001At this time we'll call to order our McGuffey School District Committee meeting. Dr. Over? It is. My name is Mr. Wise. Uh Madam President, thank you. Good evening to members of our school board, uh teachers as well as administrators from McGuffey in attendance, and of course members of our McGuffey School District families uh that are here this evening. Uh President, I have six items for committee tonight. As we do every month, the first item on the agenda is our middle school student of the month here to present. Mr. Anderson is our associate middle school principal, Mr. Justin Wise. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. As Dr. Over said, my name is Justin Wise. I'm the associate principal of the middle school, and I'm honored to present our March Student of the Month, sixth grader Bennett Anderson.
002Tonight we're also excited to have Bennett's family here with us. So, thank you guys for being here to support Bennett. We will now watch Bennett's video. Hello, I'm Justin Wise, associate principal of McGuffey Middle School, and it's my honor to introduce to you our March Student of the Month, Bennett Anderson. Congratulations, Bennett. Thank you, Mr. Wise. All right, I'll ask you a question. What's your name, grade, and what are you involved in at the school? My name is Bennett Anderson. in 6th grade. I play baseball for Magothy Middle School. I started playing basketball 3 years ago. What do you like to do after school? Uh after school, I like to hang out with my family and friends, play whiffle ball in my backyard with my brother, with my uncle playing catch. What does being student
003of the month mean to you? Being student of the month means to me that I think I'm doing well in middle school. I'm proud of myself and I really like putting in classes and being with my friends in the school now. What's your favorite subject and why? My favorite subject is gym because I'm really active and have a lot of friends in that class. Is there a teacher or staff member who has helped you a lot this month? Uh Mrs. Filaski because she's always helping everyone with their work when they need it and she's She always has energy for the students in the class. Great. What advice would you give to other students who want to become student of the month? My advice to other students is to just keep up with their work, be
004nice to their peers, and participate in class. Well, thank you, Bennett, for sharing your answers and congratulations on being named as the March student of the month. Yep, thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. So, Bennett, congratulations. Next, I Did I see Calliope up there? Oh, there she is. So, next we have Calliope Aycock, our freshman, to present again on the student council uh presentation for March. Calliope. Good evening, everyone. My name is Calliope Aycock, as you heard him say. Our school updates for well, March {slash} February. Schroeder Musical is next week with performances on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and Sunday. The high school will host Clayville and Joe Walker students for our annual music in our schools for annual music in our schools event during the day on March 25th. The
005high school prom has been scheduled for Saturday, April 25th at the Washington County Trolley Museum. Sophomores will be taking the PSAT 10 the last week of April. The annual March Madness Pickleball Tournament will be sponsored by the sophomore class has begun much anticipation and fury. Students in advanced placement courses will be taking their mock exams in early April. Sports updates. Wrestlers Lucas Sparr and Victor Bonus qualified for the PIAA state wrestling tournament. Both won multiple matches and Lucas placed sixth in the state. At the PIAA tournament, Lucas became the all-time school leader in wins with 177, surpassing Jeremy Hunter with 171 and Christian Clutter with 163. Lucas Sparr has been selected to wrestle for the Pennsylvania team versus a high school versus a high school all-star team from Oklahoma at the Dapper Dan Wrestling Tournament
006on March 28th. Other wrestlers broke 100 victories this season, including Emmett Wolf with 140 wins, Victor Bonus with 129 wins, Garrett Newman with 115 wins, and Tucker Maine with 109 wins. Spring sports has started, obviously. And the weather has been pushing many events to the next week. Anyway, thank you all for your attention, and these are our updates. Thank you. Very good. Very good. How did you do Sorry, how did you do today? Uh I wasn't the worst, but I wasn't the best. That's good. >> All right, every month in an effort to inform first the board and the community of things that are going on in our schools and our classrooms, we've asked individuals from high school, middle school, elementaries to come present. So, we have two on the docket tonight. Clearly, you can
007see one of them standing in the back here, but before we have them come up, um Adrian Day, our assistant principal at Clay, is going to share and talk about the program that started back in the late winter with the Pittsburgh artists. It's called Patterns of Meaning. So far, we've had whole school assemblies with this artist, and recently they had a chance to actually go. So, talk a little more about the opportunity to actually go to the studio there at Pittsburgh our Pittsburgh. So, with that, let's Adrian Day. All right, thanks to the awesome mix. I'm really excited to share this with you because it has been a really great experience. As Dr. River told you, the beginning of the year we started talking about this and coming from an art background, I was really
008excited. This was my first big project with with our district. And it is a really interesting idea. So, basically, I will read this because it is really important to understand the meaning of the whole program. So, the Patterns of Meaning is an art integrated initiative founded by Corey Bonnell. He's the artist that we're working with. And it focuses on preserving the industrial heritage through art and education, particularly in the context of metal manufacturing. Um we're the first school district in Washington County that has been participating in this program, so it's a really big deal. Um and it's been a really great honor. So, the main idea is basically using art to tell stories and to learn. Um whenever I was an art teacher, people would always say, "I can't even draw a stick figure." And
009they would say stuff like that. And this is what art education really is all about. You learn through doing, right? Like kids need to use their hands to learn. And that's what um Corey embraces. So, as Dr. Herbert said, in the fall we began the partnership. We started with phone calls and Zoom meetings because this is new for him, too. So, we're the pilot program. And we began with in-person visits. So, Corey came to Clayville, Landis, Walker and did assemblies, bringing his artwork and talking about um his uh grant. This friend here, he loves art. So, he was super excited that he got to hold a real painting by a real artist. So, in um in order to stay true to the mission, our teachers and the artists worked together to create a collaborative project.
010It focused on using creativity and problem-solving skills while honoring the tradition of patterns and casting like workers used in the steel mills. And for this project, we had to come up with a universal idea or topic that would um relate to all kids. Uh the butterfly was a great choice because all kids have been drawing them in art class. They learned about them in second grade. And it was a nice line design for what the project entailed. It talked about symmetry, um positive and negative space. So, it incorporated different math concepts along with the art concept. So, the next step was um having Mr. Vonic come back and talk to our kids about the actual casting process. This was a lot of fun because he came to the actual art classroom. So, it was a
011smaller setting while the prior experiences was a full group setting and a little bit less um informal. This allowed the kids to ask him questions. They had asked him to draw things. They were just mesmerized by his abilities. And it was um another nice learning opportunity. So, this was the fun part. Last week, the Walker and Clayville both got to attend on different days uh his actual studio space. So, this is located down by um Oh, PPG Paints Arena. Uh so, we went downtown. One of my favorite parts is when you go through the tunnel watching the kids watch out the window. Um it's always so much fun to see how they get so excited. So, on the left uh I think that's the Joe Walker picture of our fifth graders. So, the two sizes
012of the groups were a little bit different, but they both got the exact same experience. That's Mr. Bonner in the middle working with the kids um you know, hands-on and then our fifth grade teachers were a huge part of this, too. Um they made the whole day really successful. I think that's Mr. Oda Kitsch on the right helping a student in the studio. So, these are some examples of what the kids got to do. Um when I put that picture in there, I didn't realize it was a video, but I kept it in there because this um experience was one out of two things that they did that was hands-on. So, they talked about negative and positive space. They talked about gears. They talked about how big gears make things turn slow, little gears go
013faster, what happens when they connect different sizes, where do you find gears, how do cams work. Um the kids were just really, really mesmerized by the whole thing because last year you can see these I mean, these are all real Mhm. pieces um from the field mill. So, they got to see all of those things hands-on. And then in order to create their positive and negative space, they had to use compasses, which I thought were obsolete, but no, they were they were not. And some of the children knew exactly what to do, and it was really cool to see them, you know, helping each other naturally. So, uh I really enjoyed that part. And then this is where the magic happened. This was a lot of fun. Um this used to be What was it,
014Dr. Burger? An old trade school? So, this was the Connelly uh part of Pittsburgh Public that was there CTC that has now been converted and there's other cool industries that are also in there. And it's a really, really neat building. Um we were very lucky too because we got to tour it with a couple teachers and just uh and uh it was kind of a behind the scenes situation and it was really neat. So, the studio spaces are also amazing. It's massive. It is really, really big. It's a working studio. I think there's six artists that work out of there um every day. And so, what happened was the kids drew their butterfly sketches in the art room um talking about symmetry. They brought their sketches with them and these are bricks that are compressed
015sand basically. So, then they transferred their images onto the sand bricks and then they got real artist tools and carved the images out. Okay. And they loved it and they had their safety goggles on. Mhm. And uh they really, really were excited about that. The picture on the right kind of shows the the depth of the room and all the different artifacts he has. Um they're from different buildings that have been torn down in Pittsburgh. Um people seek him out to help restore these different things. And then the really cool part was he melted down aluminum and did an actual cast of one of the molds on site. So, we got to see him pour it. Uh took about 10 minutes to cool. Then he punched it and then all the kids can hold it
016and pass it around. So, every child in fifth grade in both buildings made their own. Um he's going to cast them all and then he's going to bring them back to Clay School and to Joe Walker and we're going to install them as like a permanent installation in the building. Um we're still not sure where we're going to put them. Um we're actually going to be working in the greenhouse in the Clay School to get that up and running so we thought about like an outdoor installation around there to bring the art outside. And then this was just Look at them. Oh, they're just sweet little angels. Just completely mesmerized by the whole process. They really were wonderful um the entire time we were there. They were polite, they were kind, they were engaged. Um
017it was a really good day. Yeah. I thought it was cool. So, that wraps it up and uh yeah, it was just a really neat experience. If you have time, you guys have a really lovely website that has a lot of information on it as well and hope probably be making one more trip back to the school. So, yeah, you're welcome. It has been a great partnership and it's something we're looking to continue moving forward possibly into middle school as fifth graders matriculate up to middle school next year. I feel like I don't want to steal your thunder. I see in blue back there looking back at me. I know that you folks wanted Mr. Kimmerly and Mr. Leisure to present. So, with that, I am going to have our FFA students that have earned
018those jackets as well as certificates. They recently attended a conference where they had to show their wares and prove their metal to actually earn those and those are very special. So, with that, Mr. Leisure and Mr. Kimmerly are going to come on up and then introduce that group. I am I want to tell you a couple things though. Collyer was just in here and Collyer is also an FFA member as well. And she won the Creed contest yesterday, our area speaking contest. So, that was super exciting. I was like, you didn't tell them how you did yesterday. Collyer was saying no. So, I'm here today to recognize two groups. We have our Keystone degree recipients. There are 10 of them but only three are available. We said bring sports or in full swing and kids
019are busy. So, three of them were able to be here but they received these this degree at the midwinter convention. It's why we go to the Pennsylvania Farm Show so you approve us to go each year on an overnight trip and that's where they are recognized and they walk across the stage and they receive this degree. And they had to have been an active member for at least two years, completed at least two years of mandatory ag education and then have comprehensive SAE projects or those projects that they are doing outside of class time and it is actually a credited class for us during our home room period. So, they are doing that as well. Um, and they have to do 10 chapter activities, five activities above the chapter level, um, and earn a thousand
020dollars in their projects, um, or three hundred hours worth of of work within their project. So, um, I'm going to let them introduce themselves, the ones that are here, um, and tell you a little bit about them, um, and then I'll I'll list off the kiddos that are not here with us today. Hi, my name is Kaelan Hughes. This year I'm serving as McGuffey FFA chapter president. My SAE project was raising backyard chickens. Throughout my high school career I've invested over 600 hours in my project and after graduation I will be attending Fairmont State University to get my nursing degree. Hello, my name is Ava Chumney. I am currently serving as the secretary for McGuffey's chapter. Um, my SAE project is teaching young kids in dance education and I've been doing this for the past
021four years and I have I have, I think, 408 hours in this project. I'm going to be studying at Shippensburg University next year for psychology and I plan on going to get my doctor and master's in psychology. WOW. GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS ABIGAIL CLUTTER. I have been in Ag for five years. I My SAE project involves my job where I'm a hostess at Buffalo Wild Wings. I've made over three thousand dollars there. I plan to go to South College in Cranberry, PA for the medical diagnostic sonography program. Um, those that are not with us tonight are, um, Nate Toberne, uh, Ellis Smith. Ellis is actually a graduate. So, students can get this degree uh, post graduation if they Ella came here as a cannon master transfer. And she was here for 2 years, so
022she didn't qualify at the end of her senior year. She qualified the year after. So, she graduated last year, but was still able to receive her degree. So, it's exciting when they can do that. Brody Wagner, Maddie Lucas, Abby Clutter, sorry Abby you're here. Hannah McDonald, Brady Hagerman, and Aiden Janowitz. So, it was a big group. So. Congratulations. I'm very proud to announce that we have some of our doctor recipients here with us today. Hundreds of Pennsylvania FFA members receive their official blue jackets annually through the PA FFA Alumni Association's first year FFA jacket scholarship. Often awarded during the mid-winter convention at the PA Farm Show. In January, members are recognized for their dedication to agriculture, leadership, and future involvement. We were lucky to have three local businesses donate 17 jackets for our chapter. So,
023if the jacket recipients are here, please stand forward when your name's said. Addison Donahue, Layven Lawler, Jake Lucas, Jack Mannion, Connor McDonald, Tripp Servage, Levi Hornbeck, Mason Plants, Brylan Beaty, Owen Coffield, Makayla Hewitt, Madeline Price, Michael Urbaniak, and Emma Clark, and Jacob Benner. So, my name is Mr. Laser for those of you that don't know. Um, we want to thank you guys for your continued to support in allowing us to be able to go on these types of trips so that our students can be recognized. None of it is about us. It's all about the kids. So, Um, appreciate it and we thank you for your continued support. Good job, guys. Good job, thank you. Thank you again. Thank you. It was excellent. Last year, uh an organization, uh representing the National Pike Festival, came
024and asked if they could expand what they do for the National Pike Festival that coming up here next month to include, uh one of our elementary schools as part of the programming over those those days that they have it. So, tonight it's actually a special treat. We have a representative from the National Pike Festival that is one of our own, Officer Demy. Officer John Demy is one of our police officers, and he represents Playschool, and he's been an integral part of the National Pike Festival. So, I've asked him to come to speak to you. This, I am again, is on the agenda for your approval for this year again. Officer Demy. Thank you. Uh I'm My name's John Demy. I'm Officer Playschool Elementary. Um, I am the vice president of the National Pike Trail Council.
