and were able to meet monthly and of course there's additional work outside of those meetings as well they are a hard working group during our meetings we discussed research from heidi hayes jacob's book bold moves including a comparison of three pedagogies antiquated classical and contemporary approaches to teaching digital media and global literacies and we looked at young zao's work world-class learners educating creative and entrepreneurial students and finally mcleod and schresky's work on the four big shifts and the ten building blocks for deeper learning schools we began by defining the goal and developing an action plan and now here's matt to explain that action plan so in creating our action plan our first step involves creating a glossary of terms in order to foster a common understanding
153of the goal for all stakeholders and we developed definitions for these terms and we're actively developing corresponding icons that just kind of help visually kind of tie these ideas together and and make it easy to kind of understand what we're going for we also want to develop a plan for financial literacy instruction we'd like all students to learn financial literacy during classes in grades k-12 and in a common course in our high school finally we want to modernize and expand learning experiences and in doing so we will explore what to develop from practices gleaned from research we want to utilize one-to-one technological access and a common instructional platform for all students and including like canvas for example with our common platform there and we will reflect on what to develop and continue from what we
154learned over the past 18 months ultimately this involves deciding what to cut keep and grow within our current practices and now we'll turn it over to our colleagues to discuss our social emotional wellness goal good evening good evening members of the board dr rushi and community members i am erica harvey the eighth grade assistant principal my colleague with me here today is matt crater he's also the sixth grade assistant principal and we have another co-chair who could not be here shakur monroe but she was very important in our role our second strategic goal is social and emotional wellness we would like to produce a community of empathetic and resilient learners with the skills to socially and emotionally flourish the underlying words that are shown on the side empathetic resilient social socially and emotionally are words
155that came up frequently throughout our focus groups our surveys and within the interviews that were taken during this during the strategic planning process they became important terms and we wanted to make sure that we use them when creating our goals as we continue to dig deeper into what the goals will look like in action with our students staff and community we will create clear definitions of these terms next my co-chair matt crater will discuss how we formed our committees and he will share some insight on the development of our action steps for this goal thank you so the the progress that we made so far with our social emotional wellness goal uh over the past 17 months could not have been possible without the incredible uh staff that actually work within our buildings that are
156listed up here and i'm going to take a moment to say their names um working in our elementary buildings andrew crowders at chatham park elementary jen muncheys is at chestnut wald at our middle schools lindsay hughes and terry lynn seavy and at our high school megan malligan kathleen mcandrews and um and not listed up there is actually jenna and glace i apologize we missed that uh these individuals have been chosen to support the district with this goal because of their commitment to the social emotional wellness work well before this goal was was established we've made we've met several times you sell 12 times over the past 17 months to discuss this goal and brainstorm action steps we we even met several times over the pandemic um we felt that it was very important to continue
157our work the parents the students the teachers counselors administrators and our board members who were involved in the strategic goal workshop that took place believe that the focus areas of this goal should be centered around developing students empowering parents and guardians when supporting their own children and social emotional wellness teachable skills for staff and and students and supporting staff with their own social emotional wellness so our team has established three action steps to move our work forward which is on the next slide and our three action steps uh we're we're super excited for these three action steps our first action step is to design and publish a social emotional wellness tab on the main page of the haverford school district website that shines a light on the strategic goal that's actually already an action the
158social emotional wellness tab would also provide resources to students and families within our community our second action step the district is currently investigating the use of a universal social emotional wellness screener tool which will enable the district to intervene early if a student demonstrates the need for an additional social emotional interventions that will be provided by a licensed professional counselor and our and our third action step is uh to ensure that time is dedicated in our elementary and secondary grade level buildings that will allow our student to our students and those buildings to engage in social emotional wellness activities thank you for the opportunity to share our our work so far and we'll pass it along to our colleague miss master cola thank you matt do you want a partner to stand next to him
159i stand alone hello members of the board dr ruschi and the haverford township community my name is beth mastercola and i am the principal of coopertown elementary school i'm also the co-chair of the diversity and inclusion goal with leon smith leon is a social studies teacher at the high school he's unable to be here tonight but you will hear from him later he and i and a team of people from all over the district have been working together this past year to develop the diversity and inclusion action steps the goal was created in collaboration with community partners teachers administrators parents and other stakeholders as jen spoke of earlier i would like to take an opportunity to read the goal the diversity inclusion goal aims to establish a culturally diverse and inclusive educational experience that develops
