001is yours thank you very much uh like call to order this uh February uh 24th 2025 meeting of safe schools committee at North Penn will begin as we always do with a pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay with that make sure I get the right information on our minutes and we'll have a opportunity for the approval of the minutes of January 27th 2025 do we have a motion so moved and my discretion I'll second that uh we do have Quorum tonight uh and any comments or questions about the minutes all right uh being none all those in favor raise your hand or say I I minutes
002pass unanimously uh before we move on to action items uh well of which there's none before we move on to informational items I would like a chair's discretion to bump up other business um to the front of the meeting because this may be informative for uh public com comment um or other questions that the committee um or insights the administration might want to share um so with that um Mr Ron or Dr Bower um any updates that you have in other business yeah Mr Kasa I happened to say a few months ago maybe a year at this point that it seems as though incidents in our schools coincide with this meeting um it's just timely that we have the opportunity to publicly share what we know and of course when it comes and matters of
003safe schools you walk a fine line of sharing information keeping things confidential for safety reasons and du to privacy laws um but this is really an opportunity to give a shout out um and uh just support and appreciation for Mr ran that last night uh nine o'clock on a Sunday night we get a phone call from the local Town Menon Township Police Department that they received a 911 call um from an anonymous source alleging that they saw a threat online um typically when there is a threat posted online regarding an act in one of our schools it spreads very very quickly right and um I get many emails the principal of said building would get many emails and it's we're very um quick to find out what was the post where' it come from we
004work with law enforcement and in this case we had none of that detail nor did we have a um caller's name so Mr contacted myself and a couple other people in the administration to say hey this is what we're working on uh we'll keep the communication going at that time I notified uh our board president vice president and Mr Casa as the chair of the safe schools committee and just said hey it's a Sunday night this is what we're working on uh just want everyone to be aware so in collaboration with the police um and actually a third party that's able to survey social media Presence at large across multiple platforms we were able to um conclude that this was perhaps a hoax or a prank call um so but we took all precautions necessary
005within I'd say 30 minutes of me finding out about this we our Communications Department had an email drafted with as much detail as we had at the time um and Mr Rome put a plan in place to have added Security Police and a revolve weapons detection system in place just in case even though it was reported uh by that third party that there was no post on any platforms um so Mr ran just kudos to you and the team for getting everything together so quickly kudos to the Communications Department uh to our board members for their collaboration and I'm pleased to say we had a smooth start this morning um at no point did the police or School District officials or security believe there to be a real threat um but we still took those
006steps so um always learning experiences and when we find gaps in process or communication we learn from them don't always share those in this venue of course when you identify a mistake or a vulnerability you want to correct it um but thank you for giving me the opportunity to kind of provide some insights on what happened we did send a communication to over 3,000 families last night so it was not a secret um that we dealt with this so this is a great opportunity for us to just talk it through briefly so thank you Mr Casa thank you Dr Bower uh any other comments or questions from uh the committee students in particular um right who have to face one way or another whether it's today or other issues um that's why you're here we
007we always welcome your comments or emails um and it doesn't have to be in this venue either so please feel free to share that with any of us uh that are in this zoom on this committee tonight yeah I just real quick want to shout out say great job you know our security officers did a phenomenal job this morning Mr R thank you so so much uh it was just great to see everybody working together this morning when I walked in the building and you know nothing happened which is great as usual you guys are on top of things so thank you thank you uh Miss McMurtry sorry I changed my mind Mr Casa I wanted to ask um if after these types of situations and not just for this one um Mr ran is
008there some type of debrief to identify um you know things that went really well things that you may want to um edit revise just to make our um process procedure more robust going forward sure thanks for the question uh we always uh kind of go back and and discuss um you know the the reason for why we did what we did and and how did how did it go um so you know typical fashion is I have conversations with uh Dr Nicholson Dr Bower uh the principal so before I left the high school I had a conversation um with Mr Hassler um and just kind of walk through those things and and and Report out on how the the process went um in other cases where maybe there's a different type of issue issue or
