NPSD School Board Action meeting 7-15-21

001good evening everyone welcome back to our first in-person action meeting that we've had um well actually it's our second one so yeah sorry um okay first up we're gonna do um the pledge of allegiance please under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay so now we'll proceed to the recognitions and proclamations tonight we will be recognizing the girls softball team and head coach mr rick torresani is here tonight with assistant coach mike beer to introduce the players thank you and uh thank you for having us here um and thank you for the recognition tonight um it was a great season um the girls were outstanding uh the chemistry on the team was just unbelievable the road that we took to get there was a little crazy in the in the through the districts

002and then through the states but i just like to go over and thank a few people that were really important as throughout the entire season especially with the season uh with the covid and what had to happen just to make our season so i'd like to ask thank you for allowing us to have a season that was important for the girls it was important since we went through obviously last year and just to see their faces and be able to play the game was just unbelievable uh as the season progressed things started to back off a little bit and we were able to open up until we finally got to the state championship and and the girls could play the game the way they know how to play the game and and not worry about

003too much through the practices and stuff but to the school board thank you to mr dietrich thank you very much uh the principal mr nicholson the entire school staff at in the administration at north penn and then there's some few people that um helped us as coaches to get through the season linda law the assistant athletic director selma robinson and a huge shout out to the trainers melissa rosenberger and mike burke they through the entire year um were just outstanding and helpful helpful to me as we had during the during the season and during workouts maybe somebody that we thought might have coveted and they were just able to tell us i mean if anybody gets a pay raise those two should um to donny walsh and the teachers and coach chet coach monero coach

004mccracken and their teams that met us before we went out on our bus trip out to state college to organize that and to come out and cheer the girls on and they didn't expect it and to see them smiles and the laughs and and just to know that the school was behind them and that was extremely important um on our twitter site to see some of you respond to that they saw that tina thank you a lot of times i mean that meant a lot to them um to the firefighters when we got back um at 1 30 quarter to two in the morning to see 12 fire trucks and ambulances and the police i mean i was in shock we expected we were all talked on the bus ride home and we expected one

005bus i mean one fire truck one policeman and when we got there it was you should have heard him in the bus it was just unbelievable um i want to thank those people for coming out that late at night even though we were standing there and there had their sirens going we had people drive by i thought the school was on fire but it was it was ju it just sent us over the edge um so thank you to them um to kyle berger and tara for broadcasting came back here on the radio so parents that couldn't hear it or friends they got a chance to hear it and that was really neat that was unexpected and that was awesome too i just want to thank all them but a special thank you to former

006athletic director bill bartle who just carried us through our season helping us helping me out with the girls and treating us first class the bus rides because we ended up on this side of the bracket didn't end up going to middle pennsylvania you know we had to travel all over the place and because it was hot he made sure we had the buses thank you for allowing that so we had air conditioning that was huge so i want to thank all of you for that and um and for me i mean 21 years coaching at north penn and um to say that i'm not a north penn graduate i'm not a north penn resident but i am in north penn and i believe blue and i want to thank all of you because um your

007support the school district the the athletic department their support the coaches support i talk to other coaches and i don't mean to get on a bandwagon but to listen to other coaches talk about their fellow coaches and how they don't support them how sometimes they even think about well i'd rather see them lose than win because it helps me out not here never here 21 years never never never and i just want to thank all the norse pen coaches for the phone calls for the support for everything that they did you have some outstanding coaches and assistant coaches and um just unbelievable and kurt thank you for coming to the game that was awesome thank you and the parents uh thank them i know sometimes you might as a coach sit back and go okay

008but these parents were unbelievable and that when up at penn state to yelling and screaming and cheering the girls on just outstanding and i want to thank them too i hope i didn't forget anybody now our season started out we started five sophomores and a freshman so when we started out the season we didn't know how it was going to go thank god we were allowed to have some workouts um but these girls are just so talented and so committed to the softball team and to us as coaches that that's why we did so well the chemistry the leadership from the four seniors that we had was outstanding um and they led the team but as you could see if you were at the state championship game one game play one team played as if

