NPSD School Board Action Meeting 7-21-22

001good evening everyone welcome to tonight's action meeting first up we're going to start with the pledge of allegiance please okay first up will be our audience of citizens i'm going to read off a statement and then we'll start with our first public comment the first person to sign up tonight was was mrs gad and then anyone else who wants to speak will have their opportunity 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 the requirement it is essential that those planning to

002address 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 speak 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 comment that has been made once the audience of citizens period has concluded or a request that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting and this is in

003reference to board policy number 903 okay mrs gad um there you are okay you're first up hi roseanne gad lansdale we are sovereign beings on this planet by common law not the corporation law you follow as well as the department of education and the national teachers union with that being said we the people create the laws to run the government which has been hijacked by the corrupt one let's be clear all public schools are government run again what protects everyone from the corrupt government the united states constitution if people knew their god-given rights they could exercise them public officials are elected by the people and take an oath to uphold the constitution dictators are selected and take an oath to uphold the constitution and do not follow it do you understand that you are following

004criminal behavior if you haven't figured that out yet talk to your solicitor if you aren't getting the correct information you need perhaps you need to research on your own or hire a constitutional solicitor we have our letter of intent ready to serve to each one of you of all federal state and international laws that are being violated 18 usc 3571 violation of oath and denied provisions in the constitution is 250 000 18 usc 666 bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds is 5 000 per violation or 10 years in prison and fyi a neighboring school has already been served here's a snapshot of what's to come if you choose not to fix the health and safety plan as well as other issues regarding our kids coercion of vaccines and masking of our children and staff coercion

005of teaching and pushing the equity and inclusion agenda removal of obscene books and materials under 21 code of federal regulations 50.23 and 24 it is illegal to make anyone participate in an experimental program using coercion 18 usc code 2331 subsection 802 any time a u.s citizen or a government in the u.s is forced to do something they wouldn't otherwise do that's not only coercion but domestic terror terrorism with these two laws alone if you are coercing or intimidating our kids and teachers with any type of mandate you will have committed a felony which is a 99 year prison term or 100 million dollar fine which felony would you like to be liable for is there anyone else who would like to make public comment if you'd like to make a public comment you have to

006come up to the podium but mrs broughtio is there first good evening congratulations dr bauer on your becoming superintendent um pauline brocchio from thomason township just real quick before i get into the meat of what i want to talk about i just wanted to um we talked about propane and all that for the buses currently the buses run on diesel which is the least combustible of uh diesel gasoline or propane so i just wanted to say that we have um diesel not gasoline anyway um young children if you can remember back to when you were five years old or around their kindergarten age um get very traumatized by things that are unfamiliar to them or weird to them such as men dressed up as women coming in and reading to them in their class and

007then sometimes they actually show them how to put makeup on or talk to them about why they are a man dressed as a woman they're getting way ridiculous with it and i remember when i was five years old that would scare the guitar out of me and i'm sure that a lot of children are traumatized by that um and i don't understand how the school board or teachers and even some parents encourage this and approve of it um because what you're doing is you're harming the children both uh with mentally emotionally you're traumatizing them and that would last for the rest of their lives they can actually suffer from uh ptsd um and we had some email communication and um tina i'm going to quote you said i trust our librarians and the north penn

008school district staff when it comes to their professional expertise in choosing which books should be in our libraries and curriculum taught in our classrooms well i think that you need to reevaluate your level of trust in these people they are experts in perversity and traumatizing the very children that you are supposed to be protecting um i know that about the school shootings but children need to be protected not just physically by somebody who could be entering the school and with devastating results but also these things that are that teachers are doing with the children and teaching them about gender dysphoria i mean it's putting ideas in their heads okay it's that's what it is these children are not coming to school wanting to be the opposite gender they are being taught that and i'll have

009more on that in the next segment thank you thank you is there anyone else that would like to make public comment at this time so are you resident uh madam vice president giuseppe monticelli g-i-u-s-e-p-p-e monticelli m-o-n-t-i-c-e-l-l-i [Music] upper gwenet township thank you mr president members of this honorable school board i come before you tonight to go ahead and give you a little bit of experience background testimony about lakeside school you have this on your attachment here tonight in front of you to vote on you know these approved private schools that you ship these kids off to because you claim that oh we just can't handle their behavior problems that's not appropriate you shouldn't be shipping these kids off to these aps's approved private schools and one of the sheets here i mean i'm looking at

010it says that the total cost for contracted services is 712 000. okay so that's due by july 15 2023 this does not have any student's name in here nor any redactions so this would pretty much in my experience of what i know pretty much this is a retainer agreement so you have someone on the side that you can use to ship off one of these kids to one of these aps warehouses just like life works in doyle's town you know i don't know what to say on that another thing you have in front of you tonight honorable directors is a item for springfield psychology i would ask this question why are you having to hire a therapist to come in with students and give them individualized therapy that's roughly i think it was 100 i

011don't have the pronoun from me so i don't want to quote it what the amount was but it's definitely in the six figures and why are you having that being done of some therapist coming in from outside agency using our tax dollars when you could just go ahead and have the student go to a sap team student assistance program team and they could refer the student to a counselor with their medical insurance instead of using it at the taxpayers money this is what medical assistance is there for they don't have any medical assurance you go ahead and direct them to a community-based uh program like central behavioral health okay that's what you do you don't hire these outside agencies use taxpayers money and do that i know you're coming from a good place but that's

012what i would say i would yield the floor back to you mr president thank you mr monticelli is there anyone else that would like to make public comment jason lanier lansdale um i wanted to ask you guys why it is that this school board seems to be in favor of body dysmorphia and there's lots of versions of that the one i'm talking about is gender dysphor dysphoria there is another one that you guys wouldn't certainly support called anorexia a young person who thinks that they're obese and continues to lose weight in it to an unhealthy state that's not a good thing you wouldn't promote it yet you promote gender dysphoria and i want to know why there is not evidence which says affirming someone is gender is positive for them in fact the evidence is

013just opposite of that there is numerous studies out of out of europe particularly sweden and i mentioned this prior they've done this gender affirmation for some time and including gender reassignment surgeries and what they found since 1973 up until 2011 is the suicide rate among people who are have gender dysphoria and are affirmed and people who go through surgeries they have 20 times the suicide rate as those people who don't 20 times kids that are having problems and i feel sorry for every kid that is having an issue but affirming their their a mental condition is not a positive thing to them you will you could end up damaging them you could end up having them commit suicide now the the the line from from particularly the the political left is well yeah after affirming

014somebody's gender is positive to them show the evidence please i've read the trevor the trevor project report they say nothing of the sort they lead you to believe that based upon the fact that people feel have a high level of suicide ideation prior to affirmation but they say the same they say they have the same suicide ideation after affirmation so why promote kids into this philosophy why would having more kids assume a transgender i i identity be positive it seems to me you're gonna your their chances of having more kids commit suicide is much much higher that's not a positive thing so i want to know why it is that you guys think it is okay to do this why is okay to bring these books into the school which push this to kids that

015are k-3 i have a list of 15 books that are specifically related to gender transformation or genderology uh ideology or gender fluidity this is why how i don't not saying it's that your own library resource says that's what it is thank you thank you mr lanier is there anyone else that wants to make a comment at this time good evening my name is sherwin collins north wales um i just wanted to come and say thank you to the school board for the job you do with all this nonsense europe most of your parents now or in the past you didn't take this job to harm kids you're doing the best you can with the resources you have and what you're supposed to do is make sure these kids are educated and they get out of