160social cultural proficiency switch the next slide thank you if you are were a fly on the wall at our strategic planning meeting you would have heard the following things were important to our community after analyzing all of the input and data and feedback most importantly they wanted every student to feel safe welcomed and a sense of belonging in our district they were also interested in representation that the curriculum that we were teaching centered around all cultures and included various perspectives they wanted our staff in the district to be more diverse this was for two reasons so that students could see themselves in our staff and so that all students could learn from people with different backgrounds and experiences finally they wanted all students to have an appreciation for different cultures when leon and i were
161forming our teams we wanted representation from many of the schools in our district as possible but we also strive to have diversity as well our team members are listed on the slide by their school level at the elementary level jacqueline houston from chestnut wald melon to you from linwood and cameron bush from chatham park at the middle school alice stattner randy taylor taylor sorry randy taylor ricky lacy and colleen malzinski and at the high school greg decena john howe and of course leon smith leon the team and i spent a lot of time last summer educating ourselves about diversity inclusion and how best to represent those in our district the team convened monthly but everyone continued to educate themselves in between meetings as well recently the pennsylvania department of education published an online resource called
162the equitable practices hub we are continuing to familiarize ourselves with this website and we'll utilize it as our main resources resource to inform our action items now i would like to introduce mr leon smith who will speak to our action items as i said he's unable to attend tonight but he recorded his portion of the presentation for us to share good evening my name is leon smith and i'm the co-chair of the diversity and inclusion strategic planning goal and a social studies teacher at the high school our action plan includes four initiatives the first is establishing a shared vision throughout the district of our goal this will be achieved by making a video that highlights different members of the staff across the district explaining how the diversity and inclusion goal pertains to their role for
163example an elementary bus driver may talk about knowing every student by name so that they can greet them each morning and help them feel welcomed a teacher might speak to getting to know students cultures and referring to that in part of a lesson this video will use concrete and specific examples to better explain the goal for all stakeholders our second initiative is to identify and recommend a process to conduct a district-wide equity audit a district-wide equity audit is an appropriate starting point as recommended on the pennsylvania department of education's equity hub such an audit will tell us where our strengths and weaknesses lie and help us to further develop next steps third we look to develop a plan to utilize pennsylvania department of education recommended resources surrounding culturally responsive and sustaining educational competencies for professional
164development our teachers and administrators will become familiar with pde recommended resources focused on instructional strategies that help ensure equitable paths to success for all learners a committee composed of teachers focused on this task will formulate a district professional development plan and lead the professional development as well as a district we intend to recruit hire and retain a more diverse educator workforce the percentage of teachers of color in pennsylvania has been below six percent for almost a decade while the percentage of students of color has increased from approximately 30 to 36 pa's teacher roster is the least diverse in the nation according to the national bureau of economic research black students who have at least one black teacher in elementary school are more likely to graduate from high school and more likely to enroll in college
165furthermore teacher diversity benefits all students by disrupting stereotypes and preparing students to participate as informed and engaged citizens in an inclusive and diverse world part of this action step is to develop a grow your own program within our district that will invite more students of color into the profession of teaching and support them in their journey to become educators with the hope that they will come back to have effort to teach this work is ongoing we understand that the key to a successful recruitment strategy is a strong retention strategy the cost of losing a quality educator of color for students especially students of color is immeasurably high with possible lifelong impacts district-wide we aspire to create an environment where all educators and especially educators have come feel valued safe and culturally affirmed all of these
166action steps will be started first thing in september our first goal is to complete the video to be shared with all staff in the district we will be working on the completion of the other goals and we'll provide updates on our work as we do thank you and have a good evening thanks well thank you to beth leon uh matt erica shakura sandy and matt uh as you can see we've got uh excellent leadership for each goal and a dedicated team who are invested in making this shared vision a reality for our students our next steps in the process include incorporating feedback that we've gotten from administrators as they are considering how they might align their work with the district goals our committees will continue to research and plan ways that they can introduce the
