001okay i'm gonna broadcast okay mr feinberg we are live all right if we just take a minute to let the attendees join the meeting um i guess maybe people are tailgating it's a late night good evening everybody i'd like to call the october 22nd board conference and business meeting of the school district of haverford township to order if we could recite the pledge allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all mr regal could you call the roll please is he here do we have somebody else who can call the role well i'll i'll stand in if you'd like that's thank you mr parker miss snodgrass you tricked me i'm never
002first i'm here miss crispin here mr schwartz here ms larson here ms minji here mr sinto here ms wiedemann here mr feinberg here and mr fleischer okay thank you seems that everybody's everybody's here i'll accept a motion to approve the official minutes from the october 8th 2020 regular public board meeting second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye aye motion carries thank you anna what do you have for us in terms of public comment this evening um we have two public comments this evening um one is a little bit over three minutes because it's representative of seven um residents so i'll start with that one and this this one is a public comment on behalf of marianne butera and gavin kelly at 17 woodcroft road thomasin gory and mark chagina at 29
003woodcraft road ellen dillon and kevin dillon at 62 woodcroft road megan gould and michael gould at 3 000 robin lane beth walsh and matt walsh at 100 washington avenue kelly rambo and jordan rambo at 6 east hillcrest avenue and chrissy walsh and jeffrey walsh at 124 campbell avenue dear members of the school board i write to follow up on the school board decision to appeal the recent reassessments of our recently purchased properties in the township as you now know the decision really impacts a small group of 24 families but has brought implications to the school board's approach to taxation we have described in separate correspondence that the decision is unjust and unconstitutional i ask that you carefully review our petition that was read in the public comment at the september 21st 2020 meeting the petition
004is the foundation of our argument against your appeal and the data presented in that position explains the incorrectness of your appeal the purpose of this letter is to describe the actual impact of your decision on our lives after what can only be described as a superficial and at times factual and correct discussion prior to the board's rushed vote to authorize the appeals the robin hood effect first i wish to acknowledge the extreme challenges of the environment in which we find ourselves the pandemic appended education since you have been tasked with restoring it your work necessarily focuses on issues beyond the reassessments and appeals we understand and appreciate your dedication to the students i especially wish to acknowledge that voting to approve your own appeal to increase our taxes by 60 percent must have seemed simple
005when your staff's recommendations were presented to the board on august twenty-fifth twenty twenty i too listened to mr regal's explanation of the appeal it seemed simple mr regal stated to the board that taxing the small number of properties would yield an additional 1.8 million in tax revenue mr regal continued to justify the appeal stating that this additional revenue would then decrease the taxes on other parcels presumably because the county reassessments process is revenue neutral we heard our own public official employing the robin hood effect to justify targeted tax appeals again our petition contains the technical arguments describing the flaws and this reassessment and appeals that is not the purpose of this letter the robin hood effect mr regal described must be attractive to to good hearted people as i imagine school board members to be
006but the robinhood effect is not an accurate explanation of these targeted appeals to the contracted contrary the appeals are unfair illegal and devastating to those being targeted please consider who we are we are not the abstract 24 residential partials that were described we are working families in a pandemic the stress felt by the school board is stress felt by the school board is severe but not unlike the stress felt by anyone responsible for others in any capacity like small business owners healthcare workers teachers and parents we sympathize with your work and we ask you to recognize ours as well we too face paid depress decreases in job insecurity we too are trying to educate our children at home while trying to safeguard their emotional and physical well-being all while struggling to maintain our own work
007the strain of the pandemic is amongst the hardest experiences we have ever faced and this then the school board decided that we are easy targets and took its shot against its own residents despite mr regal's contention the county's reassessments kept us on par with our neighbors the school district's appeal singled us out to pay up to 60 percent more the justification sale prices were available but no due diligence was performed on the values of the other properties in our neighborhoods when the data was easily accessible do you think neighbors enlarge more elaborate homes would sell for less than hours impact our sense of community is destroyed the impact on targeted families is financial emotional and professional i will speak to my own experience but as representative of the groups after nearly 20 years in habertown
008we finally moved from a small three bedroom to a larger four bedroom house it's not a mansion it's not on a golf course it's certainly not on a double lot with a swimming pool we do not flip houses nor are we new to the area we are long-standing responsible members of our community if the board wins its appeals our home will be valued higher than the larger homes that would sell for much more than we bought our home so after 20 years we bought a larger home in a community we love we worked budgeted and saved and planned and for that we are being punished by school district we have long supported the cost is excessive unanticipated and isolating as testament to our sense of community we did not appeal tolerant technologies reassessment itself we
009assume the tyler's reassessment value although substantial increase represented our shared obligation to support our schools we did not object yet the school district chose to isolate us from our neighbors and to devalue our newly purchased home by raising our taxes thousands more than neighboring homes of similar value and thousands more than we than even significantly larger homes this devastates any sense of comfort we enjoyed in our community we are now faced with paying an additional 500 a month to support a home whose tax burden makes it worth less than the day we bought it while surrounding property values surge sadly each public official uniformly advises to get a lawyer ignoring the associated costs perhaps the school board does not blink legal fees paid by our tax dollars but we do should it be necessary to
010pay a third party in order for our own government to hear us your citizens cannot really spend more money especially in this time of extreme uncertainty does the school board suggest that we divert college savings to fund a legal defense against or targeted appeal who benefits it costs us more more than money we have spent at least 100 hours trying to protect our families from this appeal more hours will be lost as we defend ourselves against our own school district these lost hours are not just any hours these are hours away from our children who need us now more than ever these are hours away from sustaining our professions which are in crisis now more than ever these hours are fear and worry well we need to sell our homes at a loss if they
011are devalued by the appeals these are not productive hours they're awful and heartfelt loss the ethics of real estate community and resident retention communities should grow and seek to retain its residents throughout their lifetime had we known that a recent sale price would absolve the district from applying uniform values to homes throughout our neighborhoods and we certainly would not have purchased it a real estate agent had never heard of such an appeal and so fairly represented the property moving forward ethical real estate organizations will need to inform buyers and salaries of the school board's approach to taxation unethical agents may hide this information or set sail prices under the arbitrary threshold this is the inevitable consequence of unfair taxation you have created a dilemma for an ethical real estate market it is my understanding that
012surrounding school districts did not appeal the reassessments to higher values on a few properties that leaves haverford school district as an outlier and want to be avoided in summary our petition challenges the appeal with data law and logic please re-read it the letter informs you of the hardships we you place on these families we are more than parcels we are people we simply ask for fair treatment we wish to equally share in and equally contribute to all this one to this wonderful community sincerely our second letter also represents uh marianne butera and gavin kelly thomasin gory and mark shagaga ellen dillon and kevin dillon megan gould and michael gould kelly rambo and jordan rambo chrissy walsh and jeffrey walsh dear haverford township school district board of school directors as individuals and as a group the
01312 of us have communicated with the school board in several occasions to ask the school district to withdraw its property tax reassessments appeal of our homes we believe those prior communications presented compelling evidence of why the appeals are arbitrary unfair and unconstitutional the purpose of this letter is to present three additional arguments which when considered with evidence make withdraw the only reasonable decision first the harvard township board of commissioners last week voted to withdraw an appellant in our cases after examining the same facts we have provided to the school board as well as other information we believe the township commissioners made the correct decision and asked the school boards to respect the township's charge movement by dropping its appeals second there are investigations in conversations with elected and appointed officials in other delaware county communities
014we recently learned that eight school districts have banded together to follow an injunction to stop the county-wide assessment from taking effect in 2021 they have found what we have found county-wide reassessments are widely inaccurate and consistent based on those reassessments would therefore be uneven and lack uniformity furthermore if implemented those reassessments would increase the tax burden on residents compared to commercial property owners regarding this last point we have been informed that hatterford township's residents share of property taxes would increase by about three percent if the county-wide reassessments take effect instead of fighting its residents through unsupported property tax assessment appeals we believe the school board's time should be sent standing up for its residents and supporting other local school districts on the injunction finally we have learned that the school district's appeal criteria are inconsistent
015with those of other nearby delaware county communities which have higher thresholds and ensure any appeal makes good financial sense as well as sound legal sense if the criteria used by those communities were applied to our cases that none of the property tax assessments would be appealed especially in light of the fact that we are committed to fighting the school district if necessary at every step including in court please consider all available information and vote to withdraw the appeals of our properties sincerely that's all mr feinberg thank you anna i've been advised that mr regal is having issues with his uh internet at home and that's why he has not been able to join us next item on our agenda is student reports and we are going to have my understanding is we have a video
016report from ian slavich at the middle school can anyone hear him and we can't we can't hear it it looks great yeah this is a great idea i'm gonna i'm gonna restart i'm just i'll i'm i'll be there in one second i think i should i had the uh the mute button i apologize sure it's all right we're gonna restart it mr haran asked if we thought that it would be okay uh to have on this platform uh to have the middle school student record the message so i said absolutely okay here comes ian hey everyone i'm i am a seventh grade kids student at haverford middle school i'm a member of the coffee cart club best buddies and yearbook club back at the building for almost two weeks and i'm excited to see my
017friends and my teachers in the building so the students are taking their classes virtually and are on the haverford or online program sports and clubs i've been back for last from last week all the students are excited to have the sports and clubs back band chorus and orchestra students are participating in music class this week and they will be going to the high school to present them take their classes student pictures will be taken in on on saturday november 14 and sunday november 15 and jim diaz between nine and three pm thank you for allowing me to present at this evening and please stay safe everyone well thank you ian i think that's a platform we can look into for the future that's a it's nice to see next we have our high school student
