001nice thanks for watching um oh she wow a wonderful lady fantastic to work with i'm going to be so sad to see her the two of them have just been wonderful we're just talking about that nice day declared you it was awesome yes uh um [Music] good is [Music] okay [Music] is okay uh oh yes good evening i would like to call to order the may 24 2022 meeting of the methachton district board of school directors please rise for the pledge madam president members of the school board i ask if i may just interrupt the proceedings here this evening and ask that everyone in attendance and those viewing at home to please join me in a moment of silence for krista wagner teacher at elementary at woodland elementary school who passed recently thank you and
002now ask woodland elementary principal miss dr debra euchar to come forward to say a few remarks on march 22nd 2022 woodland presented their award of excellence to mrs christa wagner wife mother teacher colleague and friend we wanted to emphasize what an amazing teacher and person christa was as well as encourage her to stay strong and keep fighting the cancer she was recently diagnosed with unfortunately one short month later in the comfort of her own home christa lost her battle with cancer krista was one of most devout and spiritual people i have ever known and i know her family is just as committed to their faith it is with that understanding that i can honestly say christa is not here on earth because god needed just a little more amazing in heaven i'd like to direct
003tonight's remarks to christa's amazing children as they have joined us here tonight mackenzie noah jesse and annika your mom was so proud to be your mother her beautiful smile radiated whenever she spoke about each of you your mom was so excited about your decision to go to college to become a teacher like her your mom was strong and committed to education she had taught in all the elementary schools in the fact and was always there to help encourage and lift students up i remember one story in particular during one of the first years your mom came to woodland she taught first grade and had one student who gave her a little run for her money but walking into class you'd never know it in fact at the end of the year the student's family invited
004your mom to their house for a family party for the child's benefit your mom went and was instantly greeted with hugs and signs of appreciation although she tried to make a graceful exit a few times nobody wanted your mom to leave in fact your mom heard the child say mom don't let mrs wagner leave please make her stay this is just one of hundreds of examples of how your mom touched the hearts and lives of the students she taught i guess god needed a little more strength and commitment in heaven so he asked your mom i found this book in your mom's personal library about the importance of family when you read it think about how strong your mom was noah your mom used to tell us how much you liked working with your hands
005putting things together and taking things apart your mom was creative too she could make the best turkey costume out of a paper bag and construction paper that you ever did see this year we had a door decorating contest and your mom won she spent hours cutting out every child's face and making them into reindeer their hand prints where the antlers and of course your mom was santa with this 3d list that was shooting out of her door she checked it twice every day your mom didn't do things like this because they were fun or to win she did them for her students she knew how much her students loved it and it made them happy which in turn made her happy god must have needed a little more creativity in heaven so he asked for
006your mom i found this book in your mom's personal library about a little piglet who turned the ordinary into extraordinary when you read it think about how extraordinary your mom was jesse your mom told us about how you like to play the drums well that takes a lot of hard work and grit your mom had so much grit the last few years have been very difficult for teachers teaching online hybrid masked during a pandemic it was a lot your mom used to come to me and say dab i'm so old school i'm not so great on the computer but i'm going to try because i know my team needs me and my students need me she spent hours after school and on the weekends making slides and virtual activities so she can make the best
007lessons possible your mom did it she learned the ins and outs of the technical world and her students and team excelled your mom did whatever it took to reach her students she customized her lessons and knew how to get through to all of her students your mom understood that in order to get incredible results sometimes you had to do things just a little bit differently god must have needed a little more grit in heaven so he asked for your mom i found this book in your mom's personal library with traditional stories loved by people of all ages when you read it remember how great your mom was annika your mom told us about how much you love to care for your dog coco your mom was kind and nurturing nurturing she took care of people
008whenever she was whether she was teaching fourth graders or kindergartners your mom nurtured all students just as you are teaching coco to be the best dog he can be your mom helped every child grow to be the best person they could be she took care of her co-workers too she listened to people's struggles and offered whatever help she could sometimes she'd come into my office and we'd we'd share war stories about being a working mom with four kids your mom was very spiritual and believed that helping others was her calling from god i guess god needed a little more nurturing in heaven so he asked for your mom i found this mom i found this book in your mom's library about the never-ending love a bear had for a boy when you read this remember
009how much your mom loves you matt mckenzie noah jesse and annika thank you for sharing your wife mother with us for almost a quarter of a century christa wagner made me fact in a better place she touched the lives of so many students and staff god must have needed a little more amazing in heaven so he took krista back home i hope you can rest a little easier knowing that your wife and mom left this world a better place your mom is always with you and she'll always be part of the mathakton family she will always be loved and she will never be forgotten thank you for coming out [Applause] so [Applause] this is a really hard transition in the agenda to make um our thoughts and love go to the wagner family and on
010the loss of this warm and wonderful person we're so sorry so now i'll move on with the agenda um the public is hereby advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting by way of attendance um all board members are present with the exception of miss cancro and miss perdue who will be late oh miss sorry miss purdue is here miss cancro will is coming she'll be late um now it's time for recognition of guests and scheduled speakers dr zurby thank you madam president this evening we have a number of guests and scheduled speakers and the first one is the the ceremonial signing of the high school diploma i asked that uh president i'm sorry uh president uh drummond uh high school principal uh dr gravinis come forward and
011then we ask claire ferentz and her parents to please come stand behind us as we conduct the ceremonial signing i now ask nolan mccluskey [Music] i asked nolan mccluskey to and his parents to please come forward so [Applause] and this evening we have another special graduate we happen to have katie drummond the daughter of board president ms german can you come forward miss drummond just so you know this is i know how much you're beaming right now i had the opportunity to do this with two of my daughters so uh congratulations so [Applause] again graduation is scheduled for june 9th at 4 p.m here at the methachton high school stadium so we look forward to having parents friends relatives join us in such a wonderful ceremony in addition this evening we have other record other
012students to recognize and first i would like to let you know that it gives me great pleasure to recognize six students from the thacton school district who attend north monco technical career center that have earned top spot on the skills usa and hosa future health professionals competitions this year they are and if you're if you're in the audience please come forward for an m award matt tang who won first place in the prepared speech category in the skills usa district level and state level competitions jason bruton who won second place in the technical drafting category in the skills usa district competition [Applause] are we doing each one okay [Applause] also on our list this evening for for recognition m awards is uh cameron steiner is cameron here cameron won second place in the diesel equipment
013category in the skills usa district 11 competition we also have noel emerson noelle isn't well here she's not here one third place in the cosmetology action skills category in the skills usa during level competition also alex klein is alex with us today alex won third place in the graphic arts uh pin design category in the skillsusa district competition and last mackenzie clark is mackenzie with us this evening she's very busy on the lacrosse field i'm sorry she's very busy on the lacrosse field right oh that's okay right right one third place in the biomedical laboratory science category at the hosa state level competition each of these students have represented themselves the north monco technical career center and methachton school district with honor and outstanding skill and leadership congratulations on their achievements we will honor each
014of the m awardees at the uh at graduation so thank you to all those north monco uh we honored these winners at our at our last north monco joint operating committee meeting but i'm so glad that we can also honor them here today in their home school so we're really proud of all the great things north monco does thank you madam president next on our agenda for guests and scheduled speakers is recognition of high school athletic teams doctors be white so we probably want to make our way thank you dr zerby and members of the school board for having us here this evening to recognize our pioneer athletic conference champions included tonight will be a recognition of girls lacrosse girls track and field boys track and field and boys basketball all of which uh were
015winners of pioneer athletic conference um as last time i was here we spoke about our champions from the fall uh and certainly the winner and spring were equally as exciting so congratulations to all of the athletes and coaches the first team i'd like to recognize as was just previously mentioned our girls lacrosse team is is currently underway over at o and j roberts uh the winner will move on to the state uh playoffs uh the girls lacrosse team uh was 14 and four in the regular season and they're now 15 and five overall uh they'll have seven girls on the all division team between first and second teams mackenzie clark who was just mentioned hit her 500th career save this spring and was the co-player of the year for girls lacrosse in the pioneer athletic
016conference two players megan cinnelli and jb weber hit 100 goals this spring tonight the warriors are playing o and j roberts for the fourth time with hopes of beating them for a second straight time to advance to the state playoffs 12 days ago methachton stunned undefeated o and j roberts to capture their first ever pioneer athletic conference championship so with that said i would like to read the names of the athletes that are now competing at o and j roberts and we will make sure we get them their certificates first renee blake bella catania giada katoa mackenzie clark mackenzie coop julia cummings riley derekson lily dewan elise dewan emily drake natalie drake melinda eglinton piper evangelista jordan henry emma jones matty lake ruby murray nina martino bayla plower megan cinelli alicia delaney smith marissa tomorrello
017maddie washburn jamie weber braden williams pippa williams and michelle zai and the coaching staff head coach laurie markle assistant coach ed sewell jv coach destiny bongiorno and volunteer coach emery styles congratulations again to our girls lacrosse team [Applause] and we wish them nothing but the best of luck as they compete right now to get to the state playoffs the second team that we would like to recognize tonight will be our girls track and field team the girls track and field team has all but completed another fantastic season after sweeping through to a liberty division title and going undefeated through the regular season the warriors had their sights on a packed title although they had to battle through deep and talented teams such as springford and perkioman valley the girls came away with their ninth pioneer
018athletic conference championship in school history the warriors season continued with a great performance in the district one championships last weekend along with several tickets to the state championship meet that will be coming up later this week with that said uh coach ronzano coach head coach rob ronzano is not able to be here tonight but i would like to call up assistant coaches rich freeman and steve mann so that they can recognize uh the members of the girls track and field team 2022 pioneer athletic conference champions thank you um i just wanted to mention that uh coach ronzano can't be here tonight because he's actually at a school function for his son but no one has no one can surpass rob's passion for the sport and so i just wanted to say to the lady athletes
019that are here and the men who are here that being able to put together the first ever uh boys and girls pack title in one year uh he is he would definitely be proud of i'd like to thank dr zurby and the board um and remind the athletes that part of ronzano's passion is for you to constantly uh challenge yourself and for you guys that are leaving us we'd ask that you consider that with your next coaches and with your next mentors and anybody else that's coming back um get ready for ron's honor to challenge you in the future so in addition to uh coach monzano track and field team had four volunteer coaches that we wouldn't recognize uh elaine and nelly dana arcangelo bill corby and john krase they were very important to the
020success of the team this year we also like to thank of course dr spiwak and the training staff zach holds and matt morrison ladies when they call your name up please go up and get your rewards through an alphabetical order so this should be pretty easy aubrey beaugaard salil bond johnson kirsten boogle annabelle caldwell benny catoya elena chaya joanna chung [Music] cameron colas bella coppola maddie coppola coco dunham anna-lysa guyling isabelle gerhart addie gormley lauren harmeyer maui keegan rhys koch katherine corrin alyssa lanine summer mellow be pasha mochten madison no kirsten o'brien shannon o'brien kensli o'donnell tricia patel devin petrie michaela quarles caitlin richards kristen riddell katie rozinski kate schwanholt howie spletzer cameron steer kate thomas maui thomas juliana tragon lucy wang aubry wells thank you ladies for all your hard work this year [Applause]
021good luck all [Music] nice [Applause] [Music] [Applause] congratu congratulations again ladies and to the coaching staff on in another wonderful season and best of luck to those of you that are competing this week at the state championships the next team we would like to recognize for their pioneer athletic conference championship is the boys track and field team they were 4-1 during the regular season uh suffering their only loss in a really tough home meet to springford luckily they were given an opportunity to revenge that loss at the championships along the way zach williams set two school records in the 100 and 200 meter dash chris mcglynn also set the school record in the 3200 and the 4 by 400 relay and was able to win the suburban a division at penn relays setting a school
022record by two seconds in the process the boys scored 26 points at last weekend's district district championship meet earning a seventh place finish overall several members of the team qualified for the pia state championships coming up later this week the boys highlighted their amazing spring season with their first conference championship in in school history at pax held at norristown high school congratulations uh to the boys track and field team on our pioneer athletic conference championship and would like to call up coach chris torpy who will recognize the athletes uh chris and jim congratulations thanks again to uh dr spiwak just want to give another thanks to dr zurby and the entire school board for recognizing us tonight and supporting us throughout the season um guys when i call your name please come up one at
