April 22, 2025, 7:00 PM - Work Session of the Board

001All right. Good evening everyone. I hope everyone had a nice spring break and are ready to be back here in the work session on April 22nd, 2025. I call to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The public is hereby advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting. All members are in attendance with the exception of Mr. Mki. Next, we'll move to recognition of guests and schedule speakers. Dr. Zerby. Thank you, Madam President. Before we do that, I just want to make uh uh two executive session announcements. Uh the board met in executive session virtually on March

00226, 2025 and March 31st, 2025 for matters pertaining to contract negotiations with Methactton Education Support Professional Association. That ends the executive session announcement. And then this e this evening we have a number of uh guest and scheduled speakers none other than our director of curriculum instruction Dr. Walsh in in delivering an update on steels. Dr. Walsh. Thank you Dr. Zerby. Uh thank you uh board of school directors. Uh what better way to present on Earth Day here for our steels practices and our presentation. So I have with me my the curriculum department Tara Strauss supervisor of elementary Mrs. Ricky which is the super Mrs. Terriu supervisor of 5 to8 and Miss Dr. Gorilla Dr. Melissa Gorilla who is our supervisor of 9 to12 we have two teachers who will be joining us as well. So

003steel's teaching practices. So what does steel stand for? It stands for science technology engineering environmental literacy and sustainability. So that's another acronym we have in education. And as we look at our steel standards it actually is broken out into three different categories. the science which is the life science, earth space science, physical science. Also embedded in the steel standards are technology and engineering and of course as honoring our earth day environmental literacy and sustainability. Okay. So I'd now like to pass it over to Mrs. Strauss who is going to talk a little more about what phenomena driven instruction is and what it looks like in our steels work. I won't be able to do how they do it. I need both hands. I need three hands. Um, so as the K to4 supervisor, I'm going

004to share with you a presentation that would be probably about a first grade lesson that would be phenomenon driven. So, I'm not going to share with you too much about phenomena. Um, but we're going to more experience it. Um, but I'm going to need another hand. So, oh, there you go. It's really just to hold the mic. It's nothing exciting. It's nothing exciting, right? So, the reason this is more first grade is because older students would have a little bit more background knowledge to which all of you have. So, just roll with it. Okay. So, the idea would be that we have two liquids, solid, we have some balloons. I chose green just to bring in the color. Um, but we're going to see what happens and we're going to wonder. Um, and we're going

005to ask ourselves some questions. We'll have an opportunity to turn and talk, which is a big part of this phenomena driven um, seals instruction and the way we're changing things. So, we have our liquids here and I'm going to try and not make too much of a mess. So, we're going to pour in a little bit of our liquid. Excellent. Are we wondering anything yet? We're with our first grade eyes. We're observing. We're wondering. We're noticing. What are you noticing? Water balloon. Water balloon. There we go. Right. So, you're pulling in that background knowledge. And then we're going to take our solid. And it's just a little powder, right? An unknown powder to all of you, right? So, we're going to stick that back up there so you can see. to this. Actually, I think

006I'll put my balloon on first, right? You think you know? Yeah. That's all right. You can turn up. Talk to the person next to you. What do you think is going to happen, right? They don't make uh bottles like they used to. I think that's a lot of recycling there. All right. Now, we're ready for our powder in our second one. And this reason this is first grade too is that I'm doing a lot of the work. So if this were an older class group of students, they would be doing this themselves. But for the littles, that's that wouldn't be the case. And for all of you, we'd like to keep your desks nice and clean. Add our [Music] powder. We're going to add our balloon. We're going to stir. Right? And we're wondering I'm

007wondering what's what is happening? What is different? Why is it happening? What do you think's going on? So, all of those good questions are happening. Students are talking and discovering and that gives us a a place to start and to begin some real um conversation about science and real world things. So that is our messy experiment for now. Do you want to turn it off? What do you think happened? Okay, that wasn't too bad, right? No. Okay, just the right one. Okay, like I smell vinegar. I know, right? I tried to be far enough back that you wouldn't have but you have all that background knowledge. So yes. So phenomenon driven instruction it's really a science of practicing developing evidence-based explanations of phenomenon in the natural world. So things that occur naturally things that make

008you wonder why did that happen? What's going on there? You know, even just little things like, you know, your glass has sweat on it for a first grade word. Why is my glass sweating? Those are examples of just natural occurring things that they wonder about. Why is that happening? And it gives us a place to launch and have real conversations. So moving from science as product to science as a practice. Another way to look at it, natural phenomenon are observable events that occur in the universe and that we can use our science knowledge to explain or to predict. So, Mrs. Steele, when you said, "Oh, I think I know what's going to happen." Right? You were naturally curious and wanted to make those predictions. And kids do that all the time, which if you've ever

009been in a first grade classroom, that's the joy of teaching first grade. Um the goal of science is to develop general ideas based on evidence that we can explain and predict the phenomenon and the most important in this way phenomena are the context for the work of the scientist. So we are engaging with students as scientists the same way that we do as mathematicians. So we are moving from the topic organization coherent to people who already know the topics um and we're moving to the phenomenon organization the why for the learning that the students are doing in the classroom are traditional science classroom activities. This is a very busy slide, but down the left side you'll see the traditional way of teaching where classrooms would typically start with a lecture. They would have um conversations

010and discussions, but there would be primarily seat work. They'd read from textbooks, maybe do a lab, write a lab report and end with an assessment, very much teacher talk, teacherdriven. Um students were more passive. So in the new way of teaching where steels is taking the front seat there there you'll notice that it's all mixed together. Teachers are more of a guide. There's a lot of sense making through discussion. They're obtaining data and information uh very handson. They're accessing relevant materials and resources and they're really engaging in that natural discourse having arguments, you know, scientific ones um based on evidence and the assessments are very natural. They're embedded within the daily practice of the science. Students are encouraged to ask a lot of questions not just to the teacher but to each other and to

011engage in rich conversations and a lot of collaboration and learning occurring within those groups. So the three-dimensional student learning is making sense of the natural world um around them. Okay. Thank you. So we talk about the threedimensional framework. It is about our practices, core ideas and crosscutting. We'll go into a little more depth. the science and engineering practices, sometimes known as the SCPs, those are the behaviors that we want students to engage in when they are immersed in a steel lesson. Um, rather than being top down, we're going to give you the information with the students to explore and discover. Okay, the science engineering practice are based upon eight foundations and you can see those there between asking questions um engaging in argument from evidence and then uh rediscovering things using different models as well

012as obtaining and evaluating information. That's just a few. But the SCPs, the engineering practices are basically what students do. The next part is the crosscutting concepts. Again, CCC's these are those themes. These concepts are how students make sense of them. So we think about um the how behind the crosscutting concepts. It's the way in which students think. And then lastly, the disciplinary core ideas, the DCIS if you will. That's the big ideas. That's how we integrate our curriculum across all boundaries, not just for science. And again, that's what students know. So it's how what they do, what they think, and what they know. That's the three dimensions of learning which makes a great impact on our instruction. Again, it's not done in isolation. It's not done by itself. It's done um in connections with other

013crosscurricular areas. So, how does that impact our instruction? So, this switch to phenomenon based in and its implement impleations for instruction, excuse me. This is the slide that's demonstrating the old model of instruction. So the red represents uh the teacher work, the green representing the student work. So teachers would give information to students. Maybe it's notes, maybe it's definitions, um maybe it's doing the experiment in front of the students and then they moved into applying on their own and doing a lab. They go back to taking more notes, doing more research, things like that, listening to the teacher, and in the end that application is some sort of assessment. In the new model, we're looking at starting with that phenomenon. So, presenting an idea and letting students notice and wonder and ask questions, talk to

014one another, trial and error some things, and then we move right from that to students doing work. So, digging deeper, investigating what were those chemicals that we had up here, were they both the same? really kind of getting the practice so that then when we move into that guided instruction where a teacher is possibly giving definitions and things like that or taking that word sweaty and then teaching students that means that's called condensation. It now allows the students to apply that new learning that new information to something that they've seen in action and something that they can then make a connection with to help them retain that information. And as you see as they move through this instruction, it's more about what the kids are doing, what the kids are discussing, what the kids are

015working through, and less about that teacher talk, that that lecture style. And in the end, we're now applying as our assessment, we're applying what we've learned. We're reflecting on that initial phenomenon, understanding now why it happened, and then able to apply it in a new and unique situation. There we go. As Tara mentioned, we look at the increase in student talk in classrooms because you hear that adage that, you know, the person doing the talking is doing the learning. Um, when we look at our standards, our existing science standards versus our steel standards, even the words that are used within the standards lead to that higher level of engagement with students, you see in the legacy standards column, words like explain, describe, identify, recognize. Those are lower level words that we use for description of

016tasks. and our steel standards. We're working on that development and use of models, constructing arguments, conducting an investigation, analyzing data, making and using observations and mathematical representations. The numbers on this slide actually represent the amount of times those terms are mentioned within the steel standards. So you can see that there's a significant shift in the practice of learning about science. So again practices you know when we think about practice where we would have a lab and we would give five steps and say these are the steps that you must do in order there's more trial and error and there's more thinking and collaborating and thinking about the concepts that are going on as instruction is going on. Um this is also something that we asked our our teachers to get involved in this year as

017we did our curriculum review cycle. Part of our work was related to the curriculum and planned course documents. you see those as as documents available that um have been up for review for revision um during the past month. But another larger part of this was also about professional learning for for our teachers. So what I asked today is um two of our high school teachers, Barbie Griffith and Ashley Alvaranganger are here and they're going to actually talk about their story from this year with professional learning um from professional learning to publication. So, we're very proud of the work that they did, but it comes off better when you hear what what they learned and what they did together this year. Thank you so much, Melissa. Hi, everyone. I'm Ashley. Hi, I'm Barbie. Hi. Um, yeah,

