March 15, 2022 Work Session Meeting of the Board

001all right everybody's ready for tomorrow too baba the 10 30 all right okay i use them [Music] check is um uh okay hello is um [Music] he was probably uh oh thank you yes a place is there's a lot of them it's uh it's gonna be set for some very funny please like this um is apology [Music] good evening and welcome to the may 15th work session of the methectone board of school directors please rise for the pledge the public is hereby advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting all board members with the exception of kim aubry larsonis are in attendance now we have the process for school board director vacancy thank you madam president this evening the board of school directors of the matthackton school district

002has two action items and one process item under the school board director vacancy heading on the agenda the first action is to accept the resignation of kim marble arsenic as school board director if accepted the board will proceed to the second round of a process to appoint a replacement for the newly vacated post the second action is to appoint a person to the vacant school board director post for the unexpired term i now turn i now ask the board president to proceed with the first action item on the agenda which is to accept the resignation of kim abu arsenice as school director effective 224 2022. okay before we begin begin that i just want to take this time to recognize and thank board member and past president kim aubry larcenise kim gave to this district

003hours countless hours of her time and expertise and i just want to thank her for everything she's done for the methecton school district that said yes [Applause] that said the first order of business is to accept the resignation of kim aubry larcenies as school board director effective 224 2022 may i have a motion to accept ms cancro and a second mr mcginnis um this is the motion on the floor now i will take comments from the board following public comment on this action only okay so now we're taking comment on this action only this is an opportunity for residents to comment on this specific matter to be decided upon as outlined on the agenda the board asks that you keep your comments to three minutes or less and we may choose to respond to matters

004following the conclusion of the comments are there any comments on this agenda item from the public yes [Music] jessica bradbury lower providence township did this district anonymize the application data prior to providing the applicant responses to the board of directors for review what i mean by this is instead of providing names of the applicants and their responses the data can instead be provided as candidate number one candidate number two and so on this is a practice commonly followed to reduce or even eliminate the unconscious bias that can occur during the candidate selection process something we commonly see organized deployed by organizations that embrace de i concepts so what we would really like to know this evening is if the board and administration are practicing the concepts that they are pushing we don't know much about

005the four candidates that were selected for this round of interviews this evening we haven't seen them at meetings or heard them speak it does create a sad sense of irony because just two short years ago a care school board member director wrote on his public media page quote unfortunately the other folks in this election literally don't have much to say they don't come to board meetings they don't come to committee meetings they don't speak or ask questions at the you can count them on one hand meetings that they've attended they can't claim to be passionate about administering and improving our schools when they haven't shown up haven't engaged end quote i hope that the four candidates sitting before us this evening do have the right motivation to advocate for our children to listen to the

006voices of the voters and parents and to refocus the true intention of public education which is the academic achievement of our children we must stop asking teachers to be everything for the children they're not counselors they're not coaches they're not therapists or medical professionals they're teachers they're trained to teach and whoever is selected this evening i hope that you are willing to set an example when you take that important seat it's time to repair the relationships between the board and members of the public we don't need any more behavior that we have seen over the last two years from drew cursing at a member of the public from paul cursing at a lawyer from andrea cursing at a member of the public and letting her family carry on behind her wall on video from samira

007using her platform to talk about politics and violate her code of ethics we don't need that type of behavior and most importantly from miss drummond when she applauded a member of the public who said that moms don't have the right to advocate for their children apparently we don't have the same first amendment rights that the people that protest also do we don't need that type of behavior we need leaders we need advocates and we need people that will set an example thank you while we're waiting for the next speaker i just want to reiterate to members of the board and the public that as you all know under policy 004 membership it is strictly outlined in policy uh how we proceed and how we conduct the process by which we're conducting this evening to select

008a replacement in the instance that a vacancy occurs jim malik warster uh thanks for that clarification dave but you guys don't follow board policy so fair game for her to ask you know you didn't follow board policy with with uh miss rocco and mr young when they wanted to um not be part of a committee okay so i think you need to reevaluate your statement it's not accurate um so i understand right this is going to be divided into two parts the first part's commenting on larcenies resignation and then we'll get to speak again when you guys determine who you want to nominate okay um does everybody up front feel safe tonight because one of your candidates feels like the public is like enemy number one and you guys are in danger anybody feel unsafe

009up here raise your hand if you feel unsafe that's what i thought you're going to find this very interesting but this is the first time i think ever that i agree with something miss larceny did i agree she resigned should have resigned she resigned a long time ago you know thank you for her thank you for what for her service did you sit in these meetings and watch how she treated the public then she turned it around and blamed us for her leaving it's a problem we don't need more kim arsenies i looked over at the candidate pool were you trying to punish us you know i mean you had good qualified people who applied jessica bradberry sheila smith etc professional good people didn't attack the public what they had no consideration that's how it

010works is that board policy zero zero four in action i agree i challenge any one of you guys to oppose her resignation because that'll be political suicide and that's not wishing ill harm on anybody but go ahead if you want to support her now's your chance thanks i'm much shorter in the gym uh joe rittenhouse lower providence uh i'm going to be very very quick uh i think that i wasn't going to say this but when it comes to board policy i think that there's uh what's been clear is you guys have more control than the public realize and so when it comes to selection or when it comes to anything um even though policy is laid out there's a difference between legality and morality so um just how to do something to gain the

011trust of the public i think is different than what is laid out so um and secondly i i i'm gonna disagree with jim i'm gonna thank uh kim for her service and i'm going to say um without her a lot of this wouldn't have been possible so thank you kim for your time and uh i look forward to hearing who will be helping with act and going forward thank you thank you any other comments all right i will now uh take comments from board members on this action item i would just like to quickly thank um which seems sad to say quickly but to thank miss larcenise many of us knew her from her days at woodland volunteering as a mom and then we got to know her in a board director position i want

012to thank her for her six and a half years i won't go through the list of all that she's she's done but you know most people don't realize a lot of what goes on and she was around for two contract negotiations with t which takes even more time and she was very valuable in many instances and whether you agreed with her positions or her leadership um it took a very um special person to take on the role as president during a pandemic and i she has my utmost respect and admiration as a fellow methachten parent and school board director um and just to address some of the concerns of applicants and interviewing um i don't know if it was exactly eight years ago give or take i applied twice so i wanted to thank the

01316 people that applied because i applied the first time and i was not interviewed and now that i see the applicants i can i kind of feel a little better because it was not easy to narrow it down to four and then the second time i applied i was also not chosen to be interviewed and i then chose to run once and then twice um so to all 16 people that interviewed um if it is in your wishes i hope that we see you again and um i will of course accept kim's kim's resignation and wish wish her more time with her family and speaking of family as a methachton parent she raised two sons while being a school board director and one of her sons graduated during the pandemic and i think that gave

014a lot of people some comfort to know that not only were we helping those graduates and all graduates and all students of mfacton but we had a school board president a um principal at the time and a superintendent who had children graduating and we always do what's in the best interest of children although i know not everyone agrees and i thank kim for her role in that i believe a few questions were called into the procedure or the application procedure first i want to start by saying thank you to all the applicants in reviewing the application is it was good to see that we had good quality applicants that apply and seek in a position to represent my factory school district whether they've attended board meetings before or not i know one of the many

015comments we've heard i know many people that do not attend board meetings in person but they sit and watch every meeting from beginning to the end and follow up with information that's presented at board meetings and follow up with things that are going on i just want to say of all the candidates that we received i believe they were all in tune to what was going on in our district we also had candidates that really showed that they have a lot to bring to this board into this district and i know it wasn't an easy process for us to review but i've sat on interview panels also where i was provided name of candidates and their credentials so whether it was i mean maybe others may say to provide it without the names i also

016appreciate having the information provided to me in the format that was provided to me i appreciate the information and the time that all the applicants took to put into uh applying for this position i know it wasn't easy to put your time in and this is not a a great time for anyone to want to step up to be a school board director i'm sure all those candidates have followed along so in order to take that step to say i want to be in this position in these challenging times right now i applaud you for your efforts and to miss aubrey larson's i i had the pleasure of meeting her prior to even knowing that she was on the board and she's always been about her community always advocated for my fact and always advocated

017from attacking students teachers staff and administration i just want to say thank you very much for your time i know it wasn't an easy time for you and i do understand i certainly find it hard to accept her resignation but i understand because there are times that we all have to make decisions that matter to our families and our personal lives so i do want to say thank you for your time and also thank you to all the applicants that took the time out to apply for this position any other comments from the board yeah real brief i think the comments were great from uh andrea and samira um yeah i i will definitely accept i understand i think uh probably the most frustrating thing is knowing kim as a neighbor and knowing her as

018a person and the interest that she has in the wellness of all involved now the belief that she didn't have the her heart was not in the right place is so disrespectful for the who she is and what she did and how she served the community so i completely understand why she has decided to resign and unfortunately hopefully people that disagree with her will see her in a couple years and can have a conversation with her and see how good a person she is and how concerned she is about the wellness and education of students at mcdacton so have an open mind next time you see her at acme thank you any other yeah one other comment as a superintendent of methanol school district i think it's important for people to understand that the relationship

019between the board president and the superintendent is a key aspect of making sure that agendas and issues that are that are before the school district and before the school board are uh well cared for and there's certainly and as as miss reese had so eloquently stated there's really no time uh like the past two years in which um you know any any leadership role was challenged whether it was a board president superintendent or any other uh school board director position so i really need to emphasize the fact that whether you agreed or disagreed with the decisions irrespective of all that the effort uh by kim uh was uh was was was forthright and uh had the hearts and minds of the uh the student body and our staff always so i want to thank him

020for her leadership and the the time that we spent together as the leadership team thank you kim thank you any other thoughts i don't want to end because i think all of you have done a fantastic job i do want to thank her i think she has really presented leadership and has taken all of us and our the way we were feeling and she really internalized how we were feeling and was open-minded to listen to us um and you know she she really took care of all of us i think that was one of the things that i really respect um she tried to protect us from all the things that were going on with the pandemic with open mind and she was challenged so i do want to thank her for all her service

021thank you anybody else all right um so now the motion is to accept the resignation reluctantly of kim aubry larceny says school board director um all in paper any opposed all right 8-0 thank you um yeah okay now it's time for public comment on this action item it's an opportunity for residents to comment on this specific matter um we ask that you keep your comments to three minutes or less and hold on hold on a second okay no no all right hang on i have this yeah so oh yeah you don't want to only want to do the red oh okay yeah so so you're going to turn it over to me oh yeah okay excuse me i misread i will now turn the part this part of the process over to dr zerby for

022the candidate interviews for the vacancy thank you madam president so as outlined on the district website on march 1st in anticipation of this vacancy the board solicited interest from among members of the community to serve the unexpired term the process included a first round of screening by the remaining board members school directors to take 16 applications and bring three candidates to the second round for interviews the results of the screening saw two candidates tied for one of the three interview spots so this evening we have now four candidates which for which the board will interview each interview will be 15 minutes and each candidate having a two minute introductory statement followed by six questions each with a response limit of two minutes and then a final closing statement of not more than one minute mr

023bricker our director of business services will operate the clock and will signal me and then i will signal the candidate within uh 10 seconds of of that time limit at the conclusion of the interviews the board will take nominations for the vacant post we will then allow for public comment and then the board will have a discussion and then a roll call vote will be taken the person with five votes will become the appointed member of the board to fill the unexpired term i now ask that each of the four uh interview candidates to come forward and to select number four order dr angstad will then take numbers two through four to a room off to the side and then we will call you in uh one at a time for the process good evening

024sean cadugan welcome and thank you for your interest in serving the matthackton school district community the interview will be time mr bicker will be handling the clock you will be you will begin the interview by opening statement not to exceed two minutes followed by six questions uh which we will ask will all be asked by me you have two minutes to respond to each of those six questions and one minute closing statement once we once the interview is concluded you may return to the audience uh we will begin question you now have two minutes to make your opening introductory statement this is commonly a way to introduce yourself to the board hello hello my name is sean cadugan is it on is it not on can you move it pull it closer to you hello

025can you check it i don't think it's on there we go okay just do a test testing one two all right excellent you've done that before yeah all right mr brick are you ready okay go ahead with your introductory statement okay hello my name is sean cadugan thank you very much first of all for can't hear oh uh thank you very much for bringing me to this level which is the uh interview level of this um this process uh i live in lower providence i've been there for eight years i have three children two of which have been through to the faculty and school district and one of which is in the high school right now i look forward to hopefully being able to explain to you some of my background some of the way

026i think uh some of the decision making things that i go through that would help me become a good candidate for the school board the first question is why are you interested in serving the board i'm interested in serving the board because over the last couple years i've experienced many of the board meetings some of which i've been here and spoke at and also had seen how how difficult it has been for the board to actually work through some of the most difficult times with the pandemic and other issues over the last couple years i've seen how valiant the board of directors has been and now that there is an opening spot i wanted to see how i could help so that is why i i was very impressed with the way the board listened

