001all right tonight we have three 900 series policies these are new and then two 100 policies that are once again being revisited for legally updated language so i don't know i'm turning it over to kyle dr bauer who's up sure um i'll kick it off and then we'll leverage mr summer's expertise um so as indicated and good evening everyone sorry to start with that um as indicated by mr fusco policies 103 and 104 are policies that we adopted within the last two years and then revisited and are now revisiting again primarily um because of workflow with our additional trainings and we've spoken with this committee and in other committees about training about title ix um we are making some changes to the way the policy read the policy read specifically that um our assistant director
002of human resources was our title ix coordinator and um quite frankly and and transparently here it's been an awful lot of of work so you will see that uh there are changes to the policies that include assistant title ix coordinators so whether for example if there was an incident a title ix incident in athletics maybe the athletic director at the high school could be an assistant coordinator and so while there might be some involving employees which would be in human resources we could also have like a building administrator be the assistant coordinator for a student issue um so it's been it's been a challenge to navigate have one person navigate um all the investigations and the reports and and the things that are outlined in the policy so we made adjustments to 103 a 104
003just to delineate that and dr dietrich as our superintendent it does say that the superintendent could appoint additional assistant uh title ix coordinators uh mr summers anything to add on those two policies no just that it does give the uh it creates flexibility um in having the superintendent have the ability to designate those assistant title ix coordinators importantly the the title ix coordinator is still identified as the assistant director of human resources and is the individual ultimately responsible for overseeing the district's compliance with title ix um and that will continue it's just providing some some greater assistance to that individual when it's it's determined that that's necessary by the superintendent yeah sal go ahead um have we ever thought of doing this by committee also just like we've done with the discipline in the schools
004so i think from any value because i i take it that the the person who does the title ix uh coordination force does build a team of their own but they're uh but and i and i guess that might be a team of it's on its own but uh now i think you're definitely on to something there mr rash and i think that's kind of the impetus behind the change is that we're building capacity in more folks so that it is more of a team approach as opposed to one individual and like mr summers just pointed out the our assistant director of human resources would kind of be the point person and and and the coordinator but there would be some capacity and some others uh to support the efforts okay so what are the
005responsibilities that they have uh with a report with the the assistant title nine coordinator the assistants so the primary responsibilities would be would be as designated by the title ix coordinator so it could be on a case-by-case basis but in general i think what would likely occur is is a report let's say comes into the title ix coordinator that says um there's a student who believes they've experienced some form of harassment from another student let's say um that the title nine coordinator could assign an assistant title ix coordinator to that case and say i'd like you to process this through our procedures that we have under these policies and so that assistant titled nine coordinator would for example contact the student who made the report of harassment contact that student's parents make sure that they're
006provided with a copy of our policies gather information from them investigate uh whether um you know what the allegations are investigate you know um the situation um and then prepare a report summarizing what they found when they looked into that situation so kind of the the they would be really carrying out the steps um under our policy for what occurs when a complaint or when a report of some sort of harassment or or you know mistreatment um uh is reported to us okay what how over the last let's say five years has the reporting been like a stable sort of consistent amount has it increased has it decreased but what does the trend look like in the district um something i could get back to you on with particulars however it is absolutely reasonable to
007say that as a result of the trainings that mr summers has done with the administrative team that we have had significantly more reports um that's absolutely true and some of it is just education you know making the administrators aware of what is and what is not an issue that could be a violation of title ix um has kind of been the catalyst for so many more reports i don't know that it points to worse behavior right i think it points to you know when you when you give professional development and you train folks and they're aware uh and more informed then we head down this path uh you know more frequently i do i also think that the policy itself um is more broad in scope than it previously was so the last two years
008are tough because of the dynamic due to the pandemic um and student behaviors are some would say are more challenging because of the pandemic but there's definitely a spike this year in title ix reports and investigations there's no doubt okay if there's no further questions on 103 and 104 um 908 97 so 908 is relations with parents and guardians 917 is parental and family involvement and then 918 is title 1 parent and family engagement this is something that is required under title 1 as a district that receives title 1 funds we do need to have a parent and family engagement policy i don't have anything in particular to share about these three policies other than the fact that they are uh continuation of the process of evaluating the 900 series which we are nearing the
009end of um so we've been we've been at this for over two years now and we are making our way through 900 and pretty soon we'll move into the next batch uh mr summers anything to add about these three um to for 918 um as you reference that's really um completely required under title 1 uh federal law um pretty much word for word that policy comes out of federal law in terms of 908 and 917 the relations with parents and parental involvement i think that those two policies um reflect the concept of of in loco parentis which is essentially that the school district acts in the place of which is what that phrase means in the place of parents during the day with regard to the conduct of students that the school district obviously can