018so we were asked to help with writing the new curriculum for some of the science courses. Um, and I noticed during one of the professional developments that we had, uh, the school had brought in, um, the MCIU to kind of give us a demo lesson on, uh, phenomena based instruction. And it was great. I completely bought in. I was like, I want to do this. I teach chemistry. I'm a bio major. So, I was like, how I'm struggling a little bit with how to identify phenomena and make the connection. Like, where do I start? What do I do? So, I did what I norm normally do. I complained to Melissa and I was like, "Help." So, she was the one who pointed out that Brett Molding was holding a professional development session um at the

019MCIU. Brett Molding is one of the team leader write team writing leaders of the NGSS, Next Generation Science Standards that we took as a state and kind of rearranged it a little bit and made it the Pennsylvania standards. So, when I heard that he was coming into town, Melissa rushed a order through and got me a ticket to go and attend it. It was a two-day session. Um, the first day it was amazing. I He gave us this whole demo on how to measure a tree and figure out how to get carbon dioxide, the amount of carbon dioxide it was stored in, and I was learning things and that I'd never learned before. And it was really incredible. And I think the guy's in his 70s. I hope he's not watching. So, and I was

020like, he's able to do this and make it fun and make it active and interesting, and he's a chemistry, he has a chemistry background, so it was 100% applicable to my classroom. Um, he then asked if I would be willing to work with him on a le a lesson, and that's when I was like, well, I'm not exactly the chemistry expert. Let me call my friend Barbie, who is. Um, and so we worked together to generate a lesson that ended up getting published on his personal website. Um, Marvy, you want to talk about that? Um, so, so I am the old lady in the crowd, but I I was saying it was interesting. I was saying to Ashley as we were talking about what we wanted to say. Um, I I was inspired by him

021because he's older than me and that's hard to be because I'm not young. Um, but I was inspired by the fact that he was always like he was very open to new ideas and like you know we don't all have to teach the way he probably was taught and the way I know I was taught. Um, so it was inspiring to me and Ashley was on fire about it. Um, and we had worked together to come up with this lesson with him. We met with him on Zoom. He was willing to meet with us like he flew back to Arizona, drove home from the airport and jumped on the Zoom call with us like and he he was unfaced by it. like it was just that's what I should do. So he worked with us.

022We developed the first lesson um that's listed there, the fireworking, our way to electron configurations. And if you know anything about chemistry, electron configurations have very little application in real world. But we were trying to give them an application and teach kids like listen this is you can you can see this in your everyday life. When you see fireworks and they're green and they're yellow and they're red, that is because of electron configurations. And for them to to bring that home to them was kind of fun. It was and I we did it with both levels of chemistry that we teach. We teach academic chemistry and I teach a lower level chemistry and we did it with both groups and it was it was really effective and it it made me realize that I don't

023have to do things the same way every time. And then we developed so when that happened I said well I want to go to the second session and he asked if I could come and Melissa was nice enough to include me. So, we both went to the second session and I we had such a good time that we ended up producing a second lesson with him using glow sticks and temperature change and and how do glow sticks work cuz I don't know, I'm still a little enthralled by them. I don't know anybody that's handed a glow stick that doesn't smile. So, like it's just a natural smile maker. So, um I I'm very appreciative of the opportunity, you know, to to do things differently. like I'm not a lecture teacher. I don't think either of

024us are. Um and to for kids to be engaged in science is natural, but it's not like they still want it to be the cookbook method and and this is definitely not cookbook method. They are fully engaged in figuring out what they're going to do and how they're going to do it and why they're doing it and what they're learning from it. So, it's cool. I think I think it's an amazing opportunity to teach science in a different way. I don't know who I'm giving this to. So, I think the best thing about professional learning sessions is when somebody's really excited when they come back because we all know that sometimes you go to sessions and you're like, uh, I'm not sure, but this was really great. And I think the things that we did

025as a district to set the stage for the SEALs curriculum review really emphasized the collaboration between our staff members. I know that at the high school level when we worked on our curriculum, we divided and conquered into subject areas and spent a lot of time with chart paper and like mapping out standards and where do things go and where is our essential content and what are we being tested on and how are we doing this and then we had resources come in like our Pasco portal resource. We had a trainer that came in and actually did hands-on activities with us with physics and with and with chemistry. So again that that efforts to to make things collaborative has been present throughout our entire process. Professional learning this year we did um K to8 our pilot

026teachers were trained on the kits that they were piloting. Uh Barbie and Ashley me mentioned that we did an MCIU professional learning uh session in October for grades 5 through 12. It was facilitated by Patrice Seac and Andrew They're leaders in steels at the IU. They came in. and they worked with me to create a session that was completely hands-on for our teachers. So that there was not really a sit and get. It was a up move around collaborate engage talk about and we learned about science and engineering practices crosscutting concepts and we also had um a planetarium experience that was facilitated by Adam Chantry. As a result of that Patrice and Andrew run the um steels expo for Montgomery County that occurs in May. they are working to have Adam as a presenter at

027that um at that session. So again, that sense of collaboration because that's really how you move instruction forward is getting people together to collaborate and learn and grow and reflect on what you currently do and always work to make those small instructional shifts to make it a little bit better. So as we move forward, Tuesday, May 20th is our remaining professional learning day for the district. So we do have training going on for amplify K to6 and lab aids 7 to 8 kit training um training on resources in grades 9 through 12. We have a number of new resources that involve a number of different digital platforms. So we're working on training opportunities for teachers specific to those course levels. We will have summer opportunities. We'll continue our training with steels and our inservice days

028in the coming year. Use our department and grade level meetings and use Google shared drives for the collabor for collaboration efforts. We also do rely heavily on the MCIU and they put out a program of workshops um throughout the year to support with the implementation of seals next year. I'm sure that they'll have a another menu of um of engaging workshops that we can that we can attend as well. So, our learning continues in this area, but I I think we as a department feel strongly that we've laid the groundwork for successful implementation of the steel standards. So, thank you all. Thank you, Dr. Walsh and thank you our teachers for an outstanding presentation. Members of the board uh you have questions for uh many of the presenters to my right. Any questions to my

029left? Yes, Miss Chanda. I don't have any questions but congratulations on producing your lessons. And I have to say from kindergarten all the way to college through grad school, my favorite teachers were the ones that were super enthusiastic and were passionate. And one of them was Mrs. Griffith. Yeah, just to echo, uh, yeah, nice round of applause because they're in perpetuity now, like their lessons now are out on the website. Brett Molding, uh, everyone who's writing curriculum in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is now referring to those two lessons. So, don't sell yourself short. Yay, you congratulations. It really puts me on the map and highlights their work. So, Thank you. Thank you. This was wonderful. Um, and all that information uh brought a huge smile to my face and I needed one today. Um, so

030thank you. Uh, I I have one question. Well, no, two questions. One, um, do we have people going to the Seals Expo? We have a small group. The problem is with that day, it's also the training for all our professional staff. So, so it's 520, it's the 20th. Yeah, that's conflicting with a lot of districts. I know. I saw that. I saw that we had people go to the Wasn't there a steals convention? the NSTA, National Science. I know I saw a lot of that's where we send a lot of people to. Yeah. Um so that's great. Thank you for that. The other um just a just a connection I made. Um because I because these are this this steals from my understanding as an English teacher and a social studies teacher and reading teacher.

031My understanding is the steel shift is a big one, right? And and it sounds exciting and awesome and I kind of want to go back and be in your classes. Um and we also have a big big work in literacy right the literacy these are big shifts right and the one connection has there been any talk on um two connections I've made that I'm just going to vomit a little bit and I'm sorry verbally vomit and but there's two connections that I made for maybe cross connection and supporting each other with these sifts the first is um for the younger grades is there any any talk about getting decodable books connected to the topics for the steel skills that are in the curriculum because there's more and more like I think Read Works is coming

032out with them. There's High Noon and there's a couple like decodable books for your elementary grades that might inject the topics for them to read for like literacy practice on the topics that they're studying in science. So, it's just a thought I had if there's a con if there's just connections about that. And then the other one is those the the verbs that that were put up on there. Um, as an English teacher, I've completed a lot of um professional development recently on teaching students to break down what those verbs means in written prompts. Um, and so that cross conversation might be really powerful. So it's just does that makes like I don't know. I thought that those were connections I made so I thought I'd just ask. Thank you. Uh, I know Mrs. Strauss

033is here, but the our librarians also have all the units of study and they're planning on ordering books as well to supplement their library collections with all our topics that we're going to be studying. So, there's a curriculum connection there as well. I just wanted to connect it to another um subject as well and there's a huge connection with our math that we're we've been using with the I Ready. So all of the collaborative conversations and the academic discourse that's happening, there's a lot of correlation there and our teachers are excited to carry what they've currently been doing in math into the science area as well. They're super excited about the kits and the hands-on. Um our kindergarten teachers are still doing the work to in um take this and make it a play-based model.