009incident um there have been times where we have debreath with uh the entire staff of the building um it it kind of depends on the nature of the incident um but certainly in in most if I if not all I can think of in my time here so far um there there has been that that follow-up conversation thank what one other quick question the challenges regarding trying to identify the source of this call is that is that some I mean that's not something that's for our district to do but is that something the the industry the security industry the police force is working on because is it happened happening more often so I the challeng is um you know it there there are a number of things right um and so being so that the
010technology that's out there and and the advancement of that technology um unfortunately allows some people to to cause these types of disruptions and make these types of Cs and and really gives them uh total uh amnesty right um the other thing if if you if I take you back back to an incident uh I can't remember if it was two years ago my first year um where we were chasing down a Potential Threat uh the source the platform that that was being used was in a different country who has you know they don't have to abide by the same laws uh and so you know basically when you know the United States law enforcement calls over there like yeah good luck we're not we're not giving you anything um so unfortunately there people who do
011this kind of thing know that these platforms are out there and take advantage of it and it it it does make it challenging and difficult for us um and it becomes even more difficult when we're dealing with outof country platforms that just simply do not have uh to cooperate with us quite frankly thanks Mr R any other questions or comments well um once again yeah we do commend and thank uh the entire team um and especially our security uh Team who who you right they not only worked late um but they were there very early even earlier than usual it seems um to ensure that the um that the approach that was put into place today um was effective so thank you for that effort and it's a lot of moving Parts but I'm really
012um happy to see when all members of the team were able to pull together uh with that we'll move on now to the informational items we still will have other business at the very end just in case something is raised uh during during the meeting that Committee Member wants to to bring up or to address public comment so I want to make sure everyone is aware that that hasn't changed uh should we now go to informational items and uh discipline data all right I think that is my Q thank you very much Mr cassa I appreciate uh being here this evening and being able to report out on the district dis uh numbers for the first half of the school year so this uh presentation the data I'm showing is as of January 28th 2025
013if you'll recall our last safe schools meeting was actually January 27th so we had one more school day till the halfway point um and now here we are in February talking about the first half of the school year so we'll dive in here um take a look at where we are as of the Midway point of the school year before we start just want to as I always try to do go through the definitions you're going to see a lot of these on uh almost every slide so the first one is unique students so that is the number of unduplicated or not repeated students with at least one suspension or detention in school suspension uh whatever that that um discipline consequence may be so that means if I have been suspended five times in that
014specific line item I'm only counted as one individual right I'm not duplicated I don't count multiple times the percentage of the PIP ation is that number divided by the total enrollment in the school district and then the number of suspensions are just that the number of suspensions or detentions um including any repeat offenses so again if I was suspended five times it would count as five suspensions but I would count as one unique student and I would only count once towards the percentage of population so I know um for the the people that aren't used to seeing this data that aren't working with this on a quarterly basis or maybe seeing this presentation for the very first time um it's a little something that you just kind of to take into account and I'll use
015detentions here on the first slide um to kind of put that into play so thus far in 2425 we uh as of January 28th we had 2,456 detentions assigned to students in North pen School District that is a lot um it's roughly 400 more than we had at that time last school year um but I'll talk about that a little while later and I did mention after the first marking period that our uh re uh reconfiguring of the cell phone policy um and the enforcement of said cell phone policy really constituted the vast number of these detentions we'll take a look to that in a moment um but if you look down that column just again as an example uh there were 788 unique students so 788 students accounted for 2458 I'm sorry 2456 detentions
016there's a total enrollment of 12,825 students and that percentage is so 6. 1% of all North pen School District students uh were assigned to detention during the 2425 school year as of January 28th you'll see that carry across um in school suspension and out of school suspension as I mentioned the detention is uh up dramatically we anticipated that the numbers would be up dramatically this year because of the new cell phone policy specifically at the secondary level and that is very much um borne itself out and I'll talk a little bit about the trends in a little while later um you'll also see the in school suspensions out of school suspensions are up based on last year they're more at the level that we saw in 22 23 and we'll dig into some of those
017numbers as we move on with the the presentation so the first uh slide we'll look at here is districtwide suspensions and specifically out of school suspensions and you'll see a listing here um from top to bottom starting with fighting of the number of suspensions that were uh assigned for the this first half of the school year and then again in parentheses the number of unique students assigned each of those consequences and the percentage so while there were 75 suspensions awarded for fighting again that is not 75 individual fights that's 75 students that were or 75 instances of fighting that were assigned out of school suspension and that makes up 64 individual students or 05% or half of 1% of all North pen School District students K to 12 were suspended for fighting in the first
