001good evening mrs purdue hi dave how are you i'm doing well how are you good miss kangaroo thanks for coming out tonight thank you very much welcome miseries hello microphone works thank you i'm miss hall good evening thanks for joining us mr navarette hello sir um oh just as a reminder uh this evening before we start um we are going we are streaming uh this meeting as well as the voting meetings each month uh as we are online so we will be streaming on youtube that information is up on the district website uh where the connection information is so uh i just want to make everybody aware of that and you know the streaming process starts before we get this to get moving on this so i'll just be right back with everyone okay it
002looks like we have everyone zurby whenever you're ready to record good evening everyone i'd like to call to order the august 18th 2020 work session of the methachton school district board of directors please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the public is hereby advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for the purposes of rebroadcasting given the need to conduct this school board meeting in a virtual environment the board of directors required members of the public wanting to comment during courtesy of the floor to pre-register by 5 pm today by way of attendance we have all board members here this evening uh recognition
003of guests and scheduled speakers dr zurby thank you madam president uh this evening uh there are a number of topics on here and uh we're going to address them here in just a minute so bear with me just a second so uh while uh the the agenda for guest and scheduled speakers includes transportation update uh furlove support staff uh recommendation and update on the fact that online progress of reopening schools uh i felt that uh after getting the presentation together we're better off to be rather inclusive uh by uh combining all this together so uh mr regina will join us uh for for the update and mr bricker will be available for questions on transportation but this evening i want to provide an update to the board as to our status of the reopening of
004uh school starting september 8th and i will be talking about a number of matters the status of the fact online and related programming the method parent center technology transportation teacher support athletics clubs and activities grants planning for next steps and staff recommendation so as per the educational delivery plan we have enrolled all methachton students in the methacan online program this program is outlined on the district website and is inclusive of sample daily schedules with a focus on structure and synchronous instructional activities with my fact and teachers using the fact and resources and nefactin curriculum in addition to our primary instructional program we are organizing the following on-premises related services center for students in need of physical physical therapy speech therapy or other related educational services spelled out in their iep or a 504 plan there
005has been an interest survey sent out about a week or so ago and the commitment survey is being sent out uh to all eligible families to determine uh whether they want on-premise services online services or a combination of vote the survey will be out in next week or so additionally uh additional academic help that is targeted uh called our student services center that extra help is targeted during the school day as well as targeted of in the evening for students and families to get get assistance i grab and go meal service breakfast and lunch program for all students in the district is being organized and is is ready to uh be finalized uh while looking at the feedback from other districts who had similar types of programs running in the uh in the spring uh
006we anticipate that we would be somewhere between 250 to 500 families that are likely to take advantage of this based on uh you know similar populations of in similar size districts however a survey is going out later this week to gauge more specific interests and this will help allow for this drive up process to be organized to serve families centrally located at the skyview arcola campus in addition we will continue to work on our backpack program right now we are in the process of conducting our last summer backpack drop and i appreciate all the members of the board and their support and that process so thank you so much we have used the majority of our building supplies to support the spring and summer program and are working on efforts to gear up for the
007start of the school school year and replenish those supplies in addition to that we are working on social activities those things are being pursued we've made communications with our our home and schools as well as uh looking at other avenues to help support uh the social emotional interests of our students and families across the district while we are in an online learning environment an interest survey will be going out later this week or early next week on on that matter as well in other uh related matters to this start the me fact in paris center that was released actually this evening this website provides families with information related to the tools we will be using for virtual instruction through the background online you'll find video explanations and tutorials to allow for parents to be better
008prepared to help partner with their teachers and in the education coming this fall there will be some several live virtual parent sessions uh this week us and over the next several weeks so we asked parents to please go to the reopening site and check out the fact and parent center and sign up for any of those sessions that maybe you believe may be helpful for you in terms of technology in a communication to families last week i spelled out a concern that was recently brought to my attention in terms of us getting our delivery of chromebooks and other devices as originally anticipated while uh in speaking with uh while speaking with our supplier we have been able to orchestrate an additional 200 units out of the thousand plus that are outstanding at this point to
009be delivered sometime early next week uh we are likely able to address grades seven through twelve uh completely and grades k and part of grade one with with the current uh stock of of uh technology grades uh two through six and part of grade one will be provided a survey to request pickup in the next two weeks who are not able to for those folks families that are not able to furnish access during the first few weeks of school until our bulk order shipment is received and i i must tell you that we don't have a definitive date at this point in time we are still working on a daily basis with our supplier uh we are among uh several actually many schools according to for this particular supplier uh not only here in montgomery
010county but in bucks county and in the surrounding counties of districts that have not received uh i'm not going to receive their their shipments uh in the anticipated time frame we will be able to support uh a similar number of families as we did in the spring uh with the the loaners until the actual devices that we are have ordered come in but we will be short in issuing our one-to-one distribution by september 8th we will keep our parents updated on our progress and we'll we'll make sure that the board is a prize in this as well in other technology matters uh verizon and comcast have been communicating options in terms of connectivity in terms of wi-fi hotspots or discounted internet access comcast now provides an option to allow for school districts to be billed
011directly for internet access for up to a six month time frame for families that qualify for free and reduced meals i will be asking the board uh to allow me to bring that plan forward once i have more definitive information but i think this would be a great uh opportunity to leverage some of the grant funds that i'll be talking about a little later in this presentation to help offset the challenges associated with uh families and gaining access to online instruction and access to the internet so i once i have more definitive information i will be communicating with the board hopefully i will have that uh in this totality and if it's if it's appropriate to get on the agenda i'll work with the board president uh to determine whether or not that is the
012the case for this this coming tuesday for uh your consideration uh but as of right now i don't have all the details and and i but i do think it's based on what i know it's it'd be a worthy opportunity to support our our families in terms of transportation uh north monco technical career center approved their hybrid return to school where grades 11 and 12 will return on premise and grades 9 and 10 will be virtual for the first marking period we will provide transportation from the home to each to the tech center for our students the transportation office is working on making those arrangements and communications over the next couple days similarly the district began communicating to our non-public school families regarding transportation we will be providing transportation as we typically do for these
013non-public students these students will be required to follow the approved health and safety plan that the board approved last month an abbreviated version of uh based on the transportation was organized as excerpts from the the uh the comprehensive plan and shared along with a self-help yeah self-help check sheet prior to entering the school bus uh which is similar to what we are asking of our students if they were to ride the bus and return to uh return to school and it also includes all the same masking requirements and procedures that we had put in place um an update on the uh stop arm cameras uh mr brickel was kind enough to continue to follow up on this he has an agreement from the vendor who is making the stop on camera service available at a
014at basically a no-cost arrangement with the district however uh the agreement is in the solicitor's office and we're waiting for his feedback we did speak with first student and they are willing to run to do test runs as we proceed forward with the camera installs the agreement of course will come before the board once so reviewed by the solicitor we received a letter uh from first student requesting payment for runs not being run during the first marking period we have the letter uh with the solicitor and are waiting for his feedback but as of this moment there is no indication of a similar provision in the in a future law that will allow us to recoup our transportation subsidy as we did this past spring and therefore at this point uh the administration is not
015inclined to recommend that the board consider such a payment we will be providing the letter in the friday memo for your review and certainly we can have further discussion on it as the board sees fit in terms of teacher support there have been a number of communications and teachers with options for learning things like google classroom and other online tools to help support the instruction as well as we purchased full versions of a number of products and are still actually uh doing some of that purchasing as some of the requests keep coming in uh for which will allow for features uh to be used by students and staff without issue we have created a walk-through process that will allow our technology integrators our principals and other highly skilled staff to provide support for teachers starting
016day one and we are adjusting the duties of a few staff people approximately about three maybe four possibly that will act as online coaches to help help support uh our teachers in the delivery of of their of the curriculum in terms of athletics clubs and activities the pioneer athletic conference this is the collection of schools that the fact and participates in league play with for all sports has determined that the start of the fall season will be adjusted or will now begin september 7th as compared to the original date allocated by the piaa as august 17th they did this in order to allow for a number of schools that still have not made a determination um by their boards as whether or not the uh the school district will proceed with allowing students to participate
017in sports under a health and safety plan as such uh the pacman board should be apprised that although we have approved our health and safety plan for return of sports the debate between pia and the governor has spilled into a rather public debate with the potential of the pia making a ruling on whether to continue forward with sports as currently scheduled or to take the governor's recommendation to delay sports until january if sports is approved to go forward we have a placeholder on the agenda to pay coaches and to name coaches that that are currently uh in the recommendation stage but haven't been before the board for formal approval so there are a number of coaches that may be uh in positions that are they're not not formally approved yet they're not acting as coaches
018yet but and and the teams don't know the names of those individuals so um certainly if pi double a says we can move forward and the board continues to support our return to sports with our health and safety plan um we will have those items on the agenda in its totality for the fall season if the season is delayed i imagine that we have a number of issues to address including uh the naming of coaches that as one matter uh but also what will our students and coaches be doing until that time ultimately assuming that it's january as per the governor's recommendation so those are some things we we need we need to discuss uh we certainly need to board speed back on that and and certainly you know if we didn't approve contracts you
019know how do we compensate those people for that type of work uh uh considering that uh you know the season hasn't started so we'll have to have some conversation on that but we anticipate knowing more on friday and will apprise the board as soon as possible we also keep the public apprise of these developments and our coaches and players as well is important to the board recognize that there are some challenges both from a legal perspective and from a past practice perspective that we need to keep in mind when trying to to address this uh and and the best thing that could happen for everyone in my opinion is that the pia makes a decision um on friday and doesn't delay it any further because by delaying it further it it makes our decision that