167goals to our staff this fall and we will also develop a district-wide overview video that will be shared with staff on our opening days back in august over the course of the next 18 months we will begin to implement these action steps and we will provide updates to the board regarding their development and pros progress toward our goals as we go alright a slide i'm sure everyone wanted to see our final slide here we'd like to thank the many many community members staff members students and all who responded to our surveys participated in forums and worked in focus groups as we developed this shared vision for haverford schools we look forward to pursuing these goals as we continuously improve our student academic and educational experiences at this time i'm happy to field any questions from
168the board as this is an update i'm probably the best person to at least give the initial response since the work is still a little bit in progress but i'm happy to throw it to my colleagues if there's something more specific questions from the board yes mr stewart if you don't mind elaborating for us what financial literacy instruction looks like right now because you are identifying an opportunity to expand it in the future see this is here this is where i'll start because leon i mean matt's great but he is a math teacher and we teach our financial literacy course at the high school level through our business department currently uh so there is a quarter elective course which lots of our students do opt to take and they earn business elective credit i see
169erica shaking your head did you take it erica erica was one of our fbla champs so she did everything the business department could uh i don't know if katie took it but it's okay if you didn't we won't hold it against you um so uh but what we are looking to do is at number one ensure that it's very clear that k through 12 we're learning about financial literacy we have market day in elementary level we're learning about economics in every social studies course and then also how can we ensure that each high school graduate has experienced some form of a financial literacy course before they leave our schools still want to talk to matt yeah actually i want to talk to eric i know right i know what sort of practical things did you
170learn in the business class um ah so i was pretty i'm a big fan of the business department um i'm actually gonna do this video in college so i took a few classes of my personal favorites for marketing entrepreneurship um it was really practical and hands-on especially in my one class we like formulated our business all by ourselves we set up plans and all that and so it's also really cool um looking into being more financially like aware and literate at a younger age so i was especially able to get into stuff like the stock market through my business classes so it was cool yeah now it's a checkbook oh yeah yeah my daughter took a personal finance this year and kate became all excited like understanding like how much a house cost how to
171like what is a mortgage what does it mean when you borrow money for a car that kind of stuff like real practical life skills and um i think like balancing a checkbook there's so many resources online to help with that but understanding what questions to ask and how to apply it and how to like have it be part of your circumstance is a really valuable thing and i know she got all excited by it she wants to follow erica's path and like lots of business classes now thank you other questions from the board i was going to have a comment um i was fortunate to be a board member who participated in the strategic planning day and know that it was mind opening right to look at all the survey responses get the materials that
172envisioned preparing kids for decades from now and how schools might change and then having those deep conversations in the in the workshop committee forum um it was really invigorating and exciting and i'm glad to see all the work that has continued to flesh out this plan and just encourage us to think of ways to keep the strategic vision which had the input of so many people across our community and in our schools keep it front and center as we um you know are doing the routine business of the school district but to try to point to where where these decisions are coming from and how they're helping us to achieve these goals that i think are really inspiring and will be helpful as a community to have that focus as we you know navigate the
173challenges that are are coming to the school board every every meeting that we've you know we're encountering these days but um having this vision in the sturgy you know what challenges um but i think there's a lot in the strategic plan that we can use to help with that communication and having you know reminding of that common vision of you know what our schools are striving for curious mention this is in progress what are then what are the next steps when is i mean it's hard to to to say when will it be complete because planning is kind of an ongoing process but you know when is the final say a final plan gonna be ready by give or take uh we do plan to have something pretty solid by the time we are opening
174our school this year we will be planning uh presentations to the staff they'll be able to rotate through learning a little bit more about each goal and they'll understand what the action steps are but you know you mentioned something that's really key there we are very much about continuous improvement and uh you know that you know what they say about the best lead plans right so we have our plans we will monitor our progress toward them and we won't hesitate to improve them should we find that they're not going the direction we thought they would quick question um are there benchmarks that we're looking at and um how often are is there going to be some sort of um re-evaluation you know i love your presentations on you know when we're looking back and then
175looking forward and monitoring and the very colorful chart that goes through on the different subjects and so i'm just wondering you know that sort of plan is put in place here sure in fact each of these groups has a more specific plan where the action steps are labeled with who's responsible and what would the product be how will we know that we're reaching the goal what will we use to measure it by what date and then we plan to bring that information to the board periodically throughout the year so that we could you know have a similar presentation that could show you the progress with colors i promise you know how i love a color a color and an arrow they're my friends any other questions from the board i have to congratulate them on