018half of the school year um you'll see that there are specific spaces uh where the numbers have ticked up dramatically threatening School official um there is sorry falling across here minor altercation um disorderly conduct numbers are up and again I'll give a little bit more insight as we move on here as to why some of those numbers may or may not be out for this school year specifically as we move on to in school suspension um as we we look here again minor altercations the third row here not at 32 are kind of the outlier from past years up to 0. 22% or just under a quarter percent of our population but that's up from less than 510 of a percent um in previous years uh the other areas here disorderly conduct again is up
019a bit um bullying is up just a little bit but lower than it was in previous years um and then The everpresent Possession use sale of uh tobacco and vape materials is something we've talked long about in the sa schools committee um especially at the secondary level with the installation of The Vape sensors in the bathrooms we're going to look at out of school suspension so when it comes to reporting to the state there are two different types and two different buckets of discipline that we report to the state um this is conduct or academic infractions um and again this is out of school suspension so um when you look at and I will talk very much more about the student code of conduct violation and continued violations on a subsequent slide um but these
020are really buckets where um they don't fit necessarily under other circumstances and I'll speak to why in a moment now you can see here again the numbers are up based on last year's uh data they're back in line with what we've seen in in years past moving on to in school suspension for the the conduct and academic infractions um again what you can see as a grand total um the the numberers up at 259 as compared to 163 last year um 1.3% of our entire population um or 167 students were signed in in school suspension for any of these instances I'll point out um that this 115 for cutting class and I think in many cases which I'll show you in a moment the student code of conduct and the contined violations are subsequent increases
021based on the cell phone policy um what we have heard um is that students are spending a little bit more time at the secondary level outside of the classroom U because we're they're not able to use their cell phones as frequently in the classroom so there are some students that have decided that um you know they'll use the bathroom they'll go out into the hallway to use their cell phone um thus leading to a cut class um and then the the multiple um electronic devic could roll into the code of conduct or the continued violation of school rues suspension area detentions um again we'll take a look at cutting class as the number one here on this column 2425 well above 23 24 and even the the sub the prior years again the uh while
022we don't have specific data quantitative data on this the qualitative data is saying a secondary level students are maybe not going to class at times because they are out using their cell phones we are obviously always communicating with our security um getting them in the bathrooms getting them in the hallways getting students back to class um we've seen those numbers tick up because of that increased enforcement um when you look at the and here's the big the big ticket item um inappropriate use of electronic devices we had a high of 132 for a half a year in 22 23 and we're at 59 for this school year so while the highest was 77% of our total population was awarded A detention for uh inappropriate electronic devices this year we're at 2.41% so again we feel
023like we're doing what's best for students we feel like we're doing what's best for uh the education of students keeping those devices out of their hands while in the classroom we knew as a tradeoff there were going to be higher levels of uh some of these these Behavior events or these discipline events because of that change in policy I mentioned earlier the the buckets of the code of conduct and continued violations um these are here because of a number of reasons in some ways they're here um because the specific violation of the school rules didn't easily fall into another bucket um didn't easily fall into what I have them coded as for any number of reasons it could be that when you look at an and altercation um you know technically you know I I
024have it listed here as a minor altercation in Broad terms is 11.7% of these Al of these infractions um if it is a full minor altercation in many circumstances we need to conduct contact the local uh law enforcement um and have them come in and in some of these situations if a you know an elementary student based on their um their specific situation and what happens in the let's say a hallway or cafeteria it's not necessarily something where we need to call the police so it's something that falls into um this category I'll also call your your attention to this very top green sliver and Dr bow knows this is coming but I mentioned this a couple years ago we had the return of fart spray why it's not on the key I don't know
025um but to to kind of pull this together you know we're not going to call the police for somebody that lets off some some noxious fumes in the classroom but I think we can all agree that something more than just attentions are warranted when a student sets off fart spray in the classroom causing the entire classroom to have to be gathered up leave the classroom have custodians come in to clean the classroom to ventilate the classroom um but it doesn't easily fall into another category so that's one maybe more egregious uh option for why we would use these code of conduct or continue violations um and I know it's a a category that kind of stinks but we have to use it sorry I had to add a throw that in there just wanted to
