001okay good evening everyone welcome to tonight's action meeting we're going to start off with the pledge of allegiance please okay next is our audience of citizens before we make public comment i'm going to read off the statement 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 they are being videotaped in order to meet the requirements of pennsylvania sunshine law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the board during the meeting to assure 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 allow time for all those who wish to
002speak to the board the board president may ask an individual to yield the microphone to the next speaker 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 requests that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting and this is in reference to board policy so the first person that signed up to speak tonight is mr reinhart mr reinhart if you're here now would be your time excuse me stephen
003reinhardt lansdale borough good evening members of the board i had written something to read tonight but after careful consideration i decided it would be not quite dignified to read in public um instead i should like to first congratulate dr bauer on his appointment i think he has all of the qualities necessary to lead the sport or to to lead this district in the future i should also like to thank the board for their wisdom in choosing dr bauer on the other topics i've been told more than once by four board members that this is a responsive board it's time to prove it those board members who might excuse me they're on page picked up this thing um i should also like to simply address the board as a whole with some individual acknowledgements uh mr
004mr fresco i want to thank you for your thoughtful considered and detailed reply to my question i appreciate it um i do not see mrs ramich okay um mr casa i i was worried because i hadn't heard from you but i i do appreciate your continued um support and uh attention to matters of especially school safety that we've that we've talked about you know that near the traffic pandel etc um mr ash i deeply respect your commitment to this district i'm disappointed however that you have not chosen to respond to my emails for nearly four months no i can't get the page okay those board members whom i didn't mention have never responded to any communication that i have sent not one president we had what i thought was a good open communication channel i
005am still unsure as to why you decided to close it i regret my error in judgment in passively referring to you as president snow that was wrong i have apologized for this previously and for the record i don't think you're a nazi either and i never called you one or implied it please discontinue the unstated board policy of quote if they're not with us 100 they're against us and responding to that kind of statement with let them eat static i just don't know thank you good night uh president stole if i may my understanding is that director ramich is here attending via phone is that correct that is correct yes i just wanted to put that on the record before we move to the next speaker thank you is there anyone else that would like
006to make public comment at this time hello pauline brought you thomanson township how you doing tonight um unlike the previous gentleman you have responded some of you to my email regrettably i don't understand why you guys don't understand what i wrote because i get these responses that have nothing to do with what i wrote and then well not nothing to do but just a total misunderstanding for instance when i talked about the police should have a swat every police department should have a swat team in case there is a shooting at a school and i think christian took it as i meant to have swat here all the time no that's not what i meant i meant there should be swat to come in if there is a shooter an active shooter in a school
007because they would have the equipment they would have the training and they would be able to confront the shooter much more quickly than what we saw at parkland or more recently uvalde i am appreciative of the police work that that they do i just wish they had better training because if someone is trained well enough then they can put their maybe they can put their normal fears aside if they're just trained i know that's what they do in boot camp in the military they break it down they train you up and then you are basically programmed and i think that's what needs to be done with the police especially in a situation where there is an attacker i'd like to wanda you wrote me this uh email that was basically scolding me and you know
008what i had to laugh because i'm not doing what you said um i did not attack anyone in my emails and i have not insulted anyone i know the christian took some things as an insult but no that is not what i was doing i was trying to inform and suggest and um you wanda said that you have that various people have responded with logical and or reasonable explanations and my last response was i have not received anything that was logical or reasonable saying that [Music] is a slippery slope is to me a cop-out either you're going to take a stand against pornography or you're not and you have chosen not to and tina i asked you specifically specifically what is your opinion i sent you the excerpt i sent you the source and you
009never did respond to my questions i want to know so okay so what do you said you told me in your email to send you a specific example and i did exactly that and you did not respond to it so i still don't know what your opinion is about pornography in the schools or that particular book so it's very disappointing that you know i was happy to get responses but it was very disappointing that the responses weren't even directed towards what i was actually talking about i know you are loathe to answer anything and answering and speaking about what i'm saying now after i've spoken is another form of cowardice because if you can't talk to me while i can still answer you well then all you're doing is just acting like a coward thank
010you mrs brocco two things first of all i'll remind you that in the statement that it is not a time for debate and feet you know back and forth between the board and people speaking in on public comment that's number one and number two i call you mrs bracio i would appreciate the same respect back for me for um dr lewis campbell for mr fusco okay and all the rest of the people on the board all right thank you your time is up is there anyone else that like to speak right now mrs brocco please have a seat it doesn't work that way mr lanier did you want to speak okay jason linear lansdale um i wanted to kind of springboard from what uh esperanto was saying about reasonable we are told by mr summers
011that you guys are allowed to set rules based upon being uh the school board of directors may adopt reasonable rules and regulations for its government and control so let's go over what's reasonable is pornographic material reasonable because i have a list of books that might be 15 or 20 that are digitally accessible which is interesting you guys are going to be passing a policy about not allowing pornography on on chromebooks i'm all for it chromebooks lock things down kids can't get anywhere that's fantastic unless you know what unless they go to the school library that's right parents unless they go to the school library they can get pornographic material these books are sexually explicit salacious ridiculously detailed encounters i do not understand why what educational value do they provide in it are they reasonable could