034So that's really exciting in our kindergarten and we're still ordering some things. I think your suggestions were great and um we'll take them and run with them. I did want to share that um wholeheartedly the vocabulary is very important. We started some work crossc crosscurricularly vocabulary wise to make sure that we're using the same definitions for same words when we're talking about assessments whether we're talking about an activity because if I say describe and Dr. Sereni says describe and we both use it differently it's going to be very confusing for students. So I I think you know we've been looking at um the work of Marilley Springer and how do how do words matter when we plan our instruction. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Miss Purdue. I do want to say thank you

035and I appreciate the show and tell. Um we've seen a little bit of that at at committee and I appreciate you bringing it here to the board. It's always very exciting. I come from biology major so I always appreciate to see a little bit of show and tell but just the excitement about um this and really um the emphasis on really making sure that we are doing more providing students with more opportunity hands-on opportunity and I also say thank you to Barbie and Ashley for coming to the board just because I think it's great to showcase how even at the higher level at the high school how we're still bringing in making science fun, right? And how we think about teaching, like you said, how do you explore um bringing the phenomenon, but really trying

036to teach students so they always remember it, right? So, I I appreciate it and I'm excited to see um your lessons being developed and I think this is just the start because stills is here and we're embracing it, but this is just a start. So, looking forward to more as we proceed and go through it. So, thank you all. Thank you, Miss Kro. Just want to say, of course, echo everybody. Thank you for definitely coming and showing your enthusiasm, being leaders in the county. I'm excited. Um, I definitely would love for you to give us quarterly updates and education committee so that if there are things that you need, it sounds like you need manipulatives clearly because you're going to have like a lot of hands-on, flexible spacing, different type of things. So just giving

037us an update and then maybe in a year from now letting us know feedback from the teachers. What is it that you need in the classroom because clearly it's not going to be paper and pen. It's going to be that hands-on and so you're there's going to be things that we just didn't have for you. So letting us know what what it is that you need. So even just giving us an update in a year back to the board but keeping in touch with through the education would be key for us. So thank you. Thank you. have a great evening and thank you so much. Oh, Miss Austin, I'm sorry. Um, actually I do have a question. My question is because this way of teaching and exploring science seems quite different from how we have

038been traditionally doing science and probably how I was taught. Um, is is the implementation of this over time? I mean, this just seems like a quite a shift and a lot of training and professional development necessary. So, I was just wondering what is the timing of that that PD recommended? It's it's going to it's we're looking at a multi-year implementation just like with our our new math resource. It took a few years to get that fully in place and it's still growing. So, next year's our implementation year. If you look at the curriculum review cycle, even beyond in stage four, we continue to monitor and evaluate. To Miss Kro's point, if we need to make shifts, we can make adjustments, we'll do that. So, yeah, this is not just a one-year launch. It's the it's

039the standards haven't been looked at since 2002. So, it's pretty significant. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for bringing the demonstration and your lesson and your enthusiasm and and coming to the board with this information. Appreciate it. Yep. Miss Steel, I'm sorry. Um, this is is there I know we're working Sorry, I'm going to backtrack and rework this. Um, as a as a parent, is there or is is there available somewhere online, not the curriculum, but what topics the grade levels will be doing will be covering. So, like, you know, if I wanted to plan a trip and go see something with my kids, I can Does that make sense? Is that available or is that something that might be available? I know this is new. It might already be available in which case I

040totally know about it. Yep. Already there. Yeah, at the beginning of the year back to school night, there is a trifold that's given to all parents for every grade level as the topics that are supported in both social studies and science throughout the year. Thank you very much and thank you for for putting methan on the science uh map once again. [Applause] in the morning. [Laughter] This project isn't going to explode or anything. Is it Did you Did you want to get it before we get started? Just in case. Yeah. Yeah. I did pick green balloons, so it could be really fun. Yeah. And and there was some talk about fireworks. Correct. We weren't going to use those. Oh, okay. I got Next on the agenda, we have the proposed uh 2526 final budget. Miss

041Stephie, members of the board, you have copies of this presentation uh at your seat. And this is the uh the 2526 proposed uh budget moved forward by the uh finance committee of the board. Miss Stephie. Thank you, Dr. Zerby. The budgeting process begins shortly after the start of the school year and concludes with the final budget adoption in May. The first iteration of the budget, the preliminary budget, was presented in January. Prior to presenting the preliminary budget, several staff reductions were made as outlined here. Those reductions included both staffed positions as well as vacant budgeted positions. Updates were made across February and March to reflect changing needs and projections. The February update included salary and benefit reductions as a result of retirements as well as a reduction in the projected Pasers rate. On the revenue

042side, we saw reductions in the pasers and FICA subsidies as a result of the salary reductions and increases to both the basic education subsidy as well as the special education subsidy as a result of the release of the governor's budget. The March update included both the addition of a police chief as well as positions removed due to budget constraints or lack of necessity. Those positions included a technology integrator, communications secretary, and an instructional coach. An unarmed security guard at Arc Colola was removed. The high school activities budget was added. Contract pricing for the athletic trainer was added at a year 1 cost of $138,000. Software reductions totaling $89,600 were made. Curriculum adjustments were made to reflect the updated costs received. schools cubed literacy program was added and anticipated special education reductions of $500,000 were made.

043March reductions totaled $49,99. On the revenue side, Pasers and FICA subsidies were reduced as a result of the salary reductions. A reduction in real estate revenue was made to reflect a property purchased by Lower Providence. Earned income tax was increased based on trends. Revenue increases for March totaled $193,647. The use of fund balance to balance the budget was just about eliminated. The preliminary budget tax increase of 5.1% was reduced to 4.8% with the March update. And now we'll take a look at the April update. Changes to date are highlighted up top. February reductions totaled $829,623. March reductions totaled $499. Moving down to the current adjustments, we have accounted for a budgeted increase of 56,858 in workers compensation costs. The rise is primarily due to higher payroll experiences and an increase in our experience modifier, our

044EMOD. Under SDIC's tiered rating plan, rate adjustments are directly tied to an organization's loss experience. As our EMOD has increased, we have moved into a higher rating tier, resulting in elevated premium rates. The costliest types of occurrences we have seen are slip and falls, strains, and struck by person. These are also the top three occurrences seen across most school districts. Our healthcare third look came in at a minus.8% decrease, which is certainly good news in the short term. However, we have made a deliberate decision to budget for a 4.2% increase. The February update included a 6% increase. The reduction outlined here is moving from 6 to 4.2%. The 4.2% figure represents the average health care cost over the past four years. And included in this year's budget is a proactive step. Building this increase now

045helps us smooth out future cost spikes and maintain long-term budget stability rather than facing a sharp impact in a single budget year. On the dental side, we are seeing an almost 20% increase driven by higher utilization. More staff have been using their dental benefits, which is a positive indicator of access and coverage being used effectively, but it does result in higher premiums. Since the last update, we've added we've added two additional retirements to the projection. As with previous retirements, we're carefully reviewing each position to determine if there is an opportunity to restructure. We're seeing an increase in charter school costs, which is being driven by two key factors. First, there's been an increase in the tuition rate itself, which affects the base cost per student. Second, we've had an increase in the number of special

046education students enrolled in charter schools, and those placements typically come with significantly higher per student cost. Together, these factors are resulting in a noticeable uptick in our charter school expenditure and we've incorporated that into the April updated budget figures. One point of clarification coming out of the finance committee. Although classified under the gifted umbrella, should any students characterized as gifted attend a charter school, they would be build at the regular education rate. North Monco Technical Career Center approved a 3.79% increase to their budget for the upcoming year. However, because our original estimate was more conservative, the final approved increase actually came in lower than we had projected. We've made another significant adjustment to professional services within special education, removing an additional $881,000 in this update. Combined with the $500,000 reduction from last month, our total

047reduction in third party costs are 1.381 million. specifically the removal of one outsourced PCA, 3.5 outsourced BCBAS, and eight outsourced program support specialists. These reductions are part of a larger shift toward bringing services in-house to improve consistency and control long-term costs. To support this transition, we've added several school district employee positions. We're adding 2.5 personal care assistants, PCAs, and four specialized instructional aids to support increasing student needs in district. At the same time, we're reducing our reliance on contracted services. The total cost for the increased position is $465,316. When you factor in the added staffing cost, this results in a net savings of approximately $915,000. We've also increased the budget for the senior tax rebate program for the 2526 budget year. This adjustment is anticipated um is is based on the anticipation a anticipated rise

048in participation as we are actively trying to promote the program and we'll be sending out flyers um in the July 1 real estate tax bailings. While this results in a modest increase to the budget, it reflects our commitment to supporting our seniors and making sure that those that qualify for the relief are getting it. The total net expenditure change for April is a reduction of $395,6 bringing our total expenditures to 138,169,020. On to the revenue side. Again, the changes to date are highlighted up top. February reductions equaled $44,673. March reductions equal $17,368. Moving into the April updates, we've seen a decrease in subsidy revenue of $17,826 tied to recent retirements. At the same time, we've made upward adjustments of $41,278 due to the addition of the special education positions. There has been a reduction to

049the non-public transportation subsidy. This is due to a decline in the number of students being transported to non-public and charter schools. As a result, with fewer students being transported, our eligibility reimbursement amount from the state has decreased. The decrease is to the non-public subsidy which is tied only to the number of non-public and charter school students transported at a reimbursement rate of $385. It is not related to costs associated with the transportation. The decrease could be due to enrollment or a shift to more parents or students driving rather than using district provided transportation. I'm working on gathering this data so we can have a better understanding of what is driving the train here. Now, not outlined specifically on the slide, but captured in the revenue figure is an increase in assessments from February to March

050of approximately 1.5 million, which has a revenue impact of slightly over $50,000. As a result of revenue changes, our final revenue figure at a 4.8% tax increase is 138,465,273. After incorporating all of the April adjustments, we now have a remaining budget variance of $296,253. As a result, the tax increased needed to close the gap over the act one index, which accounts for the additional $287,682 in spending above the allowable index, has increased from 4.8% to 4.3125%. Now, this slide here is going to detail all the special ed adjustments that I spoke to earlier on the expenditure slide, but I ripped this up. Slide 10 summarizes the data on the previous slides and is shown to highlight the changes through the budget process. Beginning with a 5.1% increase in January and moving to a 4.3125% increase

051as of the April update. Outstanding items in for the 2526 budget process. Adjustments may occur once the May assessment report is released. Variations in charter enrollment could affect expenditures. Special education changes. We may need some additional updates based on evolving student needs and service requirements. So the last slide here uh just details the timeline. So proposed final budget um will be voted on at the April 29th meeting. May 14th, we will present updates at the finance committee and we will present any final changes at the May 21st um work session and the final budget will be voted on on the May 27th regular voting meeting. That concludes my presentation. Thank you, Miss Stephie. Are there any questions from members of the board to my right? Mr. Wyers. Yeah, thank you, Miss Stephy. I just want

052to uh highlight a couple things or clarify a couple for the the board for clarity. Um so just to make sure we understand when we talk about the healthc care expenditure update from April we originally had 6% in it came in at a much more favorable number than a 6% increase it came in at8 decrease that's correct and then that we are consciously making a decision not to put the point8 decrease in but to put 4.2% 2% because that is the average over the last four or five years or whatever the time period you said. Correct. That's correct. Okay. Um the the additional retirements I not sure if you said it or not so I apologize if you did but when you said we evaluate those retirements if it's an opportunity to do something different.

