March 25, 2025, 7:00 PM - Regular Meeting of the Board

001e e hey guys can you hear me okay okay thanks yeah I'll stay M muted and unless I need to say something e get e e e good evening I did like to call um the March 25th 2025 mathon School Board of direct this meeting to order tonight we have two students here from our Cola we have Emily Mera who will lead us with the pledge and modeno Kindle to share what he loves about our Cola I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I love arola it's one of the best places I've been the teachers here are all so friendly they always help me when I need it without hesitation

002I used to think that learning couldn't be fun at all but my teachers really make learning enjoyable as we move from Seventh to e8th grade our teachers give us more Independence and responsibility preparing us for high school our Cola has great Sports programs with amazing coaching being a part of the football wrestling and track teams make it feel like my teammates and coaches are another family what I love most about arola is the strong friendships I've built with people that I didn't even know a couple of years ago while getting up for school can be tough getting to see my friends and favorite teachers makes up for all the Lost sleep thank you for your time [Applause] the public is hereby advice of audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting

003um by way of attendance all board members are present with the exception of Miss canker who is excused and Mr mki who is participating virtually next on the agenda we have um guests and scheduled speakers for Dr zby thank you madam vice president I ask that you join me out front with our two Junior board representatives and we issue them their certificates e it gives me uh great pleasure to introduce our Cola principal Mr John eworth uh Mr eworth is going to lead us in the uh recognition of some pretty incredible individuals and tonight we're so proud for him to share us share with us the spirit of methan awards Mr eworth good evening and thank you uh board members for the opportunity to recognize uh some of the great staff and students that we

004have at arola as you know the spirit of methacton award is an opportunity to recognize our students staff and volunteers Spirit of methacton award recipient are individuals who consistently model the qualities of the nine core values of the methacton school district these individuals enrich our school Community with their knowledge commitment and support uh first we would like to recognize Mrs Stephanie beerelli uh from our professional [Applause] staff Stephanie beerelli serves the AR col student body as a school counselor her work to support students begins first thing each day and lasts well past the typical end of the day whether it be helping students get organized in the morning or providing supervision and support for students who stay after school to get caught up on some work Steph is always checking in on our students and

005is willing to help them succeed Steph does a great job communicating with families and is very resourceful in providing recommendations so our students can reach their potential Steph always extends a listening ear for students who need to share a concern and works diligently to support our seventh grade students as they transition to our Cola Steph treats every student the way we would want our own children to be treated with care genuine concern and kindness we appreciate Stephan her daily efforts to make Arcola a place where each student feels welcome and cared for congratulations Steph next we'll recognize one of our support staff members Miss Vanessa palinsky [Applause] Vanessa palinsky is a valued member of the Arcola family serving as arcola's attendance secretary Vanessa works hard to ensure that student attendance information is accurately submitted and

006recorded each day attention to detail and collaboration are two of her standout strengths Vanessa's smiling face and pleasant personality are always on display to greet greet students and staff members in need of assistance at the attendance window in addition Mrs Pinsky is occasionally stationed at the main office front desk where she enthusiastically greets visitors directs phone calls and otherwise assists the office staff in a variety of ways Vanessa's many positive contributions to the arola community are recognized and appreciated [Applause] next uh we'll be recognizing one of our volunteers uh Miss Larina Johnson who's unable to be here in person tonight but I believe is watching the recording um so we're excited to share about her larcen Johnson serves as the president of the arola hman school and epitomizes what it means to reflect the spirit

007of methacton larcen spends countless hours planning activities for students and supporting teachers and programs she is so full of energy and brings her all to everything in which she is involved she truly wants what is best for the students at arola and her leadership demonstrates that that time and time again Larina brings out the best in each member of the team she leads as a methacton graduate she understands the importance of giving back and honoring the traditions of this great District we are so blessed to have her support her contributions to our Cola are greatly [Applause] appreciated and lastly we're pleased to recognize one of our students eighth grader Ethan Carver [Applause] Ethan Carver is an eighth grade student at arola and a young man who has a bright future ahead of him two of

008Ethan's greatest attributes are what we wish for all of our students simply to be respectful and kind Ethan not only demonstrates these qualities to the staff at arola but also to his peers Ethan participates in extracurricular activities and can often be seen after school working to improve himself as a student athlete once he's all healthy Ethan always displays a positive attitude which is contagious for all these reasons Ethan is truly a leader at our Cola at our Cola and the impression and difference he makes uh really stands out keep up the great work Ethan congratulations [Applause] for uh members of the audience that were here specifically for the spirit of methacton awards and and would like to exit now would be the best time to to do that um you're certainly welcome to stay before

009we get on with our our next presentations y than next on the agenda for guests and scheduled speakers we have uh members from cha and the Shader group uh to give us an update uh on the recommendation uh as listed on the agenda here this evening and that is the recommendation uh on item 138 which is listed as Professional Services high school project it states approv cha and shaded group to provide feasibility and planning services to address High School building and campus challenges issues as outlined in the provided summary scope at a cost not to exceed $161,700 the presentation uh is printed out uh for the members of the board and will be posted online and is uh posted on the screen here this evening uh Devin thank you Dr Zerby uh board members um

010so I have Arif fil here with us uh from cha um we're just gonna give you a quick overview of the next steps uh obviously we are we were hired to investigate the new High School uh project and now we are resetting and going towards a uh renovation project at this point so um I just want to call to everybody's attention there were there was a a facilities assessment completed uh back in 2023 uh by Bureau Veritas uh some of the information that was included in that report is shown on the screen and in the report in front of you um these are the items that were recommended to be completed from 2023 uh through 2028 so uh things like uh HVAC improvements envelope upgrades the roof replacement uh addressing some of the storm water

011issues that were uh causing infiltration into the building uh rehabbing the pool all of these items were identified as needs for the high school uh back in 2023 and were part of kind of like a baseline scope towards uh a future project um so if we go to the the next slide please unless I have that there we go um this will kind of reset us and push us towards what we're calling uh Renovations and addition feasibility study um and what does that mean that means we're going to do the following uh items first we're going to go through the building and take measurements verify all the existing conditions basically reset and assess the existing High School what you have there what can be done to it uh it's going to take a lot of

012time modeling the existing building so uh you'll see I think there's a slide or there's a some dates missing on the right hand side of this um that would be through there you go um that would be the first month of this process so we'll be in there hopefully during spring break while no students are there measuring things and building that model um then we're going to go back with the the district's Administration and confirm all of the educational spaces and that means taking a inventory of what's in in the existing school and determining that the spaces are the right size or the wrong size maybe some spaces are too large or too small uh maybe there's program spaces that are missing from the high school that's not currently allowing you to perform uh some

013of the the educational programming that you have uh planned um once we are able to finalize the program then we'll be able to to move into Concepts so both of those things would be happening simultaneously uh throughout the month of April or the first month that we get started um then we will establish What's called the base System Scope and that's really to get the building to be warm dry and safe so all of the upgrades that were probably identified in that Bureau Veritas report those would likely be included in uh part of the base System Scope it would be hbac upgrades electrical upgrades just to get the building to a point where you're going to have uh a functioning High School for the next 20 to 25 years um the next phase would be

014what we're calling phasing and implementation parameters so the team will go back talk to the to the administration and really figure out how many classrooms we can move in order to get the project to be renovated uh throughout the phase schedule so maybe the district is willing to give up six classrooms and build some modular classrooms somewhere uh that will kind of determine some of the phasing and determine the length of the schedule uh that uh renovation project would occur um after all of those both of those would be in May uh after all of those are completed we would be able to get into concept designs and using all of the existing information from the existing school a lot of the educational program that we've decided on we'll be able to develop Concepts the

015first concept is really going to get the base System Scope so you'll see exactly what the minimum amount is uh to get the building up to up to speed and then can we add on pieces so can we add on a new pool instead of a renovation can we add on a couple of classrooms to replace some of the classrooms that are not PD appropriate sized so things like that we can kind of develop Concepts off of those different parameters that we're creating uh based on what was decided in the programming efforts uh each of those Concepts would then be assigned a cost estimate so you can have at at the end of this uh process here you'll have options that show the floor plans the uh potential site plans and then a cost associated

016with any of those uh options that are um at that point we're into June and July um and we're looking for feedback and prior prioritization to really determine which direction we want to go um so we'll be able to have some discussions throughout the months of July and August based on costs we'll probably go back and forth a little bit on do we want certain things in the building or are certain things really not necessary at this point based on our current budgets then we'll be able to give final Direction during a presentation probably in September um and just a note at the bottom there uh the school district will be working with pfm their financial um uh advisor to uh work on projections throughout this entire process to make sure that those cost estimates

017would be able to be uh I guess accounted for in the budget I think we have one more slide and then we'll get to questions um so we've provided proposals for uh both Shader groups and Cha's scope that includes all of the items that we just discussed here and these are our fees there may be additional costs required based on certain surveying of items maybe we need to get some pipes uh camed to figure out if we're going to be able to renovate certain areas or we need to get the building a little bit better scanned uh throughout the process so there may be additional costs that would be requested uh of the district or the board throughout the process but this is our our not to exceed budget that takes you through that September

018process and AR reef is is going to give a quick uh Baseline of what those deliverables might look like for this process thank you Devon so first of all um the good news is we've been involved in a lot of renovation projects and um there can be some really good positives that come out of that so that's that's number one uh recently we just got bids three months ago for a project uh Pleasant Valley High School uh had some very similar challenges uh so similar things to address and we were able to bring that project well under budget and they've got a lot of programmatic and great improvements that they're making so from a renovation standpoint our team together individually has a lot of experience with renovation project so that's the good news the second

019piece of good news is uh we we set the stage for some additional supporting funding from our cap and renovation projects are also eligible for that as well so we will not lose that opportunity either the other thing I can tell you is um the renovation projects one of the best advantages you have with the renovation project is to really capitalize and find good ways to reuse existing infrastructure that is going to be the challenge of this entire study so when Devin was talking about going back in and evaluating what is there and what we need to do to reset the building and make it functional for the next 20 years and integrate your priorities that is challenge number one and it is a challenge which if you do it right you can capitalize on

020it I'll give you one quick example you look at the electric service for the building it's probably more than likely that the main electrical service the switch gear the emergency generators would need to be replaced to serve for the next 20 years but the question is do the panels from the service to the individual distribution panels in the building does the wiring from there to those panels need to be replaced or not the next question is do the electrical wires from the panels to the individual rooms that they serve and the outlets Etc do they need to be replaced if we can capitalize on not having to do that after evaluation that is certainly why you do a renovation the benefit of doing a renovation are to reuse structure and infrastructure that you have but

021make sure you fix what's necessary to give you more life out of the building that's really the purpose of a renovation so if we do that well that's a really hard exercise and it does require some decision making it also requires perhaps some compromises because new is new but if you try to make renovation new then you may as well build new so that's one of the challenges we're going to have to have decision making on when it comes to the infrastructure to get the warm safe and dry those are the type of things we're going to be working on I think it can be done uh a simple example is this room that you're sitting in this room probably needs very minimal work and we need to make sure that's how the documents end

022up because then we're going to save money and be able to execute the renovation project and then the the second part of the deliverable will be so that's how we would establish That Base scope of work okay the next part is what Devon's really good at is creatively looking at how do we capitalize again on opportunities with the existing building and where do we need to focus that investment to maybe repurpose or reconfigure spaces or build new and that's where we're going to have to work with the administration and you to identify those certainly put budgets to them and then very importantly narrow it down to what you can afford so the challenge is there I think the opportunities are there we've done it before and that's really the exercise we're going to be working

023through here with you to deliver if that helps summarize it okay thank you Devon thank you AR questions from members of the board to my right Miss CL uh yeah um I want to back up to something Devon said and it was it I don't know if you can answer it Devon or not and it's a question that I've been thinking about since the work session so you said we I think the words used were resetting to renovation so I just I just want to focus on that for a moment the this resetting so I guess my question is simply if we don't know what our current Financial projections are of within the realm of what could afford if we don't know what that number looks like how can we say that we are ready

024or that we can just pivot now to renovation without considering what that number is against what you could do with that number for a new building does that does my question make sense it it does and I think the the next step is to really figure out what needs to be done because something needs to be done here right absolutely there is a minimum that we will assign a budget to and then what are the pieces that we can add above and beyond that minimum so what are the options that we can and without knowing the budget we're going to start creating these options there'll be budgets attached to those options not knowing that they'll be able to be afforded but you'll at least have the the estimates to provide information on those yeah you're

025you're you're still in you're in renovation and I think I'm back at at new for a moment I just want to stick it new for the moment I'm not I'm not poo pooing spending this money to because I do think we need to investigate renovation but I just want to focus on new for a second we had a a budget or sorry we had a projected cost of 213 million which we as a district uh realize that we can't afford 213 million based on just what we can do here um so if I'm making up numbers I mean I have no information anybody if if our number from pfm is 150 million I'm just going to use that number how do we we're jumping to resetting to renovation when I don't know what you could

026do with 150 million for a new school I think I'm trying to get at is it is it 213 million or nothing and that's why we're we're pivoting because because I don't know what the number is and that's why I keep harping and I I I want to understand the financial projections yeah so a lot of the uh the projections for the the new construction are based on Square footages so unless you're willing to really pull program out of the the high school program you're probably not going to build anything for 150 that's going to be you know a a much smaller building so what are we willing to take out of that that's kind of a a question for the administration and for for all of you um you know we could do that

027EX when we do get our number maybe that's a conversation that we have at that point sure okay all right I I don't know when the number's coming but that's why that's why I'm hyperfocused on on the number right um all right I'll move on um the other question I have is the 162,000 the 162,000 rounding up for this feasibility study yes um is okay let me back up so months ago so we approved uh several million dollar for design fees to get us through various phases of the design um is this 100 and I understand that whatever's not spent of that money now goes away correct so and then so this spend is a new spend yes so we went through schematic design so there was a number I don't know what the number

028was but there was a number associated with schematic design yep we also showed up a number for design development that goes away because we paused so this would be a different number those numbers that were past schematic design are all gone at this point okay I just wanted to make sure the board understood that this is wasn't already in what we already approved and it's it's it's it's sort of separate because that was a question I had from the slides um and then my final question is you talked about a grant could you you used acronyms I had noidea could you that's okay could you just talk about it a little bit more yeah I used acronyms because that's what we do in public education I'm just joking so arap is the Redevelopment assistance Capital