016here in one piece my son went through the school system just fine graduated from penn state this year with a 3.2 gpa took a job at usda actually he's getting ready to change jobs and go work for a startup he did fine when he was here and most of the kids i know who went through the school system did fine people pick it one little thing that might have happened here and one little thing that happened there and make it for the whole school i know that's not realistic i taught school a long time ago and i know what teachers have to put up with and most of the time they're doing the best job they can they're doing everything they can for the students and people to think otherwise by picking at one little

017thing that might have happened somewhere somehow in this huge school district just isn't fair to you so i appreciate the job you're doing and thank you very much thank you mr collins good evening good evening kathy heath lansdale pennsylvania i'm here to basically say special education is an area that you guys really need to address training needs to be held in this district across the district every level i and i have had i've been a special ed parent for 15 years in this district i have had everything from ieps not being followed i've dealt with a special educators therapists not following or changing the delivery method of services in violation of the iep this is recently as in the past three years goals have not been addressed goals have not been worked on regular ed

018teachers don't understand how special education works that's not across that's not every single teacher but that is some of them you have more and more special education students in your buildings everybody needs to know how an iep works iep meetings are supposed to be attended by team members i've had several iep meetings where one regular education teacher shows up how is that the team also inclusion is not a box to be checked off on an iep it has to be what is appropriate for the student i've had my personal children children some of them have had to not be included so that they could actually get educated sometimes inclusion works sometimes it doesn't but you have to go what is best for the child what the team decides is best for the child not just

019because it is the thing to have right now i've also had children to be had to be during a meltdown of a special education student the rest of the classroom has had to be evacuated for their own safety that should not be the case the people working with that student should know ahead of time how to prevent those types of meltdowns my own child would have what we called the terrible horrible no good very bad day and once the team learned to communicate with each other they learned how to prevent those meltdowns so that everybody would stay safe you guys need to do a better job with special education you need to start the training and you need to keep up the treatment thank you is there anyone else that would like to make comments

020at this time okay seeing now we will move on to the rest of the agenda there'll be another public comment period at the end of the meeting so first up i need a motion to approve the minutes from the june 16th 2022 action meeting and approve the minutes from the june 27th 2022 special action meeting do i have a motion so moved second by mr fusco seconded by mrs ramich any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries moving on to the committee reports first up is the personnel the personnel committee did not meet in july end of report finance mr fusco please thank you the finance committee did not meet in july the finance committee meeting scheduled for tuesday august 9 2022 is also being canceled the finance committee

021will meet on tuesday september 6th at 6 pm and a report thank you safe schools mr casa is not here so i'll read that off the safe schools committee did not meet in june the next meeting of safe schools committee is scheduled for monday july 25th 2022 beginning at 5 45 pm in a virtual format end of report education curriculum and instruction committee ms dr g please the eci committee did not meet in july its next meeting is currently scheduled for tuesday august 11th at 6 00 p.m if there is a change in that meeting it will be posted online please note this is a change in the regularly scheduled meeting thank you dr judy next up is policy mr fusco please thank you the policy committee met on july 12 2022 in virtual format

022at the meeting the committee continued to review policies in the 800 series also policies regarding homework service animals in schools and therapy dogs were discussed policies on the agenda this month were policy 130 homework policy 718 service animals in schools policy 718.1 therapy dogs policy 815 acceptable use of internet computers and network resources policy 818 contracted services personnel policy 831 screening of employees and contractors for exclusion from participation in federal health programs these policies are on tonight's agenda for a first reading the next meeting of the policy committee will be on august 2nd 2022 at 5 pm in virtual format end of report thank you mr fusco next up is the facilities and operations committee report mrs wesley please thank you the facilities and operations committee met on monday june 27th june 27th in a

023virtual format the committee reviewed the following items to be moved to this evening's action meeting for the board's consideration two change orders for the knapp elementary school project an elementary school chiller and exhaust fan bid award a development agreement with lansdale barrow for the healthcare center a water agreement with landsdale borough for the health care center and a contract for the health care center modular building supplier the committee was presented and discussed informational items that included the knapp elementary project update the capital project 10-year list update and modular classroom inventory presentation facilities and operations summer operations presentation which included the work being done operationally for the summer we wanted to get an update on that the next facilities and operations meeting is scheduled for monday july 25th at 7 pm and it will be held

024in a virtual format thank you thank you mrs wesley are there any comments or questions seeing none we'll move on to the north monco technical career center report mr mcbain yep thank you very much thank you the north monco technical career center joint operating committee met virtually on the 20th of june in executive session prior to the regular meeting to discuss matters of student safety during the regular session the committee welcomed new staff members and appointed nine requests for professional development activities over the next several months including threat assessment training statewide and nationwide skill competitions and instructional coaching workshops last month four of our career center students accepted invitations to the skillsusa national leadership and skills conference in atlanta representing north penn where culinary arts students miss jayla collins and miss julia fredericks who presented

025a plan to address food waste in our own communities congratulations and well done ladies families are again encouraged to explore the wonderful opportunities for professional learning presented by our commun uh community career center at nmtcc.org and finally the next meeting of the joc will be held virtually on the evening of monday august 15th at 7 pm and a report thank you mr mcpain are there any comments or questions seeing none we'll move on then to the montgomery county intermediate unit mrs ramich please great thank you the mciu board met on june 22 and like we always do we started off our meeting hearing a presentation about a program we learned more about the montgomery virtual program and it was a great presentation the results of the montgomery county intermediate unit board annual election were announced

026of which board members across the county participated and the following board members were seated the following school districts abington lower moorland township upper moorland southerton springfield perkielman valley pottstown upper marion sheltonham township colonial upper marion and springford these were positions that were slated to start july 1st of 2022. the mciu board elected the following mcau board officers for the upcoming year board president julianne ramich from north penn board vice president sharon mauch from um norristown bro board treasurer judy mcginnis from upper perk board secretary jen wilson for hat from hatboro horsham the we the executive director provided an update and the board approved the calendar of mciu board meetings for the upcoming school year the board also approved various budget items contracts and hr personnel policy um personnel um hires the next meeting of the

027mciu board will be on august 24th end of report thank you mrs ramich are there any comments or questions just a quick congratulations to um julian and thank you for representing north penn as uh president in this upcoming year at the mciu we appreciate your work there thank you yes we do okay we're going to stay with mrs ramen she does the north penn educational foundation report please great the foundation did not meet in july however we have been busy organizing our annual build a bag school supply drive throughout the community you can find bins to donate needed items for our students upcoming in the upcoming school year from notebooks to backpacks to earbuds your donations are greatly appreciated back backpacks will be assembled in august we are also busy at work this summer organizing

028the annual golf classic which will be held tuesday october 11th at the tallamore golf course in addition to golfers we are looking for sponsors for our 21st annual event our next meeting is august 17th which is a busy day for trustees we will begin the day at north penn high school at for our meeting and enjoy a visit to the planetarium where we will be given a preview of the new projection system which we help to fund at the end of the day some of us will return to the high school to welcome the new inductees and serve them water ice as we tell them about our organization and how we can support them as first year teachers for years and for years to come for more for more information on anything mentioned in the

029report or about the foundation in general you can check back on our website at north penn and penn foundation.org or contact christine lebroski at the esc end of report thank you mrs ramich is there a list of supplies for the build bag on the north penn educational foundation social media page there's ways to give and so there's supply lists there's also a registry so if you want to purchase it directly through i believe target is the registry site it'll be delivered directly to the location where we will be assembling bags so it's super easy if you want to go and make the purchases yourself you can do that and there are lists or you can also purchase through the registry but you can find that information on the north penn educational foundation's facebook page thank