053Um, but I believe these two are the net effect of correct making the decision that we do need to fill those positions, but they're uh more senior individuals at a higher level pay versus what we anticipate replacing them for. Correct. A master's 30 um replaced with a um masters plus 30 replaced with a masters with five years experience. Okay. So mast's 30 at the top of the scale. about 116 I believe replaced with $75,000 for a master's application. Okay. Thank you. So that those uh positions um came in in the March time frame more or less early April, right? Okay. Um that maybe actually a question for uh Dr. Sergini. Um, as we're making these special education adjustments that are on page six, uh, if you drop that up a little quick, where we talk

054about the reduction of the outsource services for special education, uh, where we're taking 12 and a half, I believe, outside people and bringing them in to six and a half. Obviously, in theory, that's going to Are we comfortable that we're going to be able to fill those positions in the same quality or a better quality or is there any concern with the decision to do this from a in-housing perspective related to how to hire? Thank you, Mr. Wyers. We are comfortable with that. We have competitive uh contracts and uh we have a plan for advertising positions and making a a push for filling them. So we are confident that we will be able to do that in house. Okay. Thank you. And uh the other thing that that you did mention before, just to clarify,

055in the March update, we were at $22,000 use of fund balance, but after the April update, there is no use of the fund balance. Is that correct? Correct. Thank you. Any other questions to my right? Seeing none to my left, any questions? Miss Austin. Hi. Thank you. So, um my question is actually around the property tax rebate um that we're we're adding into the budget an amount. Um and we're doing that because we had very and we're and we're putting that in the tax um bills to notify eligible people um that they can get this extra amount from methact. Um, I thought that I remembered at one of the maybe previous finance committee meetings you were saying that you would be able to maybe obtain a list of seniors in our school district who have

056applied for it and then we can do further outreach to them. Has that come to fruition? Um, so what was discussed was the state actually reached out to all of the school districts and asked them for information in regards to the rebates that they offer. And what the state wants to do at the state level is provide that information to us for the rebates that they receive. So then we can process those rebates to those seniors without receiving any additional information from them. Okay. So we're kind we're kind of pushing out it pushing it out ahead of the program and then when as as seniors apply for the program we're also cross-checking and we're just able to they don't have to fill out a form online eventually. That will that is the hope of the

057state and us as well but that's not being implemented right now. Okay. But that is a hope for the future. Okay. So but the but you are going to get this information from the state. Yeah. Or no. So the only information that the state releases to me at this point is the number of seniors that receive the rebate and the rebate amount that they receive. So, that's what I used um to base my budget figure on was if everyone that applied for the state rebate also applied for the Mthactton rebate at the same level, that is um was $30,000 total. Okay. So, so talking about getting the information on on on who applied and how much they were eligible for, that's in process. The state is working on that, but that's not something that we

058currently receive been realized. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Uh, Miss Chonda, do we have any insight into why special needs children are going or being moved to charter schools? So, there's a couple things. We had I can I can speak to two things. So, we had um a family of four move in from Norristown School District. Um so those four students previously um charged to and paid for by Norristown are now considered they're now Mthactton students. So we are now paying the cost for those. Um additionally there were three students that left makactan as regular education students and then when they enrolled at the charter schools um they were evaluated and received an IEP and so now they are building being build at the special education rate if that makes sense. You probably don't

059have an answer to this, but is there a reason why we didn't recognize that they were they needed IEPs? Any other questions to my left? Miss uh Miss Purdue, just if I could just add one clarification to um so special um education students are build at a rate of about $45,000 whereas for each regular education student, we pay a charter school $15,000. So the rate increase is significant and it's only dependent on the fact that they have an IEP. So whatever is in the IEP doesn't matter. Whatever service they services they are receiving doesn't matter. It's just the fact that they have an IEP and they uh have the ability to bill us that $45,000. Now, I just had a quick question and I don't know if we have this number um but I think

060Mr. Winters asked the question. We said um with the number of I guess the special education adjustments with the number of resources that we're reducing that were originally outsourced we're confident that we'll be able to um fill those positions and I'm just wondering in general do we have the number of um total number of positions that are outsourced from these from based on the reduction do we have the number of the total number. No. Okay. Yeah. just because I know the um these positions and I think the outsourcing is something that's been identified as um maybe I a concern right when it comes to just because when we outsource the different vendors we charge we charge different amounts and I'm just wondering if we have the if we can be provided those numbers. Thank you.

061Um, Miss uh Canro, just a couple of things. One, with the charter, I know charter schools, we've had that increase in the past couple years. I just wanted to just make sure that we are following up with interviews for those charter families to see what we could do to pull them back in. We did do that years past. I don't know if that was someone that we're doing that currently, having that. Um, so I know that would be a great thing that we could do. The other thing was confirming addresses. That was definitely a key that we had to do prior years. Confirming addresses was like you said someone from Norristown moved here. That was definitely we had some issues on that end. Um I do think trying to get them and interviewing them understanding

062trying to getting them back will be a key thing that we need to do because again it's increased quite a bit and I'd just like to know the number of students if we can where it is currently not today but another time because I think we were at like 90. So just understanding how many charter students are out there you it's just about a hundred a little over a hundred. Yeah it's detailed in one of the finance reports. Great. And so like yeah when you say special ed I agree it could be a learning support it could be just minimal supports that are needed. What can we do to try to get them back to Mactton because it was a big rise again this year. So I did speak with Jennifer Johnson um she's our

063counselor about this and so they do when families are withdrawing from a fact and they do make every effort to keep them in the building. Um in some instances students are um withdrawing for let's say and one reason that she gave was they have a very they have a sports schedule with a very competitive gymnast who needs to be out of school every day at 1:00. So an online learning environment would be ideal for her. So in an effort to keep that student in methacton, they take one class at Brandy Wine Virtual Academy, which allows them the flexibility to leave at the time they need to leave, but um also like limits the need for them to go to a charter school. So they do when when families are leaving it, she does reach out

064to them and see like what can we do to keep them in mythactton and whether it be um we have I think a little over 30 students at Brandy Wine Academy. 17 are full-time and 14 have um this sort of hybrid schedule. And the thing too about that is that we have that option too with Mthactton. So letting them know right is it that we could do that same exact thing. So I do think it would be definitely something we could do going forward into the new year. Definitely making it a goal for us to know that we offer that virtual opportunity. We could provide special ed supports through virtual as well. So in terms of the special education students um in speaking with Jennifer it was it we do like in all instances try

065to keep the students in the buildings when we can. There are instances when we don't feel that we can meet a student's IEP and so in those cases like through a virtual learning environment we don't feel like we can implement the IEP with fidelity. So in those instances the students are no I totally agree and you know just legislative wise we are still pushing forward trying to justify the cost that they are receiving because a lot of is virtual a lot of it might be in person but that virtual component to get that much amount of money is just not appropriate in my mind. So we are pushing hard in legislation. So know that we're behind you and understanding that. Um so the other thing about transportation I love talking about transportation too. um writing

066like when parents don't accept the transportation to private schools, have we done that yet and reached out to them and does that affect at all any of our money coming back? So they opt they have to opt into transportation for non-public and charter schools. So that process hasn't hasn't been completed yet. Okay. Um so that could have an effect on maybe a minimal minimal amount. But I do think if it there is some justification if that there is some reimbursement personal that they could do for those a little bit further out people right there's 10 mile difference whatever we could do to try to bring that that cost back or looking at the vehicles whether it be a van versus a large bus and all those kind of things would be great and then the

067only other thing I think too to take note of is all the one the number of retirees that we've had you know it's definitely lower than we've had in the past right but the new hires when we come in and we're bringing them at that level the good thing is that based on our contract we are also providing healthc care level right isn't that with our contract they're coming in with a a level Paul winters doesn't are we utilizing like new hires coming in at a certain level for us for healthcare reimbur we we we budget them at family at family okay so I mean that's that's a big cost if we're budgeting it at family too so I'm curious just as new hires come in what we're budgeting on that end so yeah I

068think you're referencing saying uh the choices that they have. Yeah. The choice choice they still they still I think have the same choices as somebody that's been here before. Okay. So there's not they're I believe Yeah. Yeah. The support staff is the one that go to open choice three or teamers go to open choice three but the teachers still can will be able to choose to open. All right. All right. Thank you. I I thought all of them had it. Okay. All right. Thank you. and any kind of education on healthcare choices, especially for the younger people. They don't have to have that cost out, right? So, um, thank you. I appreciate it. Yes, Mr. D. I'm sorry. I just thought about this and, um, in reference to the families when we're reaching out, when

069they're leaving to charter, and I think it's the same thing as when we're getting families coming in, when I I think you mentioned a family of four when they're coming in. I think we also can do an outreach in reference to letting them know what opportunities we have here and fact and instead of just letting them stick with the status quo that they may be used to. So I think that's something that we can also make sure that we're doing. I don't know if we're partnering with Dr. Grain or who we partner with just to make sure those families are aware because they may have a option just based on what they're used to. But I I I mean I think it's the same way, right? When you have families leaving to do charter versus

070um families that are moving in, I think it's worth us checking in with them. So, oh, Miss Sorry. Um I just have a quick qu just and I'm not sure if if this if you would know the answer to this but just um when it comes to the availability of Brandy Wine Virtual Academy and the charter you me you mentioned um that if someone has like gymnastics that they might take one virtual class is there a limit for the hybrid and do you is there a process to get the full or is that just was that just one example? That that's just one example. I'm not sure of I could give other examples of like why students would use the hybrid process, but I'm not sure if there's a limit to the number of courses