029program and Dr Zerby and I coordinated uh an effort with the state reps and state senators to reinforce our need to pursue some of that and uh all I was saying is the renovation pivot does not um clud us exactly okay thank you that's all I was saying thanks Mr wyers yeah thank you uh for few quick uh clarifying questions um you did say the timing of the bidding I I guess my question would be if we we make a final Direction presentation in September where we have you know in theory what we're going to do from a renovation Edition perspective does that still give us enough time for June of 2026 to start work what what is what is sort of the backend date of uh decision point from the board yeah so I

030gave you the big advantages of renovation um in terms of capturing opportunities with the existing infrastructure one of the items there listed was phasing and implementation so part of this study is going to look at what the timing of the project is with that timeline there so I think would be premature for me to answer that right now I think um we just would wait a little but you are absolutely correct timing is everything the timing of when we bid the project um I don't know if you uh caught what Devon was saying so one of the things that's going to be key with this project is not only capitalizing on these opportunities of reusing infrastructure and components of the building but the other thing that I like to point out is we want to

031spend as little as possible on temporary and as much as possible on permanent uh the example I always give is when you drive up and down the turnpike it says it's a $200 million project but I had um I checked with the the actual contractor one time because I was just curious and only 50 million of it is actually going into the permanent improvements over 150 million of that is for all of the lane interchanges that they continuously do all the time time and the effort they have to put in for the temporary of course that's not anywhere close to what we're going to have to do we've been successful but the key will be to make sure that we're continuously working in the high school with some heavy efforts in the summer like you

032were pointing out but continuously being able to work because that'll give the contractors and US they'll give them an opportunity to bid more competitively okay thank you for I guess as a followup to that the the is there a premium like in Eagleville we did similar for hbac the lighting um I forgot what else we did we the containment um casework and some changes there um but I believe a lot of the work was done after the kids left for the day is there a significant premium for re requesting that to do the work in the evenings you from like three to I'm sorry 3: to 11 or something like that there there are a opportunities for doing that um the it's challenging because for short periods and spurts people are willing to do that

033it's hard to get it to be continuous over two years yeah or you know this is not going to be nine months it'll be a longer Peri from from a school year perspective yeah so um is there significant dollar savings if we don't change obviously the footprint and putting the the school more or less on the I new school on the parking lot and all the drainage all the water issues and the footprint there seems like there were a lot of dollars associated with that if we're not changing the footprint is that where a big big portion of the gap between the 213 and whatever the number ends up becoming or is there still h a significant uh cost associated with drainage so we're going to have to look at the additions specifically and those

034are going to uh factor into but we're talking about much smaller before when we were building a whole new plate we were under full Land Development so you're absolutely correct Our Land Development costs and site costs are going to go down significantly we but on the other hand we also might not be able to address some of the priorities as well understood for sure so it's it's kind of handn and and and two last quick questions I believe we did do some Asus pre-work on in the in this building is that correct um I don't know the specifics of that but we are going to have to get a full study and verify that was completed yeah okay and so you talk about additional scanning and looking through the walls and at your example was

035really clear for us but I guess my question is when when is the best time for you to come back and say there's additional uh test or x-rays or whatever needs to be done to really get the heal of the building so if you looked at our timeline I think what I'd like to do is propose some of that investigation happen this coming summer so somewhere in that timeline there we're probably going to come back to you and suggest I think if if this is heading in the right we didn't want to spend more money if we're not heading in that direction with the board consensus and the budget as you've well outlined matches and all of those things so we're trying to be a little bit methodical about it but probably in that uh

036June July timeline would be the best time to do the building scan if we're going to do that we're probably going to do some geotechnical and then strategically we might be scanning some pipes to see again if we can save we don't have to cut the pipes in that are under the slab we're saving money and you know reusing things that are in decent shape that's that's going to be the goal so probably I'm hoping in that summertime director okay thank you y does Mr Mery have a I mean I just had to comment to miss clar's question um so so if we with the $213 million um new high school construction roughly 60% of the cost in that uh latest cost estimate was to the building itself okay and that's like 127 million give

037or take all right so if you under her scenario of $150 million barrowing capacity that means you'd have to lose 63 million in essentially building costs that's 50% on a square foot base so you'd have you'd only be able to afford a building half as big that that's why you it's not it's not feasible right you can't you can't you don't have enough left you because of the site construction cost to to modify the site and because only 60% of the cost is associated with the building really all you can do is cut down the size of the building right is a square footage basic because all the our cost calculations for construction at this point are just square footage calculations we haven't gotten to the stage of actually getting cost estimates on you know

038like concrete and block and facade infrastructure right it's just strictly a a square foot calculation is he finished okay um Miss Clary um thank you Mr mki I appreciate everything that you said and I I don't know that I disagree with you I would just ask that when we do get the numbers that we at least talk about it that's all I'm asking I don't want to shut the door on things prematurely I just want to make sure that we vetted it all out I mean this is a big deal so that's all thank you m graph yeah I also um and I don't know if you remember but I seem to recall Mr G telling us there's a range of costs on a dollar per square foot basis so I think if I remember

039correctly his range was it could be anywhere from $375 a sare foot to $450 a square foot and I think your estimate may have come in around 425 so that tells me that we could go with less expensive fixtures finishes facad materials Etc and potentially get our cost per square foot down and if you reduce the square footage Say by 20% and reduce 20% off the per square foot price you could change your number pretty significantly so I just want to make sure you're well aware that when this discussion comes up probably in May or June we're going to be asking that question and I'd really like to make sure that you're prepared to answer it for us because I think when we start to compare two options of this renovation project versus a new

040school there were discussions and decisions that were made on the new school that were not the coste effective option they were the let's do it all option and and so I think at this point we do I want to see a what is the price for a non do-it-all option compared to a renovation because if those two numbers are closer together it may be a different situation for the board and I don't know how the rest of the board feels about it but I know for me the decision to Pivot is hard it is a really hard decision for me to be comfortable with and I am struggling so I understand the financials are not where we thought they were um but I am definitely waiting to hear from pfm next month and you know

041that number could again give the board a little bit of Freedom or flexibility in this decision or it could lock down the decision much quicker we don't know yet so I also um just want to go back to something that was said and I I think that Mr Winters asked the question and I maybe I need to be a little bit more direct than he may have asked the question when we were talking about this last week the question was asked that is this schedule going to allow us to go out for bid in the winter so we can be ready to do the work in the summer of 26 so I'd just like an answer to that question so so summer of 26 there's no way if we approve this in September that we're

042going to have bid documents ready in December everyone is clear on that right well no we're not that's why I'm asking the question so there's no way to do that you could sorry you could do some very small projects that you know are going to have to get done pre- purchase some you know hbac equipment or things like that that you know are going to be done in the project that could be done over that summer but it's going to be very small and very uh strategic and it would be potentially prep for how do you manage doing some work say in the winter of 26 into 27 and then spring summer 27 to actually really start that is much more likely yes so so we're we're essentially in a situation where there's a year

043delay correct just so the board is clear like and that delay cost us how much money 3% just asking because this was the question about the pressure to move forward with a new construction was time is money it's 3% year right I think you had three to 5% in there so we just tacked 3% onto our renovation costs okay just to clarify um my other question was I think you had mentioned that in the timeline there's a comment in here about confirmation of educational spaces can you talk a little bit more about what that actually looks like or or sort of how that actually what that actually means for sure for us so uh first step is to figure out exactly what you have in the school what are the spaces what are the square

044footages are they underutilized are they over utilized are they under programmed over programmed how do we what's the right size space that needs to be for that program to function so we go through that and then we sit down with everybody we've already gone through this new high school programming so there are certain spaces that we've added such as the Fab Lab that you don't have in the school so is that a new program that needs to be included in this renovation project is it a high priority is it a low priority and we'll go through all of those types of spaces there's probably a dozen of those so things like um do we want to move the district admin into the high school or not would be discussed at that time correct decisions about

045whether we want to move our you know special education programming into the into the building or not at that time sure whether we want to meet the PD minimums for space in our classrooms or not correct so let me just make sure I understand correctly those decisions will come back to the board to be decided upon for the next step in the process is that correct I will leave that to the administration to decide that so let me be clear I would like to ask that those decisions come back to the board to be decided upon because it will drive the price if we add 10,000 sqare foot for District administration to be in the building that drives the renovation dollar price up if we decide to include special programming like a Fab Lab that

046drives our price up it adds to our square footage that either has to be added on to or renovated in the existing building because there isn't space for it now so I do think that those are decisions that the board should be deciding um and I guess my other question was on the Land Development costs do we in a renovation assuming there's some new construction do we have to address storm water management anytime there's an addition you're going to have storm water management to deal with so looking at some of the discussions we had in the property committee about storm water management and about location of fields and adding storm waterer management is there a risk in a renovation that we would have to address storm weaer management above ground that would potentially impact our

047Fields existing on the property currently not that would impact your current Fields you're not required to dig underneath of them and and put retention basins there there are other ways to do it and it really depends on how much you want to improve on the site so do you really want to improve the circulation and and the traffic uh and the parking situation that's going to impact maybe you put a storm water basin under some of those spaces but you don't necessarily need to dig underneath of the fields so those can remain intact now some of the practice fields those might be fors okay so maybe practice fields and maybe parking when we redo parking or reconfigure parking or driveways or access points you could potentially use that space corre underground okay just to be

048clear um and I just wanted to the other thing I just wanted to make sure I understand when you come back to us in September that presentation is going to look a lot like the presentation we just had with the concepts for the new high school right so that will look if you remember this we just presented schematic design it won't look like that it will look like the original concept design that we did six months ago or whatever that was okay but it will be similar to that and you will give us an indication of what things are included in that scope and price for that correct and we'll update you along the entire way of this process as well okay and then you mentioned options that there were there potentially would be options

049developed that would come back to the board you know in between like it sounded like May June how many options are we talking about so we still have to determine that we had three major options in our proposal but we're going to discuss with the district or with the administration uh as many options as we need to to figure out what the best uh priorities are so I'm not sure exactly how many will come to the board with but uh we will be discussing all options uh behind the scenes okay and then um my last question was there was a comment that there's a potential for addition add money that would be for expanded work in the June July time frame related to the building scan Geotech work and the piping scan is that done

050through cha uh no the building scan we would get a proposal from a separate company that specializes in the building scan uh likewise if we do geotechnical but the district would be civil paying cha to do that subcontracting work no you could pay them directly we would just like the Civ for example the geotechnical would go through the civil engineer that uh Shader has the building scan we have a couple of companies that we reach out to you would just pay a directly so I think we talked about this last week and I think we talked about the fact that if it's not necessary that we would prefer not to do that work until we decide that we have Concepts we think we can move forward with so I'm I'm a little surprised to hear

051you saying this again that so either either we need to put it in the bid that we're in or we need to go forward with the assumption that we're not going to do that work like I don't want to change order in June for another $50,000 I don't know about the rest of the board but I am really clear about this either put it in the base bid if it's important enough for us to do it and it's critical to us getting a good scope completed by September or go forward with the Assumption you are not going to do that work because I for one am not going to approve a change order in June for you to do work that you're telling us about right now but you didn't include in your base bid

052I just think that's a little bit of a bait and switch and I don't really want to go there so that's it for me I apologize for that it's not intended to be a bait and switch for sure but what we're trying to do is be methodical and not spend money until we get to a point where everyone's feeling like this is going to the next step and in addition it's really not feasible to get geotechnical cost because we don't know we're putting on two additions three additions what are we geotechnical you know what I mean what what are we doing with the scoping of the pipes these parameters we hoping some of these will come up the building scan we could get a price for that and just give that to you um but

053if you decide you're not renovating the building that would be wasted money you know what I mean so and we won't decide whether to renovate the building until September so we shouldn't be doing that scan until after we make that decision which is the same place we ended up last week when we had this conversation we could wait for you to be bringing it up now makes me think that you think that we should do that work and all I'm saying is if you think as the expert that we should be doing that work it should be in your bid and if you agree that it is not necessary until we decide to move forward then we shouldn't include it in the base bid so so the building scan we don't need to do until

054you decide okay you want to actually do the renovation you just you just mentioned to Mr Winters that you thought you would be coming back to us for expanded work in the June July time frame was your exact quote so in July we are not going to have a final presentation and we're not going to have a direction at that point so the only thing I would ask for your consideration of if we're renovating and gutting a certain area and we have to tie the sanitary lines into that I may want to scan those sanitary lines to confirm the scope of work uh whether we have to rip up slabs to replace the piping scope those out so that we could develop the appropriate cost for you that's the only caution I would add to

055that there may be some investigation that would be appropriate as we're developing the solutions that would be worthwhile to confirm the scope and then confirm the cost a little better that's all so if you think that you need to do those things in order to generate a cost that you're going to come to us with in September put them in your bid that's it I don't I don't want to debate it with you I don't want to negotiate it with you I'm just telling you if you come back to me in June or July and say hey we didn't tell you this but now we think we want to do this in order to get you a good price I'm going to say no get me a price without it and then you're going to

056have to estimate it to the best of your ability and you may be wrong or you may be right I don't know but I'm willing to take that chance that's me the rest of the board may feel differently the only thing then you could do is give a not to exceed to to be determined because I don't have a number on that because I don't know what we're doing I apologize and like I said we talked about this last week and I think we got to the same place where you said it's not necessary until you decide to move forward so hearing you tell Mr Winters that it was probably something you'd come back to us to in June or July tells me you think it is necessary in order to get a price so

057I I I'm just not sure exactly what you're telling us because I'm hearing you say we should probably do this in June or July but it's not necessary until we get to the price we we'll give you budgets then without any further investigations and we'll have to probably indicate that there could be some impact and we put a contingency on it I guess is is the only answer I can give you because I can't come up with that number right now I apologize I don't have the scope to come up with the number it's not possible uh Miss Alon yeah thank you for this information um I have um several points to say um first I do I do understand that a lot of what we're talking about is contingent on the presentation from pfm