030you for that appreciate it is that does that also include a list of the um places where you can drop items off because it says throughout the community so just it might i will double check on that but yeah and i'm happy um to also go and pick items up if you guys would like to donate i'll drop them off um on behalf of the board but yes so there are communities that have been um participating and have been active in in collecting those um those supplies for us and we appreciate appreciate those community members for hosting um those boxes for us thank you it's always a huge effort every year i think people would be surprised to see how much stuff is actually collected and distributed and the work it takes to pack all

031the backpacks up and it's a great day packing the bags and um the facility where we do that is a donated um location and donated space so it truly is a community effort and i did receive for the the golf classic i did receive a sponsorship form so i'll share that with the board to see if we want to serve as sponsors of that event like we've done in the past and encourage others to to look into that as well great thank you so much okay our final committee report then is um legislative and that is mr mcnain please thank you pennsylvania's budget season finally came to a close with significant increases to funds that will support k-12 education through basic education and special education funding formulas a number of line item increases the package

032will also boost career and technical education funding for the first time in three years and establish a 95 million dollar grant program to support mental health services while this is all certainly good financial news for north penned it does appear as though the governor wolf's charter regulations were scrapped during budget negotiations but in addition to these budgetary steps forward house bill 1642 was recently passed and makes a number of changes to the school code now known as act 55 the law takes steps to alleviate the teacher shortage with new ways to allow out-of-state educators to quickly earn pennsylvania certification for regular or career and technical instruction it also includes a new grant established to fund programs such as dual enrollment courses for young pennsylvanians who wish to become educators act 55 also extends the deadline

033for continuing professional education for staff allows extended enrollment options for older students with a disability requires districts to develop agreements with institutions of higher learning for the creation of dual enrollment programs and establishes a new commission on education and economic competitiveness to make recommendations on educational issues and help build community partnerships end of report thank you mr mcbain are there any comments or questions seeing none we will move then to the solicitors report mr summers please thank you madam president my report this evening is to announce that the board did meet in an executive session immediately prior to tonight's meeting for the purpose of discussing matters of school safety and security and to consult with its attorney regarding matters of litigation relative to the cases of bennett versus north end school district and doe vs

034north penn school district both of which are in the u.s district court for the eastern district of pennsylvania and that concludes my report thank you mr summers next up then is the superintendent's report for our brand new superintendent dr bauer thank you madam president good evening everyone i recommend approval of the items listed on the consent agenda namely adoption of policies adoption of policies for a first read repeal of policies the notice of intent to repeal contracts an rfp award in school counselor services an rfp award for social worker services approval to advertise for bid and request for proposals alternative placements and student agreements do i have a motion please so moved do i have a second second motion by mr fusco and seconded by dr g any comments or questions seeing none all in

035favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries i recommend the approval of the personnel items as per the attached can i have a motion i'm so moved second motioned by mr fusco and seconded by dr g any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries and with that vote i am pleased to present this evening we have one of the hires listed on the agenda is ms nicole dorsch a new special education supervisor nicole's in the audience with us this evening welcome nicole okay next up i recommend the approval of change order 21 to low bar incorporated in the amount of zero dollars for miscellaneous changes during the course of construction by having a contractual change made to apply the unit cost allowance nine to this change order i also

036recommend the approval of change order 22 to low bar incorporated in the amount not to exceed zero dollars for removal of the front garden walls and vegetation by having a contractual change made to apply the unit cost allowance 12 to this change order can i have a motion please sir moved motion by mrs wesley can i have a second second seconded by mrs ramich any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries i recommend the approval of the bid award for the elementary school chiller and exhaust fan mechanical construction to gem mechanical services incorporated in the amount of one million four hundred and forty four thousand dollars i also recommend the approval of the bid award for the elementary school chiller and exhaust fan electrical construction to electri tech incorporated

037in the amount of a hundred and seventy two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars can i have a motion so moved by mrs wesley and seconded mr mcvean any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries i recommend the approval of the development agreement with lansdale borough for the healthcare center as per the attached can i have a motion motioned by mr fusco and seconded by mr mcbain any comments or questions seeing none all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries one day sorry motion still carries okay i recommend the approval of storm of the storm water agreement with landsdale burrow for the health care center as per the attached may i have a motion can i have a second motion by mr fusco and seconded by mr mcbain

038any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed one day motion carries okay i also recommend the approval of the health care center modular building contract with mobile modular in the amount of eight hundred and fifty one thousand three hundred and thirty dollars as per the attached can i have a motion motion by mr fusco and seconded by mrs wesley any comments or questions yes president stole i was going to ask mr scrocky if he would um just give us an update on how well this project is moving along and the success he's had with it thank you miss wesley so pending approval by the board tonight we are anticipating that that modular unit can be delivered and installed by december of this year so our current expectation is that the health

039care center will be open for those employees that are on the district health care plan and their dependents by the beginning of january 2023 so we're really excited about it i do want to mention that we do continue to apply for grant opportunities for funding of this center we did apply for two grants so far one through the county and one through a private foundation our next grant that we'll be submitting is what's called the racp grant that is through the pennsylvania department of community economic development and that's a large grant that's a million dollar plus grant so we are still pursuing grant opportunities to help offset the cost of construction the only remaining piece really now for the health care center is awarding a contract for the site work so there's some site work

040that needs to take place before the unit is actually placed on site so things are coming together we also interviewed the provider that would be provided by everside the nurse practitioner oh about a month ago and everside has since tendered a contract to that individual so that individual is starting with everside in october will be serving as a substitute in other health care centers until she starts here at north penn hopefully again in december or january of 2023 so things are are moving along quite nicely of course we want to get the center open as soon as possible because to meet our projection of 10 million dollars in savings over 10 years it needs to be open and people need to start using the center so we're now getting very very close this this i

041did four to five years ago lots of research lots of presentations lots of interviews with the companies and site visits and so forth and now i think we can finally see that this is really all coming together thank you mr scraki um madam president can i just make a quick comment so i just because i voted nay um you know i continue to hope that this does play out and that we're able to benefit from the health care center i certainly am supportive of the health care center being successful but as i voted no from the beginning because i do not believe that we needed to get into the healthcare business with all that we have before us in terms of facilities however as we move forward i you know certainly will be supportive in

042trying to watch closely to you know see how everything that looking at the data is it being used so i do look forward to mr scracky proving me wrong which he probably will um and i hope that he does because i do think if if it does um come to fruition in the way that mr scraggy has described then it certainly will um benefit our community so i hope that that is the case um i'm just a little bit skeptical still regarding um our embarking on this and the timing of this but um i do appreciate the continued updates thank you thank you dr g are there any other comments or questions all right we have a motion on the floor so all in favor say aye aye any opposed no okay so uh passes

0435-1 thank you and lastly president stole i recommend the approval of the special education plan as per the attached and if we can have a motion and a second uh we do have a presentation prepared this evening by mrs mcgee heim our director of special education great thank you so can i have a motion please motioned by mr fusco and seconded by dr g all right mrs mickey heim good evening thank you for having me this evening i look forward to sharing an overview of the special education plan and answering any questions you might have so i have the clicker so hopefully it works okay so you'll notice on the first slide in the special education plan it is from 2021 to 2024 which might look a little bit different due to the covet impact

044the pennsylvania department of education did give all districts in phase 3 which we are in an extension on our special ed plan which is why we are submitting in 2022. so you will see the information in here is encompassing of all data through 2020 2021 with the exception of pssa data which was through 2018-19 due to the fact that we did not administer assessments during those years so the pde requirements is that every three years we go through a review of our strategic plan and included in that should be a correlation with our special education plan i uh bolded the three letters there the secretary prescribes the format content and time for which the submission of the special education plan is due i share that because what you see in front of you in terms

