05/07/2026 MCSD School Board Budget Meeting

001So that is June 25th. The next step, our next crucial step that we have is our tentative uh our proposed final budget that we have to have passed uh by May 31st. We have a special voting meeting scheduled for our COW meeting in May. It'll be May 21st, where we'll be voting on our proposed final. Um I have to have the budget uh posted, advertised, um available for public inspection for 30 days before we do our um final uh budget adoption in June. So that's why we have to have the our proposed final uh voted on in May. So our timeline is winding down here at the district. So here's where we are, um the big picture. We have revenues of $99,643. And um up until this morning, we had expenses of 105 059. We

002had a We were coming in with a preliminary deficit of 5.4 million. Um and then uh for those of you who were here for our first discussion on April 15th, we do have that preliminary deficit, but we're planning on taking some technology purchases, a significant amount of technology purchases. They're 1.3 million out of an assigned technology budget. It's um money that we have set aside on the balance sheet for technology purchases. We also have an assigned fund balance for some security purchases we're planning on making next year. And then um I have there 2.5 million that's in the governor's proposed state um budget. Uh we have gotten funding adequacy funding. Um it was part of a lawsuit that was brought against the Commonwealth um for poorer districts. Uh the Mifflin County's uh adequacy was determined

003to be $23 million and it's being paid out in um uh annual portions, but none of it is guaranteed. We've We've received 2 years of funding. So, we've received $5 million so far. The governor in his 2026-2027 state's um budget has proposed a third year of funding. So, I have that coming out of our deficit. It is by no means guaranteed because as we know, the state budget hasn't been passed yet. We don't know if that's going to come through or not. But if it does, and if we started out with a 5.4, we would have ended up with a 1.5 million dollar deficit. However, just this morning we had a meeting with our benefits consultants. And um in the um budget that I had presented on April 15th and what I had prepared up

004until this morning, I had assumed a 10% increase in our health care. We had a meeting this morning with um our benefit consultants and he's telling us that our increase looks more like a 20% increase for our health insurance. Um which, you know, is a million dollars. It's actually probably a little more than million. I didn't plug it into our exacts, um, you know, pro forma the way that we would have to do it. That's quite a bit of work. Um, I just took an estimate and just threw it into these, uh, uh, to this presentation as a million dollars. He's hoping that it will stop at, uh, 20%. Um, you know, and that hopefully it would come in at like 18. But, um, at this point he can't make any guarantees, but he's thinking

005our 10% that we had initially estimated is going to be, uh, way too low. So, sorry, there's absolutely no way we can stop that increase or mitigate it any way like with deductibles or anything like that? So, we can start those conversations now, but it's just way too late to, um, you know, to make any changes that are are going to affect the 26-27 budgets. Um, our plan renews October 1st. So, What? The increase is based on losses. So, right now we're showing, um, you know, it's just based on a rolling 12 months worth of losses. Typically, what happens is he'll, you know, they run the reports all the time. They're seeing, you know, what our, um, loss ratios are. They watch it closely for us. And, you know, things will get bad, bad, bad,

006bad, and then it'll turn. But, um, things just keep seeming to get worse for us with the with the 12 rolling months that they as they are watching it. So, um, you know, we were hoping that he was going to arrive with good news. And, um, there just was no good news. So, they can't If you meet October 1st, what's that meeting about? You can't Is there any plan for the October 1st is when it renews. Okay, so do we know at that point then when we I mean Well, they'll look at the loss ratios um you know, like through June and that's what will determine our premium starting October 1st. So, there is a chance that um you know, we'll have to have our budget done. But, there's a chance that the actual will

007come in less um based on the activity through June, you know, July is when when they will set our premium and stuff so that we could come in lower than what we had budgeted. But, we'll just have to you know, make a determination of what we're going to budget and he's saying it's not going to be 10. Okay, thank you. Yikes. So, um we have been very very fortunate here in the district. I know last year I had spoken with the business manager at Huntington and they had an 18% increase last year in Huntington. I mean, all over the state people have been seeing larger increases and then in ours I have a slide on health insurance later on. Um I mean, last year's ours was less than three. Right. And That's what I'm kind

008of shocked We had 93% utilization rate the year before we're at 110% right now. Yes. How did that How does that Well, I mean, it's just uh I'm going to the our Wow. missions to the hospital are up 42% ER visits are up 27% in the last 12 months roll. I I don't know you don't hear me or what. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. I So, when we had 93% usage rate I got insurance company's out all this money. That's kind of what I'm saying. >> That's why they don't need 3%. I'm still perplexed, but please continue. Okay. I'm still in shock. I mean Do we have a fully funded plan or a self-funded plan? No, we're not self-insured. It's um Yeah, it's just we just pay the premiums and the premiums

009will go up based on our usage. But is it fully funded or is it level funded at that point? Because if you're a level funded plan, there's an option to add a stop loss. There's no stop loss. So you're Okay, so it's fully funded. Um so where am I coming up as of right now would be with a, you know, if all goes well with this 2.5 from the state with the adequacy, we would be looking at a deficit of 2 and 1/2 million. Um this is the progression from last the last meeting that we had. We were starting with this uh deficit of 6.1 at that meeting. Um and you know, this is very much a work in progress. We uh you know, all over the district, people are having meetings uh discussing what

010next year is going to look like. Um I added a couple of things in the revenue column. We've uh you know, and you can just see a list of items that were added and subtracted off of the expense column. I guess some of the the larger things um have to do with uh salaries, uh with uh personnel. One thing I wanted to highlight, technology capital. One of the things that I did with this year's budget um is I went through all of our building budgets and I took out anything that we could put into our capital reserve. Like a lot of times um in maintenance, for instance, with Mr. White, like after when he came on board, he had done such a phenomenal job with his budget. We actually put um like vehicle purchases back

011into the operating budget. Um those anything over $5,000, the district's capitalization threshold is $5,000. So, anything over $5,000, we can purchase out of our capital reserve fund. But, Mr. White had cut so much out of his operational budget that we went ahead and put the vehicles back into operations because um you know he had cut other expenses and done such a great job with that. But, this year I went through and I scrapped all of the um building budgets for uh capital purchases. I pulled those all back out because as you can see, we have a deficit. I wanted to pull everything out that I could and pull it over into the capital reserve. Um so, I had found $30,000 in the technology budget. Uh we can pull that out. We can use this capital

012reserve for that because we have like 8.8 million dollars in capital reserve. Um and that's what those funds are supposed to be used for. So, um then we had some vacancies that we had added for some additional for some position uh for actually it was just one position. And then we had some positions where um people were retiring and we thought that we could uh find some savings there through attrition. If I can jump right in. Remember Mr. Ruby said about what we did last year? Yes. And we had to wait for the high school. We had to wait for them to get done with their course registrations for this year's freshman and junior high up through 11th graders for the schedule for next year. Um and then the basically the the matrix is already

013is just been developed now. So, that's when we went back and we had had these meetings working better utilize and this is what we came up. We could remove four positions from the high school. Schedule efficiencies is is the right you're making schedule efficiencies. >> Yes. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember, you asked what you're going to do that like the music, but we had to wait until certain things get set up to do that. So, I couldn't do it for the first meeting. Yeah. So, then we went even down to Indian Valley supplies. We found out we have a allergy situation. So, that necessitated some additional supplies at that building. So, we had to make that adjustment. So, this is just I just wanted to show you the difference between the last time we talked

014and the numbers that I'm bringing to you today. So, there we get to the the 2.5. Then this is just the total looking at the expenses year over year with that million in there. It would be a $5.3 million increase over the current year's budget. 3.4 million is in salaries and benefits. A little under 400,000 increase in charter tuitions, a little under 200,000 in our alternative placement tuitions, 352,000 in our transportation costs, and our debt service increased 672,000. That's deceiving because as I had mentioned in our April meeting, I had neglected to put um 515,000 in the current year's budget, which was the foundation's um contribution and it was a principal payment. So, I didn't budget that in the current year's budget, so it makes the current to next makes the budget to budget comparison

015look a little distorted. Does that shorter tuition reflect the {quote} {unquote} new rules? It does. It does. It would have been more if we didn't have the transfer reform. What we're worried about this summer is that right now if you have a truancy case started, you can't leave. If the judge gets involved and you're not allowed to leave. What we don't and it's helping us. What we don't know, Mr. Ervin, what's going to happen over the summer. Like there's not active truancy attendance. So, kids would have the opportunity cuz the school year is over if they wanted to transfer over the summer. Oh, okay. So, if they start next school year and they become truant again habitually truant, they have to hit six unlawful absences. At that point, they're not allowed to transfer to a

016cyber charter unless a judge okays it. The judges can. There could be a scenario where they could. But, you can't track that over the summer. Is it I'm not sure what >> I don't think we can carry that You can't After the school year ends, it it they're cleared again. They're no longer truant. So, it's a reset. >> you. All right. But, I would say I've said this many times and it's just our gut. I would say over 80% of students that go to cyber charter schools after, let's say, October 1st is for truancy reasons. So, Sure. If we can slow that down, I think it's going to help us. Yes. Yeah. So, it is it's definitely helping us now. Yeah. Hopefully it gets a little better. All right. I'm sorry. I didn't know you

017were referring to the I don't know those rules. Well, I don't know I I know that they changed rules in our favor, so to speak. >> Yes. But, I was just making sure they were able to be included. >> Well, financially, we're allowed to deduct 60% of our maintenance costs and 60% of our student activity costs. So, the new rates, um, this number will reflect those new rates. Thank you. So, this is just a comparison of payroll. You can see at 64% of our budget year over year. Uh, and you can just see, you know, the increase, the $3 million increase. Um, in payroll costs. With that million dollars in um, added health insurance costs thrown in there. The next page, um, shows the positions. I had had this slide on the April presentation. So,

018we did, uh, change course on four positions. We took out the new high school English position that we had in, uh, the earlier presentation. And we took out, um, three the three positions at the high school, the math, tech ed, and science positions. Those were retirements, um, that were not billing. And one was a resignation. Tech ed was. So, then this is, um, what the 2026-2027 staffing would look like. In all the different categories of our employees. If you remember, the cafeteria has its own budget. So, this is not including cafeteria workers in the payroll. That's correct. We'll bring the, uh, food service budget to you in July. It's completely separate set of books. Is cafeteria workers on district insurance or they on They are. Yeah, they are. They're not included in the insurance numbers.