058so I understand that um I do want to say that I am not sure of all of our assumptions that were used in The Five-Year budget projection and I would like more detail presented to the board about that with with numbers not as a narrative um I I am just unsure because it was not it was not shown to the board um so I do want to see that if if we could please um when we started this process we did it with a lot of a lot of community buyin and um we had a lot of community involvement we identified many areas of educational Improvement that we were trying to attain um and here I feel like there's a disconnect about what talking about with improvements um because we're talking about HVAC and wiring

059and to keep things warm and safe and dry which is not the educational Improvement goals that we were talking about with the new build um so we talked about the educational programming in a new build we talked about community space we talked about the environment for our teachers and staff we talked about revamping the traffic flow on campus uh we talked about uh you know scheduling changes a lunch and learn having natural light in our art rooms small and large group instruction spaces for students increase collaboration uh among teachers um and here and and then and we talked about that being what methacton will have for the next 50 years and what I'm hearing here tonight um is that we're talking about Systems wiring modulars getting more life out of this old building um repurposing

060and reconfiguring for something that we would have for the next 20 years and I just feel there's a lot of lost value when we're talking about the spending millions of dollars um when you look at an advertis cost of 50 versus 20 years I think that's really something we need to consider what is the value that we would be getting out of a renovation for 20 years um I also don't know that we have fully explored the Delta between our borrowing capacity and um the budget that was given or the the cost estimate that was given for a new build um given The Arc cap possibilities because that might help solve some of that now I don't know um I was there at that meeting with the elected officials and um you know I don't

061know how likely it is we would get the arcap but I I really think that that should also factor into this decision- making here um I would like to before we go forward with the renovation um you mentioned Pleasant Valley High School I think we should be get a detailed um presentation about what ex you know how that worked and I I would just be interested to know I I'm not against moving forward with this um motion tonight um or with with this possibility to look at the renovation but what I think we need to do instead of looking at the renovation alongside of a building that we could not possibly build because it's too expensive for our community I would like to Echo what Miss clearing Miss graph were saying that we should be

062looking at a renovation and alongside of a feasible feasibly cost building um and and compare th those apples together um you know and see what are we getting for how long are we getting it um and what are we really providing to the taxpayers and the students and this whole Community by just now looking at renovation I do not think that's what we should be doing other comments Miss steal good evening thank you so much for the presentation um I do have some um I do have a question or a few questions rather um first I am looking forward in looking at the planning and the and the phasing I'm I'm looking forward to learning more information about the phasing in the modular classrooms and the academic impact of the renovation I specifically remember during

063presentations regarding when we were deciding to move forward with a design for a new high school or renovating I specifically remember seeing a significant impact on the academic spaces uh I have I have worked as an educator through renovation and it is quite an experience to ask students to analyze a close read on an 11th grade text and have con struction workers throwing cement down on top of your classroom and hearing them yell at each other it does kind of Kill The Experience so that being said um and that's just one example there's also there was crumbling roof at one point it's a lovely building now that being said but I'm very interested in that because there's the cost of the modular and there is what I remember from that presentation was how significant the

064impact is based on the setup of the building currently that's what I remember and it seemed really hard to do without impacting significantly on academics um so that's one part um that was more a statement not a question sorry um but the question that I do have is and and forgive me because I am learning um since we have gone because I do kind of echo what Miss olon has said and um what Miss clear Miss graph has said which is and it for me it comes from a part of I don't want to get to September 2025 be like man you know I wish we had something about maybe a toned down building because that would be another delay and delay is money um so that being said I'd really like to see our

065options since we have gone through schematic design does that make it a little bit easier to say well if we remove these things or do something here this is where does that make sense does that make that process a little easier or am I just kind of imagining things that don't exist yeah it's certainly a lot easier now that you have a Baseline and you know the number that you've already created and the square footage that you've created and the layout of the entire uh campus at that point um we were going to go through a value Engineering Process not necessarily to save money but there could have been opportunities to at least reduce a little bit um during that process um there's certainly an opportunity to go back and revisit those if that's what

066the district would like to do um to you know bring it down to a certain square footage and a certain number um can't make any promises there but I'm not asking you to make I'm trying to understand options so say we get a number from pfm but we can afford and we're it's okay and I I do want to make clear I think we should ex um look at and and I don't have a problem with the motion tonight uh because I think we need both pieces of information honestly but um if we were to get a number for pfm and we were to say okay we have this number can we what would would we be able to say well okay if we move these pieces or maybe this if we removed this programming

067from the building would we be able to say okay if we remove this programming then we get this building and we would be able to decide that or is that information that we would have to tell you does that make sense do you know what I'm asking yes and and so we've we've gone through the whole uh process trying to understand the program of the building yes and we came up with you know a baseline a minimum square footage yep and then a maximum square footage and we landed somewhere in the middle got it so if we go back down to the original you're going to you know sacrifice some things but um you know you certainly have that information available to you okay thank you yes I appreciate that um and I guess I

068also do want to say um I guess this is more of a statement rather that I do want to say that I think it would be important to make sure that we do our homework as a right now to look at both of those options because we have like since before I have been on the board this has been a discussion point there there have been so many presentations and discussions and tours on why this building is not worth renovating and I feel like we need to look at all the options now because I do think of some things that I know that I can't unknow which is the humidity and words like mold and a leaking pool going somewhere like these are things that I can't unknown now that they're there and it does

069make me you know it makes me wonder about the true health of the building which I know will be assessed and I that we we'll all make good decisions here but I think we need to do our homework now so there's no more delays thank you thank you any other comments to my left Miss puru I do want to say thank you for um the presentation I think um my um perspective and I I express my concern uh I guess my own happiness with where we are with having to Pivot I appreciate that you call it resetting right because we are in times where a lot of us have to do resetting and look at everything in aspect based on what's going on in our environment and I think for our community um it makes

070sense for us to reset to make sure right we have we have a certain number that we were're targeting and we know that's not feasible so I do appreciate the use of the word resetting because I think that's where we are I think last week I brought up my concern as far as having to make this decision and feeling that it was rushed right and I know we're pivoting there's timelines that we still need to hit I think it's already been brought up that based on where we are now and and having to reset I mean each time we delay there a cost associated with the renovation and and I know it go back to when it was just a of fixing the ageac it cause this amount right a matter of fixing the pool

071that's leaking will cause this amount the longer and longer we wait there is a higher cost Associated to get the work done but I also know and I think as Miss um as it was mentioned by Miss pH there's things in this building that many of us know as this right we all went on the tour and we know even when we think about our um apartment program here we have places in is building that really needs some help right and so it's a matter of when you think about it what does it make sense I know I think I heard warm safe and um dry and dry right but I don't think that's that's the only thing that we set out to have in this building right we've talked about the um putting a

072building together that really cater to bringing our students the education facility that they need right and I think while warm safe and dry may be just a bare minimum there's more that we can afford to up we we hope to give to our students and our staff and I think right now where we are while we're resetting I'm okay with this proposal to have this feasibility done but I would like to challenge to say and it is based on the things that have been asked already and I think many of um the board directors um stated it so eloquently but the goal is not just to look at this um the renovation we've already invested a significant amount of money into looking at um construction new construction and I think we can try to get

073something based on where we are now whether that means dropping off some things or realigning some of the things that were priority and trying to see what else can we gain so I will hope and I will challenge the administration for us to have to be able to have the opportunity to have that whether it's in a special meeting or any anything else that we need because it's been brought up what are the assumptions in our fiveyear projections right we're still missing a presentation from pfm which I think is very critical for us to proceed whether it's with renovation or even anything else that we're able to Pivot from the work that's already been done so I think there's a significant amount of um work that's needed and I will go back to what was

074said we do definitely need um when we look at the assumptions in the fiveyear projection I think it'll be nice to have a really clear understanding of what that assumption is so we can all really understand what is in there is there's something that we need to look at I feel like we got a a little bit of an overview but I don't think it's enough for us and we're certainly missing more information from pfm in reference to our budget capacity so I would say that why this work is going on or if the board decides to proceed with this feasibility study that we also work in parallel to look at what we can um gain from the work that's been done already and whether that means certain things change and our priority shift as

075far as the things that we wanted to have in here and I I think maybe looking at is there is there opportunities to do a phase in approach to this also right and I I'm thinking and I'll ask a question is that something if you were to do a phase in approach I'm guessing it usually come with a higher price tag also when you say phasing are you referring to building maybe some parts and deferring some parts to later yes um of course when we built them later they would cost more you know just by virtue of you know the time yeah as has been mentioned by one of the directors already but also in addition to that remobilizing and everything I think uh the challenge is going to be with the team trying to

076figure out what part can you function the high school with without by deferring some components if they're to be deferred but um you know phasing uh projects are done they're usually more at a university and other types of places where they have the core facilities and you're adding on the challenge here is majority of the savings I think would probably come from core facility either being reduced or being deferred as you just outline and how do you function you know a high school without some of those core facilities which are the probably areas you could cut cost so I think we can certainly look at it but um it's going to be very difficult I think to um start the high school you know and defer something for five years or whatever timeline is agreed

077to and and then the only I mean my last point I think we'll go back to and I think Miss graph was trying to express that is just because we are to the point that we won't have um I guess a final Direction presentation to the to the board till September I think the goal is to try to minimize spend here right so not signing up to do any projects that or any testing that may not be may not be needed right so and and we and I don't know how much we can express that just because I think every amount of money spent is significant so we really want to minimize that and I think that's where that questioning line of questioning was really going and just making sure we're not signing up for

078something that we end up doing some type of testing and then deciding it's not needed because we go a different Direction with um this so I will ask I mean if we can get the pfm and then the budget as far as the fiveyear assumptions and I'm asking this to um Dr Zerby and then also in parallel to this feasibility study having um a different analysis looked at some type of options evaluated based on when we get the update from pfm what's within our range yeah M Purdue I was going to summarize that for for everyone so what I'm what I'm hearing tonight is we established the financial update inclusive of the assumptions we did in the fiveyear projection and then as you as you were mentioning in parallel uh assuming the uh the motion

079on the agenda is approved this evening um we would spend uh no additional uh funds Beyond what's on the proposal as well as no additional um uh studies associated with that unless something comes before the board uh that that that they so want to you want to consider and and in par parallel with this process uh to re-evaluate the new construction and the potential of removing options and how we might be able to fit that into whatever the the financial projections uh share with us is is anybody have an objection to any of that that direction that's that's what I'm getting okay thank you for the feedback thank you gentlemen uh this evening and and members of the board thank you so much for your input on this uh we do appreciate it uh certainly

080um you know this this is U certainly a challenging uh position but one that I believe uh will give us a better picture of what we're going to be able to afford and what we're going to be able to do uh for the district in the long term so thank you for your input the next on the agenda I have Dr graines to give us an special education update Dr and you should have a copy of this of this presentation at your seat Dr graines I'm sorry for interrupting you miss gra I I think we're having trouble hearing you so I don't know if it's on or you might have to speak more directly into it tilt the mic up toward yourself hi excellent thank you all right so just as a quick overview um

081thank you so much for having me tonight I appreciate it uh tonight is going to be a an update on the progress we've made on our 2526 school year planning and then an overview of our district mental health programming so um as you know we've discussed we've had four key areas uh that we have been focused on as we organized our uh special education programming that's been oversight compliance structure and looking at our thirdparty vendors so just as a a brief overview um under oversight we have aligned our supervisors to Specialty areas so that we can have a Continuum K to 12 to make sure the programming um makes sense uh we have added uh the trainings that are associated with our comprehensive plan and our cyclical monitoring plan so we've mapped out the next

082three years of trainings that are needed for teachers support staff and those that we want to provide to families with compliance we have had continued training with our school psychologists and uh we are ending our one-on-one coaching with the sky view and our Cola staff that's happening this month with regards to our structure uh we continue our planning for our complex learner classrooms we've also created behavioral Frameworks within the elementary buildings and created a special education teacher schedule that's common at all of the buildings so that all of our special education teachers are able to meet with the teachers that they're planning with we've looked at our thirdparty vendors and reviewed our current programs and contracts uh we have looked at our contractor case loads and schedules to ensure we're being as efficient as possible

083and then we've looked at our Mental Health Services and our needs and then the provids effectiveness this actually is what triggered uh the presentation for the mental health services because I'm not sure if you're aware of what we offer or how we deliver those services so we thought it was a good idea to just explain this so within our uh mental health supports we have a number of services that are available starting with the school counselor and then uh pivoting to the different sorts of teams and services we have available I'm going to go through them just so you understand who is part of that process and what it looks like so first is our are our first are our school counselors so we have in the district 14 school counselors a career counselor and

084our climate counselor and uh while I only have a few of the things high level things that they do on a daily basis they are just an integral part of our ability to function they are the direct contact for students uh they counsil students on their case load there are academic planners they set goals for students they are there when students are at their best and also at their worst they deliver Crisis Intervention and support they're advocates for students they're um first line of contact for parents uh the teachers and administrators utilize the counselors as liaison and they deliver curricular lessons so our counselors really are our first point of contact for our students when they need any sort of mental health assistance from there if a student is having um some concerns they'll pull

085together either the core team mtss team or child study team each building calls it something different we're working on getting common language together but pretty much what it is is the school's core team of Administrators counselors nurse School social worker uh the Mental Health Counselors and school psychologists they come together typically on a weekly basis just a touch base on the students make sure that we're looking at their um mental health and well-being looking at what short-term supports and strategies we can deliver through an mtss process we determine if there's a higher level level of care that's needed and what those resources will look like uh we determine if we need to make a referral to our sap program our Student Assistance Program sap or our drug and alcohol counselor and then uh this team

086oversees progress and timelines for services to make sure that students are making adequate progress also included on the team is our our our school psychologists we have four full-time School psychologists in the district and we contract two full-time and six part-time um psychologists now our psychologists are are people who write our uh reports they conduct psychological and academic assessments they identify students with learning and behavioral disabilities and they provide diagnostic information and recommendations for determining special education services we have a district social worker she's Wonder Woman uh with how she supports the entire District um those that know Jennifer Johnson um knows what an invaluable resource she is for our district she serves as the broader connection between School home and the community uh she supports families with uh crisis needs navigates a wide range