045of the plan is actually developed outside of the web-based pde piece that we put the information in so it does look a little bit different because of the fact that it is something so that you all can see it in a very visually pleasing way the pde web version is very much answer question series so just so you know that so the format is the questions that are asked through the pennsylvania department of education the content of course is provided by us with consultation through our stakeholders and the time in which is obviously delivered through what the pennsylvania department of education shares in terms of that cyclical years so there was obviously a covet 19 impact to this as i shared earlier there was an extension granted through july 30th of 2022 for all lease

046in phase 3. data in this report is encompassing of that 2020-2021 school year with the exception of pssa data and the special education plan actually will be resubmitted for phase three school districts due to the fact of the covet pandemic so the information that we submit tonight will also be relooked at and resubmitted next school year for the pennsylvania department of education due to impact of covid so what's included in this plan so we talk about the district's profile there is a steering committee of stakeholders the steering committee is encompassing of parents of teachers of administrators we invited some board members to conversations to have conversations about the special education plan what is a little different than one way may have looked in the past is that at the same time the district was also

047in cyclical monitoring also called compliance monitoring or special education audit so we were also engaging stakeholders at that same time in a lot of these conversations and included in those were surveys that went out to teachers to parents to our students to engage in some of this this conversation around the special education department and its plan indicators and monitoring are highlighted because actually late last week we did get the results of that audit so included in this plan which was just added late last week are actually our three corrective actions which were part of that audit or that special education plan so we'll get to those in a few minutes our identification method is included in this which talks about our discrepancy model which is our current identification method if there was significant disproportionality which

048i'm happy to say in the school district does not currently have in placement discipline or identification non-resident student oversight so how the district looks at non-resident students incarcerated youth least restrictive environment so that is a huge tenement of the idea our out-of-district placements how we institute positive behavioral supports what does our intensive interagency look like our educational programs which looks at our actual our caseloads and our fte and we have currently 169 special education teachers in the district our special education facilities this is new to the plan this year this actually has us outline the dimensions of every classroom in which special education students go to if they are outside of the general education classroom so that is a new component to the special education plan this year and you'll see it in the appendix

049in the plan special education supports are any supports that are provided that are outside of the actual special education teachers occupational therapist speech language therapist physical therapist to name a few and then the special education personnel development was really when we dove into engaging our families in conversations around the areas in which are outlined in the plan and any additional areas that we felt that we needed to provide some personnel development um so the areas that are outlined in the plan are the ones they're not highlighted so autism positive behavioral supports paraprofessional support transition science of literacy and parent training and then the iep development was added through our corrective action and what we were what we saw within the district and and really our feedback from some of our teachers within the plan and

050the survey and then cultural proficiency and equity which is obviously always at the forefront of anything we do within north penn so how did we gather some of this input there were parent interviews teacher interviews and student interviews and they were as i said correlated with our special education plan as well as our compliance monitoring that information was used to support some of the conversations about the plan and how we moved forward we actually also engaged our special education parent key communicator groups in a it's a building specific forum in may and then an open forum to all parents in june so we did send a school messenger to all students excuse me all families of students with ieps to come out and engage in conversations around the special education plan and particularly the personnel

051development and we use that time to really talk about what areas we feel like our teachers and our parents and our administrators need support in the from their perspective on professional development and then we posted the plan for feedback on the website starting on june 1st and it's currently there and we are obviously presenting tonight to all of you for feedback as well and within that post just so we know that my email address was on there so if there was any concerns or questions they can send them directly to me and there was about three or four emails that came through and i was able to address those with parents so corrective actions so as i shared late last week the state did send from our audit what were those corrective actions the first

052one was least restrictive environment so there are three components to indicator 5 which is least restrictive environment and it looks at students who are educated in the general education environment for 80 or more for less than 40 or students who are educated outside of the district we actually the area where we have a corrective action is the students outside of the district so it's coded as students in other settings so our planning activities are some bullets that are up here we are currently doing this work because as i entered the district i think it's about 17 months ago now i looked at this data and did notice that our numbers were a bit high so we did start this conversation so as i shared this data is through 2021 we have just gotten our data

053recently through 2122 and i can already say there is an impact and we are actually very much correlatory to the state average now so the special education department as well as parents we have engaged families um and they have reached out really to us about returning to the district and we've been able to support that as well which has been great so we are looking at analyzing that data training our special education teachers because some of our students who are outside of the district do have more specialized learning environments so as we transition our students back they we always look at the least restrictive environment first but they may require a more specialized environment so making sure that our teachers have the understanding of the interventions that were used in that alternate placement and that

054we can make a very comparable plan for them as they transition back and looking at new classrooms if we need to do that that has not been the case in the transition for some of our students coming back and then looking really at our bcba support if you look at our data you'll see that really we do support our students who are identified as students with autism in district it seems like our students our data looks like our students who are identified as having multiple disabilities support or emotional support have been outside of districts so that's that's really the target data our corrective action 2 is our spp and apr indicator 13 which looks at transition so that's for our students 14 years of age and above and it was actually very specific to making

055sure that we are engaging our students in the transition process so at age 14 our students are able to be in or should be excuse me invited to the iep meetings and what we got we got tagged with with our compliance monitoring our review was that some of our students were not invited to those meetings and some of our students were not part of that transition process now in some cases parents do have the right to say i don't want my child as part of that and we completely appreciate that but we want to make sure that we're inviting those those students to those meetings and we're engaging them in that process so you'll see that we are looking at our iep software is there an automatic way that we can make sure that a

056student's invitation is generated so they have that information and that we're always talking about transition planning which should be at the forefront of students ieps for 14 years and above and then as i shared already it says the timeline prior to the 21-22 school year we we were ahead of this indicating and knowing that this may be an area of need so our high school supervisors and our middle school supervisors did provide professional development to our special education teachers and that will be ongoing to support this corrective action and then our final corrective action was in participation in pssas and pasa which is the alternate assessment for students uh the reason this was an indicator is because there is a perf there is a participation rate that we are expected to hit and that is

05795 we were 94.2 for math and 94 for reading and that is for students with disabilities taking pssas so as you'll see here it's broken into two different areas because one is kind of supports the other in terms of if you have a student qualify for the alternate assessment they are then removed from the pssa in terms of taking that assessment in order to qualify for that alternative assessment there are seven very specific questions the iep teams need to engage in so we knowing that um during the 21-22 school year as we saw this as an indicator we looked at that data and we did some training with our special education teachers on engaging the seven questions with the iep teams making sure we were having those conversations around those seven questions to make sure

058that we were really facilitating with fidelity the questions through the through the pennsylvania department of education in the iep process so when we look at that indicators we did note that there was about 12 to 13 students who may be more appropriate to take the pennsylvania state assessment not the alternate assessment so those con those conversations are ongoing and looking at that data to make sure that we're having our students in the correct pssa versus pasa but again they are all iep team decisions we're also analyzing the opt-out data across the 17 buildings to see if that is an indicator as to why our participation rate may be lower as well so that's a lot of information does anyone have any questions yes thank you for that presentation okay so uh we'll go with mr

059fusco first then dr g and then thank you is there anybody on the side that has any questions okay all right go to mr mcphain so yes all right okay first before i even get to the questions i was hoping you could just take a moment and give kind of a high level explanation about the um the audit process you were describing at the beginning of your presentation because i think you know some of the things that the state is looking for in that process speaks directly to some of the concerns that we've heard parents um communicate about goals progress monitoring timelines things like that so sort of a high level of like what it is they're looking for and what that process looks like sure so every six years uh the audit or it's

060called compliance monitoring cyclical monitoring may hear it called one of those pieces every six years the state indicates that a school district is on that audit so what that looks like is that the school district is to provide what's called a facilitated self-assessment and that facilitated self-assessment looks at 23 different areas as they align to the idea and we have to share data information about how we as a district are facilitating those areas with all of that information in a straight answer question format we share what the district does but in addition to that we also pull data and upload data so some of it is data that we send that is part of the special education regular data reporting so our child count on december 1 or out of district students or students for

