001for e hello and good evening I did like to call to um the methan school board of directors January 23rd 2024 regular board meeting to an order start please rise and join us led by Daniel sesac in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all hello my name is annai Mosley and I'm in fourth grade I'm here to tell you three reasons why I love war sester Elementary School my first reason is because of the people everyone at war sester is nice the teachers and the students I used to go to a different school but when I came to war sester in second grade I was nervous about
002coming to a new school from the first day with my teacher every everyone was very nice and still today everyone is very nice another reason why war sester is great is because of the teachers make learning from for example sometimes the teachers bring other teachers to teach special lessons Mr Dale taught us how to code and my fourth grade teacher taught us the order of operation p m d a s and my third grader teacher taught us 7times 6 is in my shoe 7 * 6 is 42 and last but least the steam fair I got to do an experiment with Skittles the teachers always find ways to help us learn and have fun at the same time the last reason is of all the fun we have at War sister for example Funday field
003day the glow party and Polar Express day and field trips to the plarium and so much more war sister Elementary has has been great for me and I've learned a lot and made great friends and I feel prepared to go to fifth grade next year Miss Purdue could you join Ms Mosley and Mr sesac out front with me to honor our Junior board Representatives yes but first I would like to remind the public that the meeting is advis the public of audio and video recording of the meeting for the purpose of rebroadcasting and I just want to acknowledge that all board members are in in attendance today with the exception of Miss canro Miss Austin and Miss Chand who are dismissed or and have an excuse and then we also have Mr wins participating virtually
004e next um on the agenda this evening we have recognition of guests and scheduled speakers we have Dr Deb uker principal of methacton high school to help present the spirit of methacton award Dr uker thank you Dr Zerby and board members um it's my privilege to recommend several people in the mton high school Community who have achieved um an award for their spirit and their professionalism when it comes to math Acton high school so the first person we'd like to recognize is Dr Carrie kenau an assistant [Applause] principal Dr cokau is an assistant principal at methacton high school she has led numerous initiatives in her 16-year tenure but her most successful has been the growth of our advanced placement programming over the years she has supported the transformation of our program into a remark able
005success showcasing her dedication to details support for teachers and Student Success at the AP exams Dr cokau commits Perfection to everything she is part of she always puts students first in every decision she makes and is the true embodiment of the methacton spirit next one Lor Degan Lorraine Degan is the High School principal's Administrative Assistant [Applause] Lorraine is the heart and soul of our building she is welcoming face to all who are in the building students staff and parents her amazing organization skills keep our building running like a spinning top she is able to multitask coverages building purchase orders substitute coverage coverages student needs teacher needs and onboarding of a brand new principal with such Grace and dignity one would never know what a challenging job she has every day her greatest asset is her
006kindness she makes each person she encounters feels special and heard the next person we'd like to honor is Jessica Gabel a student at mton high [Applause] school Jess is a senior she is an exceptional leader who takes on every and any challenge with a smile and a work ethic that is second to none Jess is our student council president her calm demeanor makes everyone around her happy to take direction from her and inspires them to do their best she embodies the true Spirit of methacton the next one we have is a volunteer Bill Corby Bill Corby began his association with the girls cross country track team indoor track and Spring Track in 2002 when his youngest daughter Ashley competed for methacton high school Bill had volunteered his time with CYO and the visitation Parish running
007programs and his abilities were welcomed when he offered time and coaching expertise at the high school level is more than 20 years later and bill has never waited laed in his dedication to the mton school district mathon high school or the numerous Runners he has coached Bill Corby is the epitome of what methacton school district seeks in a volunteer he motivates he supports and he invests a great deal of time into coaching Bill invests much of his time and effort into each runner on his team his rewards satisfaction in a CO coaching job well done receiving the xct shirts sweatshirts or jackets that proudly display the methacton girls cross country logo he's gets proud watching his Runners improve and earn rewards and honors for their accomplishments and most of all he loves seeing his Runners
008thank him for his time and his effort with them bill has not coached for monetary reasons for the past 20 years he has coached for the joy of watching students grow as team members Runners and indiv uals and lastly we have Mr Jeff durstein our professional staff member who can't be with us but we can still cheer Jeff durstein is a health and PE teacher department chair at methacton high school he serves as a Guiding Light leading by example and inspiring all those around them his passion for health and physical education is not just evident in his words but in his every action he takes whether it's engaging students in Innovative fitness programs promoting healthy lifestyle choices or demonstrating a commitment to Personal Fitness Jeff embodies the very essence of leadership and creating a student
009centered environment congratulations to all our [Applause] winners than 2 m t h n c t o n Go m t h a c t o n Go m t h a c t o n Go [Applause] I know that our two leaders have uh a a competition to prepare for and practice so we will we will dismiss them now if they if they need to be dismissed uh but we also uh are they being dismissed yes or no yes yeah okay thank you so much we appreciate it all right next on on the agenda with the spirit of methacton award we also have MS amichi principal of War cester Elementary School to continue this Spirit of methacton recognition Mrs Mei good evening I would just like to thank Daniel and annah for uh the pledge
010and the Beautiful reading that took place today so let's have another round of applause because they were just amazing thank you uh so tonight I am so proud and just privileged to talk about all of the staff members and students that I love so much at War sester and it's hard to pick just a few people to give this very special award to um but at first I'd like to start with uh Mrs Jen Slater uh Jen is a caring and passionate teacher [Applause] oh Jen is a caring and compassionate teacher who goes above and beyond to make sure her students grow in all possible ways as a reading specialist Jen stays updated on current literacy Trends and puts her learning into effect by using new strategies backed by research she is always willing to
011share her knowledge with others and comes up with great ideas which benefit a it's an inside joke sorry which uh benefits all the students at War sester additionally Jen organizes author visits and coordinates our Meadow Wood readers not only is Jen a reflective and knowledgeable educator but she is also a caring and thoughtful individual who makes sure every student she works with feels valued and special Jen is uh truly loved by the entire War sester Community students volunteers parents and staff thank you for all that you do to strengthen our school and community next I'd like to recognize Mary J de Rosado who is our office assistant she's unable to be here tonight but I have a feeling she's watching on the live stream Mary Joe de Rosado is an amazing office assistant who always
012greets parents and students with a friendly smile she responds to students and staff with an upbeat and encouraging attitude Mary Joe loves to stay busy and is our in-house seasonal decorator adding her Special Touch to make the front office an inviting Place Mary Joe is one of the most kind supportive and energetic people you'll ever meet she is especially good at cheering people up and I am convinced she can make anyone stay better just by being there our students at wor sister absolutely adore her and we are fortunate to have her at our [Applause] [Music] school next I'd like to recognize a very special volunteer miss Patricia not Patricia not is truly an extraordinary volunteer she has been volunteering in the methacton school district in a variety of roles for over 36 years during the
0131970s Pat served in the district as an active member in the arrowhead home and School Association where her three students went to school in the 1980s Pat served on several committees at arola and the high school spending time as president of the junior high school and high school home and school organizations Pat began volunteering at War sester 18 years ago when her three granddaughters began Elementary School even though her granddaughters are no longer at or sester Pat continues to be a dedicated volunteer she loves helping with kid writing and visits us each Monday to help kindergarten students learn to write Pat often says that war sester is her happy place our students and staff absolutely love having her volunt and we look forward to seeing her each week our sister is lucky to have parent
014volunteers but we are even luier to have Pat as a volunteer thank you for your many many years of dedication to methacton but specifically thank you for your years at War sester and finally I would like to recognize uh student McKenzie staris McKenzie is a fourth grade student at War sester and exemplifies our school and District core values McKenzie shines in all that she does and has an infectious positive attitude she is a reliable friend and someone you can trust to always do the right thing at school McKenzie is on our student council and serves as a member of our safety patrol she also plays the clarinet and is a member of the sparkle Art Club McKenzie is extremely creative and even has her own small business where she and her friends make homemade soap
015and jewelry McKenzie donates the proceeds of her sales to local charities which is no surprise given her generous and giving spirit McKenzie is also involved in Girl Scouts she loves to bake and is actively involved in theater as you can tell McKenzie is a very special young lady and we are so happy that she is a war sester [Applause] wolf I sure if it's okay with Madame President we'll just take about uh two minutes to leave individuals who want to uh exit before we proceed on with the remainder of the meeting so we'll take about two minutes so if anyone wants to exit at this time you're welcome to do that next on the agenda is the 2022 2023 fiscal year end audit we have uh Hank from uh Gorman and Associates here to present
016to the board uh that report uh please know that uh uh this was presented to the finance committee of the board uh just last week all board members received a copy of the official audit document um this evening the acceptance of the audit is on the board agenda for uh your consideration and approving once approved the audit will then be posted to the mton high school website with that said uh it's Gorman Associates please good evening ladies and gentlemen uh my name is Hank Miller I'm uh the audit partner for government Associates and I'm here to present the audit report to you um so I just want to start on page three of the audit report is where we have our independent Auditors report and here is where we give our opinion on the financial
017statements uh basically stating that we believe uh through can you oh sorry here we go sorry about that um so in our independent Auditors report uh we give the opinion that we believe the financial state ments presented in the report are presented fairly uh based on the audit evidence that that we obtained during the audit um real briefly uh what are our responsibilities as Auditors uh our objective is to obtain reasonable Assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from Material misstatement whether due to fraud or error and to issue an Auditor's report that includes our opinions so happy to report that we issued uh a clean opinion we did not have any findings uh to report as far as the financial statements um and then we also give an opinion there
018is a supplementary information section uh towards the back of the report where there's some additional financial statements while not required that we believe um to provide some valuable insights and we include them in the report and so we give an opinion on on that information as well uh I just want to go over some brief uh financial highlights uh from the financial statements in the report so here we have um a budget versus actual uh this is a summary information from the financial statement on page 27 uh so here you'll see you can compare revenues expenditures budget versus actual what actually happens um the only thing I would note here is for the fiscal year ending June 30 2023 the district did did overexp uh its budget by 5 and a half M or I'm
019sorry uh by 7.8 million um but there are exceptions uh for why that would be allowable the district and the district met all of those exceptions um some of the reasons for that were the district used some of its committed funds and its fund balance during the year also spending Federal programs or um having expenditures for federal programs that were not in the original budget and then at the bottom there you can see the district ended the year with a fund balance in the general fund of $10.8 million and here is just a breakdown of that fund balance at the end of the year so there's different categories of fund balance uh nonspendable is just uh funds that are available um but not available to be spent so the district had 1.8 million in prepaid
020expenditures at the end of the year there's also some restricted fund balance uh this is related to restricted donations that the district receives but hasn't expended yet uh you guys I'm sure you're aware of the backpack program um so certain funds that are just restricted for various purposes and then there's a uh $8.8 million that was unassigned at year end so for no particular purpose was not restricted or committed or assigned by the board here uh I also present a trend analysis for the Food Service fund uh over the last four years what I would mention here is that obviously with covid-19 has disrupted a lot of operations for schools across the country um and I would say 2023 maybe starting to return back to normal uh so you can see uh the results of
021those operations for the last four years and then here we just have a summary statement of the capital projects fund um there's $3.3 million expended for major Capital Improvements $4.3 million was transferred in from the general fund and you currently have $17.2 million in the capital projects fund to be used for major Capital Improvements moving forward and in summary uh you'll find this information this is uh pulled from the single audit section in the very back of the report schools who expand more than $750,000 in federal programs during the year are required to undergo what we call a single audit uh that's a federal compliance audit so we look uh we select and test certain audit programs based on the federal guidelines um but in there we also give our reports on internal control reports
022on compliance and then we also give our opinions on all the federal programs and happy to report there was no findings and the district received a clean opinion and that's all I have thank you Mr Miller um if if if I may Madam president uh can are there any questions or members of the board uh on this presentation to my right are there any questions to members on my left and how about to any members on online no okay Mr Miller thank you so much thank you have a good evening next on the agenda we have the online event ticketing platform Dr uker please know that Dr uker presented the online ticketing uh platform at the education committee meeting of the board um and she is here this evening uh as a as a followup
023for the rest of the board on uh on the recommendation which can be found in the agenda for your approval this evening Dr uker hi thank you Dr Zerby thank you board members um I just want to start with a preface that this is my 16th day as the high school principal so all this research has been done for several years with people other than myself so Mr smink who was heading this adventure is now at norst toown watching the basketball game and making sure that everything's going okay with that so that's why I'm here today to um to do online ticketing so um basically what we're we are asking is our recommendation is to move to online ticketing and we specifically want to use Hometown ticketing um stationed out of Columbus Ohio um for