087of resources in school and in the community she'll conduct home visits looking at what are the challenges students are facing outside of school what are the barriers to getting into school and helps to break those barriers down uh she completes residency and attendance checks uh she is part of our inter agency meetings ensuring that uh parents and families still feel connected with with the school even when they need to be educated outside of the school she's our homeless liaison and also um confirms our free and reduced lunch eligibility she's a vital connector with making sure families have Community Resources so if the core team sap team um core team decides the sap team is needed or if the drug and alcohol referral is needed what they do is uh they make referral they contact the

088families and explain we have these additional services that are available uh these are more targeted interventions they're offered through therapeutic approach they're all research-based curriculums and programming so if it's through the sap program uh the company Aldersgate is our vendor they're at the high school one day per cycle our Cola one day per cycle and at Sky View half day per cycle um and if it is for our drug and alcohol counselor available from the the Lincoln Center through a grant uh they are at the high school two days per cycle and so they're made a uh referral is made to the program the family's contacted permission is granted and then the student uh enrolls in the program so uh the services are delivered during the school day uh they are evidence-based counseling programs and

089once the program is complete the student is referred back to their original school counselor just to make sure there's that continuity of care um if after the program is completed the school uh student still needs additional support support they come back together through that main core team to discuss what other resources we have available we also have mental health counseling that's available uh we utilize Central to provide our mental health counseling um they are are they are our uh clinicians that are in the building at the high school we have three clinicians arola has one sky viw has one and the elementary shares two this is a service uh that's connected to a student's IEP as a related service um we have uh tailored mental health supports and services that are tracked based on an

090individual student needs so the level of supports adjusted uh based on how the student is progressing towards their goals and then the goal is to gradually gradually tie trate these services to reduce the intensity of support um this allows for a very flexible approach uh but again this is for uh our special education students only we also have the reach program which is a longer mental health uh program that is a more intensive intervention reach provides daily one-on-one and group counseling it's a long-term tailored Mental Health Service it's consistent support inside of school and outside of school as students have students and families have 247 access to the clinicians and uh the clinicians also are available to provide uh Family Resources family counseling if the family would like to participate we have uh seven I'm

091sorry six professionals across all the buildings two at the high school two at Arcola one at Sky viw and one at the elementary schools if a student is referred to reach they are still part of our clinical team they work closely to keep progress on the student and uh the goal ultimately is to graduate out of the program when a student's needs are beyond our uh capacity at school uh we coordinate with partial hospitalization programs and alternative uh programming specific for mental health so uh it's important to note this is different than an alternative school for um behavioral needs alternative programming for learning needs this is specific to mental health needs so our district social worker Jennifer Johnson and our special education supervisor remain as the main point of contact working with the family and

092serving on that inter agency committee to make sure that the students needs are being met through this outside program um they attend meetings uh typically once a month where they're able to monitor progress and make sure the students needs are being met so why are we talking about mental health why is it important for you to know about the services that we offer so I put some statistics together for you just so that we're all on the same page with the state of mental health in our world so in uh National statistic that one in five students in the US experience a mental health disorder each year so if we mathematically use that ratio to our student numbers that could be 917 students right now we are currently servicing 42 students in some capacity with

093our mental health supports this is not counting our school coun and having all of the students on their case load these are for our targeted mental health interventions statistically 50% of all lifetime cases of mental illness Begins by age 14 so it is very important we have a strong early intervention system in place for students to be successful I included some information for you from our 2023 Pennsylvania youth survey it's called the pays survey it's a snapshot of students in grades 6 8 10 and 12 and the the highlights uh the key factors that really drew our attention from the data this year last year uh were the factors that were continu contributing to the continued need of Mental Health Services suicidal ideology though declining in compared to the county still was high anytime we

094have students experience ing suicidal ideology it's an immediate of concern depressive symptoms had increased and that looks like depression food insecurity and sleeping less exposure to explicit content earlier with individual technology so the things that students at a younger age are seeing on phones and tablets is negatively impacting their mental health and the last one was peer and familial attitudes towards antisocial Behavior there was a 54% increase in uh the students perceptions that it was okay to do negative things antisocial behaviors and they felt their family and their friends support that kind of thinking so knowing this sorry spam risk there knowing that we have 70% of Youth that receive Mental Health Services in if they're going to get them they're going to get them across the school setting I implore you to really consider

095what is important for our district when it comes to mental health programming schools are often the first and sometimes only point of contact for a student's mental health support statistically students with untreated mental health disorders are three times more likely to be suspended and two times more likely to drop out so addressing mental health is essential for not only reducing suspension and dropouts rates but supporting students with where they are and making sure that we're looking to the whole child and making sure we're having all of their needs met lastly when it comes to Dollars and cents uh statistically every dollar invested in school-based Mental Health Services yields $2 to $10 in savings so beyond just improved academic achievement and reduced special education and Juvenile Justice costs the cost for when students have to participate

096in a program outside of our walls the numbers are quite expensive it can range from 38,000 to 100,000 dependent upon the need so providing supports in the school keeps students in their least restrictive environment and is more cost effective than placing them out so in closing we're deeply committed to building a comprehensive integrated mental health program providing a full spectrum of care for our students our work with this is strategic data inform and student centered with a focus on early intervention meaningful outcomes and supporting the whole child thank you thank you Dr graan are there questions from the board to my left of what Miss Alon hi thank you for the presentation um I just have two questions so the um going back to the supervisor alignment with specialty areas is that that's the the

097alignment that was previously by grade level or by age yeah so we're still having them have their case load of students uh by grade level so Karina Todd is K to four Danny falston is 5 to8 Joel MCH is 9 to2 however we know we have programming that exists that when we're looking at it just in isolation of just this one piece we're missing making sure we have that full Continuum so in addition to what they're doing for instance um Danny is going to look at our um autistic support program in K to2 so we're looking at the curriculum and the resources and making sure we have everything covered and it's not um just peac Meed together Joel having a background in being a school psychologist is overseeing our psychologists really to make sure that

098we have that system in place for tracking and compliance and making sure the permissions are issued and what does a comprehensive evaluation look like and utilizing her in that capacity Karina is going to be looking at our interventions that we have across the board um as well as uh our emotional support programming and where are gaps and holes and what do we need to be able to support students and down the road bring them back because we want to make sure we have a full Continuum of supports within the district okay so that's really an and then an and okay great um and then I just um was curious the one in five statistic um that you mentioned do we have any sense of the number of students receiving um therapy or counseling from like

099a private pay provider like do we have any sense of the like from pays does that tell us no they Unfortunately they don't talk about uh specific mental health counseling or how many students are participating outside of the school uh that 402 number is our um Central reach uh outside uh placement and um sap and drug and alcohol counselors combined okay so it is maybe likely to assume you could likely assume that there are additional mental health needs students they're receiving yeah I would care through a COR y they're taking care of that through their either their private insurance or their family is out of pocket paying for that absolutely thank you of course any other questions from members to my left Miss Purdue thank you for the update um it's interesting when you gave

100us the um the numbers in reference to the cases now are these is is the information you provided in reference to that based on after covid or is it just overall um you know the the one I didn't do a comparison to before covid I just looked for the statistics that are happening right now okay so um I did Source where they came from like one's the World Health Organization just because I thought that they were all um very reputable sites yeah okay that's interesting and then um my main question was in the past I know that we've had opportunities to have grants to support some of our programs are are there still opportunities to get grants just because I know a lot of the ones that we receive from covid are you know long

101gone and there were no discussions about any new ones but are we um seeking out any additional grants because I know before we used to have like announcement like Dr Ana announc that she was able to write for a certain Grant and was able to get awarded a certain amount of grant that will go to supporting some of the programs because you definitely have a long list of programs here and a lot of staff to support it so I'm just I notice one of them you have is based on a grant um but I'm just wondering do we have any coming in or any grants that you're looking after so um two that I can speak of one through the Lincoln Center uh the grant for the drug and alcohol counselor uh reached out to

102them and that is able to continue into next year so um we need to get the paperwork from them to get them signed on for an additional year but that's been a wonderful addition uh doctors areb signed a uh wrote a grant for us for obtaining an additional school psychologist which has been very helpful um but at this time we don't have any other active grants for U mental health funding yeah that's a shame but hopefully things change soon just because I think based on your numbers we're definitely seeing um you know where there's a lot of support that's needed and almost make you question where I mean even when you think about I think it was one that um caught my eye was even reach when we think about the number of the staff

103like two at the high school two are aola one at a sky view and then one for all the elementary schools you almost I know we also have that's not the only program that we have and we have staff we have school counselors available but makes you wonder if there's any of these that we we need more support or more staff at just to help um the programs from well just to make sure we do have enough to support our students so um and Dr Zerby thank you for um the grant for the school um I think psychologist and hopefully we will see some opportunities to get more grants we are looking um very closely at our delivery of all of our programs as we've been looking through our third party under contracts and making

104sure that we have everything aligned to what we need so uh we certainly are uh working with our companies to make sure that they're giving us everything we need for our kids um the need keeps growing however um we're trying to make do with what we have and then when you speak about third party um vendor because you're dealing with a lot of vendors here I'm just wondering is there opportunity to um I'm guessing is just you have to go to different Source just because they all offer different programs but is there like a vendor that is like a One-Stop shop for all or um they all do something a little bit differently so um we are always looking to make sure that we have um everything the best and what's available for our students

105so we're always keeping our eye out for what's out there uh but we're looking to make sure we're being as you know um thorough and yet efficient in what we're doing um the pay survey when we participate in that our sap program is free so that's one of the reasons why every two years we do that because the sap program is helps all of our schools and is just a great program for students and an additional support and free so um that's one of them that we just we have to do it just so we can get that program available and when is the pace survey um rendered it's uh every odd odd numbered year so it'll be in the fall of 25 is when they'll do it again fall 2025 okay thank you very

106much of course other questions down here miss clar yeah thank you Dr graines I mean I I definitely agree with you about mental health support being you know extremely important and I appreciate all of this I just have a few questions to better understand a couple of things um uh you talked about one of the slides um that were servicing 402 students in some capacity with mental health supports and then I was looking at and that came after uh you talked about the slide on uh sap or uh drug and alcohol referrals and so I'm wondering of those 402 do you have any information that you could share with us on uh the number of students that are participating in the drug and alcohol counselor um program um I can get that for you I

107don't have the exact number with me but I certainly can provide that in a board memo for you so you have that information I'm just curious to I'm just trying to get a handle in my mind about how large of a problem yeah that is these days typically if a student is uh caught with um you know vaping or doing something inappropriately related to drug and alcohol they're referred to the program uh the family has to agree to the student U being a part of the program but it's a research based curriculum that they go through it's about um 10 to 12 weeks where the counselor and the student are meeting and they you know there's an educational component and then a counseling component that's associated with it um I've heard wonderful things about the

108counselor who is delivering it through the Lincoln Center uh for us her name is cosmy she's been wonderful um but I'll get you those exact numbers I guess I would be interested because you mentioned vaping not that I'm downplaying vaping whatsoever I'm not but I would be interested to know um approximately how many students are in that program and then sort of the difference between how many have been referred relative to uh drugs I would keep vaping separate and then because when I think when I think of the word drug I think of hard drugs so if I could keep those separate and alcohol if it's possible I don't want to create too much work I just wanted to get a sense of where and typic with vaping it's uh most times they're vaping marijuana

109oh so that's you know how cool I am okay if that's the case you can keep it with you can keep it with the drug I thought you meant tobacco um and then uh C sap and reach can you sort of outline for us the the different services that are provided in each because I frankly don't know sure okay so let's start with sap so sap can be uh a referral from a family member uh parent sibling uh anonymous online could be a friend that refers could be a teacher that refers could be an administrator nurse who anyone is able to refer a student to the sap program and it's um on the application it is a a series of um descriptors of why you're concerned about the student are they withdrawn are they uh

110appearing depressed are have they stopped participating in things that they used to love are there troubles at home are are parents going through something uh and they just want extra support for their kids have their grades gone down are they withdrawn are they sleeping during class is it um you know uh conflicts with peers that they're having so it could be a number of things of that nature what happens is we have a sap team that's gone through the training uh typically so I can speak you know with the High School uh Mrs Thompson is our liaison she's our school nurse um she then is on a team with uh three other people uh they meet during their Duty period where they go through the referral and then um they assign it to one of

111the people on the team that person reaches out to the home shares with them you know we have concerns we want to help partner with you are you open to having your child come and meet with this counselor so we can talk through whatever issues are going on it's more of a short-term intervention typically it's throughout the school year or less uh so when the new year school year starts everything it's fresh with regards to reach the one thing with sap 2 the child has to be consenting that they want to participate in it because it's the age of 14 is the age of consent at the younger grades the parent obviously will you know give permission for that but they they're the ones that say that if the parent if the student can do

112it or not um and the parent I'm sorry and the student we hope would be a active participant in it with regards to reach reach is a more intensive it's our within the district it's our most intense mental health support it's for students who for a variety of reasons need more so whether it's um they've experienced trauma in some capacity they are um suicidal they are so depressed they can't function whatever whatever the need is they could be emotionally disregulated for whatever reason and they need that daily therapy along with the daily group therapy so that they're able to practice and work on those very direct skills and then from there you know um graduate from the program it typically um can be anywhere it's typically about the year but we've had students this year

113who have graduated from the program out and then you know their point of contact becomes their school counselor um it's been a very large help for a lot of students who cannot otherwise make it through the day uh so they have this support in place to be able to you know if they're feeling upset and something's gone on they can go down to their counselor and meet with them uh they obviously have a a recurring meeting time for their individual counseling and their group counseling but if something comes up having them on site's been an invaluable resource a lot of times lunch is so overwhelming for kids it's you know 500 kids in this large space at once they're able to go and have lunch with their counselor one of the great things is they're

114able to reach out to the counselor nights and weekends through texting um and then the families also have that contact information so if a student goes into crisis for any reason they're immediately able to reach out to their counselor um The Counselor then is able to either coach the family into you need to go to the hospital right now or let's practice the skills that we worked on that we can help get you back to Baseline the great thing about it too is they're a part of our core team at the school so if something's going on with that student while they won't share the details of what they talk through and break that confidentiality they're able to Loop Us in so we know that the student's going through something so that we're able to