026make sure the folks I can see were listening all right let's highlight the youth Aid panel totals for the first half of the school year so this is at North pen High School uh if you recall this launched about mid year last year to a great success for the first semester uh I'm sorry for the second semester of last year so far the for the first semester of this year the first half of the school year there were 13 referrals to the youth Aid panel of those 13 all 13 hearings were completed and at the time this data which was pulled which is about two weeks ago 11 of the the students had completely completed the program and the other two were in progress so we've had none that did not complete um so again
027just the trend of our success with youth a panel um has been been excellent I reported back at the the midterm um or I believe it was um I believe it was uh at the end of the first marking period the uh recidivism rate which was excellent student set were referred last year to youth a panel we're not reoffending this year um and it's something we've we've stuck you know a feather in our cap that it's something that's working very very well for us we're very excited about it um as a reminder and or for someone that doesn't know anything about this the youth Aid panel is a diversionary program where we don't have to call the police um to come in to the school to work with the student and in those cases the
028police would be coming off the street they'd be talking with a student and they would be referring a student to a youth Aid panel outside of District that we have no control over in this circumstance our own folks are trained um they serve as the panel and they have touch points with the student throughout their time in the youth a panel um and if the students agree that yes I broke these rules and you can see the reason that they were referred at the top um this is not to adjudicate whether they were right or wrong this is them taking responsibility yes I brought that that marijuana uh Vape uh into school yes I was wrong yes I want to go through a panel rather than um getting a police referral I accept my consequences
029and I'll do these other things restorative justice type things and again our um our completion rate and our lack of recidivism has really been a feather in the cap so far for this so summaries and takeaways I mentioned I would talk about some of these things um just point of interest for folks and after I'm done here maybe Dr McKenna wants to talk a little bit about Pi PBI because I know he has some good news there um but PBIS is fully implemented at all of our elementary schools at Penbrook implemented to begin this school year on day one uh pendale implemented when we began the 2025 calendar year so in January they implemented their PBIS structure and Penfield is set to launch on the first day of this coming school year um so PBIS
030is very much a system where everybody must be on board and it's you wait until you are ready to be successful you don't launch to launch um and will be 100% um K through n PBIS implementation by the first day of school next year uh training for middle school teams has been conducted I actually didn't put in here that refers to Yap um to youth Aid panel so our high school program has been so successful that the assistant district attorney uh from Montgomery County that oversees it has been training some Middle School folks so we have a couple more coordination pieces to go there and then we will be launching Middle School Yap alongside the high school Yap um and I'll be updating the the this committee on the progress there um and how students
031in that panel is running as we move forward we've implemented students into the C team meetings um which uh was a a point of process uh last year in the spring we wanted to make sure we're hearing from students when we're talking about um response to uh critical incidents in our schools students know what's happening on a daily basis they're in the building they're in the hall ways they're in um you know the know of what's happening so we've instituted a a time for students at all 18 of our buildings to come to se team meetings and discuss what's happening uh in the buildings with the folks that are tasked with keeping the buildings safe we're continuing to refine and roll out the infant en campus Swiss integration um so Swiss is the behavior management
032um program that is associated with PBIS we are looking to implement what uh the modules that Swiss has with Infinite Campus so everyone K to 12 will be on one streamlined uh Infinite Campus platform and we can pull all the data and all the granularity that we need to really um make sure we're responding to student behaviors I mentioned detentions are up um they're up approximately 15% um they were up 27% after marking period one so we've seen that that that curve kind of flatten out things have settled a little I'm going to knock on wood here but things have settled a little in the second marking period um detentions for inappropriate use of of electronic devices which is our number one offense this school year um increase you know again it's a huge increase
03385 to 509 which is almost a 500% increase but we are at almost 700% after marking period one so I believe the the electronic policy is being implemented it's being implemented with Fidelity and we've seen those behaviors start to start to kind of wean down what we are now working on are the students that may be leaving class um coming late to class or maybe cutting class um to use their cell phones and making sure that we're sweeping hallways and getting students to their classes ISS and OSS are trending up from last school year um minor altercations and threats are really um the bulk of that I mentioned after the first marking period and you'll see it here uh these behaviors reported in the wake of the school violence across the country that really occurred