023a time curtis alexander mitchell alexander matt behan brett byrne wesley conover nate courtney tommy gibbs sabrie hill yasir jar hale chris canard von lachman evander lachmann brian landsberg tristan landsberg owen lee chris mcglinn armond punchy tyler reddy charlie wreath jack rosty michael schreiber desean shakes jason shoemaker jason simcox ray tai justin whitekert zachary willen nicholas willen colin yay and akil yolori i also want to give a big thanks to assistant coach james hodgins and brad call even though he can't be here tonight thanks again [Applause] um all right got the wide angle shot all right right here thank you [Applause] and our final team to recognize tonight for their pioneer athletic conference championship is our boys basketball team the math acton boys basketball team had another very successful season the warriors won their first 18
024games and finished the regular season at 12-1 in the pack and 20-2 overall earning them the number one overall seed in the district one playoffs the warriors started the conference playoffs by defeating rival nars town in the pac semifinal and then defeating pope john paul ii in the championship game to claim the 2021-2022 pac championship the warriors battled in the district playoffs before falling in the semi-final game the district run afforded the team to qualify for the pia state playoffs where the warriors fell in overtime in the opening round they finished with an amazing 24-5 overall record during this championship run i would like to call up and congratulate head coach pat lockard to recognize the athletes and coaching staff [Applause] thank you dr spiwak i would like to thank dr zurby and the board
025again as the other coaches stated for recognizing us tonight athletes as i call your name please come up and receive your certificate brett byrne cam chilsen matt christian anthony d'addazzio will goddard cole hargrove alex hermann preston hull evan spang i would like to acknowledge the athletes that could not make it tonight matt blakemore dan brandy sal ayamelo jason lagana and colin meyer lastly the coaches that could not be here assistant coach rob jerome jb coach dave ford freshman coach matt al zamora the athletic training staff zach olds matt martin and paul spiwak and the whole athletic office so thank you very much [Applause] all right i [Applause] thank you again to dr gerby the board of school directors for allowing us to recognize uh the wonderful seasons that these four programs had thank you [Applause]
026we'll just give it one moment as people exit and then we'll continue on good evening and the next item on our agenda is best communities for music education recognition this evening we have mr tom kelly of zeswa's music to come forward to present the award i believe again to the methectomy school district so mr kelly welcome thank you dr zerby madam president members of the board uh what an opportunity uh to be here with you this evening to once again uh recognize the myth acted school district for for one of the best communities in music education um a little bit of scope and sequence about this particular accolade uh it doesn't come easy i'm joined up here with mrs baslick the department coordinator i represent the namm foundation but i also come to you as
027an education representative i deal with the teachers here in the factory school district and have for three decades i started when i was 12. but they do a remarkable job and and this particular award does not come easily it's a 30 plus page application that is not evaluated by the namm foundation they started this program over two two decades ago where school districts could apply uh through this lengthy application process um it goes into great detail of the support uh financial support staffing scheduling uh performance opportunities um it goes and and obviously what we've dealt with in the last two years there were a lot of covid issues and i tell you what the music department here in the facton stood on their head to be able to engage students how difficult it is to
028to teach a flute on zoom how about a violin on zoom uh they they did a a remarkable job but through this application process um there's 14 000 school districts in the country only 728 were given this this accolade that's just about over 5.2 percent uh that actually were were given this this award through again the application process and uh that's something to hang your hat on again you're in a very very elite group it's a testament to the support from the administration the the teachers the parents and and of course the students so i encourage you to to embrace this uh even though it's eight nine years running i can't remember what it is uh but again it doesn't come easily uh and and i encourage you to to continue to support uh the
029program the music program here and uh in the fact it starts in kindergarten with the general music teachers uh you know giving the students the opportunity to enjoy and engage music at a very early age and continues all the way through band chorus orchestra all of it so uh my my hat's off to you and the continued success uh in the future it's my pleasure to be here i do have a certificate here it does say congratulations to the methachton school district for outstanding support of music education enriching the lives of children and in advancing student achievement because we all know music makes you smarter and that's a proven fact i thank you for your time congratulations once again thank you mr kelly i'd like to thank the members of the school board and the
030members of the matthackton school district administration team as well as our staff both my incredible colleagues my incredible 15 colleagues as well as our other teaching staff here in mythton all of our families and most importantly our students this is as mr kelly said this is actually our sixth year winning this award we're very very proud and humbled to have received it as mr kelly indicated last year was a bit of a bit challenging with pandemic learning this year however because we were fortunate enough to be able to continue through the teaching through the pandemic we were able to we were able to offer our community 17 live performances every performance we did this year was live no virtual performances very proud of that 17 live performances as well as two musical theater plays we
031also had some community performances a well-rounded music curriculum for grades k through 12. we are finished with that now very proud of that and our success continued all year long and even as most recently as the past two fridays when the arcola and skyview band orchestra and choruses performed at the music in the parks festivals at dorney park in hershey park we came home from those two festivals actually those three festivals with three ratings of excellent and six ratings of superior very very proud of that as mr kelly said our education does believe it does begin in kindergarten goes all the way through 12th grade very proud of all of our students regardless of their level we had five students attend the pennsylvania music education association all-state festival last month in pocono manor we've never
032had that many from the factory before so that was pretty exciting too so again thank you to all of you for supporting our program we very much appreciate it and we're looking forward to making our program even stronger in the future thank you so much miss basilic as department chair of our music program here at the methane school district i want to thank you for your leadership in in not only all the things that you've shared with us this evening but all your your work and dedication to music education in the fact in schools and community thank you so much i would just like to echo that and thank the music staff you bring your best every day to those kids in the music instruction and i also thank you for taking the time to
033apply for this award so that we can recognize our wonderful music program thank you just thank you sorry thank you mr kelly and thank you um miss basslick next we have a ward of excellence mr booker all right thank you i want to be presenting the first student in the aramark awards of excellence we'll start with first student jeffrey butler is one of the first students veterans jeffrey started out driving from with acne school district and continued his work when first student in 2014 jeffrey always goes above and beyond to help out it is his experience coupled with his dependability that makes jeffrey an asset the first student we push him each day to do more and he always answers the call [Applause] next we have larry killen lowry is in his second year with
034first student we couldn't be more appreciative of him and to work in his work ethic as a new driver larry is always willing to help when we are short staffed he is the definition of a team player throughout the course of the school year he has filled in in various high school tiers open middays late night runs and sports trips [Applause] next we have elaine mecus elaine's personality embodies the culture of first student in math acting every day she comes to work with a smile on her face willing to go the extra mile aside from her skills as a bus driver elaine is known for her ability to bake each month she bakes a cake and dedicates it to all the employees who are celebrating a birthday her enthusiasm and dedication to her job and
035with acting students does not go unnoticed [Applause] next for aramark we start with pete marion he is our head cook at arcola skyview and has always been a standout employee peter has stepped up to help manage the kitchen when we needed it his support was impactful and critical to our success he exceeded all expectations in his position all while keeping food waste down and food quality high his engagement with aramark's kitchen team and with action staff and students makes his uplifting and positive work environment [Applause] next we have bernadette dara bernadette has been with our mark a short time but has excelled so fantastically during this time she has not only assisted in almost every curbside distribution event that we held last school year but bernadette also stepped up to help at warcester when a
036leader was needed bernadette is impeccable time management skills which leads her to accomplish every task given to her bernadette has truly been an amazing asset to this year and worcester's cafeteria would not be the same without her finally we have amy shoemaker amy is the cafeteria manager at methecon high school in an environment that is always hustle and bustle amy finds time to make sure the dots and her eyes are that's all her eyes and crosses all her teeth at matthakken high school amy and her team have the most changed staff since the pandemic started this calls her job to be substantially more difficult yet she has maintained a steady course always providing for the students in every way there is no comparison when it involves amy's dedication to her position and to her team
037thank you [Applause] thank you mr bicker and thank you and congratulations to our first student and our mark employees next on the uh on the agenda for guests and scheduled speakers is their strategic plan so the directors and myself will be taking to the podium here in just a minute good evening i'm excited for our future because tonight my administration and i will be presenting the district's strategic plan for 2022 through 2027. while our strategic plan was originally slated to be revised and presented more than a year ago we were unable to embark on this process but we were able to back in in august where we brought together 100 members of our school community parents students teachers staff community members school board members and business and civic leaders to provide valuable input into the
038future of mathfacton schools keeping with our vision mission and core values we target a single overarching goal of ensuring an exceptional factor in school district experience for all this overarching goal is divided into simple but equally important measurable components to increase constituent favorable feedback by 25 percent in the next five years and the second to increase district rank by 25 places in the next five years these two components will be addressed through strategies that will be implemented over the next five years through the lens of the five tenants of the whole child attendance of healthy safe engaged supported and challenged are at the heart of our strategies outlined in detail in the appendix of this presentation the strategies are broken out into each of the following eight areas stem academy student growth achievement instruction staff
039development and technology third athletics clubs and activities fourth communication and information resources financial management human resources pupil services safety facilities infrastructure and last student staff community experience each area has a number of strategies articulating objectives persons responsible an implementation summary timeline targets key performance indicators and deliverables this evening my administration and i will be sharing some of the highlights of this plan knowing full well that the plan is a living document that will be subject to revisions both in adding strategies and removing or alternating or alternating strategies to ensure an exceptional affecting school district experience for all a planning and information gathering process that began nearly two years ago interrupted by covid picked up again in august of 2021 that led to a student parent staff and community survey along with organizing more than 100
040constituents into eight focus groups to gather important feedback and information on school climate on belonging on safety on school engagement on professional development on leadership on technology on community priorities on district strengths and opportunities and family engagement given the baseline feedback from all of these constituent groups having a measurable 25 target for improvement it is important to recognize that our overall target is 100 for each of these areas and constituent groups as an example the baseline survey for students shows a high value uh of school score a high value of a high value of school score with low school engagement and with staff a clear need for school climate improvement and assessment of what we are doing with technology in our schools on slide six of this presentation uh is similarly to uh the strategies
041that uh that we that we shared on students and and staff uh also located in the appendix are questions and the results of each survey so when we look at the community priorities there was overwhelming support for us as an organization to focus on classroom instruction and the hiring of the best staff and that we can do better with our student activities and we must focus on improvements to our school facilities in terms of family feedback engagement during covet 19 is likely to be this low since we weren't letting students in the buildings at all however you will hear later this evening that we have strategies to address this area as well on slide seven of the presentation you will see that we will measure progress towards uh 100 in each of these favorable feedback
042areas annually with a survey in october and march and town hall meetings in november and april these feedback mechanisms will serve to inform us of our progress and to determine if other matters need to be added or adjustments made to our current strategies on slide eight of the presentation in terms of district ranking we we will leverage the 2019-2020 school year as the base year given our original plan timeline release and i am pleased to share that our high school is recognized among the best high schools in u.s news we will be using all three of these ranking systems to monitor our progress moving 25 places would mean that as example we would move from according to niche the uh from 74 to in 1920 to 49 in 2027. ranking systems vary but all take
043into consideration the academic performance of our students this evening you will hear several of our directors speak about the strategies to improve instruction and support outcomes in various ways these strategies will be instrumental in helping us achieve these targeted ranking outcomes on slide nine of the presentation i am pleased and excited to share that our stem academy focus group was adamant about making a huge splash about ensuring that stem academy was for all students and that while the academy efforts need to start in the high school pushing down and preparing younger learners is critical for the success of the high school level and beyond we discussed a universe of options for creating a standalone building with entrance requirements to ensuring that our students get greater exposure to local regional and national stem competitions then we