027and they learned they discussed and they debated the different issues that came across and i think that i would be able to kind of help bring some sort of community and kind of help help react in an appropriate fashion for some of these difficult times thank you question number two what do you perceive to be the responsibilities of the board for me uh the responsibilities of the board are really a balancing act i think people naturally want to work on things and focus on items that would help their own personal needs and their own children's needs but we have to look at things from a district as a whole so to me i think the responsibility of the board is to take in as many inputs as they can from teachers administrators teachers students and

028kind of balance what's best for the district and all in all we really want to focus on the students so that's i think the responsibility of the board is thank you question number three what qualities skills and experience would you bring to the board so once again i like to say that i think you really need to look at things through a multi-faceted lens so having three children and and those three children are about as different as they could possibly be you learn that you can't really paint a broad brush you have to look at people as individuals and take those things into account in consideration also i'm a project management professional i've been licensed for over 20 years i'm an expert in scope management hr management risk management quality management and other items such

029as schedule management that i think can help with the board also an i.t project manager a former system engineer and systems analyst and i think that's sort of being able to juggle multiple projects i've done over hundreds of projects in the aerospace industry the dot-com industry and the finance industry i think i can bring that uh expertise and apply it to some of the many problems that we have on the board another thing i think that's key here is really um being able to be trusted i think that's a key thing here in the district and on the board i've been trusted with uh secret and top secret clearances from the dod over the years and i think another thing that's key is you need to have a uh basically a uh i'm sorry you

030have to kind of have these things in you from from growth so when from birth or from at least early on i should say so early on i used to be a sacristan uh working in the church and i also have been in the scouts and raised up to the the level of eagle scout and actually beyond that so that's it thank you question number four if you were faced with a tough issue as a school director such as raising taxes or cutting programs what kind of data would you need to help you make your decision okay um first and foremost i think we should figure out what is the goal that we're trying to achieve what is the outcome that we're trying to achieve and then measure things against that will more dollars help

031it throwing more money at a problem doesn't necessarily resolve it um but you have to kind of figure out how much money do you need to get what you what you want and maybe you're not effectively spending the money that you already have so maybe to go back and look at how you're spending uh your money so it's not just a dollar value i would measure the the qualities and importance of each quality that you have the importance of each of those and then kind of measured against the particular outcomes you would have if you raise taxes or or whatever your other options were and then based off of that come up with a recommendation see if it's sound bounce it off people from a financial standpoint scholastic standpoint other standpoint to risk standpoint schedule

032standpoint and then make a decision based off of that thank you question five what are the strengths of our school district um the strengths of our school district i would say there are actually multiple strengths of the school district which we don't often hear about i think one is the diversity of the students and the population here helps people learn about different things that help them grow as they move on through through their future it is a diversity not just in the race but in um in physical ability mental ability and all of those things as well the other thing is the teachers the teachers here and the administration they're very passionate they're very in tuned and engaged with our students i believe that you know i was impressed my wife and i were impressed

033in a short time and we met with individual teachers how much they had learned about our kids how much they were like on point with exactly what made them tick what made them you know best way for them to learn because everybody learns the same way uh their behavior and and things like that and then i would say another key thing is volunteers the parents um there are a lot of very involved parents um i was right i always volunteer here i volunteered on the school um lunch volunteered overnight overnight ed volunteered for post prom i did the uh the golf outing and post prime which was very helpful to bring money in for the post prom um and i also volunteer coach many of this acting kids in basketball and football not with the

034school team but with ara wra ymca seems like anything that has an a i'm coaching um so i think those things are you know i do that alongside other parents that are passionate with their kids so i think that the parents are a good point thank you uh question number six what are the biggest challenges facing public education today um i would say probably one of the biggest challenges is funding um and even though um funding is an issue it doesn't necessarily mean we just throw more money at it we need to look and see what we can do with the funding that we have um with proper funding we'll be able to draw top-notch teachers we'll be able to draw we'll be able to build and get better programs we have to kind of

035have a concept hey when we get this money what are we going to do with it and kind of evaluate that appropriately the other big challenge i would say is some parents are inconsistent in their involvement i think they only come to the school when there's a problem they get to see their teachers only on a negative standpoint i don't think that's very beneficial i think they should get to know them early on uh get to know their you know get a rapport with them maybe also volunteer uh and things like that so thank you you're welcome that ends the the prescribed questions we now will give you one minute for a closing statement okay um thank you i hope that i was able to describe a couple things that i i do and we

036had a few minutes to go through but i really think that this board and this school district is just a just a small smidgen away from becoming the new uh like the guiding light like the north star for other districts in the area there's a lot of talent here on the board with the students with the teachers and i think pulling people together kind of harnessing that would be great for this um unfortunately i am not going to be able to stay for the rest of the meeting i just had surgery yesterday and i i really wanted to come here because i thought this was important so i will probably be leaving after this but thank you very much for your time thank you very much uh this evening and um again you're welcome to

037go into the audience and as you suggested if you're leaving we will there will be action taken this evening and we will be in communication if in fact either way if you are not selected okay all right thank you very much thank you okay graph keep graph okay yeah just test test the microphone to make sure that you're okay with that that seems okay okay excellent uh so welcome and thank you so much for your interest in serving the methacton school district uh the interview will be timed as uh previously mentioned mr brickell will keep the time and he will signify me and i will signify you and in about 10 seconds prior to the time limit on any of these these questions uh again we will begin with an opening statement it's an opportunity

038for you to introduce yourself to the board and the community second you there will be six questions where you'll have two minutes each maximum time to respond and then we'll conclude with a one minute uh closing statement we are ready to begin the first question you have now two minutes to make an opening introductory statement this is commonly a way to introduce yourself to the board okay i'm kate graf i live in lower providence i know some of you some of you i don't know but i have lived in the methachton school district for 15 years i have a daughter she's in high school this year so she's a freshman there and i applied to the position here because i'm a product of public school and so i really understand the value and the importance

039of having good public schools for our kids i'm a person who volunteers in the community a fair amount in different areas and i think that it's really important that we have people who like to be involved and take action on our boards and things like this because without people volunteering these kinds of activities things happen we just don't have enough support in the community and i think now it's a really important time for our community members to be stepping up and helping to support our children and our community so that's why i volunteered for this thank you why are you interested in serving on the board above but i also am interested because i've actually in my past i've served on two different boards one was a non-profit board for the juvenile research foundation for

040diabetes and the other was a pub a professional association board it was the american sorry it was the air and waste association and that in both of those positions i've had opportunities to sort of guide and provide direction for the board and the associations and i think it's really important in some roles in a professional board you're trying to further technical education and support growth of the people in those environments you know in those um technical research areas but in a non-profit board you're looking to interact with community you're looking for fundraising you're looking to build awareness in the community so they're kind of two different sides of a coin both have really important roles though for the success of the children or the people that are in those associations right in the case of

041the juvenile research foundation those children were benefiting directly from the work that the board was doing to generate opportunities in hospitals to fundraising community outreach all that kind of thing thank you question number two what do you perceive to be the responsibilities of the board so the board in my opinion is really just a i don't mean to say just but it's a body who really needs to plan and execute policy right so the key to those policies is developing good policies to start with and then being able to execute them in an effective manner and all of that execution sort of rolls into a project right this is like a project execution i'm an engineer by training and in my day job so for me most of my life ends up and being much

042more like a project where you plan execute and then check right verify that what we did was what we said we were going to do and verify that it met the goals and if it didn't make additional adjustments to try to meet those goals and i think the purpose of the board is very similar in that plan execute and check get feedback thank you question number three what qualities skills and experience would you bring to the board so um blessing and a curse i'm an engineer right so i am a data driven person i tend to be logical methodical and detail-oriented in the way i approach problems and situations i [Music] as an environmental consultant i'm responsible for helping companies to find ways to meet the regulations that are out in front of them so

043i do believe and i do bring an important awareness of policies and regulations and being able to work within the bounds of the legal system and the requirements that are put in front of us thank you very much question number four if you were faced with a tough issue as a school director such as raising taxes or cutting programs what kind of data would you need to help make your decision so in the case of making a decision like that i think it's really important to do benchmarking and take opportunities to compare what we're doing to what other districts are doing to see where you fall if the district is falling behind on programs and not meeting the standard of what other districts are doing i think it's important not to take those programs away

044if on the other hand the district is you know top notch in every area of programming it's not necessarily important to raise taxes just to add more programs for the sake of adding programs so i think as a data person i would tend to go more towards benchmarking figure out where you stand what's the goal of the district where do you want to be and then work to meet that goal thank you question number five what are the strengths of our school district well i think one of the real strengths of the district is the interaction between the district and the parents as much as there's been some potentially negative interactions the fact that parents show up the fact that parents are involved the fact that parents are participating on parent-teacher-type organizations and they support

045our schools is really something that is special to methachton i think it's something that we could work to our advantage i think that engaging those parents and helping to make sure that they're heard is an important aspect of the board's responsibilities i also think that the district has a wealth of really strong teachers and i think that keeping those teachers in the district not letting them go to other districts or be disenfranchised because of decisions that are made or obligations that are put on them is an important part of our job thank you number six what are the biggest challenges facing public education today i think the biggest challenge facing public education today is funding um you know as the costs of things are going up and our taxes are staying constant there's always a

046battle of trying to be able to do more with less i think being able to be cost effective and give quality education to kids in the community and provide the programming that people want while doing it in a in a very cost competitive way and in a respectful manner is going to be the most important thing we can do so finding ways to negotiate better contracts better salaries keeping our our teachers engaged and getting them salaries that are competitive without becoming a huge drain on our costs is going to be a really big issue going forward thank you you now will have one minute to make a closing statement okay so i mentioned that i'm an engineer i've also had the opportunity in my day job to engage in a lot of public meetings where

047i was doing a lot of presenting new regulatory challenges or projects that may or may not have been super enthusiastically supported by the community and so in those roles i was able to work with the community and build relationships with people to help them to understand what the goals of the projects were how they would be implemented and how they might or might not affect them and so i think i bring a mindset that really is even keel and allows me to communicate with people on all levels and i think that would be really helpful to the board thank you very much um that ends our interview here for this evening you're welcome to take a seat back into the audience and we'll continue with the process thank you very much so good evening lindsay

048powers hack uh let's just test the microphone so you're used to that test test okay thank you very much and welcome and thank you for your interest in serving the methachton school district the interview will be timed mr bicker will be handling the clock uh you will begin with an opening statement of two minutes followed by six questions two minutes each uh for for the response and then you will conclude with a one minute closing statement we are ready to begin great um you have now have two minutes uh to make an opening statement or introductory statement this is commonly a way for you to introduce yourself to the board thank you hello my name is dr lindsey powers-happ and i want to thank the school board for considering me to fill the vanquit director

049position as a parent of two young children and a community member who places tremendous value on a strong public school system i am very interested in serving on this board in order to continue to preserve and expand the quality of the methachton school district it is my position that the board's primary responsibility is to act as an advocate for the children the school district community and the district employees i commit to work with the rest of the board to understand and prioritize the needs and of the district and then work to set a vision and direction to meet those goals and milestones i have a doctorate in epidemiology and place a great importance on making choices based on data and as such i'm dedicated to making my decisions in both based on information and statistics

050not personal feelings and want to work with the other board members to make the best choices in the interest of our children school and community my final objective if i were to be selected to serve as a director for the school board is a commitment to aid the board it's being seen as a transparent body with accountability for their decisions one of the ways that i can help to accomplish this is to pledge to be available to explain my reasoning for why i took a specific position as well as to be open to answer questions from members of the community when i am asked once again i want to thank this board for considering me to join this esteemed assembly and i look forward to responding to your questions thank you the first question why

051are you interested in serving on the board again as a community member i recently moved to the area in july of 2020 and when we did our house search to look to live here school district was a top priority for us so we had narrowed it down to very few school districts and methachton was one of them we have two young children we plan to stay in the area for a long time to be committed to the area and i think that there's a lot of growth and opportunity within this district i would like to be a part to see that the decisions that are made by this board continue to enhance the education system working to and i've seen those improvements even in the time i've been here one of the way i'm really

052thrilled to be seeing a full day kindergarten implementation i think that the school is working very hard to improve and renovate as well as working on those policies to be more transparent with budgeting and i think that i can bring a lot to this board as well as an epidemiologist who can look to support with data to work to plan and have policies in place that are based on numbers and statistics so that we can make the right decisions for our students thank you question number two what do you perceive to be the responsibilities of the board the board's primary responsibility i think is to really think about the needs of our students in our community working as a partner and it should be a partnership of choice people should want to look to the

053board to make the right decisions for our students making prioritized decisions based on what are our needs where are the fundamental responsibilities to our students is it improving it isn't just about improving numbers or looking to a test score it's about the quality of the student the quality of the education making sure that they are getting what they need and in a time like this after a pandemic that's going to vary for different students it's going to need to be able to fluctuate and perhaps there are different priorities at different times for different students and we need to be able to meet those needs for our students as well as to be responsible and have there be a direct path to ask the questions for why a decision was made i know that every board

054member here has made a decision that someone in the community just disagreed with but if you have a reason or responsibility for why that decision was made then you can stand behind it knowing that you're doing the right thing for our students and community thank you question number three what qualities skills and experience would you bring to the board so i again i have quite a number of years of experience dealing with research and data statistics i work in a for a pharmaceutical company where my job is to make complex analytical decisions and then be representative to the public as well as to internal and external stakeholders as for why those decisions were made i think that i bring an understanding to making decisions based purely on information being able to present that information to