024our spring activities and events and continue with sporting events in the fall and winter so for the rest of this year we'd like to use Hometown ticketing for our two big events Mr methacton and the prom and then starting in the fall we will be able to use it for all methacton events and activities during this presentation I'm going to talk about the definition and reasons for online ticketing the process we used to determine the best option of Hometown ticketing we'll have a brief overview of what Hometown ticketing is the impact it has to our customers we'll go over briefly the communication timeline and the next steps in the process so what is online ticketing it's exactly what it says you purchase your tickets online it's a cashless way for tickets to be purchased in
025meth Acton's website the active the link is active 24 hours a day seven days a week customers go to the methacton website they hit the link they put in their pertinent information and they receive a QR code that QR code is your ticket you print out the ticket and the custom brings the QR code or the ticket to the event then we have people who are there scanning the QR codes or scanning the picture of the QR code on the person's phone and that admits them into the event why should we move to on time uh online ticketing it limits the exchanging of cash did you know that our prom cost $90 and a lot each ticket and all of this is done through school a lot of the collection is done through too it's
026a safer way of dealing with large sums of money uh the speed of transaction prevents long lines people leave their home without cash but they never leave their home without their phone there's more alignment between us and our neighboring districts it's convenient for all stakehold stakeholders and it's an increased traction to meth Acton's website um why should we move to online ticketing there's a lot of reason why tickets can be purch purchased in advance it gives the people who are organizing the events realtime data on how to prepare for events and actually the data to see how many people attended the event if a game or event is cancelled refunds are automatically credited the same process goes for all major District events the proms dances musicals and Athletics the Matha and Theater Company already uses
027online ticketing system and about 75% of their ticket sales come through an online platform so this started um a while ago a couple years ago with the administration and the athletics department investigating different options for some of the same reasons the handling of money long lines human error occurs often there's no real-time data on how tickets are sold and we wanted to improve the system um so the administration met with SE on several occasions with people from the district district office the high school principals and director of Athletics and activities agreed that an online ticketing would provide a safer and more convenient way to sell tickets we looked at several different um ticketing uh ticketing Avenues Hometown ticket spet Van Go and show ticks um since that time I think this is missing a slide
028I don't know if this is the most updated one but the since that process we found out that let me go back for a second we found out that the um van oh here sorry I skipped on sorry um since the investigation Hometown ticketing purchase ticket spot van go never returned any of our attempts to gather more information and show ticks focuses on theater Productions but the goal is to have one system for all ticketing Hometown ticketing was very responsive and answered all our questions Hometown is popular and used in many of our neighboring districts and the director of Athletics met with several Central office administrators to discuss Hometown ticketing so when Mr schank the director of activities in athletics met with the director of technology to make sure that we had the capabilities to
029do that in our technology and we absolutely do he met with the business director to make sure that everything would be safe and secure um what he found out was a stripe account must be established for the Athletics in each club that would utilize Hometown um which we can do and the communication Department um when he met with that they created a timeline on how we were going to get the word out about um moving to an online ticketing process what is or who is Hometown ticketing it's a professional level online ticketing platform designed to help schools sell tickets easily scan attendees quickly and access access Revenue quickly the headquarters are in Columbus Ohio they make uh customer service a priority and they are accessible at all times John even told me that there were
030times that he would email them at 10:00 at night and by midnight he'd have a response so they are very easy to work with and they are very responsive to our needs so here are some of the leadership of Hometown and not their their names are significant what's more significant is their experience they have experience in financial leadership in uh information technology and especially the CEO who has worked on the the school board board of directors of cosign and um national board of um business for schools so they have experience in schools business departments as well as information technology and financial leadership um so basically we're talk a little bit about Hometown being a very secured system and how it is secured this is a little bit over my pay rate as far as how
031it is secured but the most important thing to remember it is that it it is secured by credit card data um we never see maaa never sees credit card information and it is uh protected through the payment credit card industry data security standard um they use standards in every aspect of their business from their employees to technology and they conduct external penetration and V vulnerability scans what are some of the impacts of online ticketing um people may be resistance to change there is a service charge there's a service charge of $1 per ticket plus 30 on the transaction plus a 2.9% for the for the total of the ticket so basically a $5 ticket would now be $649 there is the option for that se charge to be absorbed by the district but we are
032recommending that it's absorbed by the customer this is in part in fact because we have one of the lowest rates on um for entrance fees into a lot of our events and we not raised our fees for sporting events or activities in decades um another online challenge could be that we need the technology to be able to do it and that technology needs to be working plan to address the impact of online ticketing um we need constant communication in the next couple sh slides I'll show you the plan that we have established by the principal Department by the um central office and by the Athletics office of how we can communicate to all stakeholder groups um this year for Mr mathon and for the prom Hometown ticketing will be strongly encouraged but cash will also
033be accepted in a way that we will make for our students who are not used to this um the Athletics director will ensure that all technology is available when it comes to events and when it comes to sporting events and that everything is working before the event occurs um and the athletics department will Contin continually monitor ticket sales during the spring so in the next couple slides just talk about who's going to be doing the communication between the athletics department and central office and the principales we're going to include it in flyers in our happenings in the newsletters in the announcements that we do with the students um the home and school presidents are going to advertise it and put it out on Cella we are going to send the information to our coaches to
034our booster club presidents um all throughout the rest of the spring we're going to do it on Twitter we're going to advertise it on Twitter on social media and on our district website so we have identified who's responsible for doing that and it's going to be taking place through if it gets approved tonight February through the end of the school year so everybody is familiar with the change and everybody feels comfortable starting the fall with this happening in our events oh sorry um next steps if it gets proved tonight we begin publicizing as referenced in our timeline we use Hometown ticketing for all Matha and spring activity for Matha the two Matha and spring activities being the prom and Mr mathon and use Hometown ticketing for all sporting events and activities in the 2425 school
035year thank you thank you so much Dr uker are there questions from members of the board for Dr uker to my right U Miss Clary hi Dr yuker um thank you for the presentation I I have three questions s and I recognize that you may not be able to answer any of them so Dr Zerby we're not voting on this until next next meeting this is on the agenda for your consideration this evening okay as as everyone should remember um we had uh this was presented at the education Committee of the board and then was planned to be presented at the work session which got canceled due to weather correct so I do apologize that's okay so my questions may be if you know great do you know if the contra cont that we're entering
036into with Hometown provides us with indemnification if the credit card data is stolen I know you said the district won't see the credit card data it's okay if you don't I don't okay okay um and then what happens if the platform goes down it will go back to [Music] cash if the like during a game like it just stops work or the platform goes down like it so when my kids were at other at other school going to events at at other schools or I was watching the kids um at other schools every once in a while there would be like a glitch I'm assuming that we would accept cash if that was was the case the the challenge will be that if if tickets are purchased in advance and the glitch occurs you know
037moments before the event occurs um it would probably create a challenge however um the the uh we certainly can have that conversation um and look into how we best handle that again we are not the first customer in Montgomery County we are actually the last of two school districts in Montgomery County to to to not use an online systeme everybody but us uses it so I'm super happy for and for the first question the contract needs to be reviewed by the solicitor before it it goes out anyhow so we can we can you know confirm that uh the impact of that particular question on vacation wonder that would that would be great thank you um next question U Miss graph yes thank you for the presentation I thought that covered a lot of questions so
038I appreciate it um the one question that came to mind for me is where do our ticket sales where does the revenue from our ticket sales go now Mr Grier they go into the uh general fund currently so not that's athletic sales I'm not talking the club just talking about Athletics because other activities pay for the activities so with this system will we be able to delineate ticket sales for football games go to the football account and ticket sales for soccer games go to the soccer account or do we not know and me you may not know so I so the question is could we do that um let's say we could um assuming that you know we we could we can technically do that today so with cash sales we have a collection of
039football tickets at a c at an event collecting cash sales um we know how much cash we received from the football tickets on a cash event so I guess what I'm saying is in the fall when you have multiple teams playing multiple things at the same time you're have sales going on if you earmark them if the system has the ability to earmark those funds you could allocate by team funds to support that team activities does that do you understand what I'm asking I understand that if when there's multiple activities they go to a Dropbox and they can pick which activity they're buying the ticket for as far as the funds when they're going that that's that's maybe a conversation they had with Mr Bricker so the funds aren't earmarked for any specific activity they
040just go into a general revenue account along with all the other events and stuff that we that are that go into the general fund drivers at fees and stuff like that there's no breakout we wouldn't take the football proceeds and provide that to the football team or anything like that it would be to use to cover the expenses associated with running the the game game workers and everything associated with that well that's kind of what I was thinking like you know to cover the referees for the games the funding could come from the ticket sales if they were earmarked for those teams right because it costs us more to run a football game than it does to run say a a softball game but we also have more expenses associated with the football game and
041we have more ticket sales so they offset a little bit I just didn't know and I think it's just a question we should be at least getting clarify we can certainly look into that and have a further discussion um we we generally have had these conversations um over time in the past and we've chosen not to do it that way but we certainly can have those discussions again the good news is this uh as as Dr ukar has presented as part of this process at least the you know the accounting of this will be you know a lot more accurate in terms of um the sales and the cash and the exchange of things so it gives us an opportunity to look at this again if the board so chooses to do that but um
042we're not recommending this evening that with the passage of Hometown ticketing that we allocate funds from ticket I was asking clarification question doesn't change my position that this is a fantastic thing that we should have done years ago um the other question I had was whether we've done any um had any references that we've evaluated with Hometown where they've had any type of data failures and that doesn't necessarily mean a Data Theft but like where there was a glitch or something else and how that worked out and I guess we sounds like we don't have that information right now well the people at the meeting might not have that information I mean uh part of the investigation was done by the athletic director the the uh technology director um to come to the table for
043the recommendation over the years U the good news is that a majority of the districts in mon montgomer County use Hometown ticketing as well as the PIAA for all uh District events so the The Experience level likely will allow us to piggy back on some of their experience to overcome you know call it Growing Pains of of an implementation of a new system and um the last thing I just wanted to say is um it does sound like there's a fair amount of service charged service fees associated with this and I I do just want to make the point that our ticket prices are incredibly low so even when we're buying tickets at other locations they're always more expensive than our tickets here and I think that while these service charges are not cheap tacked
044on to are very inexpensive ticket prices it's shouldn't be that much of an impact to our community um I I do I do think it's important for us to make at least a little bit of an effort to see if this is a consistent with other districts in terms of what these fees are so that and I I want to say I know the dollar per ticket fee is something I've paid many many many times and the 30 cents on top of that I know I've paid those too I don't know about the 2.9% Mr Brook I know you've been involved in the fee part of this can you con confirm uh any uh comparison to other districts um I can only go from where I bought the tickets which is typically by my kids
045school they use vanco so it's a little different but they ticket price is all the cost of a ticket has been always BN by me the purchaser so I mean so you're you're you're I'm very familiar I'm very familiar with pay pay those I think I think the question is are the service fees commensurate with other districts in the area is this it's my understanding from my conversation with Mr smink as part of this process that these are the standard fees associated with the company that that all of our uh our districts in Lisa Montgomery County pay given seven or eight uh schools already use this it would be very similar to what you'd see at other schools okay that's in this area I know it was it is it looks similar to me but
046I just wanted to make sure that was consistent it's consistent with the other schools using it in the area to my knowledge and and Miss Graff I think I think it's important to recognize I know I know that that you've mentioned this that we haven't changed our fees in in in a long time but I think you know a more definitive answer to that is isn't it like since the 80s since the 80 84 yeah well I can tell you that our fees are very low if you go to other schools to see other to see our teams play elsewhere corre people come here and say why are you charging so little money I don't bring for our events I don't bring for all our events so I don't as I travel with my own
047children to different events we are the cheapest anywhere in Montgomery County so it you know although it is going to be a little hike for the customer it still puts us cheaper than a lot of the other districts who are using either Hometown or something very similar in fact um our theater Department uses show ticks and that is a little bit more expensive than Hometown and 75 without even any um advertising 75% of their uh ticket sales come from show tickes yeah I've experienced that as well and I think the convenience overlays the fees for most people to know you have a ticket you can get there and you're good to go so I think this is a fantastic idea thank you for bringing it Forward wasn't mine but yeah thanks thank you m are