044discovered the fab lab a space inside our school similar to a library that can be a hub for providing access to tools technology and resources for students staff in the community and that supports all curricular disciplines including art music math science english etc on slide 10 we want to we want to talk about so what exactly is a fab lab while we can find fab labs all over the world in universities and in some secondary schools a fab lab in tulsa is a great example of the exciting potential we have before so let's take a look i asked members of the board you don't have this in your handout it'll be on the screen here so if you wouldn't mind just turning around and we'll see the video style tulsa is part of an mit
045outreach program that began with the idea of giving everyday people the community and students access to 21st century technology and tools our fab lab here in tulsa does education programming where we reach approximately 4 500 students a year and in this program we're trying to teach our students how to become innovators problem solvers and really how to use creative adaptability in their everyday life and really it's not about the project itself and what they're making it's about the process that they go through as a maker and that process teaches them how to become problem solvers how to become innovators and those are the types of things that our workforce desperately needs while the fab lab is the splashy thing that is truly awesome and i'm really excited for it the academy itself centers on on
046bringing together all students to receive some engineering instruction and having prote juniors and seniors participating in problem-based multi-year group projects that pairs them with other schools and universities across the country that culminates in a project solution presentation a seminar class or industry internships and ends with a stem endorsement on their high school diploma there is a tremendous excitement for our future i present the mathactin stem academy accessible to all students and all disciplines starting at the high school with age-appropriate replication to all levels by 2027 dr walsh thank you dr zurby as the director of curriculum instruction and assessment i'll be sharing strategies under the student growth achievement instruction staff development and technology we will focus on several tasks but one of our priorities will be to grow our staff in the area of udl
047also known as universal design for learning which promotes a pathway for differentiated instruction including process product content and environment another focus is digital citizenship skill development as the school district has now fully embraced a one-to-one device program it is also key to provide skill development for our students on the appropriate use of these tools for academic and personal growth building off of the foundation already embedded in our elementary schools a digital citizenship program will span the k-12 after its completion additionally under technology we will do a deeper dive into the computer science skills as a complement to digital learning citizenship soft skills the development of a computer skills framework will allow us to identify expected skills in each grade level this will allow for appropriate planning and expectations for our teachers and learning outcomes for
048our students our dei climate counselor will be an integral member of our curriculum review cycle supporting curriculum writing textbook adoption process research and resource utilization through the lens of diversity and equity with the various learners that are part of our methactin community we will also plan to implement a math coaching model at all levels to support teachers for best instructional practices in math the coaches will help to establish an instructional model and to close the achievement gap that currently exists at the same time we will streamline the mtss multi-tier system of supports model to support academic behavior and social emotional components of the whole child approach to learning our professional professional development plans will also include long-term efficacy and our commitment to professional learning and organizational growth the next slide addresses the three-year comprehensive plan
049as part of the pennsylvania department of education requirement for all school districts to address various teaching and learning aspects of our school district there are four major goals that are embedded in that comprehensive plan which starts on august 30th of this year and runs through june 30th 2025. those four goals are mathematics alignment of our k-12 standards resource review pilot implementation coaching and supports for instruction at all levels within the core multi-tier system of supports mtss implementation of a k-12 framework including all subjects math ela science and social studies inclusive practices professionally developed teachers on best practices for differentiation and implementation and assessment of learning to meet special education students in our core classrooms udl universal design for learning will move a greater number of students to our 80 percent or greater lre least restrictive
050environment finally instructional practices professionally develop our student our teachers and students on best practices for differentiation and planning implementation and assessment of learning to meet all student needs in our core classroom in addition to three other components of the comprehensive plan or new teacher induction as part of the teacher requirement to participate in induction and be assigned a highly qualified mentor professional development will be to establish goals through our act 48 process and ways to address continuous improvement in the areas of student achievement finally gifted as part of our chapter 16 each district shall submit an overview of the gift of plan assurances this specific comprehensive plan will be available for public review on our district website and will also be available in the foreign education center through june 22nd with the motion for board
051approval at the june 28th action meeting i will now turn it over to miss amanda kelly thank you dr walsh and good evening everyone communicating effectively with our students staff parents and community is so incredibly important as the coordinator of school and community information for the methectone school district i feel very fortunate to be in the position to lead this tremendous effort to really improve upon what it means to communicate with our constituents so with that some of the high-level strategies in the strategic plan related to communications and information resources focus area are to communicate prestige process and policy information to all of our constituents which are our students our parents our staff and community prestige is defined as our points of pride the things we do well and what makes us exceptional process is
052the operational part of our work the teaching the learning the curriculum and policy that's the governing rules of our district what are they how can you find them another strategy is to develop and implement a mobile app the app will be designed to be a one-stop shop of information all of the content lives on the district website but it would be presented in a more effective manner on the mobile app we will also develop a communications tools guide for staff and parents we use various tools for communication for example on the district level we use school messenger as our mass notification system to provide emails phone calls and text messages to families but on the building level you know teachers and coaches they may use google classroom or remind to communicate classwork or practice developing
053this guide would help provide the who what when where and why of each communication tool used within the district another strategy in this focus area is to reduce the number of district residents choosing charter private or parochial education we know that we have a great school district and the majority of families who live here enroll their children in our public school however we want all eligible students to experience what we have to offer our plan is to produce a marketing and communication strategy that educates all stakeholders on the selling points of each level so elementary upper elementary intermediate school and the high school we will also work to increase parent volunteers by 25 percent in three years to do that we will improve our communications to showcase the value of being a methectom volunteer and
054the work of our home and school associations we will also work towards streamlining our processes and procedures related to becoming a volunteer that concludes my portion of the presentation next is mr bricker and dr sorgini thank you amanda tonight one of the things we want to talk about is the financial management and human resource subcommittee that we discuss components of the district's operations associated with the business and fiscal operations as well as the personnel experiences protocols and hiring two areas of focus for the business operation that we would like to point out are the planned transparency in the annual budget process and up-to-date and to update the 10-year master plan and associated capital reserve fund strategy the budget transparency was a focus this year as we look to incorporate monthly tracking of changes by category
055and a summary of the changes next enhanced reporting on staffing changes will be incorporated into the budgeting process with regards to the master plan capital reserve a motion is on the agenda tonight for funding the capital reserves if approved we will create a long-range term plan to address our capital needs without borrowing in addition to continuing to communicate with the board through public and the public through the finance committee and regular board meetings we will also be considering ways in which to approve ongoing updates to the public during the budgeting process throughout the fiscal year and with an additional focus on developing long-term planning to address capital needs throughout the district dr sridini thank you mr bricker mcfacton is working to address our current and future human resources needs through thoughtful targeted protocols and programs
056designed both to recruit and hire staff but also to ensure that we retain the qualified staff that we already have across all of our employee stakeholder groups this will include refining our onboarding and off-boarding processes and developing strategic partnerships to support all areas of hiring this has already begun with a venture between matthachton school district and gwen and mercy university beginning in fall 2022 that will partner 12 methachton teachers from four of our school buildings together with gwen and mercy students in the teacher preparation program these education majors will learn alongside our dedicated veteran math acting teachers for the next four years as the gwented students progress through their teacher preparation training this will be the first of a series of cohorts of education majors across the next several years that will help to grow
057the number of certified educators the human resources department will also continue to explore strategies to increase the substitute fill rates for absent professional and support staff efforts already undertaken include ensuring that methactin provides competitive pay rates for long-term and building substitute assignments as well as an increase in the number of instructional assistants at grades 5-12 that will help to maximize additional opportunities for matthachton teachers to be available to assist finally with the keen awareness of the need to retain our qualified staff members we will look to improve our competitive attractiveness compared to our other montgomery county peers for hiring and retaining professional support and administrative employees next we have dr angstadt director of pupil services so the pupil services focus group discussed and prioritized the following strategies to develop the methocton school district special education
058transition service guide a request that we've received from many parents which would be based on building the building transitions year to year and post graduation transition services and this would be disseminated to our students and families at the beginning of each year we would also continue our implementation of inclusive practices to better support the academic social and emotional needs of all students in grades k to 12. this year we focus primarily on grades k to 4 next you will begin working on grades five to six at skyview as well as looking at our co-teaching currently in progress in grades seven through twelve we will be increasing opportunities for english language learners specifically we want to research options for our students who are identified as students with inter limited or interrupted formal education also known as
059slice these students come to us with other countries where they may have stopped going to school at grades four or six based on their country's limits and then they come to us at an older age and there's gaps within their learning we also want to increase the frequency and value of communication to our staffs and parents about specific areas under the umbrella of people services these include counseling gifted in special education nursing english language development our home and school visitor program and our school psychology services we will be continuing to review conduct our review of the gifted education program to ensure our resources programming and outcomes are aligned to the best practices in gifted education in accordance with chapter 16 regulations you may recall that we had started this program this review of this program
060but it was placed on hold in february of 2020 due to the pandemic so we plan to start that back up we will also be conducting a review of our k-12 school counseling program to ensure the resources programming and outcomes are effectively and efficiently aligned to best practices in school counseling we will develop and implement our trauma-informed care plan and i'm pleased to say that this has already started we are working with tom stecker and associates associates on this project and they some of our staff receive training at the last in service day we will be conducting a review of the district's home and school visitor services including caseloads and resource allocations at present time we have one home and school visitor who provides support to all of our families k-12 as well as our
061schools and lastly we will expand executive functioning program for students with ieps and provide training for our staffs on this topic and now i will turn this over to mr bob jones okay thank you thank you my group concentrated on the safety facilities and infrastructure of the district buildings and its occupants we reviewed the risk and vulnerability assessment that had been completed the strengths and weaknesses of the facilities and how the infrastructure supports the programs the strategies listed below are the areas of focus and opportunities that our group felt should be prioritized i'll review a few of them with you first is improve the aesthetics we want to engage a consultant slash architect to look at and review the mythactin brand review and standardize the exterior appearances of the buildings and the entrances to the
062schools as well as the interior color schemes across the district we want to develop sequencing plan for arcola and methachton high school athletic renovations and improvements we want to engage a landscape architect civil engineer to review all the athletic facilities performing a site study of the arcola skyview and the high school sites producing a plan that meets the needs field sizes spectator seating lighting for future and the to be compliant with the local municipal codes next is increased campus safety security in all buildings we've already started getting pricing and prioritizing recommendations for the risk and vulnerability assessment we need to hire consultant to perform site assessments for proper signage increased security lighting around the sites and making sure we're within compliance of the local zoning codes excuse me uh next is the alternate energy sources