009they were having the greatest time in the world the most fun in the world no i mean they were just out there to have a good time and then it was another team not that they didn't play well but you could see as a coach you could see the nerves and um we ended up winning 11 nothing because our goals went out there and i'm going to say it you know it's coming hard for me they went out and had fun and that's what our job that's what the coaches and that's what i stressed before the game you earned it have fun and they did and they won and that's the important part of all this but to give you some highlights of this year um we broke some school records uh most wins 26

010we were 26 and two the highest batting average ever for team batting average for softball 352 the most runs scored we scored 182 runs for the season and we gave up 19. 19. i don't think that's ever been done i i don't remember coaching for so long 182 we gave up 19 runs we had 18 shutouts um in our games out of the 28. we hit the most home runs 28 home runs for a team and we had the most hits for a team 260 which um for a high school team hitting 200's getting 260 hits it's just unheard of we went through the state tournament and this has never been done before on any class we didn't give up a run we scored 32 runs and didn't give up a single run in any

011of the state games uh our last six games were shutouts the last two district games and the four state games and the even the announcers or the people doing the tv said they've never even heard of that before so that that not only says we had great pitching but we also had great defense um individual records our pitcher maddie volpe most wins in the season 26 lowest now these are school records um lowest era point or 0.67 most strikeouts in the season 335. her career three seasons 744 strikeouts that's a lot of strikeouts that means you know um julia shearer sophomore had the most hits in the season 50 in the highest batting average 565 she was leading the state until we got in total three quarters of the way this season and hitting and

012we play in a great league and brie wilma a sophomore had the most home runs uh 10 for season records um individual honors and matty volpe deserves every single one of these and she represented north penn not only within our area within the state but nationally she was first team all league first team all area first team all state she was the pa player of the year all classes pa player of the year she was 20 21 this is where the national comes in 2021 pa gatorade player of the year for pennsylvania which is the top player in the state in softball and she's the first softball player at north penn ever to make the all-american team first team which is nationally obviously she's going scholarship to coastal carolina to continue her pitching and i

013see great things from her she's just an outstanding outstanding individual and a very humble very humble person i've seen pitchers that have won the gatorade and played it major schools and during the high school season would sit by themselves not with the team have their mother drive their parents driving to the game not on the bus that's not matty matty was a team player and a very humble player that's what i love the most about her uh julia's here sophomore first team all league first team all area first team all state bree wilmot sophomore first team all league first team all area first team all state gianna simona simeone freshman first team all league annabelle schmink second team all league and sophia collins a junior honorable mention all lake and if anybody saw our game

014in the state and i'm sure kurt saw annabelle play third base she she made a play in the first inning that we go over but she's a sophomore playing in a state game in a pack place on tv that a sophomore doesn't make where a girl's coming makes it to third base on a steal after a walk the girl from first runs to second she turns and a normal player would throw at the second to try to get her out she fakes the throw turns around and tags to go out at third that was critical for the rest of the game it was huge so just an outstanding outstanding group of girls coach i was losing my mind at that point [Laughter] yeah uh yeah you and me both you know me both the good

015thing about it and the last thing about all the games going through the states and the coaches talked about it we've had games two to one other years where we this program has made the district champ are the districts all 21 years i've been here they made the states the last three of the four years are four years in a row seven out of the last eight we've won the conference four years in a row five out of the last six so it's been a group and it's been the tradition that's kept us going but we've always had as coaches you get to the playoff game and you guys it's two to one through this especially in the state game it was like in the fifth inning and i turned to them and i said

016we won we don't have to worry right we're not going to lose this and we could enjoy it we didn't have to worry so that was neat too but anyway so i want to thank the coaching staff mike beer ellie white and sarah rambo two of them are teachers mike works in the community for for being outstanding group of coaches that helped me out tremendously i've always said as a head coach you're only good as your assistants and they are great assistant coaches again i want to thank you all we're looking forward to next year we hope i hope with mike to be here next year same time and we're looking forward to by the way i want to thank whoever is responsible and i know you are for our field we have the best

017field one of the best fields in the area in in the district and that's because you took the time to make sure of that and whoever is responsible i want to thank you and now that it's been approved to get dugouts it will be the best field one of the best in the state because we traveled we saw some of the fields so i want to thank you for allowing these kids to play on a safe field to play on an uh outstanding field and and to know that when they come to north penn that they have their champions and it starts with you people all of you and the administration and donnie i wish you luck i'll be there to support you thank you very much and thank you for all you do thank