019Um they would be included. Yes, that's a good point. Yes, they would be included. They're not part of of the 637. That's what I wanted to ask. What portion of the 637 are on? Yes. So there's no additional increase in that budget then for benefits. It's all in this one. Well, no. Um it will be on that side. Okay. Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm getting confused. So there will be an an increase in their uh budget for health insurance as well. This million is only for these employees. Okay. The million is for these employees on our side. Good question. Yeah. So this is our health insurance slide. So initially I had the 10% um that's what we had built in. But then I just added um the information you know that we got today

020at 20% increase. Our um total cost of a family would be uh like $38,000. And we we had the opt-out at 4,000. So it's a significant savings um when we have employees who opt out of our insurance. How often does that happen? I mean we when we get the new grads and they're still on their parents' insurance. Remember now they get to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26. Yep. That helps. Yep. And then get them $4,000 they can put towards their student loans or And every little bit does help. Is the 4,000 number fixed in the contract? >> Yes. This is a history of our health insurance. Um so you can see like in 1910 $6,800. So You know the increases It has increased but um not as much as um you know

021other districts. We really have been fortunate. You know but it is a large expense. It's a very large expense for us. And we do um as I say every year, I mean this is a an area where we see savings um in the budget because we budget family coverage for all of our new um vacancies. And if we get an opt-out, you know that's um where we see savings um in our budget. Like that's part of our conservative budgeting. So I guess do you have those numbers in here of what we budget versus what our spend's been each of those years? Because is that anywhere where the fund balance been coming from? That would be part of it. Yes. How big like is that consistent every year? >> Every year. So I mean sometimes it

022it was um like not in recent years but in years past it would have been a million dollars. Okay. Because uh just with the way our budgeting process works um uh our premium share in not last year last year I changed the way I did it but two years and prior I didn't include the premium share in our budget like that I knew I had in my back pocket I had that as surplus. You know just in case something came up during the year so that was $450,000. Okay. But last year I um I stopped saving that. So we no longer have that cushion. Premium share is a flat number it's not a percentage. Right. That's determined by contract. So this is another large expense for us and you can see how it's grown. When

023I started here you can see it was 4.78% $1.5 million. And it's projected this year at $12 million. So you know it's just an unbelievable increase in expense for the district. It has leveled off. In 23-24 we saw we saw the first decrease that we had seen. And again in 26-27 it's going to go down just slightly in percentage. For my own benefit what drives that? Increase or decrease? So it's a rate that's certified by by P 3 s. What caused the large increase was they had suffered huge investment losses in 2008. Oh, yeah. Um, and they just had to to try to make up those losses. >> year. I remember that year. Right. Okay. Well, I mean so 2013 14 and then 14 15 there's there's some sizable increases. Is that attributed to investment?

024What I'm not >> Yeah, that's when That's when they started ramping up the rates. And they were telling us there's no like they didn't know where it was going to stop. They Oops, they didn't know how high it was going to go. >> But they didn't give a reason? I actually read a little bit. I think some of it was they were underfunded. More people were retiring than what they were hiring for that rate. So, they just had to go to a point that they had to spike it up to get >> Well, and then they changed um, the way they changed the the benefits. >> Yes. So I get that. Yeah. >> The new employees do not get the same There's There's two different retirement systems. And then that was through that was in

025the early 2000s and then we just maxed out the pension. Anybody that's in the new They get the same thing with the state, too. Benefit like servers did it change, too. Yeah, they have multiple >> Yeah, so it's the same probably the same time as y'all, I would think. Yeah. to a defined contribution from a defined benefit plan. >> So, I guess for my own benefit, that's how the working class Very much so. Okay. Yeah, there's nothing you can do about it. Okay. Thank you. So, these are the categories of our tuition expense. And again, these costs have grown significantly over the years. So, object code 562 561 is our other costs. These are our other placements for any number of reasons, medical, behavioral. Um And then 562 is our charter school costs. 564 vocational,

026that's our um academy. I wanted to point out on this slide, you can see like for 25 26, um even if we look at the first line, other, we budgeted 1.4, I'm projecting uh 1.3. And even for charter school, 5.7 versus 5.6. This is an area uh where we're coming in under budget for the current year. And I increased the budget for 26 27. We have no idea how many placements we're going to have, you know, in a given year. And certainly we don't want to be over budget on either of these lines, any of these lines. So, this is an area where hopefully um we'll see where we'll come in under under budget. Um but, you know, again, we don't want to come in over budget, so hopefully there's uh a cushion in these

027in these numbers. For the academy, we'll have their budget, I mean, we'll come in to the penny on the on the academy's budget. The next page is shows our charter school rates, and you can see the changes that were made for 25 26. That was the first year where we had some real reform. Um unfortunately, we didn't get it until the budget was passed, 135 days late. We had to actually do two uh calculations. So, we had our rates for the beginning of the year and then we had a new set of rates for starting in January 1st and now we actually have four different rates for charter schools. We have the regular which they call non-special. We have non-special, we have non-special cyber and then we have special for brick and mortar and then

028special cyber. So we have four different charter school rates now and as I mentioned we're allowed to deduct 60% of our maintenance and student activity charges and they the governor has proposed raising those percentages to 80% in the current in his current budget proposal. And then down at the bottom I have our new um tuition rates. They're are they're certified by PDE each each year. The next page shows you our outstanding debts. So um Mr. Warner's predecessor, Mr. Eastab, the feather in his cap was that he had renovated all of our buildings in his tenure. Um and I mean the way we did that was with borrowed funds. So um we've done a good job with that uh paying down that debt and this is this is what it looks like. This is the debt

029that's remaining on our books and by 2034 we'll be virtually debt free. What do the annual payments on those look like again? It's the next page. >> Next page is our debt service. It's a big carrot to make it that far. That's just going to be nice. So we're you know, we're just um winding that down. Just keep making our payments every year. You know, the one thing that would be really nice if the adequacy that $23 million um that was determined to be in Methuen County Sheriff of adequacy. Um uh what we've been paid is $2.5 million. So if that's if that gets paid out over 9 years, I mean it's all if. But um that would take us through uh 2032 2033. That would get us to the end of our significant debt

030service. I mean that would be fantastic if if the stars would align and would allow that to happen. Um but certainly you know, there's no guarantee. There's no guarantee that um the state is going to fund that $2.5 million each and every year. I mean it might be a battle each and every year. Maybe maybe we'll get it some years and some years we will not. There's just no there's no guarantee what's going to happen with that adequacy funding. So if they would stop the adequacy funding, there's going to be another lawsuit. So um I was at a conference last week and that was you know, they want to wait to see if it stops. If it does stop, you know, they want to go ahead and move forward with it. If they the state

031did not but the judge told the state they were supposed to provide, they haven't met it yet and if they would stop there like for us like $2.5 million there's going to be a lawsuit. And then that the last fall like 3 4 years. >> It was a long time. It might have been 4 years. So now, the attorney I'm yet the head of the lead attorney I heard him speak on Friday morning. He said it would not take you 4 more years. And if it goes within the next 3 years, it would be the same judge. Because that judge is not retired yet. So if the stipulation is the state doesn't follow through, you go back to the same judge if they're still there. So they're hoping that would expedite it, but you know,

032it's that that's where we are right now. So we're hoping keep that 2.5 coming every year. And what happens is it becomes your base. So by statute. So the first year we got 2.5, the second year we got another 2.5 and that became our base. The next year we got 2.5, so now our base is five. We'll always get five. So we're hoping this year we get 2.5, then 7.5 would be our base. Um but yeah, it remains to be seen if we're going to get the third installment. So this is the slide. Um you've seen this before, the history of our real estate mills. The last tax increase that we had was in the 2019-2020. Our taxes have actually gone down for the 10,000 homestead farmstead properties that we have in the district. We

033were just talking to somebody today and we mentioned this and they said, "My taxes haven't gone down." And we said, "Yes, they have." And they said, "No, that's not right. I've got to go home and check." And we said, "Yeah, you should do that because your taxes have definitely gone down by $144 in the in the past um 5 years. Uh nobody notices when the taxes go down, but um they have, you know, because of the the gambling revenue that that has gotten passed on to homestead homestead um tax reduction. This is the district's uh current situation with the real estate mills um per the actual one index. It's 4.8 is the adjusted our adjusted index this year. So, the maximum increase for our mills would be 1.657. It would result in um in increased

034revenue for the district of 1. 4 a little less than 1.4 million. The average per parcel would be 30 or the average um we have 22,349 parcels, so that would be $61.61 per average per parcel. I mean, it would be about $5 per month on average. We did get our notice May 1st of the new um allocation for the property tax reduction. The state certifies that amount every April 15th, and the superintendents are notified every May 1st. And they certified the exact same amount as they did last year. And actually um there's two parts to it. There's the amount that they certified from the gambling revenues, and then there's the amount that we get from um what's called the Sterling um the Sterling proper the Sterling tax. And um our Sterling Act actually went down

035by $1,000. So, um unfortunately, this year we don't have any additional uh homestead farm stead to to pass on. It's going to be uh you know, there's nothing in addition. Our the amount will stay the same as last year, 326.91. I mean, it might change by like 10 cents with a uh $1,000 less in the Sterling Act grant that we received. So, I just wanted to show you this putting all of the expenses together. Last time we talked about revenues. This is just a summary of all of the expenses with a side-by-side comparison um by object code. It's just kind of a uh it's a way that school districts group their expenses by description. So, it just shows you uh the difference year over year. Um the adjustments for salary and benefits, you might remember