176a job well done however i was in on the beginning and i would like to say having sat through maybe four or five strategic plans you had such cooperation and such such enthusiasm from everyone in that room and i can see that the work continues so i congratulate you in a year and a half that wasn't an easy year and a half i congratulate all of you on the job love that thank you susan always a team effort any other questions or comments from the board please thank everybody who participated all the team members and thank you thank to all the chairs that are here tonight we really appreciate your good work thank you all right now we could start the exciting part of the meeting i'll accept a motion to approve disbursements from the
177funds as listed congrats second moved and second any discussion all in favor aye aye the opposed ocean carries thank you i'll accept a motion to accept the recommendation of the project architect kcba and associates inc and owners representative cb development services inc and authorized change orders totaling forty four thousand ninety dollars and ninety six cents as listed was moved moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the proposal for recommended trash removal with republic services for a three-year term beginning july 1st 2021 as per the delaware county schools joint purchasing board moved in second any discussion they've been coming to pick up trash since the beginning of july and i did notice in the contract and had asked the question about um it looked
178like the high school and middle school did not have recycling services with republic and could someone speak to that that's handled in partnership with the township that's good to know right so that there's recycling in all of our school buildings that was the important part any other discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion you authorize the preparation and advertising of bid specifications for project two additions and renovations to the haverford high school let's move snodgrass second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed very great thanks everyone i'll accept a motion to approve tax assessment appeals for 2022 next item i'll accept the motion to accept the resignations as listed moving fly share moves second short second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye
179any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the appointments as listed not grass moved slicers moved in second any discussion no in favor aye aye the opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational contract for a student attending out of district esy placement for the summer of 2021. i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational contracts for students attending out of district placement for the 2021-22 school year moved in second any discussion all in favor the opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the educational contract for student number 55833 at an amount not to exceed fourteen thousand dollars for the twenty twenty twenty one twenty two school year it's not grass moved pleasure second in second any discussion all in favor aye aye aye any opposed
180motion carries and here we finally have a controversial topic for the night i'll accept a motion to adopt textbook themes for ap french as listed but i think it's pronounced thames maybe just tim i i stand corrected i just want to say i appreciated sant donnelly's video that she sent to the board to provide some information about the rubric for for the textbook selection any other comments the books aren't listed there so um but the board has seen those books as bridget mentioned sandy created the video so that all board members would have access so i would carry with our solicitor all in favor aye aye any opposed mission carries i'll accept a motion approve the 20 21 22 emergency instructional time second and any discussion emergency right just a brief reminder on what the
181emergency instruction kovid this was the last slide in the presentation when i mentioned that we're required to to submit um what our time template is going to look like for the 21 22 school year and we are committing to instructional days there will be five there will be five full days a week barring holidays and set so would this plan or would that time plate need to be adjusted if district wide or is a single school had to shift to remote learning or does that time play allow for that flexibility during this it's my understanding that allows for some degree of flex of flexibility but not the degree that we had you know when we were closed before let's not get back there again did we vote on this time plate any other all discussion
182favor aye aye any opposed pushing cars i'll accept a motion to approve the health and safety plan for the 2021-22 school year fleischer moves no report thank you antoinette no report dave yeah thank you i want to talk a little bit about a couple things that have been brought to the past couple uh meetings um one thing that's been brought up a few different times now having critical race theory i want to just talk about that briefly because now everybody knows exactly what it is it's like you just try to explain that a little bit so it's so clear to everybody now something has been around since 1960s up until recently it was debated in the halls of academia and really nowhere else it's actually similar to something called critical legal theory which is another
183legal theory supporters it has detractors not going to bore you with exactly everything that's that's in there some controversial some are not but it is taught in one place law school by those who are going to make and interpret laws that's it it is not taught in undergraduate school it therefore is not taught in high school middle school or every school it is simply it it is like asking asking us to not teach crt or not have crt in our programs like asking us to not have nuclear submarine engineering and design in our schools we don't have that because that is not part of our curriculum it's not appropriate for this level we don't discuss complex legal theories to high school students it's not because we agree or disagree or ambivalent but we're not in