018you coach schwarzani that was very heartfelt tribute and uh it was a lot of fun watching the softball team this year it was um the highlight you know after a very difficult year of seeing this so thank you so much for all that you guys did it's great congratulations to the team okay next up coach white coach white is going to be um presenting our proclamations for the boys springs track team just want to say thank you to everybody that's here and everybody that's watching at home or online or however we're doing it today just want to say thank you thank you to everybody you know staff administration nursing crew that helped us out this year well like coach rick said with everything going on with covid it was quite the year um we all

019although we had a successful year you know we had a few bumps in the road for example as many of you know the stadium was being rebuilt so the track team didn't necessarily have a home track to run on so a lot of the times we either ran at penndale's uh stadium or penfield stadium or the bus circle at the high school you know it isn't the first time hopefully it's the last um but uh as i said the the team did really well we had an undefeated regular season or duel meet season we end up winning the league championship as well as the district one championship uh would like to give a big big shout out to all the coaches coach jones who is our head coach coach john fluck coach dom calmia and

020coach ron jarros that are assistant coaches as well as myself um kind of keep it short and sweet uh gonna recognize some of the guys who competed in the district as well as the state meet uh had a great turnout with all the kids i wish we could shout them all out but uh tonight we're just gonna you know pay attention to a certain few starting with the district meet we had a freshman mark cobbs who finished uh seventh in the 100 he was also a member of the four by 100 meter relay team very talented young kid hope you know he'll do great things in the future uh senior jeff wong who plays third in the 300 meter hurdles uh do not believe he's going to compete in college but he will be going

021to school luke alcorn who finished fifth in the javelin he's another senior who i believe is going to try and walk on to penn state as a thrower did really well this year carl schaffsteller another senior he placed sixth and he was also a sixth in the 800 meters he was also a member of the 4x8 he is going to compete at north dakota i believe it's not north dakota state believe it's north dakota very good kid devin nugent a junior he finished fifth in the 400 meters have another year with them great kid chris bonks ignore finished fourth in the high jump uh he's going to temple next year doesn't believe he's going to compete but great kid aaron malamed finished third and long jump he was also a member of the four by

022one uh believe i don't know if he is but we're trying to talk to him into competing at tulane next year hopefully he does i would love to see it jon steele finished sixth in the triple jump uh i believe he's going to messiah college and possible walk on jabri gaiman was eighth in the triple jump also competed in the four by one as a junior another good kid can't wait to see what he does next year uh going to go into some of the relays we had our four by four that finished i believe fourth or fifth in the district or third or fourth one of those did really well and those members were devin nugent anthony ayala jeff wong and gavin zank our four by eight finished second and that team was uh

023jayden cartwright who i believe is going to compete at howard next year carl schaffsteller sean fisher who i believe is going to compete at westchester and gavin zank joe larkins also competed in high jump he's also a member of the basketball team so very good season in terms of the district championship the state title was a little odd for those of you don't know state title usually goes around the memorial day weekend and for many of you i'm sure remember that was about 40 degrees extremely windy and rainy so it was a little difficult for our guys we tried our best they competed really well but for those who competed at the state level we had chris boxing or again in high jump he finished in seventh place earned a medal our four by uh

024four by 400 meters placed second also got second team all-state and that team was comprised of devin nugent anthony ayala jeff wong and gavin zank our four by eight competed and finished in fifth place that team was jaden cartwright carl schaffsteller sean fisher and gavin zanck we also had luke alcorn who placed ninth in the javelin and that was pretty much uh pretty much our season in a nutshell a little chaotic but we did really well so thank you all appreciate you thank you coach white and thank you to our congratulations to all your team members for an outstanding season okay next up we will go on to the audience of citizens so before we do that i'll read off our statement this meeting is being videotaped for community cable channels and streamed live individuals

025attending 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's sunshine law it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the board during the meeting to ensure compliance with this requirement it is essential that those planning to address the board state their name and address 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 which are or may come