034early in the school year I think anytime we have something that's uh horrific that happens in the the news that people see um numbers tend to tick up whether that um is because people are on the lookout for threats people are more apt to report threats because they take them more seriously at those critical times um or if people um see it happen and they just do things and say things they shouldn't be doing those numbers certainly ticked up um you know again over the course of the second marking period we've seen that kind of flatten out a little bit so we're hoping to see that Trend continue to to um die down a bit it was hot and heavy early on um we did mention that the threat that came in last evening um
035earlier in this meeting that has nothing to do with this as that was an outside instance um but anytime we receive a threat just as a reminder that very last bullet um you know behavioral threat assessment training has been updated with all of our Administration um and with all of the threat assessment teams we continue to take communication excuse me of threat assessment um very very seriously and we Implement that with Fidelity um and we just uh gained knowledge I believe it was last week Mr ran and Dr McKenna um that another piece of that communication um was kind of filled in and implemented through our tech department so we're really excited about where that's going um and you know responding in a manner that keeps students and staff safe when these two pop up
036and with that I'll ask if there are any questions or comments that I can cover or Dr mcken can cover or Mr Ron or Dr bar or anybody else thank you Dr Nicholson and appreciate how thorough this is and the evolution uh in the accuracy the transparency and and what we're able to share is quite impressive so um thanks to you and the team especially um that um it takes a lot to develop these type of presentations and understand understand the data and we uh appreciate sharing it so that this board and its oversight and the committee and it safe schools oversight is able to ask questions so with that um we'll go with our student representative jeppi and then uh chair MC Mery thank you Mr Kasa um quick question for me was regarding
037some of the instances that people were written up for I was just wondering if there were any for dress code I was looking through and I couldn't find any uh might take you a minute to find it but I just wanted to put that out there just because I I couldn't find it but I might have missed it yeah great question Jee um I will say in this um specific um presentation there was nothing for dress code um if it were something that resulted in a detention or some sort of suspension it would be reflected here um this specific presentation only covers those levels um so if a student did have a dress code violation but like say um they went to their home office and that was able to be remedied and they went
038back to class that would not be specifically shown here because it didn't result in a detention or a suspension but great question I gotta okay thank you yeah I was just wondering because of that little breakdown but I appreciate all the numbers thank you absolutely great question so Mr Kasa can I speak am I okay okay so first M Dr Nicholson first yes I like to Echo what um Mr Kasa said regarding the level of detail the granularity um recognizing that you can only provide so much information you know to protect student privacy but it really has personally helped me get a good understanding temperature of what's going on in the district so thanks second I was really happy to see because one of my questions was going to be about um implementation of the
039app program in the Middle School so I'm happy to see that that criteria is underway and because of the success at the high school level we'll see it implemented there so that's good too and then two questions first is on the slide and I mean you don't need to bring it up but I think the number of students was I don't know 350 but the number of incidents was around a thousand was am I right or wrong did I am I I'm not sure exactly which slide would it be helpful for me to bring it back up oh geez would you mind not at all no we can see it I don't know if it was here no stop me if you see it I will keep going did I see a thousand I thought
040I saw a th is that the beginning cutting class here yeah okay so there you go so a thousand 37 and but 340 unduplicated unique students so could this be such that there is a student that you know has 10 or 12 uh incidents of cutting classes yes without getting into to great detail absolutely I I will say and Dr Bower who was the high school principal before me will I'm sure agree with me in many cases a student that is a habitual offender with cutting class could have many many more than just five or 10 cut classes um I unfortunately have worked with students in my time that um you know may or may not have cut three four five classes in a day um and that that rolls up very quickly so yes
041that's you can see kind of the trends here too so it's not the outlier for this school year while the numbers are up right you know in 23 24 was just about 900 cut classes again 334 you know roughly the same percentage the numbers in 2122 were um lower um on the heels of everything that happened in 2021 and coming back to school um but um the the percentages of say the percentage of students that were unique has stayed about the same right so if a student H is a repeat um repeating cutting of class numerous times does the level of let's say discipl change um along the way so if it's 12 or 13 or 14 is it continuing to be detentions or do you look to maybe um discuss a different type of