048there any other comments from members to my right uh Mr Mery please uh what's the duration of the contract considering how um how long what period of time it's a one-year uh initial term and then it does automatically renew unless uh the parties provide advanced notice of that uh automatic renewal any questions from members to my left Miss Purdue Dr Yuka thank you for the presentation I know you um just stepping into this but I thought you did a great job education and also bringing it here to the board I feel the presentation had a lot of information that typically we'll ask so I do appreciate the thorough um process that was um put into look reviewing this um we did have a question at education and reference to um and maybe this is still
049not um discussed yet as far as who will absorb the fees and I don't know if we if you had any further discussions with um the team about it the customer would absorb the fees okay and that's one of the things we discussed and it goes back to miss graph's um comment about the ticket price for some of our events um the other one I saw on here is something about devices being fully charged or having working devices what was the um discussion around it who would they provide us with devices no we provide the devices but that that was talked about in the meetings with our technology department and our athletics department would be in charge of making sure they had all the devices needed for all the events and that they were fully
050charged and there was enough to cover people coming in with their tickets so we're not purchasing any new devices for this okay and then volunteers are allowed to use their own phones to to do it and then my other question is if in the event someone comes to the I think maybe with the two that we're going to um use to Pilot we'll be okay but in the fall someone that comes to attend an event maybe a um Community member and they're not aware that we have now moved to online ticketing are they able to purchase the tickets on the spot yes okay because I know most districts have the QR code and you can scan in then you can purchase your ticket okay and that was I think that's it for me but thank
051you very much you're welcome thank you Miss Purdue Miss deal hi thank you so much this is wonderful information thank you and um I just wanted to ask because going fully online um has it has has there been a discussion if there is uh a family or a student who may not have it like online ticketing assumes credit card assumes uh venmo assumes an an ability for online and that access that way of accessing money um if there is a family situation or a student is there any has there been discussion for a process for another way to get so that they can participate in the community event so if you're talking about during school hours we our counseling department can reach out to kids like especially for Mr MTH Acton in the prom if
052they think there's any sort of issue our counseling department jumps in right away to to serve those students if you're talking about games or or outside of the school um you know I'm not I'm not sure that there would be a way if you're doing it on the spot but a lot of our counselors know our families enough to reach out and if there was an opportunity for the counselor to do something to help those parents and to help those families they absolutely would great thank you and how about uh Mr Winters any questions no questions seeing no other questions thank you Dr uker I'm glad I could answer your questions thank you well done uh the next uh on the agenda is mathak high school campus planning process update so just bear with me
053uh that's when to get up to the podium [Music] good evening uh this evening I'm going to give an update on mathon high school campus planning process we're going to look at the purpose history current status financial analysis and process forward uh you should have a copy of this presentation at your table members of the board uh this presentation um along with other attachments that are going to be presented here this evening will be posted to the website of the methacton school district uh later this week the uh the mton high school campus uh consists of a property located along Germantown Pike kbal Mill Road and Mill roads in warer Township and includes the following campus structures the methon High School building the District administration building the District transportation building and the campus sewer plan
054given that the meaan high school constructed in 1961 has a projected facility need of almost 60% within the next 5 years with nearly 69 million in projected Replacements and similar facility needs for the administration and transportation building the district will develop a comprehensive campus plan considering the needs identified in the 2023 assessment of ass sets with conditions along with the broader historical challenges associated with parking traffic Aesthetics accessibility safety pool Auditorium limitations issues hallway movement room size room availability room flexibility room climate building layout classroom equipment and pending program developments it is imperative that we develop a comprehensive campus plan that considers the educational operational and financial context to ensure that the future investment in mathon high school campus support the mission and of the district and the vision for our high school and campus
055for the next 50 years to best accomplish this we must must continuously leverage a process where we plan develop Implement and evaluate along a decision line so on slide six you can see that we are planning we are in the planning phase now we have identified the challenges we have been considering ing the information and we must decide on a path forward a lot of this has been done with the review of the asset withth condition assessments the development of a master facilities plan the establishment of work completed by the methacton high school campus planning committee and other reports studies feedback over the past several years once a direction is determined we then work to identify options the impact of the options and the means and methods to accomplish the options this is then uh
056followed by an implementation stage where we present recommendations from the development stage select options to move forward and deploy options the loop on these uh determinations are then evaluated by gaining public input reviewing any new information and determining a path forward this is a continuous process cycle that can guide us as we seek to ensure that the future investments in the meth Acton high school campus support the mission of the district and the vision for a high school and campus for the next 50 [Music] years thank you Dr Zerby the process began in 2016 with our first facilities condition assessment and development of a master facilities plan that saw excuse me saw more than 58 million in facility Investments across the district including egress and security projects at the high school facade fire alarm canopy
057and water infiltration projects also at the high school repair of the transportation fuel tank the installation of security cameras in all district buildings and roof Replacements at also at the high school then in October 22 2022 as part of the master facilities plan we presented a heating ventilation air conditioning project that was projected at $25 million at the recommendation of the superintendent this project and all other methon high school campus projects were placed on hold pending the outcome of the assessment of assets with conditions reports for structures on the methacton high school campus and the development of a comprehensive campus plan we accepted the assessment of assets with conditions report and updated Master facilities plan including all district buildings projected at $221 million over 10 years to develop the comprehensive plan we issued a call
058for participation on the methacton high school campus planning committee where a group of 140 students staff parents and community members joined to tour methacton high school and other renovated and newly constructed high schools reviewed the documents and reports and issued recommendations that will be presented on February 20th 2024 at the work session of the board in an effort to keep the public informed and to gather input and feedback we issued multiple postcard mailings and other direct and social Medi notices regarding the process forward in developing the comprehensive campus plan we will be seeking direction from the board of school directors at a meeting scheduled for March 26th to determine the first step forward in plan development following the March 26th meeting where the board determines the path forward uh some of the major task to
059address will be to determine the architect for the path forward develop con concept design excuse me costs and timelines and gather public input develop a financial plan hold an act 34 hearing if new construction is the path forward issue bids for work approve bids begin the project these matters could take anywhere from 18 to 24 months depending on the path forward methacton School District operates 10 buildings seven of which are school buildings a central administrative office building A facilities building and a transportation building the district hired Bureau Veritas to conduct a facilities condition assessment of all district facilities that work began in October 2022 with final summary reports for each building provided to the board in May 2023 the reports identified that there are no life safety issues requiring immediate action the high school and
060the administration buildings have the greatest need in the next five years and based on the facility needs of the high school further comprehensive review is necessary the asset with condition reports also include the replacement values for each building based on the period of time the assessment was done replacement value is the estimated cost to replace a facility with one of similar function appearance systems materials architectural and site detail the high school's replacement value is nearly $120 million where the transportation building is approximately $1.9 million and the ad excuse me administration building is nearly $4 million the asset with condition reports determined that the administration building requires Replacements equating to 30% of its current value in the next 5 years or approximately $1.2 million the transportation building requires Replacements equating to nearly 20% of its current
061value in the next 5 years or $300,000 most concerning is that the high school in five years requires Replacements equating to 60% of its current value or requiring nearly $69 Million by industry standards facilities that require 60% or greater should be considered having reached the end of their serviceable life and should be excuse me and demolition should be considered the Investments for each structure are highlighted on this slide and include Roofing Interiors Plumbing HVAC fire protection including suppression and alarming electrical equipment and Furnishings accessibility utilities envelope and water infiltration it should be noted that these required Replacements do not take into consideration improvements for traffic parking or other site matters this is exactly why we paused and are on a path to develop a comprehensive campus-wide plan the district update to its Master facilities plan
062leverages the asset inventory with conditions data cons excuse me considers the annual budgetary constraints considers District priorities organizes fixes repairs Replacements and improvements to leverage economies of scale and considers our ability to manage and oversee and complete the projects these five elements combined are used to formulate the 2023 facilities master plan the 2023 facilities master plan is a 10-year plan it is prepared similarly to the 2016 plan where we use the onepage road map format and have individual budget sheet estimates for each corresponding cell of the plan given the vastness of the high school building the requirements outlined in the facility's assessment reports the high school structure is organized by Zone Zone one is shaded gray and includes the auditorium Band Room Coral room and westwing classrooms zone two is shaded yellow and consists of
063the kitchen pool boiler room and main gym zone three shaded in blue has the art room science classrooms teched classrooms and athletic office and finally zone four shaded in green includes the LGI principal's office and math Labs on slide 22 uh the asset withth conditions report includes the cost of replacing the item and the associated labor to do so but does not include or consider the current construction labor environment and the associated means and methods with which the replacement will be carried out the master facilities plan attempts to more clearly quantify the actual cost by including cost escalation rates which is the annualized cost of goods and services projected out over a uh Project's uh years of work to be carried out a labor inefficiency factor is the additional cost associated with working in the
064evenings weekends Etc and the segmentation of the renovation schedule and mobilizations in order to conduct Renovations at the same time as maintain the operation of the school modular classrooms uh these are trailers that will be required to provide temporary classrooms during a renovation it includes design contingency uh uh estimates which is generally used when during Renovations there is an unanticipated issue that requires a red designed to address a matter soft cost Furniture fixtures equipment these are commonly required as a result of major renovations to return the environment to the acceptable cosmetic useful and intended space and the construction contingency is a cost alloc allocated uh in the instance that unforeseen construction work is required beyond the original design and scope so when including all of these other factors into the scope of the 10-year Master
065facilities plan for the high school building alone match to the 10 year assessment uh with condition uh needs uh for the high school renovation it is projected to cost more like $159 million as compared to $89 million over that same 10-year period furthermore this does not take into consideration the disruption Factor while not directly attributed in dollars uh or costs there is climate functionality limitations and safety and other distruption uh factors that over a six-year uh renovation period can be significant on slide 23 we want to look at the fiscal approach it is important that everyone understand that we take the following fiscal approaches to addressing facility needs it is best described as a two option approach first uh costs associated with the maintenance and the cost associated with fixes replacement and improvements under maintenance
066we strive to achieve operational standards through the annual facilities budget by uh dedicating internal staff and third party firms with maintenance contracts the fixes and Replacements and improvements approach is further organized into two parts and include Capital project funds and bond borrowing in order to address the projects uh listed in the facilities master plan uh small to medium facilities matters will leverage the capital projects fund whereby an annual budgetary transfer to the capital projects fund provides a reasonable means to address matters over time while keeping cost in ter terms of interest and fees to a minimum for larger projects identified under under the master facilities plan generally projects over $2 million the district would seek Bond financing these fiscal approaches to addressing our facility needs allows us to limit the overall expenses for fixes Replacements
067and improvements were were reasonable within the targeted dollar thresholds for example interest in fees on a $1 million loan over 10 years leads to approximately $230,000 in interest cost given the background shared and specifically uh the projected facility needs of uh by the administration and the High School Administration building and the high school buildings it is imperative that we develop a comprehensive campus plan that considers the educational operational and fiscal context uh to ensure the future Investments and the mission of vision of the high school campus for the next 50 years on slide 24 um it in regardless to our path forward I'm sorry regardless of the path forward uh with either Renovations renovation and new and and some new construction or new construction entirely the district will be be be required to finance that
068effort through the issuance of bonds as such we have asked our financial advisers public financial management or pfm to prepare and present a new money analysis for the board's information needs here this evening Zack Willard from pfm will present that analysis Mr Willard okay thank you Dr Zerby so what we're going to Quick talk about is we'll give an overview of the the market interest rates right now um then we're going to go through some bullet points just to frame you know how you borrow money over 30 years and some things that we need to keep in mind from a legal standpoint and then we have three sample borrowing scenarios in here we'll through one of them in more detail they all read the same so once we kind of go through one in more