115Monitor and adjust thank you so much of course any other questions to my right Miss graph yeah I just wanted to say thank you so much for this this is so clear and helpful to me um just because so many of these programs sound similar and seem like they overlap but they really don't when you talk through it like this and it just I think it just really becomes much clearer in this sort of format for me so I really appreciate that the only question I had was just help me understand the difference between our mental health counseling team and our school psychologists sure so our school psychologist s they do psychoeducational testing they don't do counseling so they are they're pretty much 98% of their responsibility is report writing so if a student needs

116to be determined uh for you know the family or the school believes the child is potentially uh in need of an IEP the school psychologist is the person who does that testing so whether it's cognitive testing achievement testing um social emotional testing um autism testing they are in that realm of testing students writing reports so um they do not do direct counseling with students uh the only time we had that happen was when we were in the middle of a crisis and we called all hands on deck every counselor social worker mental health provider everyone we needed to come help us with a we had a a crisis going on um but they had to PA what they were doing we don't want to be late with reports because we get in trouble from the

117state when we're late um so that would that was the only time we used them in that capacity um but they also then are part of an IEP team so they meet with families they explain what the report means um does your student have a disability do they not have a disability and then they provide recommendations to the IEP team for how to support the student in that environment we'll also use them at um if we need some sort of screen screening done they'll also um provide that so part of our mtss process before a child will go to evaluation we might need either the school counselor or the school psychologist to go in to put eyes on the student just give us a clinical recommendation um they will serve that purpose as well excellent

118thank you so much this was really helpful of course uh Miss Chandra thank you for this presentation um going to the um mental health stats and and you mentioned a little bit about technology and it's not in here but social media is probably part of that that has a significant impact negative impact on Mental Health um I guess my question is is the district doing anything to educate the community particularly parents about the pitfalls of social media and and what to look for I I know that the I attended an sea webinar about sex Distortion which was great but I would like to see the audience grow because you know even if they're not being targeted by sextortion or these kind of extreme things going on a 14-year-old's Instagram reels are violent and angry and

119racist and all of these things that the social social media companies know are triggering and know kind of hook them in so understanding things like that could possibly help a parent you know decide whether or not a social media app is appropriate for their child or not so and and not just parents are we doing anything to educate our students on a you know responsible use of your cell phone or your laptop or whatever sure so um yeah props to the Sea uh for bringing in that presentation on um cyber safety uh that was in February uh tonight actually I was supposed to be over at arola for the follow-up to it uh Dr Fon tapped in for me to um to cover but uh tonight we had 27 families and 25 students um come

120to the followup um Hands-On presentation of uh cyber safety and parenting in the cyber world and what that means so we have two concurrent sessions happening so one is just for parents about what you need to be aware of um online for your child and the other one is for uh children in grades uh two two through ages eight through no second grade so eight years old through uh 13 and so what they need to be aware of as they are beginning to navigate an online world and what that means and the dangers that exist uh we partnered with Mission kids they're delivering this program tonight uh Lower Providence police also particip ipated and they were they were a wonderful assistance with us uh they also are coming tonight um just to kind of build

121those relationships with students and families but to your point we had 27 adults and 25 kids so uh I know people are busy um but we do need to figure out a way to to reach the masses is there I mean some random ideas I have are maybe sending out like flyers of of maybe an infographic of the is why your kid doesn't look up from their phone and why it get why it's addictive or um here's a number of emojis and what they mean amongst 14year olds and not and not might not what you might think it is yeah um or in my mind I would have an assembly and make everybody sit down with popcorn and watch the social Dilemma on Netflix it's already there it's so informative but getting people to come

122and just sit and listen um I know it's hard but those are just some ideas thank you any other questions for Dr graines seeing no other questions Dr graines thank you so much for your time this evening and your presentation we really appreciate it thank you uh next on the agenda we have one final presentation for this evening this is a budget update U Miss Stephy our director of Business Services uh you should have a copy of this at your table um what you're seeing here this evening is uh pretty much uh identical to what we presented at the finance committee uh this month Miss Stephy uh thank you Dr Zerby this presentation will walk through the key stages of budget development updates on expenditures and revenues and outstanding considerations as we move toward finalizing

123the budget budget process overview our budget development process follows a structured timeline to ensure financial responsibility and alignment with District priorities the first phase of our budget process is the pre-preliminary budget review the pre-preliminary budget review begins in late October early November and serves as the initial phase during this phase department and building budgets are closely scrutinized necessary adjustments both reductions and additions are made based on District priorities it is also during this phase that we conducted an early assessment of staffing needs we carefully reviewed anticipated enrollment shifts retirements and vacancies to determine necessary Staffing adjustments positions were removed before presenting the proposed budget to the school board based on the following considerations enrollment Trends retirements operational needs these positions outlined here account for a reduction of about 1.51 million do and include Elementary technology

124integrator social studies position at methacton high school elementary position Fab Lab integrator evening facility supervisor assistant director of Technology five PCA positions and an HVAC Master Mechanic position these reductions brought us to the proposed preliminary budget presented in January of 139 m841 158 a February update was presented to the school board last month expenditure updates included salary and benefit reductions based on retirements an adjustment to Health Care based on the second look received from the Consortium Revenue updates included reductions to paser and FICA subsidies based on salary changes as well as changes to regular education and schal education subsidies based on the governor's preliminary budget the total changes for February resulted in a net reduction of $784,900 as part of the March update we carefully reviewed expenditures with a particular focus on Staffing costs areas

125were identified where Staffing adjustments could be made without significantly impacting instructional quality or student services those positions include a middle level technology integrator communication secretary and an instructional coach we carefully evaluated our school security measures to ensure that we are allocating resources effectively while maintaining a safe learning environment for students and staff through this review we made the decision to remove an unarmed security guard position in consideration of the addition of a school police chief this role would provide professional law enforcement oversight enhanced coordination with external agencies and strengthen emergency preparedness a high school activities budget developed with the athletic director has been added and remains consistent with prior years an athletic trainer has been added with a firste cost of $138,000 this addition which was inadvertently admitted during the preliminary budget phase is critical

126as we are committed to ensuring the well-being of our athletes we conducted a thorough evaluation of software expenses to identify opportunities for cost savings while maintaining essential Services given budget constraints we focused on reducing or aluminade software programs that were underutilized redundant or no longer aligned with District priorities also as part of our budget review we have prioritized updates to science and foreign language curriculum materials to ensure that students and teachers have access to high quality up-to-date instructional resources a key Focus has been the replacement of outdated textbooks and curricular materials that no longer align with current educational standards best practices and student learning needs we have made a strat a Strategic investment in literacy by introducing a new literacy program this initiative reflects our commitment to academic Excellence equity and ensuring that every student

127has the skills they need to succeed as part of our planning we are anticipating a $500,000 reduction in special education expenditures through strategic adjustments in Service delivery these changes are being considered with the goal of maintaining high quality support for students while using our resources more efficiently our commitment to meeting the needs of students with disabilities remains strong and we will continue to prioritize access to appropriate supports and services by enhancing internal capacity and aligning resources we aim to support positive student outcomes and long-term fiscal responsibility on to revenues due to salary reductions and Staffing changes we have seen a corresponding decrease in F and paser subsidies based on recent economic Trends and employment data we are seeing an increase in earned income tax collections this growth reflects a stronger local Workforce and Rising wages

128leading to a higher tax contributions from resident the district has experienced a decrease in real estate tax revenue due to the sale of a property that was purchased by the township since the township is a tax exempt entity this property is no longer generating tax revenue leading to an adjustment in our protected real estate tax increase collections we continue to monitor potential changes in funding policies that may impact our our budget and adjust according currently total revenues are projected 139,900 32 while expenditures as outlined on the previous slide stand at 138 million increas to 4.8% as a result the district's fund balance use is minimized to $ 2,550 while the special education exception stands at $681,000 88 next slide next steps an adjustment will be made for North monco Tech Career Center final budget figures

129workers compensation figures will be updated to reflect actual cost received we will continuously review and adjust property assessment data as new information becomes available with the third look at medical benefits we will make any necessary adjustments to health care costs we closely we will closely track Charter School enrollment Trends and adjust funding allocations as needed to account for any shifts in enrollment there we will update technology lease figures as they become available we will adjust interest income as we receive new projections from our banking depositories these ongoing evaluations will ensure that the final 2526 budget remains balanced aligned with District's financial and educational priorities timeline the proposed final budget will be presented at the April 9th finance committee meeting as well as the board work session on April 22nd the board will vote on the

130proposed final budget at the regular voting meeting on April 29th the final budget will be presented at the May finance committee meeting as well as the may work session at the regular voting meeting on May 27th the board will be asked to approve the final budget this concludes my presentation thank you Miss Stephy are there any comments or questions from the board Miss clear thank you Miss Steepy um I guess I'll start with your last Slide the when we vote on April 29th on the proposed final budget so the board would expect that there would be no not sure I'm going to phrase this right that there would be no additional reductions after April 29th or could there is there a possibility that there could be there's a possibility that there could be we're going

131to receive additional real estate assessments and that won't come in until you won't know that number until after April 29th is that what you're yeah that would be that would be about May 3rd May 3rd okay um I also had a question about uh sorry I'm put my glasses on the numbers on slide um four the school it it lists the school's Cube lit program cross cost is 140,000 um isn't that the keys to literacy if that's approved of this evening it would be actually 140 to 200 yeah that'll be adjusted in the next update okay so we won't see that update and because it will go up so we won't see that up until Finance in April yes okay thank you uh Mr wners yeah thanks M Stephie I guess uh you know uh

132where did and maybe it's actually a question for Dr Derby or Dr V Regina um where are we exactly on the instructional coaches on if they're in the budget or not um from a perspective I know that I just lost track of where we are do we have what we want in the budget or not yes so we good question we currently have have uh five instructional coaches four of them are teacher on assignment positions and one of them is a permanent position for instructional coaches thank you and the only other question I have um I get well I guess um the I no you mentioned this before Dr Zerby but the social studies position is a high school position that actually is moving somebody to replace somebody in the Middle School um I believe

133so it's somebody's retiring from social studies in the AR and so there's that constant evaluation that's done you know from December through May more or less of evaluating how you want to use all your resources is this just in one example right that is that is one example and to miss clear's question um you know we could see reductions we just received retirements this past week so we could see reduction so we also could see you know some potential challenges if the the assessments don't come in proper like we anticipate so there could be fluctuation both ways but but up until the you know the last moment we'll be providing that information for the board's consideration and And to clarify when when we do identify if somebody maybe announcing their retirement now there's an evaluation

134if that position needs to be fulfilled if that position is yes we do need to fill it I assume and and I know actually just teing it up that the evaluation of what goes in the budget is not where that person exited at so somebody graduate somebody retiring with a master's plus 30 at step 16 is not what ends up being in the budget for next year if they retire we make some other assumption what is the current assumption on where people land a masters plus five is where we budget okay so originally uh in past years might have gone entry level but because of the competitiveness of the supply of teachers we sometimes have to go outside so that's why we're a little higher than historically we might have been and that it could

135be higher we could hire somebody with step 10 we could hire somebody at step two right it it doesn't know but that's the holding spot and it's not a Evergreen from the retirement so just the last one is the the Fab Lab integrator science I believe that we had an a science teacher that was developing the curriculum um obviously that F and the trying to find location and facility obviously that's not happening yet in this particular High School um this individual so we had that spot so this individual will be going back as a full-time teacher in 25 26 is that correct yes any any of the positions that you see on these slides um there it's either either the position's vacant or if a position is currently filled by someone there is a a

136spot for them back in the in their previous role let's put that way okay thank you yeah thank you so much for this um and I appreciate the additional information related to like what we're looking at what we expect in the future um so one question following along M Mr Winter's question on slide three we look at the positions did the administration do an assessment of positions to see if there's anything that's duplicative or if we have two teachers teaching a course that maybe only has 10 or 12 students and we could combine them into one class and then you know repurpose the teacher into another classroom for example I mean has that assessment been done or are we really looking it only retirements or open positions no as part of this scheduling process uh

137we have that conversation with the principles actually Dr serini and Dr Regina head up that conversation and talk about the needs uh not only at the elementary level middle level but also at the high school level um certainly uh it it gets more challenging at the high school level in terms of how scheduling works uh but generally speaking that that's always done uh at this time of the year so in essence there could be additional changes there as a result of that maybe maybe um and then the other question I had is the proposed final budget coming to um finance committee April 9th will that have the third look on the Healthcare in it that will and um will that also have the tech leases adjustments in them for the actuals or will that not

138come until maybe the 29th of April we will hopefully have that so there could be changes between the finance committee and the work session right correct okay just wanted to make sure but if if there were to be I'd outline them at the finance committee about what they may be so so we could at least get a preview and then know what you're expecting yep okay thank you any other questions to my Miss deal thank you for this um I just had a question I just wanted to follow up um follow off of Mr Winter's question just about the coaches the elementary instructional coaches that new since Ed committee is that someone that was not discussed I just wanted to make sure no it it was the same um trying to maintain the structure of

139keeping five thank you y okay thank you any other uh questions to my left um Miss Purdue I just have one um on on slide four with the police chief and then the net salary I think is a total net salary change um do you know why that's depicted that way I don't know if I follow why it's it's showing that amount as um the way is showing it and why it's showing it as the so essentially the salary for the police chief adds $160,000 so it's it's net the reductions and the additions and I could I could surely break that out for you next month yeah if you can do that just because I think the way it is is um it's not that easy to follow where um that that change like the

140the addition of that position what that will be um if I could just make a comment to that so that the full boards so I believe in and Miss graph you can certainly chime in on this but this matter was discussed at the property committee meeting and I think it was agreed upon to uh move that position uh forward within the budget uh knowing that there's a presentation that needs to come to the board uh next month as as part of that process and the need so miss graph I don't know if you want to add to that or not yeah actually and I I I thought about this when you were talking and then I forgot but it we did discuss it in committee and it is going to come before the board to

141decide if we want to move forward with a police chief so it was important I think for the whole board to hear the benefits and the potential impact of having that position and also a true cost benefit analysis just from a security perspective it you know the way it's shown here it is a net deficit but the deficit includes some other reductions that aren't necessarily related so it was important for us to essentially break that out and present it to the board as its own Standalone assessment and then also have Dr sorini talk about the benefits of having that position on staff and what it brings to the district so that we can make a decision on whether we want to move forward with that if I remember correctly I don't know what the other