042um action to maybe mitigate it to help them yeah no great question and and it would go through the the progressive discipline model um and some of the some of the the pieces here these are suspensions um you know so you have the uh where did I see a continue Class Cuts um is here it could even be considered insubordination I know myself as an assistant principal Once Upon a Time probably coded in subordination where I meet with um you know I meet with little Johnny and I say you just cut a couple classes yesterday if you do it again this is going to happen and they go cut three more classes that same day um you know it's like you know what you're G to be suspended now so yes absolutely um it would
043roll uh it would not just continue as um as Class Cuts it would certainly roll up into Progressive discipline so maybe the next time we see this data that, 37 because there would be different um appropriate action taken discipline taken that'll start dropping that would be the that would be the hope that the the the numbers would continue to to decrease okay I one more question I'll make it quick so in anticipation of the high school project is there a thought about disciplinary um you know students um act you know acting out because of the construction I mean have we discussed with other districts that you know embarked on large Renovations and what their data looks like did they have any you know suggestions for us going forward when we start that phase and I
044don't know if that's a question for this evening or something for down the road just more curiosity that's a a good question I can honestly say that's not a discussion we've had as of yet um you know I believe um you know while our construction project is very complex um in some instances what we will be doing we'll be cutting down on some of the nooks and crannies that are in this the the building um and cutting down on some of the areas where students do get themselves into some trouble and cut classes so there will be times where um you know will be some restrooms that are closed and inaccessible and there will be some hallways that are um you know closed off and inaccessible um you know so because construction will be happening
045there it's a great question something that we you know maybe can take into consideration and talk to some folks that have gone through um Renovations in their buildings I know we've had Renovations in other buildings in our district um and maybe there's some we can glean from them uh you know from our own experiences as well right I think the other schools and and I I'm not haven't been on the board that long have been in nap that's the only one I'm aware of but the high school is just such a you know large group so anyway thanks for answering that I wasn't trying to put you on the spot just more of a reflective question going forward I appreciate your response no absolutely and I will say to both you m MC merch and
046you Mr cassa um you know the thanks for a lot of this goes to a lot of folks other than the folks that are on here this evening um our technology department has been great with working with us with getting the the Swiss PBIS integration and helping us get you know more um consistent and streamlined data and our data analyst pulls this together um pulls this data and helps me make sure I understand it so I can help others understand it so I have to give Miss Dietrich a shout out as well um you know it's a team effort I'm just somehow the figurehead that gets to present on it um but it's a full group effort to make sure we've gotten to this point thank you Dr Nichol it it's impressive um not just
047one meeting but if if the community or anyone else sees how this is evolved and the efforts it's constantly evolving just like safe school strategy and tactics uh also need to so we do appreciate that and uh do I mean Dr Nicholson this is the type of thing that when I look uh you know Pennsylvania Department of Education was in the PA house today the the interim uh secretary and in no way is pte providing this type of information or shall I say is the state house isn't asking for or requiring this level of information and for consumers of Education community members taxpayers um all those involved in public education uh this what you're providing really should be the Baseline right not not the the ceiling which it seems to to be right now in
048Pennsylvania and keep doing the work that you're doing and pushing us forward really appreciate that Dr Nicholson thank you Mr cson uh so with uh the time we have remaining because we want to make sure that there's uh public comment as well we'll go on to the next item and uh that'll be brought to you by Mr Ron yeah just wanted to share with the committee um as per standard protocol I meet with the Chiefs um a marking period and so we had our uh second meeting um not too long ago and in that meeting we discuss uh initiatives things that we're doing um share information about things that are happening in the community that that are impacting us and things that impact us that are uh or that impact them that come you know
049and vice versa um and so we we had that conversation um and so we will continue to have that that open door policy I you know know cannot say enough um about the collaborative work uh between uh the six municipalities and and the district um and information sharing and making sure that we are all uh rowing in the same direction for for one good cause thank you Mr ran I just want to ask the administration just so we we verify with all that we've learned today and with the youth eight panels which is right something that's it seems to be quite successful if the County's lead law enforcement uh agent or agency uh is supporting this and looking to expand it right that that's a way that accelerates accountability but also helps support students who