018report from erica borby welcome back erica good evening staff community and members of the board i'm erica bourbee and i'm so excited to be presenting tonight first and foremost high school students started the transition to hybrid on monday jordan 19 and spirits have now been higher students with last names a through l is monday and wednesday while students with last names m3z is attending school on tuesday and thursday all students were masked and sit in the same seat each day to ensure minimal contact but my peers and i are so excited to finally be able to have some safe personal interactions with friends and teachers all students are also given the option to pick up a grab-and-go lunch after school on their way home students involved in clubs and athletics are also welcome to come
019back to the high school to participate in their respective activities at 2 30. the class of 2021 had a senior sunrise on wednesday october 14 and seniors watch the sunrise socially distance on the newly completed track there is also a senior haunted hallway scheduled for thursday october 29th at 6 pm in the high school senior officers and administrators have been working hard in order to ensure that all aspects of this event will meet social distancing rules while still being a fun opportunity for seniors to show their halloween spirit the junior class is going through the process of ordering class rings to celebrate their time at haverford so far 9th to 11th graders had their pictures picture days the week of monday october 12th to thursday october 15th with time slots assigned by last names fall
020sports are being streamed on our high school's athletic youtube channel with boys and girls soccer games being streamed last week and football and marching band senior nights being streamed tomorrow night clubs are up and running and have been hosting meetings regularly over zoom and video snippets detailing information about each club can be found on the high school's hvision youtube account for any students interested in learning more best buddies recently distributed their peer buddy matches and fbla is already selling haverford masks with proceeds being donated to the american heart association yearbook club is hard at work and ahead of the game dedicated to creating a yearbook that accurately represents this unique year and at least one club member is present at almost every event with a camera in hand ready to capture yearbook worthy moments it
021is truly inspiring watching all the different parts of our high school community working diligently and passionately for the benefit of the whole i am so grateful for our supportive staff positive classmates devoted coaches and all other individuals making our adjustments significantly easier thank you so much for this opportunity tonight i am so excited to see what other creative endeavors haverford high school can accomplish this year thanks very much eric next item on our agenda is a construction update from ken matthews ken hello good evening everyone i'll start off with the high school first tonight so if everybody recalls the bids came in this past week the good news is we had a lot of bidders we had seven plus bidders for each of the four major trades which is great to see the numbers came
022in uh i think they were there was a lot of numbers bunched together which is also good to see an indicative of the documents being good you know you didn't have random numbers all over the place there's always a little bit of an outlier so that was great to see the bids were favorable uh based on where we are as far as the project budget which we were you know we were a little concerned about with covid and where people were but clearly with the number of bids that came in uh it was good to see we got good numbers uh for the project so that that's a wonderful thing so we'll be reviewing uh all the project budget costs in detail next week with the administration and the facilities committee and then we'll be
023coming to the board in two weeks at the november 5th meeting to look for your approval to proceed with the project and award uh award the contracts and send out a notice to proceed we're losing you can bob may not be the only one having technical difficulties tonight you got the eagles game and a presidential debate and the board meeting well i know i know ken was mentioning that uh you know our facilities liaisons are scheduled to meet next week um and that meeting uh ken will be going over in more detail with those liaisons uh each of those four prime dinners uh for the high school project and then it will come to the full board that first meeting in november uh for your approval to award those bids uh because remember it's january
024that we are uh scheduled to break ground uh on that project that you know similar to linwood seemed so far uh you know uh upcoming and now to think that we're at you know at this point in time i'm not quite sure what ken was going to give us his update for linwood tonight because we had only talked about the the high school so we'll see looks like he exited perhaps he's going to try to come back in so maybe we'll move along and if he is able to join us uh then after mr parker finishes the enrollment update we could have him provide a lynnwood update or i can text him and ask him to just send it to me and and i'll i will give that as well and i would i would
025add if you haven't had a chance to drive by the linwood project lately that'll give you a pretty good update it's it's really starting to look like a real school not like a construction site and it's it's amazing so i just have a quick question if it's okay about um all the different bids and what the facilities liaisons are going to go over and sort of um since it it seems like a little bit of a tight timeline um the facilities liaisons are meeting next week and then it's going to go to the board the week after i know we've been doing the the board liaison reports and so if there's anything um whatever is going to be reported at the meeting if we could receive that sort of as soon as possible after the
026meeting itself i think that would be really helpful for the other board members so that we come to the meeting with all of our questions i'll show you some things soon after that i'll i i i do this reports for for the facilities um group so i'll get something out to you soon after that meeting awesome thanks dave thanks dave next item on our agenda is an enrollment update uh mr barker who's our coordinator of pupil services david good evening hello everyone it's my privilege to review our annual enrollment update we do this evening i think uh anna's gonna put it on the screen for you there in a second when she gets a chance thank you anna good evening again for anyone who may not be aware this enrollment update is provided to the
027board each year around this point in the fall and this is an opportunity to review our current information and compare it with what was projected as well as our actual enrollment at the same point in the fall last year we sometimes refer to this as our enrollment snapshot and would you go to the second slide please beginning with our youngest students you can see here in slide two our elementary enrollment compared with our projected enrollment at the elementary level at first glance our elementary enrollment is slightly below our projections about 1.4 percent approximately but as you will uh we'll see on some subsequent slides there are several factors that have influenced our numbers this year go to the third slide please here on the third you can see in more detail how our elementary projections
028compare with our actual elementary enrollment by grade level it is important to note that and we're using the term actual here and i'll put you know our quotes around that for a moment uh we're using a similar template that we've used in prior board reports and prior years the actual enrollment on this slide does include all elementary students regardless of their program choice their family's program choice hybrid or haverford online on the next slide when we get to that we'll break down our hybrid numbers and have our online enrollment numbers for you in more detail i'm sorry mr feinberg i i should pause early at the beginning if there are questions from the board at any point um i don't want to talk so fast and then anyone should interject that there's a question uh
029in the fourth slide we are we can see here the breakdown for elementary students in both the hybrid uh and the heifer online models and then on the fifth slide we break down the heifer online numbers by grade level which is represented here now these numbers uh there's a there may be some minor fluctuation in these numbers since they were they were locked into the draft the initial draft of this powerpoint last thursday evening but if there are any adjustments to those numbers there they're one-off type situations where one of our principals had to make a make a decision about helping a student but um of all the numbers i'm presenting tonight if there's any fluctuations with any numbers it might there might be a little here but more or less this is what we
030have today if we can go on to the next slide given the circumstances surrounding the opening of school this year we wanted to take a look at our elementary students who transferred out of school between july and october what we learned was that of the 202 elementary students who left haverford 17 students enrolled in charter schools that includes of those 17 four students who were projected to be first-time enrollments and first-time students with us they had complete registration we were accounting for them in our enrollment projections and and staffing and all that but uh their families those four students their families made a different choice early in the fall semester or you know late in the summer however you want to take that um 40 elementary students transferred out to begin home education programs commonly
031referred to as homeschooling and a majority of the remaining 149 students who transferred out and the majority of those students were due to families relocating out of the area there were a couple that might have gone to a private school but the vast majority have to do with relocating we can go to the next slide on this slide you can see how our homeschool students compare with our home schools numbers uh this this same time one year ago again given the circumstances we wanted to take a closer look at this information and we were able to break it down further each level at the elementary level there are 85 students 23 were home school students last year in 2019-20 so they're just continuing they're they're doing the same model they did last year um 22
032students are new move-ins who happen to choose home school as their education choice so they're new to our district new to our township and they could have chose chosen private school haverford of course charter school or homeschooling and for whatever their family reasons are that's what they chose and as mentioned 40 students transferred from our elementary schools they were in power in one of our five buildings last year to start homeschooling for the first time in the middle school level there are 29 students 19 of those 29 are returning home school students again they were in they were home school students in 1920. two our two middle school level students are move-ins or new to our district completely and eight transferred out of the middle school to begin homeschooling as new homeschool students and at
033the high school there are 22 total 20 uh 21 of the 22 homeschool students are returning there's only one new one additional student who happened to be uh someone new to our area our community there are no students at the high school level who chose to transfer out um to do homeschooling this year or this fall at least if you go on to the next slide similar to our approach with homeschool students we wanted to take a closer look at charter school students and verify where these students were last year at the elementary level you can see we have 22 students and of those three are returning charter schools charter students from last year 1920. two are new move-ins they're new to the township new to our area and they elected charter schools uh and
034four are what we're calling these first-time enrollments i mentioned that in the previous scy for the elementary we were projecting they were gonna be they were coming into school with us i i can't remember somebody that of all four were kindergarten students but they are either kindergarten or first grade uh they were they were gonna be new to schooling in general and they elected ultimately to go to charter schools um first time in uh finally i'm sorry i lost my place and finally we had 13 students leave to enroll uh i'm repeating my line pardon me at the middle school level yeah 13 students leave to enroll in charter schools at the most global four of those 13 um were returning five students transferred from haverford to charter schools and at the high school level
035nine of the students there nine are returning only one is new to our charter charter list for the district at that level and that happens to be a move-in student i fumbled over my notes on that side so i apologize if there are any questions from the board or anyone uh i'd be happy to clarify i have a question are these all cyber charters the vast majority of them are traditionally historically we do we will occasionally get a brick and mortar and how we refer to a brick-and-mortar charter student off the top of my head i want to i want to i can verify for you in the morning i'm i'm fairly certain these are all cyber charters thank you also just to clarify so these numbers are building on one another um so like