142reductions actually are but think that the the police chief position it basically would have been taking the police chief position and removing the one security and I think it was still like maybe it was like a net increase of I want to say like 800 oh was 120 was that much okay so that's where it was just for ballpark figures for today yeah I just think that would be um important to have and I I look forward to hearing the presentation on it just because um at a time where we're looking to reset and um refine our budget I it's and I understand the nature of it as far as we'll hear more about the advantages of um making this position I just want to make sure we are thinking holistically about addition of um

143staff to the budget also so I I will be interested in hearing that and I really do think um maybe a breakdown of that should be a little bit clear as far as the total cost to the district instead of um the way it's presented now absolutely I that change thank you thank you Miss P any other questions uh for Miss Steepy on on the propos seeing no other questions thank you Miss sty um Madame vice president that ends the uh scheduled guests and speakers for this evening um as part of uh the remaining agenda we'll go into reports all right so um we'll go into reports the committee reports are attached um for mciu I will provide an update next at the next month's meeting and then uh North MCO yes thank you um

144so last week at the work session we were pleased to host Dr bethan haaz um the director of North monco Tech um and we heard some student voices about their experience and we also the recognized first place skillsusa District competition winners from ma Acton who will compete at the skillsusa state conference on April 2nd third and fourth in Hershey the winners were Elijah Purdue and Avery Smith um and right now interested students enrollment forms are being evaluated and letters will be going out in the next week or two to accepted students in the program um oh and actually as referenced in the budget presentation we did uh approve the budget uh it came in slightly under the Act One index I it was like 3.79 uh something like that um close to that and then

145finally if anybody is interested in fancy cars uh the north monco Education Foundation is hosting the fourth annual car show um up on the campus on Saturday May 3rd 2025 it's from 11:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. there is food Awards and Raffles there's a $20 fee for each car registered um and if you're interested I bet we could post this on our website so that is my report thank you thank you very much and then we'll go to the um High School Board representative for their updates thank you good evening everyone um on March 4th we had a blood drive which was a huge success um many students showed up to help those in need um on top of that on March uh 13th there was the first day of on the oh my gosh

146I'm so sorry was the first day that the school cafeteria brought in freshly made sushi rolls for all students and they were extremely delicious if I do say so myself um we were also fortunate enough to have a booth during lunchtime giving many scholarship opportunities to see iors interested which was very helpful for seniors like ourselves um on March 14th the underclassman had a casino theme semiformal which was very fun for the freshman and sophomore class and another exciting dance that's coming up for the upper classman is prom uh tickets to purchase and sign up for post prom are both out being due tomorrow and April 4th and lastly minithon has been getting ready for the annual event on April 5th they help hel a rock your sock sale during lunch for 2 weeks from

147March 10th to the 21st and March 21st was also stall day which was so much fun with our classmates and teachers and also for a good cause uh they also held a dine and donate at the Eagleville Tap House this past Sunday March 23rd and after school on April 2nd um they will hold uh their tie-dye T-shirt event in preparation for the big day additionally the Guys and Dolls musical for the theater company was a success running three nights from February 27th to March 1st thank you to all the seniors for your contributions to the theater program other music students attended the pmea region 6 chorus festivals from March 13th to 15th at Garnet Valley high school and chist Matthew Chung will be attending the All State festival at Kalahari from April 9th to April

14812th in other news for clubs the maakan helping paw Club held a trivia night from 5:00 to 7: on March 13th acade academic Aon competed at States at Pope John Paul High School from March 14th to 15th and they came in sixth place the science fair team also attended their annual mcrc which is a um Science Fair competition at Germantown Academy on March 17th um the class of 2028 Congress held a d and donate event on March 21st and looking forward mathon High School Warrior Performance Group will have its annual showcase on Friday March 28th and the future Business Leaders of America Club will be heading to the state competition at the Hershey Convention Center from April 7th to April 9th so good luck to everyone competing on April 11th methacton will be bringing back

149the International Festival with the help of the Multicultural club and um other clubs such as BC which is black student union and um ASA which is Asian student Alliance they looking for volunteers to help with this event and the environmental Club will also be celebrating Earth Day in the courtyard all day on April 11th for families with seniors who are graduating graduation lawn signs are available for purchase until April 18th for $20 and that is all we have for this month thank you thank you both very much and then we will um yes and we will dismiss the student um board reps thank you very much for your updates to the board and the foundation will provide an update at next month and with that we'll go to miss um communication Miss goack good evening

150I have an update for you on our two Communications interns who started working with our team this month um Alex eels and Janet James are both Juniors at the high school and they have already proven to be very eager hardworking and talented individuals you can already see some of their work on our social media Pages covering events like the dodgeball tournament and the string Jam Bri Alex and Janet Have Been instrumental in assisting with our website redesign project they've been gathering information about courses activities and departments to make the high school website more engaging and informative additionally they're also conducting photo shoots at our schools that we hope will capture the spirit of our students staff and Community as for the website our new District website is nearing completion we sent it out to the

151website advisory committee who is currently reviewing the site they'll be providing feedback on the navigation the layout and the design we are moving on to working on the school sites and we are still on track track to launch that new website in May registration is now open for our Community Education summer camps and we have something for everyone including Firebirds theater basketball chess snapology with topics like amusement park engineering and science explorers which is focusing on marine biology and The Wizard Wizarding wonders of science you can sign up for those at methacton.org 2025 summer camps and as was mentioned please mark your calendars for the international Festival on Friday April 11th we're really excited for this one we're going to be highlighting countries and cultures from around the world Spain Brazil Scotland India more than

152that you will get to taste some authentic food from all of these countries and you'll also be treated to performances like percussion and dancing there will be raffle prizes it's going to be a lot of fun so again that is April 11th and then on behalf of the meth methacton Education Foundation I wanted to do a quick update on the dodgeball tourn we raised over $22,000 for that event um there were more than 50 there were 50 teams and more than a thousand people who came out to support whether they were playing volunteering or cheering on um so thank you so much to everyone who came out and showed their support for that and that concludes my report thank you thank you very much and then we'll go to the superintendence report Dr Zerby um

153I have uh a right the right to know monthly report is posted as and there are no other advisements uh that ends my report thank you and then we'll go to public comment um on board action items the board will now take comments on board action items this is an opportunity for residents to comment on matters that are to be decided upon as outlined on the agenda the board asked that you keep your comments to three minutes or less the board of school direct directors may choose to respond to matters following conclusion of comments on board action items and when you're coming up to um provide any comments just please state your name and municipality so we can have it on record thank you Brian ARA low Providence um commenting on item 13h the Professional

154Services for the high school project um i' asked this at last week's meeting I'd be good as that to know is how much time was spent by the board Administration staff and the public on the new high school construction that has now been sheld also I'd like to know how much in tax dollars was SP spent on that project that is now going to be essentially washed down the drain I think it's a pretty sizable number would be good for the public to know that um it really sounds like from the discussion tonight that the board is not ready to vote on this matter it seems like certain board members want to still pursue constructing a new high school others want to renovate others aren't sure which way to go so before spending another dollar

155and approving this $62,000 expenditure figure out what you want to do I mean there were three renovation options presented ranging in price from 95 million to 156 million that's a quite a wide range you don't know what you can afford yet either you don't have solid projections that you can rely on I pointed out last week that projections are wrong I know for a fact you haven't considered retirements and projected them which is going to provide a cost savings which actually said you can afford more so you need to get the projections done and you can't do that in a month you got to take at least six to nine or maybe more months to figure out what you can afford and get solid projections done one reason you can't figure out what you want

156to do is because you don't know what you can afford and why is pfm need to tell you that you have a CFO in the district you have Mr wyers with a finance background you should be able to tell what you can afford you don't need pfm pfm will come back and tell you you're going to capitalize interest that's going to look great but it's a very bad idea so by approving this tonight you're you're heading down the same road what you did with new construction you have bad projections and you really not figure out where you want to go so what is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result referred to as anybody know Insanity Insanity you really need to figure out what you want to do here

157before you spend another tax Dollar on this and regarding the proposal itself um did you put this out for bid figure out who can do provide the best service at the best price I'd beting to hear that as well um and I think that's it so obviously I would consider I would strongly suggest shelving this matter if it's not going to be sheld vote no thanks thank you hi um my name is Laura Eisman and I live in Lower Providence Township um good evening esteemed member of the school board and Dr Zerby my name is laa Eisman I'm a resident here I wanted to start off by thanking you for dedication I know the time and the effort you put into this work has not gone unnoticed or underap unappreciated I've I've been to some

158meetings and and listened about the high school um I'm here to voice my support for investing in a new new high school this decision represents more than just building a project it's an investment in our students Futures our Educators success and our community's growth um I feel like every student deserves an environment that sets them up for success and the research and the time that you've put into this new high school project um is really valuable for um our students not only um their academics but their mental health as well all of the plans for the project um align with the goals that you you spoke about very clearly um and it seems like this this pivot re I forget the word that you guys were using reset um was a surprise um and I

159I I think we need to reconsider that and keep that new High School in in mind um I I think that the return in investment in long term with the money that we've already invested with in the high school planning and the benefits to um the school um not only the students but also the community is an important piece that we need to um that we need to consider so that's all I had to say but I just wanted to voice my my concerns thank you thank you hi my name is Jason hap I'm from Lower Providence uh first I want to thank you for all your time and work on this whole high school project um first I'm I'm in total support of a new high school I have been been at several of

160these meetings um just a few months ago I thought we were hearing about Renovations was a boond doggle was 90 to $150 million to put lipstick on a pig and now we're talking about it as what we have to do and I I don't think that's a good solution I think it's going to cost us more money you've spent $150 million now just to fix this place up for 20 years how is that saving us money than spending 210 million to build a new school I mean I know we can only afford what we can afford but maybe we should think of something else because I don't think this is going to work um something that's lower cost now doesn't mean it's going to cost us Less in the long run um so yeah I

161don't have a lot to say I'm not to stand a lot of time here but basically I think we need a new High School and I think this renovation project is a mistake but I'd like to hear more about it thank you thank you good evening John Andrews Lower Providence I thought we were going to have a a resolution or a decision to put the new high school behind uh so now we've got some directors working new high school some directors working renovation the new high school idea died on its finances and perhaps some of its design so the administration is Shifting to renovation how much hoay now he must do it right rather than the purposefully botched renovation efforts of 2023 and 2024 an architect needs to be selected with prior renovation experience and

162this evening we heard that some of your contractors have that but are they the best are they what we need I think it's worth putting some time into that does every everyone at the table know the difference between Architects and Engineers Arch Architects usually get five years of college and work on on designs rather than the details that Engineers work on to get to the uh build to drawings or electronic files Architects gather the needs of projects especially ideas on education and efficiency the second floor carer for instance had great then and it still does yet I I would estimate that Administration is still anti it perhaps because they are neither Architects or Engineers or they have too many other tasks on their plates thank you thank you [Music] jimal War sester um the reset

163was not a surprise to me shouldn't be surprised to any of you guys um $40 million for a school that you can't afford $15 million Debt Service payment every year starting about year four associated with 4% tax increases for 30 years who's going to pay that what is the cost per pupil per year at methacton anybody know roughly $30,000 per year to educate a student that's on you guys that's German toown Academy that kind of spending you're going to put us in a bad spot uh Miss Purdue you had a presentation from pfm six months ago and in that presentation they broke down The Debt Service payments at 15 million 15 million you can't afford it it's impossible I mean the go run the numbers interest rates are going up and the Act One index

164is going down so even if you could try you're going to be going rough around every year it's absolutely ridiculous miss graph you control what gets done and at what cost you control the programming because it sounds to me like programming is the big you know what's holding you up um you don't need the school store lunch and loarn sensory room Fab Lab and a mock apartment and put it in the extra 25 classrooms you got up there put it in there you don't have to do anything to the footprint but nobody wants to think about it it's like for some reason you guys have like renovation derangement syndrome you hear renovation and everybody up there is just like I can't do I can't do try it look it over compare it and I think

165you'll see repairs and renovation would be a good way to go because this school this high school right now is the best ranked School in the district by Niche and US News and World Report as it sits right now in this condition and your new schools are worse um M Miss Olson you're concerned about renovation lasting 20 years where'd you get that number with like Paul with the budget where'd you get 20 years because if you remember at the Town Hall when you were there they said the lifespan of the new school is 30 years 440 million for 30 years you think that's Roi you think that's a good return on investment I don't think so and Miss Cleary I don't know what happened to you you were adamant about oh no taxes I'm not

166going to I can't do it and now you're talking like new school again something something's up and it's not good thank you okay then with that I will close the public comment section and we'll move on with the rest of the agenda um so may I have a motion to approve the February 18 2025 special meeting and work session me oh do you have a question oh okay in work session minutes and February 25th regular board meeting minutes um as attached Miss chander and then second Miss Ste can I just check if there's any comments or anything from the board no and then with that since we have Miss Mr Meri on we'll do a Voice vote okay so um Miss Austin well no we don't have to do a rot call I'm sorry Voice

167vote so can I have um so then may I have a motion to approve the um I'm sorry may I get approval for the meeting minutes all those in favor perfect it's good okay and then the motion carries eight um 82 One 8 sorry the The Voice vote and and and our solicitor can correct me if I'm wrong but The Voice vote needs to we can all raise our hands but Mr Mery needs to use his voice that's yeah and I saw miss Mr Regina but is his mic working yeah is is now good or would you like to take the bir I'm Sor that would be yes yes thank you so that's eight zero right okay thank you all um and then we have fiscal items there are three fiscal items on the agenda

168for your approval tonight 9A list of bills 9B treasurers report and 9 C budgetary transfers there have been no changes since last week's meeting that concludes my report okay may I have a motion to approve all fiscal items that's presented all right Miss Austin second all right Miss Chanda and then can I just check if there's any comments or any items for discussion okay then with that can I ask for um approval all those in favor yes yes okay all right so that carries 8 Z thank you all and then um we'll move on to personal items thank you Miss Purdue uh we have a few additions to the Personnel agenda in 10e under classified we have the approval of two personal cars Miranda Holmes and Fallon hence and under 10m supplemental contracts we have