069detail then we can look at the other two you know I want everyone to keep in mind you know what we have here tonight is simply an illustration okay things will change you know as you decide to move forward with potentially one of these projects and we learn more about timing and costs the way in which we borrow money you know it may take longer it may shorten up depending on how quickly you're spending it so I just don't want you to get wed exactly to what we're showing you tonight tonight it's meant to kind of give you an idea and get you in the ballpark of what something like this will cost so if we go to the first page here which Tim has up so real quick on interest rates you know a
070lot A lot's happened since covid with interest rates right the FED funds rate has gone up significantly you hear a lot on the news if you read Bloomberg or CNBC that mortgage rates you know were seven eight% back in the fall the municipal Market is is kind of a different animal okay as a school district District or as a burrow or Township you can borrow money tax exempt through municipal bonds and so what we're showing you here is the 10-year index of of of the municipal Bond world it's not meant to say where math Acton would borrow money today it's just meant to be a bellweather of the interest rate Market when you look at the middle part of that chart going back 30 or so years you can see on the far right hand
071side where we are today now the high point of interest rates for the past 15 years was back on October 31st on Halloween since them rates have come down you know over a percent um which is a very fast move in the interest rate Market when you look at the bottom uh third of this chart you can see how that happened you know going back to to October so today if you're out borrowing money over 20 or 30 years as a school in Pennsylvania you're borrowing somewhere between three and a half and 4% in today's market okay we've priced about a dozen Bond issues in Pennsylvania since January 1st you know depending on the credit rating and how long you're advertising the debt that's about where uh Market rates are right now so I just
072wanted to make sure we kind of talk about that you know the borrowing Market is not as scary as it sounds when you when you look at the financial news because this is just a different Market um than than you know mortgages and car loans and things like that okay Tim if you want to go to the next page please and I apologize this page is has a lot of words and it's small but we'll summarize here so what we're going to show you in a second we have an analysis for $100 million an analysis for 140 million and then a third option for $180 million again you know those are Ballpark numbers those will certainly change if you decide to move forward with something one of the key components of this especially in today's
073interest rate Market is what's called a draw schedule so you know hypothetically you pick a project you start to move forward your architect and your construction manager going to come up with some type of draw schedule that shows us how quickly you're spending the money in today's market you can borrow money like we said said three and a half 4% you know depending on where rates are over the next couple years when you borrow that money you don't spend it and write a check the next day right you in you can actually invest that money in short-term interest rates while you're spending the money right now short-term interest rates are closer to five or five and a half percent so you can borrow money at four and invest it at five right that's called positive
074Arbitrage that hasn't existed in you know 12 or 15 years it is something that we want to pay attention to to you know when we move forward with this with the potential project because what it allows you to do is borrow less money so if we think the project costs $100 million well you might not actually need to borrow $100 million you might borrow $97 million because if we can estimate that you're going to earn a certain amount of Interest over the draw period we can use that to downsize the cost of the overall project that will also help determine how quickly or how slowly you need to borrow the money we're not going to borrow all the money on day one right because then it hits your budget all at day one what we'll
075likely do is time a financing plan to the draw schedule so as you need the money you know you take out you know one tranch of debt you spend it down you you hit the interest rate Market at different times it helps to hedge your interest rate risk over a financing plan okay under federal tax law in bold three there uh the main one we want to talk about there is the first one the expenditure test you plan to spend the money 85% of it within 3 years years they don't want you borrowing money and just investing it like we talked about earning positive Arbitrage without a plan to spend it I don't think that's going to be an issue here but we just you know we like to say that so we don't want
076to get out over our skis and borrow money too soon we want to make sure we have a fully baked plan a project and that we move forward responsibly under item number four you know in talking about Arbitrage and earnings on investments there are certain time-based spending exceptions that you need to meet in order to keep positive Arbitrage so if you are borrowing at three and a half and you're investing at five that one and a half% Delta you can only keep that money if you can meet certain spend down exceptions all right and that's not something we need to worry about now we'll work on that uh you know later in the plan and that'll be something that we talk with Bond counil about but you know you can take advantage of it as
077long as you can meet uh certain federal guidelines uh with the Arbitrage uh number five and six are important because we are talking about you know a large project here um but you do have a legal borrowing capacity Under Pennsylvania state law and what it does is it takes an average of the last three years of Revenue of the district multiplies it by 225% and then it Nets out the existing debt that you have you have about $70 million right now of existing debt so as of uh the end of last budget year June 30th of 2023 the district's remaining legal borrowing capacity was about $21 million so if you do nothing you don't borrow any money you know that continues to increase each year because you're paying down existing debt and in theory revenues
078are increasing okay so that will that will go up now this is important you know your neighbor North Penn just went through a a referendum vote last week um you know that was something that they chose to do and that they needed to do in order to do a larger project because of the state limitations you know methacton based on the numbers that we're looking at right now you would not need to go through any any type of referendum vote okay so I think that's an important point and then lastly item seven we're going to just hit on this quickly and I think we'll follow up with a finance committee meeting um probably in March but you do have a number of Bond issues which are able to be refinanced in today's market so you
079can see the five different Bond issues at the bottom how much of the par amount you have still outstanding what the fixed interest rates are and so what we want to do uh you know early this spring here is we're going to come back we'll discuss the ability to refinance these and then likely set those up with a debt resolution so that if interest rates continue to remain where they are or they go lower that the district's in a capacity to act quickly and jump out and refinance the debt for interest rate savings and just to be clear that's where we would keep the same final maturity we're just going to take the old higher fixed interest rate and replace it with today's new lower interest rates all right real quickly on the next page
080page four this is your existing debt okay so when we think about metha at pfm you know this is the first page we look at and I want you to go right over to column 14 because this is what shows up in your budget every year so you have a number of different Bond issues which kind of fit together like a puzzle and they equal column 14 14 is what you see in your budget when Tim shows that to you and right now your debt service is just shy of $10 million a year okay and you can see there's it drops off fairly quickly into the eights and then down to 5 million down to four and then you know down to 2 million out in 2035 that is an advantageous existing debt structure okay
081it looks like that by Design um you know we did know that there was projects coming over the past six or eight years so as we structured new debt we wanted to keep in mind that you had this bigger potential project coming now what this will allow you to do and we'll show you this on the next few pages is it does allow you to fit larger projects into your current debt structure without quite as much impact to your budget as you might think when you say are we going to borrow $100 million I mean that that is a lot of money but by the way that your existing debt is you can actually fit that in and wrap it around your current debt in order to minimize how it hits the budget so that's
082a real important piece of this and if we scroll to the next page let's quickly run through the first scenario so as I said there's three of these they all read the same they're just for different amounts so this is for the hund million borrowing scenario now the way we have this set up is you would have a startup borrowing at some point later this fall that will depend on how quickly you progress or don't progress whether or not that's necessary okay that's in the green in column nine that assumes you borrow about $10 million um to start the process now column 8 your existing debt that's what we just showed you on the last page and what you'll notice when you look at each one of these borrowings is they're structured to have smaller
083payments up front and larger payments in the back again that's by Design as your debt falls off the way Municipal debt works is you can structure the new debt to wrap in behind it this is the most common way that schools and other municipalities fund projects around the state because typically the goal of funding a project is to have the lowest possible budgetary impact so that you can afford it you know because of act one you don't have the ability to just raise taxes in order to phase in new debt you have to you know abide by the Act One guidelines right so this is the strategy that seems to work the best especially when you're getting into larger projects so as you go through columns 9 10 11 12 13 in the different colors
084you can see over the next five years we phase in uh the bond issues okay now again don't get too tied to the timing and the amounts because that's all going to change you know when we get into fine-tuning this based on a draw schedule and the needs of the actual project but where wind up is something like column 14 now I know columns 14's small so I'll just kind of spell it out but so your current debt over in column 8 you're about $9.4 million that's after State reimbursement that you get you do get a couple hundred thousand of State reimbursement every year and so when all the dust settles in this scenario you'd have $100 million and your debt would look like C 14 so you're going to go from 9.4 million you're
085going to have a peak Debt Service in the 2027 budget year of 10,270 approximately you can see that there a few years out and then after that the debt drops back down to 9.7 million through 2034 and then in 2035 it drops back down to about $8.2 million so under this scenario you know you really wouldn't have to increase your debt service budget much at all you would have one or two years where you're above the current 9.4 million that you're paying okay and there's there's ways and strategies that we can talk about that but then after that the debt falls back down below what your current budgeted number is now again these numbers will all change interest rates will change but what this is kind of showing you is aund million project is somewhat
086affordable now you know we are taking your debt and we're you know it's going to run out 30 years 30 years is the max that you can finance a school building project in Pennsylvania you you know a lot of times for a new building like this schools will go out 30 years because the useful life of the building is going to probably exceed that you know you don't you don't fund uh short-term useful lives with long debt but you do fund long-term useful lives with with long debt so in this scenario um you know we're going out the max 30 years again that's another thing that could be fine-tuned you know as we get closer if we decide to shorten it up but that's that's where this gets you so I just want to pause
087real quick for any questions about how this page reads and then we'll quickly go through the other two and then after that I believe Tim's going to talk about the affordability of what this looks like so any any thoughts or questions so real quickly if we go to the next page this is the $140 million scenario I'll Point your right to column 14 so in order to borrow that extra $40 million your debt service is going to level off you know about let's call it 11 a half million so in this scenario you know you do go above the current 9.4 million that you have budgeted in order to build in that extra $40 million worth of projects all right and then the final scenario which is for $180 million in that scenario you're going
088to see that you jump up to about 13.5 million as where your your debt levels off so again you're going from column eight where you're about 9.4 million up to column 14 where you're about 13 A5 million in total debt service for the $180 million project so again we don't need anything from you tonight about this this is just meant to be informational to kind of get you in the ballpark of of what this looks like from a budgetary standpoint thoughts questions hopefully that's helpful okay great thank you again as Mr Willard said um you know there we're not asking the board uh to make any decisions this evening on any of the information presented here on the methacton high school campus planning process this is just an opportunity for us to bring everybody up
089to speed on where we are um and look at the financial analysis so second part of the financial analysis we have Mr bicker talking about the financial impact of borrowing money Mr bicker thank you Dr Zerby and thank you Zach so for tonight as we want to look at how to determ is receive with the high school it's important to look at not only the information that was presented by pfn but also our overall finances the 2425 uh budget shows that dead service is $9.4 million and accounts for 7.1% of our budget in addition to this we also have $1.5 million transferring to capital projects Capital project funds allow us to work on the district needs without going out to the bond market for funding of these projects an example of this is the current
09023 and 24 projects which are being covered by these funds and finally our bonds are are rated at doublea and The Debt Service is currently running off as we have not borrowed for at least the last two years so the next question is what is the impact to the taxpayer so we took the three scenarios that Zach just presented to you and the $100 million 140 million and $180 million and then we made some assumptions we wanted to see how to best present this and to do this we eliminated any bias the analysis we took three boring scenarios and base them on the impact of the taxpayer by assuming that the cost of these borrowing scen areas were 100% covered by local real estate taxes to this we made several assumptions which were all of
091the revenue and expenses are constant we use the 2425 pimary budget as our starting point it's important to note that this demonstration is in these scenarios does not represent the projected full fiscal year impact they are provided to project a tax increase based on the assumptions and as a means of taking on new debt this project assumes the current mark maret conditions which are also subject to change also we want to read the notices here the following scenarios are intended to isolate the impact of the potential borrowing to complete facilities Renovations or new constructions the scenarios should not be constructed as complete or full illustrations of our fiscal projections so on the first slide we have scenario one here which assumes the district borrows $100 million 10 million in year one and then 22.5 million
092in each year thereafter for four years as you can see how the debt new debt is added in as Zach mentioned on this chart to the left of the text and N to Yellow would be the new debt that's being layered in in order to afford this assuming the conditions previously mention the millage increase of 0.96 would be required in 2627 fiscal year this impact based on the average home value is an increase of $542 to the taxpayers local real estate again that's an average home of roughly about $444,000 after that The Debt Service drops off so there's no more impact to the bar to taxpayers at that point in time scenario two is the 140 million baring scenario again this is 10 years in 10 million in year one 32.5 million in each of
