001really great I don't know I'm still waiting on a few people okay foreign we're gonna start in one minute here all good okay great all right thank you um I'm gonna call this meeting to order welcome to tonight's work session first up we're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance please sorry next up we'll have our audience of citizens um public comment do I have to read the statement again Mr Skokie do you think since uh okay yes please since we just had everybody here all right this meeting is being videotaped for Community cable channels and streamed live individuals attending this meeting and intending to speak to the board should be aware that you're being videotaped in order to meet the requirements of Pennsylvania Sunshine Law it is necessary to record the names of all
002citizens who speak to the board during the meeting to ensure compliance with this requirement it is essential that those planning to address the board State their name and municipality members of the audience are asked to limit their questions and comments to three minutes as a reminder the audience of citizens portion of the meeting is designed for residents and taxpayers of the district to provide comment and feedback on matters which are or may come before the board it is not designed for debate or discussion with the board when appropriate individual School Board directors may choose to respond to public comments that have been made once the audience of citizens period has concluded or request that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting and this is in reference to policy 903
003so um we're going to start with Mrs Chapman because she did sign up Mrs Chapman did you want to make your cup public commentail thank you Rose Chapman Lansdale Borough uh you have a different format I haven't talked before the board for the in 40 years my comments then were probably the same as they are now there's always an increase in taxes and I always speak for the Young starting out and the elderly on fixed incomes the young and now I'm at the other end of the spectrum it wasn't too long ago that you could raise the taxes 1.9 then it went to 2.3 this year it's 4.1 and I don't know how those figures come about on Election Day and working outside I met one of you on the board and spoke about the
004increase because I thought it was rather Hefty and the comment was well you've got a raise this year I was a little upset about that food went up Insurance restaurants Oakland County taxes went up and so I got a big increase in Social Security I'll make it you know have no problem with that increase is one of the biggest ones we've had possibly not to hear that that I got a raise as a most audacious statement there will be a day when you will be on Social Security maybe you'll understand you're pouring money into the schools the ratings are down so I've read teachers are leaving and going into Corporate America I could ask why from what I've heard there's a lack of respect with the students and deplorable languages used I've heard that as
005well just keep adding more money to a broken system maybe you should start finding a way to repair our schools thank you thank you Mrs Chapman okay is there anyone else that would like to make public comment at this point good evening Mr Altieri mint solitary Lansdale Pennsylvania I want to talk a little bit more about this high school project um first off you know I spend a lot of time either knocking on doors or getting out to community events and talking to people and I want to be clear about something and I am not opposed to high school Renovations in a potential high school project and what I am opposed to though is I'm opposed to this DC politics about not telling the complete truth and I believe the referendum is not the complete
006truth who understands that I told you folks a long time ago don't ever underestimate the power of one okay when you when when when the president of this board didn't react to me in a timely manner I'm not going to get back to that okay that's that's for another day and trust me that will be another day okay but the fact but the fact of the matter is we need to bring this back to academic Excellence okay and I've asked several times already compare and contrast with other schools not only Public Schools but private schools where their school rankings are how well they're doing before we're going to put a billion dollars and I'll keep on saying until someone would like to challenge me on it okay into a brand new high school because you
007can't have one without the other if you said it in your own presentation okay so talk to us about that talk to us about the decisions that the board has made and I keep on hearing about the fifth lowest taxes so I'll say it again in case you haven't heard this from me I moved here 15 years ago okay and the reason why I moved here is because my wife is a school teacher I respect her opinion she was braved about North Penn School District and the rankings proved it okay I don't really know the answer to this question I don't know what where we ranked in terms of what our school what what our tax ranking was 15 years ago I don't know if we were fifth third fourth or 500th but our school
008rankings were great okay they're not there anymore that's why I'm running for school board it's about the pursuit of academic excellence talk about it stop giving us these mirages about other different things don't tell me that a billion dollars High School renovation project and let's face it when you started that presentation off with with edu beautiful young children okay who doesn't want something new everybody wants something new every child wants something new I should say referendum now be ethical about it don't be irresponsible tell the community the truth talk about the school rankings okay and let's have a Frank conversation thank you very much thank you Mr Altieri is there anyone else up Pauline broccio Tomlinson Township I had emailed everybody on the board and I think Mr scracky as well um several articles about
009transgendering and how it is um a horrible thing to do to a person let alone a child and I would like if possible to have some back and forth with all of you either as a group with other people as well besides myself to know I I want to know if you as board members know how many teachers are doing things that you are not aware of I mean how would you find that out because and there are plenty of school districts where this is happening school districts in our area two of them are Council Rock and they're Bucks County Council Rock and Pennsbury and uh yes Wanda I see you looking you're looking great by the way I love your hair you're welcome you look so much younger you're welcome it's just I want