055a lay audience and having people understand why as well as being willing to have that conversation as to why that was important i think that there is a need to have a other types of people involved as well and that i am new to the community i think i bring a fresh bit of information but have a commitment to the district and that i plan to be in this district for many years to come and ultimately i think that having that new perspective would benefit thank you question number four if you were faced with a tough issue as a school director such as raising taxes or cutting programs what kind of data would you need to help make your decision well budget data first off to look at where we're making those decisions and why

056um looking at a prioritized accounting of how programs are being used how they're benefiting our students looking to see if there is what other options are available so than to weigh the prioritized options to determine what is the best course of action and really make what makes the most logical sense at the time with the information that's provided as well as listening to the community and having that thought as to just because the dollars and cents make sense for one thing if it's an important either fundamentally important program and cost marks are more expensive but provides so much more to our students making those decisions based on taking in all that information and then making the most rational choice with the decisions in the data that's present thank you question number five what are the

057strengths of our school district i think there's a lot of strengths in our school district there's clearly a long-standing number of teachers who stay within the district for many years the students continue to excel and work to go out into the workplace and be placed in or go into college i think that those are all beneficial parts to our district i think that we've continued to look for ways to improve work for students full day kindergartens and having more academic minutes in school two recent things this board has done i also think that the district is respected and i think that part of that is also based on the fact that this there's community involvement there's support for this community participation in fundraisers people want to see this board and the school district do well

058thank you question number six what are the biggest challenges facing public education today i think the biggest challenge pacing public education is probably the politicalization of these district boards as well as what's going on in our schools i think we really need to be taking a step back and recognizing that our students are in school to be educated and they need to get a full picture be it science history whatever the subject may be and the point of them being in school is to learn and it's not the position of a school board to enforce their own personal thoughts into it but to look and to do what is best for the students as a whole in the community thank you and you now have one minute to make a closing statement so once again

059i want to thank the board for considering me to i'm a fact and school board director i do believe i have the skills and quality to make for an uh excellent candidate for the position i'm a trained research scientist who understands how to review and analyze data as well as how to explain those findings to a community audience so all can understand i am motivated to work with the other members of this board to create policies and determine future initiatives based on evidence in a clear and organized manner and ultimately i promise to be an invested school board member whose primary objective is to think of the needs of our students and will actively commit to working to ensure that massactin continues to be an excellent school district thank you very much ms powershap thank

060you for your time this evening if you want to have a seat in the audience we'll continue our process thank you so good evening mr bookstore good evening thank you for testing the microphone and and welcome and thank you for your interest in serving the methacton school district the interview will be timed mr bricker will be handling the the clock he will signify to me 10 seconds before the time limit and i will kind of nod to notice for you to notice uh that will be followed by um we'll have an opening statement of two minutes followed by six questions and then you will have one minute for a closing statement with that we are ready to begin the first question is now you have two minutes to make an opening statement this is an

061introductory statement this is commonly a way for you to introduce yourself to the board great well thank you dr zurby thank you members of the board i'm excited to be here today to share with you my skills and my experience in education and to give back to this community i've worked in education for my entire career i started with managing k-12 tutoring centers and then transitioned to working in higher education where i've done everything from student services and academic advising through scheduling budgeting faculty affairs now in my current position as the curriculum director for drexel's college of medicine so i've worn many hats in education and i've learned that education is a team sport it requires collaboration with everyone teachers parents students staff the community it requires listening requires compromise it requires working together to

062solve problems requires great communication skills and i believe that delivering information in a clear honest and transparent way will always be an important part of an educational setting even when that information is sometimes difficult to deliver these gift of all have always helped me achieve success in my career in education and these are the skills that i hope to bring to a seat on this board to contribute to the great work that you're already doing and to enhance the overall educational experience for everyone associated with nethackton schools so again thank you for this opportunity and i welcome any questions that you have thank you question number one why are you interested in serving on the board i'm interested in serving because i love to help people that's why i got into education i feel like

063that's why everyone gets into education is because they want to help people it's not for money it's not for fame it's it's to help people and in my career i've had that opportunity to help people and this was an opportunity that i saw normally i'm thinking about the students that i work with at my university or the faculty that i work with and this was an opportunity for me to kind of expand that and help more people more students more teachers and then a larger umbrella in my community i've seen been on both sides of the desk i've been doing parent-teacher conferences with a parent that was stressed and anxious about their kids education i've been on the other side of the desk where i've been the parent that's been stressed and anxious about my

064kids education so that perspective in addition with my skills and experience i feel allows me to to help people and so that's what has brought me here tonight so i can share that with this board and and with the community thank you question number two what do you perceive to be the responsibilities of the board well i think the board has obviously a lot of responsibilities there's obviously tasks involved with budgeting and scheduling and just many things involved in that but i think bigger picture it's about being that connection between all the cohorts involved in the educational model the teachers the students the parents the community um you know being able to you know be that bridge and help move the schools forward teachers might have one idea on how to do things parents might

065have another idea on how to do things and sometimes they're going to line up perfectly and sometimes they're not and i think it's important that the board you know be that resource to get all that information and help make difficult decisions and help get feedback from the community and from the teachers to always move things forward and so that is you know what i feel the board's responsibility is thank you question number three what qualities skills and experience would you bring to the board so i feel some of my greatest qualities uh are my problem-solving ability it's something that i utilize in my work every day being able to solve complex puzzles be able to collaborate with diverse teams you know college level student workers all the way up to faculty that have been working

066at an institution for 50 years and everything in between so being able to communicate effectively across all levels you know i've always said that there's very very few tasks in my job or in education in general that i can complete start to finish on my own you know everything requires collaboration with other departments so that ability to collaborate and to problem solve together to look at things from all sides is a strength that i have and so that would be something that i feel would be a resource for the board to be able to work with a team like this to move things forward and to come to decisions and solutions that work for you know everyone involved with the mythical community i feel that i'm great at thinking on my feet um i was

067told you know never planned more than 50 of your day because the other 50 is going to come across your desk first thing in the morning and you're going to have to adjust and re-prioritize and so i have that ability to to adjust and think on my feet in a calm way and to keep a level head um you know i think that's something that over these last few years we've seen you know we never know what's going to come you know our way when it comes to education and so you know being able to think on my feet and uh adjust in a calm way um and bring my team with me um so that we all have that level head is something that i can bring to this board thank you question number

068four if you were faced with a tough issue as a school director such as raising taxes or cut programs what kind of data would you need to help make your decision well i think all as much data as you can get all the data i think you need to have all the information that you can have i think it's the responsibility of the board to when making a decision on that level to do their homework and get all the research that they can get talk to other schools talk to teachers what how is this going to impact them look at other options when it comes to something like taxes or you know budget cuts like is there creative ways to approach it to where the impact is lessened and then i think most importantly is

069once you have that information and you have that conversation with the board and you have that conversation with the community to be able to again sit down and explain very clearly why this decision was made what you know the steps were in coming to that decision what the impact is going to be and how we're going to evaluate what that decision does as we move forward thank you question number five what are the strengths of our school district so my my daughter started uh she's a second grader now so she started three years ago at woodland so i've had the opportunity for just a few years to really see in action our teachers and i think our teachers are phenomenal i've again only had a few years of interactions with them personally but everything has

070been very positive my daughter loves school and i think that's a testament to the teachers here and they are a real strength i think another strength that we have is just the sense of community and connection that i see that's been built i'm actually going to be here on friday my daughter's going to be up there on that stage doing a little song for the variety show and um if it's not that it's an ice cream social or it's a daddy daughter dance or it's promoting athletics or you know the theater and i think all of those connections i know from my time working in retention with college students if a student feels connected to the school they're going to do well and if a parent feels connected to a school this student's going to

071do well and so all of those things are just ways to help build those connections and so i think anything that we can do to continue that and to grow that i think are ways that are going to help our students and help our parents feel more connected and i think those are strengths that i've observed in just the last few years as a parent in this district thank you question number six what are the biggest challenges facing public education today so i think there's there's obviously a few um that face you know districts are kind of across the whole um making sure we have enough high quality teachers teacher shortages or or something class sizes are an issue budget concerns are always an issue and those are important and serious issues but as a

072parent what keeps me up at night is bullying it's something that um i think is is a serious issue and i think it's an issue that you know they use a cliche takes a village it really is going to take a village to address something like that it's going to take everyone in the community teachers students parents board members um because there really doesn't seem to be one perfect answer on how to address it but it's something that needs to be addressed it needs to constantly be addressed it's always you know on the mind of the parents you know like i said my daughter's going to be up there on friday and part of me is so excited and part of me is terrified because of what other kids might say and so i think

073it's something that should always be priority one or very close to priority one um and we as a board and as a community need to work together to figure out you know what to do about bullying in our schools and i say that not knowing about any specific issues or problems that matthachton has with bullying but there's really no margin for error and there's no such thing as a little bullying problem if there's a bullying problem it's it's a big problem and it's something that i think should always be addressed thank you you now have one minute to make a closing statement well thank you uh again thank you dr zurby thank you members of the board and i do feel a little weird saying thank you because everybody kept telling me that this was

074a thankless job as i was preparing for this um but i don't see it that way i think everybody appreciates the work that is done um this is a really important job and this is a really challenging job um i feel that my skills and my experience have prepared me to meet those challenges and if i'm fortunate enough to to sit with you i would be excited to roll up my sleeves and get to work and help move these our schools forward so again i'm not looking at this as a thankless job but just in case that's the perception let me say thank you and um i'm looking forward to doing whatever i can to help thank you very much and that ends our interview mr brookstool thank you you can take a seat in

075the audience madam president now having interviewed four candidates i suggest now that we take take nominations to appoint a candidate to the unaspired term following the nominations once you close the nominations we would then take public comment on the action item and then from there the board members can discuss uh the nominations and then a roll call vote would be uh required question down sure yes is there a question no we're just taking nominations yes yeah um yes may i have nominations to appoint a candidate to the unexpired term of the resign board of school director post um yes mr mcginnis i would like to nominate dr lindsay powers are there any other nominations yes i would like to nominate um i'm sorry i think it was kenneth right rockstar yes thank you other nominations

076i would like to nominate kate graf anybody else i'm going to nominate sean cadogan okay so there are no more nominations to be had so i will close the nominations we have the following individuals nominated we have dr lindsey powers-hat kenneth brookstall kate graff and sean cadugan now we will take comments on this section oh sorry we will take comments on this action item only this is an opportunity for residents to comment on this specific matter to be decided upon as outlined on the agenda 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 any comments on these nominations jim alec warcester i'm just a member or lay member of the audience um they all answered question four

077wrong when you ask the difference between taxes and cutting programs you don't have to do either of them you had 16 million dollar surplus over the last five years they obviously don't know that so it's not even a valid question um it's it's ironic though to see potential board members being only given two minutes to speak that's poetic i love it i heard some good things though back to basics science math no political indoctrination sounds good we'll see whether that moves forward um i heard something about bullying um we don't have a bully problem except for the board so somebody you know should go back and review the videotapes and watch how the public has been bullied by the board um i'm going to speak about mr kadugan because he's the only person i've ever

078seen at a meeting that's why i kind of want to address what i've seen summarizing his interview you don't have enough funding even though we have the 16 million dollar surplus parents are a problem because they're not involved enough and he values secrecy see i'm i'm all about transparency so that kind of hit me when he said it he came to the october 26 21 meeting and he goes to the microphone and said he came because he heard disruptive noise in the audience he was concerned for members of the board and some of the people who came to the meeting i mean really we got a raucous crowd he should review the audubon hearings if he really wants to see something that's disturbing that's what i would do he said it was sad that these

079disenfranchised supporters are loosely joined by unfounded rhetoric what's that about see he meets quality number two because he knows how to attack the public so he's perfect perfect for you guys he also praised the district's reaction to covid which was an absolute disaster read the johns hopkins study that said lockdowns don't work and should never be used again read the cdc study that said masks don't work cloth and paper and shouldn't be on kids because it affects their development and verbal scores so you know my one impression is that you know i don't think this individual should be sitting up there thank you joe right now slower providence um so uh in looking at everything and listening to everybody speak it was very interesting to hear how people talked uh i thought some candidates obviously

080outshined others but i just wanted to address a few things that were brought up um i think that the idea that this is a partnership is is a false thing i mean very clearly this is a government institution controlled by the parents and the taxpayers of this district it's not i don't partner with a government body on how to you know teach or educate my children i i choose to send them to that education so just that word really threw me off um when it came to multiple people brought up funding pennsylvania is the sixth best funded state in the union um that's according to usa today as of two months ago so the idea that we are somehow lacking in funds um as opposed to how we appropriate funds i think is more appropriate

081um the comment about hey listen the trust um is something i brought up or i was listening to it was listening parents listening to teachers listening to students and in in my mind and in the comment i put when i applied uh trust was the number one um thing that i had and i think that it was only brought up once but trust between the board and trust between members of the public and parents and students severely lacking and so i thought that the fact that was only brought up once was uh sad um granted i know that i only have half my time now um i think that the process is what it is i'm not going to be able to change it standing up here however i think that at the very end