093the next four years in order to see this one you also have the yellow again being added in the new debt layering in and how that impacts the future uh Debt Service uh scenario also requires four increases 0.7% 1.58% 41% and 0.41% for an total increase of 2.47% and amounts to a real estate tax increase of $1 1446 which would occur over the next 5 years again this is on an average home value of $444,000 and then final we have scenario three which is $180 million borrowing 10 million year one 42.5 million and years two through five the max debt as Z Zach mentioned would be in this case the 13.8 million a chart again that the left is showing where the debt comes in and how that's layered in onto the existing debt this
094scenario requires um five increases. 23% 2.12% 4.46% 1.7% and 0.9% total increase is 4.6% and this amounts to a real estate tax increase of $278 52 again on an average home of 444,000 which would be phased in over six years last side is the a financial impact in summary each of the barrings has an impact on future budgets ranging from $542 to$ 27852 under provided assumptions all these barrings are within our current barring capacity and would not require the district to go out to referendum furthermore while these analysis were conducted using only local real estate taxes to pay for the increase that service this does not represent a complete or full fiscal projection or complete or full tax impact the impact will change change based on other revenues assessments and expenditures that are part of
095each annual budget in summary mton High School originally constructed in the 1960s has a projected uh of $69 million in needed Replacements the district pause and further any further renovation on the high school campus until we have formulated a campus wide uh comp ensive campus-wide plan to help with this we formed a meaan high school campus planning committee who toured the high school and nearby renovated newly constructed schools and provided feedback reviewed documents and conducted analyses and determined 15 top recommendations for the board to consider with respect to the high school campus structures and the historical challenges as we proceeded forward we have the following presentations scheduled in February uh with the math Acton high school campus planning committee on February 20th we'll also have owners rep and a recommendation uh from the superintendent we
096have uh other scheduled open public fors we had one on January 18th we have one on the 29th of February and one on March 11th and then we have a recommendation for the board's consideration uh uh in in March uh 26 uh to to consider the first step in the development of a comprehensive plan with that said uh I I I'll take any questions for any of us that presented here on this project here this evening uh Miss graph please so I have a question and um Mr Bricker you can you can chuckle to yourself but my question is in all three scenarios we're using year one is a $10 million draw correct so then why is the millage increase .96 in scenario one and 07 in scenario two it's going to depend on how
097the debt is phased in because the 10 million how much we're putting in year one year two so those numbers would change in that impact so I also noticed in scenario one we're doing a millage increase in the 2026 to 2027 year versus in scenario 2 it looks like the year is 2025 to 2026 is that that's accurate because the way the debt is phased in so I I can't raise the the there's this limit on how much I could actually increase it without alol way over what required so I had this is just an example where the increases would have to be to covered at that so year one may have $500 increase I can't really raise the the middle rate to cover $500 so each one of those scenarios has debt that's layered
098in differently and that's how I have to cover them so essentially we would work with the engineer to come up with the schedule on a spend that would then get tied back into any type of increases that we would be looking at year on year and we would want to Overlay that when we're actually seeing debt come off that we're adding more debt on so that we can keep those increases to a minimum is that what you're saying yeah so and so using Arad as an example when we when we did Arad one of the things that we did is we had a draw schedule we worked with pfm we had it came up with how we're gonna uh plan to handle the net increases and it was working fine and then interest rates took
099a nose dive we decided that we're going to borrow $18 million right now and get the rest of it versus risk that rates could go up down the road and cost us more money because it was so much cheaper at that point in time so we know once we know what the project is the project costs and everything we can work with pfm the underwriters the bond counsil we can plan on when we're going to need the borrowings when we're going to need to start it how we're going to cover it and how much we'll need in each phase okay okay that helps a lot to clarify my other question is would you consider these three scenarios to be um conservative like these estimates to be conservative in terms of the impact of the tax
100there no and Zach no Zach's not going to be overly conservative one I think he's going to be as realistic as possible we we so we do have a bit of interest rate cushion in these numbers now there's about a half a percent because again we don't know what's GNA happen when we're going to do this what's going to happen you know again part of the beauty of the multi-step plan is you know if you go back to that interest rate chart rates go like this so you know you'll hit the market at a point where it's higher and then you'll hopefully hit it at a point where it's lower uh but you know hedging the the interest rate risk over the the financing plan um but so as far as the borrowings go there
101is some conserva conservativeness baked into it um in at the moment yeah okay and then um Mr Bricker just for the three scenarios the impact on taxes would be in at the conclusion of the project they'd be phased in as we go through the budgeting process of each one of those years so take the last one because it's the highest number $278 that would be phased in over six years so each year we' have um on the slide I think I put actually how much the impact would be each year again this is like you're saying all our revenue is flat and all our expenditures are flat right the only thing that's going up is our bond cost the anything we're using to pay for it is local real estate it's kind of given the
102clearest picture that we could figure out where you can't argue over well rates this that this is the clearest picture that we can give yeah so essentially what we're saying is to cover a $180 million project it would cost the taxpayer the average taxpayer $278 52 cents more each year after the sixth year of the project correct that's correct perfect thank you very much any other questions from U members uh seated at the board here and then we'll then we'll get to the virtual person in a second any other questions again you know don't feel obligated that we need to ask questions here this evening or answer questions I want to make it clear that as part of the last slide or second to last slide that the timeline of this will have uh myself
103and the administration coming before the board uh almost on every occasion between now and March 26 uh to provide an update and to answer questions and to provide the feedback that we receive from the public so with that said uh let's turn it over to Mr wyers if see if he has any questions good evening uh thank you both are all for you for the presentation it helps clarify I know that in the um in the high school planning and the finance committee or breakout group uh you know this was just briefly discussed but I think this provides some more clarity so my question actually only question is for Mr Willard um he mentioned I appreciate that you have the topics of discussion that sort of lay out the assumptions and clearly clearly puts it
104out for the public to understand um but the one pop in my head that concerns me is the legal requirement in borrowing that was up 2011 and you said that's going to continue to increase because we're paying down debt and the revenues will go up so that number will however the if we go to the full 180 million I see that the total debt local effort is 477 million at that point does that that pretty much locks us off of borrowing at that point point or not and if we if there was a need say we had a disaster at another building or something sure so good question so you know back on that bullet point page if I think I understand the question correctly let me just walk through that again so the the
105legal borrowing capacity is a state law that says you know your outstanding debt so kind of the value of you know your mortgage essentially right now the remaining amount can be $21 million so when we look at the other pages and we talk about you know each year your principal and interest payments I think you pointed out it adds up to about $400 million over the life when you when you count in all the debt that does not you know that's different than your barwing capacity that's more your affordability the legal capacity is not a guideline that says you should borrow up to that you have to make sure you can afford it and you know Tim just explained that you know you can in some of these scenarios um but the $400 million that
106would be your total outstanding principle and interest which is different than the $21 million remaining barring capacity now one thing that we'll look at you know as you go through this plan is you're right I mean you know do you have future capacity for other projects or if emergencies pop up and what we can prepare for Tim and and the administration is you know future borrowing capacity projection that would look out 10 years so you can see you know if you did go forward with the $180 million project where that would leave you you five years from now and then what that would look like 10 years from now as you continue to pay off debt and increase revenues do you have um you know enough capacity for any future projects so I think that
107maybe answers the second part of your question yes that that helps thank you okay yep are there any final questions from members of the board seeing none Mr Ward thank you so much Mr bicker well done thank you and thank you Mr Kenwood Madam vice president that ends the uh uh guests and scheduled speakers for this evening thank you all for your presentations um we will now go to um I guess we'll have reports now or we actually missed one more I'm sorry yeah sorry yeah I just looked at it I was like no sorry so maybe we'll have you come we're going to do Schoolboard director yeah I'm sorry sorry good okay good evening everyone so I want to just share something uh January School director recognition month so school boards play a pivotal
108role in shaping the Ed educational landscape of our communities elected by the people of Lower Providence Township and War sester Township the methacton board of school directors dedicate their time energy and expertise to ensure that our schools provide the best possible learning environment for our students they establish policies that provide the frame work for our public schools and they do this work as volunteers according to the Pennsylvania School boards Association School directors devote on average 10 hours each month to board business although School Board directors are formally recognized each year in January their work is a yearound commitment so thank you to the methacton board of school directors for all you do to serve the students staff and community of the methacton school district and if you see there at your desk there's a little
109a gift bag as well as a certificate just to recognize you all for School director month there's a mug and a nice little athletic shirt um and a beautiful handcrafted coaster made by Miss Corman over there she's terrific with the cricket so congratulations and thank you thank you thank you all right and we'll do our reports I think um okay I was trying to see if our student reps needed to go so we'll start with our reports for this evening most of the the committee reports are attached and we have the reports listed here uh we'll start with Mrs Washington for Dei good evening um and thank you for this opportunity to speak um with all of our Dei and climate liaison board approved we had met last December for our first meeting and during
110the first Gathering we discussed highlights from the school year so far that they enjoyed our schools have returned to having committees led by teachers that focus on a positive School climate and these committees work with their building principles and their Liaisons to plan events such as Unity day or World kindness day they also work to support schoolwide positive behavior and acknowledge our youngest Learners who represent character traits such as respect responsibility and inclusion our fall SEO cohorts will be ending their professional development this month due to whether our K toor elementary teachers final date will uh it's been rescheduled I me both Sky View and arola had their final session this past Thursday as we cultivate student leaders through student voice day a small group of students continued um down to Sky View from Arcola
111um they sponsored noname calling week no name calling week is a week uh to call to action and end to name calling and bullying in schools and I want to thank our building Liaisons for their support in that effort in a collective effort to bring Unity across the district the building liaison and I plan to host a week-long event in April also known as celebrate diversity month to celebrate diversity and inclusion while focusing on our core value of honoring Our Heritage this effort will include our high school student leaders from our Affinity clubs that have hosted diversity inclusion week in previous years and we look forward to sharing more information on that in the coming months thank you thank you Mrs Washington um next we have the IU and I'll provide um the IU did
112not meet in December just due to holidays the next meeting is actually tomorrow on the 24th so I'll provide an update on the IU um next month I just started and had an introductory meeting in um last week so more to come from the IU next I'll go to Mr Mery and check if you have any updates for the north MCO uh not not in particular now thank you I know most of the um activities are just starting back up so we'll have more updates later and then I'll turn it over to our high school board representatives and I appreciate you guys for hanging in there with us I know this is a long meeting and hopefully you don't have any midterms tomorrow morning but we appreciate you for staying thank you good evening ladies
113and gentlemen my name is Erica sinere and I'll be going over the first part of our presentation tonight on January 10th the mton boys team lost to PO toown scoring 72 to 68 on January 11th many sports were played on that day starting with the boys and girls basketball team which both went against boy both teams had a great win in their game with the girls basketball team scoring from 49 to 38 and the boys basketball team scoring from 66 to 65 on that same day the girls had the girls basketball team had their 17th annual shoe for the Cure game with proceeds being sorry with proceeds being joined into the PA breast canceration and they will pull out a win eventually the boys and girls swimming team had a home game against pots Grove
114and PJP with the boys winning both games the unified Bachi team had a home game for this upper Maran unfortunately we don't have the scores at the moment but we will be providing it later on the next board meeting this month we also had sorry I'm like so tired this month we also had the winter keyston keystones exam in October individual students took the keystores and school reports were mailed home any students who did not pass the keystorm exams was sent notification from their counselor about an opportunity to sit for the winter retakes the winter exams date were January 4th to January 12th for literature algebra and biology due to certain weather issues the dates were extended through January 18th to assist with makeups North MAA restaurant is now open to the public again for
115breakfast and lunch every Wednesday and Thursday if seating please make an appointment at mtcc dog January 19th was the last day for seniors to purchase a banquet ticket for the senior Banquet tickets costed $50 and could have been purchased during all lunches or with your homeown teacher the banquet will be hosted on February 23rd at the Normy farms at 700 p.m. sharp additionally of course we would like to welcome Nur uker as our new principal to meth acam um hi my name is Victoria fan and I will speak about some additional school events so the mton high school theater hosted its second annual boot camp where approximately 50 k to8 students join members of the mathon high school Theater Company on December 15th in the cafeteria to get a crash course in every aspect that