010to go where you go so I can look too um but anyway I this is happening it's real and it's happening you may or may not be aware of it and I think if you're not aware of it you really do need to get on board because there is no way I don't care what science you think you're using you really truly cannot turn a person from a man to a woman or vice versa and a lot of these boys actually it's more girls who would have transgender but the boys who want to or say they want to that's a lot of times an excuse just like the men in the prison system where they're saying I identify as a woman and then they put them in the women's prisons and the women are getting
011raped that is documented that's a fact so when do you start looking at it and saying okay this is a man and he wants to pretend he's a woman so he can go to the safe space where the women are and that's what they're doing they're getting away with it the other thing is I think we spoke about it you and I uh Tina about um Title IX these guys are getting into women's sports why did women fight so hard for Title IX so that they could have their own competitions and now they're being infiltrated and they're being defeated by these people who think or say that they're girls when they're not and even if they have is there anyone else I would like to make comment Mr Lanier uh Jason near Lansdale um I'll
012I'll start off where uh this brachio left off what why the the the pride flag why the celebration I mean the first three letters there right the the this is settled in the United States but why are we why are we celebrating somebody's sexual preferences I mean I I have people in my family I have relatives I have people in in the community that I know it's not an issue the people who seem to be promoting this are people that why are we talking about a third person's sexual preferences I don't understand and your school I got we received this in in the mail in the email why did why did this be why was this handed out at elementary schools that it says born this way and it's a pride flag I I don't
013understand what the educational benefit to this is this isn't benefiting anybody and go further the transgender thing are you have you guys looked at the scientific data on this and I'm not talking about what the the political argument is with with blissen and the Trevor Project because that's not scientific data those are surveys surveys of opinion that aren't scientifically collected I'm talking about what happened in Sweden and by the way do you know what Sweden Finland UK Norway just last week they all have in common they're not doing this anymore and they're not doing it because they found it to be highly detrimental to kids situation that Sweden put together they found they found that 95.6 of those kids that have gender dysphoria and are have affirmation actually suffer from a different psychological issue at
014the same time comorbidity and what they found out is those problems aren't being underlying they're not being served on those levels it could be anorexia it could be ADHD it could be it could be any number of different psychological uh ailments and those aren't being served and this is what's happening and it's resulting in a huge suicide rate so they said no more we are not doing this and it's not because they're haters it's not because they they have a religious uh calling to to make this some other thing this has to do with the life of the people involved and this is not something to be taken lightly and throwing a flag up there and saying hey we're doing this benefit the kids is that's just not true thank you you should reverse thank
015you what you're doing on this is there anyone else that would like to make public comment at this time Kathy Heath upper Gwinnett Township um basically just a few things um I saw that I know there's a lot going on about the whole new building or whatever for the high school um my concern is you have one plan which looks like it's kind of like your let's just get it done and you're um Pie in the Sky um all the bells and whistles um you kind of need to start looking at instead of just bells and whistles what is really needed to educate the kids what is it that we really need to do and some of the things that I saw I don't know if this is part of your plan but the windows
016and the from what I saw the windows and the Hop it from the hallway into the classrooms that is going to mess with your special ed population to no end and there are kids who are going to decide that that's the best place to go to mess around and try to distract those kids all right I I lived through teaching in a building during during construction I know it's no fun um but I know it's necessary but you need to look at what you're doing also because quite honestly the building I worked at they decided drywall in the hallways was a smart idea guess what it wasn't and it was an expensive process to fix so you need to talk to your special education families the student the parents the and the teachers to see
017what what is really needed to make it the best place and some of that seating also you need to realize that not every student is the same size or shape so it some of that seating is not going to work for some of your student population and it's not going to necessarily work for some of your special needs population those are things you really need to take a good hard look at because from where I stand you haven't fully looked at that for the past 30. 13 plus years you need to start doing that thank you thank you Mrs Healey is there anyone else that would like to make public comment at this time if not then we can move on to our presentation with the Juvenile Justice System yes okay so tonight um we
018do have with us an assistant district attorney who's going to do a presentation on the Juvenile Justice diversion initiative in Montgomery County it's something that we do see alignment with our vision when you think about promoting respect responsibility uh collaboration opportunity for student voice dignity when you're disciplining students and so tonight I'm going to ask Mr Pete Nicholson to come up and do the honors of making the introduction for our guest speakers and I also while you're walking to the mic just want to wish Dr Bauer and his son good luck he's actually coaching his son's Championship uh baseball game tonight so he is sorry he couldn't be here so I'm doing my best to do what he does Dr Waters thank you very much I will say I guess his first call the game