020much more difficult and much more harder in terms of clubs and activities the administration will be issuing a survey to district club sponsors these are the employees in the district that hold supplemental contracts to act as advisors or what are called sponsors here in the falcon to help support student leadership and the clubs that that are that are run um and and also uh issuing the survey to leaders of groups of interest these are groups that are formed with the support of staff but are not paid positions or are not on the point system for uh for being paid as a club but both the club sponsors and the leaders of the groups of interest at the beginning of the school year will be surveyed to ascertain uh the sponsors interest or the group leaders
021interest in running the club virtually or in person and to the degree and to what degree they plan on doing this we're doing this for because we have no way of of knowing otherwise you know who's interested in doing what and we want to ensure that we can support and provide the facilities and other uh needs of these of these clubs uh and also make sure that our supplementary contracts are properly accounted uh to support our students in in their aspirations to develop these clubs and move forward in terms of activities such as dances and other similar events uh please know that we are evaluating these matters and will communicate them closer to their actual traditional time frame but but a lot of them don't really provide a good opportunity for us to hold them
022as they would traditionally be held i know that's common knowledge assuming but it's also important that you understand that you might be getting feedback uh as board members from parents that might not be happy with the fact that we don't have some of these activities running so with that said uh i i have some uh you know some really really good news in terms of grants i'm pleased to recognize ms tara rickey supervisor in the curriculum office who was successful in her application uh for the esser grand of 193 463 this grant was used to purchase chromebooks also i want to recognize dr susan angstadt for her grant application award uh for the cares covered fund grant of these resources will be used for uh personal protective equipment technology and other student services and lastly
023it was announced by the county commissioners that they will allocate 15 million dollars of their cares funds to the montgomery county school districts based on the title one formula which would grant in the fact in 319 525 dollars so mathak that has will have or has been awarded 800 nearly 817 000 to help address district uh matters associated with the pandemic the next i just want to mention about uh planning for next steps and and this is probably while getting ready for the start of the school year is probably equally important in a parallel uh conversation uh one of the critical matters that we need to prepare for is our decision process for determining what happens after the first marking period and that's about november 11. i am recommending and will proceed forward unless directed
024otherwise to leverage the pandemic team to develop and organize a high level plan and run that plan through the education committee on the board here in september based on that conversation and the feedback from the the committee the board committee i would proceed to work through the details and present at the work session in september and seek preliminary approval to proceed forward at the end of the month i believe that if all falls into place as i would hope it would um and as we as we plan as a as a group of 10 we can get ahead of the november 11 date and possibly if we choose to we could you know not only start implementing some of those those those processes if we believe appropriate but we can also better communicate the next
025steps subsequent steps of the future beyond the first marking period and lastly uh to cover all three areas this evening the last one being this evening mr regina uh it will be presenting our recommendation to the board given the fact that we have determined that we will go all virtual for the first marking period that's september 8th through november 11 and that the there's a limit on the need for certain staff in the online environment so with that said um i i i'm going to turn the uh the microphone over to mr regina the sheriff's presentation and then we can open the floor up to questions on the matters that i had shared and anything related to uh the staffing so mr gina i'm going to give you access to posts in the presentation thank
026you okay are you able to see my screen everyone thank you i've obviously one of the more difficult decisions that we'll be making throughout this process of course is the potential reductions of some of our messpan teams to teamster members within the district as most you recall last spring act 13 allowed us to keep our current staff in place while until june 30th while the situation was going on last spring act 13 was not extended there's been no notification to us that we are going to get anything similar and in doing so many districts are going through this current exercise and sharing some of the information that we're going to be sharing with you today what we did was we had spoken to each of our administrators talked through our support and the teamster staff
027and to determine which positions are considered essential at this moment in time in the online environment and which may not be uh to start we're looking at our mesquite reductions this will affect potentially office assistance recess aids library assistance and secretaries in each of the buildings you'll see here the number of affected employees in each building two and arrowhead three in eagleville three in woodland three and warcester four in skyview three in arcola and five at the high school uh one of the members on the skyview list is actually a shared individual between skyview and arcola so instead of writing three and a half in each i just designated the one to the building they're in the most this is a total of 23 staff members 23 of these staff members are eligible for full-time
028benefits just to kind of give you an idea how this breaks down between full-time and part-time second slide is what our teamster reductions would be each of these are it's not as specific as building this is more based on classification so we're sharing that with you in that context we would have 12 custodians that would be affected potentially by these reductions and three general maintenance individuals that would be affected each of those individuals is eligible for full-time benefits and are considered full-time staff members to look at projected savings um so there are a number of costs here that a number of savings and then obviously a potential cost we have a salary savings for each group this is the expected return i have 11 14 dr zurby said 11 11 it it'll be around that
029date it's i think 11 14 is actually a weekend date when i looked at it but mespa would be roughly 112 to 113 and teamsters would be roughly 194 to 195 000 in savings these benefit savings are specific to the individuals that would be affected so when we review this list this is a list that's reviewed by seniority by classification and these benefits are pulled specifically from each of those individuals also the unemployment costs are specific to the individuals the unemployment costs of course would go against the savings that we would have and it would present a total savings from each group which would total a projected savings of roughly 274 000 dollars our process at this moment in time um tonight of course we're presenting this information to the board uh tomorrow i'll be
030meeting with the messper leadership to review the specifics of who these individuals could be it could be and who they'd be affected um we'll be meeting with administration and we'll talk a little bit about reassignment opportunities here uh in the next slide on the 20th we'll be meeting with teamster leadership to review specifics and if moving forward we will start the meeting of the affected personnel so it's it's important for us on the 20th and 21st to at least give the opportunity to speak with those affected individuals before they would see their name on a board agenda next week as you can imagine so we will be speaking with each of the affected individuals that that may have to be done in a large group setting with the idea of at least notifying them and
031then setting up individual one-on-one meetings with me afterwards this we can certainly explain their rights and how unemployment work after the fact but i i think it's and i think we all would believe it's appropriate for us to speak with them obviously before they would see it on a public agenda uh at that point august 25th we would present the final reduction list to the board along with the appropriate action item and documentation as reviewed by the solicitor next steps for the process so so one of the things that we looked at of course we we had said that these individuals would not necessarily be deemed essential to the function that we are working through with the online education model we have there are three different activities that will need to be staffed in the
032district and what i would like to ask for the board's permission to do is to move forward with the administration to look at potential reassignments of affected staff members to staff the student services center the related services clinic and social opportunity activities in doing so it would be our effort to maintain similar hours which would allow the individuals to maintain their benefits during this process it is not likely that it will be everyone i need to be clear with that um but but it will help and it would certainly be an activity that our administration would look forward to to be able to help these staff members involved obviously a next step would then be speaking with the association leadership as we spoke about in the last slide it's very clear that we define what
033process we're going to be doing and to make sure that the affected individuals are correct this is not something that we want to make a mistake on so we want to make sure that everybody's on the same page and we recognize that the contract is being followed and seniority all these seniority numbers are very clear we will then be speaking with the affected staff members prior to any names being released and then of course preparing items for the board agenda uh dr zerby that ends my presentation for this evening thank you mr junior so uh there may be a number of matters that the the board would want to speak to um certainly uh you know we can we can start in any of the the places either stuff i went over or the stuff
034mr regime went over um but uh what mr regina is asking for are are a couple things obviously there's no vote this evening but we we would ask if there's any objection uh we'll make this the first comment uh uh i guess the first question is is there any objection to moving forward with with the process uh to recommend the photo of staff and i think the second one is if the answer is no there's no objection the second would be is there any objection for us to possibly look at reassigning people based on the needs from those other uh service groups and uh and then that would that would kind of end kind of our understanding for uh for this evening on the staffing piece with putting the names on the agenda for your
035consideration now please know that you know the fact is not the only school district going through this process and i think it's important to know that almost every district that has uh gone all online has has to consider uh this certainly uh you know as as uh as of uh you know being being considered of uh the use of our tax dollars as well as us as administrators being considered of that we just can't let people uh you know be employed without you know substantial you know work duties and that's kind of what this has has drawn down to and it's kind of what's happening across many of the montgomery county districts so questions uh we're glad to take them and try to provide whatever answers we can uh miss reese um mr regina spent
036some time with me on the phone last week so i i'll spare him repeating those questions but um one i have no objection to um hopefully replay uh hopefully putting these people in a new position in a new position but my question is our our goal here is to get these kids back in school so how does this affect that if at all yeah the what what would happen a good question andrea so what happens here they each of these individuals will be notified of their recall expectation date um that's that's part of our requirements for unemployment um right now each of these individuals will be notified that they will be recalled to their original position and and if it was done in a partial sense let's say that we discuss a different model that
037we would come back to that may not require all of all the people to return it would be done based on seniority until the last person was recalled those recall rights are a little different than teacher recall rights uh teachers is typically valid for one year and then they have to notify the district that they want to maintain that recall right beyond that um we recognize this for a low rate will last longer than that for our support staff the same law doesn't apply and one thing you had mentioned before i believe is something about voluntary so is that off the table now or how does that work no it's another great question so the individuals that are affected um if we're able to reassign them there's there's three truths that will exist um that
038that may not be something they're interested in one of them is these individuals will have to come in person to the school facility if we're utilizing them in the center of the clinics the second one it will not be necessarily the same hours that they're used to and the third is it might not be the same job that they were doing so as we share that in that information with each of these interested parties we will ask them if they are interested in taking a voluntary furlough in place of that why we would do that is we may not be able to re reassign everyone but there may be more senior people that are not interested in doing that so we would give them the option to take the furlough to save the next person
039on the seniority list other questions uh mr navarrete yeah i mean hopefully we're only talking about a couple of months here um is you know one of the biggest problems with where i guess yeah well it's called its problem with furlough people right is a loss of benefits um is there any option for us under the law to continue to pay for their benefits during this period does that affect their furlough recalls how does how does that work it actually is an activity that that many employers discuss when they get to this point i i would say that there's probably a greater discussion we would want to have with that only because when we typically get into a furlough process it may not be something um although i i personally love that idea i would