036I had explained last year we had added almost 15 positions, 14 and 1/2 positions to the budget, and we weren't even sure we were going to be able to find 14 and 1/2 people to fill them. So, I had um budgeted those under the 800 object code because that way we were able to um exclude them from our charter tuition calculation. It was um perfectly acceptable way to uh budget and avoid um you know, that technicality. So, but it kind of skews the numbers when we're trying to do a comparison, so that's what this adjusted column like. Uh this four here to try to make it an apples-to-apples comparison when we're looking at it this way. The other services increase, that's um the charter school, the alternative tuition, and also our transportation costs are are

037in the 500. The this 972 um the 800 is our interest, the 972 is our principal. So, you'd have to to add those together for the debt, and as I said, that's really overstated by the 515,000 that I didn't budget in our current year. What What falls in the 800 and 900 category? It's our debt service. >> Okay. And in the budget of that? Yes. And you said in the 500 is like the charter school. >> Charter tuition and um our transportation. Okay. So, this is our picture of our fund balance. Um just to show you again where we are. You know, we've we've talked about the unprecedented increases that we had in from the state funding over the years. Um you know, we've had we had surpluses um in recent years that enabled us

038to um increase our fund balance. So, we actually ended the year the last full 12-month period June 30, 2025 with a fund balance of just under $29 million. And looking at our capital reserve, it's just another fund that we have completely separate from our general funds. Um this is the last full year that we have audited 2024-2025. We have $8.9 million in our capital reserve. Of that, we have committed we have a balance left that we owe to McClure um for a um an escrow project capital improvements cost. We still owe them six payments totaling $409,000. Um we've spent out of there the board had approved expenses so far in 2025-2026 $272,000. At at our last meeting, the board approved $842,000 in expenses out of this out of this account. So, that's $1.5 million. And

039then as I said, I took out all of the requests, all of the capital reserve, things that would qualify as capital reserve purchases, I took them out of everybody's operating budget. And this is the list that I would have I would be bringing to you um for approval. Um you know, at at the May or the June meeting. Food service is asking for some warmers and coolers. Ali has made some new carpeting. Technology has a fiber infrastructure projects. And then athletics is asking for a pole vault package, cable crossover, that's a piece of equipment for football, and then timing system. So that the total is $1.6 million. So 1.5 is spent or committed and an additional 1.6 is being requested. Didn't we hear they had a donations for the timing system? >> got to put

040in the budget. Okay. But yes, there was discussion. And we're fingers crossed. Does that include the list of capital improvements that approved and so forth there? Yes. The list from last Well, actually, you know what? No, not the ones that have not been spent. So we would have $125,000 for the playground at East area. There's some windows left in this building. There were There was a vehicle in there, which I'm not sure we're going to do this year, but there was a few things >> Okay. I got you. So I just I was just asking what was in there and Sure, sure, sure. So Tom brought up a good point. So there were things that were approved last June that um haven't been spent yet. So I've missed those on my list. So the the

041board did approve a whole long list in June. The things that Tom hasn't gotten around to yet, I would not have picked up. I would have missed that. >> There's a few things, the paving, East area playground, which we're putting out for bid right now, a vehicle, which I don't think we're going to do this year. Uh there's a couple of small things, but they're the big ticket things. And then there's some windows left in this building and and the boiler. And um Boiler was one that we just discussed. of the people of the United States of America 2025 and approved it for this this working year. Yeah, and I can update that. This is the Academy Fund Balance. So the Academy has their completely owned separate set of books. Um, but the district does

042pay Um, you know, so they work out their budgets. They have their own state subsidy that they receive. They receive tuition from Juniata County School District, but they take their total expenses minus the revenue that they receive and the district funds the difference. Um, but this is their fund balance. I got this from um, their audited financial statements from June 30th. So, they have in their secondary, like this would be like their high school books, which is what um, Juniata School District funds. They had um, a fund balance of 1.970. And they have this Page Estate. They There was an individual who had left money in an estate from an estate to the Academy. It was when I had first started here, so it was 16 years ago. Um, and that money is um, still

043is still there. $276,000. And then they have an adult ed uh, fund balance of $751,000. So their total unassigned uh, a fund balance is a little less $3 million. And then they also have a capital projects fund similar just like we do, $941,000. I'm not sure if they've taken any of this unassigned general fund and you know, they might have made transfers in the current year. This was the only information that I had was from um the their audited financial statements as of June. So, we tend to look at things um you know, a year at a time. We do know, you know, a little bit about the future like the biggest unknown is the state funding. You know, we get more than half of our revenue from the state, so we don't know what's

044happening at the state. You know, the state doesn't know what's happening at the state, so it's really hard to predict um future, but um you know, some things are set in stone. We have um contracted uh some of our contracts are all have already been negotiated, so I just have this slide of things that we know that are going to happen. We we have our teacher contract um increases, our custodial uh contracts, we have um our compensation agreements for uh administrators. We know what those increases are going to be through um these future years. Our So, I have our clerical contracts is is up in the current year. That's going to have to be negotiated for 27-28 and beyond, but so these are the numbers uh that we know uh for wage increases when you

045add in the pieces and the other payroll taxes and that would leave him an assigned uh technology balance of $448,000. So, he's going to need money for technology purchases. Um yeah. Looking at beyond 27-28. Does this include the technology that we've already approved? The backup system in particular? Yeah. The one that we just approved. >> approved. Yes, that would be this 1252. Okay. >> Or no, that would be that's the 710 cuz we're we just bought that. Yes. The 710. Those two pieces, the one was 40 and the one was 600 something. Yeah. Yes, that's the 710. Okay. So, this is where we are. This is where we land. We have um as of today and in the bombshell that we got this morning, we have a deficit of $2.5 million. So, you know, we

046we just need to know what we're how to proceed. We could We have options. We can utilize fund balance to cover the deficit. Like that's what we have been doing in the past. We've been successful utilizing that approach. We we budget conservatively and you know, we cross our fingers, we hope for the best. And everybody in the district, you know, watches their purchases very carefully and um we end up meeting our budget consistently and we end up, you know, coming out ahead at the end of the year. Uh that's option one. Option two is we raise revenues. And option three is lower our expenses. I mean, really that's what any, you know, that those are the number two and number three and that's just basic arithmetic. That's how any business would, um cover a projected

047deficit. So, we're just looking for a little bit of direction as to what your thoughts are. So, just just a quick thought. I mean, even if we do a maximum tax increase, it doesn't cover the deficit as it sits today. True. And I mean, we haven't had an increase in what, 7 years? Correct if what you said. Yeah. And it's over the last 12. Every year we lost that base, but the expenses continued, but we've come in under budget every year. That is correct. >> I would like to see where, like, where the largest chunk every year was coming in, you know, has it been consistently the same category? Has it always been, you know, in insurance and not enough people signed up for it or not everyone's taking advantage of it? Like, is it

048that year after year and is it 20% a year or is it 15% a year? Like, would it be possible to see that or is that something you might know off the top of your head? >> Well, so in my last presentation, I did have a slide that showed how we Let me just pull that up here. That's really it was our, um it was the revenue side that helped us out. So, here in 22-23 um 22-23 we had a surplus of $6 million. 1.4 in earned income tax, a million in interest, 1.2 basic ed funding. And then um the I'm looking for the Yeah, medical insurance. Yeah, so 22-23, 23-24, 24-25 I had I was under budget in medical insurance by a million dollars all three of those years. So, 25-26 in the current

049year that we're in I stopped that. I took the uh premium share and I incorporated that into the budget. I no longer left myself that cushion in the budget because I thought, you know, we we're we can we're consistently having those overages and um you know, it's just not necessary. I don't need to give myself that much cushion. Okay. So, um we don't we don't have that anymore. Yes. So, like um 23-24 the surplus was a million, 24-25 the surplus was 1.8. Those surpluses were boosted by COVID money though, right? Not in those years, no. That was a few years earlier. That's when we really put up our fund up. Yes, correct. So, that surplus could quickly go away if they pull the out-of-school funding and we have to go into a lawsuit, you know,

050trying to get that funding restored. Which could have a 2-year 3-year gap. Yeah. So, we were definitely in a much better position this time yesterday. How many years did we utilize the fund budget? The The fund balance to cover the How many years did we do that so far? Two? Past 2 years. Um probably I think Uh yes. Yes, '23 '24, '24 '25. 3.2, 5.3. Okay. Yeah, cuz technically we utilized the fund balance for the projected budget, for the projected deficits, but we ended up in a surplus in each of those years. Yeah. Correct. 3.2, we ended up with 1 .1, 5.3, 1.8. Yeah, I don't think we're going to have that 20% increase in health insurance, though. Correct. >> And we're not going to have a huge And those years also included stadium projects.