019was bringing the pinch hitter and you're doing a pretty good job here so thank you good good evening everyone as Dr Waters said we have a special presentation this evening over the past month or so we've had a couple of preliminary meetings with a team of folks that are here with us today assistant district attorney Angela Bell uh Chief bendick from Montgomery Township Police Department as well as Chief Nolan from upper Marion have met with us at a couple of junctures over the past month speak about a juvenile justice diversion program that we are contemplating And discussing launching at North Penn High School for the fall so at this point in time we felt it was necessary to bring it before all of you to bring you in on the conversations we've had and let
020you see a little bit of what uh Ms Bell and the team have brought to us at North Penn High School so with that I'll introduce assistant district attorney Bell and her team come on up here good evening everybody good evening Chief Benedict Chief Nolan and I are part of a team of Montgomery County Juvenile Justice stakeholders we are currently implementing a pilot program we currently have three other Montgomery County school districts that are participating but basically what I wanted to talk to you tonight about was the bigger picture which is that we in Montgomery County in terms of Juvenile Justice are looking at how we can expand the use of diversion to keep more juveniles out of the juvenile justice system and as we look at identifying as many um summary and some misdemeanor
021offenses that can possibly be diverted through the District Attorney's youth Aid panel program at the same time that we're doing that on the Juvenile Justice side we are looking for school districts to also begin to identify code of conduct violations that you normally would suspend expel or refer to law enforcement we're asking the school districts that are participating in our pilot program to implement a youth Aid panel diversion program in the schools that models the District Attorney's program because we already know that school districts referrals to do to law enforcement contribute to juveniles going into the juvenile justice system and we think that if we can have some diversion and intervention in schools then it's going to reduce the number of kids that end up in the district attorney's office I would like Chief Nolan
022and chief Benedict to talk a little bit about um juvenile crime in general and how over what the last five years or so we have seen an increase in the types of things that are being sent into the juvenile justice system and how we want to uh encourage more entities in the system to divert so I'll let Chief know when talk about that okay um I would I got involved with Angela Bell uh eight or nine years ago now when we looked at diversion in Upper Marion Township and how much how many uh cases were going into the juvenile justice system and we were able to expand the youth aid program we were able to use it more in Upper Marine Township and bring more kids into the youth Aid panel where I think they
023get a lot more personal touches from the panel panel members I know some of our panel members even go into mentoring with some of the kids and we just see a lot more great stories about better outcomes for our juveniles who get involved in in some type of activity uh that brings that could bring them into the juvenile justice system or into law enforcement and they're handled at a different level so we've seen much much more progress that way and unfortunately we we have seen an increase in more violent crime in some of our juveniles and we've talked about that that by having a youth Aid panel it also gives us that added benefit of putting the the true Juvenile justice system for those who are committing serious violent crimes that we need to deal
024with instead of every crime going into the juvenile justice system so I think for for upper Marion that would be the biggest point that we see and chief bendig I like Chief Bender to talk a little bit about from a law enforcement perspective and with him being one of the townships connected with your school district how you see this benefiting the school district um good evening um so a few years ago Angela approached most of the chiefs of police in Montgomery County about this initiative really utilizing youth Aid panel to its fullest extent we're very fortunate in our County we've had pretty much every department has really embraced this program it's been wonderful I think we've found that um we're really again we're utilizing the resources in an appropriate manner departments are very rarely referring
025people to the criminal justice system so it's it's something that I think that it's been wonderful for us to utilize from a law enforcement perspective and I think that it would be a wonderful opportunity for us to utilize this in our district specifically thank you thank you so the slide that I have up here I just um wanted to basically show you how on the Juvenile Justice side if you look on the left hand side within the juvenile justice system when students or juveniles commit an offense they're going to be normally referred by law enforcement to the District Attorney's youth Aid panel program which I run for the district attorney or if it's not eligible it's going to go into the Juvenile Justice System either juvenile probation or the juvenile court the consent decree is
026actually a level of diversion within the system or they may be petitioned and have to appear before court on the school district side the school discipline side you guys have a code of conduct when there's violations you typically there would be detention suspension expulsion or referring to law enforcement what we're looking for everybody to do now on my side we are not not only looking for law enforcement to continue to refer kids when it's when it when the offense and the child is eligible we're looking for law enforcement to continue to refer cases to the youth Aid panel program but we are also looking for district justices to utilize the youth a panel program more and the District Attorney's office is also entertaining cases that are already in juvenile court we will consider some of
027those for diversion so we are actually pulling cases back out of the system and allowing kids to have an opportunity for diversion and what we are looking for the three school districts that we already have in the pilot program and hopefully North Penn would join them what we're looking for you to do is to take some of the code of conduct violations that you normally would suspend expel or refer to law enforcement we want you to identify some of those that you are willing to refer to your in-school youth Aid panel program that would be run by School District staff trained by me so that we can see if we can reduce the number of suspensions certainly we want to reduce your expulsions and definitely we are looking for you to be able to reduce