026before the board it is not designed for debate or discussion with the board when appropriate individual school directors may choose to respond to public comments that have been made once the audience of citizens period has concluded or request that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting additionally i'd like to say that we will have public comment for up to 45 minutes so that should take us to about quarter after eight and that's at the beginning of this meeting there will be a second opportunity for public comment at the end of this meeting which will do another half an hour if at that time if you have would like to make a comment and had not had a chance to do so we ask that you email us at underscore

027np school board at npn.org okay so with that we will start off with mr patchell and mr scrocky do we have the timer okay um before we get started the uh paper that had the names of those that we're gonna speak no no stop the time i'm gonna it's it's missing now someone in their presentation had taken that paper so that is not here now so we'll take note of that okay so if we can start me at three minutes again 180 seconds seconds means something okay i i sign it i'm sure we'll find it i'll do it later okay and if uh okay just as long as i come out of the gate with three minutes okay and you can start the button you know it's like uh you know at the belmont you

028know all the horses want to get out at the same time so what i have to uh my name is william patchell i live at 404 bonney lane it's a montgomery township i said this so many times i'm so happy i live in montgomery township it's uh it's i know that some people uh are considered as you're privileged oh you live over at montgomery township oh yes they're they're kind of uh uppy over there i said well yeah i said they're proud and uh we use that word pretty loosely proud proud of what are you proud of you know well we did do this we did do that i said i'm sure people are aware of what you do but um here's what i'm not real proud of acts i wonder how many parents are

029going to avail themselves because uh they get to repeat the year if the child seems in if they it has struggled through all these times i understand the sporting events were you know and everything but the real seriousness of the problem that's facing public education is the inability of uh students to operate under difficult condition i'm still waiting for some test scores here and um you know the test scores will tell you how they're doing you know that's very important and i read something in i don't have to work for it um the culture wars must go on it was written by joseph epstein in the wall street journal i thought this was very appropriate for all the group of people that are interested uh his we would include those people who believe in the

030rewards owed to effort and merit the value of tradition and crucial significance of liberty we would distinctly not include those who believe in the importance of spreading diversity inclusion equity as conceived by present-day universities nor would it include those include those whose sense of virtue derives from their punitive hunger for social justice and their willingness to make severe judgments of others based on lapses from political correctness these people are they the woke i wonder sometimes the people sitting here they're the woke and what they're going to do is you out there are going to vote these people out the ones that are standing for election okay the extent of the woke victory is perhaps demonstrated by the long list of cultural institutions they have captured and now control two of the country's important newspapers the

031new york times and the washington posts are unashamedly woke the new yorker and the atlantic have ceased to be general to be a general interest magazine now specific interest publications that interest being spread of the woke ideas the major television networks i can't watch it anymore i throw up the two major television networks early fell in line with this fight you're gonna get voted out trust me thank you mr patrick mr patchell do you want to sign that paper please fill it up mr patchell fill out the paper name address i'll start it at the end okay it is required you'll get it mr furlik please sign the paper and uh name an address is this a new one or there is yeah it's a replacement um you got name address and that's fine thank

032you all right my name is fred frolick 526 north chestnut street in landsdale here uh i am a resident i have three children one that just graduated one that's in going into eleventh grade one is going into eighth grade here in north penn i'll be honest with you i couldn't be happier being here i've been here for 22 years i was a penn ridge graduate and i'm telling you right now what we do here even today is better than what i went through there my concern is is that we need we have an opportunity tonight there's a lot of people here and what they need to hear is what are we doing we are right around a month from when teachers are returning to the classrooms to prepare for students to arrive and one of

033the concerns i have is is that some of those parents make decisions based on the education they think or perceive their child is going to receive and one of the things that concerns some parents there's an article it's interesting i just heard about the wall street journal they had another article out earlier that said it's 98 degrees out why is my kid wearing a mask it's a concern for other reasons beyond just mask wearing i'm somebody who my mask is still in my car out of respect to people i wear it quite often but the concern i have for our children is kindergarten first second third grade is one of the most important times of a child's development in understanding the way people cooperate communicate show affect emotion happiness sadness and those things all come