051Particular direction the board wants to take? So, what are you looking at you say lowering expenses? Well, I mean I have two suggestions. I mean we have um We'd have to look you know, we'd have to There's um field trips. There's uh supplies. Certainly salaries and benefits is our biggest expense. Um you know, transportation is under contract. There's not much we can do there. Um What could we This is a legitimate question. We're paying an awful lot to cyber charter school. What could we be doing? Is there anything we could be doing to reduce that? We've been proactive with that by enhancing our own program. We're trying to get people to come back, correct, Mr. Gardner? >> Compared to other school districts, we're in a much better position in cyber charter tuition than We have

052a robust program, but there's always room for improvement, but we had we had those discussions, Mr. Baker. >> Yeah. And the anomaly is I think what Mr. Irwin's referencing I mean we sometimes follow the the rules to a T with the compulsory attendance and we're pushing people out to avoid truancy. And at least now they can't do that. But to do a better program we have a school within a school. Um so many of our kids utilize Alpha or very few MCO. Like 12. Yeah. It's real small. I mean that's like That's pretty low. The younger The younger people in administration I think The high school and middle school and junior high kids that that's junior high high school really utilize Alpha. So, if if if one of our students wants a hybrid schedule, like

053some in our building, some on Alpha, some would take a class we don't offer, you know, we definitely have a robust program that can meet that. Are we able to look at a combination of like one and two? I'm just thinking this year, you know, 20% this year in healthcare, next year what if it's another 15%? And we didn't do any increase, then we're looking at a substantial amount we're pulling out of fund balance to cover it. You do not have to raise taxes to the max. Correct. And that's happened in the past. And I don't know where everyone else feels on that, but but if we don't increase anything, all of our expenses are continuously increasing. We don't want to be in a situation down the road where we can't cover enough to cover

054our contractual obligations. I think that's a good place to start. Actually, in go back and look at the history of the district over the years, um we've been extremely frugal. Almost to a fault. And the legislature hasn't helped us. They haven't helped anybody, for that matter. In terms of utilizing something like option three, the only option that would work for three years, unfortunately, furlough, but that would not be something we would want to see at all, especially looking at you know, keeping the integrity of our educational quality. We eliminated four positions in the last month at the high school. The high school. Through attrition, yes. >> Yes, attrition. So, that they would be you're not paying on one of your primary play on employment. Um So, it's not it's not a one-for-one savings. No, I

055mean outstanding I mean what I mean Pardon me? Any outstanding positions that are posted that we're planning to fill in and what's on the list? Didn't we say at one point we were looking to hire was it four on the uh Was it Was it six para but was it special? Well, I mean the ones that we just eliminated like this week in the preparation for tonight, they were posted positions. Okay. Maybe that's what we're thinking about Mr. Well, that was my first question, yes. They were posted. So, like one was a one person was already told they'd be brought to the board for recommendation and and we reached out to that person. And we did not we just moved forward. Okay. All right. Elimination. Any other input from the board? Well, I have a

056question, Mr. Garner. One of you might be able to answer this. At one point we um we whittled ourselves down to like what? Around a million bucks? In our um our fund balance. >> Fund balance is really, really low. >> Yeah, it's my concern. Well, we I want to do that. That's my opinion. But what is a safe threshold to go to? The W D percent? Yes. I thought that was max threshold. Well, that's that I think that is the max threshold. For unassigned. Unassigned. Unassigned, okay. And we do have some assigned. Okay. And this is exactly what you got. The government asked for this funding. Not sure that's the question. So let me So let me guess what the question is is what's the recommended minimum threshold on unassigned fund balance. Unassigned. Well, I

057mean I think we would want to go below 8% because um I mean our payroll is a million dollars every 2 weeks. So even 8 million dollars isn't going to last very long. Like if the if the state is late with the budget, like that 8 million dollars is going to be gone really quick. So we would never want to go below the 8% in our unassigned. Um and I mean yeah, we we definitely don't want to deplete our assigned fund balance either. Like we have this COVID balance here that's 11.5. Um which we had accumulated, you know, with the COVID money. The SR's money that we had received. Um we were able to save you know, general fund money that we had and we just put the excess into this COVID we were saving

058it for when those funds dried up. Um Uh so we do have a comfortable cushion here. Well, I don't think we want to repeat history. Correct. We'll whittle that down because that's what got us in our in the mess what we went through. I think what when Corzine came into office and reduced the the funding and the bottom fell out. That's where the PESH whole thing started. >> Right. Right. And um so I don't think we want to make that same mistake and go through that again. I apologize up front but you had mentioned something about an increase in the adequacy funding next year due to the timing. Are we going to get more than the two and a half? >> going to be the same. That's the level up. Yes. It was two and

059a half. Right. Right. Right. Why would next year be double your base and not a two and I want to clarify because you talked also about getting like double that next year or something along those lines. I'm just saying that becomes your base. Yeah. So it's part of a ready to learn block grants. So in the past our funding was like $968,000 in the ready to learn. That's what we got next since since I've been here we got the 968,000. But when the adequacy they made adequacy part of the ready to learn so um and then by statute each year that gets added to your ready to learn and they call it foundation, your ready to learn foundation. So the um became like uh 3.2 million, two and a half plus the 968. And then

060so that we would never get less than the 3.2 in the um ready to learn. And then the next year we got an and two and a half. So, then that became our new foundation. We will never get less than that in ready to learn as long as ready to learn exists. We will never get less than that. Do we expect any kind of increases uh in in uh renovations for rooms due to uh classrooms right now that's coming in this next 26 27. So, we are there we know of right now. So, we have Yeah, the the capacity is kind of we were overcrowded at LES with all the autistic sports. There was some space at IV, so there were two classrooms moved there. So, what at LES is actually full again, but there's

061still some a little bit of space at IV cuz those classrooms can go to eight. Um it's not always a good thing to put a full eight in there, but we have we have a little bit of space um you know, to take on the capacity of kids that are coming in kindergarten. Basically. Thank you. Um I'm just concerned that we hold the line there and we don't get surprised. And that's why you have this dude now. Yes. It's been pretty consistent as far as the So, I will say and I I see what you're saying. It seemed like it was way out of line. Like all of a sudden we started getting this huge increase. Like the student population students enrolling were dropping. Um but then we were getting like 10 kids in kindergarten

062every year. Um that just it spiked all of a sudden, but it seems like it's it's level or dropped off a little bit in that 10 number. Like we haven't seen a spike in that in the last few years. You never know. We really don't. All right, but What's the trend in the overall enrollment? Where is Is it down It's it's it's down. Um kindergarten and first grade right now are like between 310 and 315. Um we're expecting till everybody gets enrolled again similar enrollment. And I mean prior to that I would say 340 to 350 was a typical class. We have a couple 370s in there and and the high schools rolled in about what 320 to 330 currently. So we're we're anticipating We're seeing it leveling out right now at 310, but over

063time our enrollment's going to probably get close to 4100 or 4100. >> continue If the enrollments continue the way that they have been, we'll roll some larger classes out and then it will continue to come down overall. It gives us the opportunity to reduce staff a little bit through attrition over time. But you have to wait till that group gets through till we clear the big groups and then the smaller groups start to come through. And that's what I think you're seeing some of that with those well they were up there the job at the county high school where there were some retirements and we looked at enrollments and schedules and can we still maintain a very a decent class size, you know, and and and teaching schedule for people, but at the same time,

064you know, do we need do we need really small classes? No, we don't. Well, I think the CT teachers uh overloaded. I I don't think we're there. >> No, we don't. I mean we've looked at those numbers. Yeah, and that ties in with what Mr. Baker said about alpha time. We for whatever reason like if I had a son that was going to graduate next year, I would want them to take an alpha course because you don't have that opportunity at you know, a college or trade school and it seems like a good percentage of our juniors and seniors taking alpha class for math. And that's one of one of the teachers we're not replacing. Because there's there's two math teachers in the alpha program and they're they're they're full of the seniors and they're

065doing their thing. And you know, there's still our students who are they're like, you know, they're 324 seniors, 317 juniors, 319 sophomores. But we have more kids taking math and alpha than they have in the past. They go in and they want the teacher one-on-one. They might go in three days a week, whatever they, you know. But it's kind of good that they're getting that experience before they go to college. Mhm. I I just don't want to see our teachers Yeah. overloaded. Yeah, you don't want to see a class of 35 and we're cutting people out. Yeah. Especially if the younger Agreed. Well. Yep. Um. Yeah, we're we're at a point now with cutting those we're examining it. We don't any more cuts, I think it's going to be detrimental to education. So, that's where,

066you know, we've waited to do the last four. We're waiting to get the enrollment numbers done and the the class schedule in. I mean, I know Stephen you're looking at it, kind of what we want with anything past this is Right. I mean, we we're kind of presenting this is where we would like to be, if you know, when in this last slide there said reduce expenses and she's correct that our biggest expense 60-something percent is salary and benefits. So, if if you're going to reduce expenses, where you really are going to make a is with positions. So, we would if the board wants us to bring suggestions, those are probably going to be some of the suggestions because that's the biggest impact. But then we're class size >> Right. But I mean, we're to

067where we we're presenting this is what we think we need for next year. If the board wants to go something else, then we we would present options and just give us the direction of what you want to make go away. I'm pretty sure I heard my question answered, but I'm going to ask anyway. Can we look in our crystal ball and how many more retirements might we have over the next 2 years? Hypothetically Call park four, five, 10 It's It's really hard to say. I mean, I think I know that the maybe looked at the seniority list and there's some people on there that you're thinking how have they not >> retired yet and there's some that retired before you before you think they might, but it's I mean, it's been kind of a handful

068the last couple of years. I don't I don't think there's a whole lot of I Yeah, three or four per year and I knew right I always would think it's going to continue at three to four. Yeah. >> Okay. And there's there's always a chance maybe there's a big group that would go, but the average age of our employee right now the manager coming here today is 33 32 years old. Oh, man. What's our average turnover with teachers on a yearly basis excluding retirements? The flow rate It's not huge. No, it's not. We lose some to state college, Bellfont, Big West. You know, more than four >> That's probably about three to four as well. >> We always say expect two unexpected resignations during the summer or we didn't know or anticipated. >> Right. The

069nice thing about the contract is with the AMC contract at least they to get their severance package and bonus, they have to let know by at the voting meeting in February. So, that helps us start planning accordingly. And and doing what we just did. So, okay, we're not going to fill those four positions. And there was a couple of them before that we knew we weren't going to fill with. Between our last two meetings, he threw in those extra four. How how much did the cost of insurance go up, please? From last year? The one that did you say they were? >> Approximately 20%. $2 million. That much of an increase? I think we went over that 40% earlier, yeah. We just learned that this morning at 8:30. So, there's no there's no shopping around

070for that? I was asking that today. Do you ever try to negotiate because just because you get a renewal at 18% doesn't mean you have to accept it. You can negotiate. Now, your broker would would do that for you. I mean, that's what he's supposed to be doing. Yeah. We asked that today, Mrs. Bartle. Yeah. The contract does allow us to shop for other health insurance providers. Like I know in the past, um yeah, we were stuck with one provider, but now we are able to shop around if Highmark is not the ideal choice for health insurance anymore. If that's how I understand it correctly. >> ask that like Mrs. Bartle said, that's that's what our broker does for us. And we actually met with him this morning. And he still believes that Highmark is