050need it um but also victims and that's really important instead of going through a slower justice system that that probably isn't Geared for some of these offenses right it it at this point in a a youthful uh offenders um you know developmental cycle and yet I also see the statistics and right it's important for us to hold the mirror up good bad ugly and different and for us understand that I just want to make sure that my assumption please correct it um is accurate which is that we're not basing discipline or anything based on race class social status you I actually see ISS and OSS there's been a slight increase to me there's a lot of accountability in the safe schools program and right continuous Improvement parents and and families and students have had a
051lot um a lot to take credit for in that process but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything from the administration when it comes down to the fact that we're not trying to implement discipline more on a certain type of student and less on another can someone speak to that yeah certainly Mr Casa uh your assumption if the question is is my assumption correct the answer is yes that um when when we have presentations and conversations about disproportionality the question is are we treating students unfairly uh certain groups of students unfairly and if there is a disparity in saying a certain subgroup of our students are more likely to be suspended we ask the question why same thing like we would do in academic performance if you get your pssa your Keystone your
052AP exam your SAT scores back and certain subgroups of your students aren't per Performing as well as others it is responsible of Educators to ask why and take a look at it um is it possible that some kids are misbehaving more than others sure it is but we also have to take a look at our systems to make sure that we aren't treating kids differently that's the important part so um it we it is not the desire of anyone to have uh different outcomes or Consequences for the same behavior that is not the intention yeah I mean that's a good sense of equality and that's one of the make sure that we're being consistent right and and that there's there is no inequality of any type of student when it comes down to this issue
053and and we're not talking about just race it comes down to disabilities a lot of other factors and we can't have this conversation if we don't track the information and present it transparently to the community who will let us know whether it's accurate or not or whether there are questions areas we need to to do better or or maybe dig deeper and that's why I appreciate this type of information which I don't think any school Board of the 500 across Pennsylvania uh are having this type of conversation so thank you for allowing the community to increase its dialogue and understanding I appreciate that Dr Bower and team uh with that let's move on then to um public comment Mr Gilmer do I need to read the disclaimer we do have one attendee in uh our
054audience tonight if you intend to make a comment go ahead and raise your hand in the interface so I know you're there there it is please read your comment or your uh statement now I got to dig it out all right just a second I get the public comment here no I do not have it memorized by now so this is like the Gettysburg address in seventh grade except for Schoolboard directors yeah no great on it you're okay individuals attending this meeting and attending to speak to committee should be aware that they are being recorded in order to meet the requirements of Pennsylvania Sunshine Law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the committee during this meeting to assure compliance with this requirement is essential that those plan to
055address the committee raise their hand electronically and state their name and municipality as a reminder the public comment portion of the meeting is designed for residents and taxpayers of the district to provide comment and feedback on matters being discussed at tonight's meeting or matters that may come before the safe schools committee is not designed for debate or discussion with members of the committee when appropriate committee members may choose to respond to public comments that have been made or request that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting members of the audience are asked to limit their questions and comments to three minutes this is in reference to board policy number 903 that was revised February 17 22 alrighty up first we have uh Mr Jason laner Jason I've enabled your
056microphone so when you are ready to begin please state your name and municipality for the record and begin your comments please uh Jasir Lansdale um had a had a a couple of questions I guess uh I guess Fir and comments first comment is I I I appreciate the the more discipline regarding cell phone usage and I think that was far overdue meaning I I think the discipline on phone usage in school was it it it it created Downstream problems that I think some of which will be rectified simply because uh you're in you're reducing the ability for kids to use their phones in classrooms and I would I would say you should go beyond that but uh that being said that that that's a that's a good marker and I can appreciate that that number
057is getting higher as as kids are starting to understand the consequences of of violating that rule um in the greater sense though I I I am I am concerned drilling down at these numbers and and what it means uh that that is to say uh are all things that are problematic reflected in these disciplinary codes and I and and I'm sort of referring generically to kids acting out in classroom room in classrooms wherein the teachers don't have a way of disciplining the kid the kid is just being unruly in the classroom not necessarily doing anything other than uh parting an ability to uh to learn um and and I don't know if that's reflected in here it doesn't seem like it is but I know that is an issue in talking with some people I