028your referrals to the juvenile justice system when people ask us about why it's so important that we do what we're doing on the Juvenile Justice System side and bring schools into it is because when children are involved in the Juvenile Justice System their education is interrupted when kids are in juvenile court when they're dealing with juvenile probation when they're in a police department their education is interrupted and you guys already know when they are suspended when you expel them when you refer them to law enforcement they're not in class they're not getting their education and what we're looking to do with this is not only keep kids out of the Juvenile Justice System keep them from having records that would interfere with college the military jobs we want to set kids up for success by
029making sure they have every opportunity to get their education and have a bright future so we are really hoping North Penn you're you're the biggest school district in Montgomery County so I I really am looking forward to working with the school district I expect that you will set the standard for what is possible with the school-based youth Aid panel program so we're um we had a couple of very good meetings with your staff with Administration and so we are really looking forward to working with you guys to see if we can really put a dent in some of the referrals to the juvenile justice system and we're happy to take any questions if you have questions I have a question yes hello thank you for joining us um we appreciate you presenting information about this
030and consideration of a partnership I am wondering you so you mentioned the youth Aid panel has trained trained staff members on on their how about how many are on there you mean with the other school districts yeah which is District Attorneys you think panel program no with the other districts I'm just curious what that looks like so we have Abington Cheltenham and upper Marion are participating in the pilot program um Abington runs their youth Aid panel they have I think probably five staff members who sit on their panel that see the kids they see their kids after school they identified their code of conduct violations that would be their eligibility criteria the kinds of offenses that they will refer to the program Cheltenham again probably has the same amount probably five or six staff members
031and they see their kids during the school day it works better for them Cheltenham is actually planning in the fall to run more panels and again they created their own they identified their own eligibility criteria the things that they were willing to refer to the program and upper Marion does did the same thing so is the idea in those programs that whatever the offenses were that they've identified they instead of calling law enforcement they refer to their internal youth Aid panel yes and settle it in that internally so the student never it never really involves law enforcement within the school there wasn't a law enforcement person that sits on that you think no no okay the programs model the District Attorney's use a panel program the District Attorney's youth Aid panel program that I'm the
032director of is run by community volunteers I have about 28 panels across Montgomery County that are manned by close to 150 volunteers the youth Aid panel program the foundation of it is balanced and restorative justice so what we look to do with the help of community volunteers is to give children and I'm very um intentional with my language when I say children they are children they are not many criminals and our intent with the youth Aid panel program is to give them an opportunity to take responsibility for the mistakes they make but also in our youth a panel program they have an opportunity to give back to the community take responsibility for their mistake address some of the causes for the decisions they made and then my plan with the District Attorney's youth a panel
033program is always for kids to leave us in a better State than when they came I tell all of my volunteers I expect you to meet this child where they're at we want to not only address the mistake they made that brought them to us but we want to plant seeds so that they have long-term success and what we hope to do with the school-based youth Aid panel programs is to have you again reduce referrals to law enforcement but we also want to see you reduce your suspensions and expulsions by diverting some of those code of conduct violations to your own in-house youth Aid panel program so that you can achieve that same objective with the children which is have them take responsibility for the mistake that they make it's an opportunity to also address
034the issues that may have caused them to make the mistake and then you want to plant that seed so we don't see them again and that they are able to get their education which is what they're in North Penn High School for one last question oh sorry okay just one last question in the districts where you're at are they seeing a decrease a percentage decrease or have they been able to look at that data to see if they're seeing a decrease in the number of suspensions or expulsions we're we're just starting to begin to look at that most the three districts launched between November and January they all really just launched so we didn't really have a lot of time so next year is really what I'm going to be looking to get you know
035really data that's really going to tell me but I will say when I'm met with the panel chairpersons for Abington and for Cheltenham the staff like it they think that it is a good addition to the school with the kinds of fences that are being referred to them of course you know kids are vaping um so they're seeing that type of thing fights they're seeing the kind of things that I'll be honest with you not only do the juvenile court judges in Montgomery County but also the district attorney has noted over the last couple of years that they're seeing things come to juvenile court come to the district attorney's office that frankly should not be there the juvenile court judges want everybody including school districts to think about diversion utilize diversion because there's just too
036many things going into the system that just frankly don't have to be a lot of your school fights I know that you have to maintain safety of your building I know that that's Paramount but if you have a mutually combatant fight between two kids there's no serious bodily injury there's no weapons there is no reason why that should not be dealt with in-house that's what we're looking for that type of thing any other questions thank you Mrs Bell I was going to ask for some examples of what the code of conduct violations would what kind of code of conduct violations would generally qualify so fighting is one is um are there any other common ones that you see that are getting sent to the district attorney's office that you think should not be so if