063looking at sustainability options for the future we want to review future options for solar and wind installation providing clean power to the district research costs of infrastructure to set up charging stations for the bus depot we are currently bidding out our electrical vehicles for security and looking at electrical bands for the future of maintenance operation and lastly increased communication across training of the ert team members we want to continue to work with a third-party consultant as we have this past year and expand the current training to the emergency response teams okay next we have chair regina thank you bob good evening our committee focused on the student staff parent and community experience at methachton the next two slides are comprised of items that came out of our committee as areas of growth for the school
064district the items on this list were added based on either the data that was pulled from the stakeholder surveys or specific suggestions that were made from our committee members while discussing some of the items on the slide you're going to hear me use the term favorability factor which basically means that the questions were answered positively by a certain percentage accompanying the term for instance if an item has a favorability factor of 40 it means that 40 of the survey participants believe that that is a positive area for the school district the first item on our list is increasing workplace satisfaction again this was derived from the favorability factor of 30 percent on how positive the working environment here is in the district increasing the student's sense of belonging and engagement and this became evident with
065a 20 factor on how excited our students are about some of their classes now our student participants shared that their sense of belonging at the high school is very strong but in arcola and their experience at the intermediate levels it could be better so that's definitely going to be an area of focus for us establishing a district-wide set of expectations to promote the exceptional experience here at the facton improving central office communications and this was an area of concern of staff members with a 45 favorability factor from the surveys and although our families feel that we do a pretty good job of this with an 82 favorability factor it is something they'd like to see a little bit more detail on some of the messages that go out and we make sure we pull that
066information from our group and lastly on this slide increasing the positive behavioral interactions between all stakeholders staff members recognizing that they're only seeing about a 23 favorability factor of positive interactions between each other that's something we certainly want to be able to improve on the second slide increasing school spirit within our stakeholders fostering connections within the school community a survey showed a 56 favorability factor from our families on the focus of values of diversity equity and inclusion which get to our very two next bullets implementing a system to track and monitor reports and matters related to diversity equity and inclusion my office currently tracks the matters for the district although it would be in our best interest to find a more robust and consistent process to track these matters and that's something we're going to
067be focusing on establishing the office of dei as many of you know we're very excited about alexis joining us soon we can't wait for her to get here and ultimately increasing the consistency of discipline and enforcement and reporting and we're currently working on the now with a committee within the district to get started on it even before we had a chance to implement any of the strategic goals and next i'll be turning it over to dr zurby thank you mr gina in terms of athletics and activities we will release the the parent booster manual this august to best support our parents as they take on tasks to support their children in these activities and there are a number of improvements that are slated for inclusion in arcola including in renovation recommendation to the coral room
068renovation recommendations to the gymnasium entrances and the gymnasiums themselves renovations to the planetarium currently called the horizon project which i i believe we had a presentation just a few months ago and the development of the track facility on the campus a renovation of the gym and athletic rooms field modifications to accommodate game ready events and the renovation of the tennis court area that is all on the arcola campus there is information about most of our campuses but i'll go on to one other campus the high school campus to provide for spectator seating improvements at the stadium auxiliary field softball field baseball field and tennis court provide for complete renovation of the tennis court area provide consideration for additional parking on campus provide a new weight room facility lifting or i'm sorry lighting of the softball
069and baseball and tennis courts the renovation of the athletic room and tennis our team rooms and renovate the pool and pool locker room just to name a few we will keep the the we will keep developing our recent success with our unified sports program and develop a pipeline of volunteers and coaches that can support our our clubs activities and athletics going forward on slide 26 you will see that an effort to keep our public apprised of our progress we will use a web application that presents tasks the task progress along with the milestone accomplishments it will be a place to regularly refer as we utilize this web tool to progress monitor internally and share that directly with our public we will present an update each april to the board on slide 27 all of this
070would not have been possible without the thoughtful input from over 100 focus group participants while i have thanked them many times in the past i want to thank them again thank you on slide 28 and 29 uh this presentation along with the appendix will be posted to the strategic planning section of the district website in the next few days also the progress monitoring section is targeted for an august 2022 delivery i ask that um that phil are working on the camera just select uh for example student growth and achievement if you could select that on the slide it should pop open to can you open it behind each of these links it will take you to uh detailed uh areas of all of the strategies that were just summarized here this evening so i want
071to make sure that you know that all the the timelines all the people responsible a summary of all of the uh uh strategies are outlined in here and will be available on appendix b if you could go to the next slide just go through yeah this is the example so by clicking on the link um you will be able to uh see more detail about each of the strategies that were generally referred to here this evening um and then on the the last slide uh which is appendix b we have a similar uh link if you could click on say family based survey please and it'll take you to the actual questions and the responses per questions that were summarized in the presentation earlier so with that said i want to thank you for taking
072the time to hear our presentation in all as uh as we as we embark on this strategic plan and monitor our progress forward it is important that uh the school board of directors and all of our constituent groups that the strategies and actions we will take are located here to provide an exceptional factor school district experience for all thank you and i recognize that this is a lot of information that we shared with you this evening for many of you this is the first time that you've seen this whole thing in in its entirety we certainly will take questions here this evening but know that um we can be available for questions after the meeting as well as in future meetings so with that said um are there any questions from members of the board
073at this time ms cancro more uh a comment i i thank you the leadership team here it's it's incredible you know taking all the feedback from everybody that it's it's a community effort and to really help and support the students um the one thing i would recommend is because there were so many people involved those that were involved there's a way we could send this particular recording of our school board with this to those individuals involved would probably be the best so that they could hear your messaging because what you guys said tonight it's crucial for them to hear everything that you said individually because they all worked with you individually so that would be the biggest recommendation is to send the copy to each of them consider it done thank you for the suggestion
074any any any other comments from members of the board at this time my only comment and i don't mean to be negative this is you know obviously it's just it's just strategic plan and you know um i did feel like it was for 2022 to 2027 i mean i sit on the property committee i look at the finances and i see some of this and i go like we are already at property struggling to pick our projects for the next five years so i feel like some of it was wish list and i just wanted to make it clear it made it sound like maybe some of these tennis courts or our arcola sports facilities would all of a sudden be you know redone by 2027 and the reality of that is not plausible so
075i would imagine it's being looked into to see what we can and cannot do fiscally yes excellent point uh ms reese so as as an example uh there throughout these strategies not only with matters related to property there are key performance indicators that for example when we can measure progress um you know we we indicate that but some of these are deliverables and some of the deliverables are things like creating a strata a strategic plan associated as uh mr jones said earlier creating the plan whereby if we have three or four things that need to be improved on at the high school campus we create an order of that so that a we're not stepping on top of each other and we have the priorities set in straight so the the deliverables may more or
076less be a plan that by 2027 we get it on the uh on the planning structure and we have someone with expertise and kind of lay out that design for a pathway forward so it doesn't necessarily mean that every item here will be completed by 2027. excellent point it the the the devil is really in the details and and and it's a fair point because it's not that we're struggling in in but we have a lot of items and i think that's what you mean there's a lot on our plate and we uh you know probably the the major matter is uh high school uh hbac renovation that you know will probably you know take up a lot of our resources going forward so with that said thank you and thank you for clarifying because
077this the plan is remarkable that it touches every single area of our district and that's exact and i just wanted to reiterate and i wanted administration to reiterate that plan going forward might be that xyz may happen in these stages in this time in the further future than 2027 but that we we are aware of it it's on our radar and i do really appreciate just to reiterate what ms cancro said everyone's involvement from admin to all the community members and i look forward to seeing looking at all of the appendix it sounds like a really fun memorial day weekend so if you if you want to hold off a little bit on that miss kelly that would be great again this isn't something for you to to absorb here this evening or over the
078over the holiday weekend certainly um it is something though that i said earlier this is a a living document so i expect that um you know something could change in our economy something could change in our our our structure that says hey we need to we need to pivot and we need to create the and know that we have the flexibility to do that so we might get direction from the board that we're not going to do xyz we're going to do abc so with that said um you know this is trying to get us on on a trajectory uh to achieve both uh increasing our favorable feedback and district rank mr young i think you had a your hand up how could you tell i wasn't i wasn't sure if i raised my hand
079there yeah sorry yeah i got excited so just just a comment really the number of people that participated in this is really impressive i wasn't keenly aware that we had so many people that participated in all these areas and just to kind of follow up with what ms reese said in a property committee we review the strategic plan it all starts with a plan right so then the plan is broken down by priorities certainly heating and cooling takes a higher priority than other things that that are lower priorities so we review each item and we set priorities for each line item and then we consider them one at a time for approval so just let the public know that you know this this large strategic plan is this kind of a pie in the sky
080idea is uh is scrutinized on a regular basis and set with priorities but but all the but and and as true as that is um it's also true that the the matters that are presented uh for the most part um are are things that will have to be addressed at some time in the future so like for example tennis courts you know we may not think that they need to be renovated but this person here will tell me we got to do something with them soon okay um or otherwise we're patching it and patching it and and not necessarily providing for the optimal opportunity for our student athletes to succeed so again not something we have to do tomorrow but it it it all plays as part of our decision-making process and i appreciate uh
081you considering all these things that we shared in fact you know it's no stretch of the imagination that the stem academy is going to take a huge effort it's certainly going to take an effort with our education foundation it's going to take an effort probably from me as well as as the leader of this school district to raise funds and to make the connections and to create the relationships necessary uh to get business and industry to contribute uh to those the fab lab resources um i know where teachers already have the connections with other universities and and other schools in this realm and our curriculum department is already doing a lot of the research necessary to make this a success um but it it it doesn't come without a cost and it doesn't it certainly
082uh does come with a lot of opportunity and when i said earlier about giving the the stem academy being an opportunity for our students and our staff i also said the word community i hope you heard that because i think it's an opportunity for us to uh share in in in creating entrepreneurs at every level and having uh thinkers and people more involved in the schools and creating that that partnership from business and industry our community members and our students and our staff so i'm really excited about that and i and i need to uh at least give a shout out to steve savitz he's our department chair of the science department who sat on the uh stem academy focus group and steve brought the fab lab idea forward and with that many of the
083other ideas brought on by members of that committee are highlighted here in the presentation and certainly in the uh objectives that we that we outlined in the appendix but it's steve's whiz-bang idea of the fab lab to kind of pull that all together that i think is going to be the the flashy part of helping us to restructure a pathway for all students to have access to engineering and and to be be involved from the high school eventually on downward so i i want to make sure you're aware of that ms german again just to reiterate thank you to all the staff and to all the community members and everyone who came together to get this going and i know that a lot of these items are already underway they're already in process and i
084was just wondering um when what is the timeline for updates to the board um if you could share that absolutely so uh i mentioned earlier that by august of this of this year we'll have the monitoring tool live and then we will come back every april uh to present to the board and then there are there are four touch points throughout the year to gather feedback two with the surveys for favorable feedback and then two uh town hall meetings and the dates are listed in in the presentation i think it's like november march and april you know so that they're in there and those things will be advertised you know in advance of the start of the school year okay so all that'll be ongoing with uh annually correct and then the board update in
085april and then um i just wanted to to share an idea that i know when you're talking about the stem academy and all the community partners that when i was involved with the focus group for the k to 12 career counselor that there were a number of just so many businesses and universities and different places um to go so i would encourage collaboration there as well as with north montco tech good thank you uh and and miss german by the way that was that the north monco technical uh uh center came up in a lot of our conversations with with the fab lab and making sure that we weren't uh duplicating efforts and and and things of that nature so yeah so i'm glad you shared that uh any other questions from members of the