025We are the Rails-to-Trails organization that's trying to convert the old railroad track from actually from West Alexander all the way to Washington. We have a 2-mile section that we have completed here in Playsville. Um as part of the Pike Festival, we hold a 5K on the race, and I'm the race organizer, which makes me a de facto member of the Pike Committee, and nobody else from the Pike Committee was able to make it tonight. They asked me to step in to, uh ask. So, I'll try to answer any questions you have, but uh basically, they wanted me to, uh ask for permission to use the playground like we did last year. Um we set it up for all kinds of kids activities, kids games, fundraisers for any kind of booster organizations uh that want to
026use this. Um I We did not need access to the building last year. Although their janitor was around in case there was emergencies. Um last year we did have a dunk tank um that required water and they were able to supply us with water and a hose. I'm not sure about There wasn't a whole lot of success with that. There wasn't a lot of volunteers. Uh so I'm not sure if they'll I'm not sure if they'll need the water again this year. I I believe the dunk tank's up in the air. I I think it's Mr. Bones here. They'll make a lot of money. There's a lot of people in the McGuffey area. Uh but they're asking for permission to use the playground and the parking lot uh right after school on Friday for excuse
027me, right after school on Friday to set up up until 5:00 uh Sunday afternoon. And then uh there's a that they have a wild world of animals uh set up which we had last year. It was very informative. Uh there's a pedal pool scheduled. Uh I believe there's clowns and a DJ and that's both days. Questions for after dinner. What's day don't add up for Emmy? Um I know that race is the 16th so I believe it was 16th of May. Well, Friday would be the 15th right after school till the 5:00 on the 17th. Thank you. I have one. So, go ahead and start. Thank you. Um it came up last year and I just want to clarify for those who may be wondering again this year um insurance came up last year. That
028was kind of the hot button. Um who's responsible if something goes wrong basically. I I do know we were looking into getting insurance. Okay. I don't know if they secured it yet, but I do know like I said being at the meetings that they were looking into getting insurance. Okay, but correct me if I'm wrong, but the way that that came out, the way that was finalized last year was that that falls under your domain with your facility usage. You decide what they need and That's correct. We do though however ask for that so that any any outside organization that's not related strictly with McGuffey would provide that. >> But it's part of the process on your end. Yes, correct. Thank you. Thank you. And as we have now for several months, I'd like to
029invite Charlene Halbertchock. She's going to come up here and give us an update on the budget process and where we stand as of March and the work that's been done behind the scenes. Um there was a discussion of this preliminary with the budget committee last week. Or no, two weeks ago, now wasn't it? Wrestling is getting set up. Somebody mentioned It was two weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. Wrestling is getting men- wrestling is getting set up. Somebody mentioned Darion Hunter earlier. Um he is a McGuffey graduate. I don't know how many of you know, he was just this last February, February 26th, appointed as the 16th head coach at the University of Illinois for wrestling. Oh, wow. Still active in the field. That is awesome. All right, good evening everyone. In front of you, you have
030a copy of tonight's brief budget update. Um I'm just going to start again with what I am anticipating our fund balance to be at the end of June 30th, 2025. So that was prior to the beginning of this school year. Um I spoke with our auditors today. In fact, I was just emailing her pieces of information she requested. That audit will be done by the end of this month. She has already sent me a draft copy of it. So hopefully April or May I will have her come and present the final audit from the 24-25 school year. But, we're anticipating around 3.5 million dollars in our unassigned, which we can use to help balance our budget for 26-27. Just a reminder again what our projected revenue and projected expenditures were for the 25-26 school year
031going into the school year, leaving us a deficit of about 1.7 million. And then that brings us to where we are as of February 28th, 2026. We're about 61 and 1/2% to what we budgeted as expenses. And then our revenue were around 77% On the revenue side, the majority of our tax revenue, obviously, is claimed by this time. We will have some delinquent tax still to come in. The majority of the revenue still to come in are our state subsidies and small federal subsidies. So, that will leave us with an anticipated fund balance unassigned, which means we can use that to help balance our 26-27 budget of around 1.7 million dollars. So, it's obviously depleting our savings. So, now let's take a look at our 26-27 and what I have um updated thus far. So,
032on this slide, this has been updated even from the uh budget that I presented last month. With the exception of salaries and benefits, we are currently negotiating one of our support staff contracts, and we have an employment agreement with Act 93 that expires at the end of this year. So, those final outcomes are still to come, so could impact salaries and benefits. So, just keep that in mind going forward. Those two categories are still um up in the air about where we're going to land our final budget. The 300 through 900 categories I feel much more concrete and solid about. I have been through this with a fine-tooth comb. I have done line item by line item looking at the historical spend in each of these categories. There still will be some movement. I am
033talking with three different insurance companies currently to try to lower our insurance costs for next year, and we will still have some movement um in some of these categories, but I'm feeling really confident about the 300 to 900 categories. You will remember, I think, when I first started looking at this budget, it was $39 million, and and I've been able to get that down to $37 million. However, I still think that salary and benefits category will fluctuate. Again, I'm just going to remind you of the bond issue. I do have the expenses in the 26-27 budget for a $6 million bond issue. The projects that have been proposed are here. However, this is very flexible, very fluid. So, there are still more talks to come on that bond project. Looking at revenue projections, I have
034made some changes to the revenue looking at historical tax revenue collections, specifically in the earned income tax and transfer tax. Um so, slight adjustments here. The real estate tax numbers have not changed over the past couple of slides, but there's some slight increases in some of the other ones. On the state revenue side, we now have projections from PDE, Pennsylvania Department of Education, on our basic education subsidy or vocational education subsidy and our special education subsidy. So, these are right now correct to what they are projecting for 2026-2027. I did increase our transportation subsidy slightly. Um we just received notification of our current 2025-2026 transportation subsidy and it is around 1.5 million and I had anticipated that a little lower in this in the budget going into 2025-2026. So, I am looking to increase what
035I projected for 2026-2027, but still leave it a little room in there because it does fluctuate based on student enrollment and bus runs and things like that and our expenses. So, now I have our revenue total for the state portion up to about $20 million. On the federal side, again, Title II, Title IV funding is still up in the air. We know we will have Title I funding. The amount I'm not 100% sure of, but we are anticipating at least comparable to what we have this year, which is the 330,000. So, I'm hoping that they actually increases. Um ACCESS funding is our funding that we use from our Medicaid resources and we fund a special education teacher at Clay Ave with these funds. Those we do have. The federal funds looking to be about 413,000.
036So, if you look at our revenue totals using the three varied millage rate, our current millage rate is the 14.62. That would put us just a slightly under the $36 million mark on revenue. At 15 millage rate, you're looking at about 36.2 million and then up to the full index at 15.29 mills, we're looking at 36.5 million. So, what What does that look like overall? You can see the expenditures remain the same, obviously, for all three different millage rates, but what that deficit is at the various tax millage rates. Still looking at a deficit. And again, there still will be some flexibility there. If we went to the full index, showed the deficit of about 550,000, that would leave our fund balance after June of 2026 looking at about 1.1 million, close to 1.2 million.
037So, our next step. Obviously, the the state gave us projected amounts for these subsidies, so we need to confirm our state subsidies. Homestead farmstead allocation should be out by the end of this month. They were late last year, so I'm not holding my breath. But once I have those, I'll have a better idea of the savings to our taxpayers through this allocation of money. We still need to confirm all of the federal title funds that we're receiving for 2026-2027, and obviously, we still on my side need to do the salary and benefit reviews. Um and of course, once we have all of the negotiations settled and contract signed, your board approved signing um contract, I'll know exactly what those salary amounts and benefits amounts will be for next year. Our timeline. So, keep in mind,
038we need to adopt a proposed final budget, not the final budget, but a proposed budget at the May board meeting at the latest. By June 3rd, then, we will need to publish our notice of intent to a to adopt a final budget. We have to adopt that final budget at the June board meeting because we have to give notification and have it to the state at least by July 15th. And that is it. Any questions? So, it's looking better. So hopeful. Is your recommendation for the proposed the proposed budget Proposed budget. >> going to be going to to the index? My my recommendation will be to go up to index because it still leaves us at a deficit. It's a significant, you know, difference in the deficit. But we have to remember contractually we are
039increasing salaries every year for our staff and in order to keep up with those increases we have to get back on track with with tax increases. We really do. Thank you. You're welcome. >> Thank you. Not that I want to. Madam President, that's all I have this evening for committee. All right. Thank you. At this time we'll take a >> Mhm. >> Since we're in a state of war that we would have a five second prayer for all of those four active troops in order to Yes, I'm okay with that. If you could please have a moment of silence for our military. Thank you. At this time let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one
040nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Um, our announcement of our executive session, um, we had, let me make sure this is including this evening. I apologize. We held one at the previous board meeting, February 19th at 9:04 p.m. to discuss to discuss potential litigation. The second was held on March 12th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. to discuss personnel and contracts. And we held another this evening at 5:00 p.m. Um, to discuss contracts as well. I'm sorry. Was the 15th inverted? Was it 19 at 6 Oh, no, that was today. Sorry, never mind. Yeah, that's the February 19th during the meeting. Um, she said I thought she said the 19th, which was today. >> February 19th. February 19th and today. the 19th. the 19th. I thought she said February 19th, that's
041why I got confused. Thank you. All right, um at this time we will welcome our public comment on agenda item. Thank you, Madam President. First is Megan Graham, Donegal Township. Hi, my name's Megan Graham. I'm from Donegal Township. All right, I have a lot to cover um related to agenda items, and then I will speak again during public comment. I would like to start off by saying that with this agenda section that to nitpick the agenda comments is childish. If the public feels as though something that is within your agenda is relative to what they have to say, I understand that as a board there are rules and regulations that you must abide by, but keep in mind that this is the general public, and they do have a right to speak. Whether or not
042you like what they have to say about the agenda is not relevant, period. Um I'm going to start with AI because in your agenda there is update for policy and introduction to policy for AI. I'm going to go back to what I said last month. I don't want it. I don't want to see it. I think it has no place in the school. It has absolutely no place in education on the student aspect. Um we are in a serious critical thinking crisis. I'm going to say that again. Not only societally, but educationally, we are in a critical thinking crisis. AI is not going to help that. It is not going to expand critical thinking. It's not going to force students to critically think. It's a crutch. It is often misutilized even if it is instructed
043to be implemented as a tool. Uh Uh, I think that we need to get back to prioritizing education and away from computers and technology. Not that they don't have a place, but education needs to get back to the basis of education. When you look at the studies, AI poses a grave, and I have that underlined on my paperwork, a grave threat to cognitive function. Please, I implore you to start looking at the studies of AI. I understand that it's here and it's out in the world and you're forming these policies and I appreciate that. It has no room here. It just doesn't. Um, I I'm going to say that sentence again. AI poses a grave threat to cognitive function. Literacy rates are plummeting because people are relying on computers to do the work for them.
044Even as young as our kindergarten and up age children, it is working its way into a world that it doesn't belong for them. They should be holding books. They should be reading books, not tablets, not computers. Um, a few things that I jotted down were to determine whether AI in education is appropriate leaders and teachers yourselves should consider. Does this tool solve a real instructional or operational challenge? As an educator, I can appreciate that it likely does. It probably makes the educator's job much easier. It simplifies and streamlines a lot of things that are in their day-to-day task. But as a student, it does not. It imposes more of a risk to the student that they're going to be accused or tempted to plagiarize items. It does not challenge them to critically think. Does it
045enhance, not replace, teacher judgment? Reflect on that. Does it protect student data and follow strict privacy requirements? I think that's huge because to utilize even ChatGPT, you have to input personal data. That's a real risk, especially in a world that it so difficult now to protect your data. Is it accessible for all students? And I think that this is important particularly socially and economically for this area. We have people that still don't have internet. We have people that still don't have internet, and we're worried about AI? Do teachers receive time and support to learn it? And I think before you enact any sort of policy, that's your first step. Are you going to afford your teachers the time and the support to truly learn it? To know what they're teaching their students about AI. To
046know the risk of the data breaches and and etc. of AI. Does it strengthen and not distract our core learning goals? Does it strengthen and not distract from our core learning goals? I'll have more in the public comment section on some of this. I'm going to shift over to agenda and budget because budget is in your agenda items. Someone spoke last month, I believe her last name was Lawson. I She's not here tonight or I didn't recognize her. I really loved what she had to say about the bonds. If you would please go back and rewatch the YouTube on the the section that she spoke about the bonds. Go back and look at that. You guys are going to be upside down whether you think it or are looking that far ahead. You're going to
047be upside down if you don't do something. And when you look at the proposed bond issue projects, there's quite a few that I have a problem with. The main one being the high school and middle school library renovation. I've spoke before in front of this board about my opposition to this renovation in the particular way that you are stating that you would like to do it or the things that you would like to implement. I want a librarian. I want a librarian. I want books. I want a library. I don't want a dedicated space that you all are going to risk yourselves and this administration and this board and the teachers and everybody else that is affiliated with this school because you are not a mental health facility. You're not. You are going to risk
048being thrown into litigation over parental consent because you're not a mental health facility. You don't employ one of those people and if you did, I would be hard-pressed not to pull my children out of here faster than you can blink. Um I'd like to speak on the stadium track resurfacing because I think you should look at that. If it's not an absolute must, you have $400,000 proposed in that budget for something that may be able to wait. I understand robbing Peter to pay Paul and that down the road you're probably going to have to do that anyway, but is it something that absolutely has to be done right now that you can't utilize that to make more room in your budget for things that actually matter like education and books and a library. Um in
049your renovation for the library, I'd like to hear a little bit more from you all about what the proposal is, how you plan to implement it, what exactly is going to go into that space and how it's going to be utilized. Um in my last 30 seconds here, I'm going to speak a little bit off the cuff. Outside of the school issues, going back to implementing a cool down space, whatever you'd like to call it. I don't send my child here to lounge. I don't send my kid here to go and sit in a room and have to calm down. Parenting is up to me. Parenting should be up to parents. Parenting should be what it used to be where a cool down space was go to your room and hang out for a little
050bit, not go to the library cuz it's going to get you out of class. Thank you. I'm President Tiffany Tiffany Walker, South Franklin Township. Thank you. Tiffany Walker, South Franklin So, can I ask one thing? Can this meeting please not consist of two people arguing with the rest of the board? Can we get through this like adults? Can we not argue over everything you guys are going through the agenda? It took me two days to get through that meeting. That was embarrassing. For Monique, I am so proud how you started that agenda last month because you reminded everybody why they sat here. And we still argued about it. That was That was embarrassing. Why do we got to argue? You got two against the whole board. Stop arguing. Pay attention and start listening. Another thing,
051AI, I don't approve of it. I don't even like computers. This AI has got to go. I was in a meeting today, an IEP meeting, and even the teachers that I talked to today does not want this in our school. They don't want it in our school. None of them. Not the IEP director people. Not Not all the people that help with this. They don't want it. They specifically said, "No, we really don't want it here." So, if our teachers don't want it, most of our students really don't want it. Us parents don't want it. Why are we discussing it? Why are we still trying to push this into the school? It It It It makes no sense to me. And none of you can give me a straight answer on why we're still pushing
052something that nobody wants. Why are we going to cost more money that nobody wants? Bring back your library. My daughter had a a a horrible time. My daughter did great in English. She had to use the internet a lot in this last paper. And let me tell you, it crushed her. It crushed her. She went to an F because she could not get this paper done cuz she looking at all these websites and this and going back and forth and has to write it on this computer and stuff instead of a piece of paper, a book, a newspaper. Open it up and read. No, she had a crash out, what they what they call it, and she could not do that. I literally had on her last week sit her down and try to refocus
053her because she could she she couldn't stand it. Get rid of your computers. I bet you'll save some money. Get rid of them. I'm sick of seeing my kids in the computer. I'm sick of fighting on these fit days with my kids. I'm finding out they're really not getting all the work done cuz they're tired of sitting in front of a computer. They will have school so they're not being forced to sit in front of computer. What about the parents that work? They're not there to tell their kids to sit and I appreciate it if everybody would pay attention while I'm speaking. I I really would appreciate it Tony, please. I'm taking notes on what you're saying. >> you to pay I'm just asking you to pay attention. We don't got to argue, ma'am. We
054don't got to argue. Then don't call me out by name. I will call you out by name. You had no problem speaking about me being a Christian last year which is very wrong and unprofessional. So, how about we not go there? Please. Anyhow, the disrespect needs to stop, too. I'm a parent. Uh you you're I'm the reason why you're sitting here. Stop. I'm sitting getting on you guys because we're preaching every week to you about this. We're tired of it. We're tired of the computers. Plus, they break or they don't have chargers or this or that excuse. Can't be an excuse on a book, now, can we? And I'm sure we could save money if we took away half this crap. And again, so I parent. I don't send my kid to a therapy session
055that used to be a library. That that is is done. That is No, don't ever let me touch my kid. I don't even believe in your in-school detention. I think it's a joke. My kid ain't allowed to have in-school detention. I'll take care of that. I'll embarrass them up here. I'm that parent. Trust me, ask my kid. I'm that parent. So, I don't think we need I we need a library with educational books in there. So, when they do a paper, they have something to research. Open up a book, right? I know when I was in school you had to write down where we found this information at, the page number. Go back to that. I don't know what's wrong with going back to that. I don't think it save us a lot of money.