082of the day i want someone who is competent for this position and i think will do good by the district for the year and a half that they get to serve um so i i don't know if me endorsing anybody would help get who i wanted elected or if i should endorse somebody i don't want because i i don't know what you're gonna to say um but i i will say that i think that it was very clear the caliber of candidates i think was not evenly spread amongst all four um i think some of them were phenomenal as far as experience and skills and i i wish that the public had the ability to ask questions similarly to the district had the ability to do that again i can't change the process but the

083the fact of the matter is we're jumping into this we're moving forward it is what it is uh i hope that whoever the board approves and granted everybody got nominated because that's how it works i guess um i hope who's ever approved is ready for what comes next which is not just you know the political posturing of one particular group who controls the board but the fact that there are parents and district members who are very very much ready to see them perform and we'll be watching thank you anybody else yes hi amy smith we're suster township i just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all of the candidates all i think you said was 16 people applied i think that's a testimony to our community that a lot of people

084care and are willing to put themselves out there in a position that is difficult you know any elected position is difficult but to be appointed is also difficult too right because like someone else a previous speaker said you know the the community input isn't as much as in a vote total so i just want to say thank you to everybody that put themselves out there i thought the four candidates this evening were excellent i think i would imagine it was a hard decision to pick three four hencefor with the tie so i appreciate the time and effort that all of you on the board are putting into into making a educated decision for our school district i would like to say i also appreciated the question about funding because i recognize that it is complicated

085right especially in pennsylvania because we're only ranked 44th in the country in terms of how we get the commitment that the state puts into funding public education so um that makes it very challenging for school districts and i in some ways i think it's an unfair question because the enormity of it and the complexity of it is a lot for for the average taxpayer to to understand but i do think it's important to have an idea of of where people stand in terms of that um you know that's a does 44th in the country is a dismal number um that being said again i appreciate all of the candidates that came i think you're all amazing and i appreciate you being willing to step up but i i would like to um support sean cadugan

086as i stand here because as a previous speaker had said he's he has been engaged and and proven that to all of you um his professional background would lend itself to the compliment of of the people that are currently on the board and i think that he brings a fresh perspective so thank you for your time ramona de la rosa or sister township i also wanted to thank all the candidates that applied for the position because in this day and age it not only takes a huge commitment of time and the willingness to serve but the courage to work in an increasingly challenging environment it doesn't have to be this way we are all capable of acting with integrity and respect if we choose to do so with that being said i was impressed with

087all the candidates but i specifically want to speak about sean cadugan i've known him for a couple of years and this is what i've learned about him he is committed to the betterment of our community and advocates for those in need sean speaks when he has something important to say or valuable to contribute he doesn't waste his words or your time on pontificating he is an innovative thinker and a problem solver and would be an asset to this board above all i know that he will act with integrity and respect and will work for the best interests of our school district thank you hi everybody i'm gina stover lower providence i don't usually talk at boar meetings but i actually watch all of them so thank you for making them virtual because um that's accessible

088to me as a mom of five children which is amazing because when i'm at woodland i have young kids and so it's it's accessible to me and so by standing here today i am just amazed at all of these candidates who came out because it's very brave it's very heartwarming to know that you guys really love our district because school board you guys do amazing things on here and i wish every single one of you the best and thank you just for coming out and applying it's very hard position so everybody on the board thank you so much for serving our kids and my five children too at woodland thanks sandy hats lower providence um i too just want to echo what everyone is saying um thank you for bringing forth um these four great

089uh candidates to us tonight and not sure where they all find the courage after watching everything that's been going on in the district but yes our district has a lot of strengths and positives to talk about i encourage you to select i do want to say too i appreciated the gentleman's column comment on bullying there is bullying in our district and um we've watched the audience bully this board as well i encourage you to select someone that will bring professionalism respect for different points of view and someone who is engaged and committed to our myth acting community i too come to support sean cadogan i think sean is this person i have known sean since our girls were in elementary school together sean will work with his fellow directors and support decisions knowing the board

090sets the climate for the entire district sean will work toward building stronger relationships between the district and the community he will work to serve the needs of all students regardless of their abilities and background he mentioned the diversity of our community as an asset sean is an ultimate professional respectful and will respect diverse points of views he will commit the time and energy to understand and become knowledgeable about the district policies needs and challenges he will be the ultimate cheerleader for the for our district thank you thank you anybody else okay um now may i have comments from board members on these nominations please mr i just want to echo the deep thanks uh to come out here and raise your hand for this job i think you're all nuts uh but candidly i i

091sat literally in your chair to fill a role to for a resignation the first time i tried to get on this board so that was a different time and it seems like a hundred years ago so for all of you and and for mr conduction who couldn't be here to do what you're doing right now is no small task you're making our job incredibly hard i would have no problem with any one of you being on this board but i don't want anyone who's not selected tonight to go home thinking they lost you didn't by just simply even applying and that goes for all 16 who applied i am deeply deeply appreciative when this position opened i would have taken the under on applications at around three and you proved me all wrong and your

092skill set is amazing uh so thank you very very much um i literally don't know who i'm going to vote for so i guess we'll talk it out thank you all i just wanted to reiterate what drew said he actually made it to the interview round but i ha i did apply twice and did not make it to the interview round so to be transparent um but i still put my hat in and i still knocked on a thousand doors um and then i don't know how many the second time not a thousand i was trying to beat somebody else a little my competitive spirit came out but i did it because i care and i really feel like that's why this 16 people did come out and i i kind of agree with um

093with drew on you know i have an idea but i would be happy with anybody and we're not just saying that um i will say i think someone said that they felt some were more qualified than others and i was like wow an engineer an epidemiologist a director of curriculum for a medical school and then and in i.t professional i was like well i don't know what that meant but i i and all people who genuinely care about education so we're blessed and uh not um uh petitions are due a year from now for uh five open positions on the board so a year march will be here before we know it right so i'm gonna just let's hash it out because i feel like well thank you everybody i appreciate it but let's get

094right to the figuring it out we're doing this to just really look at the questions these questions came right from policy so these were not recreated from us we wanted to keep it straight forward so we heard the same answers from everybody and hear the responses so i i do feel like the reason why i chose kate croft is that i think it's just the length of time she's been involved with the school district just because she does have a student that went through the elementary through through all that so personally um her involvement in the community but knowing all the levels of school but i also really as a professional i really like that she does it's all about we we're talking about um engineering data logistics you know but regulation requirements and policy

095but then also she's been on two boards that have given both involvement looking at apparent teachers with the with her one organization but then another one dealing with like costs and she's been challenged with trying to deal with engaging and um communicating to the community what she's you know what she's trying to get the goals of that that company um the other person that i would have to say that i think is a really strong person is mr uh rook stool i apologize if i'm saying that wrong i just think that the knowledge from drexel university and him being involved on so many levels um providing him that wealth of knowledge is incredible and it could definitely help us with all the assets that we're dealing with so those are the two that that i'm

096i'm thinking so i figured i would go second because i have the same thoughts um on both candidates and and that's really who i am struggling between as well but i'm i won't repeat this i agree with uh ms graf that the comments you already said jen but the other thing that really stood out to me was the opportunity that she has to present to the community and and be able to pull the community together in her professional work i wrote that down at the end and um you know that engagement with the community and being able to do that is really important and i i appreciate that and that was something that stood out to me in addition to some of the other things um with mr um rockstall i think that you know

097you touched on something some of the biggest challenges facing public education today you know everyone did mention funding um you did mention something different and um there's no right or wrong answer but you are absolutely um passionate you could tell about you know the bullying topic and i and i think that no one is immune to that and no race no ethnicity um socio economic status i mean no one is immune to it and and i and i really appreciate that you went there because i think it's extremely important uh in in our community in our district you did mention you know funding and and teacher shortages which is another big one um but something that you said that i wrote down if a student feels connected to and i can barely read my writing

098if a student feels connected to the school they will do well if a parent feels connected the student will do well and i really liked that and i can agree more with that statement and i think just the education background that you bring um is is is very is relevant so i just wanted to speak at least to those two folks and i do appreciate everyone um for coming tonight and going through this process thank you i do want to say based on our applicants and i think i stated it before we had a very competitive pool of applicants the one that made it here this evening for the interview when we look at their skills qualifications that they bring based on their level of professional experience their passion for the district it's undeniable that

099they will or they have a lot to offer this district i cannot say enough again how much i commend you for taking the time because in looking at the application wasn't something that was put together overnight you put a lot of effort into where you thought about it right have conversations with your family about it to make sure that the decision you were going to make really was the right decision for yourself and the family i feel like at the end of the day i always say it's to sit up here requires us also having buy-in for my family because a lot of effort and time is spent away from our families so i do appreciate every single one of you i do just i do value the level of professional experience that i feel

100each one of you will bring to this district i feel like it's all needed when we think about communication and as ms rocco said when i remember that statement i actually wrote it down because it do matter if communication and how engaged our parents are really help our students to see and i've seen that that's one of the drivers why i'm sitting here because i came to miss acting from a different district and knowing when i came here i said one thing i always will say our parents are very passionate and it's the level of dedication that our parents are willing to put into our school district always really helps run our school district efficiently our teachers are also great but the work that each of you are doing and showing that you can do

101to bring to this board is really going to be trivial i'm sitting here and i'm still because it's going to be a hard decision but thank you all very much yeah just to echo on uh what miss rocco and what jen said um for me i mean first and foremost great to see 16 candidates throw their hat into the ring my uber under was probably like five but it was uh it was far exceeded but this graph for me having that mindset of of an engineer the benchmarking going through methodical processes data data is great right but we don't make decisions on on data alone so sometimes you have to have a a gut feeling or some personal experience to make a decision i think engineers bring that because they're they're involved in making decisions

102not just but with data but also impact to the community i think that's that's paramount paramount excuse me for um the skill set for being a board director you know focusing on teachers was something i also heard i think that's that's also equally important but also having public meeting experience [Music] non-profit board experience and focusing on cost options making decisions based on those criteria uh is is a win-win for me you know some of the things that i heard from other candidates which also mr rockstall i think your experience in education is is fantastic would be a great asset you know one thing i heard on there just just around the bowling comment i think the question was what do you think one of the biggest challenges in public education is maybe that's nationally globally

103i don't know if if bullying is in there certainly bullying is always a problem and it's and it's never should be tolerated but i think when we when we look at the the the whole problem holistically i don't know if i would have chosen bowling but i do respect you for you know using your your personal feelings and protecting your your family is is uh is to be um complimented that's it uh i i think i'm i'm not gonna repeat thank you for everybody that did apply and and uh coming forward i think there was some common thread of all these which is which is good and i tried to identify those i mean i think most importantly you're supporters of public education i think that's clearly important and um don't have other agendas around

104that so i certainly find that very admirable i think you all provide a level of independence from uh some of the strife that we've been seeing over the last couple years and all have said positive things and negative things about what has happened over the last couple years at least from the board um you all support around the community and the engagement of the community and you know students first and you all showed a respect for teachers so as many have said all four of you provide us a tough choice um i i am gonna support at least i don't know how we do this if it ends up being two two two two but uh you guys will figure that out i guess but i'm gonna support mr ruxal i think uh the breadth

105of knowledge that he has there i think and the even key even keelness of uh his approach and not that anybody was not even peel i think is what the community is asking for for from the board and i think all of you insert that into into that would fit nicely i'll give my two cents and again thank everyone for coming out and all the applicants who put forth their thoughts and um and shared with us their answers to the to some and some kind of complicated and hard questions um i there are four great candidates to choose from i think that um i am going to be voting for mr cadugan um because i liked what he said i i liked his breadth of experience in hr in risk management and analytics um that

106he views this with a multi-faceted lens which i think it is we're in all different aspects of the districts we're in policy we're in education we're in finance we're in property and we also advocate for our students as well and um you know he's a he's a long time president of matthackton uh his kids went through and i liked his answer on you know what is the goal here when we're looking at our choices what what what are our goals let's define them and let's move towards them look at the um look at our value and our effectiveness um so but i i really sincerely thank everyone for coming and um and you know answering our questions and being here tonight and we will continue our discussion because it doesn't sound like we have um

107we're ready to vote so uh i guess let's keep going with our discussion is there any anything anyone wants to add i will um since we have to make a decision i thought we would i thought we were going through maybe once narrowing it down is that not how it works we just have to we have to get to the five someone has to get five the next the next thing we're going to do is the roll call vote and then if we don't get to five we then we then we make a decision to uh open the floor for nominations or uh you know move this process to the the next uh meeting next week and do the same thing if you would like to so if we don't but we don't have like

108a decision doesn't have to be made today okay okay but again uh the uh the challenge is um you know we have our candidates here we we've gone through the process it will be a decision among a board to uh to proceed or not to proceed with a second set of nominations if the first set doesn't conclude in a final winner okay so uh forgive me because i've only been part of this i think once and it was not it didn't work that meaning there weren't four nominees and then before that i don't remember it being like that either but i wasn't sitting up here i was out there um i thought i would i don't want to rush it but um if push comes to shove i would be voting for mr rookstall other