086board again i recognize that there's a lot of information and uh you need some time to absorb this but we're available uh when you need us to answer any of the questions and we can come back at a at a future meeting and and have greater discussion if you like but for this evening any anything else uh mrs perdue so i i do want to start by saying thank you i know i know this was a lot just because there was a lot of late nights from the administration even going through the focus groups um to get in so thank you to the administration i know teachers participated also and the parents and also students participated just to give feedback um i sat in one of the focus group and i know um i believe
087it was like maybe community relations and one of the things that kept coming up i think i hopped from a couple of different of the focus groups was communication so and i think that was a resounding thing from a couple of our focus groups so when thinking about it and it's unfortunate we can't see it because when you went through this one of my i guess first thoughts this the plan right well how are we going to do this i know we are saying this will go live on the um website and we have plans i would have liked to see a brief overview of that plan right just we will have it on the website and what will happen i think because communication was clearly noted and i think even from students parents teachers
088and administration i feel like it's something that we really want to tackle so i will like to keep us updated on that just because i think it's something that we can do something about this things here that's already highlighted that we are working on when we think about the dei consular we have that in place and there's other things here that we are working on i know the curriculum department is already putting plans in place to hopefully help with our rankings but there's also other items that i think we can start doing so i'm hoping when we go back on there and look at that survey really provides us with a timeline of it and like we say as far as priorities because it's not everything that we can do also because some of those
089are financial but there's things that we can do that do not have a financial aspect to it and then my other thing i will ask is when we think about the one when we um community and even students do the plan also ensure that those people that participate in a focus group are we able to pull them back in to have some of those discussions as far as how we implement some of those plans we certainly with regards to your last question we certainly encouraged the members of the focus group to stay in touch with us um and and so what we want to be able to do is is reach out to them when we when we can but the primary purpose of the town hall meetings is to be able to go out
090and say hey here's where where we are here's what we're doing and gather not only the feedback from say the members that were in the focus group but also gathered members who might not have been in the focus group for particular areas to get some additional feedback so we need we we strategically planned these town hall meetings to continually monitor and get the feedback on the product so we're going to present and get feedback and the idea would be to you know if we're if we're going to do the town hall meeting in november by by say the middle of october we're presenting an update uh and sending it home to our families and our staff and our students to make sure everybody's aware of that and specifically and i think what what kind of
091what going off of what ms cancro had said earlier about making sure that our focus group uh participants also get a personal invite to that town hall meeting so that together um we're hearing as much as we can about the progress and the strategies that we currently have on the plate and the work we're working the stuff we're doing to work towards those goals okay and i think it also goes along with um back to the communication by when those town halls come up ensuring that people are aware that they are coming up in this plan at a time you know a time that's convenient just so we can have more participation and also if it's a i don't know i know when during the time of the focus groups most of it were virtual
092just due to the pandemic but now that you know hopefully things keep going the way they are and we are able to but also offering an opportunity for those to participate virtual if we do hold them in because we certainly i think we had a big engagement also because it was virtual and we had more people participating so maybe making that available yeah i think we need to you know when we get close to putting out the timeline for for the uh town hall meetings we need to consider whether or not having both or only in-person or uh virtual but we've had even during the pandemic for the two years i've held town hall meetings and i've had you know is in the neighborhood of 500 people on the call um i don't remember some
093of those where uh we're on for three four hours answering questions so um certainly i'll i'll not do that alone this time but uh you know have my team with me on the call uh but we need we need to make sure that um a we're we're informing people about what it is the town what the town hall meeting is about and what we plan to open the floor up to so that you know people come prepared so uh you know i need we have a little more planning to do with that but the but the purpose behind it is to make sure there's a continual feedback mechanism and a loop on an annual basis i think that's the key element here and and your comments miss purdue and making sure that we provide timely
094communication about these elements um and and the matters of this plan are are critical and um i'm looking forward to the work that uh ms kelly is able to do for us and make sure that happens well we all have to do it but with her leadership we'll get a better uh hopefully we'll get a better result that's that's our goal and then maybe as we go through and we have those town halls i don't know what how we'll plan or put it on the website but keeping i guess kind of when we um with arrowhead but keeping those presentations up from each time just so if someone wasn't able to attend they can review it and know where we are with the plan so similar to like our head forward where we had all
095you know a history of stuff absolutely you'll stay on all that should be linked off of the strategic planning part of the district website great suggestion thank you any other comments or or questions at this moment in time if not i want to thank uh all of the administration including the directors and and uh supervisors and coordinators that are here with us this evening the one thing uh i guess mr young you might have mentioned there seems to be a lot of people but the only people that aren't on that list because we couldn't fit another you know 40 50 people into it where the administrative team so i want to make sure that they're recognized as part of this effort and certainly want to recognize you as board members i know many of you
096participated either by viewing or actually participated so thank you so much for your investment of time and resources into this effort so with that said i look forward to delivering not only this plan and communication associated with this plan but an exceptional fact and school district experience for all thank you all right that concludes our recognition of guests and scheduled speakers um now we have reports the committee reports are attached and um do we have anything from the iu for miss reece um i'll just very briefly yeah um very briefly for the iu um i had brought it up last time that we did finally meet in person um but um we met on april 28th and i just wanted to reiterate that every district is going through aches and pains of of recruiting and
097and loss of staff and just to give you an idea on wednesday april 20th the um iu hosted their annual diversity recruitment fair and it's the first time every single district attended and every month we get there's numbers like this but just to give an idea last month alone there were 14 resignations and 15 you hire so it's a it's an ongoing battle this was just at the iu so i just bring that up because i know how busy all um human resources directors are throughout the county um and the only we do have a meeting tomorrow which has been moved virtually and there's a retirement celebration and i forget the amount of retirees from the iu i'll bring that with you next month but it's it's a big number um and then i'll just
098move to the tech center the most important thing from our from our meeting on may 16th was the the amazing students that you saw up on the screen and the gentleman that was actually here in person but i really i don't i don't know if anybody truly understands how much the tech center does especially in 2022 it's just they the tech center has just moved with the times and to see the list you know of the students with biomedical tech and the allied health and the drafting and design um it's it's pretty incredible and to mention for example because they're moving with the times they're always looking at interest and what is needed um in our our world our modern world so we one of the reasons we haven't been able to meet in person
099is because they're using the room we meet so that all the allied health and biomedical people can use that room because of covid and now we're going to go virtual for our june and august meeting because they're updating the actual room we use to have more technology so the students have access to a little bit more technology there so liz and i will be virtual for those meetings in june and august and in addition i think the tech center has done such a good job in letting people know the value of it of the tech center this the superintendents are meeting to brainstorm what are they going to do with the wait list there are some programs that are truly wait listed and there are these kids want these programs and need these programs so
100um a shout out to the to the five sending districts and their superintendents for working on that for working on a solution and speaking of superintendents um the sending districts take turns um so we had in my six years there we had mr gallagher from saturn and mr dietrich from north penn and now it is dr zerby's turn so um if anybody's looking for him on the third monday evenings of the month he's with us at the tech center so um we look forward to having dr zerby be um the acting superintendent for those meetings and while the june 1st the tech center has senior recognition so a big shout out to the seniors that attend north monco on june 1st and [Music] one one program note things like mechatronics and biomedical technology have become
101so popular but then other programs sometimes decrease in their popularity so that's another thing the tech center is always working on so their horticultural program if anybody is a horticultural student they will go from full-time to part-time and they've dealt with anybody who's full-time right now so they're always moving and growing and last but not least i we have liz and i have talked about this before the tech center has done a really good job with their equity council they had some students that came to them and said they really need support and i give them credit they got a counsel together of staff and students and they've shared some things with us in the past but they had an incredible student from wissa hicken speak to us and um they're really doing great things
102with their equity program so i want to reiterate we're incredibly um grateful alexis is starting with us so that we can move in some some of those same directions and i i think that's it for north monco thing liz you didn't miss a thing oh very good thank you um next we have the report from the student board representatives mr mccluskey and miss ference and i just want to say thank you for all your service to this board and best of luck in all your future endeavors we both thank you for the opportunity good evening everyone the end of the school year is fast approaching seniors are looking forward to graduation held at our very own methachton high school this will take place on the football field and be held on june 9th the awards
103ceremony will be held tomorrow night and the freshman sophomore dance will take place on thursday in the world of sports coach miller has retired as head coach of softball after 41 remarkable seasons good evening everyone during the month of may the school year has begun to come to a close both advanced placement testing and keystone testing has concluded which has left a lot more time for fun events such as the senior banquet and senior breakfast and the breakfast took place today was a hit um to conclude nolan and i wanted to say thank you to the board and everyone involved this experience has been unlike anything we've ever done and has taught us so much and a special thank you to dr cochenauer who has aided us through everything thank you thank you um next
104is the foundation report was there anything okay mr beam isn't here nothing there next is for communications miss kelly good evening the school year may be winding to a close but there are many things that our teachers and staff are doing to plan for the end of the school year the elementary and skyview music teachers have announced banned and orchestra recruitment for rising third fourth fifth and sixth grade students we have posted information on the district website for families of students in these grades who are interested in playing a band or orchestra instrument next year methachton families and community members are invited to pay one final visit to our current arrowhead elementary school building before we transition to our newly constructed building a community walkthrough event is scheduled for tomorrow may 25th from 6 to
1058 p.m and as we've all mentioned several times today i think we're really excited about graduation um so we're looking forward to graduation on june 9th and celebrating the class of 2022 graduation will take place in the high school stadium at 4 pm additional commencement details can be found on the high school website under graduation 2022 and finally the last day of school is june 10th we hope everyone has a safe and amazing summer and we look forward to welcoming new and returning students at the end of august thank you thank you miss kelly now for the superintendent's report dr zarby thank you madam president if we could post the names of the m award recipients on the screen i'm very proud of the achievements of all of our students this year as posted on
106the screen behind me are 180 members of the class of 2022 that have earned m awards for academic excellence our manhactim board our methectomy board representatives claire flarence and nolan mccluskey are among them these members of the class of 2022 will receive an m award in their graduation packet achieving a 93 or greater grade point average for the 21-22 school year following graduation these students will attend various higher education institutions such as yale cornell brown university of pennsylvania penn state drexel and temple or another workforce or plan to serve a country in the military congratulations to these m award recipients and entire class of 2022. that ends my report thank you dr zurby the board will now take comments on board action items this is an opportunity for residents to comment on matters that are
107to be decided upon as outlined on the agenda the board asks 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 the comments on board action items hello again i'm sorry could could you please state your name yes i will your municipality thank you it's shelley acres uh from lower providence i've spoken to you a few times over the last six seven months about this dei person there was supposed to be a dei report given at every meeting but it's never given and we skipped over it again today it says six e d e i report miss perdue and miss drummond it's not given and it hasn't been given for many months i care very deeply as a former educator