116theater has to offer the high schoolers set up stations that the younger students would be attending including props costumes dance and Tech and there were also hair and makeup demonstrations math Acton's environmental Club hosted its inaugural thrift store on December 20th with funds going to revitalize the courtyard and future events on on December 7th methacton National Art Honor Society hosted their annual marry Market with clubs such as the National Art Honor Society class congresses of 2024 2025 and 2027 best buddies and more selling snacks and crafts for their Club funding um FCCLA also had their annual holiday tea with the ho down Farm theme which is a which was a success our high school student body generously donated items for the meakan high school student council food drive where student home rooms were awarded points
117for each donation and then could then use these points towards a class breakfast which happened just yesterday options for breakfast included Dunkin Donuts Panera and student choices the student council part partnered with um the marstead of the Lower Providence Police Department and the Norristown Salvation Army for distribution to local food banks on the 13th of January the boys basketball team had an away away game against Plymouth white merch and they won additionally they played peryam and Valley and Phoenixville last week with a loss and a win respectively meanwhile the girls basketball team had a home game against pen Ridge and an away game against Phoenixville unfortunately losing both on January 12th the girls indoor track team attended the Alia open with Molly Thomas breaking the school record in the 3,000 meters with a time of
11811:02 on the 14th of January mton boy indoor track attended the Christian March Memorial Invitational the mathaken cheerleading team qualified for states in their District's competition and will be competing this week at Hershey on the 21st Color Guard had their preseason show at marel New Town High School midterm exams will begin tomorrow the midterm schedule had a bit of an adjustment due to the flexible instruction days um last week caused by the snow on Wednesday and Friday midterms week will be January 24th 25th 26th and then next Monday the 29th there will be a modified schedule with students having taking their exams periods 3 and four tomorrow 5 and six on Thursday seven on Friday and periods 1 and two the following Monday and students are on site for their designated exams each day and
119then go home to study during the first week of February counselors will begin to speak to current um High School 9th 10th and 11th graders regarding the scheduling process for next year marking period grades will also be posted on February 5th for the first semester and course recommendations will be made the second week of February so lots of new um exciting events coming up thank you thank you very much and now we'll go to the um maak and Education Foundation Mr hi everyone um first I want to say welcome to the new board members that we haven't met and thanks SM Purdue for serving as our liaison in 2023 and we look forward working with Kathy Clary this year um the Education Foundation is now accepting proposals for grants for the spring cycle the the
120deadline is March 1st this fall grants were awarded at every level and some some highlights included that each Elementary School PE department will receive funding for balance bike and necessary equipment to add bike riding to the kindergarten PE programs the project was pilot pilot piloted at War sester and will now expand to the other schools at the middle school level we funded the chamber theater to come to our Cola to perform several plays based on the short stories eighth graders read throughout the ELA classes and at the high school um excuse me they receive support to trans to for translator earbuds by the ESL students the MEF website has all the information to submit a letter of intent to propose funding and creative ideas for all staff and we encourage them and lastly we are
121very excited to announce that the DodgeBall registration is open we already have over 100 participants signed up and it is filling up fast it will be held on Sunday March 17th at the high school and you need a s team of six to 10 people and the cost is $25 per person all the details are on our website at methacton foundation.org dogeball thank you Miss Purdue I understand that the board is putting together a team we're going to try no we have a team like we're ready for you so I think Mr Reg we got to we got to rekindle our team again what do you think okay all right sorry for that Interruption but um Miss Kelly good evening and happy New Year everyone so Dr Zerby will be con uh connecting with residents
122through a coffee chat series at four locations in our area this new year the series is called what's brewing coffee and conversations with Dr Zerby this is one way we are working to improve meaan School District's Outreach and communication with members of the community who may not have a direct connection to our schools the events will take place at shannondell Meadowwood so much to give inclusive Cafe and Lower Providence Community Library the methacton electric car club wrapped up its two-e exhibit at the Philadelphia Auto Show this weekend this past weekend the club presented their electric converted 1969 Triumph Spitfire and a low style car from the 1930s 6abc stopped by before the winter break to film The Club ahead the ahead of the auto show and you can check that out on 6abc.com or go
123to the methacton website um and find the story under our points of Pride another point of Pride to share mathon high school was recently awarded College board's female diversity award for achieving High female representation in AP Computer Science principles the honor recognizes the outstanding work methon High School is doing to engage more female students in computer science and a special shout out also goes out to computer science teacher Mr Kevin Mets 100% of Mr metz's students received a three or higher in computer science principles which earns these students college credit last week dozens of beatin students parents and staff participated in the Mar Luther King Day of Service with the sock roll Challenge and annual service project at arola the sock rolls contained a snack and a kind note that will be distributed to individuals
124in the community who are experiencing homelessness the volunteers assembled more than 1,000 sock rolls nearly doubling their contribution last year and finally the curriculum office will be hosting an online session of its annual kindergarten overview program tomorrow at at 7:00 p.m. more than 240 people have signed up to learn about full day kindergarten at methacton so that's really exciting there was like 150 last year so we're doing great uh registration for full day kindergarten opens on February 1st at 10:00 a.m. and meth Acton High School will host their open house for families of private and parochial school students next Wednesday thank you very much thank you and now we'll have the superintendent report Dr Zerby thank you Mr Purdue uh just as a word of uh notice uh we will have a report on the
125oton elementary school property update at the February meeting of the board um and then the advisements that are listed uh are are on the agenda that ends my report all right now just give me a second why see where we are do we take public comments now okay all right so um the board will now take public um will take comments on board action items this is an opportunity for residents to comment on matters that are to be decided upon as outlined in the agenda the board ask that you keep your comments to three minutes or less the board of school directors may choose to respond to matters following the conclusion of comments on the board action item and I just want to ask you just um because this is my first time just state
126your name and municipality thank you I think I got this down after 15 years Jim mik War sester um I'll be quick Dave how do you get paid you got 250 right what do you get it every month the reason I ask is if it's monthly is it on the payment of the bills because if it's on the payment of the bills I'm going to say don't pay it don't pay it and I would suggest not paying it forward until you come to us with your ridiculous deal on a new high school any other members with comment hi good evening uh my name is Nashid I'm resident of uh Lower Providence uh my two daughters are the students of the methan school district so our community parents and children's students are requested in the Eid
127holiday in the last meeting uh I'm here tonight again to highlight the importance I'm sorry to interrupt um is this a matter on the agenda this evening um because if it's not on the agenda there's a spot on the end at the end of the meeting for public comments on non-agenda items got it sorry I thought it's the open for the public one yeah at at the end y okay thank you thank you so much so ID like to check for any additional comments on board action items specifically okay then thank you so now we'll have M minutes um may I have a motion to approve the November 21st work session the November 28th um Regular board meeting and December 4th 20 23 reorganization regular meeting minutes as attached and I guess we do a
128well perfect yeah take the motion yeah and then can I get a second okay okay Gra all right and since we have virtual we'll do a roll call is there a roll call needed we W ask if there's any comments oh yes and then can I just check if any um if there are any comments on the um medeia minutes no see no comments we'll take a roll call vote I will start with Miss Clary yes Miss graph yes Mr Mery yes Miss Purdue yes Miss D yes Mr wins yeah thank you all right now SE um six and and then we have fiscal items May I have a motion to approve all fiscal items that's presented um what what if we get and I just for the members of the board we tonight because
129it's it's a little unusual situation where we didn't have the work session and we and we are in the voting meeting what we're going to do is if it's okay uh Madame vice president is we're going to have Mr bicker present the items and then and then and we'll do that for the rest of the the seg it Mr bicker thank you uh tonight for your approval we have the list of bills for November and December 23 we have the treasures report for November and December 23 with budgetary transfer we have the motion to accept the audit report for 2022 2023 we have the increase of mileage rate for the District employees to 67 cents up 1 and a half cents from the current rate which is the IRS effective rate we have three or
130roofing project items the first one to approve Mark SOC Roofing consultant for infrared scanning of the roof deck at a cost of 7,172 to approve Glenn Shaw roofing for cutting and resaling the core samples to be tested at a cost of $2,825 and approv environmental Control Systems Inc for the testing of the samples at a cost of $867 next we have the war Chester Chiller project which is to to approve the DUI engineer at a Bethlehem PA for the warer chiller project at a fee in accordance with paragraph 6.1.3 of their agreement uh which is a preliminary estimated construction cost of $500,000 and would estimate an estimated fee of $35,000 we have the motion to approve the online ticket event ticketing vendor of Hometown tickets for the following events of Mr mathon and the prom
131and we also have two playground projects one for war sister Elementary to cost of 86,7 525 and the another one at Eagleville Elementary at a cost of $181,200 and finally for your approval we have the field maintenance of Hummer turf grass systems to perform baseball and softball infield maintenance services at the High School varsity baseball and softball fields proposed cost of $ 35,500 $40 all right thank you and I know since we didn't have a work session I would just like to see if there's anyone that want to take these items separate no okay so then with that maybe I can ask if there's a motion if I can get a motion for um the fiscal items okay perfect all right can I get a second GL ahen all right and now I just like
132to see if there's any discussion from the board members um Dr Zerby you said that um I that uh council's going to look at the contract for for HomeTown ticketing um so uh is Kyle is that you that's going to be looking at it so is is would the practice be to ensure that there is some type of indemnification to the school district and like limits of insurance relative to cyber I just want to make sure that we're protected even though you may not have looked at the contract yet correct and and just um while we were here I I glanced through the contract and there is indemnity l indemnification language that's as part of it um but we'll certainly look at it to to see if there's any adjustments that we would like to
133make before recommending that the district sign it do they reference in the contract whether they carry cyber insurance I didn't notice that particular provision okay thank you any others I did have one if I could get a little bit more um information on um 9j um field maintenance sure so um Jason you want to take that yeah certainly this is a project to increase the playability and deal with some drainage uh issues on the varsity baseball and softball fields and we solicited uh the services of Hummer turf management which is a company that is known for doing that work locally both in school districts universities and at the professional level as well part of the reason of that is the fields are becoming nearly unplayable at this at this stage that's correct especially where the
134infields meet the outfields the uh the gap between the infield and the Outfield has grown exponentially a large part of this project is to add uh the infield mix to both the softball and the baseball fields and to raise that level up um and the other question I had was uh this is a one-time uh cost to get the fields into playing shape not a repeat cost that's correct there is an annual maintenance cost associated with it not uh at this level and we are working towards that information and we'll be presenting that at property moving forward as well so that's not part of the 35,000 we're doing no this is a one-time cost great thank you can I just ask um what what contributed to making the fields unplayable it's just usage over time
135it's been some time since the fields were uh were installed and over time the the infields are worn away and and and in all fairness uh not proper maintenance of it so what Dr serini hasn't shared with you uh but may have done with the property committee um you know part of our overall plan here is to bring both these uh softball and baseball fields up to the the proper level of of care and then also provide training uh to our our internal staff to you know better maintain that yeah and I don't believe there are any additional comments so at this point I guess I'll check if there's any anyone that wanted to take any of these items separate all right okay perfect okay so then I'll ask for a roll call vote bear
136with me Miss Clary yes Miss graph yes Mr Mery yes myself yes Miss Phil yes Mr wines yes yeah okay thank you all right now we go to the list of bills oh go to Personnel items I'm sorry yes personel items thank you very much for the consideration of the board this month there are the following Personnel items we have six resignations professional all for retirement at the conclusion of the 2023 2024 school year we have burle hogstrom elementary instructor of at Woodland 24 years of service to methacton Joanie cosgriff school nurse at Arcola 21 years of service Lori marle social studies instructor at the high school 18 years of service Paul Lei special education instructor at the high school 35 years of service Anthony cardillo science instructor at the high school 39 years of
137service and Sharon Saul music instructor at Arcola 25 years of service collectively ber Janie Lori Paul Tony and Sharon represent 1662 years of combined service to the students and families of methacton school district as teachers coaches sponsors and mentors these members of our methacton family represent the very Foundation of what M makes methon a superior place for our children to learn and grow on behalf of the entire methacton Community I extend to them our profound and sincere gratitude for embodying the very best of what methacton has to offer and we certainly wish them all the very best in retirement we have five resignations classified toon Brown custodian at the high school car L part-time office assistant at Eagleville two instructional assistants Lauren elsenbeck at the high school and Danielle merer instructional assistant at at Sky
138View we thank ton Carla Lauren and Danielle for their service to methacton and we wish them all the very best and we also have Elizabeth yantosh right to know Safety and Security support specialist at the finina education center resignation for retirement at the end of June Liz has worked in various roles primarily in the human resources department for the past 24 years she's been the first point of contact in the in the uh onboarding process as well as uh the the first person to welcome new employees she's also been a a profound support to our employees as they experience the joys and tragedies of life that require navigating our benefits and employee services Liz has been a steadfast leader and a trusted colleague we thank her for her selfless dedication to our district and we