056On top of I'm not sure what's going on with my solicitor and if there's new ones here, this is not against y'all whatsoever cuz I don't know who y'all are. But where's our solicitor and why? And um let's bring her back cuz I think she's been doing a banging good job this past year. So I think our solicitor needs to come back, please. No offense against y'alls, but can we bring our solicitor back? That'd be great. Thanks. Catch you later. Uh President Kristy Florian, East Finley Township. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Kristy Florian, East Finley Township. Um Please bear with me. What I have written up was all voice to text cuz that's how I do it cuz I don't have a lot of time to just type things out. Um so if anything does
057not come out correctly, I apologize. >> Mhm. >> been doing this. So our audio's off? Like they can't hear the words that we're saying? Is that on? We can hear you. Okay, now you can, I guess, right? Um So anyways, I'm going to just go back to Oh, I lost it. Um but I don't know if you're with some of the things like that Sweden is doing and and implementing going back to paper and pencil. Uh the schools in Sweden are abandoning screens and digital teaching to return to traditional teaching, learning with books and writing by hand. Um I think that I just really think that before you guys really consider doing this AI stuff, I think you need to really think about it. And I really hope that I mean it's here and it's
058on the agenda, so I hope that you have taken the time to fully think about it and process it and came to a conclusion on what you were going to vote. Um but I just I don't know. Um I think that's probably about all I had for you for agenda. I mean, I could have given you more, but I just think that you all need to think about it. I mean, we just don't need this in our schools. My children, they're better with books. They're better with sitting and drawing and writing and writing words out and doing things like that. Like these computers aren't really going to help them, especially when they're little. I mean, my daughter draws on the computer, like makes things and stuff, but like if she does so much better on
059paper. So, it's the evidence is obvious. So, please just consider what we have said to you. And um I'll discuss what I'm talking about later. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Madam President, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Public comment. Thank you. All right. Moving on to um >> Madam President, before we move on, I'd like to recommend that I make a motion to go to executive session. You're making a motion to go to executive session. Is there a second? May I ask for what reason? For what purpose? I cannot an appropriate purpose. The potential litigation and contractual issues. Potential litigation and contractual issues. >> Mhm. That'd be a matter subject to attorney-client privilege. Mhm. All right, and we had a second. Okay. All right. Um we have a motion and a second to
060um dismiss to executive session. We will do so at 7:08 p.m. Wait, we need to take a vote on it. Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry everyone. Thank you. We need to vote first. I'm sorry everybody. All right, all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? Motion carried. Now we'll go. Sorry. 7:08. >> Mhm. >> We are back from executive session at 7:38 p.m. Where we discussed We're going to adjust the purpose of that executive session from contracts and potential litigation to matters subject to attorney-client privilege and other confidentiality laws. Thank you. Yep. All right. Um I will make the motion. I would like to motion to amend our recommended action V1 to a discussion item. I second that motion. All right. Now my position is that you can't change it. >> sorry.
061Um Well you said no discussion. Are we doing this? Exactly that. You can't. You can't? You can't Okay. Okay. I was going to say I'm It's really a certain you don't have discussion for I don't think so. amend. What's the procedure? Okay. Thank you. All right. So there is there any discussion? All right. All those in favor >> Oh, sorry. Before we vote, a motion to This is a discussion on the motion to amend from an action item to a discussion item. Right. >> Correct. This is just whether It's a discussion on It's more confusing. whether to shift Oh, yeah. Yes. Okay, Mr. Wager. All right. All those in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Opposed. Any abstentions? Motion carried. 7-1. All right. So, now we are going to um move to discussion, so we're not
062voting on anything. We're just going to have the discussion. Okay. Um could we ask the the solicitor to give us an update of why they're here and if they could speak always at the beginning of the conversation. That's exactly what I was going for next. If we could have um Good evening. My name is Megan Turnbull. I am one of the shareholders of the law firm of Weissburg and Comer. It has been the law firm's privilege and honor uh to represent McGuffey School District since July of of last year. Um at that time uh Rebecca Heaton Hall was the attorney assigned to you. Um Miss Rebecca Heaton Hall is no longer with the firm as of this week. And so, our obligations as a law firm to you on a at least until you tell
063us otherwise is to provide you with the best legal representation and support that we can give you. Um so, in some ways I am here just because I'm another person. It's It's my firm and we care deeply about this and making sure that you have what you need, especially in times of transition. Um and and so, we're here and we'll we'll provide whatever support or you may need. Um and with me is Miss Elizabeth Sattler, um who has been here once before. She was with you twice before. Uh she was most recently here, I believe, in July. Uh Miss Sattler is uh the chair of our our tax department within within the law firm and one of our uh our our lead attorneys. She represents other school districts. Charleroi uh is one as well as
064Hempfield uh in Westmoreland County. So, we would propose that that Ms. Sattler come and join you again until you you have a different preference or a different need. And so, we're just here to again help you through your meeting. So. Thank you. Thank you. >> That very much. All right. Now in full transparency to the public, I wanted to put this item on the agenda because of what has recently occurred. And many members of the community know and understand what this board's gone through with the solicitor. My mic is on. I promise. Stick it right up to my face. Um So, again, it was it was in my intent with full transparency to just have the item on the agenda for discussion. Um we did change it to the discussion item because we hadn't discussed
065who we were going to be appointing. My logic behind it was we would just be filling in the name of whoever was going to serve us from here on out with Weissburg Card Kramer. But I didn't know if that's what the majority of the board was going to go with. So, I actually leave that blank. Um So, anyways, we will now have our conversation about our next steps on appointing a solicitor. Um So, we'll open up the floor for the discussion of what we want to do. There are several options that we have. We could put out an RFP. We could keep Weissburg Card Kramer. Um we could hear from Mrs. Eaton Hall again and she could offer to come in and we could hire her back. Um There's many options that could happen. So,
066I will just open up the floor for the discussion. Can we get you forward to get started for clarity? We appointed WBK in December. And that appointment holds until we say until we would vote differently, correct? >> Correct. So, if we take no action, WPK continues to be our solicitor. And you provide Whatever. Whatever it is that you need. And whoever is available. Okay, thank you. Now, but we and but we currently want it to be a good fit as well. Well, I I tried to be the same person all the you know, for consistency. I get that. But, to be clear, WPK is the solicitor. Yeah. Yes, and also I just wanted to be clear that I know that Mrs. Miss Hall took care of all of your special education as well. That's one
067of her expertise areas. I am more on the tax side than the special education side. So, in light of that, any and all of your special education cases that would require an attorney would go to the partner and director of that department in our firm, Lynn Sherry. She handles them. I have my cousin I represent Charlotte Roy. She does all the She's been doing special education there forever. Um, so most of that can be done most of it is done remotely now just because of the timing of it and trying to get the parents and everybody in the meetings at the same time. So, she would be the person to take over all of that. You also or at least some people in the business office have met with Lee Dellicker of our office. He
068is our tax assessment guru and he is handling right now an exemption issue for you all. But, he would also be available to you on any tax assessment questions as as I would be. But, we have a whole team that also handles all of that for you. Good luck to you. Absolutely. Thank you for that clarification. I propose that because we're in the middle of the school year, we're in the middle of the contract, that we just and we're trying to double our budget that we just the rules that we have. I mean, I to me that seems like the easiest thing to do. I know all about having a different person for everything. That to me is just falls up things. But I do think we've come this far, do we really want to
069change now when we're in the middle of trying Even the chief came to policy meetings. So, I mean do we really want to change that in the middle of the whole thing? That's just my Okay. Well, I do think if you were if we were willing to consider it's We're just discussing. I do I do think um if you're looking at all the options that we have, that would make the most sense. Um it specifically in the case of all of the different things that we have going on, right? Um instead of bringing in a whole new firm who would have to then come up to speed on everything that we have. You know, um I I think that makes more sense as to where we are right now. That's my opinion. I agree with
070how difficult that last transition was. Right. It's going to be a long two years. Shirley, how would that work for you? Oh, fine. Yeah. Well, I'm not about to put you on the spot, but let's put you on the spot. And like I would ask, this wouldn't change anything if we kept them budget. Mr. Hooper? Any I would just prefer to keep going with them. Okay. Good. Okay. Negotiation. We currently have negotiations going on that Mrs. Hall has been involved in and also some special education IEP needs. And I think we need to hear from her um as to what she's doing or not doing and make a decision whether we would want to offer this position to her or to keep the firm that we currently have. And the timing came as uh kind
071of a very uh quick hit to try and digest of what was actually happening. Um so I just think I would like to ask to have an opportunity to have discussion with her to find out what she's doing and we already know what the current firm is doing. Um just to get an understanding of what's going on so we can make a wise counsel decision. Uh for clarification from WBK you would be up-to-date, up to speed and that would have been something that she had given you before she left. You're ready to go on with whatever we have going on, correct? >> We are. We have access to all of the the files. Um kind of jumped in already today with with some developing matters. Because the work that she did on those individual cases
072or subjects, renegotiations, whatever was the work she did for your firm, not hers. >> Correct. Correct. And and we do have I mean we did check um with all of our special ed team and the paralegals today and there are no open cases or um which doesn't mean that there aren't IEP meetings or things kind of at a different level within the process, but certainly on the litigation side or as those things approach that that level, um we don't have any active matters at this time. >> Right. And you're fully prepared to step in And you're fully prepared to step in to where we need you regarding renegotiations, IEP meetings, whatever. Yes. Yes, and I would just say that I believe that Ira Weiss of our firm may have also been involved in some of
073those negotiations and he's obviously still there since his wife works for K&R. Um and so um he is a great counsel to all of us at the firm. Um I so um his knowledge, he has personal direct knowledge of of what was happening at those negotiations as well. Thank you. Mr. President. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, taking my notes. So my understanding then is going to be that for the time being WBK will represent us as long as we need you to. Absolutely. Um I agree with uh Mr. Leisure. I would like to hear from uh Ms. Hall as to what she's going to do and if she's going to be available. But so is for the time being I mean we don't have a emergency that we have to make a decision right at
074this minute. Absolutely. And Seth, did you have anything? No, I I really don't have anything to add. Could Well, I would just say that we could make a motion to What's that? No, to continue with you guys, but I I didn't know how to word it. I don't If we don't take any action I don't think we need to take action. There are some that are anyway. We We represent the status quo. Right. And then Right. Yeah. The only difference is you'll see me. Okay. So, I have a question about Did you say that Mrs. Heaton-Hall's kind of specialty realm was special education? Is there anybody there at the firm who specializes in that? Yes. So, Lynn Sherry and Anne-Marie Anne-Marie Hall-Eaglin is a is a shareholder. Anne-Marie Hall-Eaglin is She's a shareholder and she
075is primarily a special education lawyer. And then Lynn Sherry is a partner and she is the director of our special education department. And then we also have a few other attorneys who also specialize in it. Okay. I have them written down as Yeah. I apologize in this regard. No, that's okay. So, and Lynn I spoke with her today. And like I said, she does a lot of work in this county. So, she knows it's Is that beneficial because then you know who the opposing counsel is? Sure. Cuz there you know, it's all local. Everything's local when it comes to that. Yeah. Okay. Um did you have anything else, Mr. Perkins? Okay. Um I also think it would be beneficial You've had Mrs. Heaton-Hall. I've enjoyed having Mrs. Heaton-Hall. I've enjoyed Mr. Weiss whenever he's been
076uh remotely present. Um I've enjoyed Mr. Sattler for the times that she's been here. And I've enjoyed your company as well. Um I do think it would it would benefit the district to at least hear from Mrs. Heaton-Hall. Um and you know, see what see what the majority of the board decides after that. Um Does that need to be a majority of the board? Like I have no interest in hearing from her. I don't know if And why why is it just a general consensus to decide to move forward one way or another or how do we maneuver forward? I think that is a decision of the board whether or not you are looking to entertain other candidates for any position that you are hiring. Um but it certainly is as president you put that
077forward then you know It would I and I don't know necessarily if it would be too as a meeting it would be more of like an maybe a request for proposal or um a submission. But shouldn't that be a a majority board decision then? If we were going to put out a request for for proposal for us from a solicitor that needs to be done That would be yes. So if we have board members who are saying they would like to hear from her and and Well and then would that have to be a majority board decision? You've had board members who have said on the record that they are interested in hearing from her. Um that is part of a discussion. Um if if any further action is taken then you will have to
078discuss it as a board. But just in in general I think everybody was out here sort of giving their opinion on how they wanted to move forward. >> that particular topic should every board member give their opinion? No, not necessarily. Just I think that some people felt it was important to say. Okay. Um and that's why you have a discussion. Okay. Thank you. Um, just a comment to uh yes, to further explain if we were to Let's say, for example, we were to go with her uh furthering that firm or herself would have to be read up on everything else while you guys already have other people that are working with us and have continued to work with us, correct? Whereas Yes. Yeah, you would be I know we're changing I know we're changing the
079point person, but would have to be brought up to speed for other things in that regard, right? Anytime you switch legal Any kind of legal representation, yes. Yeah, it would It would be a And then typically there's a transition time. Usually it's about a month Okay. where and then we're you know, sending the files are being transferred. Yes. So wouldn't just be we would ship be changing you. We'd be changing other legal members of the team to help assist us. Right? >> Yes, everybody who has been working with you here from WBK would would no longer be here. So it wouldn't just be involving her. It'd be involving other people who we would have to transition. Yeah, and I mean we're we're we're always Okay. We hold the client, right? I mean, and that is
080the district and at the highest level. So when you direct something other than If you direct us to transfer files and transition matters, we're going to do that with full fidelity, right? And we'll make sure that that is effective, prompt, and again, that there is no lapse or or difficulty that is raised through through that process. So we we will certainly do that. Um, and and you know, and and not to not to throw a wrench in it, but I mean there are times where there are pieces of the work, you know, in the event that um Miss Heaton-Hall you you prefer to sit in your meetings with her. That's That's a perfectly fine choice. I mean, for for the majority of the board to to express. She has certain core competencies and we we've
081talked about that in special ed. Uh But, if you felt like you you know, wherever she is or how or whoever that law firm is, that you would want to like have special counsel for labor and employment. And that they would WBK or something else goes I mean, that's that's another configuration that at some point could be available to you, too. So, there are lots of different ways to do it. You are in the driver's seat in terms of the board and and we'll get you we'll get you where you need to go. Well, just because I felt it's important for me to say and with anybody else, but I I I think we should just continue on with WBK as our sole sir. I have absolutely zero interest of hearing anything from Mrs. Eaton
082Hall. So, that's just important for me to say. Thank you. Did Um Go back there. Go ahead. Go ahead again. Mine is more to kind of clarifying you touched on it about how another option the board has is keeping Mrs. Eaton Hall for certain things and keeping Weissbrodt or Kramer for certain things um or going with another firm. Not that I'm suggesting that. That comes into expenses and you know, things like that, but I was just going to clarify that. So, thank you. Go ahead, Chad. I'm sorry. So, that's your question was if based upon the number of people that were involved, how much would we lose by you know, going back all the candidates everything except for what we would Cuz she was doing the special ed. Weissbrodt, she was doing the contract negotiation.
083She was doing the special ed. I learned that there. She was. I do think that Ira Weiss was very involved with your contract negotiations and your bargaining. Um she herself has said that. Yeah. So, there's more people involved. That's all I was saying. If we would have just been only Well, and I think back Well, because I think back to the number of times she would say, "Well, I'll have to check with so-and-so back at the office." Or um we can we'll we'll uh ask so-and-so back at the firm. She said that a lot. So, yeah. Which is a difficult process. >> Right. Correct. No, I'm just saying that means but that was from her own her own mouth that there were other people she was relying on within the firm. >> Mhm. Yeah. Mhm.