108and what happens in classrooms with children i've read an awful lot about what's going on throughout the country with this dei in different schools in different districts and it scares me i just want to know what's going on i was told there was a committee and then there wasn't a committee i was told there was going to be like a counselor in charge and then there wasn't i don't know what's going on that's why i was waiting for the report and the report's never given i don't understand it's on the agenda but it's never given i was on the strategic plan committee and it was great and i was so happy i could be part of it i was also part of the final group of the strategic plan and dei never came up that's
109why the gentleman that presented what he did i was shocked because it never came up in our discussion all i want to know is what is going on with dei in the school district who is running the department the program what kinds of activities are being planned what do you expect to do with our kids and then my kids too all these kids belong to us and i care deeply about it and i'd like to get some information please thank you thank you anyone else for public comment on board action items good evening johnny andrews law of providence last week i spoke on the issue of the escrow money and eight of you directors were in attendance uh this evening i'm glad to see that nine of you are in attendance last week i spoke
110about uh seven reasons for you to consider that 7.2 million dollars of taxpayer money collected in the shenandoah reassessment uh proceedings over a very long time that's up for a vote this evening to put that money into a uh an account where it can't be taken out and last week i said the fiduciary requirement is to retur return the taxpayers money to taxpayers when collected it was intended by lawyer to be immediately available to the to the uh suing party in the instance uh shannon dell won as part of a settlement it never had ownership by math acton i spoke to that at the courtesy of the floor for the special meeting and and at the end of the working meeting the second meeting of last week ms reese raised a query as to the
111escrowed money ownership that that i had raised she claimed the escrow was always methachment's asset unless the court said otherwise then dr zerby said escrow was a precautionary matter matter his diversion from the issue an escrow account is a third-party repository that holds money or other asset while its ownership is adjudicated the definition one definition of escrow is a bond deed or other document kept in the custody of a third party and taking effect only when a specified condition has been fulfilled very interesting is that this escrow account was not held by a third party expanding on my discussion if methecton had obtained higher assessments by court order the opposite of a shenandoah win then some portion of the escrow would be available to mythakton to pay all or some of the protested higher back
112taxes when neither party won there is no basis for math acting to claim its choice of not returning the money to taxpayers in this instance of no change of assessments per the court order neither party has legal claim on the escrow if there were a third party holding the escrow its sole choice in this matter would clearly be thank you for your time to refund the escrow to taxpayers thank you for your comments good evening brian earnshaw lower providence regarding agenda item 9-h i continue to encourage the board to reject the administration's recommendation relating to the 7.2 million dollars previously held in escrow for the shenandoah tax appeal in considering this matter it's important to remember while funds being were being set aside in escrow for the past 11 years taxpayers were forced to pay
113higher tax rates that's 11 years of higher tax rates for 12 900 households over the 16-year appeal process taxpayers funded all legal accounting appraisal and other fees the administration has reported 700 718 000 of such costs for the period june 2013 to april 2022 such amounts seems low and excludes seven years of the appeal period none of these expenditures approved education the administration had no concerns with saddling taxpayers with 15 million dollars of debt service obligations in one year for the new arrowhead building but now is concerned with 1 million in borrowings for each of the next seven years contrary to what has been stated by the administration the direct refund to taxpayers would be significant while dr zurby may believe that an average refund of 500 would not be significant i believe many families
114and senior citizens would disagree 12 900 households would receive a direct refund not just the district's largest taxpayer the direct refund per taxpayer would be simple to calculate not complex it would not present any labor and accuracy challenges if you reject the administration's recommendation no order no other party will decide the disposition of these funds for you given the district's ability to borrow under more favorable terms the most efficient use of the 7.2 million dollars previously held in escrow is to directly return it to taxpayers given this information and uphold your fiduciary duty the fiscally responsible action to take is a directly refund 7.2 million dollars to taxpayers regarding agenda item 9i in each of the last six fiscal years the district has posted operating surpluses ranging from 1.2 million to 3.8 million dollars over
115such six year period operating surpluses totaled 15.1 million dollars over this six-year period surplus return to taxpayers equals zero in each year the administrator recommend administration recommended and the board voted in favor of retaining the surplus for future spending such spending included capital projects increase in pisa's costs which never materialized charter school funding and fuel tanks even when the increase in pisa's costs never materialized the administration did not recommend returning any surplus to taxpayers once again this fiscal year the administration is recommending retention of the current year forecast operating surplus of approximately 1.2 million dollars to spend on capital projects i encourage the board to also reject this recommendation and return the operating surplus to taxpayers thank you thank you any other comments i'm not just tall uh joe right in house lower providence um
116i'm also speaking about 9h the capital fund uh recommendation um i've thought long and hard about this and i've attended the finance committee meeting and i had heard a very lengthy explanation um about why this uh why the funds were recommended to go into the capital reserve and i've wracked my brain over it and i've been thinking that the explanation was reasonable i thought it made sense i thought anybody who listened to the meeting and there were a decent number would find it understandable to a point um but i had a situation this past week in which i had two methectomy mothers reaching out to try and find baby formula and i was coordinating that and i can't think in good conscience be a positive to vote to keep this money when there are so
117many people in the district that are struggling in some capacity i think the the simple fact of the matter is this is a larger institution than an individual family you have the borrowing power that a normal family wouldn't have may not be a lot to some people but it'll be an astronomical windfall given inflation given everything that's going on um there's also a whole series of litanies of where i think this money would be better spent and the idea that we're going to take this money and in turn raised to a 2.2 tax increase uh i i just think that it's one very large institution taking advantage of a very large swath of people who are struggling um i i don't know what the right answer is but to i know that the fiscal year
118the the fiscal year ends on the 31st and the funds have to be decided as to what to do but at this given time i think that some kind of uh survey to the public anything before the special meeting um to get this you know if we need to call a special meeting do it um i just i can't good conscience consider a vote for this money not taking the money directly from the public thank you thank you anybody else jimmy war sister i'm going to talk about 9h as well um the thing you guys don't realize it's not your money it's our money it's not your money but you you want to take it and then you want to spend it it boggles my mind um where dr serby where is the presentation that
119discusses the pros and cons and the analysis of using the shannon del escrow you know option one option two three show us what it would be like to give it back to taxpayers apply to next year's budget or put it where you're going to put it i knew a couple months ago where you're going to put it i told you where you're going to put it because i know how you guys operate but where's the presentation is it in the vault with the presentation for the arrowhead project where we utilize our cola's empty space and don't build our call our arrowhead in the same vault as that you know guys are ridiculous um but are you familiar with what happened in lower marion school district they had a ton of money okay and they got
120sued maybe the only thing you guys understand is litigation or outside agency like auditor general because it's getting to the point where you know somebody's got to do something about what you guys are doing you know dr zurby you blamed this whole shannon dell uh situation escrow and the money and everything on the shannon dell people okay you didn't realize what happened was the shenandoah people um contested their escrow or the assessment you guys could have very well just answered the complaint but you filed your own complaint back so you guys were the ones that extended this time period and extended the amount of money that's in question if you would have answered the complaint and then got discovery done and got it to trial it had been two three years asked kyle he'll tell
121you but because you're going back and forth with your people saying we want more discovery and then coming back and forth it lasted as long as it did so this problem again is a you problem it's a this board problem and you know i'm at the point now where you know i'm done talking to you people you try to use common sense you try to use facts nobody wants to listen so you know what we'll just maybe talk to somebody else and see what they think about what's going on here so food for thought thank you anybody else for public comment on board action items right seeing none um let's approve the april 19 2022 work session minutes in april 2026 2022 regular meeting minutes as attached may i have a motion to approve the
122minutes as attached miss cancro a second anybody miss purdue thank you any comments all in favor any opposed nine zero thank you next is fiscal items mr brooker thank you madam president tonight for your approval we have the list of bills treasurer's report budgetary transfers the approval of insurance carrier and premiums facility rates and 12 depositories for the 22-23 fiscal year we also have the approval resolution 22-02 for the senior citizens tax rebate program and recommendations for the capital fund and unfailed unallocated fund balance thank you may i have a motion or does anyone want to take any fiscal item separately let's do that any anyone miss purdue can we take 9h separate take 9h thank you i'm sorry yeah nih 9-h okay all right um anything else okay can i have a motion to
123approve all fiscal items except for item 9h as presented miss cancro can i have a second i'm sorry oh yeah i'll wait i'll just get the motion on the table yeah a second miss reece discussion i'll just say real quickly while we're waiting for miss rocco um i spoke to some people at north penn who also did the senior citizen tax rebate program and they they just found in the beginning they didn't get as many people as they thought would participate so i would encourage um those who are eligible to um uh sign up and participate as they see fit and i um we always thank mr sergini for all his hard work mr bricker no you know not to say mr dr sergini is more important than you are so i did want to
124thank you for all your efforts um not only with this budget cycle but just you have you have also done just a great job um you know in the last few years that that you have been here um and i appreciate it in addition to all your work with transportation so thank you thank you any other comments on the physical items we pulled nine h as a separate item which is i discussing so any other comments on all fiscal items except for nine each anything okay all in favor any opposed thank you nine zero all right now let's do 9h um can i have a motion to approve the transfer of ninety 7 thousand dollars nine one hundred ninety three six hundred and eighty seven dollars from the escrow funds for shannon deltax's paid in
125protest to the capitol reserve ms cancro can i get a second mr winters discussion ms purdue so i just have a quick question from mr bricker when we talked about this plan to move these funds to capitol reserve i know there were some questions raised in reference to what other districts were doing reference to if we're building up this capital reserve how much should we put in what should our target be and i know we haven't moved it yet but i know you were going to follow up some some of those items at the last meeting for us so i'm just wondering if you have any updates to share sure uh the each school district takes it in a different manner for the most part the ones that do utilize the capital reserve versus committed
126funds they hold somewhere between a six to ten percent other fiscal budget in that category six to ten percent of their yearly budget correct okay yes i just quickly wanted to say i wanted to acknowledge those that feel we should not do this i certainly read your emails and listen to your comments and i would like to just cut a check to taxpayers and i am a taxpayer but i think the strategic plan was timely tonight i know that wasn't the plan it was always supposed to be expressed at this meeting school districts need money to run and we can't do things on the strategic plan without money so that's why i'm in voting in favor of this other comments mr young yeah a few comments and maybe just a some insight into you know
127the analysis that goes into making a decision or on this vote so i do agree that the the plan needs to be funded i do think that there are other creative ways in order to fund capital projects and i keep asking myself the same question over and over again again i can see the value of both strategies one you know four million dollar benefit to the community based on interest payments over x amount of years however i keep going back to you know whose money is this so the the community was levied an increased tax burden it's their tax dollars that were increased put into escrow so i think we have a fiduciary responsibility to return the money to the taxpayers we can't underestimate or discount the impact of what these return payments would do
128to the community based on you know things that the community has already said higher inflation gas prices etc food costs we can under underestimate or undervalue that impact if it's five hundred dollars if it's a thousand dollars whatever i think it's the community's money i think we should return it yes i would love to have four million dollars in interest payments however i think that it's not our money to to make those type of decisions and that we should return the funds i just i just want to make sure that all the board knows what we're actually voting on so we're voting on whether or not to put the money into escrow we're not voting on any other matter at this moment in time so your comments while they may be counter to our recommendation
129you need to know that we're only voting on to put the money in and the other part of this is by june 30th you need to make a decision yeah and then sorry to kind of expand on what the what the the vote scope was it's just that the for for me my my decision would be to anal create an analysis decision based on those criteria and then i was kind of projecting a a recommendation that was not on the uh the voting agenda tonight oh i i understand about you know i wanted to make it clear for everyone else as we're going down the line here making statements i just want to make sure that um you know because because any other suggestion would mean that we need to make that and the board
130needs to approve it and certainly you know we need to we would need it thank you for clarifying miss cancro you know i wanted i wanted to kind of adjust all these comments that are being said you know i understand that when we went through this many years ago 16 years ago that money came from shannon dell was not the taxpayers it was the students it was the school it was the community's money it was both we have for many years have not been able to do and provide to the students to the level that they deserve to the community to serve in my opinion we have done things resourceful from pupil services to getting grants and we have actin education foundation getting grants for things to happen reach program for mental health and we've