036when i feel like at the elementary for 1920 that's five and then it's 22 for 2021 so the delta there's 17 is that what i should be looking at to see how it's changed over a year um for i'm sorry i was going into my powerpoint can you sure um so i'm just looking at the total charter school enrollment for example i'm just making sure i'm reading these numbers right um so the numbers are building on from each year so for example the five elementary students in 1920 who were in a charter school that number then jumped to 22 in 2021 um but that includes those same five students who were enrolled the previous year most likely i was on a different side yes the three of the five so three returned two transferred or
037moved away and okay they're i don't know honestly because when someone leaves from a charter school we don't get the transfer people okay yeah it does thank you yeah so just using elementary five last year of those five three still live in our township and continue to be charter school students two moved away and then the balance are new got it thank you thank you going on to the next slide similar to our um next sorry next we'll look at hms and see how our enrollment compares to last year as well as our projections you can see that our actual and again this includes both hybrid and haverford online students our actual enrollment uh both this year and last year was slightly lower than our projected enrollment this year there's about a two approximately 2.1
038difference a percent difference compared to a 1.3 percent difference last year but again our circumstances coming into 2021 um are are quite different obviously on the next slide uh slide we are assigned number 10 we're going to break down we see the breakdown for hms students by grade level and by model just as we do with our elementary data there's no questions with that i'll ask anna to click to the next line just my my windows here every year we take a closer look at new students who transfer in at each of the three levels elementary middle and high school and on this slide we note that at hms uh hms saw an increase of 35 new students in sixth grade 15 transfer transferred in from puerto rico or private schools and there are 20
03920 additional move-ins 20 new to the area this is very similar to last year and that there were 34 new sixth graders 14 from parochial or private schools and another 20 new move in so very consistent for the middle school and their sixth grade new students coming in that weren't in our elementaries on the next slide moving to the high school we can see our enrollment is more consistent with our projections with only about approximately a point five percent difference between our projected and our current total enrollment i have for high school and that is much more consistent when compared to the approximant and this was an over we went over our projection last year a 6.1 um difference from the projection to the true enrollment this time last year any questions about the middle
040score of the high school i i have a question about when was the projection put together so just so we're looking at this was it um pre-covered i mean in the middle and is you know sort of i actually i mean i don't know a lot about this but these numbers look very um similar to me the actual projected um and so i don't know you can tell me if the variance is is larger than you thought it would be um but you know just to get a sense of because we have had so many surprises this year um you know when is the projection usually put together um the the projection data is actually something that was handed down to me it's a file that was established a long time ago i believe by
041dr hopkins um but um remember we had a demographic study done so we had a demographic study done a number of years ago um and then those numbers right before he left the board um phil took those numbers and you know worked to update them so to answer uh miss nongrass's question the projections are not recalculated every year although your question will bring us later on not later tonight but at another point in time to talk about the value of having another demographic study done someone that looks at the real estate in the air you know looks at everything that is going on in a community uh gets that live birth data at the county and then creates a trajectory for a five to ten year period of time no i should have deferred because
042it was the the those that data was collected uh prior to my role my current role working with this information i i don't know the history so thank you dr hershey are there any other questions on these sites before i move on okay uh we further broke down our harford high school population here i gotta move my screen around again forgive me um and we're going to take an and the next time we're taking a look at the new transfers coming into the high school um oh yeah here it is the hybrid the hybrid you have that okay so on this slide back on trek we take a look at the our new knife freshman transfers 36 new 20 22 transferred in from private or pro kill schools uh and 12 are new to our
043area are our township and then two students again this year we had two students two former high referred students they literally have referred at one point in the past they transferred out to go to a charter school and they they came back as they wanted to return as high school students this very similar pattern to last year i believe last year there was additional 20 students who came in from pride and parochial and i know there were two returning haverford students that came back out of charter schools so just we thought it was an interesting pattern so we just wanted to mention i wanted to mention on the next slide here we break to break down the secondary students who transferred out again between july and october 2020 we verified that five students transferred to
044charter schools by moving transferred out high referred schools to a charter school that was your choice eight transferred out because um they chose to be homeschooled but the majority of the other 119 students were due to re-look their families relocated there might have been one or two private or parochial school transfers but the vast majority have to relocation and on our final slide we have a quick comparison of our enrollment data from this time or right now uh october to this point in the fall last year and it's just showing you some of our demographic uh information there's broken down a little bit differently it's something i don't think we included last year and we thought it would might be helpful so with that uh that's mr parker um thank you sorry to interrupt you
045i just want to add a question about the demographic summary um how do we determine low income how do we determine yes or what was the criteria i'm not 100 certain to be honest because it's something that i believe comes through our food service department okay it's free and reduced lunch numbers would that be yes that's that that's what is represented on here those who would qualify for free reduced lunch okay thank you next step bridgette hi i noticed um so i played with some of the data and then did some uh pulled out some ratios and things and and one that surprised me was the percentage of elementary students who enrolled in haverford online was 18 and at the middle school in high school it was 13 since haverford online had had most of
046its experience with secondary age students in the previous 10 or 12 years i'm just curious if um that amount of enrollment from the elementary and middle and school high school levels was like expected or anticipated or do you have any kind of insights into into how how that broke for the different levels of schools not in a structured data way to answer your question i'm just touching base with dr nesbitt frequently uh throughout the course of the fall semester because i know he did quite honestly a lot of work with this um and my own conversations with families helping them make decisions for their children sometimes certain families having multiple children they would make certain decisions for one child in different decisions for another child um i can't say i was surprised personally but no
047it nothing in terms of formal data collection do we have to try to help answer your question more like i said at the beginning in a more structured way i can follow up with doc jump in uh and just provide just the only insight we really had um was we did have a survey that we were trying to determine what the interest might be we had 14 percent of the families who returned that survey say that they were interested overall in an online option and then we ended up with just about that overall we were not anticipating the uh majority or you know quite so many of them to be at the elementary level but um we certainly were happy to see that i think there if i had to guess there was i think
048our community was was paying careful attention and trying to coordinate to ensure that they would have um teachers that were employed by haverford doing haverford curriculum and i it appears that the efforts to do that and to provide that had paid off yeah i just i found it interesting to see you know just kind of the way that the trends were and there's also differences between the elementary schools um which you know might be something to look at for other years um i also noticed that in the enrollment for um sorry i'm getting uh probably a political call in the enrollment figures for the elementary schools it's really chatham that has seen the bigger jump from what was projected and the other schools were kind of right around or maybe even a little lower um
049and i was curious if we have any insights on what's going on in the chatham um dr whitehead is going on yeah doctor i you know i was going to say these um those uh good reputations tend to draw families um but also i i was going to note that this kind of uh results compared to what had been projected is probably a signal that it's time to update um the underlying data for our enrollment projections but i'm just curious what people might think about the the chatham enrollment no mr fleischer stole my line so no it stood out and and that's that was obvious um and i i think you said it best it it has given us reason to take a good hard look at our um what we're using and maybe we
050need to you know dive deeper a little bit going forward he has a very large magnet i hear he made some great videos too so other questions or comments from the board well thank you mr parker we appreciate the update thank you next item on our agenda is the first reading of policy 103 equal opportunity and non-discrimination in school and classroom practices and also policy 103 ar beside you mr parker yes it is mr feinberg and i thank you president feinberg members of the board we after after um much work by the policy liaisons uh and uh your solicitor's office we have arrived at uh a document that we can present to you as a first read capturing the the new title mind regulations recently issued by the federal government some of which i think
051are uh very are helpful and an improvement uh uh others um perhaps not necessarily specifically designed for k-12 environment but we have all done our best to put it into a form that we think will work for this district of course most of us will remember title i remember title ix and think of title ix as the the federal law that uh initially at least was uh uh was adopted to uh address inequalities and bias that faced women in various educational programs but particularly in act in athletics but the fact of the matter is since that occurred in 1972 as you all know the scope of title ix has significantly expanded and broadened to include protection against sexual harassment bullying pregnancy discrimination gender-based stereotyping gender-based harassment and sexual violence the so the scope of title
052ix has expanded and has now expanded again because for the first time uh in by regulation at least sexual harassment is including is specifically defined to include sexual assault uh as being a form of unlawful sex discrimination under title ix all uh so it is a bit of a of a change in that the regulations now specifically codify uh that expansion uh i have to point out uh that uh and i i know that most folks are familiar with this so i won't go into great detail but the fact of the matter is it's widely known that these regulatory changes that were handed down just in may of this year that is may of 2020 were to a great extent the result of an intended to address uh sexual harassment uh in the post-secondary environment
053uh the uh the regulations were i think largely at least initially intended to correct what some parties saw as abuses of due process uh in those instances in the post-secondary environment however ultimately the regulation the new title ix regulations again issued in may became effective in august were much broader and frankly provide some some improvements as i said before so in any event it they do apply to the k-12 environment uh and we are required to abide by the regulations and due to that our policies and administrative regulations needed to be uh revamped uh considerably to not only to update our policies generally but uh to uh capture the the intent and procedures outlined in the new title ix regulations so that's what brings us here tonight um i i'm going to also point out