084Right. My question to the council would be if we want to hear from Mrs. Hall, what's our how do we do that? How do you advise us to do that? But again, I feel like that's to be Excuse me. >> majority board decision. Yes, sir or madam. All right. So, I think if I think if you're interested in um in receiving a proposal, um I I think you could designate the superintendent or or another um to to reach out to her and contact her, explain and and I mean explain the board there are members of the board who expressed during our discussion some additional information about whether you know, your availability and whether or not you would have you would propose in some way to you know, to represent McGuffey. But that would have to
085be a majority board decision. >> Right. Consensus. Mhm. If we're asking I think >> the council how to do that. That's my question. I I think that in order to I don't All right, so this this a legal opinion. I want to make sure that I'm not stepping into a political place that I don't I shouldn't have a role for you. Um my recommendation as opposed to my legal opinion. So, my recommendation would be if there are several members of the board who are interested in the pieces of information that they should be permitted um and the administration should be permitted to gather that information not solely for them, but for the entire board and shared with the entire board. Um again, I understand that there has been some a a a recent history around
086this particular these particular seats um that have been difficult and and my hope for you would be from from this moment that you can find find a way to build consensus around it, a a sense of transparency about the process, and I think gathering that information um in an open in an open way likely would move that forward. Again, is there a straight legal answer on on that? I think there's a less clear one than than some would hope. Um but in terms of organizational dynamics and um relationships, I I do think that there's probably value in allowing the collection of information and the dissemination of it. And how would we go about that? I think just just I some I probably I I don't think it requires a motion, but if it brings clarity
087to to that particular issue, um it is largely I don't think you have to amend the agenda particularly to do that. I think um I do think that you could I think the I actually think the board president likely has the authority to direct that that information um is is gathered Um and shared with everyone. So, you're saying the board president would reach out and get information and then share it with the rest of the board. Or or the board president could direct the superintendent to do that. >> That's what I think we're comfortable with and going to allow. Uh an easier, less way to provide that. Mhm. I'm not sure that you're well Yeah. Thank you. >> I My request would be that we hear from Mrs. Rebecca Hall, understand the situation, and then
088make a motion to move forward from there. It's kind of like I reckon when I was reading all this the last day, it's kind of like going out and buying a new car. And you're working with a salesman for 6 months and you decide to buy this car and then when you go to buy the car, you say, "Hey, where's so-and-so?" Well, so-and-so is not here anymore. Well, all the information and knowledge you had with so-and-so just went out the door, so now you got to start over. I understand. That's all I'm saying is we need to have some continuity and understand what's going on. We have some unique circumstances in McGuffey um to say the least and we need to make sure that we're transparent and we need to make sure that everybody understands
089what we're doing. Um so, it would be my request that we have the president reach out and talk to her and then come back at the next meeting with what was discussed and then also at the next meeting have the same motion that you have on this one is to hire. We either hire her or we hire this firm. Um That's the only thing I'm not asking for. Thank you. I I have one point of clarification. Sure. Um if you're hiring a firm, that would be a difference. You'd have to be appointing someone else. Right. But again, you've already hired this firm. So, if we're going to stay with you, that means we want that. That probably shouldn't have a lot of credit. Right. Yeah, you're correct. Yeah, and I would I would say that
090I would prefer if we, especially since again in the name of transparency, we're having this conversation. If we decide to stick with Weissburd & Kramer, I think there should be another discussion item. I Maybe it does have to be an It doesn't necessarily have to be an action item. Maybe, I don't know. But if we do decide to keep Weissburd & Kramer, I think we should make that clear to the public and make it part of our minutes that we're going to stick with Weissburd & Kramer. Whatever the outcome might be. >> could just You could We could make that statement tonight, and it goes into the minutes, and then it's a But I'm saying moving forward, if we're going to hear from other If we're going to hear from Mr. Keaton Hall, the public
091knows we're going to hear from them, and we already hired Weissburd & Kramer. But if we're going to keep Weissburd & Kramer, I think it is important to let the public know this is what we decided on, basically. That's That's my point. Um There are three other people here there that have worked with um Rebecca a little bit, and I'm curious of your opinions on what your thoughts are on this. I know you're not a voting member, but you guys work hand in hand with our solicitors, so I'm curious to know what your thoughts are. From my standpoint, I do work closely with the firm. I think because of the relationship I've built, not only with Rebecca, but with the firm. Um changing again the stream is difficult to say the least. Uh I think
092that Whiteside Court Kramer provides a great service to us. And I would be happy to stay with them throughout the rest of the year. I mean, we have just a few more months and we'll be doing reorganization again. Um it is a process. It is a timely process to do another RFP. It's costly to our time. Um I'm happy with the relationship that we have and the working um relationship. Everybody that I have had to deal with one-on-one with the firm has been receptive and I don't have any issues with staying. That's my opinion. Thank you. Mr. Oberman, Mr. Kramer. Well, I mean, I was pleased how today worked out. So, that's Sure. Is that you guys are so great and receptive immediately to be here with With short notice? Yes. Yes. Yes. That means
093that says a lot about your firm. It is important that we are important to this school district. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, I first I appreciate the question. Um in the process that hired WBK, None of us were asked that question. We work with our assistant 98% of the time. Long as you're a special ed director, we were never asked that question. I will tell you where we sit right now, it is important to continue to have the group that we have with us, at least through the end of this this term with this board. There is when you change, as you did on us this last time, there's major shake-up in the relationships that we've built over the years. And I know you don't see that, but that's something that we have to
094cultivate then, and we've had to cultivate with Mrs. Rebecca Heaton Hall. But at this point, and again, I thank you for asking that question. My preference would be to stay with the firm we have. Yes. I have a question about I mean, it's probably more just a I don't know, or a random question, but if we don't open it up to everyone, and we only open it up to Rebecca, could that could we get in any legal trouble for that? No. Okay, I was just wondering because if we don't open the table for everyone, and just went out her, could that be something down the road that we could have any problems down the road? There's no procure procure on that. Excuse me. Like There's no requirement for selecting a firm. Okay, I didn't know
095if there was a I I didn't I didn't know if there My question kind of bounces off of his. If we do decide to go to just hear from Mrs. Heaton Hall in in the future, um it doesn't have to be an RFP just for her. It could it it it does it have I guess that's my question. Does it have to be an RFP just for her, or is an RFP an all-encompassing thing? We could just invite her. >> No, but that's not considered an RFP. It's not the costly process of an RFP or anything like that. It can be more Yes. Okay. Because right now we only have two people or two firms to entities to whatever. The majority of I mean, it's I mean, you sign a fee agreement, which is the
096version of a contract, right? Between client and and law firm, or client entity. I So, you can There is no There is no term. I mean, if there it is not You're You're not locked in for a certain You know, there's not an auto like automatic renewal term or things that the state like in contract like that. Those don't exist. And so, if there was another point in the time, if 2 minutes from now, you know, not bringing me I'm not going to let You could imagine I'm not going to let Let's keep it simple right now. Tomorrow, if if if enough of you thought like, "Hey, let's do a giant RFP. Let's go check the world again." And could you do that? You could. But, you're always in the driver's seat kind of how
097you want that to go, and and with the advice of probably your business office, right? I mean, in terms of It's You know, and there's there There are costs, right? And an investment in in an important decision, right? So, we could choose to do that at any point. Thank you. Okay. Mike. Yeah. I just want to say this this is just my opinion of the whole thing. You know, obviously, we hired a firm to hire a new municipal attorney. You know, and it's unfortunate that, you know, we got attached I appreciate everything she did for us. You know, we got attached to that relationship. But, I just think at this point in time, as a board, we have so many other pressing issues that need taken care of that we don't need to spend a
098lot of time on hiring another solicitor. It's just my personal opinion. I agree. Thank you. I appreciate the conversation. I make a motion to end discussion, yeah. Um if I could ask one more question >> Well, you have to have a second to the motion before you can have discussion on the motion. Um thank you. So Well we would have to vote to either pass or fail the motion to end the discussion, correct? You could ask him to withdraw his motion if you still wanted to discuss. I withdraw my motion. I just have one question. And the board president holds kind of all is your is your keeper of order and can pause her acknowledgement of of a motion for 1 second should you wish to do so. Thank you. I just have one question
099and I appreciate you doing that real quick. Um it moving forward from here you mentioned that um it doesn't necessarily have to be an action item to move forward. It could just be the directive from the from the president to this is what we're going to do. And does that have to be public? I would like for it to be public. I guess what I'm getting at is if I'm trying to make this as transparent as possible should I state before we end our discussion what we're going to do moving forward this evening? I don't want to wait until next month necessarily because I would like to get this done and over with and hopefully just make our decision next month and be, you know, done with it and move forward. So I guess it's
100maybe it's procedural I don't think you have to. I mean this was a discussion. There was definitely a request for some information. Okay. I think if that information is brought back to the board in the next month then um you and there's consensus that there should be some sort of vote or some sort of decision to be made and you can make it. Um to go back to your first question, if nothing changes and you decide to stay with WBK or stay with any contractor that you've come contracted with after a discussion, you can simply announce that at the beginning of a meeting. You don't have to make a motion. Nobody You're not going to vote in public again. >> Okay. Um so, no if you're just keep because there would be no There would
101be nothing to vote on. Got you. So. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> And well then, that would apply to any contractual service that you're contracted with. >> Right. Right. Well then, I have a question. What is it then we're saying that we're going to do? Well, at this point, we had our discussion and and we're saying that there's some people who would like some information. So, you're you're saying as a as a board president that you that we're going to seek out that information because a few board members have have requested it, correct? >> I think it would be beneficial. >> facing based on that, I would like to say that I don't think it should be the board president to contact the Seat Mall. Um we have obvious trust issues. I think
102it should be the superintendent to reach out and get the requested information and bring it back to the board. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's fine with me. All right. I make a motion to end discussion. >> I second. Yes. And I would imagine we set up a a date of interview. I don't Okay. Okay. Just want to make sure we're not crossing any lines. Okay. Yeah. Correct. Correct. Well no, I I totally I think I agree. Well, we have a motion and a second. To end discussion, um all those in favor, I I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Thank you. Okay, moving on to our um monthly action items. We have the approval of February 19th, 2026 regular school board meeting minutes. Approve the minutes of February 20th, February 19th, 2026 regular school board
103meeting as submitted. So moved. Second. All right, thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Approval of the general fund schedule of bills. If you don't mind, I'm going to read it just for the public. Can I or is that too late? Okay, thank you. Approve the general fund schedules of bills from February 19th, 2026 to March 13th, 2026 check number 81900 to check number 81996 in the amount of $778,400 I'm sorry, $778. Now I was right, I'm sorry. I see the decimal, I thought it was a comma. $778,459.86 as submitted. All those in Oh, no, we need our motion second. We already have that that stands, thank you. All right, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Approval of fund service schedule of
104bills. Approve the food service schedule of bills dated March 13th, 2026 check number 7841 to check number 7844 in the amount of $63,720.50 as submitted. So moved. Thank you. All those in favor? Oh, sorry, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Approval of treasurer's report. The treasurer's report for the month of February 2026 is presented for approval. Motion and a second. I make Thank you. Uh all those in favor? I. I. It's okay. And and uh any knows, any sanctions, motion carried. Superintendent report. Um the art club field trip. Accept a scholarship from Falling Water pool for a high school art museum field trip. Transportation included on April 21st, 2026. The cost to the district is $125 for the substitute for one day. Any set uh I'm sorry. Any
105discussion? I have discussion. Do we know how much the scholarship was for? Yes, I'm sorry. It's okay. I think it was $1,600 for the admission and another six to seven years for But I think it was Okay, thank you. I have a question. So we have a line item in the budget that is already accounted for or is So we have line items for substitutes already built into the budget. There's different line items because there's different substitute rates. There's substitute teachers, substitute for paraeducators, substitute for cafeteria, but all of those have a budgeted amount. All right, any further discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any sanctions? Motion carried. Artist Residency Project. Approve the artist in res- artist in residency project with Miss Lindsay Hax starting in the spring of 2026 and funded by
106the Pittsburgh Center for Arts and Media as presented. So moved. All right, any discussion? I guess I just have a question. Is this This isn't the same as what This is what we This is what was presented last Correct. Right. Okay. Is it And any additional cost will be from the money budgeted to the art department for field trips. Yes. Yes. Thank you. All right. All those I think we have our first and second. >> That's okay. Thank you. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Penn Commercial Agreement. Approve the articulation agreement between the Maugatuck School District and Penn Commercial as presented. So moved. Second. Um I have discussion. Um I know there's conversation about um the safety of the student and um the fire department does not have the fire
107clearances. I know the argument is made um that the co-op programs with this both Western Area and with Penn Commercial, you know, when those students go to that co-op um program, the instructors are all um certified and have their clearances, etc. For me, the big difference is that every day we are sending our students to a post-secondary institution where all of the adults are not required to have their clearances. The students are sharing shared spaces with adults that don't have those clearances, such as going to the restroom, using break rooms, um I I respect that they're keeping students separate in that instructional time and even have a separate place in the cosmetology room, um but I I generally have a lot of concerns about um the intermingling that can happen. Um I think we owe
108it to our parents. I think we owe it to our students. I think we owe it to the community to um reconsider um at least the language in the contract. I'm not opposed to Penn Commercial. I'm not opposed to it being an option. I do have a lot of concerns though. Um I would like I would just I would like to reconsider it and at least table it potentially to allow more time for us to discuss the contract to make it our own. Um Not uncommon for contracts to go back and forth several times before an agreement is made. I think this one deserves that time and that consideration. Can I Can I ask for a clarification? You said not all the adults have that >> Correct. students. Not educators. Correct. Adults You said You
109said not all the adults. So that's why I'm just asking for clarification. >> instructors that are in direct uh teaching the our students >> Mhm. have their things. >> Yes. But all of the student adults or teachers at Penn Commercial do not have their things. They're not required to I I shouldn't say they don't. They're not required to get them. I just wanted for clarification because you said not all the adults. You didn't say whether or not they were educators or whether they were students. So I just wanted to clarify. >> Right. Students wouldn't be required to have clearances. Like minor students. I should clarify. Minor students. But 18 and over adult students um are they're not required to attend commercial. That's But they could have them. They could have them. They could have them.