071that Okay, awesome. Yeah, that'd be great. Maybe um maybe maybe we could talk in ed committee about like BVA and uh um maybe making it more visible because it's a great program. They have they have great leaders. It's it's a great program. And it's probably been about 5 years uh since we last presented an update uh to the board on BVA. So that actually be a really good thing given the discussion this evening and the increased cost in uh cyber charter. Yep. Excellent. So that the idea uh then would be to uh bring forward for your consideration uh next week uh for the for the passing of the proposed final budget which all means is procedurally uh that we have set up uh the clock to be able to I believe it is is it

072it's 20 days or 30 days that that the the the budget would need to be advertised in that period of time. However, there's likely, as we discussed in uh finance committee here in April, there are likely to be some additional ads and potentially some reductions as well as we get through this. We'll also see an updated assessment uh from from the county. So, there there might be some uh modifications, but we don't see anything significantly changing one way or another. Um but uh certainly uh we believe that there while we while we might want to add one additional instructional assistant. Uh we also believe after some work uh the the last couple well not in a couple days but before the the break and then here uh uh today that we might be able to

073reduce some other uh outsourced positions in special education. So, with that, we should be able to, you know, potentially bring the the budget down closer uh to about 4% or may maybe even under 4%. Okay. Yeah, Mr. Purdue. Um just because so the chief of police um position will be um reviewed today and um that's already included in the budget. So is that a special item that the board will be voting on um whether to proceed with that and how will that impact any changes if the um how would that impact this current? So so this evening uh Dr. Sergen is going to present uh the rationale behind the administration's recommendation uh for the chief of police position. Um on the agenda for your approval uh next week is the job description and um if

074if approved at at that point in time and certainly through discussion among the the members of the board if it's felt that the position is uh you know uh something that should be uh approved then it will remain in the budget as it's currently presented. If it's something that is decided that should not be approved and is unlikely to be approved at any time between now and the end of this uh budget process, uh we would then remove that from the uh from the current budget and the final budget. But it's best if we would do that before uh next month. That makes sense. Any any other questions? Seeing none, Miss Stephie, thank you very much. Next on the agenda, we have Dr. Sojini on the police chief position. Good evening and thank you for

075the opportunity to discuss the establishment of a chief of police position for the Mthactton School District. This role will serve to enhance the safety and security of our students, staff, and facilities. This evening, the presentation will explore the rationale, responsibilities, operational enhancements, cost assessment, and next steps associated with the chief of police position. To further strengthen the safety and security of our schools, it is recommended that Methactton School District establish a a chief of police position. This individual would serve as the district's act 44 safety and security officer. And the chief would provide professional law enforcement oversight, streamline communication with local uh and state agencies, and supervise all of our thirdparty staff. Additionally, the role would be instrumental in enhancing staff and student training. It would also ensure a unified, well-coordinated approach to school safety.

076The need for a chief of police position stems from the growing demand for dedicated law enforcement oversight from within Methactton School District and across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A trained law enforcement professional as the chief of police will ensure that safety policies are proactively implemented and security measures remain compliant with Act 44. Additionally, a chief will streamline coordination with external agencies, strengthen our emergency preparedness, and oversee our security personnel. This position is a proactive step in enhancing the district's overall safety framework. Similar positions have been created across the Commonwealth, including nearby in the Perkyan Valley and Springford area school districts. The chief of police will take on several critical responsibilities. First, the individual will provide law enforcement expertise to ensure compliance with safety regulations and proactive security measures. Act 44 requirements from the Commonwealth change

077and evolve on a constant basis, as do best practices in safety and security. A dedicated chief of police, who already has law enforcement training and expertise, will be best suited to meet the changing needs of safety and security. The chief will also supervise thirdparty security personnel, ensuring that all of our officers adhere to Methactton School District safety protocols. Third, the chief will oversee evening events and after school activities, ensuring that we have a secure environment for our students, staff, and for our visitors. And then finally, as the primary liaison with the lower Providence Police Department, Pennsylvania State Police, and the Montgomery County Department of Public Safety, the chief will enhance emergency response coordination and joint training opportunities. The creation of this role will bring several operational benefits, the first being improved communication. The chief will

078have direct access to law enforcement radio channels, allowing for a swift emergency response. The radio can only be issued to and used by law enforcement and this will allow for active monitoring of police communications across the county that could have a direct impact on the daily operation of our Mthactton schools. That means that rather than relying on 911 dispatch or other law enforcement groups to keep Mthactton apprised of daily operations that might affect us, a dedicated chief will be able to provide real time monitoring and also communicate with our law enforcement partners. The chief will be will also be able to be a visible presence both during the school day and at evening events without being assigned to one particular school building. The chief will be able to be a presence in all buildings and

079respond quickly to needs as they occur across the district. Continuous training is another benefit of the position. The chief will receive ongoing training him or herself, including firearms reertification and first aid CPR training, which a chief could then provide as appropriate to our Methactton staff during inservice days. And then finally, a chief of police would enhance daily operations by providing an individual that is dedicated to leading security issues that arise during the school day, including threat assessments in the schools, crisis management, event coordination, and addressing the needs that are established through through the risk and vulnerability assessments, often by researching and recommending for implementation new best practices in security. There are certainly cost considerations that are necessary in assessing the creation of this position. While the chief's total compensation package is estimated at $187,000, the

080elimination, as Miss Steffy said, of one security officer position will result in a savings of approximately $50,000, bringing that neck cost down. Also, if the successful candidate does not take health care benefits, that would further reduce the cost. And that possibility is great given the fact that it is highly likely that the individual in the chief of police position would be a retired law enforcement officer. There will also be additional savings associated with evening events as it will be an expectation that the chief of police attend all evening events which would then limit or eliminate some elements of our evening security costs. Additional strategies would then be pursued to reduce the the cost further. The establishment of a chief of police position will significantly strengthen our safety framework in Methactton School District. This role will

081provide dedicated law enforcement leadership, improve emergency response coordination, and enhance our overall campus safety. Next steps in this process would include moving forward with with the chief of police in the proposed 202526 budget. and then if approved by the board we would begin the process of planning for implementation including posting the position and ensuring a smooth transition. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Serjini. Are there any comments or questions for members of the board? Uh Mi Miss Clearary. Thank you Dr. Sergini. Um just two questions. You mentioned the benefits. You said that the the the person who fills this role would like would likely be a retired officer and therefore would not take our benefits. Sorry. Is that just because the whatever um police force they're retiring from, they get to keep their their benefits? That's

082correct. They normally are able to keep their benefits from if they retire from a municipality or from the Pennsylvania State Police, they're able to do that for themselves and their families as well. Okay. And then the other question is the salary. So, I know it's a it's a new position for us. So, how is it that the district determined the salary of 187,000? Good question. Conversations with our neighboring school districts who have a similarly situated position and then established it based on what the competitive rate was in the the area. So, where does this salary sort of stack up with the two neighboring districts? Are we at the high end, the low end, in the middle? We're we're right at where they are with where people kind of the same. Yes. Okay. And they have

083um somebody in a with similar qualifications of what you're looking for here? They do. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Wyers. Yep. Thank you, Dr. Sojini. Just two quick questions. one uh can you just speak towards you I I my understanding is that the individual would be centered in Skyola but they wouldn't really be a psychoa resource because they'll be bouncing from school to school but we're also taking a unarmed resource away from our cola we would be but at the same time that person would be situated there so for a significant portion of the day their office their general communication area would be there in that building so that would actually provide during the time that they're there a second armed officer on the Sky View Arcola campus. Okay. And then you mentioned

084evening hours. So what is the expectation of working hours for the chief of police other than to support during evening events? How do we how do we lock that down in a true requirement? they would work a a standard workday the way that other exempt employees do with the expectation that when there are evening events especially our larger scale evening events that they attend. So there are times where some of the hours may be flexible with that but also the same way that exempted administrative employees have expectation of evening evening commitments so too with the uh chief of police. Okay. I guess my my only concern with that is it sounds like it could be a little ambiguous that certainly a Friday night football game I would think the expectation would be there a basketball

085game but a Tuesday field hockey night game is that a expectation for the chief of police? Not necessarily to attend. However, coordinating that event in conjunction with the director of athletics and ensuring that we are properly staffed with our security for that event would be their responsibility. Miss Graph. Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation. Um, you mentioned that the chief of police would enhance our communication. Um, can you just tell me a little bit more about that? So, without divulging too much, on a regular basis, we are able to communicate within the district by way of walkie-talkies and and other forms of communication. We also have capabilities of communicating with local law enforcement. We have individual cell phone numbers and ways to reach them. However, what we do not have the opportunity to

086do is communicate directly with law enforcement operations. So, in the event that we need to contact 911, we do so the traditional way. Uh if 911 needs to do to contact us, they do so by way of cell phones. a law enforcement officer, an actual dedicated law enforcement officer who is a sworn individual is able to carry a police radio. And those are the police radios that normal law enforcement like our state police or in this area uh lower Providence police carry. And they are able to hear the the bandwidth of law enforcement. So they're listening to real-time communication throughout the day. Uh, for example, if there is a, for lack of a better example, a bank robbery somewhere in Skipback and the individual is in the, you know, has left the area and they

087are on their way down 73, a a chief of police in this district would have a an actual radio and be listening to that as it's happening in real time and would not have to rely on 911 or any other local municipality contacting us to tell us what's going on. they would hear that in real time and be able to coordinate within the district in a way that we're not able to today. And I'm guessing that that would also potentially provide us with information related to like road closures or if there were storm events where we had, you know, telephone poles leaning over a road, we could reroute our buses. Excellent example. Yes. and the time that they're aware before we move. Anything that is happening in real time, a chief of police with direct

088access to that bandwidth would would be able to hear that and coordinate across this entire district. So, we're not necessarily just talking about the safety of our children in the building. We're talking about the transportation of the our kids would have a little bit more information before they even get on the bus or as they're on the bus. That's correct. to know what's going on in the community around them in real time. Yes, in real time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other question for Dr. Sjini to my left? Miss Alustin. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Um I do have a couple of questions. Um one was about the evening assignments like how how is that decided and how does that work? So that was answered. Um my question about grant writing um it says