109thoughts i'm i i feel very comfortable with uh with the nomination of rook stool to move forward i do agree with the breadth of knowledge that he has um from all his levels of experience with work um he's very well-rounded representation of our public education um so i mean i feel very comfortable with with that if that is the majority and i support moving forward with mr roxbill also and mr cadugan is probably not getting five so i would uh vote for mr rockstall as well um are we ready to vote then there's no more comment if there's if there are no more comments then we we need to move to a roll call vote and the way the roll call vote would work is uh we we have it set up in alphabetical order

110no better order than that but the you know you would be then asked to give the name of the person that that you're voting for and the moment we get to five uh for a particular name that would be the the winner of of the uh of the appointment okay thank you um then let's let's vote um miss cancro kenneth brookstall i'll vote for mr brookstowel mr mcginnis kenneth rockstall miss purdue ken brook school miss reese kenneth rickstall all right there's five it's four mr winters mr brookstall okay and mr young for the record it is if you want to go you don't have to no you should continue the okay i had two candidates i would go with mr brooks still as well okay so seven to one all right welcome mr rockstall [Applause]

111and just again thank you to all of our candidates who came here before us to interview it was not an easy process i'm sure you were in you were on the spot answering the questions and you did so in a in a wonderful manner we were really it was this was very difficult and just thank you so much for taking the time and taking the interest to apply and to come out tonight for the interviews we really appreciate your interest you're going to repeat after me i state your name aye kenneth rockstall do you solemnly swear that i will support obey and defend that i will support obey and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of the united states and the constitution of this commonwealth and the constitution of this commonwealth and

112that i will discharge the duties of my office and that i will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity with fidelity congratulations thank you thank you very much we're going to take a five-minute recess to just situate ourselves here we'll be back in five minutes thank you so yes oh wow we're starting to prepare to come back we want to get the arrowhead presentation up on the screen the next item on the agenda this evening arduita say anything would be suspect just they were calling the meeting call the meeting back to order okay this meeting is being called back to order thank you next item on the agenda is recognition of guests and scheduled speakers uh this evening we have three uh presentations the first one we have our construction management firm uh uh

113fadevia here to give an update on the hour head and eagleville construction updates we'll have it on the screen board members you should have a copy of that at your seat jack good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is jack ayers i represent represent vidavia construction management in the ms acton school district congratulations first off to the candidate good job by you starting off with arrowhead so you have to scroll up there we go thank you [Music] with the building exterior uh the window installations are about 90 complete metal panel installations are 50 complete rooftop units are scheduled to be set uh this friday march 18th and the electrical service to be completed this month uh a quick update to that we will have energized permanent power tomorrow on the site okay and if we

114could stay on this slide i just want to bring people's attention to the photo uh this is uh about 19 students from the factory high school that uh through our k-12 career counselor uh's work uh coordinated a tour of the uh arrowhead facility so jack thank you for working with our k-12 career counselor to make this happen for our students it was very educational enjoyable for the kids so our second photo under building interior uh the ceramic wall tiling installation is about 20 percent wall board hanging and finishing is about 75 complete painting is ongoing currently and the first delivery of the casework has been unloaded into the building on the second floor classroom wing going down to building interior mechanical electrical plumbing plumbing mechanical piping installed and tested at 80 percent complete hvac ductwork

115installed and tested 85 complete uh we just gave the update on pico that's double double dipper there and all audio and visual fire alarm security material and devices are on site and and getting ready to be installed upcoming we're going to start the teraz epoxy terrazzo flooring installation on 322 the elevator delivery and installation will happen in april the hvac rooftop units will be picked by crane this friday once again and installed connected startup of permanent hvac system will be by mid april so things are moving along with that are there any questions on arrowhead any questions uh for jack on on arrowhead at this point uh ms cancro i think the only one we had done the tour you guys were doing a projection and make sure that we're on track with timing i

116didn't know if you guys had had that meeting and or do we when we would have that kind of update we are currently on track to to bring the building in on time that's fantastic news i appreciate that happy spring and what we were talking about is at the actual schedule uh that needs that is still under development uh for the move in and any other questions saying none go on to the next okay eagleville eagleville is uh winding down uh we're to complete the additional light pole and flagpole lights out front uh the light pole was delivered we're waiting for the flagpole lights any day now we have to complete all necessary testing and balancing complete remaining terrazzo tile at the lobby area it's about 98 complete and it'll be 100 percent complete this

117saturday finished complete done uh well we will come once the lights are all installed we'll complete all remaining seating mulching we completed all the wood door and hardware installations the building plaque installation was completed and it's covered in awaiting the ribbon cutting in april we will complete all punchlist items complete the remaining training and instruction for the district and we will complete all closed out documents including warnings o m manuals attic stock etc by the end of the month any questions on any questions on eagleville um drummond i know i know that you were working on the i'm not going to ask about the terrazzo tile in the lobby because we already talked about that but there was an area upstairs from that that was a little bit uneven just the grade um they had

118not maybe had enough um breadth of area to for the grading so uh can you speak to that has that been smoothed out yes we met with the wausau tile manufacturer's representative on fri last friday um he thinks that's actually wonderful and i said well it looks a little rampy there and he said well the tolerance there you wouldn't get it it'll ramp either way how no matter how far you get back i had a little question on that personally and i said well you need to put it in writing from the manufacturer that this is the way it's supposed to be because now we're you know we're not real happy with it so and the architect agreed with me so that's where it stands at this point so that's an unresolved matter yes okay

119because that's an update for me and i i didn't hear that before yeah and we're not going to be satisfied with that okay okay other questions is he going to get you that letter yes he says the rep says yes he will yes he did until he talks to their counsel right right so all right absent that letter are we mapping out next step if we're decision treating it out we get the letter we're happy we have our get our jail free card if we don't get the letter what are we gonna do and again i don't need an answer now but we should start mapping that out sure thank you mr mcginnis appreciate that any other comments on eagleville any other comments on arrowhead seeing none thank you jack appreciate it next on the

120agenda we have mr chantry mr chantry is our planetarium a science teacher at arcola intermediate school and mr chantry is here this evening to give you an introductory uh presentation on a recommendation for upgrades to the arcola planetarium mr chantry thank you very much dr zaraby so good evening my name is adam chantry i'm the director of methectomy school district's malin planetarium i want to thank you for the opportunity to share information about the past present and future of our planetarium and the plan we're developing to update and future proof this distinctive district resource so the mountain planetarium was named after dr gerald mallon he's pictured here on this slide who was the original director from 1974 planetarium open until 1991 when i was entrusted with the legacy of the malin planetarium some five years

121ago i used this quote from dr malin as my guiding philosophy this is not a resource for a small group of students who may someday become astronomers but a resource for all of our students and our community to better think about and understand the world around them so our planetarium has distinguished mythactin from surrounding districts by providing high quality stem education for more than 47 years here in our district it's hard to track down with planetariums exactly how many there are but it's been reported that over the years at the high point there were possibly 400 planetariums nationwide in public school districts but more close each year so it's really a hard number to to pin down just from my personal knowledge talking to peers going to conferences and things like that i estimate maybe

12220 in the state of pennsylvania remain but more close each year so maintaining our investment and future proofing the bones of our planetarium will allow us continued return on our investment here in stem education so here's just a short example of the type of questions our students are exposed to during their visits to the planetarium you can see there's lots of different types of things that we cover when we come in here our past investments in upgrading computers and projectors um has allowed the malin planetarium to adapt to many more co-curricular lessons we immerse students in the universe we cover curriculum that includes math science history social studies reading art music technology we cover all of that within the space of the planetarium this environment of the planetarium helps students to think about the questions

123that they have about the world that they live in and it shows them the connections between the applications of what they're learning in all of their other classes we take all of that knowledge and we put it together and we see how it works in the world um so you can see here this is just a list of some of the types of topics that we include in our visits and and the different visits that students have so a student who goes to methachton from kindergarten through eighth grade will visit the planetarium approximately 45 times during their k-8 experience and that's based on our 2018-19 lesson numbers obviously over the past two years we've faced some challenges but in 1819 that was about how many um each student would come through so while the lesson

124numbers at each grade may change over time as scheduling and other issues arise the newer computer systems allow us to be even more agile and capable of adjusting our visits to meet the curricular needs of teachers at many different grade levels so each year more than two-thirds of the students in the mathematics school district walk through my door in the planetarium that's almost 3 600 students each year and many of those students are walking through my door multiple times in the course of one year so our planetarium isn't just for our students um all lifelong learners in our community have the opportunity to utilize this resource in the 18 19 school year again we saw more than 1 500 um visitors at our public events so you can see here we have monthly public shows

125typically they're this year they're the third friday of every month we have a star party that'll be coming up on may 7th that's free to the public lots of great activities we have laser light shows we've done special events for the 50th anniversary the apollo moon landing the 2017 solar eclipse lots of different things so we see people throughout the community we even see other school districts some classes from perkier valley and springford come and visit us various preschools and different astronomy groups from around the area we see them lots in our planetarium so the goals for this project um is to increa increase the capacity and number of student visits so right now if you've if you've been on our planetarium we have a center set of projectors and we're looking with the new

126technology we can move those projectors to the side hopefully add some more seeding in there we also want to increase the ease of use of co-curricular lessons um the more we can do more quickly we can teachers can come to me and say can we do a lesson you know that covers this topic that covers this topic and the turnaround time on that can be really quickly we can put those lessons into place and then updating and future proofing a lot of this technology so many of these systems are coming to their natural life expectancy our current computers and projectors will be 10 years old at the projected completion of this project i take pride in caring for our investment and getting all of the use out of it that we can i work closely

127with spitz incorporated so they're a global company which is headquartered locally here right down in chatsford um and we work on maintaining those systems cleaning them out keeping them up to date so that they're running at their peak performance for as long as they can with the projects that i'm going to show you here while it is possible to kind of piecemeal these together and do small pieces at a time completing it in one extensive project would add value to that overall investment if you try to do it one piece at a time it doesn't allow us to kind of move the things around the way that we would like to so that they would function better for our students this is a breakdown of the items we're looking to replace the estimated costs and

128the estimated or the expected life span of those things so these costs are just estimated um we have not issued any um requests for information yet any rfis yet um i have spoken to spitz so spitz is the company we currently work with i've denoted them out here on this slide the actual physical dome so if you haven't been in our building it's a giant cube and there's actually a dome shape that hangs in the middle that is our projection surface that's almost it's 47 years old it was put in 1974 our audio system the lighting system and the computer and projection system that all comes from spits they were able to give me a pretty good estimate of of what it would look like to redo all of that information their quotes were only

129good for 120 days or something like that but it could get us pretty close the rest i am not an expert in hvac wiring facilities mr jones and i had a quick five-minute conversation just looking around and and he said the best idea would to be to get an architect in so we could get a good idea of what that might actually cost that's kind of the round number we we threw out there to look at replacing all those other things so we're looking at about a total estimated cost somewhere between 800 and 850 000 dollars there is an annual budget for the planetarium also all of the equipment through spitz incorporated we have an annual service plan that if i have any issues with projectors maintenance anything like that they over midnight me parts

130they'll deliver parts right away they'll send out a technician and it keeps the planetarium running even if there is a is a major uh problem that goes on and that's been part of our our budget in the past that's been kind of our our annual rolling costs as we go through there um so on the next slide the the process that that we're looking to go through here so back in january i presented to the education foundation see if this is a project that they would like to look into supporting in the future um here in march uh we'd like to solicit requests for information from qualified architects for quotes on the design and project oversight spitz has given me the name of two local firms that they've worked with that have done school planetarium

131and colleges obviously it's kind of a niche market in putting in planetariums as i said there aren't too many of them we're hoping that in april we would come back and discuss hiring an architect to provide expertise and oversight of the project to really get a scope of the project and exactly how much that is going to cost we would work with the architects or with the architect and the spitz engineers to develop a complete plan of what it would take to redo our planetarium then we would come and be coming back sometime in the june time frame to seek approval from the board and the education foundation with a final scope of the project um then hopefully start working on bids in the fall and have the construction done next summer over the next

132summer and have the construction completed for the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year so that's kind of the the scope of what we're we're hoping to do over the next few months here um and on the next slide um our planetarium is really um it's instrumental in preparing our students for stem careers and encourages lifelong learning for our entire community it's important to ask the big questions with any project such as this that will impact all of our students for hopefully another half a century so why is the planetarium so impactful is one of the questions that i asked myself when i was searching for that original philosophy for our planetarium and i found the best answer to this question and quote often attributed to antoine de saint xubier he's most uh well known for

133writing the little prince if you're familiar with that book and i thought this quote was so perfectly explained why the planetarium is so impactful that it's posted above the entrance to the planetarium so the planetarium is not just a place where we teach our students and community about the stars it's where we inspire them to wonder about the world around them and long for the endless immensity of not just the sea but the entire universe so thank you for joining your time and consideration i'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have at this time well done mr chantry and as and for board members who may not know mr chantry he's among one of our finest teachers in the district and uh i thank you for uh not only bringing this matter