012any of you tell me are they reasonable well let's go on the next reasonable policy the equity policy again this is not something that's in the school code this is something that's adopted from the the nsba i guess it was is equity reasonable yeah is equity critical race theory because when i read what your professional development speakers write about it's often it looks much like critical race theory now again this is i'm not saying that you're teaching graduate level course in critical race theory what i'm saying is you're implementing the tenets of critical race theory to teach kids and divide kids and to set your academic performance standards i mentioned in one of the meetings that you guys are lowering standards in all the junior high schools you've lowered the standards for so that you
013and you increase the number of kids in the national junior honor society is that a benefit to whom a lower hurdle makes a kid in more productive more improved i said that in one of the schools that you guys actually said you were going to level up students dr brower mentioned that that must have been to understand something so i went back and looked at the hatfield presentation eci presentation on february 1st 2002 i can read you it says uh given our 2021 fall baseline we will level up black and hispanic students for the fourth edition of assessments may june twenty twenty two i don't know if that happens happened but that seems like you're dividing kids based upon race mr lanier your time is up thank you mr monticelli or mr craney what name
014are we going by tonight no comment tonight okay is there anyone else that would like to make public comment all right we'll move on then can i have a motion please to approve the minutes of the july 21 2022 action meeting and the august 9th 2022 work session please so moved second motion by dr g and seconded by mr fusco any comments or questions all in favor say aye any aye motion carries moving on to the committee reports first up is personnel and the personnel committee did not meet in august excuse me doc uh mrs stole do we approve both meeting minutes july 21st and august 9th that was what the motion was okay i wasn't sure thank you so the next committee report would be finance please mr fusco thank you the finance committee
015did not meet in august in september the committee is scheduled to meet on september 6th at 6 pm the meeting will be held in person at a location to be determined end of report thank you safe schools mr caso thank you madam president the safe schools committee met on monday evening july 25th mr durr and coordination of coordinator of transportation mr dennis ryan shared information about bus patrol an automated stop arm enforcement technology designed to increase student safety the system is quickly becoming popular among school districts in pennsylvania with several local districts already participating a meeting is scheduled with local police chiefs and representatives from bus patrol to review the steps required to bring the program to north penn mr tarr then reviewed the findings of the district-wide school safety and security program assessment performed
016by marcolis healy and associates this spring board members are provided with the full 93-page report and briefed by margolis healey in executive session a summary of the report is posted online for members of the public to review mr durer also reviewed his annual report to the board of directors including 2021 through 2022 school year data notable projects and goals for the future the report is also posted for review finally mr durb provided details of act 55 which was recently signed by governor wolf act 55 made modifications to the school code which specifically include additional training requirements for all staff as well as grant funding for physical security and mental health projects the next safe schools committee meeting is scheduled for monday august 30th at 5 45 p.m virtually end of report thank you mr casa
017are there any comments or questions seeing none we'll move on to the education curriculum and instruction committee report dr g please on wednesday august 17th the eci committee meeting met committee met at 4 30 in a virtual format at that meeting an update regarding assessments for the 2022-23 school year and student travel were presented to the committee the next meeting of the eci committee will be held on tuesday september 13th at 6 pm in a virtual format thank you dr g next committee report is policy mr resh please mr rescue micron sorry this is the update from the regular policy meeting meeting of august 9 2022. the policy committee met on august 9 2022 in a virtual format at the meeting the committee continued to review policies in the 800 series policies on the agenda
018this month were 800 records management and policy 801 public records these policies are on tonight's agenda for fast reading the next meeting of the policy committee will be on september 13 2022 at 5 pm in a virtual format thank you mr rush the next committee report will be facilities and operations mrs wesley please thank you president stahl the facilities and operations committee met on monday july 25th in a virtual format the committee reviewed the following items to be moved to this evening's action meeting for the board consideration there was one change order for the knapp elementary school project there is a change order for the fire alarm replacement and upgrade project and the award of the health care center site work contracts the committee was also presented and discussed informational items including the update on
019the knapp elementary project update the next facilities and operations meeting is scheduled for monday august 29th at 7 pm in a virtual format and i'd like to add that north pens and act club will be presenting their their information ideas on how to move forward in a more energy efficient environmentally responsible manner as we move forward with construction projects so please tune in for that we're looking forward to it thank you and a report thank you mrs wesley next up is the north monco technical career center thank you madam president the regular meeting of the north monco joint operating committee was held virtually on monday august 13th at 7 00 pm virtually the jlc approved several personnel appointments and resignations the purchase of new textbooks student travel requests staff travel requests the revised health and
020safety plan and a catering event the jlc also discussed ways and plans to increase enrollment the plan is to go to to examine every program to make sure it operates efficiently and in the best interests of the students we are going to continue to look for new programs in growing fields and i'm happy to say that mr rush is representing us on that committee the next jlc meeting will be held virtually on monday september 19th at 7 pm end of report thank you dr lewis campbell the next report is the montgomery county intermediate unit mr fusco will be reading that report this evening highlights from the june 22 2022 board meeting brandon langer program administrator instructional technology and christie ruth program supervisor of montgomery virtual program both from the office of professional learning presented an