010can regulate how students behave during the day and and we can impose discipline for that for when there are violations of our code of conduct for example um so it those policies mention that fact but they also emphasize um the viewpoint of the district that parents you know play a huge role obviously and are ultimately have responsibility in terms of how their students act during the day and it talks about the importance of communication active communication between school and home and that as there are events that occur at home that might impact the student in school the importance of parents communicating that information to the school and these policies also talk about ways to ensure that the school provides opportunities for parents to learn about what happens during the school day so things like back
011to school night things like parent-teacher conferences these policies establish that those are viewed as important by the board and they direct the administration to carry out those back-to-school nights those parent-teacher conferences to get that feedback um and ensure that there are those open lines of communication between the school and parents okay okay thank you for that explanation of the local apprentice and obviously we do believe that that partnership with parents is extraordinarily important um you know beyond just even that communication piece you know we we have established groups like our our cultural cadre like end page like uh with the reconstituting of our special education council to try to get input from families because they obviously have a much different perspective on things at least different lens that they're looking for um but yes during
012the school day at in loco parentis is is kind of a key understanding that is the school that is responsible at that time for the child um all right any questions guys concerns all right uh in that case oh and then of course there's uh item f which is to repeal any policies that are now redundant with the new language and our new policies anything uh of note there to mention no it's it's simply repealing the uh 1270 the artist formerly known as 1270 which was also the title one parent and family engagement okay okay in that case um can i have a motion to move policy 103 908 917 and 918 to our action meeting for a first reading so moved second all right motion by mrs stahl seconded by mr resh uh any
013thoughts sing none all those in favor say aye aye ocean carries all right and then let's uh motion to repeal policy um at our upcoming action meeting got moved second motion by mrs stole second amendment mr rash all those in favor say aye hi here's your hand all right ocean carries now uh are we going to do addressing the committee and then additional topics in that order that's the way it's on here or did you want to go first todd and then we'll have sure i'll be happy to just say my my other business or additional topic here is just simply we've discussed with this group um about a homework policy adoption and uh we are now in in the thick of that process um oh mr rest just [Laughter] being sabotaged mr rush my
014grandson's here yeah yeah that's great well um so we've discussed with this committee uh the need for a homework policy and expectations for homework and in particular at the secondary level um so we are working on getting a group together we have a group of stakeholders involving some some parents some students some of your student representatives here this evening from this committee and the eci committee administrators and of course teachers and mr summers is going to guide that process on the homework policy much like he did with our equity policy kind of like leading a workshop and giving us options and examples um so we're excited about that and i just want to update the committee that that is in process it's going to be a very thorough process but we'll keep the committee informed
015as we progress through that work mr dr i'm curious do teachers work on action research as part of the observation evaluation cycle is that something that we do at north and i'm not even certain of that yeah we don't utilize um a differentiated model as as much as some other districts do i do know that some building goals and some some buildings have some embedded action research with teachers professional growth goals for example um dr waters is actually reviewing the supervision and evaluation plan this year i believe that's one of her comprehensive goals so you could see something like that come before you in the near future but uh right now we don't have like a district-wide action research push i'm just wondering because there's so much mixed research on homework that i and we're
016such a large district i i feel like it would be interesting you know to to discuss with the committee the possibility of piloting certain ideas in terms of how to address homework you know there's i mean certainly there are certain standard beliefs from what i read about you know an amount that you know can be too much um you know there's there's sort of a back and forth of whether homework you know at the elementary level um is it has much merit at all i'm not suggesting it does or doesn't i'm just saying like in terms of the research that's read um you know that it would be interesting if we could try to you know take a very critical look in our district at that and and see if we could have some sort
017of action research building level wise grade level wise at the you know classroom level even you know to kind of see if we could measure the effectiveness of more homework versus less homework you know um because you know we have i mean you shared with me you know what our our actual policy is right now and um it does seem at least anecdotally that um whatever we do have in practice right now it's not being you know adhered to necessarily to the letter of it right so you know um i think the the document that you did share suggested about it two hours per night for you know um which was odd in the policy itself usually those are in regulations but in the policy itself it looked like saying about two hours per night
018of homeworks they're about for uh secondary high school you know and i'm not sure that some teachers don't think it's two hours per subject per night uh but i actually am kind of curious since we have uh our student rep here do you have any thoughts on homework and at the high school and if you think that the the load that you have is um right not enough too much it's real quick since we're talking about it right now we got a couple minutes curious what your thoughts are either one of you just jump right in um for me at least i think the loads pretty well because i i heard you're saying about like two hours a night but that's not like every subject so like some subjects some days i have no homework