040caution the board that it would open up potentially a can of worms every time that we would furlough an individual there may be a request to keep benefits this is not necessarily an activity that we would want to replicate in the future so i it may be a question more for kyle if do we expose ourself one by any surcharge action that dr zerby had referred to previously and two would it develop any kind of practice that would put us in a complicated position as a district but it's it's a good question ralph we did just so you know we did do a costing analysis for that um it's obviously not as not as positive um and we it's potentially that we can take a loss at some level with that because our benefit as
041you know uh benefits are relatively high so yeah i think yeah can we get i would be good to have i guess more clarity on that issue uh for us so we kind of know you know what what the impacts would be and what that means for us um not just from a cost-saving standpoint here um but also in terms of you know what the impacts may be down the road if something comes up like act 13 again that forces us to keep people you know paying people again um then we just need to understand what that whole picture is but it's something i would explore i don't know where everybody else stands on we can certainly get more information on the uh on what the risks are to the board uh in the district
042if we were to consider paying benefits i think that's one thing we can certainly get uh advice on from the solicitor uh mr winners uh yeah that i think it's a good question ralph a question for you che is the this is an event change uh so can they change their participation if they wanted to continue on benefits and maybe move from open choice one to open choice three for example or the impact that has on them uh on the on the total cost if they're responsible for a monthly cost related to medical if that ends up being what happens well i i mean question if i can just just for clarity are you asking if an affected individual would go on uh would then be unemployed would they be able to opt to open
043choice three for really for that dollars out of their pocket is that what you're asking yeah well i believe we have to uh during this time allow them to stay on the medical for at their expense right right that is correct it's actually obra so it's 102 i believe yeah so for many of those individuals open choice 3 would reduce the impact on that to them it's sort of like a life event you have a life event with the pregnancy or whatever uh childbirth is this the same type of trigger point for them to be able to choose their selection they took in may june to move to open choice three tim you probably would answer that question better than i had opened the floor to tim on this one um i do believe that
044that would be a life event that would change it i can confirm it with the healthcare consortium uh probably tonight or tomorrow morning and get an answer to that just to confirm it but i do believe that is considered a life event change [Music] thanks and just just to be on the record dr zurby i reluctantly support uh these um i don't know what else to say there's nothing i can say that makes it even better but um i i i understand your point j related to uh precedent setting related to furloughs um but uh the reality is we don't know if it the medical in this particular situation is is very troublesome for many individuals at this point and most most of them shouldn't say a a fair large percentage of the mess employees
045are working for benefits so uh you know it's it's really uh it's a that's a that's a tough one but uh i certainly understand your point jay but on the record reluctantly support thank you uh yeah um so i am in agreement with a lot of what's been said already i think it's important for us to explore ways that we can um potentially continue benefits for employees um obviously without exposing us to a future risk and liability um so i think it's worth getting kyle's input on that next week um and i i think that i mean this is obviously just another way that this whole pandemic situation is horrible and and is creating a lot of problems and havoc for people all over um my one concern that i have sort of related to
046what ms reese was talking about is the reduction in custodial staff because obviously um if and when we return to school that is going to be an area that we are leaning on heavily it's one of the the primary drivers behind our push to go virtual right now um i i don't want to see us in a position where we've decided we have a plan we are ready and now we don't have enough custodial employees and that's the reason that we can't reopen so um i don't know enough about that labor force to know whether or not that's you know is that an area where we have in the past had hiring challenges um do we feel like it would be um you know if some of these people are fortunate enough to find other
047employment after a furlough um what kind of a position would we be put in then in terms of finding replacements that's a great question can i so it isn't necessarily a difficult group to find full-time employment for but it can be very difficult group to find casual employment for um and what that means is we're net we're going to have a number of individuals that need to take take off sick given a number of things that could potentially happen this fall and it may be prudent for us to look at our teamsters forest as a potential substitute pool for our custodians um and then maybe potentially being able to keep some of them employed at some level it's something that bob jones tim barbagelo and i have talked about as recently as this morning and
048we'll be meeting again tomorrow morning to to investigate that there are some limitations in their labor contract that ask that we do utilize those individuals first before we go outside for substitute pools so it may actually blend together quite nicely um to keep more of them involved and and not expose ourselves from a short of substitutes for that area but to answer your question i know i'm kind of going uh long-winded here but uh i i wouldn't it hasn't been our practice where it's been history that it's been difficult to hire for those positions okay um and then sorry go ahead dr zurby now this is going to add that you know the the the real challenge in this is a we we're trying to make decisions that best protect the district b we're trying
049to make decisions that are best for the employee and sometimes giving them work with partial work isn't to their benefit even though it may sound like it's to their benefit it creates problems for them um and they could actually in some certain instances earn more while they're completely unemployed uh than than otherwise so um and that's really what they're trying to get to on a lot of this so on a sort of related note then um in those slides that you presented to us mr regina um are we talking about are they all ftes are they are are any of them partial um for both the mespas and the teamsters group another good question there there are um a number of individuals that are at five hours so we consider our part-time individuals at 29
050hours or below so any of those individuals that are at five to 5.5 hours a day would be considered below the full-time threshold and those above that would be considered full-time uh 30 and more and of the full time i believe there was nine um that would be full-time uh that were that were on that list currently for the custodial staff oh i'm sorry the custodian is all 15. i apologize okay so so then the nine is across both groups there's about nine that are less than oh of one there are there are nine i uh let me clarify there are nine in mespa and 15 teamsters that are considered full-time so there are there are 14 individuals in mespa that are considered part-time plea please check my math there because i have uh i'm
051going i'm not the one to be checking math there were there were 20 there were 23 individuals and i believe nine of them were full-time okay that's correct okay thank you welcome other questions from members of the board on the on the staffing recommendation so so seeing as seeing no objection to moving forward with putting the matter on the agenda uh we will ask mr regina our last mr regina to proceed with the schedule of activities that he had outlined and we will certainly get you the information on um the legal interpretation of the benefits and how we might be able to provide that and secondly we will work administratively to see if a reassignment could work for these individuals as as part of uh retaining them both on the the total number of hours
052and and for benefits again mr eugene said that's not likely to be all the employees that are on this recommendation list but it could uh reduce the list by the time you see it on tuesday okay thank you now in terms of any of the other matters that i i brought up uh regarding of the earlier part of the presentation i'm just going to jot them down real quick if there's a hand please let me know we have anything related to an effect online and related programming uh the parent center technology transportation teacher support athletics grants planning next steps and dust and then obviously staffing recommendations so any questions uh ms drummond i have a few questions but i won't do the thing where i ask them all at once thank you i appreciate that
053okay i'm not completely exhausted yet but but one at a time would be excellent okay one at a time um okay the first question is about the lunch program um and is that for um free and reduced lunch population or is that open to all my facton families all students okay thank you um the second one is about the chromebooks i just if if you could just um remind us or reiterate like what what was the process because i just i feel like i don't remember exactly what the whole process was with ordering them and when we discovered the need and everything if you could just refresh yeah absolutely so on on an annual basis um we uh as well maybe the people in the public don't know this but we typically lease almost nearly
054100 percent of our end-user devices that means that if we we have a chromebook for a student uh is on a lease program where it's either a three or four year lease that being said uh annually uh there are devices that uh have to come back and be returned to the leasing company and then we uh put an order in to replace those and therefore we have on average an annual basis between uh 700 and 800 thousand dollars in annual reoccurring uh costs that help support the one-to-one program and other technology resources in the district so with that said uh it was about april i believe it was april 24th when the order went in for uh all the uh the chromebooks that are typically as part of their the uh a cycle for um
055on an annual basis and that's typically uh really when we when we normally do that um and um and so what happened uh last week was we were notified that we're not going to be getting uh or we don't have a date of what exactly when we're gonna be getting uh that large shipment so that's about a thousand plus machines i think it's eight hundred and some of uh of chromebooks and two hundred some of uh of a chrome tablet now i did mention in my um my my message here this evening that we didn't receive notice today that the 200 chrome tablets are are going to be delivered early this this this coming week and um i know i know i didn't mention this but dr landis is already putting together a plan for
056uh the distribution of of those and uh and other available technology over the next two weeks so we're trying to get out ahead of all that and get it in the hands of our families as soon as possible but but generally speaking uh you know dr lannis was provided information from her from our vendor um i can if the board uh cares to have the information i can uh share the the the most recent email today that we received there's a list of other school districts that are also not receiving their technology on time um i you know it's it's more than you can fit on two hands and um you know it's it's not it's not unfortunately it's not unusual uh according to the supplier uh during this particular period of time um so
057i can i can certainly share that with you but there are a number of school districts but there were there are districts that nearby us that got their their supply or their about their order and there are some that aren't getting their orders just i guess at this point in time so the reality of this is the last conversation was that it's likely be mid-september um but we don't have a definitive delivery date at this time other than the uh the chrome tablets that i mentioned does that does that give you the information that you were looking for miss german i i think so yes but i guess i'm confused about what like what's not being delivered for our recurring like that our usual maintenance chromebooks and then the new what we are ordering new
058um as a result of the online structure that we're implementing right so we we if you if you recall we put in our our typical order a typical order would not include those things that have been returned for grades 7-12 but we also put in an order at that same time on april 24th to take care of grades uh three through six and if you recall it was i'm i'm thinking maybe it might be july i don't know the exact date but it might be like early july where we put in the the purchase order for grades um kkk one and two but we but we all we already have while they were new devices we already have some devices that were returned that we kept that we're going to be able to supply to
059grades k and partially two to one um but once the new machines come in we'll be swapping those out with the families does that make sense so there's so there are two there are two orders there's uh there's the order for the k one and two but what are likely k and part of one is going to be already taken care of uh the the issue is that um you know we don't have a deal on that particular shipment either okay but and then everybody else now who had in the seven to twelve their set seven to twelve we should be fine okay thank you so seven to twelve is okay and k and part of one okay and so if you think about this we uh we we we ran a a program at
060the end of this past school year where we had a one-to-one issues from grade seven uh through twelve and we from grades k through uh six we distributed uh we call them loaners at that time and we were able to support the families uh all the family requests so while i know it's not ideal and it's not what we had planned for i do believe that we'll have an equal set of need at least temporarily with the hopes that our shipment comes in uh in a reasonable period of time where we can do the swap out of those loaner devices with the newly purchased devices and we can move on for for the rest of the school year with those okay thank you um next question has to do with the um program that you