037vaping tobacco that gets sent to the district attorney's office so kids that are vaping marijuana yeah okay are going to end up with me but if you have kids and it's against it's a violation of your code of conduct for them to have the vape pens for them to be vaping tobacco in the building I think I'd rather you keep that in-house because I am going to get the ones where they're vaping marijuana that's what law enforcement calls me about that's appropriate to come to the district attorney's office tobacco you can handle thank you can you speak I'm sorry can you speak to the parents involvement their the collaboration with them at all yes so just like with the District Attorney's youth Aid panel parents have to sign off they have to agree that they're
038going to have their child accept this diversion instead of an alternative punishment so if it's the District Attorney's youth a panel program that law enforcement is trying to refer a juvenile to parents have to sign off if they say no thank you we don't want diversion then it's going to go into juvenile court in the school setting you're going to get the sign off of the parents they can either accept the youth Aid panel for their juvenile or they can accept whatever your regular school discipline would be suspension expulsion or calling the police what consequence from so the way that the youth Aid panel works is when juveniles are referred to the program the panel of volunteers or in your staff it would be your panel of School staff um gives them according to the
039offense and their own individual circumstances they are given what we call a resolution it's a list of tasks that they have to complete and as long as they complete those tasks then they can exit the program and get the diversion so their resolutions can include again depending on the offense apology letters essays community service it depends they will adapt that resolution to the offense that's been committed and the child's individual circumstances are making a point of saying that because a lot of times when kids come to us we have to think about why they did what they did what led to the poor choices that they make and so that's why for the District Attorney's Youth Day panel program we have a variety of community-based programs that we can also require them to attend for
040example if it's retail theft we have providers who do retail theft classes we have anger management classes they can be required to attend if alcohol or marijuana is an issue we have providers who they can go and deal with that and so those are the kind of things that can also be added to that resolution depending on what's going on with that child or what type of offense they committed and I do want you to know for the school-based Youth Aid panel programs all of the community services and programs that we provide in the county wide Gap I'm going to provide to the school-based Gap we also provide Case Management Services for youth who are at risk for any reason of if we think that they may have trouble completing the program we can also
041assign case managers to support them through that thank you Mrs Bell doctor oh thank you for sharing all this good information with us assistant district attorney bill um you talked about positioning these students for future success and I know you just started in the school districts but can you share with us some of the success stories from the ones who have been involved in the youth Aid panels that you've already had well I think that the success that we definitely can say we've had right now is the fact that every in every referral to the school-based youth day panel program has kept kids from being suspended or expelled or being referred to law enforcement so that right there is a success because like I said My ultimate goal is I want kids in class I
042don't want them at home doing nothing getting in more trouble I don't want them expelled from your district and I definitely don't want them in my office so I think those are probably the primary successes but but can I take your question and add to it to say one of the things that I've talked to the three school districts about is again when you make these referrals just like I tell the volunteers in the District Attorney's program meet this child where they're at so when you in the school district the app give them a resolution then let's say that a kid was disrespectful to a teacher let's say they cursed the teacher out right that definitely should be referred to your school gap program you shouldn't be sending a kid to juvenile court because they
043cursed out a teacher yes teachers should be respected but you refer something like that so let's say that the panel tells the kid you need to write Miss Smith an apology letter and when they get the apology letter every fifth word is misspelled and they can't put a grammatically correct sentence together what does that tell us that means the English teacher needs to get called in right that means this child may need a tutor that means somebody needs to meet with mom maybe mom does not realize that her ninth grader cannot write an apology letter and spell everything correctly or put a grammatically correct sentence together so this program is also giving school districts an opportunity to get a peek into where kids are right any other questions yes I think uh we're going to
044go um go that way yeah thank you very much assistant district attorney Bill and uh Chiefs for educating us on on this program a few questions just uh and I sure will be talking about this in safe schools and and we'll drill down some more but assuming this is based on some evidence-based models or other research elsewhere are there any particular places in the state or elsewhere that that we're modeling this on oh there are a number of um counties across Pennsylvania that utilize um the youth Aid panel programs like I said the the research behind it is balanced and restorative justice which most juvenile probation departments utilize and which is creating an atmosphere like I said where children are not in a a setting where they feel like they're in court there are no