184a credit laws i just want to point that out and you know i don't want to have crt conflated with basis or anti-racism policy or anything like that you know basis is a program to foster common understanding making creating a supportive and inclusive environment we saw that in our comprehensive plan social emotional well-being diversity and inclusion that matches up with that aren't the racism policy that is because we want to be anti-racist you cannot fight racism by ignoring it or saying it doesn't exist or questioning whether or not it exists we are very clear about that that goes along with our inclusion and frankly with our emotional well-being i think these are very important things and i'm happy that the board has continuously supported these things if students are old enough to experience racism they
185are old enough to talk about it we're not trying to push any kind of indoctrination or any kind of uh you know points of view but i think it's important that children be exposed to those points of view that they actually understand their different points of view out there if my if if my children point to you that disagree with mine good i want that that that is what you have to do i mean kids are seeing the news like or not kids are seeing that they they they've seen the vitriol in our in our discussions they they saw last year the george floyd murder they saw the blm marches the insurrection all of these things they have seen them trying to teach children in in a bubble without with ignoring these kinds of things
186is in my view irresponsible i think we have to talk about them you don't have to push any kind of view of if they're good bad or whatever they they should be discussed in school i think it's very important similarly if there are uh things in in our history and obviously everything needs to be age-appropriate but there are some things that i think we need to include in those courses you have to teach children about things like the evils of slavery the trail of tears tulsa massacre the um the internment of japanese americans during world war ii these things happened i mean if you ever if anybody has a problem with kids knowing these things it's not a you have a problem then with those events not with the fact that they're being taught and
187you know if you don't want children learning about these things and learning about current events and historical events then i'm sorry but by definition that does not create a good school you absolutely need to have those things as uncomfortable as they are and and look just you know i i don't want to trigger anybody or you know me or make anybody upset bottom line we're all the board members here we're all parents and neighbors we we cheer our kids sidelines games we see each other at science fairs and plays and probably a giant and walking around township in our parks and so forth we're simply unpaid volunteers and we're trying to do the best for our students and for your students as well um i mean and look i i i understand the frustration that
188i you know frustrates some of us too talking at each other at these meetings and you know i can't speak for the whole board but just on a personal note you know i'm not hard to find if anybody doesn't want to talk with me instead of at me i'm more than happy to do that grab a coffee or or a beer whatever's out there a beer sounds good tonight quite frankly but um but yes we're not trying to indoctrinate any kids with a social or political agenda if i was if i wanted to do that i wouldn't know how to frankly it's probably been here for two years i'm not sure how we would imbue something like that into a curriculum it's simply not happening we may have different ideas about what is you know
189best for our children but you know if at the very least if you accept the fact that we're trying to do the best as well that's a start [Applause] thank you dave next laura michelle no report susan no report um i'm gonna take a minute to say just a couple of things um one i wanted to acknowledge that there was an item on the agenda tonight that did not get a motion so did not come to a vote that was about the appeals i would like to see this board continue to discuss the appeal process the assessments taxation in the township and i think we will have the opportunity to do that in a committee structure um that has public comment and board discussion um so i don't think our inaction tonight was a way
190to end a discussion it um it will be a way to continue it and to that end um we'll soon be announcing a board kind of change in operations where we move to a committee of the whole structure on the topics that we have been meeting at as board liaison so there will be public sessions for policy for curriculum finance and facilities and look for that schedule to be released um and that those that new meeting format to happen as soon as august um so we look forward to making those changes and i did want to just respond to one of the public comments tonight was concerning our use of laptops and what we're doing up here months and months ago we years ago we switched to not getting paper packets which were voluminous voluminous
191um costly to produce and and distribute so um on board docs we've got uh the agenda not video games and for those of you in the audience who see the projection sometimes the content up there is very small so we have our own links to those spreadsheets and to the diagram so that we can watch i just wanted to make that public service announcement that um the laptop is for our work yes thanks everybody and i just again i know we're living in some interesting times and to the extent possible we need to keep the channels open keep the dialogue open try not to talk past each other when we call each other names we dehumanize each other and we need to do the best we can to set the kind of example for our
192kids how to behave and i'm speaking not just about the community at large but our board members also so thanks again to everybody who's been coming out to the meetings to share their opinions with us prior to the prior to the meeting the board met an executive session uh to discuss safety and security and we also met with council to discuss tax assessment appeals our next regular public board meeting scheduled to be held august 5th 2021 right here in the board conference room in the oakmont administration building with that i'll accept a motion to adjourn the meeting second also if anybody's interested in having more than three minutes to talk about something i'm happy to hang around for a while like with your truck