089grant experience in grant writing grant applications preferred. So are we currently applying for grants? Like is is is anyone doing that right now? Yes, on a regular basis. Uh we were able to over the last two years secure multiple PCCD uh Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grants that were able to pay for enhancements to our security cameras and also uh the Evolve system which we will be bringing in next year which is a touchless screening system as well as stop the bleed and first aid kits. So we are constantly writing those grants. So that's great. And and is the hope then we're going to be writing more. we're going to be applying for more than through this position. Okay. And then um the the salary figure that you quoted the was it 187? That

090that's an all-in cost. The actual salary is 110,000. Okay. Thank you. That was my question. Um and then I guess I guess the impetus for having this position in front of us is there are there currently gaps in our current security structure that we're seeing? I'm just I'm wondering I'm wondering why in the world that we live in, security is becoming a an omnipresent need and it's uh something that other districts throughout the Commonwealth are seeing the need to dedicate an individual solely to focusing on that. Uh right now I wouldn't say that they're gaps, but you know, it's certainly something that stretches personnel thin uh in the sense that there there's so much that is always evolving. The requirements of Act 44 are constantly changing and we're heading towards a process in the Commonwealth

091where there will eventually be a requirement that there be someone in every district. There is right now, but someone solely dedicated to security in districts. It it's coming sometime in the near future. And as we've talked about, and I I know I've talked about it multiple times in the past, the state has flirted with the idea of an armed officer in every building. They didn't get there yet, but it uh having attended the uh several recent conferences and talking with representatives from PCCD, uh that legislation is still out there and likely coming in the near future. And then I guess my last question would be about the presence of this officer in the buildings because it's I think it's great to have someone at that level and doing the safety trainings and briefings and and

092all of that but I guess are we also looking for an individual who will be relating with the with the students in a real way and you know one of the things that I was seeing here was assist in programs of drug awareness, drug prevention. I know we I know there's issues and, you know, it would be my hope that someone in this position would, you know, have real talks and have real education um about these concerns and and so is that also kind of part of what we're hoping for? Absolutely. A community-based uh focus is is definitely what we advocate for here. We don't see our our police and our security officers as policing our students in as much as we see them as providing safety and security for our students. Uh the the

093enemy can come from within or without. Our goal is for those individuals in those positions and especially a chief in this position to make those relationships with our students, with our staff, to be proactive in in the relationships that they develop with them to identify problems before they uh they become very serious. And then to also look at our schools and see how we can continue to keep them safe from the the enemy outside and you know make our schools a welcoming place but also make them safe for the the students and staff that come together every every day. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions? Miss Steel. Hi. Thanks Bis. Um, so one of the questions that I have is, um, trying to figure out how to say this. Is there evidence or research that

094indicates the impact having a chief of police in district leads to leads to to safety rather than feels safe? because I have some stories in my brain that don't and does that make sense? Like and I know that what makes the news is not all of them. So is there research that or evidence that shows that it does actively make a difference? I don't have a particular study to quote from you, but anecdotally I can tell you having attended monthly the safety meetings at the IU, attending conferences at the state level, listening to what other districts are doing, hearing their ability to provide a district level focus, when you have that one individual who is solely focused on the safety and security of the district, it does make a tremendous impact. Okay. And thank you.

095Oh, sorry. Um and then my other question is um when you talked about the continuous training which was a question that I had um be before coming into this I was like okay where's the professional development coming from cuz that's like I mean there's a lot of ongoing training that we all do and then I'm like well I don't I I do a lot of that and I don't hold things that hurt people. So um who how would that be decided? How would that be funded? Um, how would that work? Training is required by law. So things like firearms annual training is required. That would be funded through the district. However, the ability to turn around train that the chief of police would be an individual who is already on, you know, is a Mthactton

096employee who would then not firearms but other elements of safety and security be able to turn around and do that training for us. things like threat assessment training, things like uh you know, we're already partnering with some of our local law enforcement on Alice training in our schools right now. So, that would be somebody and that that's maybe something I should stress. Also, the the big biggest difference here is this individual would be a trained individual, somebody who has spent their entire career going through various levels of training and having real world experience as a law enforcement officer. Uh I am currently the the ACT 44 safety and security officer and although I have availed myself of the the best opportunities for training, this obviously has not been my entire career. The difference with a

097dedicated chief is that you will have somebody who has solely focused on law enforcement their entire career. and done properly and advertised properly, finding an individual who has already had per, you know, perhaps experiences working with age groups of the students that we serve in in the K to2 world uh would be highly beneficial. Um yeah, Miss Purdue, um can I ask for us to receive the SRO um position description that we're eliminating? I know it's not under us, but it's through but we have a description or a summary of that position or what that role entail. Certainly. It's a school uh security officer, an SSO. So, it is an unarmed officer. So, it's SSO. That's correct. So, do we have do you have the job summary or description available to provide? I I don't

098have one particularly as a as a school district employee because they are a third party, but I will obtain one for you. Okay. Can I Yeah. Can we be provided with that just to ensure that um this position because we're eliminating that role? I think in an ideal situation we are creating this role but also having it cuz I look on here um in reference to just where it say essentials of the job and I think it's um a lot and then I'm also thinking like you mentioned um with the enhancement of communication with local law enforcement. So, they'll be carrying a radio and I'm assuming I don't know how radios work now, but it'll be on where he's actively listening to if there's anything going on. So, I'm just wondering when we create this

099position. Um, but then there they have the radio to be able to provide us with any emergencies or any updates. How would that um when they're sitting in a building, how do that work? And that's where I'm kind of um stuck on. Just want to understand that a little bit more. They would be carrying two separate radios. Most officers currently carry multiple communication devices. Now um municipal and and um state police officers. So one of those radios would be dedicated to the channel that is law enforcement and the other one would be get dedicated to the um our channel throughout the district that is our emergency channel. So there is a a singular channel in the district that is an emergency channel. Again, without giving away too much of our safety protocols, but uh the

100the daily chatter within a school building does not exist on that safety channel. Uh that is dedicated solely to being able to speak throughout the district to major emergencies. So as they're in a building, they could switch over uh as someone like I do right now. when I go from building to building, I can switch over to the local channel and listen to what's going on in the building if need be. But by and large, we remain on the safety channel so that way we're able to communicate with the entire district. Okay. And also within the position summary essays on here um and I think maybe that's what you responded to miss um miss but I just want to confirm where say um I guess with working the with the different departments um on training

101of staff and also students what type of training and maybe that's where you started to speak on but I just want to confirm my understanding of what training of students they would be able to work directly with with our students on our safety protocols. So again, without divulging too much information, uh we have certain safety protocols that we follow throughout our schools for how students should react in emergency situations, we've begun to expand on those protocols this year. Uh and again without giving away too much information, the primary idea behind it being to help empower our students and our staff to be able to make decisions in an emergency and to have all of the training necessary to make those decisions. So the individual would be able to work directly with the building principles and

102then individually with students on how to do that. Um one of the particular goals with that is not only at our upper level grades but also in the very um sensitive way that you do at the K to4 level as well. Okay. And then in reference to the summary also um it say will be responsible for direct supervision of school security personnel and um I'm just wondering with considering that this is a third party vendor. Have we investigated or looked into how that works? And maybe I don't know if spring for or perk if that's the same relationship that they have just because sometimes when you have a third party the I guess the responsibility or how you interact with those is is different. So I'm just wondering how that relationship will look or work.

103It would be similar to how it is now but right now they report directly to me. So instead of reporting directly to me, it would be another layer and that individual would be a trained officer in the the chief of police role. So as it stands now though, those individuals are reporting directly to me. Okay. So now they will just report directly to their chief to the chief if once this position is in place. Okay. And then the only thing I think is just because I think it's it's not clear in reference to the evening expectations. I think that should be a little bit clearer just because it'll be good to have an understanding of if there's parameters that we can set around that, right? Cuz I look at this position, I'm thinking our school

104day starts very early. I know many of you are here 6:00 a.m. at times and sometimes earlier depending on what's going on. and evening events go too late. But I think it'll be good. I don't know if there's a way to classify exactly what events um will fall under this role. Our events change all the time. So rather than itemize them, what will happen is the chief of police will report to me. And in in my work with the building principles, with the director of athletics and activities, I have a pretty good handle on the the events that we have. There are certain ones that happen on an annual basis. So, we always know that there's going to be homecoming activities and the prom and things like that, but at the same time, we also

105have major events that may come and go throughout the the different years. Uh we also have a handle on some of our our sporting events, the the ones that we may have rivalries with other local districts. we may become aware of an issue of a a potential issue with a particular game or a particular uh event that is is coming up. So, it's really designed to be something that's fluid and allows for that communication that would be absolutely ongoing on a daily basis. So they they wouldn't be working 24/7 necessarily although we do there's a certain expectation to all of our positions that they are 247 but uh when there are major events coming up there are certain that there certainly uh certainly things that I would be working with them to ensure that there's

106coverage on. Okay. And you're saying currently now it's just Springford and Perk. And then we're able to see information on how this role is established in those two two school districts. Right now I I just cited those as examples of of districts that are contiguous to us. About half of the districts in Montgomery County either have a chief of police or a director of safety. Okay. Thank you. Uh Miss Graph. Yeah. I I had a couple things and I forgot one. I know I forgot one, but I was just thinking there's been a lot of talk about the nighttime requirements to attend, you know, after hours events. I don't see that specifically called out on here. And I might in the qualification section list, you know, the ability to participate or provide services during non-school

107hours, something so that so that the applicant would know that there is an expectation. And we might want to come up with an idea of is that four hours a week or is that you know 15 hours a week just and and maybe it's just an average but at least it would give somebody a clear expectation. Respectfully I really don't want to codify it because it's always going to change and it could change on a day-to-day basis. The the expectation is that it's an exempt employee. So by by acknowledging that they're taking on an exempt position that identifies that there are not set hours. I understand that. But if I'm applying for a job and I'm planning to be here from 7 to 4 and then you want me to work every night of the