134to my attention and preparing this presentation and also speaking with the education foundation understanding that you know there is uh you know there's there's an educational need and then there's a financial challenge associated with you know making these types of decisions and you know your professionalism and working with the foundation knowing that there's a number of avenues that that we can possibly use to get uh to an end result is is uh is commendable so thank you for taking the time to be with us now how about questions from members of the board yes mr mcguise uh thank you for your presentation um i'm old enough to remember dr mallon uh 41 years ago i'm a huge proponent of the planetarium i think it's absolutely awesome remember experiencing complete darkness there and again 41 years

135ago so i believe in the impact but if we could if i could charge you with a little bit of of tightening up your numbers and i'm not looking to shave numbers off but you listed some things i'd like to see it graphically or you know kind of left to right you know the dome is going to cost 200 000 to replace how bad is it can we milk another two three years i'm guessing no is that's why you're here and breakout almost nice to have needs to have and if there are efficiencies and economy of scale to do it all at once kind of map that out but i think you know 850 is a big number for one budget number for one budget year and if there is a way to effectively break

136it out and do it over two years you know just two years not three i don't want to drag it out too much again i'm a huge proponent of it but it may give us some ideas when we do put it out to bid and then we'll get some alt a's alt b's you know what's the pricing on everything and then we can drill down and i'm not saying we're going to pick this and that just do solely on price but you know listen we're all we all live in the real world we know the price has an effect but um i am totally for this i think it's such an amazing asset that this district holds and and i appreciate you carrying on dr malin's uh legacy so to speak thank you and i

137i had dr malone as a student also i was here in 1991 when he passed away and then and then had so i've i've been with all of the directors so far and we had had that discussion about you know what does this look like to kind of break it out and that's something we're going to work with the architects on it is also one of those things where i'm going through the middle of a kitchen remodel right now i don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of that poor man yeah and you know it's one of those things where it's like oh well the appliances need upgrading it's like oh okay well while we're doing that the flooring really needs to be well while we're doing that you know when these cabinets are

138out well we don't have to just maybe we can move the sink over here and have it and it's one of those cases where right now we have center projection we're looking to eliminate that to increase that capacity um within there well once you move that then you're attaching onto the dome then it's like well you don't want to attach onto the dome then next year pull down the dome put the dome back up then the seating's in but it is something we can still i definitely will look into that with the architect and and see where we might be able to do the projects based over it's a little bit as far as the facilities work goes it's definitely beyond my expertise so i'm looking forward to working with somebody who can make those

139kind of suggestions and say hey this is you know this is the order that we can do things and to still accomplish the same goals and listen if the answer is just what you said hey it makes zero sense to do this piecemeal then that's the answer right i'm not looking to to create additional spend i'm just curious to see again knowing that an 850 budget line item that's a big one that's going to withdraw attention and we're going to be able to make sure that we're efficient with it but again i'll vote yes for it right now thank you very much i think you're right on target with what we need to do what we're what we're really proposing is that we go out and find out what the how the cost would be

140to have an engineer or architect work with us to put that type of proposal together um and and so really what as the outline is is so indicated uh we'll solicit that that's free of charge and we can get that information and likely enable come with a recommendation uh to uh to the board to say okay for for for x dollars we can have an engineer or architect help put this plan together that includes all these pieces and therefore then come at a later date with what that plan would look like in the options that you would mention and be able to then decide whether or not as a board this is uh you know a full investment or a partial investment or some something to that effect so that's really kind of the plan

141so thank you for outlining that other questions mr winners yeah and i i second that mr chantry is the teacher that uh that really uh speaks well in the fact and um for sure two things one is there any conversation with the iu or north bronco tech center to use this resource in in other ways for other i know you said springford or perk computer valley come down but um are is there other opportunities to leverage that i mean there is there's always opportunity open i have it open on the district on the planetarium website people can you know i've cub scout troops all the time contacting me can we set up a show can we come in can we do that and and we work around those schedules and we we definitely have that

142open um but definitely i can reach out more to some of those other groups and have them in sometimes with those groups like with north monco people always ask about you know the high school students why don't the high school students come down and i'm sure you're probably aware the schedule at the high school is so intertwined with other classes that taking field trips sometimes does not work out you know oh one class wants to come over and do something but that's going to disrupt five other people's classes for the day and and can make it a challenge um so i don't see a lot of those groups um making requests to come over um during the day like the monco but i would definitely be open to it and can can find time and

143schedule things like that okay and just a comment i really appreciate that you're sort of an additional tech integrator for for the primarily these two schools but uh um it's really helpful that you have an in-house resource that can be supportive in that reactive to the lesson planning so thank you thank you very much thank you well maybe my time on the finance committee might be finally rubbing off because i was going to ask something very similar um you know i like mr mcginnis and you have had the experience of this planetarium and dr malin and this is i think such a hidden gem within this school and i too would vote yes for this right now because i think it's so valuable but um i guess and and i quickly did you know it

144says here 1500 community members eight times eight dollars you know that comes out to twelve thousand dollars i'm not thinking that we're going to make up the revenue of 850 000 but to mr winter's point is there a way with the other districts um i know we've had a rough two years obviously moving on from that you know i was just curious what what is the revenue you know does pv or springford they they compensate us when they come here um you know i was just curious if there is a way to maybe leverage some of that too and i do appreciate the presentation and i also appreciate the going to the foundation you know and and doing that like work but i was just curious around maybe utilizing some some more of that yeah

145so we do um and that's been discussions in the past and things like that um with our public education shows and when other classes come in we do we do charge for that and it goes into um the balance on that it's never going to break even you know it's not going to be a business that's going to going to make money um uh one of the things that i kind of work towards especially with our public shows and when we do things like scout groups although we could charge a lot of money for it i really want to make it available to everybody so for instance a scout group on a normal year when we can sit 60 people in the in the planetarium we worked out the math um and we charged 200

146for a one-hour presentation so if you bring 60 people it keeps it within three or four dollars so every community member can participate in that it's not a twenty dollar ticket that oh well a family of four well that's 80 you might as well go to an imax movie for that i don't have a 500 million dollar budget to you know produce that kind of show so finding that balance and i'm always open to suggestions on that and and help on that that's not in my realm of expertise and and i would i would love feedback on that of finding that perfect balance of you know how can we generate that revenue and still make it accessible to everybody so that anybody who wants to come into the planetarium has that opportunity and can really

147see that but i'd definitely be open to that thank you thank you uh of course ms drummond thank you for your presentation and um in my experience of the planetarium one of the best things is your enthusiasm of the subjects so thank you for that and you know i've enjoyed every session i've had at the planetarium and the star party and all of that um and i just would like to make us a couple suggestions one is um that in case there are board members um who have not seen the planetarium could we get a little show absolutely i i would always invite everybody and anybody's welcome in in my planetarium um maybe we can set that up before a future board meeting we can schedule one uh for uh an evening uh when we're

148going to be here so we'll come a half hour early we can we can do that yeah i just think it would be great for everyone to see um everyone on the board and and also i mean i would suggest that the education foundation be offered the same be offered you know a show and maybe make it you know if you'd like to then donate after the show and kind of make it a little fundraising opportunity through the foundation or even through the community um just because it's i i think that there are many people who would be who either haven't been to the planetarium or haven't been there in a while and i think the idea of upgrading the facility would be very exciting to many in our community who would be willing to

149to help fund it um and i also would hope i guess you know and i'm sure this will be and i would also like to hear more about how the revised um the remodel planetarium would make it more accessible to students some of our students with disabilities and because i'm sure that would be part of it too and i would be very interested to hear how that's going to really serve all of our students yeah absolutely absolutely thank you ms johnson ms cancro i think we're all super excited for this i mean we really want you to go out there and get us the quote that that we can move it forward but you know and i'm willing to help you get talk to the state representatives about certain bravs for if you're saying that

150we're like 20 in this pennsylvania and we're moving towards the stem initiative throughout pennsylvania i think we should try to get as many people on board so i am absolutely i think as a board willing to help reach out and get some support from the state as well so thank you and the only plug i would say is that i think all the students really had such excitement and i would love to expand it to the high school for that career readiness because they just even if it was for that like come in and see you as a teacher and and and do that so maybe not a whole class but offer it as a a career opportunity for them i think it's would spark so many kids because i think that's the biggest feedback

151like why don't we have access to this great program they do but it's yeah it's a little bit more difficult to get that in all the time but i'm i'm definitely open for that and i i would uh appreciate any help you know i'll i'll present to anybody anywhere and and show them all the cool stuff that we do yeah well i look forward to the information coming forward so thank you thank you miss cancer uh mr young yep again thank you for the presentation it's a great project great resource differentiates us quite a bit in the state of pennsylvania only having 20 of these left um so dr just for some clarity from a board action item are we voting on the solicitation requests for for architects there's there's there's no uh action by

152the board this evening or the small next next week uh or the next week okay uh what what the administration is going to do is solicit with uh qualified firms uh responses to information to provide a service for a fee that in april will come back to you and say here and we'll go through a selection process typically we do with any service provider like for an architect and then we would then make a recommendation that would say something like you know recommend uh xyz firm uh to produce uh the the scope of work associated with uh preparing uh for the renovation given the parameters many of them that uh mr mcguinness had had suggested uh to go to golf forbid and give us a different uh i guess an architectural professional recommendation on the

153estimated cost of what was before us okay but we're not we're not approving the the selection of the qualified architects at any point in time okay you will you will have to select the uh the professional once we bring that motion that matter before the board which is targeted right now for april okay and then again just to kind of pile on a couple of other comments earlier on breaking out those very round numbers around the estimated costs how we got to that estimate uh we'll we'll get to that point my uh this high level question is is this a complete rip and replace project that's as it sits before you now that's that's what it would look like for the entire thing obviously would be open with the architect if they say hey you

154know this can be done this can be done i you know i would be open to to any of that kind of went with the with the big shot like okay what would it look like if we if we took it all down and you know other than the building structure itself and kind of revamped it all okay but we will look at wiring whether it be you know cat5 cat6 in 2013 it's nine years old those type of conditions to see what's salvageable yeah perfect thanks thank you mr young any other questions from members of the board miss purdue first of all thank you very much for the presentation i had the pleasure of hearing you provide this to the education foundation and there was a lot of excitement from the foundation and certainly

155so shows this potential for the foundation to come forward as far as looking at ways to support i do like some of the input share by other board members today as far as inviting the foundation and just to take a look because i don't think everyone from the foundation have had the opportunity to come in a visit and i think with maybe potentially them supporting some of this work it will be a good opportunity i definitely like the opportunity to have the board coming also i like the idea proposed by miss cancro also to maybe provide as opportunity for the high school it don't have to be all but maybe based on the course that they're in if they're in a certain course maybe have an opportunity to come in and i hear you speak

156about it you have such passion and you're enthusiastic about it and i'm sure you can craft something for their age group to really give them an idea of what you're doing there and when we think about career readiness it can provide a lot of information there i think one of the um when you brought this up to the foundation i know they saw the price point too so it may be good to really try to narrow it down on and and i know you said you're willing to and open you're looking at this as if working with the right people you're able to scope out the work i think it'll be nice to have it scoped as far as what do we need to do now what's still okay to do and maybe have a

157long term plan as far as how we proceed with getting the work done i think that would be a good start i wanted a gift from you and i have a follow-up question from dr zerby also have you heard back from the education foundation after you're meeting in january in general uh i have not personally i i don't know if they've had discussions um on top of that but i i haven't personally um heard back from them other than a few people reaching out with feedback you know you know saying that they enjoyed the presentation and you know offering suggestions and things like that and we do have sometimes there are some high school classes that come down like we've done physics lessons with tracking satellites and doing the rocket equation and things like that

158um it just doesn't happen as often because because of the scheduling you know the the teacher has to be on board with okay i'm going to put together you know they have to kind of figure out the schedule when they can come in but you know it is option and i i definitely welcome them into the planetarium anytime okay thank you and i think when i look at um the list you provided on the technology hardware and the facility itself we noted there's a few items that are the original still but um you have some installations done in 2013 and 20 yeah 2013 for the light and also the computer projection i'm just wondering and i had this i thought when i heard you present the education foundation maybe dr zerby also do you and

159i'm thinking about maybe anything that happened in the past as far as funding did you receive any funding or support from the district also in reference to maybe getting some of those two items prepared i believe in 2013 the education foundation i i was i wasn't involved with the planetary man so i i don't know exactly but i believe they were involved in that project also they had contributed money to the original projectors and yeah i believe it was about 200 or 250 000 that the education foundation donated for uh the the purchase of the equipment and just as to follow up on what i believe you were asking earlier was the conversation with the educational foundation president it's likely that the foundation would take on a specific capital campaign in order to address fundraising

160for this but just so everyone understands we we really you know we're asking uh mr chantry who you know while he's an outstanding teacher he has uh you know he's talking about renovation of a of a of a kitchen so um he's gotten he's gotten that bit but we really need some expertise so that when we when we provide some information to the board uh it's more concrete and it's coming from the perspective of what some of those actual costs are these are really estimates we could be estimating really high we could be estimating really low but i think it's important that all of you uh recognize the value that the planetarium brings to the district and to our students and given given that fact we should see how to sustain that value and take