139wish her the very best in retirement we have one employment profession resley Johnson special education instructor at Sky View we're happy to welcome Wes officially to the methacton family he has been a long-term substitute with us we have three Employments classified Steven watkinson recess assistant at Arrowhead Jennifer Maori secretary to the assistant principles at the high school and Nicole Duc office assistant assistant at Eagleville we're glad to welcome Steve Jen and Nicole to the metha and family and we look forward to the good work that they will do with us one uncompensated Le professional samtha forcu special education instructor at Arrowhead for the dates as identified two uncompensated leaves classified Shad Ford Bay custodian at the high school and Patricia rubido pupil Services office assistant at finina both as identified we have supplemental contracts for
140student Support Services senior bank with chaperon curriculum instruction and assessment Department work and spring coaches as attached and finally one addition to Our Community Education Program Lauren Baka lifeguard swim instructor we thank Lauren for taking on this new role thank you thank you and I will just ask for a motion okay and then maybe I'll just check if anyone want to take anything separate um no okay so now I will ask for a motion for all items or personal items Miss graph thank you can I get a second all right Miss Clary thank you and then I'll ask for a roll call vote again sorry if there are any discussions we're quiet today all right so with that I will take open it up for a roll call vote Miss Clary yes Miss graph yes
141yes Mr Mery yes myself yes Miss Ste yes Mr wines yes thank you all right all right and now we go to curriculum and programs there are no items for curriculum and programs this month and we'll come back to that hopefully next month um for policy um Mr Regina thank you Miss Purdue so oh you're fine Dr Regina I'm sorry so I mean just a lot I kind of want to quickly go back to what Dr sorini presented we had a lot of a lot of big losses in retirements this year um but Lizzie and Tosh is is such an unsung hero of this district and that General voice that deals with employees when they've been at their toughest moments through the pandemic she was the first call that all of our employees got to
142and the loss that that we received by losing Liz is huge so just one of those people that's gonna be very difficult to replace so thank you Jason that was a great intro you gave for her um with policies for first read 004 membership uh we looked at the interview questions in the Z4 membership and made them a little bit more reflective to questions um that are more specific to board functions and we also clarified that those questions are asked by the superintendent not the board so we did make those adjustments in 004 in 252 Dating Violence we did remove the process section to this to make it aligned to the title n process and we speak specifically to that for 326 the complaint process we did remove language to contact board members um with
143all the different reporting mechanisms in place in this district for reporting concerns it's not necessary to have a policy that indicates that it's appropriate to follow that path to voice complaints so we felt that was appropriate to remove that in that um for uh second read those we discussed in the previous month and then for management team uh this is a notice of intent to repeal which essentially is removing the 327 management team uh policy uh this is being recommended to repeal as a result of the management team not being required or being a used component of the district process the district has many teams that help with the decision-making and leader ship process um and comprised of the team members that are highlighted under this policy and so since the policy is not required
144or utilized and after consultation with the solicitor the policy committee is recommending this for repeal thank you thank you so now may I have a motion to approve all policies for second read and the policy with intent to refill Miss Clary second it's still now can I see if there's any discussion any discussions no all right with that I'll call for a roll call vote Miss Clary yes Miss graph yes Mr mki yes myself yes Miss D yes Mr Winters yeah thank you all right now to other under under other we have gifts and donations approve the generous gift uh from the sky home and School Association for the backpack program of $200 the second one is approve the generous gift of individuals to the backpack program as noted in the attached document in the
145amount of $28.78 under trips approve the trip of the high school cheerleading team to attend state championship on the January 25th to the 27th at the Giant Center in Hy paa and under transportation we have approved the first student drivers as part of the transportation employee roster for the 23 24 school year as names listed there uh as as presented all right thank you very much may I have a motion to approve the items under other all right Miss graph a second all right Mr mki and I'll just check if there any discussion no okay with that I'll go to a roll call vote again miss Clary yes Miss graph yes Mr mki yes myself yes Miss Ste yes Mr wines yes all right and then I think we have dates for board members um
146our next meeting we'll have we start with education in February and then the next meeting for the board will be the um work session for the 20th of February and also the regular um board meeting on the 27th of February um and then the board meeting dates for February are also listed on the agenda and available on the district website I will now turn it over to check for any old business do we have any old or new business all right no and now I will hand it over to a courtesy of the floor I'm sorry perfect we have one yeah just one clarification from Dr Zer I thought in his presentation he said February 20th was the next meeting of I scho planning committee so I must have wrote that down wrong it overlap
147with the work session if that is the case I I'm not sure what he said a it's a presentation at the work session the timeline is a presentation of the results from the maakan high school campus planning committee to the board at the work session is that I don't I didn't hear the full question so I don't no that was yeah okay all right thank you yeah it's it's not a separate committee meeting on the same night as the work session it is it is the results of the meetings uh and the deter and the recommendations associated with the work already completed by the committee to the board on the 20th okay thank you that's my bad I misunderstood no it's a good point for clarification so thank you for bringing that up um at
148this point we will go to Courtesy of the floor again this is the part of the um meeting for for those on the um residents to provide um or make comments on matters that are are or may come before the board the board ask that you keep your comments to three minutes or less the board of school directors may choose to respond to matters following conclusion of the comments please submit questions you can also submit questions um online and as I said earlier please provide your name and municipality thank you John Andrews Lower Providence I'm also a member of the campus planning committee as a member of the community here I speak in limited public time on details of needed work on our high school in 2022 Bureau of veritas conducted a facility assessment there
149were numerous problems and assumptions in fine detail on many aspects of layout and equipment they show a current replacement value of 115 million with zero explanation they show various renovation costs and indicate the years when fixes should be done the decision to renovate or build new is yours on the board I believe we should look only at years 1 to 10 or 2022 to 2031 for tasks adding up to $100 million or less as various needs may change components May last longer etc for the years 11 through 20 also BV assumes 4% annual inflation as was reasonable in 2022 now it is 3% and headed to 2% there should be a redo Dr Zerby then adds a 25% factor for labor inefficiency what we have an owner rep to void that or or is it
150a slight of hand to favor a new build yes there are desired items Beyond Bureau Veritas work scope for instance many student inputs call for a second floor caror between the two Wings to shorten travel times and reduce congestion in the one existing carridor on the ground on the first floor perhaps another half million dollars the hbac replacement is an absolute need of about 30 million when that is done the CRV or the or the common replacement value is increased and the FCI the facility uh uh cost index is reduced by 25% and thus gets us further below the 60% FCI that would support an incredible demolition Choice resulting in the need for a new high school then there is the fantasy of a new build for 200 million with an unlikely four gyms four
151years of Campus upheaval likely renovation starting in year 10 after finish and unnecessary tax increases for years lastly I also note that we have four new directors and they deserve time to develop informed votes March 26th is too soon for a decision I suggest late June thank you thank you I'd like to check if there are any [Music] other Hill War sister so what I keep hearing is that you've already pretty much made a decision for this new school um that's a done deal is it I mean is it true uh my understanding is that you committed the district to this new High School in October of 2022 when you put the high school HVAC project on hold is that true Did you base your decision to put the a the High School haax System
152project on hold because of the REM recommendation of kcba Architects what did kcba base their recommendations on I heard kcba used bids for an unrelated project in the entire in an entirely different school district is that true why didn't you provide those bids to the public so we could review analyze and confirm them why didn't you get your own bids to compare to kcba inflated numbers did your decision to pause the HVAC project inflate the facilities condition index in the Bureau of veritas facilities study if it did your in action is the reason we could be building a new school now you seem to be moving at light speed looks like this to me uh to uh get this vote and uh to build to to build this High School to to get this vote
153in March seems awfully quick can you tell me what the rush is I don't really understand why we're why we have to move so quickly can you tell me why you haven't provided the public with a detailed analyst analysis of all the options for the high school project their Pros their cons and a cost analysis you really can't seriously think that providing the information to us and then taking a vote one month later is fair or reasonable can you so please provide the public with complete detailed information on your new high school scheme and then give us at least six months to a year to review analyze and confirm the information and a lot of what I'm tonight it's like well it's almost like oh we got to pass I feel like we're uh listening
154to NC Nancy Pelosi again we got to pass it to know what's in it well a lot of these things that I'm hearing tonight um so you really need to think about this and not work so fast and rush so fast into this especially we the public have should have the opportunity to review this and not make this a March decision thank you thank you if there's any others hi honey for Muhammad wor the township I'm here to request that it alfitra be added to the 2024 2025 school calendar there are currently a great number of students in metha school district that identify as Muslim Muslim C Cate two holidays idad and ID fitra these holidays are just as important to us as Rashana and Y kapor are to Jewish students and Christmas and Easter
155are to Christians similar to the Jewish calendar Islamic calendar is operated by the lunar cycle so that means it will fall on a different day every year currently idad is in the summer while ID Al fitra is in the spring I'm not here to ask for special treatment I'm here to ask that our holidays be represented like everyone else's mathon prized themselves on honoring diversity equity and inclusion adding Islamic holidays to the school calendar will improve on inclusivity and representation for all thank you thank you Jim mik War sester um was far as Mr bricker's presentation on the finance he forgot to explain to everybody what happens if we do nothing or we do minimal amount of work we get a 20 to 30% tax reduction in 2028 okay that's the difference tell us give
156us that option of doing nothing or minimal work and getting our taxes reduced because we're over taxed um you mentioned your ridiculous committee you're biased committee put together with self-interested people on the committee students teachers administrators everybody's got a self-interest in the project and makes up 3% of the population and you're going to rely on that input for your decision that's why you don't need to get paid um your presentation you gave up there should have been given at a special meeting of the board not now should be a whole meeting devoted to it which should have been advertised and again I I I don't understand it um any project you do do should go to referendum I don't care whether it qualifies or not you're going to spend $100 million $180 million 200 million
157let the public have input I'll live with it if they want it and vote for it I'll live with it but let the public have an input because everybody up here says nothing but yes I don't think I've heard no from this board uh ever um are you going to come clean and tell the truth about the BV Bureau veritage study are you going to tell the public what actually happened with the study and how the data was manipulated to get your fcis you going to tell them I'd rather you tell them than me I will maybe not tonight I got other things to talk about but they're going to find out um it was brought to my attention that allegedly two kids got caught in the bathroom having sex again so apparently this is
158number two time then they were disciplined as well now how do you discipline a couple of kids that are around your library with the sex books in there that being hypersexualized how do you how do you go after them it's your fault that all this stuff's going on so you should explain that to us um has anybody seen the recent test score results I just looked at the pssas in math in English and you you're not even back at the 2018 level but all you want to do is spend $180 million the most important thing is the kids education and their scores you don't even have a presentation to talk about it that's why yeah I'm kind of upset that's why you don't deserve to get paid thank you any others my name is Samir
159Adil and I'm from Lower Providence Township first of all uh I would like to thank everyone on the board for doing the tremendous work for you know uh for all the students a place to nurture and grow so in that right I am one of the 240 you know families that who have registered for you know my kid starting kindergarten next year so I'm like completely you know impressed right that the board is doing the school districts different schools right the volunteers and like the teachers are doing right to make a good place right to learn and grow in that sense right so we uh from you know we in our faith like there are two most important holidays UL F and ID ad and as one of the previous speakers said that we want
160our like kids to grow in an environment where they share all their holidays important days with rest of the student to build you know a comprehensive and a harmonious way of celebrating each other festival learn about the communities different cultures right so that we can grow as and and the notion of hate and like high my way or Highway like gets removed like from the very you know small stages when they learn and grow group so I would request right the entire board to humbly you know consider both ad and UL f as you know a holiday for all the school kids so that when my kids start kindergarten from 2024 then he needs need need not to you know come to school or maybe you know do their homework and maybe share the festivities
161with rest of the school teachers and you know their fellow colleagues and and friends thank you so much thank you I'll just check hi good evening sorry to jump early I didn't recognize the pattern so yeah my name is Nashid I'm live in the Lower Providence Township so my two daughters are in the school district they are in the arola and the high school so uh last is school meeting our community parents and uh students requested the Eid holiday in the last meeting and I'm here tonight uh again to highlight the importance of recognizing Eid as a holiday within our district and followup on our request so just embarrassing diversity equality and fostering inclusion are fundamental principles that Define our community by acknowledging e as a holiday we take the meaningful step towards the creating