061were saying that comcast is offering um where the district can be built directly for people in families in need for internet access i just i if you i just have a lot of questions about that like if the just for a point of clarification for next week if i mean it makes me wonder do do those families have to be already subscribing to comcast what kind of rate is the district being billed for that service um and is it only available if if you're already a verizon subscriber are you eligible for this so i just have those kinds of questions some around i i i do too uh but the most i can tell you right now it's it's it's 9.95 uh i i don't know what the if there's taxes and other charges will
062be excluded for sales tax but there will be other sld uh schools and library taxes and other other taxes that are that are added on to help fund the ebay program that you see on your cell phone bills and your internet service bills um but they're we're not eligible to to not pay those um but we we uh we don't have all the details that you you or i are looking for so i i just wanted to make everyone aware that uh hopefully i'll have that information i can bring it forward but it's but it's my understanding from uh dr lam is that uh it will be it will be made eligible to those students on our free and reduced lunch program so we would provide them as an example a specific code they would
063provide it to comcast as part of their order and the bill then would be sent in a in one bill a list of uh individuals and their and their rates and we could use uh some of the grant funds uh to pay for those expenses but but more information is needed then we'll provide it thank you and then my final one um has to do with um clubs and interest groups um is there a process i know there was talk of some new um interest groups such as the black student union forming and i just wanted to make sure there's a process um for those to to be put in place um for the new year since they weren't at the end of the last year they they really weren't in existence the idea wasn't
064existing yep there's a there's a there's a process in the uh in the manual in the in the clubs activities manual and um they like i said earlier the groups of interest and the club sponsors will uh the group the leaders for the groups of interest and the club sponsors will be given a survey to provide to us uh an explanation about how they plan or if they do plan or not plan to run the club uh or a group of interests and how they plan to do that either virtually or online so we'll include all of those and any new groups of interests that come forward we'll be we'll be addressing them as per that club manual okay i'm just making sure it's not too late for some new groups just because of how
065the last year ended that we you know whoever wants to have the opportunity to form that can still do that this year okay thank you that's all i have all right thank you other questions um ms zabri last nice so um back to the devices um i wanted to clarify exactly how many short we will be for day one so we already have devices in hand for all students seven through twelve correct yes and we have anticipated next week devices for k and part of one correct okay so i guess i wanted to to know exactly if we know how many short we will be for day one i don't know that now but i can get you that information okay um and i think it's important that we not count our devices before they
066are in hand right now i i think that while we may have every assurance from a vendor that we are getting something next week or the middle of september or whenever it is i think we've all experienced at some time or another through this pandemic where something that was supposed to be in stock or delivered or whatever has not been um but the entire supply chain is disrupted right now and and demand is well exceeding supply so i i as much as i would love to be able to say yes we're going to have these devices um it's really um it's a luck of the draw you know other districts were fortunate enough to find a supplier to choose a supplier anyway that um that was able to deliver and we happen to be one
067of the unlucky ones that did not um but i guess i want to make sure that we also then have a plan so what like what are we doing specifically to best allocate resources that families already have so that um we can end up in sort of the same situation we did in the spring where everybody who needed a device was able to get one um because i want to make sure that that we're doing the best we can to allocate resources where they're needed right so it's going to take sorry it's going to take careful communication on our part because like um while i think that our our families uh you know reasonably communicated with us in terms of what they needed uh we we certainly had enough devices uh uh at the end
068of the school year to get take care of all the requests so there wasn't a request that went unfilled i'm just concerned that uh you know without clear communications we could have people asking for devices that may not necessarily need it right away and might be a little bit more fortunate than others so with that killer communications we're currently in discussions about how to best um you know manage uh the request so they're we're constructing a survey to see who needs the the item and then some of the thought is to cross-reference that request with our free and reduced lunch list to determine uh the greatest need and to potentially allocate things that way but that creates a couple other challenges and we're still was be honest with you we're still working through that that
069dilemma but i i recognize that our communication with our families is going to be critical to making sure that everyone kind of does their own self-check kind of like our health check and say do you can you can you you know work with us uh for the period of time where we don't have these devices and can you honestly you know make do uh where others might not be able to or don't have access at all we got to try to address that those needs first yeah i mean i know that it would it'll it will end up with some repetitive efforts if we do it this way but for example we may have a number of families in grades 7 through 12 who currently have a device that could very easily go without the
070device so we could have them surrender the devices until there's a time that everybody can get them and so yeah it's going to require some kind of duplicative efforts where we have families turning in devices and then coming back in a few weeks to pick up another one but if it can get everybody to be starting on a level playing field september 8th i think it will be worth it um and as possibly a silver lining this may be something that we can use some of those displaced messpa employees to support the endeavor it may be a way that we can kind of keep people working and have our students needs met at the same time because again while we're we're hearing that we're going to get these devices in september i'm not going to
071be convinced until we actually have them in hand um so i just want to make sure that we're we're planning accordingly and then on that note um i'm going to assume because i know our teachers are working extra hard right now to prepare for the beginning of the school year but any classes that don't have 100 access for students just yet i want to make sure that we don't have parents panic buying and running out to best buy tonight to try and get themselves a chromebook um i want them to to have some reassurance that whatever the teachers are doing to start the school year will not require a device if devices have not been provided to students yet so whether that be that you know they have packets and we go kind of old
072school for the first week or two or or whatever um i know that our teachers are are creative and working hard so i'm hoping that that is part of the planning as well so that we don't we don't end up with with kids um not all starting at the same with the same access in the same class yeah i i understand what you're saying my hope would be that we could do the earlier part of your suggestion and and be able to uh accommodate everyone temporarily uh absolutely doing old school so that's why i mean we have we have a lot to kind of think through in a short period of time but um as soon as we believe that we have the right plan or the the best communication together uh we'll be sharing
073that with the board just to kind of get you you know to get your feedback on that because uh you know quite frankly it's a it's a it's a bit of a challenge and it's going to need all of us to understand the uh you know the framework for which we're going to be working in in order to get this done and make sure everybody has access yeah i mean obviously plan a is to get a device into everyone's hands but if there's one lesson that i think we've all learned from this pandemic is the importance of having a plan b and maybe even a plan c and d as well so um you know the the more contingencies that we can have prepared ready for september 8th the better i think we'll all be
074um i think that's all i have for right now thank you thank you uh uh miseries um i i don't want to uh belabor a point but just to piggyback just something quickly on what kim said you know the management of the devices is difficult so if it's not realistic to ask everybody in seven to twelve about a device maybe we start with seventh grade who haven't been given them yet you know the seventh graders haven't been given a device yet because this would have been their first year and then i believe it's whatever classes maybe the sophomores were supposed to get their lease for the next three years so maybe it's the seventh grade and the south and the sophomores but i don't want to micromanage i know your your admin is is working
075hard on that um my family just for example did not ask for a device because my twins shared obviously they can't share in the fall because it'll be different type of learning but one of them could take a device and one of them could say someone else could have it i don't i know there's things that need to be downloaded and things like that but that's just an example um and i sent and having said that i think it's really important i do have a question for you about next steps but i think it's important to really address this community um i know there's a lot of people extremely frustrated but i'm also seeing a lot of people working together to try to fix this and offering things like that and trying to figure out
076ways to help each other so i personally find that to be very um positive there are some communities that are just arguing and nasty um and i'm not saying there's not people that aren't thrilled and saying nasty things but for the most part i've seen a lot of community effort trying to work together and realizing this pandemic is really causing even more stress now than it was back in march april and may i think you know families are stressed people's finances are stressed and i just want to credit everyone who is being positive and credit everyone at mcfacton who's actually trying it's not easy to talk about furloughs and lack of devices i do want to also mention because i've seen some people complaining about this device issue there are some districts who are still
077not we are going to have a device in everybody's hands k-12 and although there's a delay there are some districts who are not doing that so even those who are waiting so it's important to note that the faction is trying really hard and there are some districts not um transporting uh their other students and and so i know that matthachton is trying it's it's best um speaking of that you shared in our memo because i think everyone's curious about what the next couple weeks are are going to look at look like and i know the parents and students will be getting that information as a teacher trust me i'm still trying you know i'm working hard trying to figure out what my my um classes are going to look like but i think people want
078to know that there's hope for november so you shared with us in our memo some information about the ppe are you able i don't mean to call you on the carpet but i didn't hear much about that because i felt like the ppe was promising well it is promising it's similar to what i believe uh mr jones had shared uh you know previously but but the the the main major issue still is and and similar to what uh miss obulas and east is referring to is we were told that shipment of the uh electrostatic sprayers the the main devices that will help us to efficiently and effectively address uh the population that that of the kind uh is is you know geared to ship at a certain date and according to all the conversations that
079mr jones and i've had is apparently the company that we're dealing with is the primo uh uh company for this type of uh of of device and and uh you know will we get them on the date that they said hopefully we will uh if we don't uh we will certainly know that and uh and we'll all apprise the board but but i think it's important that uh while we've given you those dates and and uh and the need for supplies you know our grants and you know knowing that those grants were coming in and and some of them are a few weeks old uh in terms of uh already being have accepted them you know we've been in the process of uh you know purchasing the the extra ppe and i guess uh bob
080you have uh you know you have so you know almost six months worth of a lot of the supplies to help us uh through a physical return is that correct yes that's correct and we also have 10 of the of the electrostatic sprayers in stock now so we're ready to go in the next two weeks with that too for the uh distance learning for the schools that we will be opening and have students and faculty and staff in he's referring to the arcola skyview space right but but uh we still have still a number of electrostatic sprayers outstanding that we need for opening up all the buildings but any i mean uh any other any other questions to that ms reese no okay uh miss hall i have uh two questions and i'm sorry i
081was slow taking notes you covered the north monco technical career center um plan could you just uh go over that again you said 11 and 12 is um what model are they using um well i i guess if it would if you'd be okay i mean miseries and miss drummond sat on the on the on the committee or on the jlc board maybe they could speak to it better miseries i can't give you all details mary and i know there's some small details some people were asking me but you they're their websites up and running but basically juniors and seniors will be in person on monday through thursday um and the reason for that is they are so on hand so in their programs that you know they they need to be there um the