021overview of student-centered learning with the montgomery virtual program the results of the montgomery county intermediate unit board annual election were announced and the mciu board will seat the following board members for terms effective july 1st 2022 and in advance uh i apologize for any of those who may be listening whose names i'm about to butcher brian allen from abington jennifer cannon from lower moreland township greg delia from upper moorland janet flysak from amy hubley from springfield township rowan keenan from perky oman valley susan lawrence from pottstown gary lebandor from upper marion jennifer lohman from cheltenham township sharon marino from colonial melanie schaffmeister from lower marion and margaret wright from springford area school district the montgomery county intermediate unit board elected the following mciu board officers for the 2022-23 year board president our own julianne ramich
022ford vice president sharon mock board treasurer judith mcguinness board secretary jennifer wilson from haproversion the mciu board appointed board president julian ramich to serve as the psba voting delegate to the psba 2223 delegate assembly on november 5th an executive director update dr speaker thanked michael berardi mciu board representative from lower moreland township for his dedicated service to the mciu board of directors dr speaker shared that the mciu opening day for 2223 is scheduled for monday august 22nd 2022 at 8 30 a.m at north penn high school all mciu board members are invited to attend as their schedules allow the mciu board approved the calendar for intermediate unit board meetings for the 22-23 school year the mciu board approved the following budget items for 22-23 office of professional learning office of technology prri private rehabilitative institutions
023access administrative time study idea 611 school age special education and summer food service program the mciu board approved the following budget items for 2122 statewide system of support stem state and federal funds statewide system of support data governance statewide system of support atsi federal funds statewide system of support accelerated learning statewide system of support accelerated learning school districts and a budget revision for the 2122 act 89 non-public schools human resources update nine new employees two retirements 19 resignations and seven temporary hires for the monco works now program the mciu board approved a regional partner contract agreement between the mci between the mciu and code.org to provide professional development during the 2223 school year the office of student services will be opening two new specialized life skills support classrooms with a focus on transition and behavioral
024support at colonial middle school and upper dublin high school the office of student services will be expanding their mds classrooms and opening new classrooms at thomas fitzwater elementary school and upper dublin school district and penndale middle school in north penn school district the mciu board approved continuations of contracted technology service agreements to support school districts for the 22-23 school year the mciu board approved a number of contracted service agreements to support its many trainings programs and services provided by the offices of the mciu wednesday august 14th 2022 will be the next meeting uh it will be held at 6 45 p.m end of report thank you mr fusco next up is the north penn educational foundation [Music] the foundation has been busy this month with its build a bag backpack drive and assembled and distributed
025hundreds of filled backpacks to our schools earlier today we are extremely grateful for the individuals businesses and groups who donated to this wonderful cause to the volunteers who helped put everything together and to virginia higgins from the office of school and community engagement for coordinating it all we received more donations this year than ever before up next we will have our 21st annual golf classic being held on tuesday october 11th at tallamore country club we are looking for players sponsors and volunteers for this popular popular event which fills up quickly we would also like to thank the independence blue cross who is our first premier sponsor of the year trustees are looking forward to the start of the school year and helping north penn teachers put into action all the grants approved this spring to
026learn more about all the things foundation related please visit npnfoundation.org or contact christine liberowski at the esc end of report next up is the legislative committee report mr mcvean police thank you madam president pennsylvania house and senate are in summer recess and will reconvene in mid-september this year members of our community are invited as always to take part in the democratic process to determine who will represent us in the future please take time to consider each of the candidates ahead of election day in november and a report thank you mr mcpain next up is a solicitor's report i don't know do you have okay thank you madam president there's only one item to report this evening and that is an executive session was held and attended by the board of directors along with council on
027august 9th it was a virtual session and it was within regard to the matter docketed in the federal district court of the eastern district of pennsylvania entitled bennett versus the north penn school district thank you mr barletta next up is the superintendent's report dr bauer please thank you madam president i recommend the items listed on the consent agenda namely adoption of policies repeal of policies adoption of policies for a first read notice of intent to repeal policies student travel contracts building rental fee waiver approval to advertise for bid future mpsd residents tuition free student agreements alternative placements and lastly 2022 2022-23 chromebooks and desktops bid may i have a motion please so moved can i have a second second motion by mr fusco and seconded by dr lewis campbell any comments or questions yes madam
028president so the policy for the therapy dogs that's that's something that i know that i've discussed at facilities and operations and i'm really happy and pleased that it's moved forward to this point so thank you so much to the administration and to mr dorr thank you mrs wesley are there any other comments or questions just a quick um question about the um see-saw purchase uh will that does that mean that it will i'm not sorry not see-saw s'more the s'more purchase does that mean it will be more widely is the purpose of that so it can be more widely used across the district in terms of communication for principals to have access to the pro level yes and it's more like consortium pricing so we had each individual school not each but most of our
029schools were purchasing a license and now we purchased a district license so it can be more widespread can be used by clubs it could be used by central office so yes okay great thank you it's nice to see that i think we saw that that was really useful at eci as people were presenting that many were using that and if people aren't familiar with it smore does it's a new software in which you can utilize it for newsletters and communication and also translates into i think over 100 different languages or something like that so um thank you for for supporting our principals and teachers and others that may use that thank you dr g are there any other questions comments okay seeing none there's a motion on the floor all in favor say aye aye