061act 16. all of those pieces are things that we look at and we share with the state and that is all part of the state module and it's accessible to the person uploading that information in the pennsylvania department of education's um web-based system so we take that information and we look at really the special ed plan over the the three years and then we also look at over the six years how has our district evolved and what has that looked like so those those different areas look at least restrictive environment it looks at students in alternate placement settings it looks at out of district it looks at students accessing accommodations and modifications it looks at how we develop iep goals so from that it comes back and it shares they give us 10 names that

062they look at as just a sample group and then we also provide 10 names in all different areas we look at transition we look at transition in from early intervention into the school district we look at areas of students who have augmentative communication devices students that might have assistive technology in a general sense and they do file reviews about 10 per each area so you figure there's 23 different areas and they do about file reviews for 10 students in all of those areas and that gives them a sample of how really the district is doing and then from that they come back and say we noticed okay you have corrective action as an organization in these three areas that i presented tonight but then they might say based on the individual student file review there

063are some individual corrective actions we noticed there wasn't an invitation sent to parents or there wasn't a signature page provided or you didn't give procedural safeguards to parents or there isn't a signature for that some of this got a little bit lost during covid because we were doing electronic signatures or we were doing emails so that was some of the pieces we definitely saw and the department was really forgiving in that i would say but some of the areas that we have to look at particularly is the transition piece and it's really just back to systems-based pieces such as making sure invitations are out to our families so they have enough notice to be participants in the iep process or that we're providing procedural safeguards so parents know their rights or that we're engaging in

064the conversation around the goals if parents feel that the goals don't meet their child's needs how can we engage in those conversations and conversations around where we want the students to get the education is it a parent who we've heard tonight a parent says i wanted my child to be in a location that was outside of that classroom there are conversations we have in those iep teams thank you for that and actually it's uh it's great that you just mentioned that particular point that that parent made up because i wanted to actually follow up on corrective action number one that you described um regarding out of district placements um i think it's safe to assume that if we're sending a student to an out-of-district placement that's the most restrictive environment we could send them to

065because they are no longer even in a community school with their neighbors with their friends um more so than a resource room even more so than a full-time placement um so i think this is just kind of another part and i just wanted to highlight this because we've had this discussion with the community and it's been ongoing about the need for a continuum of services and we did hear from a parent and i've heard from many parents you know that while i am very proud of being a leader in inclusive practices in this district that um they you know teams are constructed to sit down and make determinations about what is in the best interest of each individual student who is being serviced through that iep process and that isn't always necessarily the case that

066being in a fully included classroom for the entirety of their day or 80 or more of their day is appropriate um so um i um i just wanted to highlight that point i think and um in regard to the other two corrective actions um just uh making sure that iep's invitations are generated the students as a special ed teacher that's so important like you know my pretty much most half of what i do is working with high school students to advocate for themselves so just you know encouraging you know all of our teachers to make sure that they're staying on point with that and then just a question about pssa and pasa you were saying that and i want to be clear about this the corrective action was related to the number of students that

067didn't take the assessment not necessarily the number of students that were taking the incorrect assessment correct so it looks at the participation rate particularly for pssas but the way that they kind of play into each other is that we likely had students who were taking the alternate assessment who should have maybe been taking the pssa so that's the data we're looking at was there not though a correlation between that specific population and the regular education population in terms of participation in uh standardized assessments in this time yes it was very there was a correlation right you're correct in other words that there were obviously other reasons just because that is a family's decision right there's not a district decision so although that is a corrective action that the state requires us to address it's not

068really something that we can implement without our families being on board to go ahead and i say that as an opt-out parent every opportunity i have i'm going to say i am an opt-out parent um so uh i i would i understand the the need to look at that data and make that determination it is tough i mean you know 22 years in this business it's sometimes difficult to figure out okay is it this is a student who can take the pssa is a student it's more appropriate to take the pasa um [Music] but beyond that you know i would say it still remains a family's decision you know regarding that and not to push too hard beyond that in my opinion that's my notes i i think that's a really important part because one

069of the things i think to say as well is when you're when you are given a corrective action the state then comes out and wants to look at your data so exactly what you just shared is data we will share this is how many opt-outs we had um the reason for the ops those pieces that data will be what we share and how we look at that data and because you're absolutely right it is a parent's right to make those decisions so when when there is a corrective action they want to come back look at your data and say was it corrected so that's all the data we will look at thank you now that mr fusco has taken all of my questions um so um if we could look at the corrective action the

070first corrective action um and we could talk a little bit about professional development can you talk a little bit about the training the type of training that are both our special education and our general education teachers um take part in throughout the year as it relates to i mean specifically this talks about supporting intervention in reading and mathematics but i think you know we can talk about training around supporting um behaviors and how students can present with behaviors early intervention can you talk a little bit about what professional development looks like as it relates specifically to special education sure so um in representation of reading let's say there are programs where students are placed where they're getting very specialized reading instructions such as wilson um and we do have teachers in the district special education

071teachers that are trained in wilson we are looking k-12 at really how many we have trained in in wilson because we have seen that we might need to increase the amount of special education teachers trained in wilson because our reading specialists are providing some of that support um so that would be one area as we look to transition students back how many where are the students going into which building and do we have like a wilson trained teacher in that building that would be one of the examples mathematics really looking at in some cases when students are in alternate placement settings they might use replacement curriculum such as a connecting math concepts so that is a replacement curriculum it is an errorlessly taught curriculum to transition back to a regular everyday math let's say curriculum

072would be difficult for those students so we have to look at how do we transition back essentialize content to make sure that the student's transition is seamless and that might be conversations with looking with our inclusion facilitators supporting our special education teachers of being able to make sure that we understand where the student is in terms of the standard and then how can we transition back to the student back to the classroom content based for mathematics let's say you make a really good point about social emotional and i think that is an area where as an organization it's really important because a lot of times the locations in which our students are at are specialized it is all special education students and we are a larger district so when you look at an organization where

073you have 27 students in a regular education classroom and they were in an environment that may have had less than 10. we need to really look at what does that special education and special design instruction look like so we talk with our teachers about being able to monitor students as they transition in maybe it's a check-in in the morning checking midday making sure that they understand how to self reflect um and really look at their own personal um you know behavior how they're feeling what does that does what is anxiety might feel like a student's transition back so it's really being able to recognize when a student might not be comfortable in the environment they're in and then how to support those environments we have really great tier one supports in place and we are

074looking to bolster that the elementary the middle and the high level so that when we have students our baseline is going to be that every student has access to social emotional learning and those pieces really as they're just foundational components of their day and then really being able to understand how things could be specially designed for a student who may have had check-ins throughout the day who may have had access to let's say a calm down corner just so that they can get their emotions back and really making sure that um you know we we have our teachers trained behaviorally and social emotionally in those pieces and i say our teachers but when you transition students back or even open new programs in buildings which is some of the things we may need to look

075at you really need to talk to principals custodians the lunch people because everyone needs to really understand that when a student might be having you know a moment when they're in the lunch line that they might just be overwhelmed at that moment and what we can do to help facilitate those pieces so why we really do focus on the teachers it's really about the bus drivers it's about the the recess aids it's about the lunch ladies or lunch men like it's about all of those components so i think that that's the part where i say about professional development it looks at we talk about teachers and we talk about general education teachers but really it's about the entire environment of making sure that everyone feels comfortable interacting and understanding really what's best for students and