082decision was made for freshmen and and sophomores for a couple reasons one is some of the freshmen can do some of the foundation work without being hands-on some of the first things they can get through um and the the issue for north monco is is a good one and a bad one in a way it's so it has become so popular that they have over 1200 students which is the highest they've ever had so they tried so hard to get more kids in there but it's impossible to be socially distant at that and um my biggest question to them was the western center is opening but the western center only has 600 students and their building is larger so that's the way it is for now um the only other big item is you know
083the we are providing transportation but they don't have to take the bus if they don't want to and they will not have to pay for parking and the other issue that came up is friday is often for those students a co-op day meaning they work somewhere so friday will not be in person um learning and the only other thing i mean that came i mean we had an information session last week and a a voting meeting yesterday um one big area of concern is mechatronics is a very popular um program and uh they were losing their instructor who had been there for a long time but they were able to replace that instructor all the new staff at north monco was already in this week receiving training and and they're in they're in they're in
084good shape um but parents need to go to the website and then there's some schedules there for them as well as there's some kids have very specific questions and they'll need to email i don't know if i missed anything liz or if you have any further questions on that mary i think yeah just um i don't know if you said it andrew but the the delivery is um grades nine to ten virtual and then the hybrid um for 11 and 12 a hybrid model so that um instead of having 500 students in the building on any of those days there's going to be half of that to about 250 students in the building monday through thursday and then friday is all virtual delivery for everyone thank you very much i did have a second question
085um i in regard to the uh free and reduced lunches i know some of our families might be in different circumstances than they were earlier um have and it might have been in a communication that i missed have we provided information to our families on how to apply to the program mr berker do you know when when typically is the free reduced lunch application process initiated it's a direct certification program anyone can apply at any point in time but typically there's a direct certification program that comes in and home in school reviews it if necessary and then i would review it as a follow-up but as i said 90 percent actually i'll be lying it's 99.9 percent of them are just direct certifications when they submit the application so what he's referring to is the
086eligibility typically assumes that the department of public welfare has your information and then submits it electronically to the schools to let you know that these these families are eligible for free reduced meals so uh that that's that's the typical basis and students that in the previous year have until october 1 to be re-certified typically so when they start the school year off they're already eligible if they were eligible in the previous year the only issue would be for new students to the district um they they would uh go through the normal application process um and but i believe that that typically takes place when we start school okay thank you you're welcome uh mr winners yeah i just wanted to ask you a question related i i can imagine this ppe discussion is going to
087be the headline is that oh they have the they have the ppe but i believe the discussion last month and and there was obviously many dialogues about many issues and that was only one uh related to the opening of the school at the beginning of the year one of the other ones that i believe jen and uh spoke to before was understanding uh resources in both the mea and nespa um on comfort level of what they're willing to do and not necessarily a comfort level of the of the psca or um our local mea union but the actual individuals so i i believe that 400 mea employees it's hard for us to understand what we're going to do in november without having a complete uh understanding of individuals how they feel at a particular time
088that certainly can change certainly i i changed my mind in the last six weeks as well so my question dave is just sort of open-ended i know that we've had this discussion but some some districts did suggest a survey and surveyed their staff to try to understand what was going to happen the dominoes would happen which to me was the number one issue for for the delay this year in my opinion for for for my vote what has been the output of those has that provided any fruit to other districts or is there concern that um it it's not it's not gonna stick or what are the pros and cons related to trying to get a better flavor for november 14th or whatever the date is uh if we're in a better situation as a
089county in a a country or honestly uh related to what we what we're trying to do with public public education here yeah i think i think you know before i answer what we would do in the future i think it's also important to know what some of those surveys my other districts you know meant to them and maybe mr gina you can you know chime in on that because i know you're involved with uh those types of things with the hr of the mci uhr group but but but i i think it's going to be critical for us to have those uh you know conversations and not just make it a survey uh what i mean by that is we gotta we we gotta we gotta get a better pulse on what people are willing
090to do and what they're not willing to do uh given you know now that we have a health and safety plan in place and uh we start a school year off and we look around us because it's not about it it's complicated right it's not just about what as an individual it's not about a union uh or or the state association you know the state association could say one thing but the local union can say another thing but it comes down to the individual and the the challenges associated with their household and and it's it's until we have a real frank conversation about you know what they planned and the plan to do uh i don't think a survey is gonna gonna really you know provide that information in terms of his traditional format you
091know creating a couple questions sending an email out and looking for responses i think i think we need to as an administrative team you know find a better way to kind of do an interview process about what are some of the key things that need to happen in order for our our staff to be uh comfortable to the greatest extent possible in order to bring our students back uh uh up to school if in fact uh mr winters you know that's what the board wants uh but i think i need to be able to provide some data uh for you to you know better understand that yeah and i think that can be part of our plan yeah they i appreciate the answer and i don't hung up on the term survey hopefully that doesn't
092the point is getting some type of feedback related and i i there is a fair amount of uh staff that are on the call today which i i definitely appreciate but i think it's it's really important for the individual um the fact and mea and mespa people to really come back with their feedback of what they're really going to do in certain circumstances and it it can't be necessarily you know i it's not a it's not easy decision first of all and it doesn't have to be but we need some type of guidance to understand and i think the community needs to understand that delivering education not knowing if you're going to have enough staff to deliver that education when you're trying to actually deliver it in different forms with less students in the classroom
093it makes it even more difficult so i just making that point maybe it's obvious to a lot but the reality is we need and many that are on this call understand as as uh as individuals that are going to be effective we have to collectively make the decision and we need to know individually you know how many of the 400 398 are going to come back what type of comfort level they are coming back in certain areas et cetera et cetera same with nespa so i i think you're absolutely right uh but i can i can say this as well um even even at the moment of time you collect that information and you share it the the risk of all of this is all we need is you know uh a matter related to
094the code of 19 to occur in in a particular teacher's classroom it it's it it's possible that i could lose you know 20 staff people in in a week's time and and those are those are the risks i mean i know that you're all paying attention to what's going on in other states across the country you know there's there's all sorts of uh concerns that and actions that occur that are occurring that are causing major havoc uh in the plans for returning to school and and i don't and i don't want this to sound as though it's they're not justified uh meaning that uh you know like i said it it's not about the it's not about the state association it's not about the local association it really does boil down to the individuals and
095what's important to them and how they are going to be able to uh manage through this because that's that you know it's kind of like the maslow hierarchy of needs if we're not taking care of their health and safety needs uh you know their ability to teach and to manage things aren't going to go all that well either so it's a really it's a really challenging uh time but i'm i'm not i'm not going to not have the conversation that's something we have to have because because we need to know if it's if we got 50 of the teachers behind us 90 of the teachers behind us uh and if we feel good about those 90 you know or if it's 99 well maybe we can we can risk another 10 loss and still be
096able to make it through but but um we're going to stand a better chance of having those conversations once the school year starts my goal is to try to have that for you uh for your your consideration in september when we take a look at you know what the potential reopening process might look like other items uh uh mr regina did you want to add anything about those other surveys i no many districts did that but i think dr zurby took mr winters point also one of the things that we had many staff members that certainly were willing to come back but due to the school districts going back to an online environment coupled with the ffcra act that's valid until december 31st they weren't able to come back for child care reasons that that
097became just as big of a hurdle as people being comfortable to come back um and as as long as ffcra is valid that that will that will continually be a hurdle for us so i think that'll be another one where even when we're asking people if they're comfortable um they may even be challenged with the child care component of that and one last point just a real just to make sure there was that is not there was no derogatory aspect to any of those questions it's just about that being able to deliver and with an unknown variable that is the most considered the most important variable so it is not i know that there's a lot of uh mud slinging being thrown in other areas around if what uh i think ben salem etc there's
098other areas this is not uh uh i'm not stoking the fire here i'm just pointing out a fact that we really it's the most important variable and it's very difficult to try to figure out how we're gonna deliver something in in november as well that's that's fair uh that's a fair comments thank you mr winners uh any other comments on other matters uh that uh uh miss cancro no and you know just briefly i'll piggyback that just because the pennsylvania department of education as you all know put out that plan of how we have to really determine our instructional models and being able to transition from one model to the other so i do think that we can't rely on assumptions like you said if you're going to identify those that are going to take
099advantage of the care act or or this the child care acts that you need to do um is there ones that might need medical you know their doctors say that they might not medically be able to go in person but to know where our staff will lie in their interest will allow us opportunities as well so it's offering them are they going to come in at different levels a soft reentry of one two and three so i really i really do implore the pandemic team to go and really consider talking to the staff and knowing where their comfort levels are with return because if we bring a related service center in that's great it's a third party but the next component of that is special ed teachers and the learning supports that are put into
100place so we have to kind of start remembering that we need to put in some soft for entry maybe if they do want to go in maybe there might be a half a day that we need to consider or a hybrid approach but the us department definitely it urges to know where staff go and where their comfort is for those transitioning and those are the three models we need to look at so i just asked for that to really work on phasing different phase levels for re-entry um and then just to talk about the ppe i will i will push more that i think we need alternative options to be presented and reviewed in the facilities committee and with the pandemic team um i don't want to hear just one product i want to hear
101a backup product of one two and three with specific arrival dates and i want to see what's in stock in each building and what staff get trained on because if we are expecting the teachers to be trained on it and they're not in the building we have to consider that also a safe re-entry so i don't want to see just one product i do want to see multiple because moving into a pandemic and we stay within this we might have had up that same product again in six months so we need to have options so it looks like my internet is unstable so you might hear half of it which has been happening to me all day but no no we we already okay so those are just the two things and so i really
102let's review the re-entry plan and the education committee um and really break it down so that we can have a very clear concise idea at whatever point we do we re-enter we have to go through the discussions of whenever it will happen that's it thanks i appreciate that any other questions or comments on the presentation today mr never just a quick one um on the final comments that paul made and chase said about the ffc ra leave um that problem related to other school districts staying virtual going virtual um is not gonna go away um unless we have a regional approach to reopening and you know unfortunately the 10 of us aren't going to be able to impact what springford does or norristown does or what's hicken does um but certainly there are conversations being