019and some days i have a good amount but it i never have homework like in every single class all the time so it's pretty easy to balance like that way because every class like balances out the amount of homework i get each day um i agree that um the workload is not that much it's like um balanced because it depends on what classes you're taking so if you're prepared for that challenge then it's not as bad but i guess if you're not that prepared for all the workload it's going to be overwhelming because teachers do give homework like almost every night and some teachers give it like um that it's like only due at the end of the week and then sometimes they just say it's due the next day so it depends on how
020you can manage time and how you handle all your work i think that um student input into that committee would be valuable dr power just as a thought um certainly they have a very very uh not would say unique but certainly probably the most important voice in it in terms of you know what they feel is is fair and handle what they can handle and you know and i do agree that it is an individual um approach right certainly the students who are more prepared are going to have an easier time with their homework um the things that would concern me are things like how often students are given homework on topics that haven't been covered yet um you know if there is a lot of rope activity going on at like the high school
021level you know i don't know that's always a good use of student time if it's a very routine kind of you know hour or more of the work you know so i think that it's good for the community to meet i think they really need to sort of drill down not just on okay well how much should it be but you know how what is it we're giving how valuable is what's being given what's the american the students easily connect you know what they're being given to the learning in the classroom can they see the value in it um you know sometimes when i see activities where teachers are asking students to memorize how to spell words at this point like we have programs that tell us how to spell words i'm a terrible speller
022it does not mean that i am not going to be a successful adult right like to a certain extent you know i think that it's i'm glad that we're having a committee i'm i'm excited to hear about what they're um what they're going to do what the scope of the work is going to look like and like i said how we can kind of put some of these ideas into practice even at a um a trial error level if that's possible um anyway it's enough amusing on that one but i'm looking forward to it thank you dr bauer yeah you're very welcome um well at one point of clarification the document that i shared with you mr fusco was an administrative regulation that was regulation okay i thought so it is so your your intuition
023was correct that it was an admin right okay um and that's all i had for other business thank you dr bauer all right now we will move on to our audience of citizens uh let me read the statement here tonight's meeting is our regularly scheduled committee meeting in order to meet the requirements of pennsylvania's sunshine law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens to speak to the committee during the meeting to ensure compliance with this requirement it is essential that those planning to address the committee state their name and address members of the audience are asked to limit their questions and comments to matters being discussed at tonight's meeting or matters that may come before the policy committee the committee chair may ask individual yield to the next speaker uh all right
024all right just a reminder if you intend to speak give me the raise hands symbol at the bottom of your interface we do have one hand up we have two folks in the audience tonight if you intend to speak go ahead and raise uh everybody that wants to speak and raise your hand just so uh we're ready to go on the next one so up first is uh mr jason lanier jason i have enabled your microphones you're ready to begin state your name and township and you can begin your comments jason air landsdelboro um i i find it interesting you guys kind of i don't know if it was intentional but you went over the policy i guess it's 100 or code 103. against uh about discrimination and and how you square this with with
025the equity and crt that you guys say you're not but you are implementing in a way which discriminates kids based upon race uh i don't know if uh if privilege is listed in there i don't know exactly how to discriminate on that um and is this going to be applied further into uh vaccination status or what what is the what is the going plan for for uh making sure you're not discriminating against kids i mean there is this issue like we talked about many times uh you know the the crt implementation i know you guys don't like to say it is but i one of these meetings i forget which would have won which one it was i read directly from a couple of your professional development books which strictly declare crt and how to
026implement it in teaching uh the other thing i wanted to ask about is are you guys aware of uh pennsylvania section which is obscene in sexual materials and performances and specifically c uh section c dissemination to minors i could read this whole thing i don't know if you want to have mr summers do it but you realize that the school board is in violation of this code it's a felony you cannot destroy you cannot disseminate pornographic materials sculptured motion picture videotape uh visual representation images personnel portion of any human body which depicts nudity sexual content uh abuse uh any abuse to minors check you guys are doing that check on the next one any pamphlet book magazine printed material however reproduced or sound recording which contains any matter enumerated in the paragraph one which is
027one i was just reading you might want to take a look at this you are currently violating i understand you need to know about it on on the uh the action mini action committee meeting on one uh was it 10 21 you guys knew about this since then i don't think you've done anything except for to remove one book which has kind of a we're not sure who checked it out but doesn't look like any kids did and i asked dr bauer to send me the receipts on on that to make sure i i have it done it was it was uh checked out three times and i'm talking about not all boys were blue i think that's the name of the the book this is something that you guys need to discuss and i
028would like to hear it in public not just offline i want to know who's going to be responsible for for letting this happen and uh and what you're going to do to prevent this from happening and who who's who's responsible for this thank you thank you mr lanier okay i don't see any other hands up at this time so that will conclude public comment for the policy committee meeting okay uh the summary of our items moving to action is uh removing policy 103 104 908 917 and 918 to action for a first reading and we are moving policy 1270 to action to consider for repeal our next policy committee meeting is december 14th at five o'clock in virtual format does anybody else have anything for the good of the committee all right come motion to
029adjourn all right so moved and we're adjourned thank you everyone see you financing