034from strong educators who can use their facial expressions to do those things and if those things are deficient coming out of those grades it's incredibly challenging to try to teach those skills later they don't always get the educational gains that they need at those milestones throughout those early grades my concern is is i still don't know a firm set of parameters around what we're going to do with the masks i understand that we've had conversations in the past about how if we see numbers increasing we may potentially go back to mass and we're going to start the year optional i think that's a great start the concern i have is and this is the similar concern i had last year there are other districts that have very clear publicly aware policies for these are the

035infection rates we're targeting if it's at this level we go to this if it's at that level we go to that we as a community tonight you have an opportunity to give us some of those milestones that's all i'm asking for because my concern is we have a lot of people who reach out to me and ask me about should i put my kid into a virtual environment so i don't have to worry about it they're not getting what they need or if they're not going to tell me what's going on should i just make them go virtual i said well don't do that because a lot of kids don't focus when they're in virtual as an educator myself in the north side area school district a lot of my best kids best kids in

036the world can't always stay focused adults can't always stay focused certainly after six hours a day in front of a monitor so if you have the opportunity and if you have the data here to be able to present to us tonight i cannot beg you more please let us know what the parameters are and what the benchmarks are for the mask and for any other initiatives we may have coming up in the next school year thank you so much i appreciate it [Applause] thank you mr furlock i'm katie hirsch 102 chapsway north wales it's great to see a lot of you in person for the first time um kind of echoing what mr frollock said and what i've been saying for the past year about the metrics i do appreciate for the elementary kids having

037the metric the thresholds of 20 cases per 000 and positivity rate over five percent in terms of revisiting mass my question tonight is with the expectation of vaccinations being available for elementary kids most likely in the fall will those thresholds change based on vaccination availability and then also can we put those thresholds in for secondary students because right now the wording just says if incidence and or positivity rates rise we can revisit mass but i think like we've been asking for the past year more visibility in terms of what those specific guidelines are what those specific thresholds are would be very helpful for all the parents to know in terms of making decisions on the best environment for their children the other thing that i want to touch on that i thought was very interesting

038in the health and safety plan is that it says whenever there are significant changes to cdc recommendations for k-12 schools then the health and safety plan has to be revisited and in the development of the plan all revisions must be informed by community input and yet here we are with a policy to restrict community input both on time limits what you can speak about how you can speak about it and in an age where we can be more inclusive and provide more accessibility for our community by allowing public comment via zoom we are instead restricting it i mean look at this room right now we barely have enough capacity for the people who can show up but what about the people who work night shift who can't come to a seven o'clock meeting but they

039could step out and take a 10-minute break to call in to have their input heard what about the single parents who don't have child care to come to a seven o'clock meeting we are excluding a vast majority of our of a population who are not having their opinions and their thoughts hurt so how are our safe health and safety plans being being informed by community input we can email but then it's like a black hole where we hope we get a response i've asked repeatedly for a community forum to be able to discuss openly these issues and forming our health and safety plan to have more visibility to have more transparency i don't think that that's such an egregious thing to ask for i don't like when we are talking about equity and inclusion and

040accessibility these are basic things that we could be doing to make our meetings and our community more inclusive more accessible for everyone so please i urge you one for more clarity on the thresholds and two to make our meetings more accessible so more people can participate not make it harder for people to participate thank you hi i'm jesse bradica upper gwynedd mom of three kids in the district schools first i want to thank the board for respecting parents choice and making masks optional for all families and defining an established threshold not comfort levels for making changes that's something that we haven't seen frequently from this board until now so again i thank you for giving us some clarity on future decision making what is not clear in the proposed health and safety plan is how

041you will be enforcing restrictions and policies on vaccinated versus unvaccinated students especially regarding quarantines in a previous board meeting it was stated that quarantining will be required for exposure only among unvaccinated students and i have serious issues with this one how are we going to delineate between vaccinated and unvaccinated students two the cdc clearly states in its latest update that those vaccinated can still get and spread coven 19 due to breakthrough cases and variants three this district is spending a ton of money professional development time and other resources on cultural proficiency and equity to close learning gaps the pccy report that is used by this board to drive equity decisions shows that virtual learning widens those gaps especially among certain non-white demographics yet this board closed schools and did not make full in-person learning optional