054that uh the the timing of all this that is the regulations being issued in may and effective in august and uh and the uh the world our country and certainly uh school districts in pennsylvania uh operating in a pandemic it became somewhat difficult to to take the new regulations revise all the policies psba finally issued their policy news network recommendations in august and we attempted to utilize that template but frankly and i don't mean to be hyper critical because i think it was the timing was difficult for everybody including psba that template did not prove to be a very workable template we the the and i think and i believe the liaison group who has really spent a lot of time on this already anybody from that group that wants to to to join in
055or or interrupt please do but even that group found that initial template to be somewhat difficult to work with and when we then went back to the solicitor's office and said gee uh could we maybe at least rework this a bit um uh our solicitors the whistler firm said they had the same reaction and worked with us and we brought to the liaisons a a document that fairly close to you know what is being presented to you tonight so we we did take that step um and frankly i'm glad that we did i think that the liaison group would probably agree the first psba template on policy number 103 was going to be a difficult document to get through so now i think we have in front of us a document proposed for a first
056read that is more clear more digestible and more useful for the district so i'm going to go right to the document unless any of the liaisons want to say anything as an introduction i just add that um you've mentioned the time frame with the regulations in may and then it's supposed to go into effect in august and here it is october and we're just presenting this updated policy i think it's important to note that um the website and kind of the underlying protocols and procedures and enforcement around title ix have been in effect by the administration and that's um published on our website if people wanted to go and and look and and see how to act um under title nine and and things like that so um we've been as i understand it in
057compliance with the changes um but it just took us time to get the this policy um and the documentation in a format for this presentation thank you that's a very important point and i'll add to that that the administration has undergone the first first tier of training that is required under the new regulations and of course additional educational opportunities and trainings will will follow but uh as uh as uh wiedemann pointed out uh the um let me get my lights back on here uh the uh uh we do have the uh grievance process and the uh and actually the training that i mentioned on the website uh we are not in any in a different position than many other districts as solicitors office has assured us that by getting things set up on our website
058and proceeding to adopt these policy documents we're in compliance but we need to move with you know some deliberate speed to get the policies in place and begin to make sure that the district administrators staff students are all fully informed about the the uh the changes that have occurred so thank you um anyone else from the laser yeah i'll just add to that too um that i agree with everything um that mr parker said and um the we really did get the example from pspa very late and we found it to be almost completely unworkable i think that it was 12 pages isn't that right that's correct um so it was um it did not seem like it fit our district and that was sort of the consensus when when any of us looked at
059it um and so the what's being presented here has been reworked with um like greg said with with our council um but also the the liaisons have gone over this several times um to an extent almost line by line um really making sure that it reflected our district's values and um and and previous policies so um that that's another reason that it's it is it feels late but um there there's a lot of work that went into it yes thank you i think that's all very accurate all right so i hope everyone has the uh 103 document that was attached to your agenda and reflects the current suggestion as to the new 103 policy the entire former policy 103 would be deleted under these circumstances so this isn't a case where you're looking at line
060outs and additions you're looking at a an entirely revamped policy uh and of course the um the the policy is really broader than just title ix discrimination the as you can see in the purpose statement uh it we wanted to communicate and and i think rightly so that we're looking to prevent any discrimination and create equal opportunity throughout the district on any basis equal opportunity for all students and and that includes staff and you'll see you'll be seeing another policy that pertains more to staff in the coming weeks that somewhat relates to to title ix and discrimination but the but we have to also remember that um you know the circumstances of discrimination under title ix must in some sense be connected to an educational program or activity right so that that is the the
061original language of of title ix even though the if you will the scope of the discrimination that might be contemplated as prohibited under title ix the original language remains as it is so that no one is on the basis of sex to be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving financial assistance which of course applies to us so that it's always i think good to look at the seminal language of the original statute to you know to frame you know where we where we take the policy language so the purpose statement is uh broad as it should be uh we then uh under the the next several pr paragraphs uh make it clear that um it's our intent to provide
062an educational environment for all without discrimination providing equal opportunity and then we specifically call out really the expansion in title ix in the next paragraph indicating that title ix prohibiting sexual uh harassment includes unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex uh and refers to the uh title ix um the new title ix regulations which now include sexual assault as unlawful sex discrimination on the next page the the broad policy goals are that the board encourages students and third parties to promptly report any conduct or incidents that they believe might constitute not unlawful sexual harassment or other discrimination and to report that to the title ix coordinator currently the the decision was made to designate the director of human resources as the title ix coordinator and that contact information is contained in the administrative regulations that
063we will look at following this review uh further in the policy the board directs that uh any any complaints falling within the scope of this policy be investigated promptly and in accordance with applicable legal obligations and the the ars will further uh reinforce that uh and of course the board directs that whatever corrective action is appropriate once the processes have been followed be taken protecting confidentiality of course also provides very clearly that there shall be no reprisals or retaliation against any person that uh makes a complaint uh reports uh an alleged uh incident of uh discrimination or uh sexual harassment or anyone who testifies or assists in the bringing or investigation of such a complaint or acts in opposition to practices that a person really believes might be discriminatory [Music] um and there are a
064few uh a few then further uh definitions later in the policy but the policy is intended to be an overall broad uh statement of equal opportunity nondiscrimination and then point the uh point the individuals who might feel as though they have either been subjected subjected to such conduct conduct or have witnessed it and wish to report it to the administrative regulations so start with any questions or comments about the policy itself because of course we want you to be comfortable with that document in its entirety before we go to the administrative regulations and of course i invite the liaisons you know and i can't say it enough because we i we've had three sessions on this and uh although the first one was cut very short because i think everyone had again decided that we
065needed another document to work with um there have been some hours put in looking at the first two two versions so if there's anything you want to point out about the 103 policy document itself please do or if there are any questions from the remainder of the board dr crispin yeah i just was curious about why the um the boy scouts were specifically named in the first paragraph under authority and then there's a footnote i just i didn't understand what that meant right so um i'll start by saying um that was a question i think many of us had in fact on the very first version even the psba version i had lined it out you know at least to address it uh but i i really lined it out because i knew that we
066would have to get uh some guidance from our solicitors on that point because there is actually a federal statute uh that uh uh miss nodgrass was kind enough to uh pull out the site for and uh and so maybe she wants to address this also uh but the while we we i think we're all reluctant to include a specific reference to one one group uh that being the boy scouts uh this federal law under the boy scouts equal access act actually requires that and that is enforced by ocr and so we we questioned our solicitors and uh mr diazio provided some some good advice and i think we were all convinced that that needed to stay in uh but we decided to create the footnote uh as it is which was not included in the
067original document nor in the uh pspa version but uh antoinette did you want to say anything further because you really kind of took the blow by the horns on on this one yeah sure yeah that's my footnote so um i do see that it's a little bit um legalese here um and the footnote but it really is because i'm trying to draw in all of the specific um references from the law here to show why we're specifically mentioning the boy scouts because like greg said we all sort of looked at that and we're like that's that's an odd very specific reference and um but so the the boy scouts equal access act um is is a federal statute and so um because the office of civil rights specifically looks to that statute and is within
068their own um model of um the notice of non-discrimination we felt like and in discussion with our outside counsel felt like this was necessary to put into this policy to make sure that um it is known that there is this specific act that calls out the boy scouts and to make sure that we're in compliance with the law um on that specific point so it does feel a little bit weird um but it is um not necessarily our hands being tied to do that but it is something that we felt like was significant enough that we we wanted to leave in thank you other questions from the board bridget you just have one comment and i think this might be a carryover from kind of other drafts the title now reads copy of equal opportunity
069and non-descript i think we should get rid of that copy of um leading into the title right that will come out at the final adoption yes honestly i don't know why that's in every version it's a it's a board docs uh quirk uh but yes that will come out i just want to quickly um point out that often when we think of title ix we think of girls and sports and more recently with the updates from the department of education um the sexual assault assault piece of this um you know title title nine equal opportunity non-discrimination schools really is a blanket um as mr parker mentioned that protects everyone um for to have equal opportunity and the right to non-discrimination so i just i encourage um so i just you know i encourage people to
070educate themselves about this policy it's incred incredibly important for our students for our staff um and i just want to thank the liaison team for all the work on this document i'm sorry i cut you off mr feinberg that's quite all right my question is uh in the authority section there's a list of uh actual or perceived is that is that was that included in on in the previous version of of of our policy or is this language new it's a pretty expansive list that language is new mr feinberg if you don't mind i'd just like to read that for the public um i think it's important to understand that one of the things about public schools is that public schools are open to everybody often times in discussions about school vouchers and privatization you
071know you'll hear that private schools can you know they they can turn people away for any reason this says it's the policy of the district to provide an equal opportunity for all students to achieve their maximum potential through the programs and activities offered in the schools without discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived race color age creed religion sex gender sexual orientation gender identity gender expression ancestry national origin slash ethnicity veteran status marital status handicap slash disability or membership in any other protected class as defined by law and i i feel very strongly that that is that's a key uh a key piece of public education so it's good to see that any other questions or comments from the board at this point all right mr parker you got another one well yeah the