161it just a a step further so that's really what we're we're talking about here we need we do need a professional to help us in that process and that's hopefully what will be before you in april for consideration and what i would also like to see and i think it was addressed also what other avenues we have to support this program just because when we look at the total estimated estimated cost and i know that's based on considering all the work but it will be nice even if it was scoped out to be something that we do in a few like a five-year plan but just really to investigate what other opportunities we have in fundraising all i think it was mentioned reaching out to state reps i mean that's something we're not tasking you

162with that but i think it would be good to look into what other opportunities we have within our even if it's a community support to get this work because i know when the kids go they're very excited about it right because you bring so much excitement about the program and they they'll talk about it for weeks right so i think there's definitely a need then because we're also it's not only limited to miss acting as our community and other schools also so we may be able to leverage some of that to get this work going but thank you thank you uh yeah mr do i think you make an excellent point um you know we are not going to be taxing uh mr chantry with fundraising that's my responsibility and uh but but certainly your

163comments and and the comments made here this evening uh give us the feedback and the things that we certainly know that we need to do prior to you know aboard making any sort of decision uh financially about moving forward with this so uh you know we'll work with all those resources and see what we can do are there any other comments or questions for mr chantry this time seeing seeing none others mr chanchi thank you so much for your time this evening we appreciate it thank you very much for your time next on the agenda um i don't have a presentation uh the uh there are two uh copies of the revised health and safety plan on the agenda one is a clean version the other one is a attract changes version i just want

164to touch base on a couple matters and then give you the opportunity to read that at you at your leisure that is up for approval next week but basically the health and safety plan update includes the most recent changes by the cdc with respect to using the cdc data tool and metrics associated with the new levels low medium and high the change it also reflects some of the changes that we're making in the dashboard it outlines the fact that we will place the status notification on the district website once once again once approved and notify families when levels reach high the district will monitor the community level transmission via the cdc data tool and when the data tool indicates the county is in high level for two consecutive weeks the superintendent will convene a pandemic

165tim meeting to determine a need for mitigation recommendations and will not notify the board and present such recommendations to the board at the earliest reasonable meeting it also talks about and it references it continues to reference masking where and when required so it hasn't removed masking as a as a mitigation matter but it does indicate in a new section called a1 which is before a that that basically refers to the action that was recently conducted as a way to provide uh optional environment i believe on it was the i can't remember the date i think it was like the the 16th or something that i can't remember the date um it also uh takes into reference uh other cosmetic changes in the document but at this point are there any questions on any of the

166changes that that are listed or any other matter associated with some of the new cdc changes contact tracing those types of things i'll be glad to take any questions on on the health and safety plan at this point in time yes mr purdue i just wonder if you can briefly summarize maybe some of the things that we're we we're doing in the past that maybe we're getting away from doing i know the masking is optional but maybe some of the other preventative measures that we had in place are we still proceeding with everything what have we updated sure i i think uh probably the most important thing is that with the decision we had to make was around the cafeteria and uh and we we are not changing anything in the cafeteria meaning that we

167are keeping all the spaces uh because we know that um it's not a choice to take your mask off if if in fact you were going to eat so with with that with all due respect um we're keeping those distancing and those those things in place that were once in place under mass mandatory so that'll stay in place uh things that that are are changing in in this classroom uh seating arrangements so when it gets into high the seating arrangements were once stated that you had to be in all all rows um we can still and and we we've been doing this to to some degree is is making sure that students desks can be put together in pods so long as we know the students that are in the pod and it's a consistent

168seating chart associated with that so if we ever have to go back to a similar contact tracing process as we did in the past we could do that i think what's really important is the way contact tracing and exclusion has been updated from the county level and that just was released this weekend it has now been implemented within the district and it it doesn't it no longer requires us to do contact tracing on every individual circumstance it does have a a section that once you get three or more out of a certain group of students that are positive or staff that are positive then we revert back to the contact tracing process that we we commonly conducted prior to this this past weekend otherwise uh the ones and twos that that may occur from time

169to time and and right now as of as a monday we have 13 cases of positive in in the district we're not saying that that's due to them being in school those just reported cases as they've always been from parents or from uh from students directly the uh and from staff directly so with that said um you know we we would just send a letter home notifying uh all the parents in a particular group like a classroom or on a cafeteria table or on a bus that a an individual within your classroom has been uh has been tested and for for being positive for covid and that you should monitor your your children or yourself as we as a cdc normally uh recommends and we have that in the letter uh but other than that

170i think uh we'll continue with the hand washing uh consistency that that that helps in a number of ways not just with cobit but but certainly um you know this will this will likely need to be revisited again uh prior to the coming new school year and again at that point in time you know we'll have to take the information that we have then to make that decision as you know it may be maybe totally different so i think what we have and what we have posted uh gets us through the the rest of the school year in a in a safe and uh manageable process any other questions on the health and safety plan update just one quick one and the pandemic team is still meeting as needed to on a i guess as

171needed to if anything changes yeah we met prior to uh with these changes i went over the changes with the pandemic team any other questions seeing no other questions that would end our presentations for this evening i know that we normally do not go into reports but i think it's important if the board would allow me to make one report here this evening i'd like to update the board and the public on shannon dell matter if i could so the methachton school district tax appeal court case with shannon dale referenced as swd 101 llc and wnr 38 llc was ordered on february 7 2022 by the court of common pleas of montgomery county following a three-day trial where the judge ruled that neither party provided sufficient competent and credible evidence to overcome the montgomery county

172board of assessment taxing determination and therefore the court orders the adoption of the county taxing authority market values and assessments for the said properties for the years at question the matter that began in 2006 with a taxpayer appeal and lasted for 16 subsequent tax years was ordered and the appeal deadline has passed bringing the case involving those tax years with this taxpayer to a close the district as a result of the taxpayers filing in protest of their taxes began in 2011 under requirements of law to place 25 percent of the due tax from the taxpayer into an escrow account the escrow would range from six hundred thousand to about seven hundred thousand annually the escrow account now has seven million one hundred ninety three thousand six hundred eighty seven dollars to date the administration is

173preparing a recommendation for the finance committee to consider with respects to the use of those now available funds and we will continue to keep the board apprised of of that conversation and at some point in time uh there likely will be a motion uh before the board to determine what to do with with those those resources are there any questions on that uh at this point in time not seeing any other questions uh that will that would be my report we'll move on to other agenda items uh we now have we would then go into public comment on action items there are no more action items this evening we have fiscal items mr booker thank you dr zerby this month for your approval is the list of bills treasurer's report budgetary transfers and there's two

174student activity account actions one is to approve a student activity account the other is to approve the closure of inactive student activity accounts thank you mr bigger questions for mr brooke on finance miss cancro just inc usually sometimes there's a little bit of a minimal balance on the closing ones do we have that are we rolling into a specific account they're inactive they're zero dollars with the exception of one and that will follow board policy which gets spread among the classes all right thank you you miss kenko any other questions for mr booker not seeing any other questions we'll move on to personnel items dr sergini thank you dr zurby good evening for your consideration this month we have the following personnel items one resignation professional penny farrell spanish instructor at methachton high school we

175thank penny for her service to mathacton and we wish her well two resignations classified daniel talia paraprofessional at eagleville and lorraine o'donnell counseling office secretary at methachton high school we thank lorraine for her many years of dedicated service to the students of methachton and we wish her well one elimination of position administrative the position of supervisor of diversity equity and inclusion one job description nursing services coordinator one employment classified peter courtney second shift custodian at arcola skyview peter has been with us as a casual and we're happy to officially welcome him to methachton one change of status professional christian monastero from 0.5 kindergarten teacher at worcester to grade four teacher at worcester effective for the 2022 2023 school year one change of status classified monica grant from personal care assistant at skyview to counseling office

176secretary at skyview one uncompensated leave classified as noted one sabbatical leave for professional development david adolf mcfacton high school effective for the second semester of the 22-23 school year a series of supplemental contracts including an iss position for the remainder of the current school year curriculum writing contracts several additions and revisions to the spring coaches list and an after-school homework club contract one addition to the classified substitute list kelly gallagher we welcome cal kelly to methachton one community education swim instructor ava arcus and additions to the list of approved district volunteers as attached thank you dr sergey any questions uh for dr sardini to my right mr winners yeah thank you dr sergini on uh sabbatical leave yes mr randolph is it from a from a approach slightly different with somebody with such a specialized

177science uh high school science requirement is it something that we could possibly reach out for the the teacher on not the teacher on assignment um but actually the guest teacher program is that that it almost seems like it's going to be fruitless in some ways to find a substitute for anatomy the good news is that we have advanced notice this is for the second semester of next year so we'll begin working with sts and and working through that whole process very early on to ensure that we have someone in place beforehand and any other questions to members to my right to my left miseries um i thought paul was going to ask my question when we talk about sabbaticals professional sabbaticals and teacher retention um you know allowing a teacher to take a professional sabbatical

178then they they can to continue their education typically correct that's correct it is our hope that they continue with us and if they don't and i don't mean that in a bad way doesn't there have to be like payback for the education that's correct they are required to work with us for the fought the complete following subsequent school year okay and not that i'm suggesting anything amiss with the teacher i just we do really in these next couple years worry about teacher retention and teacher shortages so i wish him well in that professional sabbatical and keep teaching science that's a fair question thank you any other questions ms drummond hi thank you um my question actually has to do with under advisements um but they're personnel related advisements three four and five of i don't

179know if you have the the actual agenda in front of you i do so i wasn't sure there was it's a lot of um different positioning um regarding special ed at worcester and the way i was reading it leaves maybe grade k and maybe grade three without as without in kindergarten we're moving to a different model with the full-day kindergarten um program and then with the the movements that are happening there are several positions that were open here and several individuals who were displaced so several of these are movements within within the building and into open positions at least one is based on a retirement uh one is based on a a movement into an administrative position and then some reshuffling within the building okay so i mean yeah so all right i just wanted

180to clarify that thank you thank you miss drummond any other comments on to my left miss purdue i just had two um [Music] one was in reference to the nursing service coordinator can you re review that role just a little bit just because i'm is that to support all the schools or is it just absolutely uh the nursing services coordinator is uh similar to the department coordinators and we were just very fortunate to have uh mrs cheryl pifer in the role for so long that her service actually predated the job description so with her retirement and looking to fill that we took the opportunity with input from cheryl from dr angstad and um and also in conjunction with dr zurby and myself to uh draft a job description for what's required and that individual will

181be a a sitting nurse in the district who then works with all of the buildings in this capacity and then my other one was in reference to 11c one for the elimination of supervisor of diversity equity and inclusion and i believe this is the one that we discussed last month just based on the fact that we are going in a different position right that's correct okay i just want to make sure that's the one because i thought it was um i thought the position was titled differently it's the elimination of the supervisor of the ei position the administrative one and we've moved forward with the application and interview process for the uh dei k dei and climate counselors position that's fine i just wanted to make sure because i thought it was the director position

182and so i was just wondering if we have the right title here that is the approved title that was uh that was approved by the board and that's the job that we originally posted for back in say august that we interviewed in october and november okay thank you any other questions on personal items ms cancro i don't have any questions about personal items i know in each of the four candidates they kept on saying about um looking at keeping our staff and i just think it would be if we look at it maybe in june sending it to our board showing our retention rate because i really do think our retention rate is actually very good i mean we don't have that turnover where people are leaving our district so with the number that we

183do have i think we need to do it really show what we're what we're looking at so if we're able to like pull that together for us just because as we see this every month it's hard for us to do so thank you so just a comment june is probably his busiest month that would work to get the best of your ability you pick the one that would work to the best of your ability that you could provide you know the picture of the district so i think the plan was to come in in front of the education committee with that with that information even talk about some of the other things that uh you know that come from uh the wellness committee that we're working with so that we can talk about not only

184you know how we've done uh with teacher retention up to this point but what we think we need to do uh in order to not not necessarily not necessarily make it better but but but keep that good track record going giving the additional challenges that we're all facing with uh with with the staffing across so uh you know uh dr seugini will certainly be in front of that and then then if the education committee is fine with that we'll bring this to the full board any other questions for dr seugini and president i'm sorry uh mrs rocco you said um the nursing i did read that job description um prior to the meeting and you said that it will be a sitting nurse in the district and that mrs piper did that role simon so

185she did that role and her hands on nursing role i just want to make sure i understand her will that's it that's correct yeah so this won't leave a vacancy that's correct this is the same as an academic department coordinator but the academic department coordinator job description really doesn't apply specifically to the nursing services coordinator so we we rewrote the job description understood thank you excuse me i see the uh additions to the coaching list any holes or do we fill them all in uh we're almost completely full there is the one opening for an assistant track coach but uh with the addition of this particular coach we are in good shape i appreciate you and dr spivak's efforts on that i know it was a tough hill to climb so thank you for sticking

186with it thank you thank you mr guinness for those comments any any other comments saying none thank you dr sergini next on the agenda is curriculum programs dr walsh thank you dr zurby good evening everyone for your review and consideration for approval next month april 26 for three new curricular resources for the 22-23 school year magruder's american government copyright 2022 for the course american government and politics this comprehension package includes the textbook and digital access to support materials and other resources this is a replacement text for the us government copyright 2008 wonders 2020 for grades kindergarten through fifth grade copyright 2020 it is the english language arts course for all our students in grades k-5 the comprehension package includes the anthology the teacher's edition the level libraries the sound cards vocabulary cards reading writing companion