042for all students until march of last year and implemented a summer remediation program virtually this year we have proposed to for you have proposed to for someone to quarantine for 14 days who is unvaccinated while the person next to them who is vaccinated may still be allowed to stay in the classroom and could possibly be the person who is spreading the virus 4. the cdc has public demographic information for those who have received the vaccine and according to that data they estimate in the u.s 61.2 percent of the white population has received at least one vaccine dosed compared to only 12.4 of the black population 17.2 percent of the hispanic population 5.8 percent of asian population and less than 5 percent of multicultural native american and pacific islanders so if you decide to quarantine only

043those who are unvaccinated you are continuing to go against your own equity policies that these taxpayers including me are investing in so i hope voters will take the time to vote for education over politics on november 2nd thank you [Applause] thank you mrs bradica hi everyone my name is amanda butler i live in lansdale pennsylvania um i just wanted to come tonight just to talk about my concerns with the mass i have two children in the district a daughter in third grade going into fourth and a son who's going into eighth grade both of them have needs they both have ieps and it's been very very hard for them wearing the masks um especially my son he's on the high end of autism autistic high functioning autism autism excuse me um and he had a

044very difficult time just with being able to read other people's faces the social cues um it was very tough he is um involved with esy for the summer and um at the last meeting um i know that it was agreed upon that mosque would be optional for the buses and then two weeks in it's changed and now they're required to wear masks on the buses so i'm not sure why that changed they're not required to wear masks in the classroom for esy so i'm not sure why they're wearing masks on the buses i do have concerns going forward for the school year i'm pleased that they're optional to start out with but of course you know we don't know what's going to happen with the positive cases um and uh i just really think that

045it should be a choice parents need to have a choice um other parents if they're nervous about the virus they can wear their children can wear the mask but other parents also need to have the choice that they don't want their children to wear the masks i also think it should be a choice for the vaccinations as well we live in a country this is a free country um i was born in in england and i got my citizenship of of the united states about 16 years ago and i'm very proud to be an american and i think that we have a wonderful country and uh we need to embrace all you know being united citizens here we need to have our freedom um and uh parents need a choice they know what's best for

046their children we can't lump children into one group and say okay you know every child is different every child has their individual needs um we don't know you know i have i have a few friends that have children that have very significant needs and they just can't wear the mask you know it's not it's just not working for them it's not fair to expect them to wear a mask um and the fact that vaccinations are now readily available to the older children i think that you know that that's obviously uh should be a an impact um but i really believe moving forward for this school year um i really think it should be optional that the parents need to make a choice thank you [Applause] thank you mrs butler hi there my name is leslie

047dinapoli i live at 418 west mount vernon street in lansdale i'm here to say thank you i'm here to say thank you to all of the school board directors the administration the staff and the faculty for being the adults in the room for stepping up during challenging times and literally you collaborated you acted in a professional manner you looked at science data and the professionals our children and our community is safer because of the hard hard decisions that you all made there are a few handful of loud people but the i am here to speak on behalf of my family my neighbors and my community that we are the vast vast vast majority that respect your decisions we know how hard you work one of the things i hear about is freedom but freedom comes

048responsibility because freedom without responsibility is just adolescence it's just adolescents instead of sitting at a table collaborating they're sitting in their basement spewing hate on facebook and spewing of hate to all of you and spewing hate in text and voicemails to all of you that is adolescence that is not responsibility we need adults in the room not reckless people the vast majority support you we are here for you we know that the north bend community supports you we want to get back to north penn community issues we know that working together will make north penn stronger it's not just about making a hard decision but it's stepping up to make that hard decision it's working as a team and i am proud to know what you have done for the last 16 months and i

049am proud to see what all of you are going to do in the future because how i view it is freedom is responsibility is patriotism patriotism is not i it is we it is not me it is us we as a community our true patriots if we give up this much for the greater community as a whole [Applause] so when you speak of freedom freedom isn't sitting in your basement freedom's getting up and serving meals freedom is getting up and going to school every day to teach freedom is getting up and being a better member of your community and i can't thank everybody in this horseshoe my family thanks you my community thanks you my neighbors thank you for stepping up and doing what you had to do and trusting science dad and the experts