110Correct. They could have them. I was just wanting clarification on that because Yes. Yes. Um uh within the standing contract of Penn Commercial and also with this one, it does state that we can ask for those clearances. I would like I would like the director of administration to request the clearances for the um for Do they have them for each century? Um and and to clarify if they have clearances for all of their adult students um and staff. I think knowing the facts about what's really what is going to help me. Um I'm I'm not opposed to tabling it or discussing this further. Like I doesn't make a difference to me right now or in the future. Um but I would like to say if we in the future if we're going to open up
111students to go to like W&J for classes and things like that, they're going to be open up to the same situation as what they are there cuz it's the secondary and that's college or however you want to explain it. Um and those students don't have their clearances either. And we have students going there. So, if that's if that's such a big issue to this then maybe we should look at that first as well as what we did in the future. Well, I would go so far as to say we have students here at McGuffey who are 18 Yeah. or 19 who don't have background clearances. No, absolutely. That's that's another thing that you know. Yeah. Staff is not It's not there. So, just Well, Let me ask you. Wait, wait, wait. I know what when
112I can. I mean, okay. Yes. Um just to clarify if we were going to table for the understanding again uh as I shared staff that supervisors through the Penn Commercial are students that have all the certifications that are required. However, when our students are with adult learners, that's a different case. They are not required to have the same certifications that we would require for our students. Just so we're all on the same page, staff, yes. Students, I I have to check each one of them because that's not a requirement of the state. Thank you. Madam President, there's different language in this new contract versus the old contract. The old contract didn't have us being required to pay for transportation of the students that we currently had enrolled if we don't send new students there. And
113I think we need to keep that the same. Um this is kind of um requiring us to send students there because if you don't, you're going to have to pay for transportation costs. Um I don't understand why that has changed. Um Was it what contract? I believe I believe it was in the old contract as well if I remember correctly. >> think it was. It was. I'd like clarification. Okay. If it was or not. And also, this is a next year $2,600 expense per student to send there, right? No, not according to the contract. That's been the one change was that they this contract specifically states that the families will be responsible for that cost. And how is that going to happen? Well, I don't It's just that the the the Penn Commercial would bill
114the district, the district would collect from the students and the and families and That's what Mr. Bowman said. Right. That's that's stated in the contract. And to kind of pinpoint cuz I know it's it's being compared to Western Area. Western Area it's the families pay for their kids unless they submit for um financial aid. Right. We don't have to >> approved. Right, but McGuffey does not pay for those kits. >> Right. And in this contract that's it's worded that McGuffey would not pay that McGuffey fronts it and then the families are paying the dollar back. Right. >> Mr. Thomas. I have a question to ask. If you said that that some of our students attend WJ as well. Do we Do we have other arrangements in place right now where the district is paying for
115our students to attend a post-secondary? We do have dual enrollment agreements, but that is actually paid for by the family by the student by the parents. >> by the family. Right. Not by the district. But I would >> would give credit for that dual enrollment. So that's part that we play. But I would just as a reminder, this is a high school program. This is not a um post-secondary program. The program that we're being asked to approve is a high school program for high school students. But it's in a post-secondary. It's in a post-secondary setting, but it is a high school program offered to high school students. I would dual enrollment is offered to high school students as well. But they're college level they're post-secondary courses. Well, when you graduate from Penn Commercial you would
116be graduating with a post-secondary certificate. >> Correct. That's correct. But you're still it's a high school it's not it's a high school program offered for high school students. The other thing too is Western Area actually has articulation agreements with Penn Commercial so that when their graduates graduate they could go on to Penn Commercial for further education. So it's almost like skipping Western area essentially to go directly to a college course level basically. And why shouldn't our students have that option? >> I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm sorry. I'm fine. Well, I think if the family has to pay for dual enrollment, they should have to pay for the kid to go to Well, the contract states they will. Right. But I think you're putting us in a difficult or certainly in a difficult position by
117having to find out who's collecting what, where, and when, and I don't think that's clarified in here or how we're going to do that, is it? I think that would be more for procedural That would be more of an administration task to create a procedure for that. Uh Mr. Thomas had his hand up first. Okay. So just if we're still going to discuss it, then my point for the discussion would be I have nothing against cosmetology and I have nothing against Penn Commercial, but I do not think that we should have uh our taxpayers or our taxpayers pay for students' tuition to post-secondary institutions. Thank you. I agree. I would also say that we pay for our students to attend WACTC. That program costs us just over $500,000 a year. But don't we also Don't
118we also own part of that program? And I would just remind everybody that the reason we got into this is because WACTC was not able to seat all of our students who are interested in cosmetology. That problem still exists. Even if we did away with Penn Commercial and we used all of our 12 seats that we have available for cosmetology, we have interest from our students for cosmetology that that surpasses that number. As the numbers currently stand, if that were the case this year, we would have had nine students who were interested in cosmetology who wouldn't have had a program available to them. Okay. Thank What happens in all the other academic careers at Western Area when they don't have enough room to satisfy our needs? Do we send them elsewhere? So, when choices um
119they're always asked, do you have a second choice? >> Mhm. And they can do one of two things. They can go for the second choice or not go to program whatsoever. Or there's actually third choice. Whenever there are open seats, like our seats, our 12 seats what we don't fill get given away to another school district. So, if there are other school districts, now that of course creates a waiting list, but if there are other school districts that don't fill all their seats maybe because they're sending them to Penn Commercial it creates seats that McGuffey could potentially get. Those just are not guaranteed. Yeah, so we could actually have more than 12 that we're guaranteed if other >> Potentially. send people or don't send people because of lack of Right. Correct. Okay, Mrs. I'd like
120to um share some positive things. I was really privileged to go in and get my hair done and we can all do it and it's a great thing to to watch students work. I did get to talk with a lot of our students after introducing myself as a school board member and they were so excited and so eager to tell me about everything. I asked questions that we have asked before. Someone before said something about remote learning. When when McGuffey has a remote learning day, those students, the Penn Commercial students have the same availability for a remote learning day. I know that kit is a big issue, but that kit comes with an iPad in it. It comes with everything equipped for them to start. This is the only school that I know of that
121they get six mannequins. Six. They only get one at other schools. You have to buy additional. They get six because they start with their hands on in the very first beginning. Now, I saw them. They work over in an excluded area, and when they are in the big salon, there's a teacher on either end of those students at all times. And so, really, when you're talking about them intermingling with people that may or may not have background checks or whatever, walking through Walmart, you you're introduced to those people. But, I I will remind you that I read recently that there was a law passed for cosmetologists at CTE at CTE schools that you have to send your student to a professional salon. Of those 1,050 hours, they have to go for from 250 hours to
122350 hours in a like Supercuts. So, when when the votech sends them to Supercuts, there's no one with them. And they're in there with all kinds of people. So, the other thing I would like to share, right now, there are two other schools, Chartiers, Houston, and Canon-Mac, that are acting commercial right now. In the fall, uh Peters Township is coming. If we do not pass this contract, next year, us and Washington will be the only ones that are not giving our students this opportunity. And the transportation is free. Regardless of how you like it said, it's free. Right now, they're coming and picking up the students at no cost to us. We pay for every student that goes to votech. I really think this comes down to student choice. I'd just like to remind everybody,
123not so long ago, when when someone suggested we review programs like business administration or the vo-ed program, some people even here were grossly upset and rightly so. I don't want to get rid of any programs either. But the fact is you're saying now these students, their program doesn't matter. What does that say to the students? It's obviously not all about the students if we can't see that that we're saying, "No, your program's not important." One one moment, please. Please hold your comment. Please hold your comment. Thank you. >> Okay, Mr. Oh, sorry, were you done? No, I'm done. I just wanted to point out the positive things because honestly, the students are so happy. They are so thankful that they have this opportunity. Why would we want to take that away from them? They have
124an option and you already expressed that the business options are important and the vo-ed options are important. So, don't you think that the cosmetology options are important? Well, if you heard my statement earlier, I stated that Pink Commercial is a good option. I just think it needs to be done differently, that's all. I'm not saying no. I'm not saying any of that and I'm not saying it's not important. I'm not saying it's not you know, students don't have a choice. Um I didn't say that at all. So, But if we don't vote for the contract, that is what we're saying. No, I understand that. I understand that, but I think >> signing the contract is not saying no. Well, we can approve the contract and ask the attorneys to make the final uh review, which
125I believe they said that was something they could do. If I understood you correctly. So, we've already put this off. The students are preparing and Mr. Bowden has told you himself, he's preparing schedules. They're going out and they're make I I don't think we should squash their hopes and dreams of getting to do this. I wish some of you do I go to talk to students that absolutely they live near me. They were And another thing they get to make if in their junior senior year, they get to bring in family members and make money and get tips. That's it's just like plus all the way around. And we have much more control of their environment there than we do at Botec when they're sending them out to Supercuts or something. And I'm not saying
126that both programs are good and it's an option. And Tony and I is in a nationally famous program. Those students get technique and style classes from the very beginning that they wouldn't get anywhere else. But it's not for everyone. Obviously, we have some students that have chosen Botec and the choice Right. is the student's. >> Right. And if we really want to sit here and say it's all about the students, then let's say it's all about the students and give them that choice. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Thomas. I'm just something I have to say to to the state's point there was but it's but that's the only trade that does get a choice. And I and I think that's what Mr. Reeger was saying there but I think the train of the thoughts that
127got switched. Like if the welding class is full, we don't seek out classes in Green County or Alleghany County or West Rowan sending students. It's like Mr. Dr. Robertson, okay, you get choice B. And then if that's unavailable, then it's okay. Like so why is this the only trade that gets that? >> But it's just happens to be the only program that we're talking about. Wait, I if I could um to to Mr. Thomas's point, we did not seek out of commercials. The commercial had sought us sought districts out not just us, other districts with this program because they saw the need and they came up with solution to solve the need, right? If there were other entities out there who saw a similar need for a for a different program. What What was the
128You used welding? Okay, fine. I don't know that we have a waiting list for welding. Uh typically at not both actually, they don't like to be called that. But certain area, the two for which there are waiting lists typically were cosmetology and automotive. Right? So, let's go with automotive, right? That's There's typically a waiting list. I can tell you I have had nephews who wanted automotive and they didn't get enough seat There wasn't a seat available for them. And so, one of them went into the second choice, went to votech for the whole thing, bought all of the tools that he needed for that program, and he is currently working not in that. You know? So, the second choice isn't their first choice for a reason. I don't see that that's the solution. But if
129there were another company somewhere another organization that came to us and said, "Look, we've noticed that all of your students who are interested in automotive may not have that that availability, we'd like to offer the Why wouldn't we look at that? Again, I will always go to the student choice. We say and and it's on our website, right? We will ensure that all students reach their greatest potential. Limiting their choice does not help them reach their greatest potential. Students should have choices. We all want choices, right? And if there is a choice available, I feel like they should be given the choice. If there isn't a choice available, so be it. But when there is clearly a choice available, students should have that choice. Well, if Rose just a minute. Oh, no, go ahead. No,
130I was just going to say if Rose came and said, "We can take some of your automotive people." I think we would explore that option, too. I'm I'm not Yeah, I'm not saying that this is the only option. To your question and just to clarify, uh this came about because 4 years ago, this is going on 5, we did have students that did not have that option. We had more students and interest in cosmetology than they had slots. Yeah. We were aware that the year before Trinity was sending students to, so I reached out to Mike Lucas first and said, "Talk to me about the program." And talked to us and they're So, it was us reaching out to them based on that need. Mhm. Brought to the board that presentation saying, "There's already schools
131in the district doing this. Here's an option as a board." And that's really what it came down to. So, those board members at that time, they said, "Well, we have two things before us. Either we don't help those students that want their first option, right? Or we we do that." So, that's how we find ourselves here today because at that time, we did find something. And so, if we find that there's another need in another area, And you find those another program somewhere? If we can find there's a program another So, I I want to share this right now with the board, too. Um There recently we went as with other districts uh um after a grant, a LSA grant that was awarded actually to us for the next year for CDL. I haven't brought
132that to this board yet because I want to make sure we focus on this first. But there are more options coming down the line. And again, this is going to involve Penn Commercial. 2 years ago, as most of us remember, we had four students here that we paid for. Three of those four students that received a CDL are currently driving because of that CDL. Mhm. So, there are other options, other opportunities. I just want to just want to just kind of again refocus. I know you have a tough position. I know where we are from a financial standpoint. We talk about it all the time. My plea is, as you know, because I brought it to you in the first place, is to continue with Penn Commercial to continue to provide an option, but I
133also respect that difficult decision needs to be passed to make it. I I did. But I I felt like if I didn't share the passion I have for this So, I'll leave it at that. I think this the problem comes down to we have to pay $2,600 per student more. That's That's the only problem. >> right. That wasn't the problem. Yeah. And that's the thing. That's the only uh budget difference? It's aside from the kit, it's it's exactly the same. Except that we pay transportation costs for Western Area and we don't for Penn Commercial currently. But other than that, and again, keep in mind the contract states that the cost of the kit will come from the families. Actually, if you take the kit costs out for this year, and of course this That's only
134the first year. It's only the first year anyway. Yeah. So, $7,043 is what we pay for one student at Western Area tuition and transportation. And the kit that Typically, they their kits get covered. At Penn Commercial, the tuition is $7,083. So, if we take the kit cost costs out, it's almost exactly the same. With Penn Commercial providing the transportation. Correct. Okay. And I think that's what I'm trying to say is we need the parents to pay for the kit if they want to go there. The contract is written as such. I have I have one question, and then I'd like to vote on this and move on. My question would be if we were to decide to go through with this, and it's pending whatever changes, and if Commercial doesn't agree with those changes, how
135does that move forward here with McGuffy? I know that obviously they say no it's a no, but if they don't agree to the changes that we've made to the contract, how does how do we go forward with that? So, I um as far as proposed um amendments to the contract, I think there was some discussion in trying to um bolster some of the um special education requirements when you guys were talking about that. I I I can't imagine they would outright say no. It would be a negotiation. Um but it would be it would be a final version. You couldn't vote on it tonight. And if there are large discrepancies in a final version, then it could come back to you for to a an amended vote, basically. An amended contract to vote. For information.
136For information for you. >> Yeah. If that's how that would work, would you recommend we table this so that we can have a discussion about the changes we want within the contract? I If if that This is really up to you. Um I think that I think we have a pretty good handle. I think that you had can you had consider your concerns about the special education, and I don't think that there was a lot of not necessarily the concern, but maybe making sure that the language sort of matched the expectation of what everybody in the room was saying should happen with um if some if a student has an IEP or a 504 plan. Um I know you have a concern about the clearances. I could certainly ask for clarity on that on the
137clearances, and that would be just for informational purposes for you. Um but as far as the decision on whether or not to make a motion to um approve or to vote on it or motion to table, that is really up to you. Would we Would we need to make a a to amend the motion to be approval pending. Right. These If not tabled, right? Yes, I guess Yes, because she just said that's prevented. So, yes. You could make a motion to And if that to amend it for the solicitor represents the negotiation and And if that vote failed, if that if it failed, we didn't get five votes to um amend it, then they it would come back to to the original motion. >> right. Correct. Yes. Just to be clear, Mr. Gilbert. I just
138want to add one thing. We're getting into April. Please keep in >> Yeah, exactly. Right. I think that they need to know what they're doing Exactly. That's a big concern. April is late. April is very late. Right. So, I guess maybe this will be a question for clarification within um within the contract. It states that the enrollment would have to be submitted Oh gosh, I forget the verbage. Um I apologize. I I can pull it up real quick. Um it's early on in the contract. Enrollment. Eligibility and enrollment. It say Yes. Thank you. Appreciate it. Because it's just clarification on what they mean by this term because I I could understand it to be two things. Um Let's see. It says registration and deadline. I apologize. I'm not feeling well. Enrollment. Um the district will
139provide a list of selected students to enroll in the program at Penn Commercial. Should a record of registration be created at for each student. This will be provided by the school district at least one month in advance of the commencement of the school year. I understand that that me personally, I understand that could potentially mean one of two things. Commencement ceremony and graduation. So, is it by graduation of this year, this school year, or is it commencement of I believe it's when the new year starts in the fall. Yeah. It is the school year because it is the commencement of the school Correct. I see where you're going. I just wanted clarification on that. I would assume that it's a reasonable that their program does not rely on McGuffy's commencement. >> Yeah. Correct. >> Does
140that make sense? >> So, I think it's a reasonable um assertion to say that this is means 1 month before the school year begins. So, sometime in July, whatever Okay. Hey, I would like to make a motion then that we amend this motion to approve the program pending the um solicitor's final review and the recommendations are addressed. Pending final review and of the and the recommendations of the solicitors? Yes. Yeah, the solicitor. >> Solicitor. Pending final >> Did I say it wrong? No, I'm just asking for clarification. I just want to know exactly what we're what the vote is. Pending final review of and the >> I I'm making a motion that we would approve this contract pending the final >> As written and As written pending the final review of the solicitor with the
141recommendations that we have suggested that they review. As written, but I would say No, I wouldn't say as written either because as written as this is written currently. I would just say pending solicitor review >> review and negotiation. Yeah, that's good. That sounds good. See, that's why she's the solicitor. That's good. Okay. So, could you read that back to us, please, Mrs. Settles? So, it would be a motion to amend the the motion the agreement of the motion to approve the agreement pending solicitor review and negotiation. Thank you. Just so we're clear. Yeah. So, we have a So, we had a First and a second. All right. Roll call, please. Mr. Bertsch out. Yes. Mr. Brode. Yes. Mr. Hoover. Yes. Ms. Jackson. Yes. Mr. Lazer. Yes. Yes. Thank you. So, that is a secondary motion.