071the best option for us? Do we have to stay with the same broker because there's opportunities that you could take advantage of if you moved different brokers? I don't know I don't know if you're contractually committed to that broker. >> No, no, we're not. I mean, something to explore. I hear what Mr. Wyatt was saying about raising revenues and how that might be you know, detrimental if we don't. I am concerned that we have an aging population in our county that is on a fixed income and while $5 a month, $60 over a year might not seem like a lot to working people, people on a fixed income you know, that I agree with that especially with the increases that I've seen in localities with sewer taxes or sewer increases. Yeah, they're coming from the

072county where your boroughs, townships cuz they've been getting breaks from us, but everybody else has been hitting them like crazy. But I hear you guys on that with not going to pull percentage of 1.65, but you guys got to find something like 0.8. They're like $30 a year on average so we're not losing that ability to I think it depends on what the other options are. Like generally when you're short income, you look at cutting your expenses first, not your your first option isn't to go out and get a second job. I mean, obviously there, but that's generally not what people do. On that note, I would like to see at least options for lowering expenses. Um don't know how well that would uh I don't know how much that would impact um the classroom

073quality, but I would at least like to see that entertained by the next budget meeting. Well, I would like to see options of expense reductions that don't impact classroom experience and education. And I think that that would be our primary That would work, too. Yeah, I mean, if we could get a different broker that you know, they probably shop based on high market. The one I think it is. Yeah, there's MetLife and things like that they can shop maybe and I can tell you the same amount or about the same amount. Well, Phillips dropped them because Another one was 27% and that was like a senior increase. >> Yeah. So, 20 doesn't sound so bad when you're looking at 27% increases other places. And that's one of the companies dropped Edna. Edna's one of them.

074Yeah. So, I mean I think it's all all whatever they can find for you. Yeah. But, it's worth worth looking into. I mean if you can save $2 million, that's $2 million. Yeah, I'm stuck on that myself. I'm stuck on the insurance thing myself. I mean there's there's different plan options, too. Obviously, with a fully funded plan, it's the most expensive. It it is the most expensive. So, I mean there are consumer driven, there's level funded that offer stop loss. I mean ultimately, the driver is the usage. So, I mean that's hard to control. Um but, there are different ways people are getting creative. To try to remember what our obligations are under health insurance per the contract. The way that plan is set up wouldn't affect the employees because you could have the same

075plan structure as far as co-pays, um coverages, deductibles. Okay. Can you explain what you're talking about for those of us that don't live in the HR world? I'm sorry. I don't know like So, you obviously when you have a health insurance plan, the easiest way is a fully funded plan because there's essentially less administration. When you kind of get creative and go to a level funded plan, there's a risk involved for both the employer or the the company operating the benefits and the the insurer, the medical provider, or the company. And you kind of gamble on that. And typically, to protect yourself, you have a stop-loss policy that if it your claims go above a certain amount, depending on your population size, this stop-loss policy kicks in, and then you are not paying those claims.

076Um but you also have more ability to manage your claims, where a fully insured plan, anytime the claims go in, they're going in, somebody else is approving them and paying them and just sending them off, where with the level-funded plan, there's a little more oversight on those claims and evaluation of them. Not to say that they all are denied or anything like that, but just looked at and not Let me use Brent's terminology, rubber-stamped. Thank you. I like HR, it's just not my world. I don't know that stuff. I know. Do you Belinda, do you know how much goes into the overall total into HSAs every year? About a million dollars. A million? >> under like 984, I think we pay. Okay. Mr. Donahue mentioned uh stop-loss plans. He said that those are um through

077the roof. Like people are trying to get out of them, he said. I think that it depends on where you are. I mean, if you're coming from a a fully insured plan, I think that there would be an opportunity for cost savings. I don't know your plan details. I mean, I'm just speaking from my experience. I've never experienced an increase to the amount of $20,000 under a a level-funded plan for a self-insured plan. Betty, I have clients that I think the easiest thing at this point would be to negotiate and then push back. You want to have a discussion on the uh on the budget? Can we go back to the road map there of kind of the dates on the first slide? Sure. Yeah. But, I think, you know, from the conversations we've had

078internally, that the next meeting would be May the 18th. May 18th is our final budget workshop and the, uh, in order to stay in compliance, uh, unless we were to want to schedule a special board meeting in June, we would have to We have to get the calendar done May 21st. Cuz she has to post it for her meeting. Yeah, 30 days, yes. So, I think I'm trying to understand what do you need from us and what do we need from administration before the 21st? Cuz that's not that far away right now. I think we've given our direction, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, I think we want to see the cuts in that, but is there anything We we need to, you want to hear from us or you I think, uh, working on

079your proposal of raising taxes, I think, uh, if that's something that we want to entertain, figuring out what rate, uh, we would want to increase. Now, anybody who knows me, I'm the last person who wants tax increases, Right. >> um, but if that is an option that the board wants to at least entertain and hear out to see what that could entail in our budget, um, it would help administration to figure out what rate, um, that at least the majority of the board would feel comfortable going up to. I mean, I can do different scenarios on those. Okay. That's not a difficult task as far as one goes. Yeah, just like the first workshop. Right, like 1 mil with 1/2 a mil. I can do those calculations. I I struggle when we have money left

080over every year, but it's like the time we don't do something but we're not going to have any money left over right and we'll be in a bad situation. So, it's calculating the risk between those. Right. But we don't think about that each board meeting when we're making decisions and voting on items. They are actually trying And public perception, this administration and past board promised the public that there would not be a tax increase for for the stadium project that is nearly completed. That is a bad look. Yes, it would be bad timing. Well, the stadium project is going to get blamed if anything happens, but the reality that's the reality that is is the people in Harrisburg did not help us. Listen. And I'm talking about the they dragged their feet on a fair

081funding formula, cyber charter school funding. That drained us. Not only us, but districts throughout the Commonwealth. But we knew that when we voted for a stadium project. >> Well, but it was a it was a need that we had. It had been ignored for years and that's why I say look at what we've done historically. Historically, we have not been real good at long-range planning. You can't long-range plan if you don't have any money to plan with. I think Mr. Wyland's trying to Well, I think the school board trying to make everyone happy and come up with I think we've got to find a a hybrid Middle ground. Right, I think that's what we've got to find. Historically, we thought historically as a district, we thought taking care of doing a good job taking care

082of what we have. That's correct. But but but we're beyond that point now. I mean, there's no going There's no going back. We need to But, we don't want to continue to make the same mistakes. You are exactly right. You know, we we we um cut corners and didn't take care of our properties, things like that, and we don't want to repeat that. You're exactly right. Uh but, we also need to keep in mind that um where you're where you're coming from. You know, we spent $12 million plus interest on on improvements. And did we have to spend all of that at that time, too? That's the question, you know. But, where where we're at now is uh you know, where we have to decide, are we are we going to take money out of,

083you know, our reserves to cover the deficit? We're going to restructure, you know, cut expenses, combination of of all of those things or a couple of those things. Those are the options we have. The only option for revenue, unfortunately, and I'm and I'm not in a a raising taxes, either. But, unfortunately, we don't make a profit where we can pass the our costs along to the people, but you know. So, And and I'm sorry, I still think we spend we're spending an awful lot on on charter charter schools. More than what I I would like us to have to be spending. But, I just, you know, And and I think it's that have our option to that. But, I really wish that's an area where we can figure out how to cut some of that

084expense somehow. I I I don't know. Do we know the reasons why That's just my opinion. Why kids go to students go to the charter school? I mean, as opposed to brick and mortar? I mean, I did I'm From here, if we can figure that one out, then As long as we can take it, we can reduce the number of You said that by sometime after October 1st, about 80% of the cases where kids go to cyber charter is sure to increase. We've had a couple um you know, you guys would do the boundary exemptions in executive session. Um we've had a couple people that were not granted a boundary exemption and promptly enrolled in the cyber charter school. It It's Some people, I hate to say it's easier. You you're not doing as much

085work in the cyber charter school. You do here, they make you come in. I mean, Well, you're not going to like the next question. What if we allow the exemptions and they don't go to charter school, then? There's going to be challenges with balancing our population if any if it's a free-for-all. Like, where and and having enough kids in the right place. But, there's two or maybe two kids this year with the cyber Yeah, it's only a It's only a couple, but it is I mean, they they did do it. And I will tell you this, there's um and I I talk with a lot of these families. Um you know, people get upset. I usually hear a kid problem and they'll threaten to remove the kid and they usually don't have to walk the

086cliff, but there's there's a percentage of people that they kind of live on the road a lot. Like, there are kids that or their families are in situations where they think still do it throughout but but they choose to do a cyber charter school. There's There's hundreds of people in the agricultural community where their kids are doing cyber charter school and they're they're farming and they're like they're traveling to auctions or they're hauling animals somewhere. So it's it's it's a level of convenience for people that like we myself I go home every night. I sleep but some people are they move around a good bit. They travel multiple days a week and it's a it's an option for them. Would I like to get those kids back to Alba? Yeah. I do get that. I

087teach military students. Same same situation. >> They have to have a residence here in the district. I mean that's a that's a given cuz if they don't like they have to go to whatever district it is for their cyber charter. That district pays for it but if they they're they reside here they can travel and they can go take all the trips they want. There's only five days of bed trips when you're in a brick and mortar. It's a little bit different. Here in the Lebanon Harrisburg online did a five-part series on cyber charter school and the and equities and the abuse. They actually went kind of I want to kind of see the abuse. Yeah. I mean you can Now you you do that and charge the home district then for airplane lessons. Yeah.