030aye any opposed motion carries okay i recommend the approval of the personnel items as per the attached can i have a motion please so moved second motion by mr fusco seconded by mr casa any comments or questions just a quick question well not so much a question on the substitute rates will those rates as you have looked at them allow us to be competitive and be able to ensure that we're able to bring in the substitutes that we need in the teacher shortage to support us throughout the year and cover our classes you know what i'm i'm pretty confident in that based on last year's data compared to our colleagues across the county our rates have been much higher not just the substitute rates but also the fill rates have been higher and i know
031there's been conversations with my colleagues across the county as well what's you know basically trying to get a sense from each other what are your rates you know what are you gonna do and so honestly we are still one of the highest ones um the only difference between last year's and upcoming school year substitute rates is that you know the bonus we won't be having that in place but otherwise it's still hundred and eighty hundred ninety and two hundred dollars for the certificate and 170 100 890 for the guest teachers their tier programs thank you dr g thank you dr kim mr barletta can you i just mr lanier this isn't public comment right now you can you can you can you can make your objection noted for the record you i just said you
032can make your objection for the record it'll be noted and then we're going to move on it was announcement you can watch this video when you are done tonight okay so sorry where were we at today thank you dr kim dr kim had answered my question any opposed motion carries okay i recommend the approval of change order 23 to low bar incorporated in the amount of zero dollars for miscellaneous changes during construction by having a contractual change made to apply the unit cost allowance 24 to this change order can i have a motion please so moved second motion by mrs wesley seconded by mr casa any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries i recommend the approval of deduct change order 2 to electrotech incorporated in the amount of
0336238.99 for the reimbursement of the remaining allowances in their contract can i have a motion please can i have a second second motion by mrs wesley seconded by mr fusco any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries i recommend the rejection and rebid of the general con construction bid for the health care center for site work and utilities project can i have a motion please second motion by mr fusco seconded by mr casa any comments or questions madam president i have one clarification so i understand why the general construction contract um we're going to we're going to reject and re-bid but what happens to the three electrical construction bids do they just wait or is that that's not being rebuilt correct go ahead chris go ahead okay yep they
034aren't going to be rejected or awarded at this time we're going to hold them until we get the the rebids back for the general construction bid so we're going to hold them and and consider them once we have the other part of the bid done okay do they agree to hold their pricing though for this bid i'm not sure what the exact language is in the bid or miss wesley i apologize but traditionally we have something in there to say it's held for a certain amount of time thank you mrs wesley are there any other comments or questions seeing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries okay i recommend the approval of the fall 2022 winter 2023 community education program classes and fees as attached do you have a motion motion
035by mr fusco seconded by dr lewis campbell any comments or questions i do have one comment i would i'm proud to share that we have english for everyday adults again that was an award-winning program last year put on by our communications department and mrs earley and really excited to have that again this year i just have one quick comment um just kind of nice to see the variety back right as i'm kind of you just looking through the variety of classes so i hope that um folks will um look at what's offered and start to take advantage of these classes again as we kind of get back to normal it's just nice to see um i'll be taking bentley to the dog obedience at school i do think we've seen some dogs and virtual school
036board meetings that could join us on dog obedience class um that class is listed here specifically for mr scracky you're not referring to my dogs i hope um okay so there's a motion on the floor all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries okay i recommend that the attached stipulation to settle the real estate tax assessment appeal between the north penn school district and schwartz dalton real estate llc concerning the property located at 430 stump road montgomery township be approved as presented and that the board president be authorized to execute the stipulation the current assessed value for the parcel shall be increased from 921 thousand five hundred and ten dollars to one million one hundred and four thousand three hundred and ten dollars do i have a motion please so moved have a
037second motion by mr fusco seconded by mr mcpain any comments or questions all in favor say aye and lastly i recommend that the attached stipulation to settle the real estate tax assessment appeal between the north penn school district and schwartz dalton real estate llc concerning the property located at 436 stump road montgomery township be approved as presented and that the board president be authorized to execute the stipulation the current assessed value for the part parcel excuse me shall be increased from one million three hundred and forty nine thousand eight hundred and forty dollars to one million six hundred and twenty two thousand three hundred and ninety dollars motion please so moved second motion by mr fusco and seconded by mr casa any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye aye motion carries and
038that's it for me thank you president thank you superintendent bower all right next up uh we will have the finance report and we have um kristin here tonight to do this report so thank you madam president uh we do have a couple quick updates that we would like to to discuss first off if you're a property owner in the north penn school district just a reminder that the two percent discount period for the real estate tax bills ends october 31st so please keep that date in mind as we're approaching that payment date if you are a property owner the district and have not received your tax bill please contact your elected tax collector immediately next the pennsylvania department of the auditor general's performance audit is now complete and a draft report is currently under development
039and review as a reminder north penn and 11 other school districts were part of this audit and the report is being developed in a comprehensive manner where all 12 districts will be reported together the business office has been and is continuing to prepare for the annual independent local audit which is scheduled to start in september next for anyone in the audience that has family and friends eligible for the pa property tax rebate program we wanted to remind you and them that the north penn school district is in its fifth year of our own program that piggy backs the state program so if you know anyone who is eligible for the state program they may be eligible for the north penn program and should apply we match the state's program by 75 percent we've had several