072uh the next document would be the associated administrative regulations attached to again aor is for equal opportunity and nondiscrimination in school and classroom practices so this would be uh this would represent uh more specific responsibilities and procedures that are assigned and developed to implement the broad policy statements contained in 103. and it begins with outlining if we are looking at the 103 ar document attached to the board agenda again a board a board doc document i believe i hope uh it begins with um uh repeating the equal opportunity uh uh no discrimination environment uh and then moves on to uh to assign to the title ix coordinator now the responsibility to implement a series of of activities that will move the district not only toward compliance with policy 103 but the non-discrimination laws and regulations
073that exist and and educate the the community the school community students staff about um this this area and the uh remedies that are available uh within the school district uh structure now so you can see that um the intent is to begin to put together or not begin but continue because it's not it wouldn't be accurate to say begin many of these things have been occurring for a number of years i mean this district i think in many ways has been in the vanguard uh in uh in many respects including um uh assisting students and staff in these areas so it would be it wouldn't be right to say begin but to continue and to improve upon uh creating curriculum and materials in this area training for students and staff uh uh developing and making
074available resources uh uh in the form uh that we're all more used to to seeing them not just books on a shelf but on the website and so forth making sure that students have access to all those materials and the information they need to perhaps take advantage of these regulations in this policy make sure that the district is supporting uh the the individuals within the community when they attempt to avail themselves of the remedies outlined in this policy and regulations and to of course make sure that we are properly receiving and processing any complaints that fall within the scope of policy 103 or frankly other non-discrimination laws then of course there's the contact information for the title ix coordinator uh uh currently the the director of human resources uh and in certain instances the superintendent
075and uh then we refer to the fact that any claim of sexual harassment under title mind would be handled uh according to the procedures set forth uh in the title nine grievance process which is an entire entirely separate lengthy and detailed document that is contained on the district website you can see the link there in the ars you can also search title ix on our website and it'll take you quickly to a link to the grievance process and i think it provides all of the information that anyone would need to either file a a complaint or report themselves or assist someone else it's certainly possible that this process would would present a challenge to someone but i think uh any certainly a staff member or a family member using the grievance procedures could assist someone
076in getting the information to the proper first step which is the title ix coordinator you can see there that the we this this document outlines the general complaint resolution procedures because there is the opportunity uh for uh the complainant uh to opt for uh an informal complaint resolution or proceed with a full-blown process the complaint procedure is set forth student or third party believes they have been subject to conduct that constitutes a violation of this or the board policy uh and i think a word has to be taken out there we tried to take out a lot of phrases out of this document i think we missed a couple of words so that should read a little bit differently and it will the next time you see it so the is encouraged to immediately report
077the incident as outlined in the accompanying board policy anyone with knowledge of conduct that may violate this administrative regulation or the board policy is similarly encouraged to report the matters outlined in the policy okay so then we step two is when let's remember that there are times when these matters are complicated enough that at the early stages uh the title ix coordinator in consultation with the superintendent made may decide that this is uh either because of the persons involved or the activity involved or the complications that might uh be included it might be appropriate to refer the investigation to an outside investigator that is a perhaps an attorney perhaps you know someone other than an attorney but with a level of expertise that would be appropriate for the for the investigation and that information would
078come to the board as a matter of information before that happened then the investigator we'll uh work with the title ix coordinator uh or superintendent's designee uh to assess what the scope of the investigation needs to be and and then the investigator whether it's an internal investigator or uh an independent attorney or another uh would proceed with the investigation the the goal would be as you see in step three for that investigator to complete an investigation and submit a report to the title ix coordinator within 20 business days of the initial report of alleged discrimination unless the nature of the allegations anticipated extent of the investigation or the availability of witnesses requires the investigator to establish a different due date so there is a a really a very short timeline contemplated but the uh the
079ars also recognize that you could face a set of circumstances where uh you may need to extend that for good cause so there has to be some discretion built in for that purpose all consistent with the regulations i should point out of course at the conclusion of the investigation once the investigator has has determined whether or not the the complaint uh was founded or not that is whether the conduct complained of violates the the policy then the complainant and the accused will be informed of the outcome of the investigation with then uh the opportunity to appeal which is set forth on page four of the ars either the the complainant or uh you might say victim or the uh the accused uh has the ability to appeal according to the timelines that are outlined uh
080in that final appeal procedure step i'll i'll back up a little bit to district action uh if there is if the investigator concludes uh that there has been a misconduct that violates the policy then the district is responsible then to take prompt and appropriate corrective action uh uh not only with respect to you know the individuals the victim the the accused but with respect to things within our environment that may need to have corrective action or additional policy work or education work so that's where the the the district you know may act more broadly than the individuals involved but that's also provided for in the ar is consistent with the regulations all right um i'll stop there for a moment at least and see if there are any questions or again invite the liaisons to
081add or remind me of things that we touched upon that that they think might be important in these documents questions or comments from the board i have a question sorry internet oh you know the first thing i'm just gonna give a broad comment um that um for folks who who might not know or or for the public watching so you have the policy and then you have the administrative regulations and so there's basically two functions for that the policy is um is just that it's a very um sort of a broad um direction from the board to the district to um you know outline you know the non-discrimination of all of the um the different classes that larry read and then um you know everything that goes into the policy and the administrative regulations are
082are more procedural and so those are are things that are not necessarily part of the policy but they are sort of the statement as to how the district is going to implement the policy and they get sort of more into the leads than the broad policy so that's why even though we're still talking about um you know the same overall um content here there are two different documents and so we're talking about the policy first which we already went over and now the administrative administrative regulations i just wanted to make sure that everyone understood the relationship between those two documents sal you have your hand up uh yeah i just wanted to uh comment and mr parker you can uh jump in here too these procedures that we're talking about are based on the guidance
083and the actual regulations that are outlined in the title ix legislation am i correct they're they're right they're not you know as we read these and go through them they're they're obviously haverford um administrative regulations but these protocols are part of the actual title ix legislation so i just wanted to make sure that people understood that as we go through this it wasn't uh you know crafted unrelated to those that actual legislation that's correct mr cento and remember that these documents were largely drafted by the district solicitors the whistler firm and uh and uh mr diazio in particular ed diasgo of that firm uh based uh his drafting upon the title ix regulations that were issued in may and uh and recently became effective giving due consideration to the you know to our district and
084uh and the fact that they're being applied in a k-12 environment as opposed to perhaps what the drafters of the regulations were intending to apply more specifically to a post-secondary environment sorry for the interruption greg kristen so i'm curious about where the rubber meets the road on this so we have our policies and then there's the enactment of the policies um this is a pretty i mean this is a a solid process solid processes and procedures but this is for the protection of students so i'm just wondering um in terms of the title ix training and accessibility for our students like how would they know um what their rights are under the policy what do those trainings look like and related to that how do we ensure accessibility being that um you know discrimination on
085the basis of you know there's a whole list of areas that students can be discriminated against um disability being one of them um language you know different ways how can we make this accessible to our students and help them know their rights and help them access this process right so um there are a couple of obvious ways you know first once the policies are adopted they will be distributed they'll be uh there will be a notice uh on our website uh there will be distribution now the truth is i don't think we hand out paper handbooks any longer but students receive information in some form that could be called you know a a contemporary uh handbook if you will and it will be included in that or at least some notice about where to where
086to find information to address such problems even if we don't publish the entire ars and grievance procedure but they'll be directed to those there i'm going to rely upon some of my educational colleagues you know to perhaps uh explain other opportunities that that have been available or are available but in my thinking you know the our guidance programs and staff probably already address a good a good portion of these issues and so that's when we adopt our policy and put it all in place then the training will go to staff and administration so that they can incorporate this new information into those programs that already exist and update those programs and i hope i'm not just making that up i i don't think i am i i believe they exist and and again i invite
087my educational colleagues to you know to maybe um you know explain to the board where those opportunities are but that's the way i would see it and and then we have to really begin to i i also think that given the the um the run out of these new regs and the policies across the not only across the state but across the country we're going to see a lot more programs and materials that are going to be offered to districts and probably coming out of the state you know that will provide opportunities to incorporate new materials into our you know our you know curriculum materials and and programs uh and we're going to have to one of the responsibilities here is to begin to look at how exactly we do that how we make sure
088that this isn't just you know a policy for the shelf but uh gets some distribution and and real effect basis work i'm sorry isn't there overlap with our bait our existing basis work i think i would think so um again i i start to get out of my depth a little bit and i don't want to speak for my educational colleagues who have a better idea about how this actually looks in the schools but that's that's my take on i hope that's at least answers in part i think you've summarized thank you okay other questions or comments from the board okay and we have one more correct you do i just want to remind everybody that uh this will be back for a second read so if you have any questions or comments um you
089know not just the liaisons but anybody uh pass them along and we'll make sure that we try to address them at the at the second read but if you have questions in advance that way we can you know maybe do the research necessary to give you a good answer so we do have a second reading of our school wellness nutrition and physical activity policy correct and i hope this was a short walk because you're going to remember i think that this policy was scheduled to be adopted by the board uh earlier this year uh we had gone through a uh the liaison process and a first and second read and frankly the the revisions of the policy were relatively minor uh to reflect some comments that have been made by the state uh nutrition folks