050thank you very very much [Applause] thank you mrs dinapoli good evening mr lanier good evening jason lanier lansdale pennsylvania i couldn't disagree with more with what mrs dinopoly was saying i'm not on the school board i i couldn't comment please keep a comment i could not i could not disagree with more with what you're saying i'm not directing the comments to you you guys provided zero data towards us and when data was presented to you which which showed what you were doing regarding opening the school what you were doing in the slow roll was incorrect you were proceeding wrongly you disregarded it you don't care about the data if there's data i've asked for data for so many months and nobody's been able to provide it if somebody could i would i'd still really like

051to see it there is no data regarding regarding um geez i just i can't believe it for for instance uh kyle summers when there was it was a meeting i want to say it was on the 26th of april i asked you guys i brought up to your attention that that when you guys were doing the the antigen testing that there was a data breach and people were able to get in i like this there's three different ways to get in you told you basically called me a liar afterwards i i sent the email to you and dr dietrich thereafter i got a phone call from dr dietrich not realizing that there was access to all this data that you guys were collecting on kids that you're doing antigen testing on and yet here we

052are today i have not i asked for maybe correct the record i didn't ask for apology but correct the record there was a data breach i don't know if everybody knows that but it did happen i don't know if whether or not my kids data was exposed i know that there were teachers that were exposed but i don't know if there are kids exposed i do know however that that data collected by chop then went on to well connect you know what well connect is do you know what well connect is well connect is a private organization run by the guy from chop who is now being paid to distribute information about what those results were i have there's a real conflict of interest here when the guy's running a company that collects the data

053which which is then paid by the state the county and whomever to distribute that information that's a real problem so if you guys could please address how you're going to keep any testing information secure and please address how it is that it's okay that wellconnect can then sell our information of our kids to the state the the uh the county or to whomever they want i i don't understand that that's a violation of my kids the hibala right so you cannot take medical information and transfer you guys are well aware of this so if you could please address this when you have your your general action meeting i would greatly appreciate it but to say that you guys have been an awesome resource in terms of of of distributing rightful information on what your decision

054was that's not true you're not not there is not a majority of people who believe who agree with you that's true it's just not happening that's not true thank you [Applause] good evening you have to wait until good evening my name is donna ross i am a senior citizen i live at 208 eisenhower lane in montgomery walk and i would like to applaud this school board for its deliberative contemplative science-based evidence in terms of its policies i worked the election polls at one of your schools and i was i was just blown away by the level of of competence that you took in spacing's desk for tests and things like that and the staff's ability to keep the schools cleaned and maintained during this pandemic i wear a mask i am vaccinated i also have

055am at risk for for because of immune immuno compromise so while parents and i was a parent i had children in public school it is an obligation and a duty for this school board to maintain the upmost safety practices for all 13 000 children across this district all of which are special all of which are wonderful all of which have unique needs but the bottom line safety first and thank you but most important i want to thank you for keeping my tax dollars low i moved from another uh county specifically to the area because montgomery township offers high quality education affordable and and and yet at a and a wonderful price because i i am proud to pay my taxes to this district thank you for your service [Applause] thank you mrs ross i'm going

056to keep the time up here just so good evening owen wilcox east school street hatfield with the draft health and safety plan plan on the agenda tonight i'd like to voice my support for the version of that that was posted as of july 14th with respect to the mass as the administration mentioned in the june board meeting their hope and plan was to return to school as close to normal as possible including making mess optionals for all students with montgomery county still seeing extremely low levels of covet which i hope continues in addition since the time the vaccines were announced late last year public health officials at all levels you know state local and federal in addition to elected officials have reminded everybody that vaccination is is the path forward and um i think we're

057there i mean in my opinion anyway a large majority of us have heated that call and um which is why i believe we are there today and at this point with vaccines widely available i don't believe we'll see significant increases in those rates of vaccinated individuals so we have montgomery county has one of the higher rates across the state especially for those 65 and older which is over 80 percent which last year it was stated that the masking was required to not only to protect individuals but to protect the community so again i point to those those levels while many would love to see higher rates at this point it would be hard to argue that the community is not as protected as we may be for quite some time as it stands now any