187consumables and the digital access to the support the materials and textbook this is a replacement text for the wonders 2014 edition wonder works grades k through five again the publisher is mcgraw-hill for copyright 2020. it is the english language arts for our fragile readers who may have iep goals and the comprehensive package includes a student workspace interactive work tests and apprentice level readers to supplement the wonders 2020 core resource this is also a replacement text for the 2014 version of wonder works in addition we also have three curricular documents hydroponic farming forensic lab and library connections these are three new curricular resources and documents that will be available for review at the freind administrative building beginning on march 23rd through april 22nd 2022 from nine o'clock a.m to three o'clock p.m and you can contact

188my office to set up an appointment to review either the resources or the curricular documents thank you dr walsh any uh comments or questions from to my right saying none to my left uh mr young just a quick question on how we handle the expense for the books sorry mr brecker do we capitalize that is that a one year cost hit to the budget or is it spread over multiple we spread it over to life for the books while we pay the cash up front the expenses incurred each following year until the late for the books is done okay what's the typical timeline is it's based on the like i think six years for six years thanks thank you uh ms reese i just wanted to um comment for anyone um that we the education

189committee really appreciated dr walsh bringing this to us in great detail this month in fact um two teachers also came um i think there was 12 total pilot but um they came and they expressed the good uh the the good uh the pros about the the updated wonders so we felt as a committee very very very comfortable with that and we also of course are always concerned piling piling more on and the teachers actually felt like this new wonders would be more helpful to them versus more work and that they don't have to redo a lot of the work they've already done with the existing wonders and there was a teacher there who did not pilot it and she kind of i think went on purpose to hear about it and she in fact said

190oh my goodness i feel relieved hearing that because it's a it's an updated you know version of some of the things that the teachers wanted and um some of the just you know education's always adding more and different ways so i just as a committee member and as a person who was here when the first wonders came about wanted to just share that with the people that um are not part of the education committee so thank you dr walsh and to all the teachers who piloted the the wonders thank you ms reese uh other questions ms drummond hi thank you um it says for the wonders there will be ongoing professional development provided by mcgraw-hill consultants at no additional cost can you talk more about that please absolutely in fact we had a training session

191today with the pilot teachers as they prepare to turn around train the other uh teachers in k-5 on may 17th in the morning the good news about mcgraw-hill is it's not a one and done if we need them for additional professional development sessions in the morning if they need to come actually out on site and work with the reading special small group of teachers they can so it's really based on need and the first year of launching any implementation is the most important so they will be available at will to make sure this gets launched successfully and i have all the confidence in those consultants and just as a follow-up them were they part of when we were doing some of the piloting of wonders was was this um professional development also offered and was

192that well received do a good job supporting yeah this has been like the fourth session we've had with the pilot teachers using the same consultant throughout okay thank you any other questions i'm miss purdue just a comment i know at the education committee it was brought up that there may be some a few tweaks that we need to do in reference to the technology so i just want us to keep that in mind as we finish the pilot and get into implementing i'm sure you are aware and i know mr brannick was there so but i just don't want us to forget that just because i felt the teachers that attended that meeting and provided input have very positive feedback to share in reference to this just about how easy it helps to access the

193um work and then it's more streamlined and the assessments are aligned to what the students are actually learning and the lesson preps are easier and i think that helps when you think about passing on the lesson for someone else i guess if it becomes system so i do want us to make sure if there are things that we can do as far as maybe a few slight tweaks and we need support from the technology department that we are getting that thank you miss purdue any other questions on uh the matters that dr walsh has brought forward seeing no other questions thank you dr walsh next on the agenda is policy mr regina thank you dr serbi uh for a first read there are two notable changes in policy uh the first one was we removed

194a requirement for credit acceptance for the alternative instruction and that's policy 124.1 we also had added some clarifying language to the lesson planning policy this highlights terminology and best practices that resemble those elements in domain one of the danielson framework this policy has not been revised in over 15 years the length of time between the revisions of this policy the largest of any policy that we have in this school district for those of you that are curriculum enthusiasts you know that the dealership framework came into play in 2012 and was adopted into the teacher evaluation process and lesson planning is 20 of their evaluation it's again been revamped in act 13 of 2020 and we haven't touched it since any of those adoptions have taken place so this is a very important step for us

195to move forward but but know that the first step of accepting this process will be to focus on this unplanned consistency across the district we're going to be creating a committee of teachers and administrators to determine best practices for lesson plan writing in the district and to establish a process for planning that is not cumbersome for staff and will be consistent from classroom to classroom when it comes to second readings we talked about those last month a bit but there are no significant changes to those in second reading again 626 will be something you'd likely see each year because that's going to be a change to what we have for those business items that might have different limits based on request numbers thank you any questions from mr eugene on matters of policy not seeing

196any questions thank you mr regina and then we move on to other we got gifts and donations we have approve a backpack donation received from a generous individual noted on the attached document of 25.90 and then uh two trips uh both for uh methachton i'm sorry no it's not from that one the one is for methachton music department trip on april 6 through the 9th at the pmea all-state music festival and then the other one is we approve the method high school student a trip from the 6th to 9th at the allstate chorus event in kalahari resorts and that ends uh the the agenda i'll turn it over to uh ms drummond for dates all the new business okay next we have dates for board members calendars um and then we're on to old and

197new business is there any old or new business to discuss tonight yes i just have a question in regards to the location of our meetings currently as we are moved to mass optional are we thinking about moving the meetings i guess the work session regular board meetings back to the high school and the committee meetings to farina are we proposing to keep it as is for the remainder of the school year that's an excellent that's an excellent question and i recommend that um you allow me to get some feedback from members of the board uh and then share that feedback with the president and vice president and when we can make a determination how to how to proceed but i appreciate you bringing that up that was that was on my mind just you know

198there's a lot a lot of changes here uh so so we'll do that is everyone comfortable with doing that so i will be reaching out to you individually just get your feedback on that and then uh i don't know hopefully it won't be this month uh so i just want you to know that next week we must be here otherwise i have to re-advertise uh too quickly to get that done but possibly april forward could could could see a change anyone for else for old or new business okay um [Music] now it's time for courtesy of the floor the board of school directors will now provide an opportunity for residents to make comment on matters that are or may be before the board the board asks that you keep your comments to three minutes or

199less the board of school directors may choose to respond to matters following the conclusion of the comments and you can also submit questions via email to information mafactan.org [Music] good evening john andrews lower providence the arrowhead school project is moving along but i'm concerned about the water for the sprinkler system it's a supply issue that should have been settled a long time ago perhaps in the design phase so to me the architect uh uh may be hiding and embarrassed about why we still don't have all the details i understand that there's a third change order to provide for a pipe from the water main in the street to to the uh location in the building where a a an expensive pad and an expensive tank are proposed with regard to the tank and in the

200pad that it sits on there was a a vote last month as you well know i believe that there's a single point failure associated with that specifically if there's a fire you need electricity to run the water pump that to get the water from the tank to the sprinklers it seems to me that that the building overall is well equipped so a fire in the building is not expected but you could have a helicopter crash into the building cutting off the electrical supply for a variety of reasons and then you have no no water for the sprinklers that's a serious problem whereas if the water pump was out near the pit where the meters is going to be at the street you wouldn't have that problem and you wouldn't need a tank and a pad

201for it in the building we're talking here three hundred thousand dollars and i don't think there's been transparency with the public on this issue the the committee chair mr young at last week's meeting said that three options were presented at a at an earlier property committee meeting that he that he attended uh he wasn't on the board until december and i believe that where there were three options presented they were presented outside the public meeting and uh i i thank thank you i think also i wanted to say that uh regarding the planetarium uh i i have issues with that uh for a variety of reasons thank you for your comments just just a quick comment mr andrews i have to go back i think mr rittenhouse might have recorded it but thank you and

202i think what i said was there in summary that we had three bids for that project and three options presented um i know i wasn't on the board but i was attending the meeting listening to the meeting and i recall having having three options and asking the question about how many options we had to select from my goodness gemini quartz ester um what you guys do a front is very important you're talking about a planetarium that needs 850 000 to work but you spent a million dollars on right to now last year there's your planetarium right there plus if you go back to when you put the solicitor in charge and do the math it's two million dollars that's two planetarium so your decisions are very important for that very enthusiastic person to have a

203nice planetarium and everybody else the teacher um davey talked about the shannon dale situation thanks for telling me what i already knew um my question to you is you said 25 of the tax bill got put into escrow what happened to the other 75 percent by my calculations that's local share that went to the budget and that 25 should also go to paying bills and the taxpayers should get it back don't don't go put it you know in the capital fund that was all designated for paying bills we should get that back and what that equi what that comes out to seven million dollars that's three years of a zero percent tax increase three years no tax increase um welcome to our new board member i feel like i'm looking at michael phelps up there

204um my view is a little bit different than his view about you know what the most important issue is it's not bullying it's basic education here's why our state ranking has gone from 11 to 65 under the care group test scores have plummeted especially in math we have no chair of the math department kids are lined up for a couple blocks getting tutored in math and the kids psychosocial and verbal skills were severely affected by the lockdowns and the masks now that's where the emphasis should be okay math science english so i appreciate it if you guys would kind of address what's really important um mr winters you just can't keep your mouth closed made a comment about it seemed to be directed at the public about disrespectful comments about miss larcenies now i'll tell

205you a story you were at the meeting when i brought up somebody's citation for public drunkenness and after the meeting this larcenies came up to me and told me i was disgusting now that is bullying that's a problem that's disrespect so i find it really ironic that you're you're making those comments thanks thank you brooke keebner eagleville elementary and i just wanted to quickly make a comment about the first readings of two policies the first one is policy 126 on class size and i would really urge the board to consider taking the kindergarten number from 22 down to 20. i think moving into the full day kindergarten and all of the challenges we've had over the past two years taking that number to 20 would do an immense positive thing moving forward for all of

206those children in the kindergarten level working with 22 two students doesn't seem to make a huge difference it does and the second one would be policy 111 which i agree definitely does need to be looked at i was quite surprised as well however in light of so many comments um being made across the board with i i just think that looking at guideline number five and the detail in that could double the amount of time that is spent in lesson planning and i question who the lesson plans are for what is done for a substitute is not the same as what is done for a teacher doing daily plans and at an elementary level for five to eight to ten different things per day so i just think that some of these things could really

207impact the amount of time that they spend without really reaping the benefits of improved instruction in those areas so i asked that at the policy committee that you really look long and hard before keeping all four of those bullet points in guideline five as the second reading and then board approved into policy thank you uh joe rittenhouse lower providence i'm gonna move through the agenda in order um first congrats to director rockstall thank you very much for serving i thought you were highly qualified and i look forward to seeing your work um next on to uh the planetarium i i could speak about this but i'm gonna speak as a former student and um somebody who loved the planetarium growing up um i think that this is if there's anything that i believe in it's

208firmly that students need to see things that are outside the school to aspire to and i can't think of anything greater than the universe so i think that where we've wasted money in other places whether it's the right to know or lawsuits or anything like that the planetarium to me seems a worthwhile endeavor um i think that there are ways to offset this cost and i'd like to throw it out there i know that we use other districts to come in to use the planetarium have we thought about maybe setting up some multi-year contracts that they could pay up front to say hey bring your students in x amount at a what we would be a discounted rate to help pay offset the cost of this planetarium um i know me my wife or other

209people would gladly come into any kind of event held there i think the community i think like you said if there's only 20 in the state or a limited number of planetariums i think that it's something the district should hold on to and with some pride um health and safety plan um very simply put i think it's just time to let it go i think that we're approaching uh a seasonal epidemic illness of covid and i truly think if you can like again like i said before if you look at what the students are saying online there's no way they're going back to a mass mandatory thing without major pushback from the students so i think that i respect what the pandemic team has done but i think it's time to just simply let that

210go moving on to past personnel items um curriculum and programs um i had brought this up in the uh education committee meeting meeting about accessibility of looking at the materials last year there were a total of four people who reviewed all the books um and obviously there's a lot more than four people in the district who probably have an interest in what's in the textbooks um and at the meeting was brought up that there were passwords given out for school board members to look at the said textbooks i think we should maybe consider getting a cross-section of parents to maybe give those out to and take five or ten and let the public be able to access those when they can't come into work at nine o'clock and then finally the last thing i wanted

211to get to and i don't have much time but uh it was brought up in policy this last four committee meetings i've filmed each one of the committee meetings live streamed over 500 people have watched them um it was brought up by miss director perdue that hey maybe we should consider doing this we took public comment from it i i believe it's only a benefit it could help the people up here who don't have a chance to attend all the board meetings and uh i think it should absolutely be considered going forward thank you anybody else for car to save the floor all right seeing none any other thoughts from board members i just need to make a comment uh i think it's important for the board and the community to understand that uh there

212is a requirement for the district to have a health and safety plan especially under the regulations associated with receiving federal funds to address covert covenant matters so i want you to know that regardless of what's contained in the plan it's important for us to have a plan okay all right seeing no other comments can i get a motion to adjourn miss rocco second mr young meeting adjourned