076what's best practices does that help answer your question it does um i you know what i would say is that you know we want to continue to support um with whatever resources whether it's partnering with patent or partnering with the mciu to make sure that we're able to provide support especially to our general education teachers because we want to be more inclusive than they have to be able to be prepared for some of the things when we are receiving children back because you described that transition from being in a class of 10. yes so i appreciate that you are develop you know you've developed a plan and you're working on guesting with our professional development team in the curriculum office i have another one last question about transition yes and you talked about inviting students

077and i i hoping that we're going to go a step further and not just invite them but really be intentional about engaging them i mean i've seen student-led ieps in as low as fifth grade an elementary principle so i've seen fifth graders lead ieps and or lead lead as part of their team um and so you know obviously it's the family as you described they can decide but i think oftentimes families who have middle schoolers want to see their child to be be able and the more involved they are at 14 15 16 the more ready they will be to make some decisions with their family about career paths and that kind of thing so i'm hoping that we can come back with a plan to be intentional about transition which leads me to my

078other question which is um just a couple weeks ago you probably know the exact date what july 8th act 55 was signed into law and i'm wondering how that impacts this plan because i'm guessing you're probably already far down the lane of working on this plan but i do think the transition of our oldest students into the workforce and that kind of thing is really important so i'm just wondering how that impacted this plan and you could probably describe act 55 for people who are not um completely aware of what it is and sure what i'm talking about sure absolutely so act 55 was just passed july 8th and it is an act that allows for students who would have transitioned out because they turned 21 during the 21-22 school year uh to stay an

079extra year with us for their education so um to engage families in that process we did reach out to families directly who that impacted um we had about 17 students in the district in which it impacted we did reach out to them directly and we are engaging with families about the process we shared the act 55 form from the state and we're engaging in those conversations in terms of not particularly even just what kind of do we need teachers do we need related service providers but what is the student's plan and how can we make sure that we are putting that student center first and say so he was he or she was ready to transition out and now he's going to come back for another year where are areas that we as an iep

080team feel that we need to focus for this this extra year we also have students in out of district placements of that 17 that have opted to stay an extra year as well so we are engaging with the other district placements as well um to look at that plan and i would say you know we have we hired last year a really great transition coordinator and dr janelle shelley she's engaging with the families about those conversations i would say that it was a sample that was pulled that is an exception we definitely are engaging our students i just think the sample that was pulled wasn't necessarily representative of what's happening at the high school or the middle school so we are engaging we've had some ieps where we have students come with powerpoints and they

081do the presentation which has been amazing so there's definitely those components but do we need to to get better absolutely we always do right so that's something that we will look at and i love the person-centered planning and having students being part of that and we will continue with that as well thank you you're welcome that's all my question i have a quick follow-up question dr g kind of got to some of the great questions about training but in looking at professional development activities in the coming year can you tell us what professional development activities for the special ed program that you're most excited about and what you think will help to address some of the concerns that have been brought to us by parents sure so i think you know exciting is the engagement

082that dr bauer dr mckenna dr hart dr waters and i continue to have with our families about really where we are within north penn and the special education process we are looking at our comprehensive plan we are engaging in that conversation you know having our new superintendent in place and looking at really the district's mission and goals has really been exciting and having dialogue with our families to support that process has been great in terms of special education for me i'm most excited about continuing the conversations around inclusion um we really are looking at um you know we always look at first our least restrictive environment for students and as mr fusco shared we do want to make sure we still have options for students as well we really have engaged in some great conversations

083this year with our teachers around progress monitoring and being able to talk to the students goals and to support really what the student needs in a very strategic way that still allows for students to be with their peers in the general education environment so those conversations i'm really excited about additionally we you know when we left and we're out for kovid kind of coming back and kind of reigniting the conversation around co-teaching and and really inclusion in terms of best practice we do a really really good job with that i would say we are really leaps and bounds above other districts so continuing those conversations really excites me i also am excited about opportunities for our transition age students particularly our post-12 students and really partnering with some different um locations for them to engage

084in work and job employability skills so that's something we're super excited about as well i'm sure there's more but i didn't prepare so i'm sure there's more than that on the topic of professional development i'm sorry one more thing um i know i happen to know that some of you were at a professional development today i believe we had some supervisors can you talk a little bit about about the belonging and dignity professional development and how that relates to equity and special education specifically sure so i mean i think in a general sense um you know and and dr hart does a beautiful job of sharing this but you know we we believe in the same when you look at a student where they feel that they belong could be different it could be in

085an environment where they're in their general education environment and this is where they feel most secure and most belong there also could be environments for various students where they feel that a more small environment is really more supportive of them because they might feel an environment where there's 25 students that that environment for them becomes overwhelming and they can't really be their best selves so we really look at you know making sure that as it relates to inclusion and i say inclusion because it typically goes inclusion goes right to special education but i'm talking about every student within north bend when we talk about inclusion so when we look at students based on race gender disability ability socio-economic status we want to make sure that everyone in the room has a has really a seat

086at the table and i feel like the conversations when we feel that everyone belongs everyone's going to feel like when they walk in that classroom that they feel like they have a seat at that table so i feel like there are the conversations that we continue to have and when you feel that you belong you have dignity you feel like you are part of the conversation and that people care and they feel they feel that you're important and that they want you to be there and i feel like those are the conversations that that we continue to have within the organizations within the cabinet within you know really any conversations we have in terms of belonging and dignity and as far as special education goes i feel that it's we want to make sure that

087students get what they need but we want to make sure that they are in the environment that best meets their needs and i think you know mr fusco shared it like we want to make sure when an ip makes a decision that they believe this is best which includes the parents that we're able to support that because then they feel that they belong and they have dignity within their education thank you you're welcome thank you now we'll go down to the side i think mr um had a question well i had four but they took them all so all i'll say is i know the deadline for that uh act 55 application is august 1st thank you for being so nimble and getting the families informed that's a really great great work on your part

088thank you thank you thank you mr bean thank you mrs mcgeeheim can you articulate for us the changes in terms of the ftes for inclusion facilitators so it's my understanding that our inclusion facilitators especially due to the staffing challenges this year with staff absences not enough subs and coverages that our inclusion facilitators were pulled in so many different directions that they weren't really able to do the job all the time of inclusion facilitator so my understanding is that our folks have been redeployed into some other spaces which would allow those who are earmarked towards being an inclusion facilitator to actually do that work so can you kind of just guide the board and tell them a little bit about the concerns that they've heard about inclusion facilitators sure so this particular concern is i would

089say about the elementary level our middle school and high school level has stayed the same there are three inclusion facilitators at middle school and six at the high school and they are content specific so in terms of elementary as dr bauer shared there was challenges in the role in terms of the way the role was originally described prescribed and what we wanted the role to look like and obviously that was before i transitioned into the district but we wanted to make sure we got back to what it looked like but we also recognized that there was inclusion facilitators who were playing a large part of their day as instructors and that instructors could have been for direct instruction for reading or mathematics could have been direct instruction for social skills it could have been really

090taken a lot of their day up because there was a lot of behavioral supports needed for students in various buildings in consultation with the inclusion facilitators the instructional coach for the inclusion facilitators we shared we gathered information with the building principles at the elementary level special education supervisors we just kind of gathered state of where we are with inclusion facilitation and really what we as a district believe in and what we want to get back to so in supporting those conversations we finally dr waters and i had met with a team of inclusion facilitators to share um and really hear from them what are concerns what are things uh you want to get back to what are areas that you feel like you're struggling to meet and how can we support those conversations um and

091what we heard was we want to get back to the way the flexibility in our schedule the ability to support and coach our teams and model but we are being pulled for a variety of different things but they also recognize the need for what they're being pulled for and the importance of that for our students which was which was great so in those conversations we discussed how can we really get back to the model we want it to but still make sure we're meeting the students needs with the information we had in front of us so we did talk with the inclusion facilitator team and we took what we had was it was ended up being 10.5 facilitators and we bought it down to six so what we did and when we say we bought