040individuals in the past years who've had 100 of their property taxes refunded to them through the state program and our own the average rebate for the 21 22 school year was 264 dollars over 544 applicants and for 22.23 the rebates are averaging 361 dollars so far over 164 applicants we do think this is an excellent program that helps the north penn community and we encourage anybody who thinks they may be eligible to apply the rebate program will be discussed at the september finance committee committee meeting to discuss the increased rates at the state level for 22-23 finally pennsylvania state senator lindsey williams the minority chair for the senate education committee announced today that she will introduce legislation that will provide free meals to all students at the beginning of the pandemic the federal government took
041action to ensure that all students had access to free breakfast and lunch however access to universal school meals is set to expire at the beginning of the 22-23 school year which is right around the corner for the commonwealth students and families while the federal government has taken some steps to help schools facing rising food gas and labor costs unfortunately nothing has been done yet to help pennsylvania students and families enduring the same financial strain we certainly support the proposed legislation just a reminder that breakfast will be free for all students of the north penn school district for 22-23 school year regardless of the outcome of this proposal furthermore students who previously qualified for reduced meal prices will be able to provide to obtain meals for free for lunch as well these two initiatives are being
042funded by this district school nutrition services program and fund in terms of the treasurer's report for the month of july 2022 we had cash receipts totaling 23.6 million cash disbursements totaling 23.9 million available funds at the end of july were 70.9 million which is about 800 000 less than last year at this time madam president i ask for the approval of the treasury reports for july thank you mrs johnson can i have a motion please removed motioned by mr fusco and seconded by mr rash any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries sorry and i just want to make sure i didn't misspeak the discount period ends september 31st okay in case i misspoke september 31st 30th very good yeah i'm sorry 30 30. uh i'm sorry am i
043saying that wrong you're okay there's only 30 days in september not 31. i said it wrong it's august 31st clarify you said it's august 31st kristin you said at the start of school you did a nice job august 31st is the end of the discount no problem thank you okay next we have uh the sanctioned approval of invoices i recommend ratification of the disbursements for the month of july in the amount of 27 million 19 424 dollars and 15 cents can i have a motion please so moved second um dr g okay motioned by mr fusco seconded by dr g any comments or questions all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries okay and then finally for informational purposes all the monthly financial reports are posted in board docs and we do review them
044in detail at the finance committee meetings thank you very much mrs johnson okay next up we'll be moving on to other business we have an update on the 2022-2023 health and safety plan yes thank you president stole and i am very pleased to share with the board and the community this evening that our as noted in the agenda that section 2001 i part 1 of the american rescue plan act requires that each local agency that receives funding either under the arp elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund also known as esser to develop and make it publicly available on the lea's website this plan must be reviewed every six months so the last time the health and safety plan came before the board was in february it is now august six months later and just
045before the start of a new school year many people do know that there was some guidance that came out from the cdc just last week we had a meeting with montgomery county office of public health health this afternoon and i am so thrilled and happy to share with you the quote from the office of public health it is time to get back to normal so all the mitigation measures that we heard in the past in terms of quarantine and assurance testing and test to stay and mask to stay are no longer recommended as mitigation strategies unless you are in an outbreak which is 10 defined as 10 of your population we have not been close to 10 of our population in our schools um so they are requiring isolation for positive cases right but no
046quarantine or contact tracing all the time and effort that contact tracing required of our staff and in particular dr kim and our building principals those measures are no longer recommended due to the changes in the actual virus the availability of testing and the amount of severe disease significantly decreasing they actually said on the call today that the most significant symptom of the most recent strand or most prominent symptom is a sore throat so just very pleased that this covet 19 is no longer as severe as it was and that our students can come to school and we don't need to contact trace students are welcome to wear masks but at this time they are not required and i'm simply presenting this document before you this evening for review not for vote it does say in
047there that if there are substantive changes to the recommendations from the cdc and the office of public health that the plan would come before you again so if let's hope not but if the guidance changed dramatically in the coming months we would bring it before this board whether it be an emergency meeting or a regularly scheduled action meeting or work session so very pleased that our students and their families will have the option of wearing masks or not in the fall thank you dr bauer that is good news can you just clarify when you say 10 of the population do you mean per school or in the entirety yeah it's per school it could be and it could be as granular as a classroom so it does say their guidance does say that if we
048are approaching an outbreak in a classroom or a school we are to contact them so we would then talk to the office of public health is it a linked cases or does it just so happen that say you have a classroom of 28 kids and three kids test positive are they linked or do they just happen to be in the same classroom and then they would offer guidance and at that point it would be guidance not requirements so very very happy that the guidance from the healthcare professionals has it has i guess um what am i looking for here um the severity of the mitigation measures has decreased significantly um so just thrilled about that thank you dr power does anyone have any comments or questions i have a question i'm just curious can you
049explain um what isolation looks like yes so great question mr fusco they defined it clearly today quarantine is for those who have been exposed isolation is for those who have tested positive so isolation means you are to remain home for five days and then when you return this is after testing positive when you return back to school you were to wear a mask till day ten okay so isolation is for positive cases that still exists if you have covet 19 you cannot come to school but if you were a close contact you are no longer required to quarantine they are still recommending if you start to exhibit symptoms and you know you've been exposed you should get tested and if you are then positive you have to isolate so thank you for that question mr