103had among among the administration at the county level at the iu level um this is really a great time maybe for our uh our county leadership to step up and have some kind of coalition here so that we we start to look at how we do this on a regional basis rather than this type of local 500 school districts across pennsylvania thing that we have today so um i guess my comment there dr zurby is pushing you in your conversations with our superintendents i know you guys are all talking about how we can get back and do this safely but maybe there's something that needs to be done maybe from a coalition of board presidents uh maybe a coalition at the iu level maybe something where our our county government gets involved but certainly there's
104something more to be done here uh because otherwise that hurdle is not going to be able to be overcome yeah you make a good point mr never you know uh i can tell you that early on um as we were a superintendent of the within montgomery county we were trying to stay all on the same page especially uh our north monco technical career center superintendents and uh you know you should know that you know my plan was very similar to that of southerton's and and i think uh pv and and uh uh north penn they they were all uh you know kind of going in the same in the same direction and uh and then i think they all kind of just kind of veered off in different places in different ways over a period
105of time based on just based on on you know the i'll call it the you know the the uh the powers that be involved in the process it's not just you know it's not just us as superintendents but you know we have nine board members and again you have uh you know thousands of constituents that uh you need to uh you know uh respond to so it's really it's really turned it into a really difficult position for us to keep everything going in the same direction so that we could we could keep that continuity assuming that if we could keep all the schools neighboring to us you know on the same page we might be able to salvage some of this daycare challenge uh because you know there are there are teachers that teach in
106southern they live in the factory vice versa but we we didn't we didn't succeed in that what would have really helped us in all of this and i know that you know this and so does the rest of the board but you know specific uh determination uh but at the state level say this is what you ought to do it would it would have provided uh great uh you know uh systematic uh ways for us to to manage the process but that didn't occur and i'm not being a i'm not going to keep being on that drum uh but but i will i will do what you suggested and at least make that a conversation of our north monk or technical career center superintendents and see if we can bring like you mentioned uh you
107know a board president uh coalition together to talk about you know how how we might be able to uh you know reinvigorate at least that and then from there uh try to push out to other districts in our area and actually that board president coalition is something that is already in the works i've been in conversations with some other board presidents this week about setting up a zoom meeting so that we can try to get more aligned excellent good it's great to hear uh miss purdue i just have two questions one is i wanted to know if you can give a little bit of um information miss perdue it's hard to hear you okay let me just let me know if can you hear me better now yeah much better okay i'll turn my volume
108up so my first question is about what parents can expect at the virtual i guess workshop for k-12 and also if we plan on having a similar workshop for the other grades i think that's scheduled for thursday that is that is correct dr euchre will be doing a present uh apparent workshop for grades i believe k through four and uh in the communication that was sent out today on the uh on the the fact and parent center there will be additional workshops for the other grades as well i i just don't have the dates for those thank you and then my next question is really and it's not really a question i think it's more of a comment focus on the re-entry plan along right along with what others have said and i know last
109time when we discussed um there was a concern about staffing i want to know if we have any concerns about that going into a virtual starting off in a virtual environment now i don't know jay you have any additional to add to it i i i don't i'm just in specif specifically to west samir i apologize what which component were you looking at i guess when i'm thinking staffing in reference to teachers for the virtual environment we we have it so so we have had um a number of moves that have taken place recently you'll notice those on the board agenda tonight between the advisements from dr zerby and some of the status changes so we we are in constant motion um getting people in certain positions but we have not realized the number of
110leaves that we were looking at a few weeks ago at this point so we we do not have any concern with staffing the virtual environment at this point any other questions from members of the board uh this is obvious yeah it's not about the um the virtual or return to school it was actually about the transportation update um so obviously it was not something that the board voted on or discussed um transportation for our non-public students because that is something that um we typically do on a regular year um however i do have concerns about the fact that we are still providing transportation um i would like to get some numbers behind how many students per bus for our north montco transportation as well as how many students per bus for our non-public school students
111um it's not something that required a vote because it's something that that we do typically do but i um i'm questioning the wisdom of it in our current environment um i know that in talking to dr zurby earlier this week we do have some non-public runs we already know that our non-public runs are most of the time are longer than our our in-house students um so we could have students on a bus for an hour or more um and we know that the length of time in in close proximity is a a big vector in how this virus spreads so um i do have some concerns about the fact that we're still providing non-public transportation um and i also am concerned about whether or not we even have drivers who are willing to provide that
112transportation service i i don't think that this was something that other board members had necessarily raised but it's something that i i did want to bring up as a point of concern we could certainly get you the information uh we we we will likely be able to provide that for the non-publics but i think for the north monco it'll take a few days for us to get you that information because i think we're in the process of contacting the juniors and seniors to find out how we're going to be picking them up well and i would not i don't want to i don't want to deduct the numbers that for students that are driving themselves for example i want to know worst case scenario if we were transporting all of our juniors and seniors to
113north montco how many would we have on a bus and the same for our non-publics and as well as the lengths of their runs i'll just add to that kim i mean i i'm not telling you don't ask for those numbers but what i am saying to you is i think you should ask for the numbers but i i don't think it's fair not to deduct at all because miss partovich who runs the north monco tech center said she doesn't have many juniors and seniors that take the bus i'm not saying we shouldn't know what that number is i think it's an excellent question but i do think it's a little silly if there's 50 kids that could take the bus and 20 year old are only going to take the bus why would we
114say there's 50. well if a student's car breaks down we still have to provide transportation so i just want to make sure that we know what the worst case scenario is and and i understand that i also think it's some parental decision there you know we are not these children's parents no i'm not worried as much about um i mean obviously i'm worried about the students but i also have concerns about the fact that we have a driver on the bus and we have um you know it's having adequate ventilation on these buses can be a challenge um particularly in inclement weather i mean you can't have the windows down if it's a rainy day and i just i want to make sure that we are fully examining the the wisdom of this and i
115agreed and when i spoke to dr zurby i did ask are there drivers willing or are we going to hear that drivers don't want to do this um i did specifically ask that yeah the and the other concern is the fact that um some of these schools have moved up their start dates um so we wouldn't typically even be dealing with this issue on august 18th but um due to the the pandemic some of these schools have opted to start earlier which then put us in a position of having to go with the default option of providing transportation prior to being able to have a discussion as a board on the topic so um i guess i i'm bringing it up in hopes that you know if other board members have concerns we can talk
116about it if i'm the only one then i'm the only one um and and that's fine too if i could well if so mr bricker do we have drivers for the non-public and the north marco runs currently we have about 35 runs that we would be running uh for the non-pub parochial and private schools um and the north monco uh we do have i have talked to first student and they expect to have older drivers over 35 come back they are seeing some people that are not coming back but again the economy does allow them to hire more drivers and makes it easier for them i guess the other concern you know is keeping a consistent number of drivers and keeping the same drivers with with the same students um and then really the best
117analogy that i can use for this is that you know if we have a snow day and we determine that it's not safe for us to transport our students we're not providing transportation to any other students on those days either and i think that this in my mind falls in the same category we are we are opting to not bring our students into schools because we believe on some level that it is not safe to do so um so i'm questioning whether or not it's safe for us to be providing transportation for other students as well well if we're providing transportation i went over this with the solicitor if we are providing transportation to north monco we are providing transportation for our students and as such we are required to provide transportation for the private
118non-public and parochial schools currently i can let you know that there's 30 seniors that are at north monaco which would be on a 72 passenger bus and there's 34 juniors so we would be at half for very close you know below our numbers which is two percent uh mr brecker sorry yeah i missed i cut miss can't go off earlier so i apologize i think you know i understand what you're saying kim you know but here's the you know the the pennsylvania department did put strict criteria specifically about busing and transportation that we're going to follow and one of like dr zurby had said with the screening it's a if you if you look at the protocol that was is on their website it's very exact so when you've got this the public school i
119understand that we're making this decision but as a private school the parents are aware of what the protocols are the students are aware of that and and and and the driver so there's a level of risk benefit and at that point they have they know the protocol it's being implemented and you we have to have some re-entry and there is as soon as we have an identification of a covet case there's strict guidelines that the us department the department of education supplied also so there's guidelines there so we have to we have to have re-entry they they know the risk benefit they know the protocols the procedures i i think that this is something that we we need to follow i i i do appreciate the fact that these guidelines are in place and i
120want to believe that people will follow them but i also know that if people were good at following the rules um we probably wouldn't be living in the the situation that we're living in right now i mean we've seen all over the news and all over the country that people are are breaking social distancing protocols people are are you know making really poor choices and having large gatherings and and we've seen in schools across the country where parents are sending kids to school while they're still awaiting test results so i mean yes we can have all the guidelines that we want and we can believe that our our students and our our drivers are all going to follow them but the reality is we're dealing with human beings and human beings don't always make good
121choices um and i i say that including myself in that category um you know we we don't always make the right choice and when we're counting on people to to do the right thing um and it's um i guess that i am losing some of my optimism right now um i just wanted to ask mr bricker and you may not know this right now but for example one of the examples of a school that pushed up their start date was lasalle and i did not realize it was freshman only on monday and i believe the rest of the students tomorrow um you had mentioned i believe 20 students that go there do we know how many are using the bus or i did not take a census yet it's early but for us to do
122that but they are in a hybrid mode so it's not every student every day okay so well just if you could at some listen i'm not but since my next board meeting will have had they'll be in school a week if you could just maybe follow up and with the driver of that bus if there's any issues or if parents have decided not to use it i would i would be curious about that any other comments on the matters that i i reviewed earlier this evening if if not i appreciate all your comments and we have a number of pieces of information to get to the board before uh next tuesday so i appreciate that um and i will now ask that we move on with with the agenda and i'm just going to put
123that up on the screen just bear with me a second uh so that does end the uh the august 18th uh updates as they're listed please know that i will come back again next tuesday uh likely there will be some hopefully some updates on athletics and and some other uh progress that we make as admin team on many of our matters so i'll just provide you a brief update on those specific things we'll go over the reports for the committees uh you see the list of uh i mean the superintendent's report of the superintendent advisements and uh please note that we we have scheduled a uh ad hoc group of members of the board to address the uh dei uh matter that we had spoke about the last two meetings and uh we'll likely be