092it down to six was we deployed the other three and a half inclusion facilitators um two instructional pieces co-teaching being you know supporting students in that inclusive environment one of our inclusion facilitators stayed in the building actually it's walton farm to support students in that building really through that if role but also to support students in co-teaching and then the other six inclusion facilitators are going to be working in two buildings to support inclusive practices in the inclusion facilitation piece they're integral in supporting our mtss process because they are experts on interventions and supports so they will sit on those teams which they were struggling to get through this year and that is an area that we definitely want to support because it is that pre-referral process and then having the flexibility to support our

093teams coach model support co-teaching be part of the consultative model conversations so get back to what it used to to look like so we recognize that what we have in front of us in terms of needs did morph a bit so we were able to facilitate it the way we did and lastly the intention here when you take those three and a half that you're talking about to fill the co-teaching role is to keep the role of inclusion facilitator sacred meaning that that individual is not getting pulled to cover other areas correct and we have a commitment to that yes we do okay great thank you great thank you for explaining that so we're not cutting any stuff we're just switching yeah so um i believe when we went through the staffing process for this

094year we're actually adding five teaching positions across the whole district three of those five are in special education so there are added resources in special education it's just a redistribution of what they're actually doing great yes thank you for that are there any further questions for mrs mcgee all right seeing none we have a motion on the floor so all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries thank you thank you so much appreciate the presentation okay uh then moving along to the next item on the agenda that would be the financial reports mr scrocky please thank you madam president good evening everyone first update i have tonight is on the state budget as mr mcbain mentioned earlier in the legislative report we do have a state budget now it was not passed by the

095june 30th deadline but it was certainly worth the wait because here at north penn our basic education funding is going to be increasing by 2.6 million dollars that's a 22 percent increase for north penn school district that is quite frankly an historic increase not only for north penn but for all public schools in pennsylvania so contrast that 2.6 million dollar increase with our budgeted increase of 354 000. we budgeted a three percent increase we got a 22 increase special education funding is increasing by three and a half percent 240 000 we also budgeted a three percent increase there so when you net the two out the basic education funding and special education funding this means that north penn will receive an additional 2.3 million dollars in unbudgeted state revenue for 2223 fiscal year now that

0962.3 million dollars is great but i do need to mention that we did have an approved budget that had a 5.1 million dollar deficit so my view is that 2.3 million dollars certainly will go a long way in allowing us to have a balanced budget at the end of the fiscal year in addition to the basic ed funding and the special ed funding increases north penn will receive nearly six hundred thousand dollars for physical safety and mental health grants and we've already had one preliminary meeting to start prioritizing some of those needs the state has not indicated the specifics with the application process yet but we certainly have a number of needs that can be used to spend that nearly six hundred thousand dollars the 2223 real estate tax rebate program is in effect now

097this is the fifth year of our program if anyone is eligible for a state property tax and rent rebate at the state level north penn's rebate will match that by 75 percent the maximum rebate this year for homeowners is 731.25 and for renters it's 487 dollars and 50 cents i do want to read a thank you note that was sent to the school board by a lansdale resident mrs ruth she sends a thank you note to the board members every year this is regarding the rebate program to the north penn school board members again it is time to say thank you for continuing the tax rebate program for all of us seniors i know means so much to me and i'm sure all the others as well it's good to know you care about us

098and realize our incomes do not reflect today's cost of living bless and stay safe jacqueline ruth so thank you to mrs ruth for her recognition of the program and thank you to the board for continuing the program part of the state budget approval did include a 140 million dollar increase at the state level to expand the pennsylvania property tax and rent rebate program so payments for residents will be expanded by 70 percent for a one-year period so we will need to have some discussion at an upcoming finance committee meeting if we want to expand our rebate to include that additional reimbursement that that taxpayers in north penn school district may receive through the rebate program it would have a financial impact but that's something we need to discuss that 70 percent increase is only for

099a one-year period and that 140 million dollars at the state level really came through federal stimulus funding that needed to be spent by the state so that was a proposal by governor wolf so we're happy to see that pass just a reminder for any property owner in north penn school district the real estate tax bills were issued and in mail boxes probably around july the second if you have not received that tax bill yet today july 21st there's a problem so i suggest that you reach out to your locally elected tax collector in your municipality to ask for a duplicate bill failure to receive the bill unfortunately does not relieve you from payment of that bill also a reminder july 31st is a deadline for any individuals in north penn school district that choose to

100pay their real estate taxes through the installment program we do have a program where individuals can pay one-sixth of their tax bill starting in july ending in december and that's available for any homeowner commercial industrial residential property so property classification does not matter in terms of the treasures report and the finances for the month of june 2022 we did have cash receipts in june totaling 14 million and disbursements for the month were 36.9 million so that is our last month of being cash flow negative for a while we are starting to receive a significant amount of real estate tax collection already so for the next several months we will be experiencing a positive cash flow situation but total available funds at the end of june were 71.2 million dollars and that's a two million dollar

101increase over the same period last year madam president i'd ask for approval of the treasurer's report for june 2022. may i have a motion please so moved do i have a second second motion by mr fresco and seconded by mrs ramich are there any comments or questions um mr scraggy can you quick you said we would have to revisit the tax rebate percentage later it's a percentage though right so well yes it is a percentage however there is a caveat in the resolution passed by the board it does indicate a maximum rebate okay and that maximum rebate is 75 but based on the former values that were in place does not include the additional 70 percent that's going to be given as part of the state budget infusion so our rebate right now is max

102at 731 dollars for property owners and max at 487.50 for renters so with this 70 boost you know that those maximums could actually increase so we would need to review it for consideration for amendment of that resolution okay but right now it is cats thank you you're welcome all right so we have a motion on the floor in a second is there any other comments or questions this is perhaps just a question for dr bauer the approximately six hundred thousand for the grants for physical safety and mental health um i believe i heard mr scracky say that those grants were submitted um but not already kind of earmarked specifically for what you're going to use them for so perhaps we could um dr power dr waters maybe at the next dci we could get an

103update on what that month this funds will be used for as we approach the school year yeah i mean i think it's great i think the physical safety piece i think it's the forefront of many of our minds right now and as well as the um mental health so is that possible absolutely be happy to bring that forward to eci or safe schools or both thank you so there is a motion on the floor if there's no further questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries okay next item under the financial section will be the sanction and approval of invoices i'm recommending ratification of disbursements for the month of june in the amount of forty million three hundred fifty three thousand one hundred sixty six dollars and sixteen cents does have a

104motion please so moved that was second second motion by mr fusco and seconded by mrs wesley are there any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries next item for vote will be the budget transfers for june 2022 they totaled one million sixty six thousand one hundred eighty four dollars and fifteen cents we're recommending approval of those budget transfers can i have a motion so moved motioned by mr fusco and uh seconded by mr mcvean any comments or questions seeing none all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries and finally for information purposes we do have the financial reports through june i do want to mention that this would be for the 21 22 fiscal year the previous fiscal year we did have a budgeted deficit of 5.8 million

105dollars but i am happy to report that although we still have some revenue coming in that pertains last year and expenditures that pertain to last year we are looking at a pretty significant positive variance for the 21-22 fiscal year and not only will we bridge that 5.8 million dollar budget deficit we might have a possibility of perhaps transferring some unspent money to the capital reserve fund to address some of our capital needs in the future that concludes my report madam president thank you thank you mr scrocky all right moving on uh to other business does anyone have any other business to discuss this evening seeing none then we will move on to our second audience of citizens is there anyone that would like to make a public comment at this time hi hi pauline braccio