050fusco just one quick follow-up question um regarding um you know they're you're going to have those isolated cases where that's going to occur so are we just you know working with our teachers so that they kind of know how they have to handle you know what they need to do to handle that um you know in terms of flexibility and and that kind of thing we're not requiring them to teach virtually though right we are not okay yeah so we're going to treat this like any other respiratory disease or illness at this point so if a student is sick they're home and they're sick and they can make up their work when they're well there's no streaming component either there is not streaming due to covet 19 isolation great thank you thank you are there
051any other comments or questions okay seeing none then we will move on to the uh director of human resources report dr kim please good evening madam president and board of school director so um i believe it this is one of those rare times where you know the director of human resources get to share a report so with the new school year just a few weeks away everyone is really looking forward to starting you know another exciting year and some of you as well as your community members have heard the news that has been heard across the nation that school districts like many industries are experiencing staffing shortage for school districts the challenges are failing teaching positions as well as support staff positions for the new school year where in everyone that works in the school
052district play a pivotal role in making sure our students are learning i will share that even the pennsylvania department of education is feeling the challenges of teaching shortage and before i share our school district's data i want to take a moment to share the data from the department of education to frame the context of at least the challenges of filling teaching positions within the commonwealth according to the pennsylvania department of education data the most recent data bear in mind is from 2019-20 school year and we'll also note that that the spring of 2020 is when the pandemic actually began so during that year a total of 6927 teaching certificates were issued and the year before the pde issued 7 729 teaching certificates so in a year the number of certificates that were issued decreased by
053approximately nine percent now even more concerning data is that four years earlier from 2019 2016 school year to 2019-20 school year there was approximately 40 percent decrease in the number of teaching certificates that were issued as you can imagine the pandemic has certainly not helped the matter so that said recently the pennsylvania department of education has drafted a series of goals to help enhance their certification process to help the districts and educational institutions employ certificated teachers as well as assist others in providing alternative pathways to obtaining teaching certificates which is a wonderful news especially in light of a teaching shortage as for our district data my staff and i we actually went back to january of 2022 and reviewed the data of employees whose resignation and retirements are needed for the upcoming 22-23 school year
054for professionals that normally includes teachers but also other professionals such as school psychologists and instructional coaches we received 64 resignations and retirements as of august 17th of 2022 and i will say several of them were received within about past two weeks and i will say i even received one this morning and for us to start this new school year again to start the new school year at the elementary level we have one position to fill so i do want to note that with the last minute resignations as per the school code we can hold the teachers for up to 60 calendar days and certainly we will release them as soon as their replacements are able to start but that is somewhat of a provision that's in place to help the school districts where they're losing
055teachers at the secondary level we have 13 positions to fill to start the school year with three positions in the world language and one is in japanese so in fact there has not been a japanese teaching strategy that has been issued by the state so it's a bit of a challenge so we're working with a candidate that is looking to obtain an emergency certificate so we're in the works of that and we also have 10 of the 13 10 positions are in special education department including school psychologists we do have a number of school psychologists that have resigned and please know that we have interviewed throughout the summer and unfortunately some of the job offers we have made where the candidate has accepted and due to personal reasons we're not able to accept so that
056we have to repost so it is you know sort of like a groundhog day in a way we have to redo the thing i also want to note that um while we cannot operate without teachers the reality is that we also cannot operate without our support staff there they play just as an important role in providing meaningful educational experiences to our students that said the vacancies in our support staff are as follows in extended school care all positions where due to resignations and retirements have been filled however as you know with more you know as we have students enrolling in those programs we just need to make sure that we have ample staff so speaking with the coordinator of extended school care she's hoping to hire three more staff so that they are ready fully
057ready and we have three and a half we're in need of three and a half bus drivers and one van driver and one bus assistant to start the year and we are in need of one staff nurse and 14 special education assistants and most of the special education assistance resignations have been received within the past two weeks so the key question becomes well what are you doing right so we have many um we have many interviews scheduled um throughout you know as we have for the past few weeks and throughout all next week that means early in the morning all day and into evenings and this is a crunch time for hr in particular and for our administrative administrators in particular because it's almost like 24 7 to get ready and we want to make
058sure that our students have the best first day of experience ever so we are reaching out to various organizations to recruit including some of the contact information that we have received from including some outside agencies that one may not have considered like global network and so forth um and we're also so any community members listening if you are interested whether it be full-time or part-time positions please visit north penn website under employment opportunities and administration and hr staff are committed to fulfilling the vacancies to support our students learning for the new school year thank you dr kim i know you and your department have been working tirelessly to fill all the positions so thank you for that does anyone have any comments or questions i do first i'd like to congratulate you for doing such