131we're doing all these other classes that we're implementing and we're doing all of these things and if we had the access to that money we wouldn't be being like pushing ourselves to not move anything when it comes to even our operational we stayed flat operationally we were tying every time every area we could i feel like we have been fiscally responsible and this money is now back into our budget and i think it's important to understand that the strategic plan it was all community members it was all stakeholders there is so much listed in there if you look around our community our education our facilities we are in the state we are and we have an opportunity to really let that money go back into the foundation of our community which is our school that
132is why our strategic plan is pages and pages long our facilities plan a 10-year facility plan and we have to go back and do another one which is worth over a hundred thousand so to me it is going to the community because we are gonna have the opportunity to utilize that by using that seven percent to go into the capital reserve and not have to borrow to fix every single element of this school or educational programming for this school i mean this is it is time for us to be able to function successfully and fiscally responsible it is we are being responsible we looked at all three options and you know i spoke extensively at finance committees month after month and analyzing this it is for the community it is for the taxpayers that the
133students the staff it is for the it's for everybody so this money will be used for everyone whether we want to break it out and say it's coming back to us so that's my opinion so thank you i um i just i just wanted to ask a couple quick questions one is um it came up about the legal requirements of our escrow and how it was held can we just speak to that real quick yes so under the uh under the under the rules associated with taxpayers filing their taxes in protest we are required to put aside 25 percent of the taxes paid to the district so we did that mr brooker it was an account that we held it wasn't a third party account which was previously uh communicated here at tonight's meeting and
134it was money that we held on to um as required under the law for i believe 11 of the 16 years that's correct thank you and and um you know for me getting the um the return on investment 7 million to 11 million with um foregoing interest payments is really big for this district and a big opportunity for us and i also feel that returning the money by check to taxpayers would uh enable shannon dell to receive a chunk of money from this settlement but it would not allow any of the lower income people who live in our apartment buildings to get any of this return as their taxes are paid on um by the leasing entity so i just wanted to make a point that you know it doesn't really benefit um our lowest
135income community members yes ms rocco you know this is is a hard decision and i being on finance committee have i at least i felt like i've exhausted this and given it as much thought as i could um it's a hard one and while i do and i'll keep this short but while i do appreciate both sides of this morally and in good faith i i can't vote to approve this tonight i you know it was a really hard decision for me to come to but there's there's too many things pulling at me um telling me not to approve this and while i know the strategic plan and the wish list and i i can't vote for the increase and this and i think that in last week's meeting there were things that we talked
136about as part of our budget that i know are critical i mean we we're adding staff um we talked at length about learning loss over some meetings and we know that this is a real problem and i can get behind the increase for the things we need although i do want them to be measurable um for some of the things that we had talked about and i i brought that up a finance committee but i just wanted to say that i i'm not going to be voting to to um yes to this tonight any other comments mr winters yeah i i uh marissa and i have talked about this before completely respect her decision i would argue though that it's not a moral decision this is not a moral this is a fiscally smart decision
137to do for the district for the long term um to believe but completely blind it's a politically stupid decision if any of us in a couple years is running again because it is being postured as some type of thing that is taking money from senior citizens and people that need formula and i'm not discounting the principle of paying taxes but the reality is to be accused of a a lower marian type of activity this is nowhere not even in the same zip code to be threatened or bullied with legal activities when our legal counsel was the recommendation of the individual that made that accusation that we switch to bartles and we've used bartles over the last 10 years and they're the ones that recommended that we put this money away i just want to point
138out a couple things that are inconsistent um the capital reserve balances be completely unfunded for years at one year i don't believe i know i should have looked it up it was down to like two or three hundred thousand dollars 200 to 300 000 on 119 million dollar budget now back then it was probably 100 million 200 000 to keep all these buildings going um that is not fiscally responsible way of paying for the maintenance of these buildings and what the recommendation that i stand by and i will be attacked for for the next year and a half on the board is that this is the fiscally smart thing to do for the district it is not about my money or your money it is the right thing to do to run a school district
139it is the proper way to use the funds in the most effective way if somebody decides that they don't want to spend five or six seven million dollars to keep our buildings up for the next five or six years and spend nothing on those buildings and maybe you can make that argument that this would be okay we can decide to find a way to send the money back um the other part that i find ironic and i know that i voted for school and or somebody because it's going to say that we don't need the school there was we had an audubon school we had an order arrowhead school that both needed significant repairs 14 15 million dollars somewhere in that time rate there was a decision to reduce the number of schools so that
140we could spend the money not on both schools when there was probably not any need for both there wasn't right but we were able to use some of that money for the arrowhead so it still looked more or less the same amount of money to fix those two schools right there's going to be argument that we should have done some redistricting we should have thrown 1200 kids back into arrowhead we should have not allowed a spanish teacher to have a homeroom there's all types of things that her own personal room she could bounce around and teach in six different classrooms because we had the facility to be able to do that at occult obviously this has got under my skin a little bit and i don't really at this point it's okay uh because i
141know i don't it's not a moral issue i am comfortable that i'm doing the fiscally smart thing the politically wrong thing but i stand by my decision thank you any other comments yes mr mcginnis yeah i i hear the emotion of paul's voice and i've been there on many issues but i'm not there on this one because as miss cancro said that we've just over taxed and run the school district as we normally would in the last 11 years with the escrow account is this fantasyland we made serious cuts we didn't have a surplus we were 100 million dollar business with 200 000 cash on hand that's insane and the other point i would make is that we are somehow deluding ourselves that there be some magical pro rata formula that we could magically return
142this money to taxpayers my wife and i bought our house in worcester seven years ago do i get all 11 years is that how it's going to work so we are now advocating returning this money on a pro rata but we're also advocating doing an 11-year look back on who was the actual homeowner or uh business owner and how much they paid and and then we're going to come up with this we're going to put in an excel spreadsheet is that the plan we're going to do a pivot table we have a hundred community members involved now welcome you get to make decisions and the first decision as mr reece pointed out how we're going to pay for it so you can't out of one side of your mouth say let's magically return this pile
143of money because it's the morally correct thing to do and it's the taxpayers money and i've said it before i'll say it again the nine of us are taxpayers we are not some mckinsey consulting group that get parachuted in here i'm a taxpayer i get a say in this and i'm okay with putting this money towards heating schools not having roofs leak and yes a new arrowhead school because you know why we need a new air at school because the old one was an embarrassment it was an embarrassment we had kids sitting next to buckets collecting rainwater trying to learn how to add and now we're sitting here we're saying oh i'm morally opposed to this okay your call you're all adults but that think that we can somehow return this money to the people
144that are initially wrote the check over the last 11 years is insanity we don't owe everyone 500 it's not how the map works it's a 120 million dollar business we're running with [Music] a lot of money in this bro in this pamphlet here guys if we want to fix things we're going to need it so the same people that say i want to give it back now are going to come to you in three years and say we're going to increase your taxes by 10 if we want to get all these goodies we're running a business here thank you all right any other comments on the site at mr rook school yet yeah thank you um you know i definitely agree i can hear the emotion in the voices and being that i've only been
145on the board for two months i've been back and forth on this issue uh probably a couple dozen times just hearing members of the community hearing you know the emotion hearing the different financial reports and and what makes fiscal sense uh so i tried to simplify it for myself i tried to take the emotion out of it um i looked at you know what our tax millage was over these last you know 10 years and where we were seventh lowest in the county over the last 10 years and i agree that i don't think we've over taxed and i think we've had to make cuts to be able to do things and so i think it's it makes fiscal sense to use this money for the district i think it sets us up to be
146able to do things that we haven't been able to do operationally for the last 13 years as this has been hanging over our head i hear the emotion and i'm conscious of it but i don't think it's a moral decision i think it comes down to what is the you know best financial decision for the district knowing that we're all taxpayers knowing that you know we have to think about what is going to be best for our students what is going to be best for our buildings our teachers um as well as the community and to sort of take all of that in you know i think because our capital reserve was been so underfunded uh for years i think that you know i'm supporting this recommendation as it makes sense to set us up
147for success financially for the district for a long time thank you any other comments yeah i just want to make one statement and there was a comment about where the presentations that lie um a an faq section on the board uh website that we've been updating regularly as matters have come about and this particular stuff is located on that website at that portion of our district website okay thank you anything else okay so it's nine h um is the motion on the table all in favor and opposed passes seven to two thank you thank you next is for personnel dr sorgini good evening and thank you madam president for your consideration this month we have the following personnel items i will highlight those that are additions from the work session agenda last week one resignation
148professional two resignations classified multiple employments professional including the addition of alissa armagost elementary special education instructor and aaron scanlon special education instructor at skyview one change of status classified michelle petco from office assistant at eagleville to secretary to the supervisors of curriculum at farina one uncompensated lead professional one uncompensated leave classified multiple supplemental contracts including the addition of summer iep writing instruction in the home and homebound instruction and additions to the list of approved district volunteers thank you thank you does anyone want to take anything separately in personnel okay can i have a motion to approve all personnel items as presented miss cancro can i get a second mr mcginnis any discussion okay all in favor anyone opposed carrie's 9-0 thank you thank you all very much all right next we have curriculum and programs
149dr walsh hey thank you madam president motion to approve the participation of the mcfacton school district in the following federal programs for the 22-23 school year title one part a title two part a title three and title four part a thank you and now just make note for the members of the board while there are two items listed under here it's really a notice that's listed under 11b so you're not voting on that this evening okay thank you may i have a motion to approve the item under curriculums and programs as presented ms reese a second mr brookstall any comments miss reese just super quickly um i just wanted to thank everyone involved in the comprehensive planning it's something every public school district has to do and it's a lot of work so to dr
150engsted dr walsh every single person involved i just want to thank them because i don't think people realize the state puts districts through you know a lot of work and it's important it's kind of why we need charter school reform because public schools are held much more accountable than um such entities so i appreciate all the work that goes into it and i hope people do take a look at it thank you thank you any other comments mr winters yeah at the follow-up on miss reece i i was able to uh listen in to dr angstadt and her entire staff um last week um it's very impressive of the community members their engagement and also the the care that the dr angst had in her entire staff in showing the commitment to improvements and all
151the programs and the attempts um to provide the best experience at nethackton so it is really well respected and appreciated thank you anyone else all right all in favor any post nine zero thank you and madame president just as a a follow-up to dr zurby's comment the fact and comprehensive plan will be available on the district website beginning tomorrow and for the 28 day review through june 21st so we'll be bringing it back at the june action meeting thank you so much thank you all right next we have policy thank you madam president as you may notice the first reads were pulled from last week i will be adding those to the june agenda we had some modifications that we had to make to the attachments as you know we won't be having policy meetings
152uh until september so we do have some time to put those on so we'll be through our first and second reads before we get to a policy committee in september so no other updates thank you okay thank you there are four policies for second read may i have a motion to approve all policies as presented miss purdue a second miss rocco any discussion on these policies all in favor any post 9-0 thank you all right now we have other thank you madam president under gifts and donations uh the they approve a generous gift from patient first for a thousand dollars to ireland elementary school approve a gift um merc gives back program for arrowhead for 220 and approve a gift for gen youth and acme markets foundation for the backpack program and the amount of
153two thousand five hundred dollars there are no trips uh transportation employee roster is as listed and uh new from the work session agenda as per school code annually each may we need to approve the election of the board treasurer so that's listed now recommendation is daniel penza okay thank you may i have a motion to approve all items listed under other as presented miss can crow a second mr mcginnis any discussion i just want to say thank you to acme for this another generous donation to the mcdacton backpack i believe this is like the the second or third actually it's the second in a row so we're probably in like the three to four thousand thirty hundred dollars thank you anything else all right all in favor any opposed nine zero thank you okay now