106tom manson township um [Music] in the emails that i sent you i sent it to all of you i never did hear back tina from you about i gave you the excerpts from the book and you never did get back to me with your opinion about that so i don't have anything to say since you did not give me feedback and i and i'm still waiting so i hope that you will um give me some feedback and since i sent it to all of you any of you can send me feedback i really would appreciate what you think about a book that talks about explicit sex in a high school setting um but i do want to get back to this this coincides with what mr lanier was talking about and um this is a

107new york post article from june 18th of this year and it's why detransitioned teens regret changing genders when clary was 12 years old she decided she was a transgender at 13 she came out to her parents that same year she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone at 15 she underwent a double mastectomy less than a year later she realized she had made a mistake all by the time she was 16 years old now 17 chloe is one of a growing cohort called d transitioners those who seek to reverse a gender transition often after realizing they actually do identify with their biological sex tragically many will struggle for the rest of their lives with the irreversible medical consequences of a decision made as minors and i did read and i can't quote you the

108source that there are doctors who will perform these operations on children as young as 10 10. chloe this is what she states i started being exposed to a lot of lgbt content and activism she said i saw how trans people online got an overwhelming amount of support and the amount of praise they were getting really spoke to me because at the time i really didn't have a lot of friends of my own more attention needs to be paid to psychotherapy chloe said we're immediate we're immediately jumping into irreversible medical treatments when we could be focusing on empowering these children to not hate their bodies and these children a lot of them are just like chloe and i have another one here but i'm running out of time where they are disenfranchised from society from their

109circle in schools they feel lonely they turn to the internet and then they start getting all these ideas and they decide well yeah i'm not happy with my body and uh and then as i she said afterwards she realized that she was and it's uh it's really a shame and that's why you have that high suicidal rate among these people thank you mrs faucio jason lanier lansdale i've always wondered why you guys are acting and doing policies against what the school code the pennsylvania school code allowed you to do and it kind of occurred to me this past weekend when you guys were having your rally at oak park uh and it took you i don't know 40 minutes to figure out who had the permit but you guys know you are in violation of

110your own permitted rules but still do you realize that you were in violation of your own permitted rules i could read them out to you it's it's uh regulation 1330 and what you're not allowed to use and what you are allowed to use you're not allowed to use the the bathroom facilities you're not allowed to use the electricity you're not allowed to put signs up you're not allowed to have the permit transferred from madeline dean to whatever committee you guys should we're running this this outfit so is it that north penn is just a way for you guys to implement a political agenda or is it because you care about the kids i mean i could go over another one i could go over the equity policy now a lot there is a discussion with

111with uh with special needs kids in equity that's that's that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about the fact that your equity policy is written out of out of whole clot mr summers said well you have a you have a wide just uh a wide latitude when it comes to writing policy okay so as long as it's reasonable as what mr summers said so is it reasonable to lower standards to increase enrollments based upon race is it reasonable to have privilege walks do they have those down in horsham because they had i know they had them here and i only had them multiple times you guys always said you were you you didn't know about it but you had a you had a student who graduated last year who told you it was

112happening quite frequently and you needed to stop denying it was happening and you shouldn't allow it to happen how about school board policy that you were just talking about um 8 15 regarding child pornography are you aware that your chromebooks the the school library that has pornographic matter in the school library that is is it it's an e-book and or an audio book so are you guys in violation of a policy that you've already or i guess that one's maybe uh first reading that you're in violation of your own policy and moreover you're in violation of the state policy on child pornography do you want me to read you the titles of these books and i could actually give you some experts or excerpts if you're interested but there's quite a few and they're all

113available online through digital media so me and a earl and a dying girl the handmaid's tale the digital comic of the hands made tale go ask alice red hood tricks haters uh what girls are made of people kill these are all very salacious books thank you mr lanier [Applause] madam vice president giuseppe monticelli opera guarana township um these last two speakers have said stuff about this book i've come across information about this book and i could tell you straight out right now if you're going to have a book in your school that has content warning for adults only i would ask this question madam speaker who is in charge of deciding what books or who is the arbiter of deciding what books go into the library here at north penn high school and what books

114don't i i mean i'm just i can't read any of this text here i can because it's termelino v chicago 1941 united states supreme court how about cohen v california okay i can totally read this right now but out of dignity i'm not going to read it because of minors um you know i have a copy of the excerpt of this i mean the last gentleman spoke the name masroel speak it haters you have it inside the school library i'm going to speak in my last few minutes here of why i come here it's because of that book i know personally the damage that showing a minor adult content does i'm proof when i was 12 at springfield township middle school i was forced by jason catuso my special education teacher to watch adult content

115videos nothing was done about it i still live with that every day i have problems in my life because of that of what happened to me and pretty much what you're doing as you're giving a child a open book of reading of a boy being raped by a female it's a very disruptive descriptive explicit account of that and if you're going to be showing them content like this a reading hell with it mazzarella will show them 18 united states code 2257 content because it seems like you guys don't care at all showing these miners adult content what the hell is wrong with you people i yield the floor back thank you hi mrs heath kathy heath of lannister pennsylvania i was i'm hopeful that the special education plan moving forward is beneficial um but i

116want to point out some things quite honestly kids prior to the age of 14 need to be allowed to be included in the iep meetings as recently as this past year i had an an elementary meeting where the person running the meeting did not want my child to be a part of the meeting how is my child supposed to learn to become an advocate if they're denied the opportunity to learn how to how these meetings act 14 is a little late i mean i know that's what the law but 14 is a little late for the kids to start learning uh high expectations need to be had for these kids across the board just because they have an iep does not mean that they are incapable there are too many times that i have been

117frustrated beyond belief because the expectations are too low for my child or any of my children quite honestly the kids need access to a support room throughout the day not during certain periods because if a child is experiencing what we in my house call the terrible horrible no good very bad day they need a place to reset so that they can go back to the regular classroom and be included and get the education because quite honestly we're sending our kids to school for education um the other thing is it's great that you guys collect tons of data but make sure you're doing something with that data for my one child you had three years of data at the middle school showing that a reading program wasn't working we got to the high school first thing

118i called the meeting and i got told we need more data how much data do you need to see that something's not working uh you guys have a tendency when there's an absent among the aides to switch them around and i get that some kids are higher priority need and aid more than some others but when you do that you need to make sure that the replacement aid is aware that the child what the child's needs are are they supposed to be writing down everything in the agenda or is the student supposed to be writing this the homework down in the agenda does the kid have a sports activity that they're supposed to catch the bus for i've had three times where i've had to drive my child to activities because the substitute aid that

119day did not know that my child had a sports activity finally need to make sure the books are appropriate for the kids in the special ed reading program because just because it's a new york times bestseller or award winner it doesn't mean it's appropriate for the group that's reading it at that point in time my child had to read the giver while he had a baby brother in the house and guess what he had problems dealing with his baby brother because in the giver they kill the babies so you tell me what kind of damage you did to my son that year okay thank you mrs heath thank you sherwin collins north wales pennsylvania i don't believe i have to say this but i think going down the road of banning books is a bad

120idea and i'm sitting here listening to folks who are legitimately concerned about certain things in books but i remember and it just hit me i remember arguing years ago over tom sawyer and it shouldn't be in the school because of the racism in the book you can pick anything out of a lot of books and books should always be age appropriate for the grade you're using it for but banning books you know saying well there's a rape in the color purple well we shouldn't have that book on the shelf well there's racism and tom sorry we shouldn't have that book on the shelf we start banning books that's a bad road to start going down thank you thank you mr collins is there anyone else that would like to make public comment okay seeing none

121do i have a motion to adjourn so moved thank you have a great night everyone you