108week for four more hours, I'm not going to be at that job very long before I quit. And then you're going to have to hire someone else. So I think regardless of whether we think it's consistent or not, we still have to have an expectation that we set with the person who's applying for the job. Certainly. So at some level we need to be able to give them an indication of what that expectation is. Is it on average three events a week? Is it six events a week? Yeah. I think I think uh to to to both of of the points here, we'll review the recommendation because I understand what you're saying. Um and and but the exploitation can't be quantified in particular uh time frame but we can say the applicant uh may be

109required to work e evening evening hours is required because I option I heard it is require let me just leave it at that. Um and I think that Miss Chanda has a comment that she wants to weigh in now. Did you want to No, she can weigh in before I finish. Go ahead. I don't know why I'm jumping out of my seat for this. Having I worked in security. Regardless if it's cyber, I've worked in law enforcement. No matter what your schedule is on the paper, you are on call 24/7. Like I said, whether that's cyber or whatever, I'm back in the cyber world now. I have my phone on high all the time. Um, that's just the nature of security. Bad guys come whenever they want to come. and and that's just what the

110job is. So, whoever is applying for this job is I would hope, especially being a retired officer, if that's what we're looking for, is going to step up to that role with that expectation. And my only other comment is about the radio. Um, I hate that districts are even having this conversation in this country, but having that direct contact with the local LEA um, in active shooter situation, you're literally racing against time. So, having that direct communication is like so great to have because that will actually save lives. Thank you. Excellent point, Miss Graph. You other items? So, Miss Chanda just actually highlighted the other item that I had written down was the availability of the person 247. We would be expecting that if there was an incident at one of the buildings, they would

111report just like a police officer would from a surrounding district, right? Yes, absolutely. Okay. And would they also be providing collecting data and information on security events and documenting that for us? They would be. Okay. And they would be part of the act 44 presentation at the end of every school year. Okay. Thank you, Miss Gra. Any other final comments? Oh, we do. Um, Miss Purdue, will we officially once um when and if this position is approved, we will will we post for this position and allow what will this be? I'm guessing we don't have any um retired police officers here within the district, but it'll be posted externally. Yes. Okay, thank you. And to just to clarify that if after next week uh this job description, assuming there's there's some modifications based on your

112feedback here this evening, uh is approved, um we would then begin that that posting process. Your next official action on this would be when we bring a name of an individual for your consideration. Okay. Um Miss Steel, thanks. I just have a follow-up question um to the training. One just to clarify and the other one uh for budgeting purposes. Um so ongoing ongoing professional development is expected to remain certified. Yes. Right. So is it a specific training that everyone has to do or do they have options for providers? There are specific requirements that they must do uh within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. However, there would be other options beyond that or are you I'm sorry. Are you talking for the chief or for everybody in the district? The the chief like our our person. There

113are certain things that they absolutely have to do, but then there are other areas that they can specialize in as well. So then so and and I guess what I'm trying to ask is like can they choose different people to go to get those required trainings or is it like the state of Pennsylvania provides this training, you must go to it. Does that make sense? It it does. There are different providers, but there are certain ones that the Commonwealth provides as well. And then um so what I'm trying to get is is you know the trying to get at have we budgeted for the ongoing training of the officer. And then if the person's making us safe, I don't exactly want to budget the lowest cost because I don't know if that means it's the

114quality. Does that make sense? That's what I'm trying to get at. Yes. that would be included in the district's professional development budget overall and that that would be something that we assess on an ongoing basis. Part of the goal would be to partner with the two law enforcement agencies that serve Mthactton School District. So that would be Pennsylvania State Police and Lower Providence Police, both of whom have already said that they would be interested in partnering with us. That's great. Thank you so much. Any other questions? Is that left? Do I Dr. Serini? Before you you I just want to thank you for your thorough and highly professional approach to safety in the district. Thank you. Um your your leadership bringing this position to the district um shows extreme foresight. Um and uh I think

115you know as as as serious as an individual as you are with relating to safety um I I I recognize that um no assistant superintendent can continue to do these types of things on a regular basis as well as as you've done them. So this position as as a whole uh as Dr. Sereni previously mentioned that there's there's evidence um within the state legislature that eventually we're going to be required to have this position. This is the starting point for this this to get our our feet in in in in uh in place and uh really u you know make the improvements that you're advocating for. So thank you. I appreciate your time. You might as well stay at the podium. Yes sir. Okay. Um, we have the Ottabbon Elementary School update. Thank you, Dr.

116Zerby, and good evening again. In September of 2024, the board authorized the administration to pursue a private sale of the former Ottabbon Elementary School property with final approval of the sale agreement to be determined at a later date. After engaging with local developers and hosting walkthroughs, the district received three offers in December 2024 and entered into negotiations with the highest bidder. Terms have now been finalized with that highest bidder and an agreement has been provided to members of the board of school directors. There are multiple next steps in the process that need to take place. The first of which will be the board taking action to proceed with the sale of the property. There are then several formal steps that are required by law to move forward with the process. These are designed to ensure

117transparency, public notice, and proper legal oversight of the transaction. So, the next steps in the process will include the following components. First, after the board votes to move forward, the district will formally notify both the Montgomery County Planning Commission and the lower Providence Township Planning Commission of its intention to sell the Ottabon property. This ensures consistency with local land use planning and also gives the commissions an opportunity to provide feedback. Next, our legal council will prepare and file a petition with the court of common please as required by Pennsylvania law for the sale of public school property. This petition will seek the court's approval for the transaction. Once a hearing date is established by the court, the district will publicly advertise the date and time of that hearing in accordance with those legal requirements, thus

118ensuring that the community is informed and h and has an opportunity to attend or submit comment in that process. Representatives from the district will then attend the scheduled court hearing to present the details of the sale and also respond to any questions from the court. If the court grants approval for this sale, this will then initiate the purchaser's 120day inspection period, during which time the buyer will conduct their due diligence prior to closing. We will continue as an administration to provide updates as the process moves forward, and we appreciate the board's continued oversight as we work through these formal steps. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sereni. Be uh before we talk about the uh motion that we would recommend uh for your consideration next week, are there any questions uh to what Dr. Sergini shared

119uh today? Miss Clearary, not a question. I I just want to say Dr. Sergini, thank you very much. I know how hard that you worked on this process and on the contract and I for one am very appreciative of your attention to detail and just how hard you Thank you, M. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? So, with that, um we will place on the agenda, if there are no objections here this evening, um we will place on the agenda for the recommendation for you to approve the agreement of sale. uh as you've been presented. Seeing no objections, uh thank you Dr. Sergeni and that will be added to the agenda uh for a vote next week. With that, it ends uh all of our guests and scheduled speakers for this

120evening. We have the spirit of mact and the high school prioritization and the budget uh projection long-term uh borrowing update for uh next week. Uh with that we also have uh uh the reports from the committees and then we have advisements as as they're listed. Um we'll go right now we'll go into uh financial items. Miss Stephie. Thank you Dr. Zerby. There are 12 fiscal items on the agenda for review. Item 9 A list of bills. Item 9B treasurer's report. 9 C budgetary transfers. 9D substitute teacher service agreement approve the contract with substitute teacher services STS of Aston PA for the provision of substitute teaching and support staff for the period of July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2027. 9E General Healthcare Resources Agreement. Approve the contract with General Healthcare Resources LLC GHR Education of

121Blue Bell, PA for the provision of substitute nursing and related services for the period July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. 9F staffing services agreement. retroactively approve the staffing services agreement with explorations to provide interim mthan high school assistant principal services at $550 per day for up to approximately 65 work days during the 2425 school year to begin on April 9th 2025 9G North Monco Technical Career Center budget for 2526 approve the general fund budget in the amount of 12,17,571 with Missactton's share being 1,595,682. This is an 88,082 increase from the 2425 school year. 9H general supply bids for 2526. Award bids to the attached lifted vendors for district general supplies in the amount of $181,9747 for the 2526 school year. award bids to the attached lifted vendors through MCIU consortium for district general supplies

122in the amounts of 73,96143 for the 2526 school year. Item 9 I approve the 12 depositories listed for the 2526 school year. Item 9 J, MCIU district cost plan. Approve the MCIU district cost plan in the amount of 1,585,538 for the 2526 school year. Item 9K, proposed final budget 2025 2026. Approve the 2025 2026 proposed final budget in the amount of 138,169,020 requiring a millillage of 35.6354 and an increase in property taxes of 4.3125%. Further, the superintendent is directed to A give public notice of the intent to adopt a final budget at a public meeting of the school board of directors on May 27th, 2025. B make the budget available for p public inspection as required under section 687 of the school code and special section session act one. C. Submit PTE 2028 certification of

123use to the Department of Education certifying that the proposed final budget has been prepared, presented, and will be made available for public inspection as required under section 687A1. Item 9L, Sobeck Roof Consulting. Approve Mark J. Sobeck Roof Consulting Incorporated of Lazernne, PA to complete the design phase for the 2026 Warchester roof replacement project at a cost of $27,860. Thank you, Miss Stephie. Other questions from members of the board uh on financial items? Mr. Wyers? No. Um the Stephie corrected, but I just want to make sure that we get it corrected for next week is on item 9K. The public meeting is May 27th. That's what she verbally said, but the agenda says May 29th. That's all I had. Uh, this question is probably better directed to Dr. Sini, but to whoever. Um, uh, 9J, the

124Sobec roofing, uh, contract. Did we send that back as we talked about in property and removed the inspection pieces and just sticking with the design? Yes, we did. Okay. And is that the version? Um, I'll I'll check. Okay. Thank you. Any other question, Miss Graph? Okay. So, let's go to 9D first. the substitute teacher agreement. I don't know if you have a copy of the agreement with you, but in the agreement for terms of payment, so Miss Stephie, maybe you can answer this question for me. Terms of payment on this agreement is payment shall be wired to SDS within five business days following invoice delivery. Do we do that? You can't say that it's always five days, but yes, we do wire payment directly to them shortly after receiving the invoice. So, here's where it