090and i guess that also comes out of the federal school uh uh lunch and breakfast program uh uh regulators so we had really a very few number of changes to the policy it was not an overall comprehensive review and we were bringing those to you for adoption when the food nutrition department or i should say our uh our food service department was notified that certain language in that draft policy should be coming out uh and needed to be removed as quote old language at that point uh we we pulled that from the the board to make those few changes the document that you have uh tonight in front of you for a second read and we're calling it a second read because you've basically seen this document for two weeks previously but we wanted to
091make sure that you saw these uh final changes before we bring it back for another adoption at hopefully your next meeting if you agree so if you look at that document you'll see that while there are just a couple of slight additions editorial changes uh that are noted in in green and underlined that most of it would be deletion of old language that was no longer appropriate under the federal gu and state guidance and in fact in many cases was redundant uh with uh redundant to the language of the policy so that's the summary of of policy 246 uh now called school wellness nutrition and physical activity so are there any questions we might answer um be happy to do that antoinette um yeah if you go to page five it looks like one of
092the um the suggestions that we had made in the liaison meeting just didn't translate into this one um so under other school-based activities we had gone over um that third paragraph down students shall be provided adequate time to eat and we had discussed putting um at least at least 10 and 20 minutes yeah so it says right now it just reads 10 minutes of down time for breakfast 20 minutes of downtime for lunch so um we discussed putting at least before those numbers those are minimums so and i believe that the district provides more than that so we wanted to make sure that the policy doesn't read to look like you can only provide these specific numbers but these are actually just minimums that's correct i i apologize i didn't notice that i was working
093out of the google doc that we had all been working on and those changes were in there but somehow they didn't make it over to the uh you know what is now a board docs document but we'll add that in at least in two places before the uh the minutes requirement right right exactly thanks okay thank you ari yeah thank you um i'm on this committee i'm the board representative on the wellness committee there's a lot of great work that's been happening over the last couple years since we since we formed it to fall in line with the state mandate to have this committee just so the community knows in addition to a board member there are members of the committee from the student body the community as well as the teaching community and the
094nursing community in the district and now we have nicole leading it and doing a great job under authority number three physical education courses and opportunities for developmentally appropriate physical activity during the school day does anyone know if we have any phys ed teachers who have the adapted phys ed cert that westchester university offers i do not know that offhand i do not know that but we can certainly find that out it's a very valuable certificate um i had a k-12 health and physical ed cert that has lapsed unfortunately and um i signed up for a course and there weren't enough people signed up at the time so they had to cancel it would be great to know if we do have anybody that has that adapted physical education certification who could help the other members
095of our physical education staff when they do curriculum and need to make modifications uh for developmentally appropriate physical activity during the school day thank you next up kristin yeah um so on page five i think there's another change that we had made in our liaison discussion that didn't quite make it into the document it's under the healthcare section beneath goal and then that second paragraph each child would be screened annually for height weight and body mass index bmi um we had talked about just leaving that bmi and not using age and gender because we wanted to make sure that we were in line with our transgender policy right and i think mr sinto and the in the group agreed that the way that should read is each child will be screened annually for bmi score
096according to pa state mandates right correct i think so again i apologize i'm sitting here looking at the board document the the google document that we worked on but some of these things just didn't make it over they didn't translate into board docs and we were afraid that there might be a little bit of a translation from platform to platform issue it looks like it occurs remember i remember this one was playing tricks on you too so it's yeah well all of them were playing tricks on me if you were to tell everybody the truth but i appreciate you being generous with that but we'll we'll make sure that reflects uh the change that we made uh with liaisons for for the final approval right thanks any other questions or comments from the board all
097right well thank you very much mr parker welcome thank you thanks to the policy liaisons for uh putting the time into these as you might guess uh in the public you know this is not the most exciting work but it's you know it's work that uh needs to be done and we certainly appreciate uh the time and effort that goes into it next up is board liaison reports if i'm not mistaken the only liaison meeting we have uh since the last board meeting was policy is that you bridgette it's me but i think that we have covered the policy meeting so um i'm just going to leave it as everything that we just said that's what happened okay that's great appreciate that thank you very much next up dr rishi thank you mr feinberg a
098few things for the board uh this week um first it's been exciting as uh as both erica mentioned and ian our student reporters this evening it's been exciting to see the students return to school you know as of the close of the day today now everybody's back our haverford online students continue to be fully engaged our students who are learning through the hybrid model are you know have all had the opportunity to return and to be with us and i've had some opportunity late last week and throughout this week to visit classrooms and it's been really inspiring to see our teachers do everything that they possibly can do to engage students in their learning um they i was in a classroom today where they were referring to the zoomers and the rumors and the rumors
099are the students who were physically in the class in the classroom and the zoomers were the ones who were zooming in from home and it was very inspiring to see the number of classrooms where that's already occurring erica you're you're actually i'm just looking at you now you're in i think two of the classes uh that i had the chance to stop into today um and erica was one of the zoomers of in the in the uh in the class the classes that i've visited uh but it's a testament to what our teachers are doing uh you you may recall you know two weeks ago when i made my remarks i reminded everyone we had lots of plans we had lots of ideas and and our teachers their teaching is an art uh and you
100know to them they're very passionate about what they do and they have lots of ideas but until the students arrive in front of them in the classroom they really don't know which ideas are going to work best so it's very inspiring to see them trying so many different ways uh you know and one of the teachers commented today how excited she is about next week's uh act 80 in service day because their agenda is to talk about how their be how they've been using the technology to engage students both in the classroom and when they're at home so they're really pitching in and trying to support one another with resources with ideas and learn from it learn from one another as as well i watched a first grade teacher last week teach remotely and the
101children were in the in the classroom first grade teaching teaching math and she was able to see the children who were in the classroom call upon them they were able to hear her and i was most impressed that she was able to hear them uh because it's you know they're not sophisticated audio visual systems that we have in our classrooms but our teachers are are taking the macgyver approach to a whole new level uh and piecing the things all kinds of things together and and really focused upon how they can keep kids uh engaged uh actively in in their learning so they were some of the highlights uh for me over these last few weeks when i've had the chance to to visit some some of the classrooms um we're uh also looking at um
102what you know what are we working on now so what we are working on now as a whole district is to look at installation of more cameras uh in our classrooms look at second monitors there we desperately need second monitors for our teachers to work effectively with students if you picture the screen that you're looking at right now uh you know and you're trying to work with a class of 25 or 30 students somewhere in front of you some are on the screen and then you have your content that is also on the screen to project in the classroom and to make it accessible for the students who who are at home so we're looking to see how we can get you know a collection of more monitors for for our student our teachers so
103that they have those tools in you know in front of them we are also you know looking at the reality of this virus and what it is what we are seeing and how we are seeing it unfold and we are you know continue to engage in our conversations looking at ways that we can increase the frequency of in-person attendance for at minimum our elementary children um we're you know realizing that we're not looking at you know super storm sandy like we saw years ago or you know a heavy snow storm where where this is something for a few days um it's looking like we will be in this model for an extended period of time uh so one of the things that our teachers and my colleague administrators and building principals are looking at to
104see you know how can we do that particularly for for our youngest youngest learners in the in the groups we have a few a few other things are you know related to that i can't stress enough the importance and we hear it all the time but it truly is important for uh our children the adults you know our staff members to stay home if they display any symptoms and and i know that's hard when you you know you don't feel sick um but you know maybe you've got one or two you know it seems like a minor symptom um coming into our schools uh displaying one of those symptoms and then two days later having to get a test and testing positive it was that time in our schools that impacts everyone and has that
105potential to put people into a period of quarantine so we'd much rather be talking with uh parents and staff members you know how we can make this work uh if someone doesn't feel good for a day or two uh and have them ensure that it's not uh covered that they have uh bringing on the symptoms that they are exhibiting so please please we are you know asking people to be very diligent about remain remaining at home we uh we have on our website uh covet data chart and we identify each week the number of positive cases uh that are exhibited in in our school anyone who is considered a close contact they're notified you know we're not waiting for the chester county department of health we're letting them know that we have identified you as
106a close contact your contact information has been given to the chester county health department uh but we're you know we're not waiting for the chester county health department to contact a parent and let a parent know that their child was is was in close contact with someone who has tested positive for for covet um but in order to you know be transparent and and let folks know uh you can see that chart on our website and as i said it identifies students who have been in our schools during a period of time when they were considered contagious does that that does not represent all of the data across the township we are focusing upon those who are in the schools and considered to be contagious at that at that point in time we also have
107a link on our website to the chester county have we lost we lost dr rushi dr roshi it would seem well i guess we'll proceed and when she comes back in we'll have her continue i did just text the superintendent to let her know that she appears to have technical difficulties um dr rushi has lost power so uh we will we will see what we can do to get the remainder of her remarks out to everybody let me work on that now okay thank you next item on our agenda um i'd like to mention that on friday october the 16th uh dr roushi uh vice president wiedemann and i participated in a countywide meeting at the dciu there were 47 school district leaders solicitors and business managers present in an effort to ask county council
108to become more involved in resolving issues with with the reassessment process and we are continuing to monitor that joint effort and will certainly keep the board and the public informed the statement that i'm going to read reflects uh the view of the majority of of our board uh from several executive sessions and after hearing from our counsel and advisers on this matter certainly from hearing from members of the community from other school districts in the county and from that dci iu meeting which i previously mentioned and here's where it's good to have a second monitor as you may be aware the delaware county county-wide reassessment is said to take effect for tax year 2021 the school district of haverford township's school board's council on advisors when given the county's reassessment data in august identified concerns