058know who are in or teachers at North pen that is that that happens and they're not they're not actually supported then that they have to have the classroom and they and they have to walk the kid down to the principles because there's nobody to to fill uh um uh pH I guess nobody nobody available to uh facilitate bring taking the kid down to the principal's office or what have you so that I'm wondering if that's reflected and and the whole notion I guess it goes to the the the bigger the bigger picture here is discipline the the the standards for discipline today seem to be a lot more generous than they were not that long ago meaning you're allowed to get away with a lot more poor behavior and you and you we we uh
059you know filter it down to something wherein that it's not more stringent like you just no that's not acceptable behavior you're not allowed to do it here you're suspended or you are in dis you're you have a detention or what have you there seems to be a lot of of of of softening of these things and in the youth a panel I don't necessarily agree disagree with it but I think that's a reflection of allowing kids and students to do things that would at one time not longer be accepted which are now being sort of acceptable just just as evidence of that and I'll let it go there thanks no no and Mr lanir uh I just want to make sure I don't want to just cut you off immediately Mr Gilmer uh I I
060think it's important for for us to not speak in generalities and if you're aware of those specific incidents that you're concerned of or what teachers are saying it's not no need to give up names I think it's important to make sure that those teachers know through the union reps their building um uh uh leaders and other methods that they can share that information but I think it's really important for you I mean you just said you understand the principles of the youth Aid panel but present where it's a problem because I I actually think we're holding students accountable now more than ever we may disagree and I'm not saying I'm right but I'm just wondering if you could bring more facts to the table or details that this board can look into in our oversight
061role do you have you don't have to answer that on the spot email us reach out and let us know or Dr Bower but I I have no problem with what you're asking I just need more detail M Mr Kasa I'd be happy to um respond to what I think was some of the the point there in that I'm not sure I've ever had a conversation about discipline with a staff member parent even a student where they they'll say things like detentions and suspensions don't work right in some cases they do in some cases they do not and I think a youth Aid panel is based on the fact that sometimes there are other means of deterring the behavior from being repeated a great example um this is actually a funny example that I shared
062with Miss MC merury from a previous School District we in a rival re between two high schools a student put a uh piece of roadkill on the front steps of the opposition the night before they played one another in a football game and when we were able to identify who the student was that did it at midnight I sat down with the student had a conversation with the young person and asked legitimately you know what would be a productive way for us to work through this so that you can learn but make an impact on your community and the young man actually asked if he could go to talk to the opposing principle apologized to him in person and volunteered an animal shelter perfect example of you know that we're in the business of teaching
063and learning and a student had a alternative means of discipline I mean it's a silly example but it's a real world honest example where I'm not sure A detention makes the impact you're looking for there um so that that's just an ex and those are the types of consequences you might see in a youth a panel student may write an essay and give a presentation about the harmful effects of vaping um and then give a lesson to younger students about it something like that so anyway it's not about Not Giving consequences it's about having consequences that deter the behavior perhaps more successfully than a detention and suspension I hope that made sense sorry that was a little much great way to present it thank you um I appreciate that um and I I didn't mean
064uh Mr Gilmer to break stride there um I don't know if anyone else had joined in public coment that will conclude public comment for tonight thank you sir um we'll move on to other business U Want to as always when we have student Representatives available um see if there are any comments insights doesn't have to be directly related to tonight's comments but safe schools related uh it's your opportunity to to raise that up so we ensure that we're hearing the voice of students that you represent I just want to you know reiterate what I've said the whole meeting our our security officers did an amazing job this morning um so that was great to see I have no no further comment so our other representative wants to go thank you yeah I just want to
065say thank you for all the hard work that you've been putting in and it looks nice well we appreciate especially when students have homework and everything else to do and wake up and start it all over again tomorrow um your time means a lot to us but we really value your input so thank you uh last chance for anyone else from the committee with last comments or questions seeing none I'll scroll to when the next meeting is since we have no action items and the next safe schools committee meeting is virtually at mon or on Monday March 24th 2025 at 5:45 pm do we have a motion to adjourn so moved this meeting is adjourned have a great night