142You now have a primary motion in front of you, which is to approve the contract. To approve the contract as as we discussed with the amendment. With the with the amendment. With the amendment. Um that you you don't need a new motion or a second. That's ready for you Okay. to to vote on. >> Perfect. All right. So, all those in favor of the Penn commercial agreement with the the amendment. I. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. All those in favor? Yes. >> I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. All right. Personnel Committee report. Um that is chaired by Mrs. Urbanik, who is not with us this evening. Um I I don't know. There's not like a second chair. Yes, or or you can read Well, no. Dr. Oberg's there. He could probably give
143it. Yeah, would you mind briefing us on the personnel committee? I can I I sent out uh Mr. Smart cannot be here tonight. Apologies. Mr. Smart cannot be here tonight. I sent out the minutes from our Thursday personnel committee. At personnel committee, we discussed fall coaching hires. We shared with them the evaluation of each of the coaches and then of course the salary they are going to be hired at for the fall. Uh we also shared out on the agenda that there is a change from um a volunteer to a paid position for coaches. You also see on there, this is all by memory by the way. Um you also see on there, thank you. Uh that there are two site managers uh that are going to be needed for um the spring time and
144uh we talked about the the the salaries that they I'm sorry, the numbers they get for a varsity uh game versus JV and middle school. Uh we also have Uh we also have on there um a volunteer football coach uh that would be for the spring. Uh that individual is helping Nate Perry in the weight room, so we're asking the board to consider that. And I pulled up the minutes everybody, just so you know. Um we also have uh bus drivers for both BGNC and first students that when we uh vet those individuals, of course we're looking at backgrounds for all of those. And so you'll see that on the agenda tonight. And we also discussed in personnel uh moving forward with a administrative uh structure that we have currently. We have uh three individuals
145between the high school and middle school. Um at present that structure looks like Mr. Mark Bonus who oversees both the high school and middle school. And you have an associate principal in the middle school and an associate principal in the high school. Moving forward, we're going to promote our existing associate middle school principal, Justin Wise, to principal of the middle school. Mr. Brady, who is your high school associate principal, will Sorry, I'm sorry. I said Mr. Brady. So So Mr. Mr. Brady is going to No, I'm I'm good. To your high school principal, and then we will look at a structure that would have a assistant principal that would work between the two. And that is all we have for personnel. Thank you. You did great. Thank you. All right. Moving on to resignation, um
146item G2. Accept with regret the letter of resignation from Courtney Golski, um effective March 13th, 2026, and authorize the administration to post and advertise, if necessary, for the position. Second. First. Second. Um any discussion? Let's do food service employees. I just have a question. Um at this time, does administration see a need to fill it? Yes. Yes? I would think you have to. All right. Thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Additional substitute teacher, approve Miss Gianna Bloom as a substitute teacher and substitute paraeducator for the remainder of the 2025-2026 school year, pending receipt of all required clearances, Act 20 Act 126 and Act 168 verification. >> All right. Any any discussion? Um I just have a question. I know it always comes up with the
147public, so I just want to clarify that this is still status quo, I guess you could say. Whenever we hire substitute teachers and substitute paraeducators, they are then placed on a list. It doesn't mean that they're used. It means they're on I'm not saying that this person wouldn't be called for work, but um it's not like a guarantee that they don't have a contract. Right. They don't have a contract. They're just placed on a list to be used if they're needed eventually. Okay. I agree. Right. Thank you. Okay. All right. Um any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Additional site coordinator. The athletics director has requested to add Shawn Phillips and Mark Scott as site coordinators for the remainder of the 2025-2026 school year. So moved. Okay. Any
148discussion? The only question that I had, and this was kind of answered in the personnel committee, but just for for clarity for um the public as well, is that this is a line item in our current budget. It's not in addition to what's currently budgeted. Just so everyone is clear. Thank you. I was going to ask the same thing just for clarification. All right, any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any abstentions? I'm sorry. Any noes? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Um Change of job status for assistant baseball coach. Approve the change of pay status for Mr. Gary Hatfield the third as volunteer assistant baseball coach to paid assistant baseball coach C1 10% as per NEA agreement. In the event of a partial season, salary will be prorated. So moved. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All
149those um yeah, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Additional volunteer coach approved Memphis Hedrick as volunteer assistant football coach. We have received all of his required clearances. Second. All right, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Additional drivers for DG&T. Approval of two drivers for DG&T for the 2025-2026 school year pending receipt of all required clearances as presented. So moved. Okay. Any discussion? All right, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Additional drivers for First Student. Approve the additional drivers for First Student for the 2025-2026 school year pending receipt of all required clearances as presented. So moved. Thank you. Um any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. I'm sorry, I was kind of late to the
150Any Wait a second. Just so I'm clear, are we on eight or nine? We're on eight, additional drivers for First Student. Eight. What are we doing here? So you are abstaining. Okay. What's happening? We're voting, but he was abstaining and there was an alarm that went off, so we were clarifying where we were with the vote. And it wasn't my medicine alarm. I didn't turn that off this time. So we're on First Student? Right, we are on First Student. We have one abstention. Um All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. I'm a no. So, you're a no. Or, sorry. So, it's You're a no. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Rehire of fall head coaches. Approve the rehire of the following individuals as fall head varsity coaches for the 2016 fall sports season at the
151appropriate steps in accordance with the MNA agreement. So moved. I would I would appreciate it if we could finish reading the whole recommended action. That's fine with me. Thank you. In the event of a partial season, salaries will be prorated. Brian Golesky, boys soccer. Vince Schmidt, girls soccer. Caitlyn Group, girls tennis. Jackson Knoll, cross country. Nate Perry, football. And Mark Scott, golf. Thank you. You're welcome. We had a first. Second. And we had a second. I'm sorry. Thank you. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Budget Committee report, um, chaired by Mr. Huber. At our Budget Committee meeting on March 3rd, 2018, um, Mrs. Albert talked again. We, you know, she kind of started the meeting tonight. She goes over the budget, which is pretty much the work
152done at Budget Committee You know, she's doing a wonderful job at finding places to cut and, you know, but there's not a lot of cutting money in the budget. I will have to say she's going over everything. She's going over everything and explaining to us what she's done and it's pretty fair balance right now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, that's really all I have to say. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. >> Thank you. All right, website renewal. Approve the annual website renewal between the Guffey School District and EMS Link LLC at the cost of $6,356.09 from July 1st of 2026 through June 30th of 2027. So moved. I would just like to comment that I So the price is no additional increase. That's amazing. Thank you. Right. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Wilson. Um I know it's
153I know it's a drop in the bucket in comparison, but I always ask the question, was there any shopping around? Is there any cheaper out there? I I ask every year. Usually it's no, but I'm going to ask again anyway just because Well, this would cost us a lot of money to do a whole website renewal overhaul, so to to do Okay. find that out at this point. So we're good on that part. Thank you. Got you. Thank you. Appreciate it. That's a a big squat Yeah. to start over. All right. Um We had a first and a second discussion. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Asset Inspection Solutions LLC, to contract with Asset Inspection Solutions LLC to do sonic testing of the light poles in the stadium at a
154cost of $2,200. So moved. Thank you. Any discussion? Again, just a remark on the fact that no increase. Um but too, he asked very good. Um they're doing very well for us. But I do have one additional question. Um testing of the light poles, that's $2,200 per light pole or all together? All together. Just wanted to be sure. I figured it So specifically I kind of figured it was all life old, but I think it says in the in the agreement, it's a certain amount per hole. It does. Right, the book the public isn't looking at the agreement, I just wanted to be sure. Right. Thank you. Um all those in favor, uh I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Resolution 2025-2026 number 11, intermediate unit one proposed general operational budget for 2026-2027. So moved.
155Oh, I'm sorry, did you finish? I didn't read the recommended action, but it pretty much Okay, I thought you finished it. Then I realized I didn't hear the words as as presented. That's okay. I could just finish that with as presented and it'll read the recommended action, so. I apologize, I didn't mean No, it's okay. We can read it first. Do we have a second? Captain, thank you. Um any discussion? All those in favor, uh I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. Facilities use agreement, Plainfield Area Business Association. Approve the use of Plainfield Elementary School parking lots and other areas by the Plainfield Area Business Association during National Pike Days, May 16th and 17th, 2026, pending facility use approval. So moved. I do think you said that they needed it Friday night, too, which was
156the 15th. Was that something that he added on? We just have to be aware of it? There's set up that happens. Yeah. Okay. I just didn't know, it just said 16th. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. Okay. Well, that's part of the process. Yeah, that and we had this discussion in more length last year. And the ultimate decision was or conclusion rather not decision conclusion was that the superintendent that falls under his line of duty for facility usage and he will take care of what needs to be taken care of. We don't need to micromanage that. So that's just understood even though it's not written correct in the motion. That's correct. require Got you. Perfect. Okay, thank you. Um, I I would like Can I amend it just to include the 15th just because they'll be there
157on the 15th or can we not amend it because we have a first and a second? He said it was just a set up. >> I understand but they'll still be on the premises. I I think another way to approach this at times is if the board secretary could identify who made the first and the second and if if those two individuals like agree to it as a friendly amendment to the primary motion that was theirs and they are and they have a right to do so. Uh, okay. I I don't know that it really matters but okay. Okay. You have to withdraw. It's okay. Do you agree Do you agree to like make that that minor adjustment to your motion and your second then you are you have a right to do so. Right.
158Right. >> Which is why I was thinking cuz it says pending facility use approval and the facility usage includes the information as to the date. The specific date. So I don't think our motion necessarily matters but it's okay we can change it. For me just to clarify why I think it's important is the record keeping. Um, it was you know brought to our attention previously about record keeping. So for me it's just kind of on the height of on my mind. So I appreciate that um to amend it. So Do you That was it. So now we just need to vote on it. All All All those in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried. All right. Whitesburg Car Craemer LLC invoice. Approved payment to Whitesburg Car Craemer LLC for invoices dated March
15915th, 2026 in the total amount of $2,815 as submitted. I get. Thank you. All those in favor? I. I. Any opposed? I'm opposed. 7 1. Okay. All right. 7 1 motion passes. Policy Committee report. Um that's Mrs. Jackson. Yeah, I'm going to actually go through the two items under this two, but as far as policy um Committee report, we did have a meeting on March 10th. It's very productive meeting. As you know, I've been talking for months about us working on 815.1 on gender to the AI. We finished it. So, you'll see it for our first reading on the agenda, and then I'll talk more about that in a minute. Um we are we had a request from the newly formed Wellness Committee to um bump up the Wellness policy. Um so, we are set
160to begin that. Um the next meeting is April 7th. That is the Tuesday after Easter. Um and we will be starting with policy 247. I am in discussion with the Wellness Committee as to whether they would also like us or need us to look at um other policies that include wellness in some way, including 140 uh 146.1, trauma informed approach, 819, suicide awareness prevention and response, and 808, food services. They'll get back to me if they feel that there's an if they have a need for us to look at them. Keep in mind with the Policy Committee, our goal is to continue to move forward. So, that's why we the rolling agenda. Um and we just add the policies there and we move them up as we go through. So, when we get done with
161246, if there is no other policy the wellness committee is asking us to bump up, then we will look at two policies that came up while we were finishing 815.1. Both of them relate to personnel. Um so, we're going to look at those two immediately following the wellness policy. Um and then we're going to be looking at the weapons policy. Um and then the rest of the policies kind of are on ongoing. Um if there is any specific policy the board wants us to officially put on the agenda, please let me know. We'll add it to the bottom of the rotating agenda if the majority of the board feels that we'd like to have that done sooner than that, then they could ask us and we'll move it up on the rotating agenda. That all
162made sense. Mhm. Um but the ultimate goal is really to eventually look at all policies. That's just going to take us a while as we go cuz um there's a lot of them. So, keep that in mind. But the policy committee it's the meeting itself went very well. They continue to go very well and we appreciate that. We have finished on the agenda for tonight as first readings are both 815, a copy of acceptable use of internet computers and network resources, which is a current policy. So, what we're what you're looking at are changes to that policy that we made. Now, some of those were simply cleaning up um because I'm an English teacher at heart. Remember, that's where I started. Cleaning up punctuation and grammar. Um and then there were other things um that
163we changed specific wording on and things like that. So, places where you see words struck out is exactly that. We're taking those out. Places where you see, uh, words struck out and other words added, that's of course what that is. But, that is, uh, currently what what we're asking the board to consider. 815.1 is, um, specifically the use of generative artificial intelligence in education. And there are several things there that we need to look at. Number one, this is not a policy that McGuffey currently had. This is a policy that we have been asked to look at implementing because of, uh, the use of generative AI all over the place these days. I know there's been a lot of discussion about this. So, I will remind everybody of a couple things. First of all, keep
164in mind this is a first reading. Over the next month, everybody, board members, community members, whatever, have the option to look at the policy. It is available on BoardDocs for anybody who who, um, wants to see it. If you need help in figuring out how to get to it so that you can read it or download it, call you, call me, doesn't matter. They certainly can reach out to me and I'll make sure they have that copy. And if you want to reach out to me, I could certainly make sure to show you how to get to it so that you have the opportunity to look over it. And I encourage everybody to actually look over it. Mrs. Jackson, I uh Yes. I will leave my phone number. Thank you. >> And yesterday you had
165that. Okay. And as far as the public, the same thing. I encourage you to read it because a lot of the questions and concerns you may have may be may are addressed in there, okay? The other thing I'll remind everybody of is when the board was asked to consider this, we did it and we took us months to go through. We looked at this from every avenue, from a legal perspective, from the parents perspective, from students perspective, from from um teachers perspective. We eventually asked Mr. Wilson as the director of technology here at the school to attend our meetings and help us kind of figure out the minutia of of what we were looking at. And AI has been being used all over the place. This is specifically about generative AI. Um and there is
166a difference between that, right? So, AI simply covers um when you have machines doing things in place of a human, correct? Um but generative I AI is when the computer is actually creating new product, right? Instead of a human creating it, right? So, if if some of you my work actually has some of those programs. Uh for example, I'll give you an example. We have an AI um generative AI program that we use for translation. So, instead of somebody sitting there or transcription, instead of somebody sitting there with earphones and typing out the words as they're listening to them, we put it through this program. That program creates the script. And then we have what's called human in the loop, which is me in this particular case, sitting and looking at the script, going through
167the script word by word as I'm listening to the recording to verify what there is accurate, right? And to make sure it's all in the form that it needs to be with proper grammar and spelling. So, those kinds of things you need to keep in mind. The purpose of this is not for generative AI to replace instruction or learning in our schools. And I've said before um in a general statement, I really I'm going to this probably is going to sound off at first, but I really am not interested in what other people or other schools are doing. I'm more interested in or what's going on out there. I'm more interested in how we as a district are addressing it. How are we using it? So, while I under I keep up with what's going
168especially things that are in the news like, you know, what problems that there are, things like that, how this has occurred at this school or this has occurred at that school. But, I the focus here is generative AI is here. Um and we want to be able to teach our students and our staff, and this is covered in the policy, how to use it, how to use it effectively, how to differentiate between what what is called a hallucination or inaccuracies in generative AI, so that you're not blindly following something and accepting it as real when it's not. So, please look through there. The purpose clearly says that we are looking at preparing students for a future that demands adaptability, critical thinking, and digital literacy. When incorporated and used in a responsible and ethical manner, generative
169AI can support a dynamic working and learning experience. The goal is not for it to take the place of. It is to to be in support of, okay? The policy addresses the guidelines for the proper management and responsible use of generative AI in the district's educational environment. So, it goes down through I mean it specifically definitions, also responsibility, um literacy, teaching teach staff as well as our students about generative AI, making sure that our staff and our students get the necessary um development opportunities to learn about these things is all outlined in there. Again, we even went over ethical considerations. The district will only authorize generative AI systems and platforms appropriately equipped for preventing breach of personally identifiable information and addressing to the district's prohibitions against discrimination, harassment, bullying, bias, and access to sexually explicit
170material or those which are harmful to minors or prohibited by the board policy. So, once again, the goal is not to say to our student our teachers and our our students, "Here, just use generative AI however you want to, whatever you want to." This policy is designed with that There will be I don't know if we're still calling it a committee. A generative AI committee collaborative. It's a collaborative in which they will have There will be members on that collaborative of from every shareholder group. They will be looking at what generative AI supportive resources they are asking the board to approve. They'll look through that. Then, whatever that list is that comes to the board, the board might approve or give recommendations for what needs to be changed in order to approve, and only the
171generative AI resources tools and resources on that list approved by the board will be used. Not other ones. So, it's not a carte blanche to do whatever you want, use whatever you want. And in addition to that, that collaborative will continue to monitor as we use them any potential problems. Okay, we're using this one and whoa, there's a problem. We need to readjust. Okay? They will give further recommendations to the board as to whether those tools and resources need to be changed, some need to come off, something else needs to go on. We just need to stop using it regardless you know, of of a contract that we have, whatever the case may be. They will continue that collaborative, made again, made up of members of all the shareholder groups, will continue to re-evaluate that
172all of the time. That is key to this policy. And then they will make recommendations as needed to the board. A school board representative will be part of the collaborative. That's part of the wording in the policy. There is a lot to this policy. It is not anything that you can read in 5 minutes and really understand. I am begging all of you, board members and community, please take the time to really read it. I say this every time we present a policy for first reading. If anyone has any questions or concerns, please let me know and I can tell you 98% of the time I don't hear from anybody. So, if you have input, if you have input, you can email me, call me, almost everybody has my number, whatever the case may be
173before in the next 30 days because it will we will make whatever changes we need to make and I can't guarantee that whatever change is requested is a change that we make. The policy committee will look at it and our next meeting is April 7th. So, I would suggest look over it between now and then. If there's anything that you'd like us to reconsider or look at, get it back to us. When It's the 14th. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I get the date wrong? >> It's all right. So, it's the 14th. >> The 14th. Well, that gives you more time. Yes. Um sorry. It's okay. I would like to clarify that um we all are representatives of the public. You can you you can reach out to your representative. Your board representative doesn't have to
174be Dr. Everett. It doesn't have to No, but if you're trying to streamline it. Correct. Correct. Um but I just wanted to clarify that you know, those aren't the only two points of contact. You can reach out to any of your representatives. Additionally, that um generative AI collaborative is next not next Yeah, next Thursday, 3:26 of 2026 at 6:00 p.m. and it is led by Mr. Wilson. Where will that be? Here in the school. It's going to be in the auditorium initially. Yeah. In the high school auditorium? Where is SHAC being? Because that's the same night. >> SHAC is in the auditorium. Yeah. So Yeah. That's okay. There is a lot There's a lot of information there. So, Right. And Mr. Wilson's great. Yeah, absolutely. >> got a lot of good information. He's been very
175effective and helpful with with the policy committee as well. Thank you, Mrs. Jackson. >> Yeah, I know that was a lot. I apologize for that. That's okay. All right. Um administrative report, Dr. Oberg, our facility use report. Sure. So, our president for the month of February 74 total uses of our school by the community. That includes our PTO, JROTC, tax. For example, we have boards to use basketball, track registers, and also we have competition here by our winter guard. Thank you. Budget expenditure report, um the budget expenditure report through the month of February 2026 is presented for your review. Cafeteria report, and the cafeteria report for the month of February 2026 is presented for your review. Key card spending summary, the key card spending report for the month of February 2026 is presented for your
176review. Um solicitor's report, Vice President Kramer. Oh, there you go. I just wanted to just say, thank you all again for having Megan and I come, um and I am excited to be to come next month, and if you have any questions, um you know, I'm looking forward to working with everybody here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um Board director and community representative reports, Western area, Career and Technology Center report, that is yours truly, um and Mr. Grove is my alternate. I have attached all of the attachments there, um for your review. Well, Mr. Seibert has, um we had um I we actually both missed last month's meeting, um I was that sick, and Mr. Grove was traveling out of town, so we did neither one of us made it.