088Well nice. I'm getting on my soapbox. But that's >> I I know what you're saying. But and that's been going on for years. Yeah it was getting I think even progressively worse now. But you will see here with the new report. And as far as the stadium goes in this operation budget there's very little expense for the stadium. So I understand >> 300,000. Yeah it's the any tax increase will not be because of the state. The two million dollar increase for insurance we have Well, last year we we increased it a million dollars for cyber charter school. Well, that would be the reality of it, but Cyber security So, we're going to have the reception. This is one of the hundreds that we put reception or And they say it's going to come back and

089The informed person would know that that's that's just not true. That's not true. The one million for you know, that we talked about today, that's 1%. That increased our budget by 1%. Is there any other discussion on the budget? Thank you, Mr. Kennett. Uh, is there any other business that the board would like to discuss? Yes. So, I did some reading to say the least. Um Anybody know what this is? You want to read it? I'm just wondering. It's all Yeah, I know. Uh, it's kind of a rhetorical question. It's 84-page, in my opinion, 84-page door stop at this point. However, it is labeled the student secondary handbook. I don't think that's the exact file name title, but I think everybody gets the idea. It's our student handbook. If I may, I got some notes

090on the topic and I'll read through them as quickly as I can, but there are, in my opinion, enough problems with this handbook I had to write them down. So, I'm going to go through them, if you don't mind, and the intent is to have the policy committee look at this at their next meeting. So, I'm not sure what the protocol is to have them do that. If I can submit some suggestions to them as well. Uh it can be submitted to the chairman of the policy committee to put it on the agenda. Who currently does serve as the chairman of policy committee? So, that would be something that can be submitted to Mr. Steyer. >> Do I email it to him? Is that one of my questions? Is that That's not policy. Okay. Well,

091then that's just All right, fair enough. Where does it belong? Boris? Yeah, I mean it would be a procedure that would be created. It It It's a hybrid cuz it's got ARs, it's got policy, it's got you know, uh stuff from the school code uh all in it. It's supposed to be an easy digest for the students and parents to be able to find stuff. >> I'll get to So, Maybe I should just go through my findings. Okay. Uh Eric, before you start, does every student get a copy of this? Yep. Um not physically anymore. Digital copies are available for all students through the district website. 84 pages. Some of the problems I found. So, Okay, so that answers my first part of the of the question. Um I'm just going to go through this

092if it's repeat, so be it. In my opinion, we go from zero to 100 in 5 seconds where some situations involving infractions as minor as This is just an example, chewing gum on a bathroom putting gum on a bathroom wall can result in a suspension. I'll get to the reasoning in a second. Everybody just bear with me. That approach is wrong and does not reflect progressive discipline or common sense. We also have past examples where blanket punishments were applied without enough consideration for context or proportionality. In several cases, suspension was used where a lesser corrective measure would have been far more appropriate. We need to look at examples such as the Spring Grove School District, which I've also found, and consider aligning our policies more closely with a progressive Don't misunderstand that term. With a

093progressive discipline structure that emphasizes proportionality, accountability, and corrective action. Obviously, and I want to emphasize this, serious safety issues involving violence, threats, weapons, or harassment require a strong immediate response. Do not get me wrong to that regard. We're supposed to be an educational institution. Our first responsibility should be teaching students cause and effect, accountability, and better decision-making, not immediately treating them like criminals. I believe there should be a clear language regarding an appeals process. Right now, there is little guidance for students, parents, or even administrators regarding how disciplinary decisions should be reviewed. I believe we should consider following bullet points. A step-by-step progressive discipline framework. Administrative guidance or flow charts. There are no visuals in this document. None. To better outline process steps. Language requiring a full investigation and collection of all relevant facts before

094discipline is imposed. And a clearly defined appeals process. I dare anybody to search the document and find that. The handbook itself repeatedly references fairness and consistency, but the current structure does not effectively support either. And that brings me to the handbook itself, believe it or not. The secondary student handbook is 84 pages long. That's 84 84 pages. We're expecting teenagers to read a document that many adults would struggle to understand. I haven't read all 484 84 pages. I've skimmed it, believe it or not. It is, in my opinion, horrendous. The heavy use of legal language and poor formatting make it difficult to read and even harder to follow. At its core, is my opinion, this is a communication failure. The first rule of any effective communication is to know your audience. Our audience are students

095and parents. Yet, this document is not written for either. If students cannot quickly understand it, they will not read it. And if they do not read it, it cannot guide their behavior. I teach data analytics courses with this exact same principle. If your audience cannot understand your work or your dashboard or your report, it's not effective. Furthermore, the handbook is filled with excessive, as I mentioned, legal and procedural language that limits student comprehension and contributes to inconsistent enforcement of rules. The formatting also makes the problem that much worse. The organization, font usage, layout of the document make the document difficult to navigate, and quite frankly, visually overwhelming, particularly for teenagers. So, the top issues that I see, excessive legal language. The handbook reads more like a legal administrative policy manual than a guide for students.

096If necessary, that legal language could be put in an appendix or similar location and then referenced in the main document, just as a suggestion. The document has the lack of clear progressive discipline structure. There is no transparent step-by-step progression of consequences, and this creates inconsistency and I guarantee you confusion on behalf of students and parents. It is poorly, in my opinion, poorly organized in terms of organization and also in readability. And this The important information is buried within long paragraphs, which makes it difficult for students and parents to quickly find any answers. To that regard, the inconsistent formatting and visual design, the variant formatting, dense text blocks, and lack of visual hierarchy make the handbook exceptionally difficult to read. It is not designed for its intended audience audience. The handbook fails the most basic communication

097principle. There's no way that teenagers are going to understand the language and format that it that is in that handbook. We need a student-friendly handbook written in teenage-ese. I made that word up. And laid out such that even a half-asleep ninth grader can find the answer before their phone alarm goes off. Right now, the handbook functions more like an 84-page doorstop than an effective communication tool. You could throw it on the table and ask someone to guess what it is. Most people would probably think it's a legal packet or some policy binder, but not a student handbook. The goal here is certainly to not weaken discipline. The goal is to make discipline more consistent, understandable, educational, and effective. The current student handbooks are ineffective in communicating fairness, consistency, and defensibility. Rather than continuing to patch

098them, which we have done I don't know how many times, I I have no idea. I believe we should move forward with complete redesign built around clarity, usability, progressive discipline, accountability, and student comprehension. Little and parent comprehension. I also believe we should take a deliberate user focused approach. As I had mentioned, know your audience. After, well, we're not if we're not going to do a policy committee, uh I would next suggest if we do a new revamp or revision, pilot it with small groups of parents and students. Not initially to debate the policy, but to test the comprehension. If students and parents cannot easily understand the document, that needs fixed first. That kind of collaboration would only improve the handbook itself, but would also strengthen trust, transparency, and respect between the district, families, and students.

099I suggest now that it is now is the right time to make these changes. We are at the end of the school year, which gives us the opportunity to thoughtfully rebuild these handbooks and start next year with something far more effective. In the end, I want to emphasize the goal is not to weaken discipline. The goal is to create a handbook and discipline structure that students can actually understand. And and administrators can apply consistently, and most importantly, something that parents can trust. Rather than continuing to patch a document that is fundamentally difficult to navigate and understand, we should take this opportunity to build something more clear, more modern, more educational, and more effective for everyone. Thank you. So, who do we discuss this with? So, it's somewhat of a hybrid because it involves a mixture

100of policy piece of code. Um So, I think it and correct me if I'm wrong, it would be a matter of really trying to divide up what where the issues divide, whether it would be in policy interpretation. >> I've got a framework, but yes, we have to decide who gets what. Who wrote this one? Mhm. The original person that put it together, I don't know. It's been amended year after year after year. Um Who amended it? I work with the principals to amend it each year. Um sometimes >> updates we get Policy up When a policy gets updated, because by law we have to have some policies in there, the full policies to be in the student handbook. So, when a policy gets updated, we update it and we make this update. Well, you're on

101the policy committee with us. So, could we not put it with the policy committee? What's the problem with doing that? Do we still meet with the classes at the beginning of the school year? Yes. And then and we go over the highlights of that with each each class. Is that correct? >> In secondary, yes, they bring them Uh we have a couple principals here. Do you guys get together in like the different groups? Yeah, we discuss the handbook with them. We don't worry about the whole meeting structure. Well, I guess my question would be why um Why do you think that they don't understand that? I would ask if you read it and tell me what you understand about >> it and I've revised it. I'm I've been down that road. Okay, I'm just asking

102why do you believe that that our children don't understand it? >> 84 pages, you expect a teenager to read 84 pages and understand it. No, we don't expect >> There's your answer. Okay, but they're not required to read it. But we are required required to submit it. >> Yes, they are. They're required to read and sign that they read it. No, they signed that they received it. Unless I'm out of bounds, Mr. Gardner. Has the law changed? Why why are we arguing when something that Did you even look at the format of that? >> let the man answer my question? If they signed that they received the handbook, is that correct? I'm not sure we They signed that they know where that That link is. They were shown where In the past when we gave

103everybody a handbook >> printed and they would sign off. Now they sign All right, but they're not I mean, they're provided the information. They're not required to read it. They just sign off and and fact that They know where to access that information. Well, they have to be reading it and knowing it because if not, they're breaking the you know, because if you can't discipline a kid if they're Oh, I didn't I didn't know that was a rule. Actually, you can. You should You should know that. >> Absolutely, you can because ignorance of the law is no excuse. >> Right, exactly. If you've got policies in place, which the district has and the student says, "Well, yeah, I didn't know because it wasn't in the handbook because, believe me, you'll have parents hire lawyers that'll

104come in and say, "Well, it's not in the handbook." And if you do do a new handbook, then you're going to have to footnote that sucker to death because, you know, anytime there's an expulsion, those lawyers are going to come in and say, "There's no reference to that in the handbook because we made it easier to read for the students and the parents." Oh, well, then it's not binding on us. Well, you have to find it in the policy. Well, where does it say that you have to look in the policy? I mean, I've litigated those cases in multiple districts, you know, not just Mifflin County, not just Midwest, State College, Bellefonte, you know, Juniata, Steelton. I mean, it's Any lawyer that comes in to defend a kid that has violated a school policy, first