045police officers there in uniform with guns but it's an opportunity again for them to take accountability for their mistakes but at the same time have the support of the community and in your case that Community is the school community to address what they've done but also to build competency and when I say that I mean just like I said it's a chance for us to build them up to address issues that may be driving their behavior and and get them headed in the right direction and that's I really appreciate learning about the case management aspect so with that support be coming from the county for the school youth Aid panels so um the the Case Management Services that we offer to kids refer to the district attorneys Youth Day panel program I will make that
046available to you through grant funding so there will be no cost to the school district if your kids need the Case Management Services and and full disclosure I worked with the walk tells back in the early 90s I worked with the Wachtel Ted Wachtel and others balance of restorative justice in the early 90s okay so I might start in school-based uh juvenile probation one of the first programs in Bucks County so yeah um and used to work with Chief Custer way back in the day here as a new Chief cluster so so you haven't you have some background right well and starting youth diversion and youth Aid panels uh in the early 90s but one of the questions I have is does this uh match up with informal adjustments as well is that something that
047students will will have that opportunity for or does this well the informal adjustment is a piece if they do end up in the system the informal adjustments is something that's offered by Juvenile Probation so like I said it's actually if they have to go into the system even once they go into the system there are more opportunities for diversion to keep them from ending up in front of a judge and an informal adjustment is an opportunity within the system for diversion as well and that's where I just want to highlight for the community that there's an aspect of this that's about responsiveness and when our court systems when they're overwhelmed with a lot of the low-level uh misdemeanors and other offenses that really don't rise to that level it creates an accountability that's much more
048prompt within the schools and that helps overall with the culture because there's accountability that maybe teachers or staff see when an incident happens or other students and that that begins to actually change um you know the climate within our schools so having it also be based locally and on a better timeline with the right standards can make a real difference because it's about accountability Juvenile Justice protecting Public Safety making sure that taxpayer savings are also protected you know there were studies uh Vanderbilt University in the uh 2000s how to study that if you if you invest in programs it like diversion you create taxpayers which contribute to society as opposed to if you don't make that diversion they're expelled um once someone is on probation which is the the typical Hammer right that most Juvenile
049Justice systems use then you're you're more likely to increase the risk that you're not going to create someone who is contributing to society but now Society has to pay for uh whether that's incarceration other social services moving forward and so that's why this type of program of you know explaining this for our community is very important because it will also ultimately improve not only protecting Public Safety but the outcomes for families youth in our communities you know we had an example a couple years ago in which it was two separate tracks right we we at the uh District Attorney's Office months and months later after a school issue was uh we were using some balance of restorative justice it seemed like there were two different paths and this is something that brings them together now
050to help our community and those families so I really appreciate that I want to finish by asking uh the Chiefs all due respect and make sure they got their Ties on tonight I want to get them some some camera time uh but and thank you Chief your explanation in your professional opinion what you know about this and and chief bendig I know you also I believe you represent all the Chiefs in uh the Montgomery County Association as well anymore recently I've passed that baton recently past president uh Chief bending I just want to have your opinion for for the community and to educate the sport and chief Nolan as well that you are confident this is not putting the community or our schools at any higher risk and that these are low-level offenses that are
051going to be you know looked at by the youth Aid panels or the community to be confident that this isn't changing the equation this isn't some risky experiment but something that you believe will make a real difference in our schools for safety and our students and I would say from from upper Marion standpoint and I've been Chief since 2012 and in about 2013 and 14 we got heavily into the youth Aid uh panel and using it a lot more we have not seen some dramatic increase in or or some bad bad things happening in public safety what we've seen is um the the children go to the right system and I would use this so my officers in the past they made a retail theft arrest or whatever the arrest was and they bring the
052purse the the juvenile in they just don't have the time you know so they're going to issue a citation they're going to send it through the system nobody gets involved in that child they'd love the officers would love to get involved in the child tried it but they don't the next call is available is out there that the next thing is going on with this youth Aid panel knowing that they're going to take it in front of um volunteers from our community who have a vested interest they're in they're in our community they want to do this and they put a whole lot more time and effort into that child so now the child does get that that issue and and potentially will not continue down that path they were going in so as you
053said we took somebody out of potentially going into criminal justice system and made them a more productive member of society so I would see I would say that would be a big thing I've been doing this for 38 years now you know I I've been in houses where I've I know that I've arrested the parent as a child and now I'm there for their child and I have to wonder myself if we had these programs back then would that whole family Dynamic have changed if that that that person is now a parent would have had some help earlier on that's what I would add uh one other thing I'd like to add is just the fact that we've worked with the administration of the district and I I think that we have an outstanding partnership