109about the accuracy of the reassessments the school board acknowledges that the county-wide reassessment is concerning to many residents especially during the covid pandemic which has presented added stressors on so many lives the board on behalf of all of the district's residences and residents and property owners and the district's best interests understands the importance of the reassessment process and the district's right to appeal property assessments under the law in order to achieve a fair and accurate real estate tax system at the outset it is important for property owners to understand that the reassessments mean that properties will not be taxed at the same rate as 2020 although the new millage rate cannot be finalized until the county certifies the reassessments expected in december 2020 it will be significantly lower than current do not apply your current
110millage rate to your new assessment as your tax bill would be inaccurate many residents will see no difference in their taxes some who were over assessed will see tax decreases while others who were under assessed will see increases the overall assessment process attempts to assure that properties are as accurately assessed at fair market value as possible but imperfections will arise the haverford school district filed appeals of certain properties in order to address concerns regarding erroneous assessments by tyler technologies the company that performed the assessments on behalf of delaware county with the limited time that the district had to review data pertaining to over 18 000 properties within its borders there are multiple concerns regarding properties that clearly appear to be under assessed through tyler technology's evaluation based on these errors the board authorized appeals for
111properties that reflected significant differences in recent sales prices to the new assessed value and also authorized appeals for properties that have not recently sold but reflected an implied fair market value from the former assessment which was significantly higher than the reassessed value by tyler technologies these appeals were authorized in the best interests of all residents and property owners within the district and attempting to assure that properties are accurately assessed based on their fair market value the district approved the criteria for appeals to meet the september 1st 2020 filing deadline the district adopted the criteria recommended by its council and advisors to correct the inaccuracies discovered just as many property owners have elected to appeal their property assessments in light of additional inaccuracies now discovered the board is considering further actions regarding the overall reassessment process
112and also for future tax years with understanding of the concerns surrounding the reassessment process we believe that the district must exercise its legal right to appeal properties the same as individual property owners in order to protect the interests of the district and assure as best as possible accurate assessments decisions to appeal property assessments are never easy they affect each and every taxpayer within the district and we are aware of the financial implications on our residents the long-standing effects of failing to appeal clearly inaccurate assessments by tyler technologies cannot be ignored and the district will continue to work hard to assure that properties are accurately assessed and mistakes corrected the district is aware that other delaware county school districts are engaging in litigation over the perceived errors in the reassessment process and resulting in accuracies in
113the reassessment values after consulting with council the board believes participating in such litigation may not be an efficient use of district resources at this time instead we are authorizing the superintendent and her designees to present the concerns expressed by haverford township property owners to this board to the delaware county council when the superintendent determines such action to be in the best interests of the district we further authorize the superintendent and her designees to work collaboratively with administrators from other delaware county school districts to advocate for a fair accurate and equitable reassessment on behalf of all haverford township property owners and for a county level review of the reassessment process and the resulting assessment values when the superintendent determines such action to be in the best interests of the district so that was a mouthful questions
114or comments from the board thank you dr ruschi i see you you made it back yes i don't know something happened either on the debate or the eagles game but because there was noise in this house and the electricity went off i'm not sure what it was but um i'll just briefly finish up uh you know was talking about our data chart uh and that we're you know encouraging people to take a look at that we are informing families if the child was in close contact um encouraging people to look at the chester county health data that's where they identify the data for the township that's actually not just school district right that that is all of how all of haverford township uh the way the data are are presented there uh as recent as
115this afternoon chop issued uh a new report and you know it really stressing within there the strength of school safety plans uh that that can have on the mitigated risk for transmission uh and not to you know undervalue the wearing of masks the social distancing uh they go on and identify um districts that have opened with moderate incidents and how the the spread is not occurring within the school and that's one of the things that we you know that we would start to take a look at that would be a deciding factor if you were going to you know close the section or you know close part of a school it would all determine on whether the spread is occurring within the school so if i test positive and it is determined that it was
116through a family gathering or some social outing uh and somebody else in the school test positive and it was from you know an activity that they were involved in that is not spread within the building it's when when the chester county health department sees that the spread is occurring within the building that's when they will have discussions with us uh about you know looking from a broader perspective at what we will do so we'll continue to continue to monitor that um continue to share that information with you uh we'll have that chopped uh the new chop report um we'll be on our website uh tomorrow morning and then two things in closing an email message went out this afternoon regarding the parent guardian equity team that we're forming across the district so folks should look
117for that and be part of this very important work that will be taking place uh across you know across our district and where there was an emergency situation within the community unrelated to the school but within the community today there was an emergency situation over in the chestnut wall area and after most of the children had been dismissed but there were still two busloads of children in the building that principal was informed to shelter in place so i just want to thank the police for their quick work and keeping us informed uh and personally going to the school afterwards and speaking with mr d and ensuring uh that these children who were still in the building were able to uh to be dismissed safely so that we want to thank the haverford police for uh
118for their work work with us thanks dr roshi ari you have your hand up yeah if you don't mind i just wanted to let dr arushi um come back i heard i heard somebody say you lost power but thankfully jen saxa didn't try and grab it um the reassessment statement that you just you mentioned at the end or it's mentioned at the end that other delaware county school districts are engaging in litigation it's my understanding there are nine districts involved in that litigation um can you tell us anything more about it what it seeks to do what its basis is if you have any of that information i'm sorry mr fleischer i do not have that information at my fingertips this evening so i would be hesitant to say to speculate what i believe it
119to be um and i can get that information and provide an update uh for the for the board um what i did send to the board uh earlier was the advocacy work um so i'm more aware of what's going on with the advocacy work and what the group is attempting to do with that respect be very helpful if we could learn a little bit more about what those nine districts are seeking to achieve as it would if they are successful or however long it takes it does impact what we do in haverford correct even though we're not joining litigation yes that is correct or you know that if they have a successful uh result to their pursuit it would actually impact the entire county now the township also we withdrew their appeals does that mean
120we now used to share the legal costs does that now mean we own all of that legal cost or did they already write us a check i believe we own that legal cost moving forward thank you thank you okay next item on the agenda for information purposes only the secretary to submit for insertion into the minutes proof of publication regarding the legal notice and bid advertising for the high school renovation next i'll accept i'll accept the motion to approve budget transfers in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars fleischer moves ninja second second then second mr regal could you just want to give us a heads up here okay uh it's just one budget transfer and it was uh moved uh books over to to purchase some um for the to cover the cost of
121the writing the um the curriculum for the virtual part of our hybrid i believe this roll call vote this is a roll call vote uh dr chrisman yes uh mr fleischer yes ms larson yes miss minchie yes mr sinto yes mr schwartz yes ms snodgrass yes miss wiedemann yes mr feinberg yes i enjoyed him yes thank you bob i'll accept the motion to approve disburse disbursements from the funds as listed moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you i'll accept a motion to accept the recommendation of the new linwood elementary school project architect kcba and associates inc an owner's representative cb development services inc and authorize change orders as listed second moved in second any discussion since we lost uh ken earlier i believe you probably
122would have addressed some of this um mr regal are you able to just talk about the um maybe not the specifics of the change orders but could you confirm that these are amply covered by the remaining contingency on the project yes we still have plenty of room in our contingency to cover it i think we have over two million dollars in our contingency left over so uh we're still under budget and we're trying to keep the costs down because we want to do phase two of the high school and in order to do that i think the savings here and the savings on phase one will help us a long way as far as being able to afford phase two so all in favor aye aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion
123to authorize the proper officers of the board to prepare and advertise bid documents to request proposals for the food service management services according to the united states department of agriculture usda regulations and guidelines as well as the pennsylvania department of education's policies and guidelines this rfp will include a food service director and the services of a food service management company only all employees other than the director will remain school district employees move second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the agreement between the delaware county intermediate unit and the school district of haverford township for title 1 services for non-public participation for the 2020-2021 school year at a cost of 5 hundred and twenty dollars second moved in second any discussion did
124someone clarify for the public um so this has non-public in the title and funding so um what that actually means for taxpayers and title one funding non-public services um i wasn't here i see sarah just came onto the screen i wasn't sure go ahead or absolutely as part of the consolidated application for our title funding it's the lea's responsibility to make sure that equitable services are provided for our non-public schools so we manage that and we take care of the funding and make sure that our students from haverford township are getting access to those services even if they're in non-public so this is just a contract with our dciu to provide those services for the haverford township students any other questions all in favor motion carries thank you i'll accept a motion to accept the
125appointments as listed my grass moved per second moved in second any discussion just want to note that this includes bringing back uh many of the folks that we unfortunately had furlough previously so it's great to see that all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries thank you i'll accept a motion to accept the resignations as listed christine moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll i'll accept a motion to recognize the following temporary professional employees who have fulfilled the three-year probationary period required by law and having received satisfactory ratings during this period have met eligibility to receive their professional employee contract effective october 22nd 2020. second moved in second any discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries and congratulations to these folks i'll accept a motion