125gets interesting. If payment is not received by the seventh business day after invoice delivery, a 5% late fee will be assessed on all outstanding invoices and services will be interrupted. So, I would suggest that we go back to them and say we need 10 business days. And I mean, five business days, I just think if you're on vacation, do we wire the money in five days? And maybe not. I mean, at some point, I would like you to be able to take vacation and not have to worry about wiring money. Miss Graph, if I may, and pardon me. We have a 30-year uh relationship with STS and we have a very good relationship with them with the ownership of the company as well. It has never been a problem before, and this is the language

126in the contract is the same as it has been. So, there are no changes in the language. I can understand that, but um I don't like the language in the contract. And the fact of the matter is they could charge us the 5% fee tomorrow if they wanted to if we agree to the language. So, I I I would just like to ask that we ask for them to consider that we pay on time and give us 10 days instead of five. It's a reasonable ask. Mhm. The other thing is in condition 15, it specifically says that should the aforementioned taxes, unemployment compensation, workers compensation, or other insurance costs increase and STS accordingly increases the amount due under this agreement. The district has the option of terminating this agreement by providing 30 days written notice

127to SDS within 14 days after the increase. I think that we should be allowed to cancel the agreement with 30 days written notice at any time. This is basically saying if there's a tax an employer tax increase, we would have to notice that there was an employer tax increase and then we have to give them written notice within 14 days after that increase took effect that we're going to cancel their contract. So, I would just strike the last portion of that statement that says within 14 days after the increase. Um, those are the the two primary things that I found. Do we typically have our um legal counsel review these before we sign them, even if they're the same as they were the year before? Yes, these were all sent to legal counsel. Okay. All

128right. So, that's all I have for that one. And then I have a couple comments also on the GHR one, which is uh 9E. So, my first question is in the first part of the contract, it identifies that the client agrees to pay the the following fees. Are those rates including a rate increase this year? Yes, they are. Okay. And then if you go back into the contract agreement language, it says, let me just see on the second page, it says under item number three for client duties, it says client agrees to provide GHR with written notice of any employee related incident within 24 hours. Do we typically do that? Yes, we do. Okay. And then it also says that all amounts payable by client are due within 45 days from the invoice date as

129stated on the the applicable GHR invoice and for services which were rendered blah blah blah. Do we typically pay within 45 days? Yes, we do. And then it goes on to say, "Client agrees to notify GHR within 24 hours of any invoice discrepancies and are not to short pay any invoice or we're subject to a 10% outstanding balance penalty." So, do we typically look at our invoices and provide any comment within 24 hours? Because if not, I think we should strike that language. Yeah. Um, I just I think we need to like and maybe they've never charged us the fee. I just would never agree to this if we can avoid it. Um, and I don't see anything in this contract that talks about cancellation. So, can we cancel at any time? Yes, we can.

130We're not obligated to utilize their services in any way. Great. Um, I shouldn't say that. There is language in the back about cancellation. It says client agrees to provide them two hours prior notification blah blah blah. There's cancellation of the day of right but there's nothing that says if we decided to go with another provider cancellation. We already do. We utilize multiple providers. This is just one. Okay. And then do we ever hire any of the staff that we get from them? And there are provisions associated with the the placement of individuals. They have to work in the district for a certain number of hours in order for us to do so without penalty. So, do we typically just let them work for the thousand hours and then the penalty is waved? Okay. I just

131wanted to make sure because that is a pretty hefty little penalty. Okay, that's it for me. Thank you. Any other questions on matters of finance? Miss Purdue, I just have one for nine. I believe it's H. Um, in reference to the um interim high school assistant principal. Um, so we're contracting that out for the rest of the school year. And um do we expect to be in a position to have the position reinstated for the 2025 2026 school year? I I can't say as of right now as it involves an employee leave and the moves that were associated with that, but we will continue to monitor and adjust and I'll provide an update to the board in the coming months. So maybe before So when you say in the coming months like um before the

132end of the school year hopefully. I I'll do so as soon as I'm able to do so. Okay. Thanks, Miss Alustin. Yep. Thank you. Um just on 9J the MCIU cost plan um if the difference in the amount over last year could be reflected in the agenda. Thank you. Any other comments or questions on matters of finance? Thank you, Miss Stephy. and then we'll move on to matters of personnel. Dr. Serjuni. Thank you, Dr. Zerby. For the consideration of the board this month, there are the following personnel items. Two resignations, professional, both resignations for retirement, which I believe have been mentioned in the presentation at the conclusion of the 2425 school year. One is Stephanie Bardelli, school counselor at Arcola after 38 years of dedicated service to Mthactton. and the other is William Moser, health

133and physical education instructor at Eagleville. After 39 years of dedicated service to Mthactton, the Mthactton community is grateful to Stephanie and Bill for their depth of caring for our students and for the dynamic instruction and thoughtful guidance they've provided to our students across almost four decades. The entire Methactton family wishes them well in their retirement. There's one resignation classified Michelle Davis, secretary to the director of pupil services. The Mthactton community thanks Michelle for her seven years of dedicated service to Mthactton and we wish her well. There is one job description as previously mentioned the chief of police. One uncompensated leave professional Kelsey Rawa speech language pathologist at Arrowhead for the dates indicated one uncompensated leave classified Logan Gites par profofessional at Woodland for the dates listed. Two sobatical leaves both for next school year. Stephanie

134Marino, English instructor at the high school for the first semester, and Colleen Reading, special education instructor at Sky View for the full year. Supplemental contracts for club sponsorships, IEP writing coaches, chaperones, and for our extended school year or ESY program, and the addition of Jessica Lacrosse to the classified substitute list as a custodial casual. We welcome Jessica the Mthactton. Thank you. Are there any questions to my left for matters of personnel? Miss Steel. Um, yeah. Um, thanks. I actually just have the uncompensated leave for the speech and language pathologist. Were we able to find a substitute for that? We are working through that and uh working with multiple third party providers to try to find coverage for that that leave positively or that is one of the most difficult positions to fill. Why I ask?

135Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um and I I think that's I do just want to I have heard about the supplemental contracts for the outdoor education program at Sky View and um I'm just really glad it's there. That's all. Any other questions uh on personnel to my left to my right? Miss Clary, just a comment. I was wondering if on 10B we need to change that to retroactively approve since it was effective April 16th and maybe that's just semantics but I on resignations we normally don't put retroactively which is why we hadn't however we can certainly change no no if if that's I okay any other questions on personnel seeing none we'll move on to curriculum uh Dr. Walsh. Thank you, Dr. Zerby. Uh, for your review and consideration under 11A, approve the new

136curriculum for the 2526 school year. These documents were made available for public review at the Fina building from March 19th through April 15, 2025, and no comments or public review were made for these two courses during the review period, which was data security and cyber security. So, we'll be seeking approval next week. Um, under 11B, the revised curriculum for the 2526 school year. These documents again were made available for public review from March 19th through April 15th. Um again, no public comments were provided or requested for review under science, world language, and technology education. Under resource adoption, again, we're seeking uh adoption for these resources from for the 2526 school year. These resources were made available again from March 19th through April 15th. No public comments or review or materials were requested for review. Um,

137and you can see all the items that were listed and reviewed at last month's work session. And that's it. Very important. Thank you, Dr. Walsh. Are there any questions uh for on curriculum matters? To my right, to my left. Seeing none. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, was there is there no French book? Am I missing it? it uh French I thought in education there was a book but I'm not seeing it on the list recently so what we will be doing but so there's no textbook but there is licensing but it's not on the list so we don't consider that a resource adoption because it's the same resource. Okay. Yeah, that was part of last year, previous budget, but it's not for approval. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Dr. Walsh. Thank you.

138Uh policy, Dr. Regina. Yep. Thank you, Dr. Zerby. Uh for policy for first read, uh we only have four items for this evening. One from the triple0ero series and then three from the 800 series. Again, for next week, you will be only voting on the second read items, uh which are below. That ends my report. Thank you. Other questions on matters of policy to my right. Miss Clearary, I'm sorry. I'm trying to be sensitive of the time. I did want to make a comment about policy 629, which is um 8:29. 628th. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Regina. I just wanted to um I trying to bring that to the board's attention that I'd like to see that policy get to both uh property and to finance in whichever order is deemed appropriate um so we

139can get that one resolved. That is uh capital reserves. Yes, capital projects. It's it's late. Okay. It it involves both but yes. So yeah, but yeah, we Yeah. Well, where where the challenge with that is uh we need to do some internal work so that we have a proposal uh for uh the finance. Wonderful. Let's do that internal work when we can. We'll we'll we'll do our very best to get that that moving. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um are there any other questions on matters of policy to my left? Seeing none, then we'll move on to other. We have a trip to Methu to approve the Mthaken High School trip to attend a team's competition June 27th through July 1st to be held at Gaylord Opera Land Resort and Conference Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Transportation.

140There are listed of of the following uh uh drivers uh for the 2425 school year. Uh a gifted audit survey. uh the authorized administration to to distribute surveys to parents of students in the district gifted programs for completion by students as per the MCIU gifted audit process. Surveys are attached and will be used to inform improvements in the gifted program. Are there any questions on matters under other to my left? Miss Alustin, is that going to all gifted students just or certain grades? All all all gifted students all all parents of gifted students to have them the parents really the parents are going to administer it with their kid or their child. Okay. It's going to land in the hands of the parents. Correct. Yeah. That's just Thank you. Any questions on other to my

141right? Seeing none then we'll move it back to Madame President for dates for board members calendars. All right. We see the dates for board member calendars below. Anything for old or new business from the board? Yes, Miss Purdue. I just wanted to remind the board that the MCIU legislative breakfast is this Friday, April 25th, at the MCIU Norris Town building starting at 8:00 Yeah.