177However, um Western area's great, they always make sure they get the packet that we are given, um they get it to us, so that we can at still at least look over it, have any questions, we can always go, um or you know, ask questions. Um the minutes are um on their website, as well, as well as well as all of their meeting information. They also have public meetings that are open to public comment if anybody's ever interested in attending. Um but you were free to reach out to me if you have questions or concerns at any point of time. Um and that's pretty much it. Um now, Pennsylvania School Board Association report by Mrs. Shingle. Okay, just a couple of things. There are nominations being accepted until July 31st for innovative school board awards,
178for innovative school leadership, innovative teacher awards. If you're interested in that, the application is on the website and think about maybe there's somebody there that you would like to recommend. Uh it's a big program and if you go to the leadership program, it's actually in the Poconos. So, you might want to consider that. Um also, I'm supposed to remind everybody the continuing education that we all have to do, the directors training. There's one coming up in Grove City. If you've been waiting for a live one and you wanted to go, um it's actually in April. So, that's not that far if that's what you want to do. You can do them all by webinars and do them all at home and all at once or at different times or you can go to the live
179session and they cover everything. But and the school does pay for transportation for that. Um expenses. I I believe correct. For when you go to those director trainings. That budget is built into your your school budget. Okay. Okay, um if you're interested in um if you're interested in any of these things that are coming up, there's a new director in monthly meetings or me a monthly roundup. Remember those 10-minute things? Uh March well, the 20th, the 26th, the 28th. They're all available. The bad thing is they're all in the middle of the day, like 12:00. But, that's an option if that's something that you would like to do. That's really about all I have there. Thank you. >> so much. All right. Uh moving on to public participation for non-agenda and agenda items. Madam uh
180I have Megan Graham, Donegal Township. Thank you. I'm Megan Graham, from Donegal Township. After all of that, my head hurts. Um I've got a lot on here. I'll try to go as fast as I can, and I apologize if it's a little skipped around. Um first off, I'm going to go back to AI since it was a hot topic that we just discussed. And as a community member and a parent, I don't want your policy. If you're going to put out a policy, it should be banned. We don't want it. We don't want it. Your students don't want it. You should put out a poll because your students don't want it, either. If you talk to your students, talk to your um educators. Put out something that actually gives you back data of uh percentages
181of maybe who would want it or who would not. I don't think that there's a place for it here in education. I'm going to move on to the library thing cuz it's topic that I like to hit hard. Um I'm just going to read straight down. When you talk about your library and a librarian, I've said some of this before, but I'm going to say it again. School librarians are vital to student success, acting as a certified educator, technology specialist, and information curator who boost literacy and academic outcome, not AI. Uh they teach critical researching skills, digital citizenship, and foster a love for reading. They also support teachers by collaborating on curriculum and providing diverse resources. Information and digital literacy, they teach students how to locate, evaluate, and effectively use information, which is critical for
182navigating the digital age that we are in. It's distinguished distinguishingly reliable sources from misinformation. Um the curriculum collaboration. Librarians work with classroom teachers to design research projects and integrate information literacy skills into the curriculum. Academic improvement. Um safe and inclusive space. This came literally straight from studies that were done. Okay? Cuz if we talk about having to have this space, then let's talk about a space. Safe and inclusive space. The library, under the care of a librarian, provides a welcoming safe space for learning, exploration, and quiet study, which is inclusive for all students. Why do we need to reinvent the wheel? I don't think that we do. It exists. It's here. Support what you have. Rein- Reimagine and reinnovate spaces that you already have. Don't change them. You don't need to. And when you talk
183about that, you go back to your budget. You're going to save money if you reimagine the space that you already have. That's just responsible to me. It's it's foolish to continue to go into this hole that you are in a budget when you can take what you have and make it better. Um I think if you're going to spend money, spend it on places that matter. I'd like to see you ramp up safety. I'm going to Vicky's not here tonight, but I'll say it for her. She talks over and over and over again, and I watch all of you disregard her. You're all guilty of it. You've all stopped listening because all you hear in the words of, you know, a Charlie Brown special, "Wah wah wah wah wah." You're not going to ignore me.
184So, if I have to say things for her, then I'm going to. You need to pay more attention to safety. We're in that age. You cannot just let these kids walk out the freaking door. You can't. You need to know who they're going with. You need to know exactly who they're going with. Whether it be a parent or whoever else, because I will tell you on personal note, there's someone who's not allowed to pick up my children from the school, and let the day come that that happens. We are not a mental health facility. You are not a mental health facility. Parental consent is going to get you in a world of trouble. You're not a mental health facility. So, to enact anything that's going to require you to even flirt with that line, it
185it just it's bad. It's all bad. Your entire school should be a safe space. So, for you to say or sit here and say that you need to create one is admitting that you have a problem with bullying. And on that note, I would really like to see you all enact a an anti-bullying campaign. Not just a little oh let's hang some posters and this and that. No, you need to bring kids in and do a full-fledged anti-bullying campaign. It starts with here. It starts with morale. It starts from within. It starts with um you know, like I said, not just a poster in the hallway. You You need to push this. You have a bullying problem. Your student body is screaming it. Um before I run out of time, uh transportation, you need to
186address them. Transportation issues. I've had a lot of people come to me saying that buses are late, they're not making it on time, people are missing work, people are losing income. Um please make your decisions about bid days or 2-hour delays or whatever before 6:30 in the morning and notify. Um and lastly, before I really run out of time, you made a post about Lifetouch coming into the school and it all and it got taken down because it got such backlash. Who is posting these things? You You And who is taking them down without explanation? You put it up, but then had no explanation for removing it because you got such backlash. I'll be back next month with much more. Thank you. Uh President Tiffany Walker, South Franklin County. >> Oh, go away. Go away.
187There's a stink bug. Excuse me. Excuse me. Anyway, well, I have a headache, big headache. Um one, your AI, I don't give a I'm going to say all the words that I don't give a don't give a about your policy, don't give a about your seminar. Get rid of it. I mean, how many times that us public are asking you to go somewhere other We don't want it. Get Get rid of it. Why are we still discussing it? It's It's done. Nobody wants it. Your teachers don't want it. Your students don't want it. But a couple people on the board want it. It's not about you people on wanting it. It's about what they want, not you. Second of all, you better read rethink about your high school principal. I'm not talking about Mr. Bellis.
188Talking about who you think you're going to have your high school. He is not made for that. He is not qualified. My kids are no longer allowed to speak to him. Let's put it that way. So, if I don't allow my kids to speak to the assistant principal right now, you think I'm going to allow them to speak to the principal next year? No. He is not qualified whatsoever to be a principal of a school at all. Please find a different candidate. Please. My next thing is Vicky has came up and talked to you about the pedos that live around here and how our kids can go out and none of you would know if my son that's in seventh grade got picked up by a stranger. I wouldn't even know. Huh. Got pedos living
189around here. What happens if one of them were to snatch one of these kids? What you as a board, as a district, have an answer for when that happens? You're all going to lose a school because you're going to get sued. Sued to hell that you lost somebody's kid. Or a pedo picked it up. We've also have had teachers in this school and I'm going to say this loud and clear. Teachers in this school making passes at students. I shouldn't have to reach out to each and individually one of you. I'm going to say it tonight, live stream in front of everybody INCLUDING THE PUBLIC. YOU HAVE teachers in this school MAKING PASSES ON STUDENTS. YOU'VE HAD TEACHERS, students turn in those teachers and nothing was done. They're still teaching our kids. Now we got
190a pedophile touch taking pictures OF OUR KIDS? HAVE YOU LOST your mind? If somebody had A CAMERA ON THE BOARD. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND? THERE'S NO OTHER elementary school that dropped LifeTouch. But middle school, we're going to go take a picture of our middle schoolers yesterday? I think not. My kid will never, as long as you keep LifeTouch. Never. You had better get rid of them quickly. And I'll be more than happy to share this on Facebook to let the other people that didn't get a chance to watch it tonight to show that we We're just taking in the fact that we have pedophiles around us. We got pedophiles as teachers. Now we got a pedophile photographer. What the hell? Okay. What one of these teachers? Actually, my daughter already turned in one. He's
191still teaching. Staring at her ass, making comments. FOR WHAT? YOU HAD A PRINCIPAL THAT WOULD WALK IN A vice I mean assistant principal one YEAR THAT WOULD WALK INTO THE GIRLS BATHROOM. Y'ALL LOOK LIKE FOOLS RIGHT NOW. You're supposed to be protecting the kids, right? Safety of the kids and what's best for the kids, right? And I'm sorry for Monique for talking to you during the pen commercial thing, but I want to say this. You have a perfectly good pen commercial cosmetology student here. You should have brought her up during that discussion. And ask her opinion. Now. Yeah. Yeah, ask her. Okay, she's the one. This is affecting her life, not y'all. Y'all still come here every month to sit down. She won't be here every month. She'll eventually graduate. So you should have asked
192her. You should have pulled her up. I don't know if that's allowed during a meeting, but I guess you should have pulled her up. But, another big thing, GIVE HER THE PADDLE. Thank you. South Brunswick, Riley Wells, South Brunswick Township. Thank you. I'm sorry. Riley? Yes, thank you. Riley Wells, South Brunswick Township. I am a student here, a junior. I do not want to learn with AI. I have enough trouble working with computers as is on bid days. I'm not going to sit here and get taught by a robot whenever we have teachers in the school for that. You're just taking the teachers away, their purpose away. Not to mention, you guys want to make the library a safe space whenever reading is a coping mechanism for a lot of students. You guys want a
193safe space. We have guidance counselors for that. We have study halls to take time to ourselves during that. We can go to the bathroom if need be. We do not need to take out the library whenever that is something that students use all throughout school. After school even. How many adults still read every single day just for fun? Why are we taking that away from the students? Where where are we mattering in the situation? You guys aren't asking our opinions on this. We don't have assemblies for this to choose. Where are our opinions even relevant to you? Cuz I don't see it. I've seen a lot of you even online disrespecting everyone that comes up here to talk about these situations with you guys, and you degrade it. You don't listen to anybody. But, no,
194I'm not going to sit here and get taught by AI. I will leave McGuffey before I do that. I will take it in my If my mother did not want me to, I would be 18 next year and I will take myself out of school myself. I'm not getting taught by a online robot. The half of time isn't even accurate that That's all I need to say. That's all we wanted to hear. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Meredith Blackhurst Hi, my name is Meredith Blackhurst. I'm from Buffalo Township. I apologize if my voice is a little messed up. I'm kind of losing my voice. I'm here tonight to bring light on a few different subjects. First of all, a junior in high school, my brother, Riley McAdoo. He has been in the gifted program since
195he was in kindergarten. He has scored above proficient. He has tested high on all of his key stone testing. He carries a 4.0 to a 4.3 GPA. He is in the National Honor Society, the robotics program, and the honor roll. His parents have had a IEP meetings for the last 12 years. For the last 3 years, he's been prepping for college. At these meetings, LSU, WVU have been very well spoken upon with everyone in the meetings about engineering. 2 months ago after being accepted into the National Honor Society and receiving the letters, he was never put in the language program by McGuffey. And it is needed for him to attend college. After speaking to WVU recruiters and checking with LSU, he must have these to be in the engineering program. When the school guidance counselor,
196Caroline Knoll, was contacted, her response was stated that it is not a big deal. Usually to the fact most students in McGuffey High School do not attend universities. What kind of statement is this coming from a guidance counselor that is running our school? She should be fired. I absolutely am disgusted by the response of our guidance counselor to say that most of the kids from here are not attending college anyway, so it doesn't matter. The fact that Riley has done all of his work, she's met with him one time this year. One time. And that was due to him having no fourth period class. She replaced it with a small business management class in mythology, which has nothing to do with engineering. Has yet to follow up and has no care in his future. Mr.