126to approve the leave requests as listed congrats moved moved in second any discussion all in favor why any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to accept the recommendation of special counsel and authorize the resolution of pending special education administrative proceeding and authorize the administration to implement the terms of the resolution as listed below second moved in second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion carries i'll accept a motion to approve the following educational contracts for students attending out of district placement for the 2020 2021 school year minji move second one second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries board reports ari my audio back thank you i do not have any thanks antoinette um thanks yeah um two things um along with what dr rushi said about um symptoms and
127everything i hope everyone is getting their flu shots and i just want to let you know that a lot of pediatricians are doing drive up flu clinics my kids went to it um this past weekend and it was really well done really easy so call your pediatrician if you um think you'd rather go there than cvs but as far as i know um the the you know local pharmacies are also fine um and i just want to say last plug for voting because the next board meeting the election will be over so you can go to one of the election sites and you can get a mail and ballot and fill it out right there um through october 27th and then after that it's only on november 3rd so find your polling place it may
128have changed um double check and make sure you vote every single person in the township should vote every single person in the state and the country should vote so vote and bring a friend thanks antoinette dave yeah i'll just take an internet um call there for for for voting and then just with with regards to the statement um registered me i just had a couple of things i wanted to um bring up there i i do have some comments about it i i won't get too specific because there are pending litigation matters and contained within that within that statement um i will pass along some some comments that i had i thought it was pretty long and we might want to make it more concise for better digestion for from the public um still points
129like to make number one i i i think it's it's long overdue that we had the statements and we voted on this in august and it's you know now october so i would have liked to see that um done a little bit more rapidly to address public concerns um the you know you know the the process itself of the vote um you know i also i i know we were in the crazy time the pandemic and everything but we have like more time to discuss this with council to get a better understanding of what exactly we were getting ourselves into i guess when we you know first started the thistle process but we didn't have a whole lot of time for that that was kind of a rush to vote i like to improve the
130process for things like this moving forward because these things are very important we i mean we are beholden to our voters to the people who elected us we all want to see the district do well i have a daughter in in middle school i'll have a son joining the school district next year so i'll be here for 13 more years so you know i definitely have a stake in the district but we are beholden to the taxpayers and i think we really have to look at some of the impacts that we'll have to them not to the majority not to almost all of them but to all of them um it's not about whether or not we have the legal right to do something i think is whether or not that's something is the right
131thing to do so i want to follow this process moving forward and i also you know i do applaud the the district engaging and advocacy efforts and i want to be very involved in in that as well with district to be very involved in that there's anything that that that we can do with board members whether it's signing on to something whether it's making phone calls whether it's talking to officials whatever it is won't be involved in that because i think we all see some of the issues uh this time with the pandemic that you know this process this this you know uh the whole appeals process and everything else is a very it's coming in a very bad time i just want to make sure that we're taking making every effort i know the
132county has is considering different actions i just want to continue to to advocate for some of those actions to ease the burden on our taxpayers and our residents and with that um i'll pass enjoy the football game or the debates i'm not sure which one will be more violent but enjoy whichever one you choose to watch after this so thanks thanks dave kristen sure um so just going off of what internet was saying about voting um so in-person voting finishes on the 27th but you still have time to get in your mail-in ballot however um given the time frame for mailing you could still slip it in the mail and it would get to um media mine took about four days um so that wasn't too bad however the dropbox is now open and have
133referred so you can go right to um the township government building the police department and the dropbox is there it's completely secure and it's emptied each night so that is another option for you to get your mail and ballot submitted and processed by the county pretty quickly um i just wanted to kind of piggyback off of what dave mentioned and just highlight that um while the majority of the board supports the statement and the action of um you know the board in the district going forward the assessment appeals the entire board doesn't agree with it thank you thanks kristin laura um so did we have we talked about advocate advocacy day we did talk about that at the last meeting right i'm losing track of my dates okay so that's done that was great um
134equity summit i think bridget is going to probably talk about the equity summit so um then i will talk about the psba leadership conference so it was my first psba leadership conference i was only able to attend uh the first day uh but it was it was helpful um it was really interesting um i attended the at least three different sessions um the opening speaker keynote speaker um was excellent and it was um about equity and inclusion in our schools and so that was really it was great um it was a really powerful speaker and i believe it was recorded so if you weren't able to go um i believe you can still go on the psba website and see that i'm not 100 sure but i'm pretty sure just until tomorrow oh okay so
135it was really good um so i would recommend if you have a few minutes um to to tune into that um and then um one of the sessions i guess that i that i attended that i found was particularly interesting was about um suburban school districts and the response to covid and sort of what they see the future of school looking like going forward um so that was just it was interesting to hear um what's what's going on with some other districts around the state and how we compare and how we differ and um so that was it was interesting um i wish i could have attended more i'm sure it was very different in person when you all actually got together and could meet people in person um but anyway i was glad i
136was able to participate um other than that no report thanks thanks sal i just wanted to say thank you real quick to mr parker and dr rusci for their time and work uh on the policies that were presented as well as the uh my fellow policy liaisons on the board i felt like especially with the title ix regulations that it was a very collaborative and open process and i felt like the presentation that was uh brought forth tonight really reflected that um that group effort and and and openness to uh to make really constructive changes so thank you thanks sal susan no report thank you larry bridgette hi um yeah it's been a busy a couple of weeks i can talk about the equity summit it was a one-day conference in advance of the psba
137school leadership conference and i think sarah christensen from the administration also participated we were in a session together and it had interesting thought-provoking ideas and i think content that will be able to apply to the basis work and and um dr rushi mentioned how the parent guardian committee is getting started to participate in the process and and hopefully stuff of this equity thinking that's um important not only in our district but you're seeing um the importance of it across the state um that the day was dedicated to it as laura mentioned it was a theme that resonated throughout all of the conversations um some of the takeaways were just the question of like getting to look at each student's needs and asking like what does that student individually need to thrive in school um and
138to imagine what an anti-racist school and school district looks like and you know to lead people to um be holding that out as uh the foundation for building and strengthening their curriculum their student engagement their community engagement and um it was an inspiring day and then it was followed with two other days of school board conferencing in a virtual setting in addition to the sessions that lara mentioned there was one with senator bob casey there was one on special education on communication particularly like in kind of a crisis situation there were groups of uh school leader like superintendents and other leaders who just were talking about the issues in this year of schooling during a pandemic regarding staffing and finding substitute challenges attendance and testing and other kinds of mandates and how to navigate that
139there was a session on the financial implications of covid on district budgets and so lots of the key areas that just that board members need to be aware of and and help bring to the position so um anyone who wasn't able to participate i think i said that the sessions are accessible until tomorrow um i believe the day is so you could have a chance to pick some of the topics that look to be of interest um and i was going to suggest as a follow-up to some of the comments about the reassessment process there was a county council meeting i believe was just last night and there was a board member from garnett valley who kind of already started on some of the advocacy piece that was discussed that our board could participate in
140or our um our district could participate in and so a member of the school board of garnet valley read a statement and there is some interesting response from county council about the process that they're looking at with the reassessment and with the board of assessment so i encourage people to check that out in the meeting it is toward the third hour it's pretty late um it's around the two hour and 55 minute mark um but if you're interested in what the county council is thinking on that topic it's worth checking out um and if you're looking at other kind of youtube things um it's it's nice now that the district is broadcasting the sports that are happening for um for people who aren't able to attend um in uh spectators are limited to parents and
141people with passes um but i think it's really great that they are broadcasting the events so um friends and family from home and even far away can get to watch and cheer for the fords um and i can report that there was a girls team at the home stadium tonight and they ended in a tie thanks bridgette uh i want to say that uh i i took my mail-in ballot to the dropbox at the township building this afternoon it was painless there was no line there was a slow but steady stream of cars that were coming through so if you if you have your mail-in ballot you can certainly swing over to the township building and uh and drop it off there uh otherwise i i can't echo enough uh what some of my fellow
142board members have said vote vote vote vote and vote please the coveted rates are up statewide and at the county level the way that we keep school open is to practice safe practices masks distancing hand washing um use common sense in social interactions we have to keep those rates down in order to keep our hybrid program running i also attended the school leadership conference uh i want to thank uh fellow board members uh who who took the time to do that it's generally been time well spent great topics great speakers the for the past few years psba has been pushing hard on equity issues and that was evident both at the school leadership conference programs and also i want to thank bridgette for taking out more of her time to attend the equity summit just
143an attaboy to the administration and uh and our teachers and all of our staff and stakeholders for moving into hybrid all in all things seem to be going very well we realize that it's a challenge but our folks seem to be rising to that challenge and it's not taken for granted also want to thank the board for their patience and efforts and around the tax assessment appeal issue it's been a difficult time and you know thanks for your work the board met an executive session on october 20th with special counsel to discuss ongoing litigation matters our next regular public meeting will be held on november 5th 2020 same zoom time same zoom place and as antoinette said will be well will certainly be past election day i don't know if we'll know who won the
144election but uh if if you if i haven't mentioned it go vote uh with that i'll accept a motion to adjourn not grass moved thank you very much good night everybody thanks very much