105thing they're going to do is is go right at your school handbook and see whether or not there's anything there. By making a reference to the online, uh because that that is one of the questions you ask. Were the student provided with the handbook? And it used to be yes, they signed off on it. And you literally would have a uh hard copy of every student's signature. Now it's like they're made aware of the fact that it's one online. So, it it can be revised to make it easier to read, but you're going to have to footnote it to death because the minute you choose miss a policy or a reference to a school code or a case that's been handed down, you're going to get chewed up by, you know, a parent who brings

106in an attorney to defend their kid. And I'm not talking for sticking bubble gum on the wall. I'm talking about, you know, kids that bring weapons in, kids that bring drugs in, you know, there's all sorts of issues like that that that are dealt with as far as expulsions. And you don't have it in there, they're they're going to challenge it and they're going to take it up to the court and the court's going to say, "Well, where is it? Where does it make a reference to that?" I'm not saying take anything out. The I'm sorry. I I I actually what your point was is what I was trying to make, which is why a student should read and be aware of everything that's in there. When they're signing that they have it, because then

107in the discipline process, they are going to, you know, But if if they say, "Well, I didn't know." And and it's not just the students. It's happened in labor arbitration, which is we didn't know that there was a policy telling Right, but you signed that you had it. You signed that you had it. >> Well, the teachers didn't have to do that. The manuals had to be placed somewhere physically within the buildings that that they worked in, and an arbitrator was like, "Oh, well, yeah, I guess the teachers did were aware of that." Right. And, you know, it was it was a big problem. So, you just need to be careful with what you do because of the fact that, you know, you could be opening up a whole can of worms for serious infractions

108by, you know, not giving the kind of latitude that your your policies have put in place. When it talks about progressive discipline, that's fine if it's small infractions. If it's mouthing off to a teacher, if it's, you know, chewing gum where they're not supposed to, that's fine. But, a fist fight where somebody gets the crap beat out of them because they got jumped, you're going to want to be able to hand out a more serious consequence to to that student. So, you don't want to paint yourself into a, you know, a a corner. That's why the language is in there, including it up to expulsion from the schools. And, I'm not saying we remove that language for those incidents. Because that is the other example that I mentioned in my commentary. All the other schools

109have similar language. But, all I'm saying I I read it. I'm not going to repeat what I just read. If I grade this for one of my students even writing a technical paper, they'd be lucky to get a 70% out of it. It's horrible. All I'm saying is why can't we make it more readable? And and there's no reason we can't put footnotes and appendices. Uh that's the only thing that I would highly recommend is you want to make sure that everything that is in there already stays in there somewhere so that somebody can't say, "Well, gee, I I didn't realize that there was a policy on that." Even under under the law, they have an obligation to know whether it's there or not. Mr. Barnes. Mr. Nance. Mr. Ryan. Does document work and meet

110our needs? I've not received multiple complaints about it. If that's answering your question, I I mean this is we typically do not get complaints about the the format of it, the some of the things it I mean you see >> I'm hearing about it at a board table. The the handbook's horrible. So, I mean service well till maybe this month or last month. Not going for my yet. You haven't had an expulsion hearing here in for years. And that is a good thing because it used to be when you had an expulsion hearing, you had basically a mini trial in front of the board. And they could go on for hours and they're not on board nights because the only entity that can expel a student is the school board. Now you've got a waiver

111uh policy in place where people can come and say, "No, I'm not going to challenge that. I'm going to waive my right to an expulsion hearing and and work out some sort of discipline with the district." Did you get your Go ahead. Did you get your answer? I believe I did, yeah. Okay. Now I'm commenting. They aren't the only users. The parents and the students are also users of this document. So, why would you possibly ask if the only audience is the administration? My question was, does that document work for us? Exactly. You're missing part of my point. Parents would read this if the student if their student were to get in some sort of trouble. If they get what? If applicable. I mean I think anytime you ask the author, they're going to support

112their document, right? Like that's just natural. They're the author. They're going to say that it it works. I I have not read the student handbook. I mean, I refer to it if I need information, but do I don't necessarily think that it's super clear. We are writing We should be writing to our lowest level audience. Uh we we know our demographics. We use our demographics as a supportive reasoning for a lot of various different things. Those demographics are educating our children at home using the resources that are available to them. I mean, I I think that maybe if it really is just updating the words to be more easily understood by your audience, I think it's something to consider. Just something more digestible is what I'm hearing, not just changing how it is. >> Well,

113that's the key part. I also whoever or whatever committee looks at this, I'm also saying without giving any specific examples, can I cuz I cannot in public forum. Correct. It would have to go to executive session. >> So, I'm keeping it generic. We already have seen cases where we've gone from zero to 100. I said it in my comments, zero to 100 in 5 seconds with discipline. It was not considered on a case-by-case basis, and we've treated kids, in my opinion, like criminals for first offenses. That's not consistent with these policies either. It's not consistent with the with the school's We treated children like criminals. Is that what you said? That's my opinion. Well, my opinion is this is micromanaging to the third power. That's what I believe it is. Um and that you know,

114that's that's just it. We've got a document that works from a legal perspective, which is important. Kids don't read it. I don't think they ever have. You seem to be stuck in your own echo chamber. I'm still explaining the fact that those aren't the only people that read it. The parents read it as well. How many parents read that thing? I I I I went to you You're right. I sent it to the student. They should. They should, but if you send it a permission slip home, oh, they don't read that. They just sign it. Can Can I I'm really Mr. Baker, please. Everybody's got to say something. I I understand what you're talking about about having things footnoted or whatever because you have to have to have to cover yourself. I personally think 84

115pages is a tremendous amount of is a tremendous amount of information in a student handbook. At the And I'll go back to my time at the academy. We had a student handbook at the academy. It was about this tall, about this wide, and maybe I maybe 20 pages thick or something like that. It was the teacher's job to go over that handbook with each of their classes the first day or two of school. It The administrators as you folks said pulled each session of students into the cafeteria and went over the handbook with the students as well. Afterwards, the students signed off that the handbook was gone over with them. They had the opportunity to ask questions and that they would agree to abide by the rules in the handbook. And that's how we handled

116it. And there there was a matter of sending them home to parents, whatever if they took it home fine. But that's how we dealt with it. Now I understand you're we're talking about kids from tons to 12th grade, too. Whereas this is it's kids from 6 on up, which makes a bit of a difference. But 84 pages is a lot for me. I mean I wouldn't sit and read it either. And can I if there's a lot of legal jargon in it, I mean I understand Can I ask a you have to have something I like how you guys read it cuz and it's not you know it's not the students or the parents, it's the lawyers that come in when a kid gets in trouble. That is who tears those Mr. Please. That's who

117tears it apart. That's who litigates it so there's a bunch of legalese there because PSBA has developed that over the years. I'm not one of the authors, I'm not defending my own work, but the bottom line is I've litigated a hell of a lot of those cases and guess what the first thing they do? They're coming in waving the student handbook and the policy book. So you know, all I'm saying is be very careful when you make the changes because if you omit something, you're going to give somebody an out that could have done something terrible in your schools and justifies discipline. So how's my example get away with making the same modifications and and still making it more readable? There are other districts in Pennsylvania that can do just what I explained and and

118requested and you know, so if if there's a problem with the legal part of it, split it out. Some of that can >> Make it separate. We have to have it like the annual notice for special education, that's fine. Certain policies by policy we have to post it in the handbook. We don't want this to be 84 pages. Like trust me, I speak with the principals and the principals working on this. We hate that it's that long, but we're we're bound by law with some of this stuff. But there's no There's There's a lot of vague and legalese that people don't understand. I I I'm I'm not going to continually repeating what I just read. Can I have some I have a question and then maybe a suggestion. Do we have an employee handbook? A

119digital for employees? Sure, there should be along with How many pages is that? Just out of curiosity. >> long that long and it it varies um by building cuz buildings the individual buildings will make it work for them as well. The school reference policies and then policy manuals. We have a policy in the handbook too. Yeah. Right. I mean so if it's if this is a lot longer than an employee handbook, I think that it's something to be considered. Is there a way that we review only portions that are not the policies that are required to be in there or that are required to be to be posted. Is there a way we we look at that? I mean I I get it. We have required annual postings for health insurance that need to be

120included >> Yes. Yeah. The title mine has to be in there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I understand that. But like maybe we review the the non-required posting aspect of it. The stuff that we author. If you get it down to 40 pages, people going to read it? I think I think I I don't at least be more digestible maybe. The answer's no. But but when you when you have a problem >> and done it. and you don't know where to start and you start and it's so overwhelming, you don't do it. You push it to the side and then things just compound, right? And then it becomes more hostile. Well, I actually think that it could be worse for the administrators of the building that if parents don't understand it, they're more combative, not as understanding.