169three additions the approval of supplemental contracts in the amount of $700 for Maria britam the approval of supplemental contract for Brook Shep luck and the approval of extended season pay for the winter coaches that ends my report thank you thank you um and then with that can I see if there's any um items yeah yeah can I just get a motion for um to approve all personal items as presented all right Miss Ste and then the second miss chander all right and then I will ask if there's any um discussion or questions from the board okay and then with that can I get um all in favor for all items under personal items yes okay thank you 8 Z all right and then with that we'll go to curriculum and programs Dr Regina Dr Regina

170thank you Miss Purdue uh we have three items uh that I want to bring to your attention 11a 11b and 11 C uh that's new curriculum revised curriculum and resource adoption all of these items are on uh documentation is for public review in finina District administration building and will be voted on in the April agenda so they are not being voted on this evening um but this is just a recognition that they are and they have been uh there since uh March 19th starting with 11d which is a voted on item that is the methacton comprehensive plan for 25 2025 to 2028 11e the Educational Service agreements which read approve the Educational Service agreements and terms for student 37303 with special with special language and terms of the agreement drafted by the district solicitor two

171approve the educational service agreement in terms for student 22232 with special language in terms of the agreement drafted by the district solicitor and three approve the educational services agreement in terms for student 270 447 with special language in terms of the agreement drafted by the district solicitor and that is the completion of the items thank you all right and then with that can I have um a motion I'm sorry we do a motion for items 11d and 11e let me just make sure check yep so 11 D and 11 e and I saw Miss graph a second miss chander all right and then with that I will check if this any so I do want to ask um well I'll check if there's any comments from the board but I also want to ask about

17211 um I believe it's 11e maybe let me just make sure so I'm sorry it's 11d in reference to the comprehensive plan I think I asked last week just to check if we received any comments on that just want to confirm the same as last week there have been no comments on that report okay thank you you're welcome and then miss pH thank you um I I just wanted to to take this opportunity um regarding 11d as well um because I will say this everywhere that I can um one of a major part of the methacton comprehensive plan for 25 to 28 is a goal of 95% Proficiency in um in uh on pssas correct me if I'm wrong pssas um and that is a fantastic fantastic goal for our district moving forward and I

173am very excited to see us reach it thank you Miss Clary um thanks on 11 A B and C same question that Miss Purdue had have we have we received any public comments since they've been available we have received no comments on any of the materials Avil thank you you're welcome and those items will be on available through um the 15th of April at the finina that is correct yes and are any of those resources available online or is it only at finina for review they are but they are at F you'd have to come to finina to be able to view them okay perfect yes Miss a um and as in the past if we need to accommodate families who want to view the resources outside of regular finina business hours we will be

174able to do so yes we'll certainly accommodate family one when we need to yes you're welcome okay thank you all and then with that can I get um approval for item 11d and 11e um as presented all in yes 8 Z thank you all right and then we will move on to to give me one second policy and then um may I have a motion to approve all policies listed under first and well so we're just approving policies under second read right that's correct okay Miss Chanda and Miss Austin I'm going to look on this side next time all right and then with that can I just see if there's any comments from this board about policies all right and then with that can I ask all in favor for all the policies under second

175read yes thank you that carries 8 Z that all right so all right so then may I have a motion to approve all items listed under other as presented I'm gonna mean under other if I could just I think there's I think there's some uh we want to take some of these separate yes so let's take um do we do the motion first and then take it separate or you do it now okay you can ask which of of the items under uh section 11 or I'm sorry section 13 which are the ones that any board members want to take separately e e n g and the last one H H so then just want to confirm we want to take items 13 e 13 G and 13 H separately any others okay so i'

176recommend first taking uh if there seeing if there's a motion to approve items 13A 13B 13 C 13d and 13f all right so with that I will ask for a motion for for um 13 a 13 B 13 C 13 D and 13f Miss um Phil Miss Clary all right and I'll just check um if there's any um discussion or any questions from the board on those items all right and if there's none I will ask for um to approve the items as listed 13 A B C D and F yes and then we will do can I have a motion to approve um can I have a motion to approve 13e now I I'm sorry go ahead no sorry could these the ones we're voting on individually could you read what we're voting on

177since I don't have the agenda in front of me yes I don't have them listed in front me okay so I will propose to do each one separate unless you guys want to do it so the first one we're going to vote on this 13e which is the Katie photography services and is to approve the oneyear agreement with Katie for the high school photography Services as presented so I will ask for a motion um to approve 13e which is the KD photography service all right give me one second all right can I get a motion Miss chander and then a second all right Miss still and then can I ask for any um questions or topics or discussion Miss graph yeah I would just ask that the um board would vote to approve this with

178a slight change to the contract which we were not able to get in time for tonight's meeting the only change I have on the contract would be that Katie has said that they would do in addition to the two Road shows they would do additional time at the high school with our students for students who can't make the road shows but the contract doesn't actually say at the high school so I would just ask that we could just modify the contract to include that those additional times would be at the high school so our students don't have to drive to the studio so as long as we can get that change in the contract I'm I'm good with proceeding and and approving this tonight and I and I agree with your recommendation that was the

179intent uh it just needs to be wed that way is there any uh board members object to the approval of the item as drafted but with the additional uh contract language added to the contract um as Miss graph just indicated any objection no so hearing none you can have that as a just a friendly Amendment so the the motion as made and seconded is item 13e with the additional language being added to that contract y okay so then um we will amend 13 well 13e will be to approve the um one-year contract oneyear agreement with Katie for the high school photography Services that's presented with a slight change to include additional that additional um Road shows is that the road shows at your uh time it's just for um additional photography time it's not a

180true Road Show um and I think Miss do you have more questions additional photography time will be at um will be added at the high school so um Miss CLA you have a question I do I have two um so I've been for the couple weeks that we've been talking about this contract I've been talking about the what we're owed I shouldn't say what we're owed what we're still eligible for to collect under the last contract that just uh ended on incentives and I understand that that's $700 that we're still eligible to receive back from Katie are we do we have a plan to collect on that do Dr uker plans to issue a purchase order within the week uh on other um it's it's not advertising stuff it's on on it's okay as long

181as we're going after that she plans to issue the uh the Po's this this within a week excellent okay and then under this current contract um it says and I don't know actually if the old last year this current Year's contract said this or not but the language under the terms and conditions says that all incentives um all incentives not requested during the term of the contract expire at the year end at the expire at the ending year of this contract so that being said so we have to collect on the incentives in the school year of 26 or 25 26 um do we have a process in place to make sure that we're collecting on all of those incentives that are available to us absolutely I I did we did we not make the

182modifications in the agreement that we would have all those all those request in by March didn't we very good point we did yeah I think you brought that to my attention that we did we made those modific so by by contract actually actually says yeah do I suggested January but Dr uker said in terms of the of the flow and she'll be the one responsible and it'll be March that we'll collect on all of those incentives so Dr uker okay that really that said it thank you nothing further thank you for clarifying I know um there's been um extensive review of this contract just to make sure um we have what is needed and um I appreciate all the board members for your time and um reviewing this contract just to bring your um perspectives

183in I believe um so far P partnership with Katie has been um we've had some ups and downs but I believe they're willing to work with the district as we proceed so hopefully we can maintain um in good terms with them and they'll honor the contract as is provided so I appreciate the help and then with that I believe I will ask for approval of 13e KD photography services with um modification to um SL modific to the um language as proposed by Miss graph all in [Music] favor yes okay thank you NS 80 all right and now we'll go to um 13g is the literacy plan professional learning vendor and um the most is to approve the Professional Services agreement with keys to literacy of Raleigh ma for 2526 school year at a cost of

184142 um 1,200 as stipulated in the attached agreement and so can I get a motion M I was going to ask to amend that motion okay should I do that first yeah thank you um I would suggest having the the motion for the item as drafted and then a second and then making your amendment to see if it's something that is a friendly Amendment or if we need to go through the amendment process you like a messy Amendment so what all around okay so um I will ask for I will ask for a motion um based on the um what we currently have on the agenda and then we'll proceed from there so miss graph um and then a second Miss chander and then I will ask for discussion or any concerns or topics Miss

185Clary so to put it in context I think the discussion part would be more helpful for my fellow board members um the contract price for year one is $142,000 I'm rounding up or rounding down and U section of the contract requires that we cover as a district the travel costs um uh that are due under the contract so my initial question uh for Dr Regina or Dr Zerby is those travel costs are they included within the yearly the next year's $142,000 they are okay so and I knew that so um from asking it previously but my concern Le for the board is that it does I don't think the contract says that those costs are actually included within the 142 and I would like to amend this motion so that we can sort of clean

186that up um I'm okay with I'm personally okay with the contract other than that piece and if everyone else is comfortable with that um my suggestion would be to to approve the item as listed on the agenda with the amendment um with additional language regarding travel costs to Beed drafted uh by the district solicitor um so long as it it reads that it is accounted for within the accounted for Compass whatever word you want to use within the yearly total fee schedule that's in the contract okay yeah any disagreement with that from anyone on the board I hope not no okay uh the the motion can then be amended as drafted uh with that the additional language as indicated by Miss clar okay so now we have to do a request for a motion again

187okay so then nope you have a motion the motion is with with the agreement of the full board amended to be approval of the item as listed on the agenda uh for the literacy plan with the uh additional language to be added to the contract related to travel costs such that they do not exceed for each year uh that those costs are included in the $142,200 amount sure I could I'm like lawyers can always add more words okay all right so then with that amendment can I request for approval so yeah I'm sorry discuss all more discussion miss this is with the current that's just discussion continuing all right so I do have a question um actually I have more than one question so it does say professional service agreement with keys for to literacy

188that's because schools cubed was bought for with by keys to literacy so it includes both and all that it's just reading keys to literacy right that is correct great awesome um and I just want to make sure because um I've received some questions since the work session and I just wanted to make sure students um all students will be benefiting from the work uh with with keys for literacy and schools cubed all Educators including special education absolutely that is correct excellent thank you for that um so and I did just want to make a statement because I'm very excited about this um so what I want to share and why I'm so excited about this is um first um all those for decades involved in literacy research including neuroscientists and education researchers agree that about

18995% of the human population can learn to read learning to read has no connection to IQ at all and that is really really important um this movement of bringing in this the sheer depth of knowledge and the respect in the field that school's cubed and keys for literacy have um will benefit our entire community and it Direct direct L connects with the comprehensive plan we just accepted it is a step forward and it is a huge commitment to that 95% proficiency um so hold on I want to make sure I say it um this invest in our school structures our Educators um for proficient reading and writing and it is important to note that the key to supporting all human beings to learning how to proficiently read and write cannot be found in a single

190program which is why this is so important this is um professional development and structures there's no easy button to literacy instruction it it lives and breathes with how educators and communities use the programs available to us to help all of our community learn to read and write um and it relies on coordinated teamwork which is the Wonder and beauty of the systems and structures that this program is giving us um finally a strong literacy program is the heart of a strong district and it requires the support of every single level of the district which is why I'm so very excited to vote on this tonight thank you and I appreciate your excitement as a member of the committee I do want to thank the administration for um putting together the literacy plan but also um

191pairing it down pairing it up with a group that can really support our teachers and also bring this program to the school district so thank you and then with that I don't know where we left off no um with that I will ask for I think we have the motion we don't need to get a motion already we're are good with the motion we're good with the additional changes as proposed and I will ask for all those in favor of approving 13g the literacy plan professional learning vendor yes thank you and that goes 8 Z also and then we will go to um Professional Services so now we're at 13h Professional Services high school project and the motion states to approve cha and Shrader group to provide feasibility and planning services to address High School

192building and campus challenges issues as outlined in the provider summary scope at a cost not to exceed one 161 um 708 and with that I will ask for a motion um I have Mr Winters and then a second is graph okay and then I will ask if there's any discussion or questions from the board about this Miss graph yeah I just wanted to make um a couple of points um there were some comments from the public and I think that if it's not clear you know the Shader group is the district's architect they have gone through a vetting process and we selected to be our architect and Cha is the District's engineer of record so they went through a vetting process as well so even if we change projects it's my understanding and correct me

193if I'm wrong Dr Zerby that we can use cha and Shader to do a variety of projects around the district because they've already been selected through a selection process to be our engineers and our Architects is that correct that's a fair comment yes and um so in this process what we're approving here is for our engineer here to work in conjunction with the architect to do not only an assessment of the architectural design but then also use the engineer to do the cost estimating side of that which is the engineer's job the engineer's sort of part of the project is that right agree with that correct thank you then can I just check if there's any more questions or concern from the board okay then with that is there any request to amend this motion

194as s read because I really love that part no anything else okay so then with that can I ask all in favor of um approving the Professional Services um high school project um 13h yes and I vote no well you should have said that first okay yeah well okay S1 Glenn would that have changed your position if I said it first no it just would have felt me feel better to hear your voice first oh okay sorry next next time I will do it that way and I I will and I mean and I would just be transparent to say I understand what we're doing as far as um getting the feasibility conductor for this and I it goes back to my question I just feel like there's a lot of unknowns based on having

195to reset and without having some of those clarifications to support another spin um on the project without having a um all the information clear um I just can't support this but I understand um that there's also a need to um I guess move forward but I just feel like we do have a lot of unknowns um there's assumptions in the budget and I would prefer to have some of that information before um committing more funds um going forward to this so that's why I vote no for it and then with that I will just m Purdue can I sorry I know that we voted already I did want to make one comment related to the high school project and the clarity that we have discussed many times before about what the purpose of the apartment

196in the educational delivery is not it sounds it's being described in a way that probably doesn't give it justice I know Dr ravanes is trying to find a a a place in this High School to do this already in we don't have 27 open classrooms or whatever the number was but it is for transition services for special education so to sound like it's superflous or something that is not really needed for the district is uh uh untrue and I don't want that to continue to be spoken as it's something that we're wasting money on and it's a Superfluous it is a something that we provide our students by busting them outside of the district costing them time for their transil ability to have more class time in those transition services and it's a value added

197thing that we want to provide this dist and hopefully we can even do it as early as next year but uh to discount it as just sort of waste is unfair and truly um truly not in the spirit what we're trying to do at meth Acton thank you for um that well said um with that I will um proceed with dates for board members calendar in upcoming board meetings dates are listed on the agenda and also on the me acting website and then with that I will check if there's any old or new business seeing none I will turn it over to Courtesy of the um of the floor the board of school directors will now provide an opportunity for residents to make comment on matters that may be before the board the board asks