124listing that under under here as an update on a regular basis as as that small committee of the board and i meet to to address those matters in terms of public comment there'll be public comment both sections at the next tuesday's meeting um we'll be suspending the the board policy as we have been for the online process uh then we get into uh the fiscal items uh mr griffin thank you dr zurby this month for your approval we have the list of bills treasurer's report there are no budgetary transfers we have the recommendation for changes in casual on call rates for six different positions plan con k approval for g gob series 2020 bancon k approval glon series 2020 the student activity count the closure of the class of 2020 as well as the opening
125of the class of 2024 which is per board policy 618 and we have one change order which is exchanger approve the change order a chm um number one is a credit for 485.23 this is the high school roofing project this is a credit for them not performing the work on the press box which was outsourced to another company so so just to the board reference all these items but the actual student activity accounts were before the finance committee and their at their regular meeting this month are there any specific questions on any of these matters and yes i'm just gonna have a wrap yeah just tim i know we talked about it in finance but i think it's important to reiterate here and then probably again next week because we'll have a different set of
126people listening but um the percentage increases for the casual on calls is pretty hefty can you explain why um it's been i'm going to say what was it 10 over 13 years 2007 i think was the last time the rates were adjusted um so we're just kind of getting back up to where our peers are in relationship to what we're paying casuals and call thank you any any other questions on fiscal matters seeing none i will move on to personnel items mr adrena thank you dr zurby a number of items for the board's consideration this evening we have two resignation for retirements one for professional uh one for classified uh both names the board probably recognizes uh you know that both services from both paddy and diana have been amazing these are exemplar employees and
127we will miss both of them significantly upon their retirement the next is an employment of an administrator matt walsh as our director of curriculum many of you have the opportunity to meet uh dr walsh and he'll be joining us uh once we're communicating with wizah now and determining uh his exit strategy and entrance strategy here in the district uh next is employment professional we have five change of status items some of you may wonder what's the difference between change of status and advisement matters are those individuals that are reassigned by the district a change of status items are those individuals that have interviewed internally and have chosen those positions um so we we do indicate that the difference in those items for the board and and it's so those of you that are wondering that's
128that's why that separation is there we do have one item for sabbatical leave and three items for supplemental contracts including the one placeholder that dr zurby had referred to earlier for fall coaches and the last item on our agenda for personnel is a volunteer list thank you um any questions for mr regina just uh two questions one is the um new hire the hamilton is that a teacher that our students are familiar with that has is that a lts is i the name sounds familiar to me but i don't know hayden has been a very loyal lcs to us for a number of years we're very excited to have hayden now with a contract thank you i thought so but i i wasn't sure i'm just you hear kind of in the teaching world about
129long-term subs not always being hired and it's and it's nice to see somebody um you know getting a contract after that and then my next question is about long-term subs so and i apologize i can't remember how it works do we ever get a list of our long-term subs that are hired or no because they're really sts employees i can't remember that's a great question because it's very different from district to district we we're one of the few districts that utilize sts for our long term subpositions typically that's a contractual item so there are many contracts around us that the moment that you get to a 90-day sub those individuals will then become part of the bargaining unit as an lts which is might be something i'm not sure about spring for but it might
130be similar in that contract which might might be why you see a distinction between the two so you you will actually not see lts on board agendas because they never actually are employees questions original personalities ms cancro had a question about the the sports i just i'm not sure so i know i know i understand what situation we're in can you can we still provide um perhaps supplemental contracts for fall coaches at a different level if we stay within an off-season workout virtual is that a discussion we can have and how do we have that discussion or where do we have that discussion do we have to have a pac or piaa in order for small sports to occur virtual or like we're dealing with activities as well as in the coaches would you be
131interested in doing six by six distancing out in the field i'm just curious um is that just an option and if we can address that you know and what venue i i think yeah i i believe what dr zurby had talked about in the beginning about there being some conversation about that i i think first first of all it would be important to see what the pia decision is on friday um because it it likely would be a con probably a lengthy conversation we wouldn't need to have um if if they decide to continue with false thoughts potentially but to answer your question we do not have a mechanism right now to pay for uh pre-season workouts um a matter of fact you know there there are it actually happens quite often where a coach
132may be around the entire preseason but then for for one reason or another elects not to coach once the season starts and and and we have no mechanism to pay them for time prior to the season it is our our season definition is defined by pia and and that's what we have paid for that doesn't mean that that's ultimately what we'd have to do but it just means that we don't have a mechanism to pay for that now so i i think that would require a discussion before we would would investigate that yes yeah j i'd really be interested in having that discussion um and i will lay my bias on the table uh in front of everybody i coached in high school for six years and i hear you uh we're trying to thread
133a needle here right so let's let's assume prwa comes back next friday says no sports i don't think us saying well no sports no pay is the right answer for these coaches for a couple of reasons hey they've been working through the summer they've been doing these you know sticking to the rules doing all this other stuff and i would also argue a little bit and again i know there's some maybe my argument isn't as solid as i would like it to be but there are going to be a lot of kids that need a coach in their life if if if sports get nicked uh next excuse me um so i would irrespective of what the pia decides next week yes you they say full steam ahead easy decision right it's a layup course
134i think we should start at least framing out and prepare for a tolerance of if they say no and i would again i'm just throwing stuff against the wall i would pay our head coaches what we owe them uh perhaps a half or a quarter or a third of what our assistants we owe them because they've done everything we've asked them to do over the last i don't know 30 40 days and to think that a coach starts working when the season starts and stops working when the season stops is not really true anymore it's a 365 day gig and i would think i would want our seniors to have a head coach in their life especially if they're looking for college decisions i'd want some guidance there and i know our coaches would do
135it anyway i know that they're coaches that's what they do but i want to treat them i want to treat them as an us not a versus that kind of mentality so that's my two cents and that's where i'll be coming from on this yeah i think there's a there's a number of things that we're going to have to be prepared for if the answer is we're not having sports until january uh the first question is you know uh the period of time between let's say july 1 and now or or next tuesday or this coming friday and then what about the time thereafter what are we actually doing with the students and is this all coaches because uh while i you know being a former coach as well i i i can't agree with
136you more that you know there's a lot of time involved in this and the uh the but the challenge is as as chase mentioned there's now there's not a mechanism to pay people and this it's not as simple as saying well um we're going to just pay these people and not these people and we've got we gotta we do the problem with doing things to help people because we should creates a significant amount of other problems and and we got to come up with a solution and present it to you so i don't want to belabor it today but i hear what you're asking and i recognize uh the request and we've been talking about it i just don't have an answer for you right now and i hear you i get it we're all
137we're all saying the same thing but i would parallel it to the quote unquote covet exception we made for uh days off at the end of the year for our guys we made a covet bank this is some all bets are off right and this code is not precedent setting this is we're making it up as we go along so i don't want to i don't want to handcuff us and say oh my gosh if we do it now four years from now somebody's going to say well you did it for them i want to park all that nonsense and just say i'll fight that fight in four years if that makes any sense but again we're saying the same thing i just want to i want to stand up for our coaches a little
138bit because our kids are going to need these coaches in their lives and and and all right i'm done i'm just going to comment mr witness and i don't know if anybody has any more comments on the sport so if they do maybe we continue with that but my question is related to to the class size and usually in august a big portion of our uh discussion is is the enrollment and the ever evolving changes that happen in august um so i is there a possibility next week we will see some requests for uh eliminating or moving or adding uh based on class size specifically in the elementary grades yeah i think you you you should be referring to the class size list that i have provided in last friday's memo um we should be
139able to we and i only provided that as a as a document not with any reference for your for your complete understanding so i apologize for what mr regina and i can do is make sure that we kind of uh uh script it out uh to what those numbers mean and how we plan on dealing with uh some of the overages and unders that that that are apparent on that on that sheet so we'll do that for this friday and then we can uh certainly follow it up with any more conversation that the board uh would would like to have we do have we do have those things solved for it's just that it's not apparent on the sheet other questions on the matters of uh personnel uh miss abril uh yeah i may have
140missed it um but um mr regina did you talk about the sabbatical leave is that a medical or educational leave i did not my apologies that's okay yeah it that is a medical sabbatical the the professional development sabbatical deadline is has passed so um the next professional sabbatical that we would be able to offer would be the spring okay thank you yep you're welcome any other personnel matters see none we're going to move on to next time curriculum program as you recall these are two books that are part of the music program um they are up for your consideration on tuesday they were made available for 30 days in the district office and as part of policy the next item is the interscholastic athletic schedule typically on an annual basis the schedule is put before
141you for adoption any questions on matters of curriculum programs saying none we move on to policy please know that on tuesday there are six policies for second reading these are for action by the board are there any questions on the matters of policy saying none under others get some donations and trips we don't have anything at this moment in time and dates for board members calendars we've also included in this the act 40 x34 uh plan con the public hearing and i just want to you know for clarification purposes uh i just want to make sure that the board recognizes anybody on this call recognizes that the plan con of uh hearing will occur both in in person meaning at the arcola intermediate school and online so we will we will be uh streaming the
142local uh part of the hearing from arcola to other participants so board members want to choose to join online they can do that they want to be in person where i will be and likely kcba will be and likely the stenographer will be uh you're welcome to uh to join us there as well so either either location will allow uh members of the public to provide uh documented uh uh comments on the on the matter associated with the construction of a new arrowhead elementary school any any other questions uh for us before i turn it over back over to the present president for uh old new business and currency before i just wanted to remind people that tomorrow is the rescheduled education meeting because it's not on the the meeting that um had to be
143postponed due to the tropical storm we did receive some questions in a property committee regarding the plan con hearing um so i think there was um questions as to how would people submit their um i don't know if you'd consider it testimony or what what the correct word would be and if um written submissions would be included in the record and things like that do you have information or is that better for kyle next week i will get i will get that information from our our from kcba about how the typically it's by uh it's just typically a verbal comment but i just want to confirm before i say it's not one thing's not acceptable or another so let me confirm that and i will get that answer for the board thank you you're welcome