154we have dates for board members calendars um just to note that the june 9th policy meeting was cancelled because of the conflict with graduation um does anyone have anything for old or new business miss reece i just wanted to mention something i don't think we can sit in a public school today without recognizing what happened in texas and we are a very small you know district in pennsylvania and we may not feel like we can do anything but i would encourage people to maybe talk to their local legislation whether that be state rep congress senate i don't know who the people out there anybody watching i will briefly say that i was teaching sixth grade when sandy hook happened and i was also the mother of a first grader that year and i stood in
155front of my class the very next day and told those children that between the hours of nine and three at four because it was elementary at the time or sixth grade at the time that i am responsible for their safety and that i will do whatever i can to keep them safe and i just we didn't want to scare them so we just reiterated what that meant and just reviewed a few protocols and this very large football player young man asked me mrs reese does that mean you're like my parents and i said no i am not your parent but between the hours of nine and four i will do whatever it takes to keep you safe and since then as a teacher i have been through more drills than i can tell you where
156we barricade doors where we pretend to throw things at invaders and the fact that our country did nothing then is very scary so i would just encourage if anybody has any ties to anybody in legislation that they talk to them and see if they have any ideas for how we can help protect our children in our schools and i thank all the staff in our schools and all schools for the drills that they go through and knowing that they're there to protect our children um it's we don't always think about it because we don't want to and i and i i'm not someone who wants to think about it and as involved as i am in education i have not ever spoken to legislation about it and i think that it's today is a weight
157as a wake-up call because enough is enough with our children in our country so i just i have the ability to have a public forum so i i felt the need to share to please anybody share with their legislation to encourage them to come up with some solutions thank you miss reece anyone else for old older new business i just wanted to respond to the young lady um who had a question about dei and yes we do have on the agenda to provide the report to the public on a monthly basis we haven't had a report i will say i think the last report we have probably was in february we haven't had a report just because we put out we put out the posting to have someone come into the di office to take
158over um the position and we had some delays in actually getting that position staffed i believed it was in april when we were we interviewed a candidate um to fill that position what happened is that the position was modified from what it was just because when we put it out before we weren't able to find any candidates that filled it we were able to fill that position and what we have now is a supervisor of diversity equity and inclusion and what i believe your questions were you really want to you you were asking to see what is going on in this school really when it comes to in reference to dia and i will go on to say the position and i will take it right from the position as we have a title based
159on what it is and the position is in summary is really to have someone the supervisor of diversity equity and inclusion is responsible for developing administrating coordinating and proving dei services for all district students and employees the supervisor of diversity equity inclusion will work with building principals department directors and supervisors to develop and implement approaches strategies and programs that align with the district define dei priorities and as you heard tonight here that's also part of our district's strategic plan that individual and mr sorginio mr regina can actually provide input but they don't start their position until our next school year is when that individual will start and maybe mr um we can talk about it as far as how we proceed with providing the monthly updates i felt the monthly updates were necessary important to
160keep the community engaged and also provide the community information as far as what we are doing but because we currently do not have someone staffed in that position we don't really have a lot to provide out but i think we can still provide because there are things that we are doing we do have a point of contact in the administration so we can continue to provide that so i will ensure that going forward we continue to provide that because that was uh part of our plan to start with so i just wanted to provide that update thank you and if i just make may make a minor correction to the title it's the k-12 counselor for dei um and i believe we approve that higher in april and um she is being held i think
161at her district so we'll start sometime over the summer with us and one other matter associated with that from the from the comments earlier was the question about dei and how it was included in the strategic planning process so many of you know that well before we got the focus groups together the the eight that i listed um uh that were involved in the process from uh october and november through through december um we had already started almost you know six months prior to that with with a focus group on the diversity equity inclusion so as a result of that we included their information along with the eight other focus groups as part of our uh strategic planning efforts so that's and i i was clear on that how we're going to do that from
162the very beginning um and that's what we did thank you okay anyone else for any older new business miss rocco yeah just quickly i because i almost overlooked this and in case anyone else on the board overlooked this um next wednesday we were invited to the um entrepreneur class for the final pitch pres presentations um at noon and that invitation came from mrs gorla so in case anyone wanted to attend that because i almost overlooked that that's all thank you anyone else okay um now the board of school directors will provide an opportunity for residents to make comments on matter that are or may be before the board the board asks that you keep your comments to three minutes or less and we may choose to respond to matters following the conclusion of the comments
163jim malik war sister um mr mcginnis you're the last person who should be giving anybody a lecture on morality i mean maybe profanity but not morality kind of insulting um mr mcginnis and mr winners it's time for you guys to either attend anger management classes or or hang it up because when you disagree with members of the public you attack them you do it every time paul same thing i tell you every time you just can't keep your mouth closed your job is not to attack members of the public you're an elected official you got to sit up there and listen to it attacking the public talk about stupid that's stupid um you guys over taxed this 15 million dollars over the past six years and i'm getting that from a reliable source mr earnshaw
164i'll put him up against anybody up front you can then add another 7.2 million with the shannon bell situation that's 22 million so paul that is lower marianesque 22 mil see you guys are just smarter than lower marion you spend it they didn't that's the difference but it's still a surplus um as far as the presentation on the uh strategic plan it appeared to be centered on our state ranking what was the motivation for doing this improving our state ranking we were scolded i believe miss cancro did for questioning the board's narrative at the time the narrative was all's well i'm a fact and seems to me like now you guys are looking at the ranking as a problem and you're trying to fix it well what i would have done is i would have
165figured out what happened when the care board took over and we were 11 and then it dropped to 77 would have found out what the cause was identified it and then addressed the cause you guys are just going off on some tangent doesn't make sense so what you need to do is an investigation as to how all that happened when care took over because it's a direct relationship um i did a right to no request for the sprinkler system um you did do the right thing by getting the new solicitor incredible i've never had such a good response um but what we were told about this sprinkler system is inaccurate i told you it was inaccurate now i have the proof so maybe you could tell us all what the truth is about the sprinkler
166system i was given a water timeline and it after reviewing that timeline i found out that it was your responsibility to do the pressure testing and the flow testing it's in the water timeline you gave me so why don't you give the public a realistic truthful analysis of the sprinkler system thank you thank you anyone else for courtesy of the floor joe written house lower providence um i just i'll go through um the 9h uh comments i i the best way i could break it up was by each director um as they spoke and just things that stuck out that um didn't sit right with me uh we uh director cancro brought up the strategic plan um regardless of whether or not the strategic plan existed this money would still be here so that is
167a relatively new development so to invoke it as oh this is you know this is why we suddenly need it it seems disingenuous um and when it says oh it's for the community yes i agree so give it back to the community um it it's not a matter you know the school we talked about the school district hurting their individual families hearing uh to direct president drummond's comments about you know the lowest income people in our district uh not being affected or not benefiting i am one of those people who live in those apartments i know i don't make i wouldn't make any money off of this in any capacity and i'm as somebody who is one of those people that would not be affected i'm saying it's my personal belief that this is a
168bad decision um to director winners point about political versus moral i don't i would hate for this i think that's dishonest i'm sorry um this is a moral thing because it stems down to the simple fact is you know the average family lost nine thousand dollars this year in personal savings um the average family isn't struggling on whether or not they can afford to send kids to summer camp what they're planning to do put gas in the tank things like that so the idea that it's not tied up in morality i i disagree wholeheartedly i think that if we're spending money on schools which i'm in favor of i think that we need to do it responsibly and i don't this could be the best solution the simple fact of the matter is it's not
169your money um this is one of the largest institutions in war sister and lower providence you have more money than any of the the individual families and we all are taxpayers um so i i think that that's just silly uh to mr mcginnis point um operating we're still operating at a surplus as a public institution we should be operating as close to even as humanly possible so having continuous surpluses over and over and over and over and over again speaks to us not doing something right and this is a chance to do something in the opposite direction for once in 16 years um and to his other point about it's a 12 million dollar business i'm i'm not a 12 million dollar business i don't think anybody here individual families are there are 12 million
170dollar businesses i don't i don't know of that many people who are so that didn't sit right with me um and i've uh i i i think that's all i have to say on the topic thank you thank you anyone else for courtesy of the floor john andrews law of providence i spoke earlier today and last week and sent an email out to directors earlier today saying that the on the 9h subject the 7.2 million dollars of escrowed money you know all of us have have excellent ways of spending that money but the money is being taken away from the people who it belongs to i've been around a few years i grew up in worcester massachusetts rather than worcester pennsylvania we had a tornado uh as an aside that traveled 38 miles along the
171ground uh killed 90 people did 19 million dollars of damage it was the worst tornado in the country for that year i also remember an individual who was attacked in a park in the early 1950s that individual had 10 cents in his pocket or a dime a thief or a robber took the took the money from him and then killed him hardly a day in the park that we any of us want to have but clearly it was memorable to me and i don't know whether the thief or robber was caught and convicted or whatever but the presumption is that the thief needed the money more than the man or he expected that the man had more money and the majority of you in some way this evening think that the thief may have done
172the right thing because he needed the money more that's wrong thank you anyone else for courtesy of the floor uh brian earnshaw lower providence um first thanks to ms rocco and mr young for fully considering my comments both here and via email and in voting against the administration's recommendation on item 9h i will always recommend that if the district can borrow at 2 and taxpayers have to borrow at four five six or higher percent that the district should borrow that money and any money that could be returned to the taxpayers should be returned to taxpayers uh just common sense to me uh it's a moot point now but a refund calculation would have been simple as an excel spreadsheet and prorate it you wouldn't go back and look through the history of the 11 year
173period much the same way when the district overspends you don't go back and build taxpayers that moved out of the district like when the districts that were spent legal fees by 1.4 million dollars last year nobody went back and built taxpayers and moved out of the district to recover those funds uh there was some discussion about crying poor with respect to capital spending only have 200 thousand dollars in the capital reserve and some other comments when i look at the capital projects master plan financial summary 2018 to 22 2022 history over those four years somehow the district spent 41.4 million dollars on capital projects so that money came somewhere from somewhere and you borrowed it because a district can borrow at a more cost effective rate than any taxpayer in the district finally just to
174point out that with tonight's two votes the district is now holding 18.5 million dollars of taxpayer money in reserves between the capital funds and the general operating fund balance that is in excess of 15 of next year's proposed budget and just seems a bit excessive in my opinion thank you thank you anyone else for courtesy of the floor good evening kristen sherman lower providence i want to thank greg and marissa for voting no tonight i was actually listening at home and what brought me here was i'm sorry miss reese comment tonight about legislating this is a school board meeting what happened tonight does not need to be legislated right now what we need to do is talk to our children see how they're doing we don't need to talk to the government right now what
175you need to do is talk to your kid i'm in mental health i work with children every day i work with a kid today whose mom killed herself just this week that's what we need to do kids are going into school and shooting other children that is what's going on you need to talk to the kids right now focus on the kids that is it we don't need to legislate at a school board meeting thank you thank you anyone else for courtesy of the floor any other comments from board members seeing none can oh good the only the only comment i would say is that when we talk about um the surpluses i think if you look online um uh tim brecker did post the six years of the surpluses so i just recommend that
176i know we're throwing out 15 million 7 million 22 million you know from the public i just think it's important that we really did break it down the surpluses um and where they came from so i just want you to have that opportunity to review that thank you any other comments seeing none can i get a motion to adjourn mr young a second mr mcginnis meeting us adjourned thank you you