198you to keep your comments to 3 minutes or less the board of school directors may choose to respond to matters following conclusion of the comments you can also submit questionsa email to information at.org as mentioned before please state your name and your municipality for recordkeeping John Andrews Lower Providence we have a for this evening's agenda a 10 age document and it was after the after the earlier opport opportunity to speak that I tallied up the total costs of all the resources 840 Grand that's far above any cost for books uh in in my recollection of 20 plus years here and uh I think that's it's so many different uh courses that these books are used in that it would be worthwhile to have an explanation of why we have an enormity of resource resources being

199bought makes me wonder whether you're going to get another bill for $1,000 for bookmarks thank you Karen Smith from Lower Providence um earlier this school Year my son was shoved bullied and called racial slurs in Sky View Upper Elementary staff member was witnessed to this and did not intervene my son requested help and was denied and was told he was not allowed to use the word racist all while the slurs continued the actions of the staff member further the humiliation and abuse that my son experienced it was a disservice to other students than witness that this was acceptable and it show it proved an inability to do her job over a clear bias it is not the first Stu student has called my son racial slurs in that school nor is it the first staff

200member who has denied my son's request for help in these instances or bothered to report it and I am here to ask why do we have staff that are unaware of how to handle these incidents why is it appropriate to allow a student to be supervised by a staff member during an investigation related to that student how do you consider this to be a safe environment for a student when they have to face the staff member on a daily basis my son does not have the voice to speak against adults and I am here instead to remind you all of your duty to provide a safe environment for our students for all of our students he may be learning to navigate these challenges among his peers but it is not fair for anyone to expect

201him to do so with adults I have raised I have given the courtesy of raising this issue my concerns on numerous instances through this district and what I seek rather than a te ology or understanding is action I urge you to consider implementing policy appropriate to better prevent address and protect our students from these in incidents and I thank you all for your time this evening thank you hi everyone Reba man War sester Township speaking as a parent tonight um I just want to comment I just want to make a comment on a public comment earlier and say um we do need sensory rooms in this building and we need sensory rooms in every building dedicated sensory rooms not a yoga ball and a box of fidgets in the back of the es room um

202that's just not appropriate it's dangerous and it's it's it's not fair it's it's not helping our students learn who need to have a sensory room to decompress and reregulate themselves so that they can have a successful learning environment also thank you Mr wyers for your comments about the apartment program and that's all thank you uh Brian hershaw L Providence um first Miss Purdue thank you for your vote on the high school additional spending uh you're the only voice or Reason on the board these days curently um and thank goodness that photography Services contract has been approved so much time was spent on that and it could have been spent on the budget the budget wasn't even discussed in last week's meeting you're asking for 4.8% tax increase on top of last year's 4.7% tax increase

203I think the budget should be on every agenda for every meeting um regarding the budget you still need to put together a forecast to use in evaluating the budget I'm curious to hear why the district is adding a police chief at a cost of $180,000 keep in mind the administrative staff at metha has grown 15 15% while enrollment declined 3% and scores and rankings have also declined over that period interest income in the budget is still understated simple year-to dat for year year to date actual plus a forecast we'll tell you that what are the borrowing assumptions that are in the budget now given the state of flux in the high school project there should be no borrowing in the budget it should be taken out that would be a substantial cost savings and a

204way to reduce the tax increase the only thing putting the borrowing in there you may want to pad the capital reserve fund but it just increases interest expense in the general fund and all the interest income will stay in the capital fund taxpayers will see no benefit of that when it comes to tax increase um I saw a special education update on the agenda tonight I thought we'd hear get some information on information that Miss Stephie presented back in January when she showed that special ed support costs have increased 248 per over the past four years in the 2023 2024 school year $7 million were spent on special education costs and those costs were over budget by 3.2 million or 82% we heard nothing in the presentation tonight about why those costs are high I'm

205not saying they're wrong I'm not saying it's not necessary but I think we the board inde need to understand for purpose of next year's budget why those costs are scaling at a 45 degree upward angle and I see in the budget update tonight there's a $500,000 reduction in Special Egg costs what's the basis for that it's a nice round number Paul did you get that number from the same place where we got the 5.1% it seems like you did it'd be good to hear why you think you can achieve that kind of reduction in special egg cost when they've been growing at a a pretty high clip regarding salaries in the pre-preliminary budget 12 positions were removed from the budget I'll call them ghost positions they're probably in this year's budget and you're looking at

206a $1.5 million faal variants why are they why were they in there to begin with if you don't need them and as anybody looked at the next year budget to see how many ghost positions Dr Z's put in there asking for a schedule of every employee their related s and reconcile as to what's in the budget and see what positions are vacant and get them to justify why they need to be in the budget and if you can't justify it take them out thank you very much for your time [Music] J mik War sester um most of all if not all your problems are because of lack of oversight by this board budget test scores new school so I want to illustrate to you how you're not doing your job I've heard some talk about

207the MAA in education Foundation recently so I'm going to give you a little meeting summary between Dave zery Tim bicker and Greg pelicano regarding banking relationships Dave Zerby and Tim bicka will meet with three local banks to evaluate their competencies and meeting the district's needs should the district switch from the existing banking relationship relative to operating accounts these Banks were chosen to a certain extent based on the amount of eitc identified off the uh 2018 report we receive from the state once the assessment is complete and potential Partners identified methacton Education Foundation team members will be brought in for a follow-up meeting and Bank personnel as part of a negotiating strategy so who's calling the shots here financially the independent 501c3 metha and Education Foundation that's how we pick our banks they approve it here's

208um the deal with Univest uh the email says first of all the best rate I can give you on the 5 million oneyear fixed CD rate is 2.4% however I can allow you to redeem the CD without penalty in addition I will recommend the 7500 to $10,000 of EIT C money to benefit withon Foundation what's that called right like somebody's like I give you this give you that there's something there's a name for I can't think of the name of it um then we have Tomkins vist so if I can get you uh two to three 2.3% on all accounts with us will that be enough to get it I'll raise the rates on the current three accounts to match the new account to make up for the difference in what we're being offered uh

209on top of it I can to convince the board to approve the $10,000 sponsorship Dr Zerby requested to be presented for the Apex Awards they already have have it for approval of the board but I can get it approved now this is supposed to be an independent [Music] 501c3 and donations dropped because of changes in the banking relationships a year later so the banking relationship changes and the donation to the foundation drops so what what is going on here finan Paul you're the finance committee chairman you got a lot to say about things why do you look into some of this stuff I've been telling you about the foundation for years nothing's happened thank you very much [Music] good evening everyone Michael Ryan low Providence it's been a while since I've been here thank you

210all for your service to the school district um I'm here to talk about bullying for once I'm not the sole voice in this District who who's speaking of it and I do not know the woman who spoke before but thank you to her to have the courage to be up here to speak for her child as I've said before my children have not had to deal with bullying in this District before but I know of others who have and I've been here and I've discussed it again and again I've had conversations and meetings with school district personnel and board directors and imagine to my dismay what the safe schools report for last year in this school district said anybody want to take a guess how many cases of bullying occurred in meth Acton zero can

211anyone look at me in the face and tell me that not a single kid in methacton got bullied last year so I won't speak to individual people's stories or names but I will speak about this and just ask yourself these questions do you know of a student who is bullied because of their race do you know of a student who is bullied because of their religion do you know of a student who is bullied because of their weight do you know of a student who is bullied because of their disability because I do and people I know do the school does the staff does and this is unacceptable it's a disservice to the kids that it's happening to you're invalidating their experience in this school district and at what point is it going to stop

212you can't sweep this under the rug and I apologize for my anger or whatever you want to call what I have right now but I've been here before I know most of you I know most of you care and when it comes down to it the policy's there there's a policy on bullying 249 it's there but you Schoolboard directors are not in this District on a daily basis it is relyant on the administration and the staff to protect these children and I'll say just finally remember that it only takes one case of bullying to go wrong really really wrong either for that student their friends their family or the school Community I pray I don't have to come up here again and as I try to do I'll end on a good note it is

213very nice to hear education being spoken at at a board meeting I mean we do more than Finance if facilities here it was fantastic between Dr Walsh before and Miss steel tonight talking about literacy great job thank you hi Amy Smith War sester I just wanted to uh re reiterate my comments from the work session last week um to say thank you to Mrs Dana Heyman who is retiring at the end of the school year and just to take the opportunity to to make a public comment about all of the teachers that are retiring um like Mr Ryan said um you know a lot of the conversation at board meetings is around Finance as it as it needs to be but the education is the real reason right why we have a school district and

214these teachers who have put in all all of this time um deserve to be thanked as many times as we can can we remember so I just wanted to um publicly State again that um Mrs Hyman has been an amazing teacher for my children and um I spent 13 years straight in war sester Elementary with the span of my kids and uh she has always been just a a reliable kind compassionate empathetic and completely professional teacher so I just wanted to to take a minute to say that and I just wanted to say thank you again for all of the great discussion around literacy in the Ed Committee in the work sessions in the the uh the board meetings and I'm so excited and and happy to see all the things that the district's doing

215I'm learning something new every time I attend one of these meetings so I appreciate all of the effort that all of you are putting into that um from the administration to to the board and um all those new curriculum uh materials that are getting us keeping us up to speed and the new classes at the the high school around uh data and cyber security and all of the things that are that are in place there's a lot of good things um to be looking forward to and um also I just want to shout out the work at North monco Tech I know we have two board members that represent there but our students there are doing amazing work and Miss Purdue is not going to say that publicly because she's too um she's too modest

216but her son is is doing amazing things and was honored last week so thank you um to everyone for all that Collective effort that you're putting and investing into our children um it matters you know it matters so thank you thank you okay and then with that I would just like to check if there's any comments from um the board okay Miss Ste thank you and I want to thank everyone who shared and spoke tonight and um I do want to just um it's not a a comment or an answer or even um about the bullying that has been shared tonight and it's not sympathy um because it's every kid who's child uh every child who experiences bullying experiences pain and I want to recognize that um and we will continue to seek an answer

217and keep working and supporting that um I do want to share that addressing Bing can be multifaceted and I had actually pulled up more research to share my comment about the literacy that I forgot to read because that happens to me all the time um but um and and there is a reason why I sit up here in Champion literacy every single chance I get um it is because I see how it is an underlying factor in so many ways um in success but also in trauma and um it cuts across many different people but it is absolutely a factor in bullying um so in trying to doesn't fix every situation but in trying to address lovers to create a better school for all creating an area of of success for all is really really

218important and um the Iowa what I am about to share is from the Iowa reading Research Center and it is it specifically discusses dyslexia which I use that as a specific diagnosis but um I use that Loosely here in Pennsylvania because it is actually really difficult to get a dyslexia diagnosis in Pennsylvania um it it it can refer to children who struggle to learn to read at the speed of students who do not receive um structured literacy or who might take a little bit more prompting so when I read the word dyslexia I just invite you to consider that it's really just students who are struggling and have gaps in their reading so they struggle um many students with dyslexia say that they have had a negative experience in school in one study 50% this

219was out in 2022 50% of students with dyslexia I will say or have trouble with reading report being bullied or teased 30% report feeling lazy or stupid 30% report feeling less intelligent than their peers 50% reported that they wanted to swap places with someone else many researchers suggest that these low rates of self-esteem are related to the negative classroom experiences when children with dyslexia or reading disability are task with completing reading or writing activities without appropriate instructional supports they have a difficult time with them due to their disability and children who are struggling to read frequently experience failure and this can lead them to feel unsuccessful at school and and I will also say I have seen that they are also become more targets for bullying and it does not fix any of the given

220situations that have been referred to tonight but it is a step forward to help create success for more and I think what we keep doing as a board and keep supporting And discussing is just more ways to create more success and address perhaps situations that need to be addressed so I did just want to share that thank you so much I'll just check if there's any other comments if not I did want to just highlight um a few things just based on what was said and me still thank you for um connecting that I know you've mentioned that um stat statistics in Ed Committee in reference to why you strongly support literacy so I I do appreciate that I know there I mean Dr grainy spoke on a lot of the data um that's out

221there and then as far as this um supports we have in place um and so I think there's definitely work um I know board members have sat here at this table and then we've also have people at that Podium challeng Us in reference to some of the work that we can do in reference to bullying and I know we've put in programs but I think we've also talked about what other opportunities there are what additional programs we can consider and really check to see if what we have is really working for us is there something else more but I think another aspect of it is the reporting also right there's incidents happening we all know there's things that happen and it's not just getting reported so I think it's something that I will want to

222challenge us to look at why we're not getting those incidents um reported and as we should we do have the QR codes now available for students to be able to scan we've made sure they also have access to it on their Chromebook so we can talk talk about that I don't know if Dr Regina if you want to say something or if this is something that we bring to at committee we can definitely um look into this a little bit more um there was a question about the police chief we will have a presentation on that um next week I'm sorry next month um for the board and then also for the public on why the district is considering adding that um position I think it it' be a great one to have just to

223hear about why the district is proposing to proceed this way so I think that's a good one there was a question about resources and I I do know we do have a lot of resources on here there is we've talked about it at a committee several times there's new change that's happening to um science which is the steals so um it requires us to have a lot of resources there's lab kits a lot of those resources was brought to the at committee um I don't know if you you want to say demo but kind of to show all the resources that are coming so there are significant amount of resources and it's just so that we can be prepared for um that update um that is coming so I think that is that um I'm

224trying to think what else I captured here but there were a lot of things and if Miss caner was here she does a fantastic job at saying thank you to all the teachers and I miss that just because I'm I'm busy trying to get the run the media and she's worked on this more so she do but do say thank you to all the teachers for their time those that are retired I my son had Mrs H so I definitely know she's a Jem and a loss to us and I appreciate all the work that she and also all the teachers and all the um those that have worked for the district that are now retiring have done for for it so I do appreciate it but I do appreciate everyone else here for um

225sticking it out with us this late in the evening and now with that if there's no other comments from the board I will ask for a motion I already saw um Mr wines have a hands up and if I can get a second so the meeting we will agend the meeting at 10:28 thank you all for your time have a good evening