121Well, so the language is just vague enough that So, okay. Again, my question goes back, does this document work and serve its purpose? If the answer to that is no, based on our history, then I I question why we're going down this road. Well, I think we need further definition on the discipline side as well. It's not automatic and and and visuals, which I would contend are needed anyway. It's the the discipline sections are very broad and discretionary. I just said it. We We've had We've had examples. I'm not Excuse me, Mr. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Mr. Barner explained why it is that way. Well, I think it has It has to be long cuz there's so much that has to be covered. Whereas it's 6 to 12 age group, I mean the elementary ones

122definitely are going to be smaller. I mean, they're just You can't have a single paintbrush to cover everything. I mean, you you can't like for every single thing you mentioned, you want more consistency. You You said there's inconsistency with the sign discipline. You want more You make discipline more consistent, but then you turn around and I'm not being smart, but you said do the discipline case-by-case basis. So, and I'm just running a high school, Okay. board member's daughter, board member's son is going to be treated that Don White's kid is going to be treated exactly the same as Mr. Baker's kid as someone in the community. So, I In my opinion, we are consistent. Explain to me why someone who gets into a fight gets suspension and I'm just going to say someone that this

123is not real but I'm trying to make an analogy, bear with me. Someone that puts chewing gum on a bathroom wall also gets a suspension. That's happened. I'm not going to get into specific examples unless we call an executive session. I mean, how would I know why they got a That's what my point is. You have somebody that gets into a fight gets suspended. You have somebody that puts gum on a bathroom wall gets a suspension. For gum on a bathroom wall? I'm saying that's my analogy. So, it hasn't happened? An out of school suspension? No, an in school suspension. >> An in school suspension for gum on a bathroom wall? It's an analogy, Clint. You guys always lose track when it's an >> could be the third could be the 45th offense for all

124that year. So, I'm saying first offense. That's what I mean by an analogy. >> Can can you just for my own I guess the next time I've not read this and clearly I haven't had much of a reason to dig into the discipline portion for my children. Um, can you read the level one discipline and the in the the infractions and the If I can find it. >> discipline that would be issued for a level one infraction. If I can find it. Sticking with your gum I I assume gum on a bathroom wall is a level one. I don't know. It doesn't say. Like I said, if I can find it. Find it. Find it. Does it say table of contents? Yeah, I think Mr. Here are the table of contents, I think. Yeah, I

125think that's the the idea that you don't read the whole thing. You need to question about XYZ, you go to the of contents and you go to that page. >> Division one. All right. Division one behavior expectations. Be on time for school, complete assignments on time. Paraphrasing. Pay attention in class, tell the truth, do their own work and not cheat. You kind of get the idea. Here, this is probably >> Yeah. Okay. Pupils who violate the above receive appropriate disciplinary action by the principal, assistant principal, or teacher. These measures may be, but are not limited to, written reprimand, personal conference, rearrangement of seating, discussions with parents, removal of privileges, before or after school detention, temporary removal from class or study hall, development of a contract of expected future behavior. So, I think that there's a

126lot of disciplinary paths there, right? Like, there's a lot of different options you can take, and I guess that's what's kind of confusing to me. It's like, how do you know which path? And like, because some of them are more serious than others. >> Right. That would be So, I did a quick search just here, just to see where other districts are. And I I think maybe I found something that if you want to go down this path, we could do. Penns Valley is 88 pages, State College is 97 pages. Here's the interesting one. Bald Eagle is 19 pages. So, where are Mr. um where are um their policies? They hyperlink policy right in the student handbook. So, it eliminates the amount of reading you have, um but it still has the policy reference by

127the hyperlink to the policy right on the official website. I don't know if that >> And I don't see the issue of modern why we can't modernize it. But, I I think that's something >> to be wrapped around the actual of everything else, but looking at what I'm trying to get at. >> I think if that's something you want to do, we we recommend that to the administration. Hey, a at the handbook. You know what? If we can legally hyperlink all the policies, I think everybody would love to do that. I think the administrators would agree with that. It's in our policy it says must be posted in the student handbook, not a hyperlink to the policy. >> And some are like the bullying policy has to be posted inside a classroom of all. Dating

128our dating policy has to be grades 6 to 12. Every classroom needs to be posted. Like when we did our safety audits when I was chief of operations I'm going to do the thing for the safety police audit. You had to go in and and ask Mrs. Kennett, where are these policies displayed? Mr. White, in your classroom are they displayed? So, I think that's some of the things that take up so many like State College. And 97 pages of that. I was trying to do a quick glance on what the differences were. Mr. Allen, what did you say? Where does it say that it has to be posted? In some of our policies. Our policies say and sometimes it's in law that says it has to be posted in student handbooks. Or there's other options

129sometimes, but the handbook is a place that Well, where do you Where do you go? Well, I know it's not great that it's 88 pages, but the the idea is that is the place where it is. >> But will we be allowed changing that policy or or looking at that to say, yeah, we can do that? Well, we can we can look at that, but we got to look at the at the statute or the law that drove that policy. And if the statute is saying must be in the student handbook. There there might be some options, but we're just going to have to review all of them to make sure that they're legal. >> Or yeah, in that on the policy committee meeting your policy committee does that and a lot of times I'll

130say to Becky, who's sitting beside me, to pull up the hyperlinks. Pull up the hyperlinks and let's look at the statute and then pull up the statutory language to make sure that it aligns with the policies. >> We can do that too. Spring Grove School District has a single page for the students to look at. It doesn't have the legal ease, but you've got hyperlinks where you if somebody wants to go to the legal ease side of it, fine. I'm just >> to get to the point where it's going to be the lawyers that come in defending the students that get into trouble. You know, and it's all those that Mr. Wyatt mentioned, I've done, you know, work, brought in in order to do expulsion work, Penns Valley, Bellefonte, State College. There's a reason those

131big districts, you know, all all though Penns Valley is is small, it's still a Centre County district. There's a reason why they have the the books the way that they are because there have been challenges from lawyers time and time again, and you've got judges that look at it and go, "Well, if the law says that it's supposed to be in the student handbook, and it's not in the student handbook, or it's not in the student handbook using the same legal ease as what it says in the statute, guess what? I'm going to dismiss the expulsion against the student, and the student gets remanded back." Because lawyers and judges, whether you like it or not, look at the legal ease because that's what the legislature tells us we've got to look at. So, you know,

132you're in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you if you make it easier for parents to read, just be aware of the caveat that you could be setting yourself up for failure, you know, in the legal world because of the fact that judges and lawyers look at things differently than a parent or a student does. So, you've got to have all your bases covered, not just not just a few of them, otherwise you're going to lose. That's that's just the reality of student discipline. So, then explain to me why it is generic. This is continuation, Mrs. Barlow, from your question. No fighting or harming of a division two, no fighting or harming others or engaging behavior deemed as dating violence, complete assignments, follow reasonable directives, violent or defiant attitude, refrain

133from the abuse or profane language or gestures, refrain from bullying or threatening students, etc. So, the discipline measures for that state, "Students who violate division two expect expectations will receive disciplinary action, which may be assignment to detention, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, a schedule change, work assignment, social probation, removal of privileges, involvement in supportive service counseling, and other appropriate discipline. Students may also receive school probation for division two misconduct." So, fighting and swearing are wrapped into the same potential. How do we go again from zero to 100? Fighting? Yeah, give him a suspension. Language? We go right to suspension. So, we go from zero to 100? If a boy goes up to a girl and calls her the C-word, that's a violation of the Title IX, and you're darn right, you better expect to expel them

134because the parents are going to have them. Well, suspension initially may have been amount to an expulsion under Title IX, but even then, you're going to have to be mindful of the fact that you can't do anything discipline-wise permanently until you complete the Title IX investigation. There are a number of statutes that are wrapped up in those offenses that that you put in there uh in the handbook because there's Title IX stuff. There's There's all sorts of statutes that are in that simple language, and that's why they have to put that range of discipline. If not, you're painting yourself into a corner. You're going to have somebody that does something serious, and I mean, you may not believe me, but I'm telling you It's not a case of believing you, Mr. Neff. I I I'm

135just sick tired of arguing with it because everybody starts talking and they don't want to understand what I'm trying to >> I'm just trying to protect you, Mr. Herb, because I've seen this district get hosed before because of stupid stuff, you know, it gets left out or it you know, it's not shared with the parent, and the parent in with an attorney, then they go running to federal court and say, "Oh, well, federal court, we now want this amount of money because we disagree with your policy." Ask Mr. Warner, he was involved in one in masking. We had an assault in this in the school, and that family walked away with a check with $5,000 from your insurance company. Is it stupid to make this more readable? Is Is it stupid to make it so

136that people can actually understand what's in it? It's stupid to take stuff out that the law says is not required to be in >> that? Did I say that? I I You know what? I'm done debating with the awesome Mr. Erb. I think I made my point. You made your point. You're You're warned. You're warned that if there's a if there's an issue and it's not in there and you get nailed by the court, you can't say, "Well, gee, we weren't aware of that." >> I never once said to take anything out. I think the the question is how is how are certain things applied. And one of the words that he read in there said may be may be detention. May be suspension. I mean and I think that the point you're you brought

137up most certainly someone does that you're going to write they should be out. Mhm. But someone says, "Oh you know what? Are they deserving of of that same And And that's why that discretionary language is there saying anything from this to expulsion. Right. That's why >> But But it's all in it it's all in who's applying it and how it's being applied. Mr. Baker, may I Correct. Yes. Yes. >> May I May I give an example? You You've got a a child that comes in for a a disciplinary issue and it's the first time you've seen this child for this behavior and it's relatively minor. It's not a big deal. You give him an after school detention. 10 minutes later another child comes in with the same type of behavior but this is the fifth

138time you've seen him for that same behavior. Yeah, I understand. Okay. So you So that's where your progressive discipline you gradually ratchet it up hopefully to get up to a point where you change the behavior. Um that that's the idea behind it. >> Yeah, I understand. I mean that's that's what I'M SAYING. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'M SUGGESTING, SIR. That's exactly what I'm saying and I'm but I'm not seeing it applied. Okay, well that's a different conversation. >> There's some words that are absolute. There is some absolutes. >> You're absolutely correct but I don't see it being applied consistently. That's part of my >> Well, but that's a different conversation. Being applied has nothing to do with that handbook. It has to do with the administrator end of it. Can we make the handbook such that

139it's applied as I said consistently? I don't think you can I don't as I think Mr. Neff said, you don't want to write yourself into a corner where if you do this, this will happen. You've got to have a a menu of possibilities based on the the number of times you've seen that child. That's fine. That's a perfect is it you gave two perfect examples to make my point up actually. It needs to be progressive and we've seen situations where it is not applied in a progressive manner. Well, I haven't. So that's that's another conversation. I have but unfortunately I can't give you examples in a public forum. Well, then let's go to executive session cuz I want if if we've got administrators they're treating children unfairly, which I don't think we do, then we

140need to hear about it. >> Okay. All right. What? Well, let's just end the person. Um we can go into the executive after public session concludes. Um is there any other discussion on the student handbook? Is there any other business that the board would like to discuss? All right. I'll wait till the president calls. Thank you. We will go ahead and go and move into the second public comment. Same general rules as last time. Uh first last name, town you reside in before you start. This can apply to any district function. So at this time, is there any other public comment? Hearing none, public session is adjourned. I give the opportunity. >> Mhm.