054and I think that um just the initial meetings that we've had I think we can come to some very clear Common Grounds and again I think that they have the best interest of the student population at hand and again I think that I think we are all on the same page with this so I don't see how this could not work in our district honestly so thank you very much on what you said and and maybe the Chiefs want to weigh in on this we had a meeting today earlier today with representatives from every Police Department in Montgomery County we touched on a little bit of this but one of the things the points that we were trying to make was are Juvenile justice system has a limited amount of resources just have to be
055honest about that right we all have to make sure that those limited resources are available for the children with the highest need unfortunately we're all watching the same news we know that we have children across this whole region who are committing felonies who are committing crimes that are Way Beyond the youth day panel program we need our juvenile justice system resources to be available for them some of the things that you may see in your high school or that police officers may see on a daily basis many of those things it we're not trying to belittle anything especially anything where there is a victim we take victims circumstances and their rights into consideration but there are many things that children are doing that can be dealt with outside of the system and that's what we're
056talking about you want to comment on that we talked we had all of these Representatives today um yeah and I think a lot of I can't think what Angel is alluding to is is um when we see the juveniles that are um well we have a better opportunity to handle their situation police departments are scary places um when you bring a juvenile into a police department no matter how well you try to make that you've now indoctrinated them into the system you've made them feel like they're a criminal some of some of them wear that as a badge of honor and now try to take that path the youth Aid panels that we have they don't meet in our police department they meet in the other side of the building in the administrative side so
057it takes a whole different feel out of that and I think that's a big component of this that we don't want you know I know the police officers in this region and in this County and they do want to help children they do not want to be the hammer they would rather as as we said deal with those serious violent crimes that we need to deal with and not be not be tied up on crimes again if they had the time they would love to be the people that mentored these kids in these situations they just don't have it on these individual situations but that are are volunteers from our communities have willingly given up their time and I I I can't say enough about the volunteers that we get to do this um I
058have some of the greatest panelists in our community that have done this for a number of years and they never give up they continue to come and they continue to to care about the children in our community and make them better thank you this is rummage I'll try to be very brief but we've talked a lot about high school is there any thought of also extending this to middle school or looking at secondary as a whole um and then I really love the kind of getting to the why right and getting to so and as a social worker by training and background getting to that why is so critical and then when you do have the a child who is ready right and you've come up with a list of things I need to do
059it seems like you have the services lined up but sometimes those are Community Resources that there could there may not be enough where there may be a challenge are you worried about Community capacity for some of these outside Community referrals is there need for support of expansion in that area and then if you could speak a little bit about the in-school youth Aid panel with the plans that they're putting together how many of those services are able to be provided within a school and how what percentage are provided in the community and are there any challenges in accessing those services in the community I'm sorry that was a lot that's okay um we laugh because Chief bendig and I we get your first question every time every school district that we have spoken to uh
060they say sounds good Angela we like the idea uh what about our Middle School I understand there's a lot going on in the middle schools across this County and I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told Cheltenham because they really wanted me to do this in their middle schools let me get your high school up and running and running well and and we will figure out something for your middle school I promise you I promise Cheltenham I am going to get to the middle schools but I want to get your high school up and running and then we will we will transition something to address your middle schools as far as my service providers um many of them a lot of their programs they are doing via Zoom so we won't have transportation issues
061but I'll be honest with you I am in communication with them as the school-based yacht programs take off we will be mindful of capacity what I am asking the school districts that are participating is that if you have internal programs that your panel can refer kids to use that but if something I have is the most appropriate thing for that child or the circumstance then we're going to use it we're going to use it and we're going to make adaptions when we need to make adaptions we're not there yet but yes I am mindful of that we'll be in communication with our service providers and then in terms of figuring out the why that's why my case management staff is so important they are Master's level social workers and they are wonderful not only with
062supporting children and getting through this program but usually what we find is that mom needs help and I know I'm speaking to the choir when I say when you help Mom you help that child so our case management staff often has to come in and address whatever whatever challenges mom has because when she's situated that atmosphere that environment allows her child to thrive and be successful did I forget anything okay this gentleman has been very patient yes you had a question no I I did I answer it already no I just when I first got on the school board I would hear stories at this uh issues were being handled by teachers and principals and I know these since standardize that practice that we bring them up those issues up to a panel and this
063seems like the next logical step in that and I'm glad to see the district attorney and the police departments working together to bring this uh process to the public so I think this is great I think this is wonderful and thank you very much for this thank you for I appreciate it thank you Mr rush I think Mr Fusco has uh just briefly and I do actually have a question I wasn't going to ask one but something prompted it but first I just want to say I am a teacher I work in a neighboring District that's not implementing this at this point and you know these uh types of offenses that you described these are the I think the things that are driving teachers out of the profession right it's it's this stuff it's the