144all right um zombie lights news so i'll turn it back over to you okay does anyone have anything for old business this evening i don't know if it's old or new but um we kind of skipped over not not on purpose the correct you know hiring a new curriculum director i just wanted to thank all the staff that has had to do it during a pandemic the administration building for every administrator every staff that's working over the summer has just had a tremendous tremendous amount of work um and uh when i spoke to a couple of them they said we didn't sign up for it but we did sign up for it it's our job and i really appreciated that and many have been doing triple and quadruple duty due to the fact that we
145are a admin down and we're somewhat are always a little bit uh you know i don't say shorthanded in that direction but admin has really kind of um you know said okay we're going to hold off on a director of this and a director of that we're going to get our budget together and they've had to really do you know quadruple time so i just wanted to acknowledge that and um i know everybody is anxious about the beginning of the school year but i have a lot of faith that the work being done behind the scenes will show and that um i is as nerve-wracking as it is as a teacher and a parent i i really do know that september 8th will be um it'll be a positive experience and we all need to
146keep that in mind and i appreciate this board being positive and working together even if we all don't agree so thank you honestly to all the admin and uh if we could get that to be determined date for another admin starting soon that would be fabulous i know we need to officially vote next tuesday but you dr zurby mentioned uh dr angstadt and miss ricky and at the beginning of the of the meeting but all all admin and everybody who works over the summer so thank you anyone else with old business okay how about new business mr mcginnis guys i know we have a 1001 things right now but as an outcropping of the last couple of uh the work session last month in the school board meeting where we had some of the recent
147alumni talk about our mascot i think it's time that we formalize some plan to at least discuss it and i'm just simply talking about removing all of the logos that we currently have that refer back to the native americans i i'm not saying change warriors um as a proud methaphan warrior class of 87 i was really moved by some of those kids and what they said it's candidly not something i ever really really thought about until they brought it up so i don't know what machinations we have to go to in order to do that but i think it's high time we start having that discussion yeah i would second that and i think um i i know that our ad hoc committee of um our diversity equity and inclusion um task force representatives i
148guess um will be meeting um i believe this week to um to begin to shape some of the the framework of how that committee is going to work moving forward um so perhaps that's something that could be talked about in in that group um as as you know what's the best path forward because i do think that it's a conversation that needs to be had and um whether or not that's something that we we discuss in september or or january or you know it's we we just the important thing is that we set a date and we we set a plan in place and start moving forward with the discussion um so yes i would i would agree with that drew i think that's a great idea anyone else with new business all right so
149at this point we will open up for courtesy of the floor um as i stated earlier we required members of the public wanting to make comment during courtesy of the floor to pre-register by five o'clock today we had four um four members register to speak this evening so um i'm gonna start here with mr brian earnshaw mr earnshaw you are in so whenever you're ready uh thank you brainerd show lower providence um excuse me just wanted to follow up on the question i had at last month's finance committee meeting and it relates to the bond offerings and i'm hoping that mr bricker and or mr mcginnis would have an answer and it relates to the bonds that were sold as a premium and i was trying to understand why they were sold at a premium
150uh generally uh a premium results when you price bonds at above market interest rates and if that is the case in the on these tuition issuances i'm wondering why that happened was where everybody could answer that for me okay did did you have anything else yeah it is just so some kind i get into the meeting midway through and one comment where we talk about busing and i don't know all the facts behind it but one of the comments was concerning from the board president was that it seems like we're trying to go down the road of making decisions to control decisions made by parents um and that's the message i got from that and i just think that's wrong thank you thank you um so next i have um one second okay next i
151have jim mollick go ahead dr malik whenever you're ready can you hear me okay yes i can thank you let me know if i cut out on you um could you at the end at the end of my comment could you tell me who's on the pandemic advisory committee it's not on the website tried finding it can't if you could help me i'd appreciate it you mentioned that um people were making poor choices by having large gatherings so i'd like to maybe give you a situation here i was told that three mythican students were kicked off the baseball field while they were playing uh three is not a large group and at the same time the tennis courts were fully occupied with you know four people whatever a court so that didn't make a lot
152of sense to me as this board places political activism and activity above sports and learning i'd like to talk about miss larcenises concern for large gatherings the district permitted a large gathering of several hundred activist protesters to use school property as their home base in violation of the governor's order according to chair larcenise the permit was granted for the welfare of the community but the permit only contained name and contact info no fee was paid no purpose was listed no hold harmless documents were obtained and it was a violation of board policy 707 by allowing the permit to go through in light of of the restrictions which prohibited posting distributing or handing out literature and or having a meeting of a partisan political group this black lives matter protest and the group itself is a
153political partisan group who whose funds flow through act blue to the democrat party and democrat candidates the permit never should have been granted and if it happens again in the future i believe there'll be a challenge to what you guys do uh regarding the covet 19 everything i've read supports the coronavirus is not going away it's here for good and no matter what you do people are going to get it the virus mutates a vaccine may only be 60 percent effective and have to be repeated on a yearly basis and unless you wear eye protection masks are useless and according to dr fauci you should be wearing goggles that's not going to fly with kids at school wearing goggles so no matter how much you clean how much ppe you have kids are going to
154get the virus regardless of when you start school now i guess my question is you aren't bringing kids into the school because you don't think it's safe why did you bring kids into the school each and every flu season considering the flu is much more dangerous to kid kids than covid it's actually five times more dangerous you know i'm not sure who's on this committee who's advising you but i don't believe you're getting appropriate advice um you know if you're if you're if you're not gonna impose these restrictions during flu season i certainly don't understand the rationale for all these restrictions when the mortality rate for a 0 to 17 year old is zero and most are asymptomatic with mild symptoms i would concentrate on protecting teachers and let the kids go back to school
155if you could tell me who's on that advisory committee i'd appreciate it thank you dr malik that information is on the website if you go to the um roadmap roadmap to reopening there is a link there for the pandemic team um i'm not sure i i don't know there's probably about 15 to 20 names on that list so i don't know them off the top of my head so next i have amy kenworthy okay miss kenworthy you are in whenever you're ready good evening um my name is amy kenworthy and i'm a third grade teacher at warcester thank you for um hearing me tonight i want to thank the board and administrators um for making these tough decisions i just wanted to say how much teachers value and appreciate our aides and custodians they are
156committed and work very hard to support our students and staff and some of them have been working very hard over the summer to get our classrooms ready and to make sure that the buildings are ready for us so they will be greatly missed thank you thank you miss kenworthy and then finally um our last speaker is miss jenny geiss this is guys i'm just looking for your name there you are okay mrs geiss whenever you're ready there now i'm on all right thank you yes i always a joy to spend an evening with all of you um i really want to reiterate what um amy kenworthy said in that as a teacher going into school to help with setting up for this virtual learning our instructional assistants and aids have been invaluable um even though
157many of them got notification through an email for dr zerby a couple days ago that they might be furloughed they are still showing up this week to help to assist to help prepare for everything um as mr mcginnis said i am 100 in agreement that kids need a coach in their life and that we need to stand up for the coaches and children's lives mespa and teamsters are some of the coaches in these children's lives they are there for the kids um this is my 25th year i will be teaching kindergarten i have had a pca who started in kindergarten with a student that is now currently in high school and she is still his pca she is definitely a very positive coach in his life and i'm sure would really appreciate continuing to be
158a positive influence in his life um i have had in kindergarten instructional assistants and pca's who when they are through assisting the child they are assigned to will help the other children sitting nearby especially in things like zipping coats um helping them pack up i have had students who come in from recess absolutely ecstatic because one of the pcas or aids taught them how to swing it wasn't a skill they knew before they came to school and this person was the coach in their life and when you're five learning how to swing independently is as exciting as a touchdown on the football field we have had custodial staff who on their own time will draw pictures and leave them in my kindergarten room for various holidays because their hobby is an artist i have had
159custodial staff who will come down to help with the midday bus run if there's a snow storm they come down to make sure that is shoveled and ready and will even help walk the kids to the bus and implement weather if they are available other custodial staff usually they get called down to kindergarten when a child has thrown up or missed in the bathroom and they might have to clean up some bodily fluids which is not exactly exciting and fun those exact same custodians have come in on a day where our math lesson is learning about symmetry and we're folding coffee filters and cutting out snowflakes and you can imagine after 44 five-year-olds have cut out snowflakes that the floor does look a bit like it has snowed inside and the response has been doesn't
160it look like you had a fabulous day at school today those are all examples of times the teamsters and mespas have helped in person please give these people a chance to make that kind of impact in the virtual learning environment i am 100 confident that every single one of our mess button teamsters that wants to work virtually will make those exact same heart-touching commitments to be a coach in these children's lives thank you so much thank you mrs geiss okay so i believe that takes care of everyone for courtesy of the floor do we have any comments from the board before we adjourn mr winners so tim can you answer the question we've we've had this question bounce around several times so i know that at the last finance meeting we asked about the bond
161premium and being provided the final schedules um my understanding from what you had provided us before is that the uh because of what what limited choices are out there there was a premium the bond uh premium was 1.88 versus 1.8 on our refinancing so can you explain that in the principle of why we were able to get additional funding for just a small basis so the premium that is paid is for paying a higher interest rate however the higher interest rate that we're looking at was in line with the other bonds that we were getting it also gave us about 2.5 i can't remember the exact number off the top of my head right now of additional funds that we can utilize now and time value of money for the school district it makes sense
162any other comments from the board ms drummond yeah i just have a question um i we've gotten um a couple inquiries about ensuring that all the documents um that we're sending virtually are appropriately translated for um families where english might not be their first language and i just um i just i'm raising that just to make sure that that's happening and you know and i guess inquiring about the process related to that so we have we have a number of different ways to handle that but one of the most recent ways is that um with the we're calling it a soft launch of the revamp of our website that that soft launch includes a translation service right inside right inside each of the documents so that's one new feature that when we we're ready to
163announce that we'll we'll announce i mean people can use it right now but we didn't publicize it because we still have some work to do on another a couple of other matters uh additionally dr wang stepped through the pupil services office's house uh third party services we do have some uh translation languages for our um a school messenger platform which we just enabled and the last part is um i can't think there's one other piece that we haven't i can't i can't remember off the top of my head but it it uh it certainly is something that uh we become uh accustomed to uh trying to make sure that all those communications include uh the languages as they're so defined within our student population within the district and communicate that thank you anything else from
164the board oh and and just to add with that like even on our website you have the app where you could translate your entire website information for any language accessibility so our website is able to do that so i just want to add that also as well we have that drop down option okay anyone else i'll take a motion to adjourn okay i wouldn't have to ask twice all right thanks everyone meeting adjourned thank you good night