162an environment where all cultures are not only acknowledged but CBR ated the decision this decision reflects our community to Unity and respect for the diverse background for our of our students and their families so I just thank you for considering this significance of diversity equality equality and inclusion in in shaping a vent educational Community for all the kids thank you thank you hi uh my name is Muhammad fle from Lower Providence um I'm also here um to request the board uh for consideration of uh Eid uh holidays for the Muslim kids because of your program of diversity and equality and and inclusion should include it two of my children have graduated from macton and um three of them are still in maak so and now my wife has asked me before I will give you
163food you have to come here and ask for this so I hope like you will you will consider this Eid request from us if I'm also um I was also blessed that six or seven years ago I the school district did an Outreach with through me to our mosque and we did a training session with all the high school teachers and the Middle School teachers about how to deal with the Muslim kids and what their things are I'm still here if uh you need I'm um I was a president of the local local mosque over here we provide you our facility to teach you about our about our festivals and all that so if you need anything please reach out we are here thank you thank you hi I'm Kathy muscarella War sester Township uh
164first I'd like to address the structure of the high school campus planning committee what I observed as a member of the committee was an over representation of committee members who had more than an average vested interest in the outcome of the committee's decisions these included teachers administrators uh District parents and school board members and students um at the same time the committee was under represented by average community members that don't have a vested interest in a new school so these these weren't teachers or parents but they make up the overwhelming majority of this community again they were the least represented on the planning committee not surprisingly all of the recommendations that will be presented to the board next month by the high school planning committee will advocate for a new high school a new athletic
165Wing a new music center a new uh Science and Technology Center a new everything uh next I wanted to address how the subcommittee meetings were conducted as part of the high school planning as a member of the subcommittee I witnessed another member being censored on what they could or couldn't say being reprimanded for wanting to take a picture of one of the slides and also then when Dr Zerby was asked about where the planned new building would be located Dr Zuri said there was there was no plan for a new building yet down the hallway I think it was The Architects were talking to another subcommittee and told them exactly where the plans were to locate the new high school building I'm looking for transparency from the district but I'm not seeing it tonight was
166the first time I saw any numbers around debt structure uh tax implications Etc uh in the spirit of full transparency I want to tell you that I ran for Schoolboard because I'm so committed to doing what's making decisions that are in the best interest of the entire methacton Community I want to congratulate the members of this school board who were recently elected or reelected um and I also wanted to to remind them of their commitment I'm reading right from uh mathon togethers website where they committed to evidence-based decision making and accountability and financial stewardship that includes providing clear easy to understand accounting practices support discussion and explanation of the school district's financial decisions and their impact on education now and for the future and to be mindful in stewardship of taxpayers dollars entrusted to MTH
167Acton for public education I'm looking to this board to fulfill that commitment provide clear communication discussion and stewardship to this community before rushing to a decision that will uh affect you know our our grandchildren at this point they'll be burdened with that debt uh at this point the rush and lack of transparency makes me concerned about what's being hidden from this community thank you very much for your time thank you just want to check if there's any more comments not seeing in any I will just check with the board if there's any discussions based on the comments that were raised tonight I I have a I have a comment if I could uh so I I think it's important that there was a number of requests for uh uh matters associated with the school calendar
168uh please know that uh there was discussion on the school calendar for next school year that uh was held at the education Committee in in January and I believe that uh there are some recommendations that are coming back uh to the education committee for for an update to the calendar so we will certainly with everything that I know at this moment in time assuming that the education committee is good with the additional updates um we will have a calendar for your consideration in February uh another matter that I'd like to speak about uh if I could is talk about the high school campus planning committee so this evening as you as you witness uh we presented quite a bit of information with respects to understanding uh where we've been and what we've done uh certainly
169uh individuals can pick apart a a process uh as uh to certainly fit their uh intended outcome but the important part of all this is there was a slide in my presentation that included four Spears spheres and they they talked about the process of what we're about to uh uh proceed with and that process uh for March 26 is really and it was emphasized I I think seven times within the presentation is a first step in the planning process so I I want I just want to be sure that um you know this board and the community recognize that um in order to create a comprehensive plan there there are certainly some resources that need to be put forward to create uh an understanding of the details an actual cost analysis and all the things
170that uh we've heard comments from members of at the podium we don't have all of that we have a a general understanding of some of the concerns that members of our our school Community have we certainly have an indication that uh from from our our our assessment of of assets with conditions of things that we know we need to replace at some time in the future and the whole premise of this conversation was built on the fact that before we make any future investments into the high school whether it's hbac or anything else or any other property or structure on this campus that we have the opportunity to look at what it is that we ought to be making in terms of of the proper investment over time because what was said back in October
171of 2022 because I said it was that the moment we make the investment into the hbac for 2530 million we have pretty much dictated the future of this campus by by saying that that investment however long HVAC lasts in a particular building will will will dictate what it is we're going to be doing with the rest of that building it'll dictate and and create the limitations associated with how we can and cannot use the property how we'll ever deal with traffic how we'll ever deal with parking Aesthetics accessibility you know all of those things that that have we' we've we've uh we've talked about and that we'll share in Greater detail so as a reminder the the decision that um this board is being asked to make is what should be the first step in
172the planning process not what is the end result going to look like because we are very far from that and and I think uh Mr Kenwood was was clear in his in his comments this evening where he said you know that after that first step there's all these other things we need to do and that could take anywhere from 18 months to 24 months to get to a point where a real decision on what the future is going to look like can can can can be so if there's any Clarity or transparency or anything that needs to be clarified I hope that my comments here this evening you know set the record straight in the terms that this is a planning process it is not necessarily a decision that says hey we are going to
173make this determination to renovate the school as it's prescribed in in the methacton uh Master facilities plan nor is it saying that we're going to do anything in particular we've created a a a I'll call it a pool of information and understanding at this moment in time and then we need to start driving into the detail associated with that the the the the the the the administration cannot do that alone and so it's going to require uh a a competitive process it's going to require Architects it's going to require Engineers yes it's going to require some some some funding and some resources but it's all necessary to drive to the best decision not only for the students today tomorrow but the next 50 years so with that said um I I certainly will entertain any
174questions from the members of the board if there's any more clarity needed with that but I wanted to make sure that I set the record straight and and and and it it's really a decision on the first step of the planning process Miss clar uh Dr Sherry there was some comments about um uh how we've dealt with the public in terms of who was on the campus planning committee that it was um you know bias in favor of stakeholders um can you just reiterate um the efforts that we have made to actually engage the public that is your average uh you know taxpayer yeah I mean the the process is pretty well documented on metha and High School campus planning website but it's important to recognize that every individual that signed up to participate in
175the committee was invited to participate in the committee there was not a selection process uh we gave everybody an opportunity to uh sign up and select a a a subcommittee of choice I will say this the only modification we did make is we had a large group of individual will sign up for one particular committee and we had to reassign them to other subcommittees so so that that is one modification we made and we did that because otherwise we'd have certain areas of the process not covered by by enough committee members and certainly another one that would predominantly be uh over less manageable in terms of its its ability to be functional uh but other than that we pretty much you know created a process where people could uh you know entertain whatever whatever their
176their concerns were uh we we provided uh every ounce of information we possibly could we created a Dropbox site that uh you know we provided all the data all the reports everything that we possibly could to help you know create you know informed process we created an opportunity for people to visit uh some renovated schools some new schools uh and and more importantly we had tours here of of meakan high school we had tours of the sewer plant we had tours of the administration building uh tours of the transportation building so is there more work to be done absolutely um is there is there an opportunity in the future for the public to weigh in on other processes yes that's why uh if you looked at the Timeline up to March 26 there's a couple
177more opportunities for people to weigh in and then I imagine that you know the if unless the board says you know we're not going to do anything we're not going to do a plan we're just going to stop and we're just not going to do anything but anything other than that would require us to you know create another opportunity for um as like as Mr Kenwood said you know we engage Architects we we do concept drawings like all that stuff will continue to require us to to Circle back in our process cycle to get input from the public um so so I'm really comfortable knowing that every method and step along the way that we're going to be asking for public input and and and like everything else you know it's critical for us because
178this is not just you know investment uh for you know the next couple years it's it's it's a major investment for the next 50 years so we want to do the right thing we want to do it on in the in the right context and we want to make sure that uh we consider everything we possibly can but I really think that the campus planning committee was a good I'll call it first step in realizing that there's more than just you know the replacement things that are identified in an asset with with uh conditions assessment that there are things that are less tangible or less obvious through some some type of process and many of these uh things have then you know leveled up because I think you need to consider that um I'll give
179you an example so I I can tell you that you know the condition assessment report did not say you need wider hallways in the high school in fact the only people that said you need wider hallways in a high school are students staff and the the members that toured the high school everyone else who's never been in the high school never graduated from the high school um would not recommend you increase the width of the hallways but but but that's but if if we call that bias that means that's they're just informed they're they want to be involved in the process and like we started back in early August you know you know getting postcards out into the Greater Community uh giving them an opportunity to sign up on our website I think we did
180a a a thorough job in including is anyone who wanted to participate yeah I just wanted to follow up on the um public discussion sort of forum options and I know there was a public forum on the 18th of January and it's my understanding there's some additional forums that are coming up and those will be open for discussion or people could ask questions or they could come it's not a formal meeting situation is that correct that that is correct and then and the and the and the the purpose of that so when we get to the 20th and we present what we believe is the then the I call it the culmination of the identification of the challenges okay for the lack of a better term I'm saying but so when we end on the
18120th I say here are all the recommendations here's what everybody saying you know then those other open public forums are an opportunity for people to give us feedback based on that information and my goal is prior to the March 26 meeting is to present that feedback back to the board so yes it's not a a formalized meeting is one where we would present you know some information and then have an opportunity for discussion and and get feedback from the public so just to clarify there was supposed to be an information recap in the work session that got canceled because of weather and then that was going to be followed up with the public forum which did happen as a public meeting where people could comment on the information that's correct we're going to have another
182presentation February 20th to the board in the work session yeah and then there'll be two additional public forum meetings where the public can add comments to what they heard in the February 20th meeting is that correct that's that's correct so there's two opportunities to comment on the information in the work session prior to any further discussion or decisions or next steps in March right that's that's correct seems like there's a lot of public opportunity to get involved so I just want to take a moment to express that any one who didn't get involved in the methacton high school planning committees should get involved now and attend these meetings if they have strong input that they want to provide that's the Forum right correct great thanks Miss I actually just have one thing that I would
183like to clarify Dr Zerby um Miss Kelly shared that you are doing what's brewing and the coffee chats around the community um one correct me if I'm wrong I think she said one is scheduled at uh meow Brook and one is or no not metwood uh more to give restaurant and the public library worse or Lower Providence excellent so during those coffee chats if someone had a question for you about the high school planning committee or about the process they could easily ask those questions absolutely in fact what I'm doing I actually have the uh meow wood tomorrow and and in that some of the material that I'm taking so that we can you know gather some feedback and we least keep them informed and maybe even engage them in the process is some sheets
184related to that thank you just want to see no other so I do want to say thank you to um those that were part of the umon high school campus planning um committee for their time and support of our um reviewing where we need to take the high school um and I do appreciate the board the work that the um Administration is doing also to support um this and then your upcoming forums that are coming up I do want to say thank you all to the public also just because we had a cancel the last meeting this meeting is a little bit longer and also for bearing with me why I facilitated this meeting and thank you to Dr yuker thank you for bringing the cheerleaders on I enjoyed their um ch and um thank
185you to the staff of the high school that were honored earlier and also War sester for the students coming here and also for the staff there and Amanda thank you for recognizing the board I appreciate that you um recognize us each here I'm sorry we almost missed that part but thank you dodgeball we're looking forward to it I'll be cheerleading um so um thank you and with that I will ask for a motion to close this meeting I have one and a second so miss graph and Miss Clary so thank you all and have a great evening oh yeah