059a phenomenal job of making sure that we are addressing those needs there's in addition to the the drop in certifications um at least nationally there's been a trend as well of teachers leaving the profession at a higher clip first i'm wondering have we had a similar experience here at north penn with accelerated teacher retirements over the past two four years as you were describing you know i did not see a significant increase in retirement as i'd anticipated and i say that like but however i've i have seen notice of resignations and i do ask you know what's the cause and it you know i've had some teachers who have said you know what it's been a very tough year and i've decided i've got young children i'd rather stay home and you know they're revisiting
060their finance financial situations to see if they can make that work but they always say like i do plan on coming back i don't want you to forget about me so which is a wonderful thing but i think um i do think that is a residual effect of the pandemic i think people have been really tired do you know of any research that's being done into that trend either to the state level or national level i ask as an educator while i think it's obviously important to bring people into the profession i think it's equally important to try to maintain the professionals that we have and try to get a handle on you know what it is that is leading to this exodus i do think um there is a significant um studies being devoted
061to mental health and i think mental health is such a wa in a broad umbrella but i do think it delves into you know what's causing the stress and what are we doing to help manage that i will tell you uh you know if you like therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists while they provide mental health support to their clients they themselves see you know their own therapist because they need to be able to manage that and you know i want to make sure that our school counselors that are providing the services i want to be able to reach out and work with them as well to make sure that their needs are being met as well just as a note i find it interesting that the professional class of legislators like to talk about mental
062health but so rarely do we see anything from a policy or legislative support for folks so i would just continue to urge our legislators to look at this and pay attention to that trend of teachers leaving and that need you know we all as a society need greater access to mental health support and teachers are certainly not immune to that as well thank you dr kim another problem if i may i think one of the important thing is you know we always talk about our plate being full you know what can we take off but i also think you know while we want to manage that we i think it's also important to help our staff learn to build stamina right um we all are going to find ourselves in a situation that there's nothing
063there aren't things that we might be able to take off the plate at that moment in time and hope that that's a moment in time what can we do to support them so that there are able to like you know what this is just a moment in time let me just this too shall pass i think that's an important piece well said well said thank you dr kim mr reshgod i thought baby boomers retiring would be a big issue with teachers at this point in time but you're not you're not seeing that's the trend um not so much believe it or not actually um thank goodness at least for mr fusco talked about what is the legislation doing well pde has provided one more extension so that the retired teachers and bus drivers can come
064back and work so knock on wood fortunately i do have a french teacher that just retired and he's coming back and is subbing for a semester so you know i do think um when they retire they're still looking to do something i think that fortunately you know when they're well physically well and mentally well and enjoy being with children and they have the control i can come back when i want to come back and choose not to work so they're coming back so i haven't seen a huge drop and let's keep it that way it's my hope [Music] thank you mr rush are there any other comments or questions okay seeing none um we'll move on to other business does anyone have any other business this evening okay i i just would like to um
065you know wish everyone a great start to the new school year you know i acknowledge that the last two years have been very difficult for everyone and i sincerely hope that this year will be a much better year i'm glad to hear of all the things that we're doing to make sure that we're fully staffed and you know i just want to um and i'm glad to hear about the protocols and the updated health and safety plan and i'm hopeful everything just goes well this year and i know that we might have some dark days maybe um covet kicks up again if it does i hope that we just you know remember to show each other some grace and uh give each other you know a little bit of um you know benefit of the
066doubt or whatever um just help people out when they need it so but hopefully it'll all be good and we'll have a great year and i certainly hope that we have a very um happy start to the new year next year next week so is there anyone else that would like to say anything no okay then we'll go on to our second audience of citizens the same rules apply if anyone wants to come up and speak now would be your time the first class graduated from this building in 1972 are these seats the original seats because i don't think that they are i think they're second round okay i'm just i forget how but they aren't they were um you know i wanted to say something about um respect um and also about the issue
067of you're not responding to us when we come up to the podium the sunshine act does state that you don't have to but it actually behooves you to answer a question now and again because that way it shows us that you are listening and that you do have an opinion and can uh answer it for us um i do have a i do have respect for dr bauer he did tell me i could call him todd but you know in public i will call him dr bauer because he deserves my respect um so when you earn my respect that's when you get my respect i'm a lot older than all of you and it's it's not going to be that i'm just going to respect you because you happen to be on a school board
068you know i'm watching you and i'm listening to you and i don't think you're acting in a very uh professional way so and when you turn off the mic or you shout me down actually pensbury school board was sued and they and the parents won because they were doing exactly that to parents when they were coming up to the podium you know it's against the constitution to shut people down just because you don't like what they're saying so i just wanted to um tell you that that you know you can earn my respect because i'm not i'm i don't want to be that kind of person that will never respect you i just want to see that you're going to be responsive and i would like an answer about what i wrote to you you
069know and and so does mr lunaire you know we we are actually asking in concern for students who are going into that library just because you know students can go get porn anywhere perhaps but you don't have to make it available to them in the schools and that's basically what we're saying and we don't understand why you're you want to fight to keep it there that's not reasonable and uh or logical so um you know that's that's really all i want to say so i i was less than three minutes so you should be happy thank you this is still with the additional 40 seconds i will share that the seats are original the ceiling was replaced in 1989 and the carpet was replaced in 2013 and this all comes from the north penn high