197Soy, the vice principal, has called several times and gave two options. One, CCAC for $1,600. Two, an online course for next year at his own pace while attending his senior year. Also, we have yet to give any more follow-up after it was stated that Caroline Noel or himself would call with the final answers. Nobody has received a phone call. And I think this is disturbing. I feel that the school has put him in all AP classes and college prepped him. Therefore, why are they not talking with these students to make sure that they're on the correct road when they know what they're wanting? Riley has done everything and he has worked extremely hard and now he has a completely different view on the rest of his life. And he may not attend college because of
198what you have done. This is McGuffey's problem. Why is my mother responsible for paying $1,600 whenever McGuffey didn't put him in the language that he deserves? My second problem is the AI in the school. I completely follow along with everything Megan had to say. And I think that we are asking for cheating and improper use in our schools. I also want a library to remain in our schools with a librarian. And my question is to you that if we convert our library into a mental health space that gives students a place as they go as they wish. Who's keeping track of the amount of times that the same students are using this mental health break? And at what point do they need further mental evaluation? That's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Madam President,
199Bella Garrett. Or Sanchez. Hi. I'm a student at Penn Commercial and I've been there for 2 years now. And I would like to say if we are considering cutting the program, then I think we should at least be able to the students that are already should be able to finish it out and graduate from there or be able to transfer over to votech with no complaints or no cutting students from there. And also um what about the adult students? We are never around the adult students ever unless we use the restroom. And I've never had any like altercation with any of them. And whenever we're in the clinic, we sometimes do get stopped by them, but there's always teachers around us. Like they watch us like hawks. Like they do We are not allowed to
200talk to any of the adult students and when we do, we get yelled at and we like get in trouble. So, I really think if you take any precautions for that, it's going to be useless because we never have problems with them anyways. And also if you do cut the Penn Commercial program and we all end up going to Vo-Tech I also heard that you're considering getting rid of a Vo-Tech bus. That would be another cuz our Penn Commercial bus is full. So, I don't know how that would work if you got rid of a Vo-Tech bus and a Penn Commercial bus. Yeah. Were you finished? I'm so sorry. I don't I was going to ask you what your name and township was. I didn't catch it. It's South Derry, South Hanover Township. Oh, I
201thought you said South Franklin. I apologize. Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. Um also uh like Mr. Thomas said, uh we have a choice of going to Vo-Tech or Penn Commercial, but we really don't because last year This is I know I said this for my second year, but my first year I didn't have enough hours to complete it, so I'm retaking my first year again. Um but Ooh, sorry. I just blanked. Um but Mr. Burnett, I talked to him whenever that happened last year, and I asked him if I could transfer over to Vo-Tech instead because of preference, and he told me that there was not enough room and that there was um not enough spaces, but I was told that there's five girls allowed to go to Vo-Tech from Penn Commercial, and
202to my knowledge there's only two going right now. So, I'm not sure why, but and also I'd like to say I do not want Mr. Sweigart principal Um that's Thank you, students, for coming and speaking. I do not agree with the AI. Like I do a lot better with paper, a book, and pencil. Um like everyone else was saying if we had a library, I thought that would be very helpful to me right now because we're doing like assignments in English where we have to do a whole word paper essay and we have to go online and find all these articles ourselves about this one topic. But it's really hard whenever a lot of stuff on online is AI and it's not real and we don't know what's real anymore. So, I feel like a
203book that's like actual information will be a lot more helpful than computers. May I ask you a question? >> Yeah. You mentioned wanting to transfer to Western area for preference. Can I ask why? It's just there's the way that Miss McConnell, she's the uh head teacher up in Commercial, just the way she runs things I don't really agree with because last year I was missing uh hours. I didn't have enough to um finish. But because we she offers makeup hours for the hours that we've missed and in the summer there was 75 hours being able to make it up and I was missing around 70 and she wouldn't let me go through because she said I wouldn't be able to get all my work done in time, so it was no point of making up
204the hours. It just made me really upset and I wanted to transfer over to the tech because um from what the girls that do go to the tech told me that it's a lot better environment and the teachers are nicer, but I was wanting to try it out, but I didn't get to. I still go to Penn Commercial. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for coming and speaking. I know that I spoke. Can I say one more thing very briefly? The fact that Miss McConnell Yes. Unfortunately, the public comment time your public comment time was over. What I would like is for you to reach out to me or email the board with what it was you would like to say cuz I do want to at least hear it, but we do want
205to follow what we have in our policy for our public comment. Thank you. Last in person, Chrissy Florian East Penn Township, ma'am. Thank you. All right, first thing I would do want to say is how about these people coming up here, never speaking at a board meeting, and actually being brave, finding the confidence. I mean, I think that it deserves a round of applause. Good job, though. Thank you for being here. I did want to point that out. Um There's so many other things too, but Oh, I think you're lucky Vicky wasn't here tonight. Think you're lucky you didn't have to hear from Vicky, but unfortunately um she had an emergency kind of, so she needed to deal with that. Um Uh let's see. We don't We do not want to look at your policy.
206We don't want to hear about your policy for AI, and we just don't want We don't want it. Put it in the shredder because we have we have been stern on how we feel about this AI. Um I'm pretty surprised that you spoke a lot on it, Zoni. Kind of surprised by that. I didn't I didn't see that coming that you would be pushing for this. There has to be some type of hidden agenda or something that you all, the school, who knows what is going to receive for im- plementing this. Wouldn't doubt it. Money Money is the root of all evil. And um there has to be something behind it that's pushing you guys to talk about this and push it, so I did want to give you a little story because we're talking
207about the pedophiles in the area. I do want to give you a little bit of a story that happened to one of my good friend's granddaughters 7 years ago. She was on walking up the hill. She was an ma- elementary student. She was found walking up the hill all the way to the cemetery before anyone realized that she was missing. It happens. These kids slip out of your fingers. I am a hawk with my children. My children are my world. That is the reason I didn't put them in this school in 2020 because of the COVID crap and y'all implementing mask mandates. I wasn't having it. I am their mother. I will protect them from everything I possibly can. So, want to let you know about that little story. It happens. It can happen. There
208are sick people in this world. I want to tell you I appreciate you paying attention. I appreciate your eye contact. I appreciate you actually list looking and actually listening. There are people sitting here that pretend they're writing things down. Some are. Some are not. It's embarrassing. You can see them on the camera. You're not writing stuff down. You're pretending. Anyways, um why do we still, let's see, why do you still do what we don't want? I understand there are two options, yes or no. We're going to pass it or we're not going to pass it. But we come up here every month and give us give you all our opinions. And there are several things you just pushed through. Like I said, why is there a hidden agenda? Is there a an objective on the
209other end? I don't even know. Um anyways, I just hope that you all are absorbing what you're hearing. I hope it is not going through one ear and out the other. We don't come here. I don't come here every month. My children are in bed. I'm not hugging and kissing them good night as I do every single night. I am here with you. Pushing to show you we care. Not There's not many of us in this community that come. But as you can see, there are more people now than there have been. Monique, you sat by my side many times. I appreciate you greatly. But like I said, we'll take our kids out. We will take them out. We will do what we have to do. Because this is a show. Every month. You gawking
210and staring at me over here. It's just a little uncomfortable. By the way. Maybe you're not staring at me, but you're staring directly that way and I felt very uncomfortable about it. Um You got parents that didn't want to be involved that are now being involved. I never wanted to be involved. I wanted to be able to stay at home. Y'all deal with what you have to deal with here and I put my trust in you that that you're going to do your job. But once the COVID stuff hit and all that, that was that and I'm here and I'm here to stay and I am not going anywhere. I will be here every month fighting for my children and fighting for what is right. Thank you. Thank you. Madam President, that's all for public
211comment. Thank you, Chief. >> Thank you, Madam President. At this time, we will have items for discussion by the board. Um I just have one. Um It might be I'll wait. Cuz the I'll wait for Dr. Oberg to come back. Sure. Go ahead. It's more a question. So, Is it a question for Dr. Ober? Yeah. Could we Cuz he said go on. >> Could you ask him later? Like I'm I'm being it publicly. Okay. Yeah. That's okay. Thank you. You had mentioned um a survey being put out for the AI. Correct? There was. >> Or did I misunderstand? There Yes, there was. And um what were the results of the Was it just a survey to have people interest or was I'm My mic must not be working right. I mean, it's I'm sorry. Thank
212you. There was a survey sent out to take find the interest of those individuals that would be interested in being a part of the generative AI plan. Okay. >> Mr. Wilson. Okay. Have we pulled staff and students? And what were the results of that? As far as For the AI, we keep hearing that parents and Well, we know parents um students and staff don't want it. Have we pulled staff and students and gotten their I I have not pulled staff and students. Well, and I would say if you're going to be fair, you would poll all parents, too, not just the year. >> Right. But to be clear, I would like to clarify um again, if you read policy, two things. Number one, nothing in this policy says we're going to replace teaching with AI
213tools and resources. That's not ever been a discussion. It's not included in the policy. It's not anything McGuffey's going to do. It's it is I would argue that it's not, but regardless, I'm not arguing. I just will say that it that's not what the policy entails. The second thing to keep in mind is that the policy is written in a way to govern how generative AI is is used as a tool and a resource in the district. To not have a policy creates more problems because then you have no guidelines on how to handle situations that come up where AI has become into the school. So, just to kind of keep those things in mind as we move forward. >> Right. What I'm hearing is they don't want it being used as a tool and
214the policy should state we're not going to use it. That's what I'm hearing. Just to clarify the perspective that I'm listening >> Well, but to be fair and not to discount anything that was said tonight this is the these are the people who are here. If you're going to poll or survey, it should be everybody. Oh, really? I don't disagree. I don't disagree. Me personally, I've I've talked about AI before I was on a board. Um it's not wanted in in Morris Township, at least the people that I've spoken with. So, when I say when I say I don't want it, I I'm not just speaking for myself. I'm personally speaking for those individuals that I've spoken with over the years and we have more people coming out and saying and I'm sure if we
215all had conversations with more people in the community there's potential for an overwhelming amount of people that don't want it. I was just asking about the survey about, you know, who it who it was geared towards, what the results were. Um because this is our first reading can I direct the administration without like a majority of the board or Okay. I would like to write something Okay. That's Okay. I would like to request that our administration poll staff, students, and parents about artificial intelligence. I think it should be made available to them multiple options. Um we have our um One Call system. It's not called One Call anymore, but we have that system. We can send out emails. We can send out texts. We have Facebook. You know, Facebook is kind of, you know, we
216don't necessarily want the negative feedback, but we kind of want the feedback regardless. I do. Um I would like I would like to I would like to see results of that. Um Yeah. If we could make it to where we have them by next board meeting, since that will be the meeting that most likely will take a vote. I'll ask the board if there are specific questions that you want answers to. Well, and If you share that with me so that as we're creating survey, if there's something that you thought you we were going to ask we didn't, so just just for clarification. And I would just again, as a reminder, policy 815.1 is about the use of generative AI, not AI in general. There are many different ways that AI Mhm. is used or
217not used. So, I think you need to be clear the questions should relate that way. >> Right. And with them you may need to give some instruction as well. So, I I I I think I would request that maybe with the survey um maybe a paragraph or two about what is AI. What is generative AI? >> use the definition from the policy, since that's what we're going to be asking. >> Well, exactly. That was the goal of next Wednesday or Thursday was to start that conversation. >> Right. Um but if I'm being directed to send out a survey before that, um, we certainly can attempt to in a survey form share as brief as we can what generative AI is because it really is something that is unique, it's different from AI, and if you're
218not understanding that, that's important. Like, you may not answer the question correctly if you're not understanding what generative AI Exactly. So, again, I will I will I will ask the board, I'll send it to you in your emails uh tomorrow. If you have questions specific to generative AI that you want staff and the community and students to answer, um, have that with you and put them in by next Friday. Okay. And then by next Friday I'll I'll not again I'll put this in my email. >> Yes, appreciate it. Well, yeah, but For me you're not going to never going to get them beforehand. Right. For me, that's okay because I I just think the board could make use of the information provided by next month, whenever works. We're essentially going to be expected to vote
219on it cuz this is our first reading and we typically vote on on the second reading. Um, although there always is an option to go another month, but um my other request would be that our administration look at our dismissals for all three of our buildings, not just middle school, high school. I think we should look at I know we went over it with Joe Walker with the parking and and and, you know, forming the lines and all of that, and I know that there was conversation with Clayesville about placards in the windows and, you know, different things like that. Um my understanding is what was implemented last year is not being implemented this year in Clayesville. Joe Walker's always going to be in that because of where it is and and the amount of
220space we have. But I think we should look at our dismissal processes for our especially our middle school. Our high schoolers are older, although they're minors, they are more responsible typically. Um Right. But, um and they drive, but it it is alarming that the day and age we live in, they're I I believe that there is a need for us to look at what can we do to remedy that, to give our community peace of mind that we are doing everything we can to protect our students. >> Sure, I did. And that is something I want to assure the board is something that we constantly do. You know my stance when it comes to safety. I will err always on the side of of student safety. Um but we are constantly looking at those things.
221In fact, when it comes to middle school, we're looking at a plan that would allow for I'll share this now, that would allow for those families that want to have their pickup. If they want to actually come to the door, that we were looking at a plan. It's going to be a little more cumbersome, but you're allowed you to opt into it. So, if you want to pick up your child, you want to have it verified, you'll wait for the buses to leave, and again, this is still working out, but you'd have to wait for the buses to leave, and then you'd come pick up your child. Our elementary school and our middle school students will then be then be released. If I could just ask that we make it an an opt out rather
222than an opt in. Well, see, I would we would need to know what families. So, that's why it has to be an opt in. I we I'd have to like say Miss Jackson had a child here. I I figure but I don't know that she's going to pick her up one day. I have That's why it has to be an opt in. Well, that's what I mean by the procedures. If you made it a procedure that you had to call in advance for instance and say so and so is picking up the student or something like that. Oh, we have >> That's That's And maybe maybe we need to have a committee meet before the safety meeting is held or whenever that would be. >> Again, that's something that administration I respect what you're saying,
223but that's what we do on a constant. It really is, guys. Yeah. And And to this point, I'm I hate to say I might not say it in the meeting. Just please have a trust that we're constantly We're constantly going to have safety of all of our buildings, pick up, drop off. We are looking at those issues that have been brought to our attention, and it is being addressed. It just takes time to fix something that may be animal control, may may work out, may not. So, but we are looking at it. I can assure you that. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um I don't think I have One more question I have tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh. Same to you, too. Guys, have a good evening. Yeah. Thank you for coming.
224I really appreciate it. And we don't typically ask questions and do back and forth, but it was really important to me that you came, and I really appreciate that. Um Honestly, if you have more to say, I'm I'm always willing to listen. Um honestly, we all are. Our emails are there. Um you're welcome to email all of us. You're welcome to email only certain individuals. It's totally up to you. I wouldn't really do, and that's a lot of time. Yeah. Sure. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. I mean, our policy for public uh comment is very specific, and we don't want to violate that. We do want to give opportunities to speak. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um oh, yes. Okay. Mhm. Thank you. All right. Do you want to keep that? Okay. Thank you. I just
225wanted to make sure before we left. Any other board comments? All right. Do we have a motion to >> a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Thank you. All those in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Our meeting ends at 10:07 p.m.