064disrespect the fighting The Vaping the the stuff that is a constant daily problem and you'll hear from teachers a complaint that we're not doing anything about it right we're either sending them into you know home for suspension sending them you know to law enforcement or we're kind of throwing our hands up and going what are we doing right we're so I believe that this is filling a vacuum right that this has a potential to really start to address that because it really we have seen that escalated you know tick up since covid everywhere you know we hear it from our constituents here in North Penn I certainly here in you know my colleagues in the lunchroom from all ends so I do think that this is a very important program that has a lot of
065potential that cooperating the school district and law enforcement working together to try to you know um get involved before we get to that pipeline right before we get them into that pipeline the only question that I have is just what is the actual like since you answered this question all the time the reasoning and the logic behind starting with high school and not Middle School since it is sort of a long-term perspective in what you want to see with outcomes I would think that starting at the middle schools would actually be planting those seeds earlier and maybe easier so I'm just curious what the logic is so it I'm not going to say it's necessarily logical but um part of this process is looking at um where your discipline your primary discipline issues are and
066what they are so we will be asking for some data to see exactly what's happening in your high school but yes I do see your middle school as my intervention Point that's my Prevention point so to speak so once we identify like what's happening in your high school what have you traditionally been doing about your your different code of conduct violations then we will do prevention with the middle school not necessarily logical but you're you're high schools in most school districts really are your hot spots that's where law enforcement am I right yeah when law enforcement is brought in they usually are coming to your high school but I I'm glad you brought up teachers though because we also took into consideration that hopefully this type of program creates an atmosphere where teachers feel that
067something is being done that they are supported that there's an atmosphere where they can teach right I think that is most present in Middle Schools I think Middle School teachers from the middle school principals that I've spoken to Middle School teachers are tired they are frustrated so I know I have to get there because they are burning out and they need that atmosphere to change they need to feel like something is being done children's needs are being addressed and and that there's a safe environment so they can teach so we're getting there if I can just add I think the other part about the high school is they're at that critical age that 15 16 17 where when they get to 18 they are in the adult system we don't want to teach them how
068to get into the criminal justice system uh and that's why it's so important and as we all know that our parents of teenagers there's no magic when they turn from 17 to 18 that they all of a sudden stop making dumb mistakes so we want to make sure that we we try to hit them at that critical age you just ruined my day as I have a 17 year old and I was really counting on 18 being a big for her I guess not all right does anyone else have any other questions no seeing none well thank you assistant A.D Bell and Chief bendick and chief Nolan we appreciate your presentation this evening and we look forward to working with you and for the board I just want to thank you we found it important
069to bring this to you so you could have a good understanding of some of the planning that was going to be happening this summer as you can see we're not looking for a vote we're not looking to move this forward we will eventually be coming before you they're looking to change the code of conduct after we've planned this out and really taken the summer to build our teams get the training and launching hopefully sometime September to October I'm trying to keep that as early in the school year as possible so again thank you for all the questions thank you for your time this evening and we'll be obviously keeping safe schools in the in the know as we plan and coming back to the whole group for a final vote on the updated code of
070conduct at the high school thank you Mr Nicholson okay is that is there any other business this evening yeah yeah I would just like to answer a question that was asked the public comment about why we raised the pride flag uh I mean it is pride month um person's identity is not a psychological problem right let's start with that um I actually took offense to that statement um on behalf of the people that I know who identify as members of the lgbtq plus community they are still a marginalized Community we've made a lot of progress over the last five to ten years in this country recognizing their rights but to say that their struggle for equality is over um is just patently false right so why do we raise the pride flag we do it
071to show them support we do that to show them that we're allies we do that to show them that we're here and we hear them we're not making decisions about their identity they are making the decisions about their identity we are simply not going to judge them based on that right and that's just a symbolic way of showing that when we say that we're here for all of our students that they are very much included in that that statement so that's your answer to that question thank you Mr Fusco and could I just add that no matter what their identity is we just want them to know they have a right to be in this District to be educated and trained for a future success a lot of them have gone through suicidal thoughts and
072everything else we just want them to know that we accept them and they have the right to be educated and trained so many school districts they do not but here they do and it is tied to education because I say this all the time you have to reach kids to teach kids if there are they don't feel safe if they don't feel welcome then they're not going to be able to perform at their best it's pretty much that basic have a motion to adjourn please so moved thank you very much thank you everyone for coming off this evening