070school historian mr robert gilmer they do squeak a lot and this is brought to you i think we're the same age so is there anyone else that would like to speak what's that than me i doubt it mrs leblanc hello how are you doing hi um aaron blanc of hatfield and um i just jotted down some notes and i wanted some better clarification about the health and safety plan can you expand on the actual reason that we're still doing it if we're saying things are back to normal and i know this document like it's dated for last summer july of 21 but the other question i have and dr bauer maybe you could are you going to send out like an email okay i was hoping so because this chart it says like refer to
071this refer to that and it's a lot of like digging around to find actual you know montgomery county policies um but you did say or did i hear incorrectly that so if someone says they have coveted they have to stay home for five days and then when they come back they wear a mask for five days okay because to me that's not normal that just you know my take on it to send my kid back to school with a mask then so it would either be a choice of staying out of school for possibly 10 days with no access to schooling or wear a mask for five days so i felt the joy in your voice when you said all that i almost had tears but then to me it's actually not normal you know
072it's not done normal that we're used to so um i wanted to clarify that and then you said no streaming so i wrote that down i also wanted to ask if we could get an update on the hiring of a replacement from mr dar i feel that his position is probably one of the most important in the whole district not to you know disqualify anyone else's importance but i think that going back to school in the forefront of families minds is safety and unfortunately some of the kids have caught wind of different you know incidents and they want to be reassured to so i would just love to know where we are in the process if you can discuss and assure us that we are on our way to having someone by the time he
073leaves and someone that's you know extremely qualified um and then um i did have a question about like when someone's voting on the phone sometimes i don't hear it i started to hear it after mr lanier brought it up but do they normally actually vote like verbally sometimes i space out but do they normally like make sure that we hear them because that would be helpful too so that we're not confused i didn't notice that before he brought it up and then the other thing about the actual health and safety plan is the cleaning so um i didn't think that covid was on surfaces but it says we're still like deep cleaning and such um is that the case too also like i know we're like low on staff resources and things like that maybe
074you could answer that later that's all but yes dr bauer if you send out like a message to all the parents because i know they're going to be asking since health and safety plan was brought up that would be helpful that you would go into further detail thank you thank you mrs leblanc mr or dr bauer if you want to answer some of her questions sure um i'm happy to respond to some of those things and mrs bonk if i don't cover anything feel free to give me a call the first cleaning protocols will remain the same hopefully our staffing issues as described by dr kim will be better this year the montgomery county office of public health did share today that they will update their website as early as monday um so it's supposed
075to be early next week they said do not reference the website right now because it is not in accordance with the most recent guidance so they have to pull a lot of that off of there and then there was a question about the process for replacing mr durr who has gotten more air time recently than any of us and mr as replacement we interviewed first round or screening interviews this week we had over 30 applicants that pool has been was dwindled to 15 and now i believe it is in single digits that round will be this week and the final round the following so uh yes mrs blanc asked or said i'm hopeful you're well on your way we are and um there's mr durr is still going to be local and is committed to
076helping us with transition because certainly he more than anyone other than mr casa perhaps knows how important school safety is so he'll be available to us and if that means he leaves a couple days early so we can bring him back to help the transition when the person gets here he will do that thank you dr bauer and all right go ahead mr lanier jason lanier landsale um first quick real quickly uh and luckily the solicitor here i apologize forgot your name um section 610 of the school code talks about use of illegal or i should say use of school funds illegal and in the last sentence it says any matter or per or or for any purpose not provided in this act shall be illegal i want to know if the health clinic is
077in anything about a health clinic is in the school code and if it is not under what order are you or what authority are you allowed to do this so i'll i'll sit it and you if you could respond to that i would appreciate it in general i've spoken to a number of teachers and they tell me something pretty universal about what's frustrating them is the lack of discipline in the classroom not that they can't discipline the kids it's that the kids if they are acting out aren't taken to the principal's office is is this a fallout from the equity program i don't know what is causing allowing this permitting such behavior to happen mr jur's report actually showed that this was a there's the number of kids in grade school who are getting in
078trouble is is ballooned huge right i'm wondering if teachers are feeling frustrated by this and never wonder if teachers are also feeling frustrated by sort of the politicalization of their teaching profession i mean this board right here has a number of members who are on the nea and i don't think all teachers believe everything the nea says but i think this board takes it hook line and sinker and what they want to do doesn't necessarily meet up with what's best for kids so i wonder does this school board have how many school board members up here have committee positions in some in in a borough or township or at the county it's four or five of you correct and how many of wives work or spouses i should say work for a township or borough
079and and these have all happened since you've been elected board members so are you using these positions to help relatives out i mean it would be obvious if miss still you were selling insurance to the school district that would be not permitted right i mean your insurance company wouldn't wouldn't allow that or you the school wouldn't allow that would be an ethics violation but allowing using it uh for political purposes is okay like when you guys had the rally for madonna dean and use the school property without paying anything use the school facilities on a saturday where your rules and the regulations strictly prohibited shaking your head no they don't prohibit it do you want me to read the school policy to you it's oh time's up yeah time is up mr lanier is there
080anyone else that would like to speak that's not how it works mr craney monticelli okay if there's someone else that wants thank you you