058person who feels uncomfortable return without a mass can make that personal choice to wear one if the board at this point or if the board now or at any point again mandates universal masking those who may desire their children not to wear masks are being denied that same choice so i just ask that all of you keep that in mind during any potential discussion with the health and safety plan tonight and let the parents and students make their decisions depend on their comfort level and while i did not plan to comment on the proposed board policy regarding public comment i do just want to echo katie hirsch's comments about possibly seeing what you can do to expand the access for those who may not be able to make these meetings i know i've made that

059comment in the past and i i'm sure there's technological challenges with that but as i think some of the board members alluded to mr gilmer has shown that you know he can pretty capable of doing most things so again i hope that is something that's possible and thank you for the time thank you mr wilcox is there anyone else that would like to make public comment at this time i have stopped first i would like to ask the board if i would be permitted to speak my name is kevin and i'm representing my organization tonight a charity organization i'm sorry you said your name was kevin kevin kevin um i was i was told otherwise that's why i'm asking i mean out of respect i wouldn't wanted to ask but i was i was definitely

060told at the door that i would be able to speak yeah could you just state what organization is you're representing bucks county anti-racism coalition and what's your role with that organization co-lead uh the the entitlement is for residents and taxpayers of the north penn school district to speak um so i believe it's posted otherwise but uh again out of respect i'm asking you tonight if i could have my three minutes um i think the policy we're passing that tonight where it says that it has um community or groups that represent the community right correct that there that policy has not been passed so at this point it's passing tonight you said there's a policy on the agenda later this evening that would open up public comment to um representatives of community groups or leaders from

061community groups at this time the right is for residents and taxpayers to speak okay and you're voting on this later tonight you said correct okay so if i defer my comments to the end then i should be able to speak assuming it passes it's at the discretion of the board chair as to whether representatives from outside groups the the right under the sunshine act is for residents and taxpayers i understand that you are not okay um so the board chair is who that's me so we are voting on it and then there's a second public comment at the end excellent thank you very much okay that works is there anyone else that would like to make public comment at this time i'm marilyn tontone i'm 219 mallard drive and i just wanted to say i've

062heard comments tonight about personal choice and parents and children deciding uh what's best for them i i heard someone i think at another meeting say i make the mental medical choices for my child and i hope i would do that with with the help of my pediatrician for medical advice but um i can't believe we're this far into a pandemic and people don't know that it's not just you it's everybody that has to wear a mask i mean if someone's not wearing a mask the person who is wearing one is still at risk um so you know i see i see that as being very problematic and um but i just wanted to say as far as covid overall [Music] you just have to ask yourself when face nobody's done this before right in our

063modern society and as public servants when you're faced with making policy about how to deal with this i say what would a reasonable public servant do you would go to public health officials and get their input and ask them what your guidelines should be and it seems to me that you did that and i thank you i think you did the right thing thank you mrs tontoni good evening i'm carolyn durstein i live in the barrow on durstein avenue and i just wanted to call or speak today in regards to the fact that public health is not individualistic so when individuals are advocating for individualistic policies regarding a global pandemic all they are doing is advocating for more variants because viruses develop variants through practice so when you're suggesting you want to be masculine with

064a unvaccinated population you're suggesting that you want to develop the north penn variant of the covavac the covid virus wearing a mask socially distancing is a minor inconvenience in a global pandemic we lost 600 000 people this year and you can't wear a mask instead you're vilifying our public health representatives our experts our teachers our doctors our nurses the people that are there to help and support you what does that do for our society it decays it it destroys it how many more people need to die for us to take it seriously wear a mask wash your hands stay six feet apart it's simple i understand that it is problematic for our children that is scary and sad we are all navigating a really really touching moment in this in our history we lost more

065people in one year than the entire civil war that's tragic but we have to narrate navigate it in a way that is community based and not individualistic because if we continue navigating it in an individualistic manner we will continue this insanity of the cyclical nature of the ongoing pandemic where the greatest nation in the world we can stop it by wearing a mask and washing our hands but instead we want to come with conspiracy theories false truths misinformation and full-on lies to present an agenda that is to the demise of other people i simply think that that is illogical and irresponsible and not something that education-based minded individuals should be supportive in any way shape or form thank you have a good night thank you mrs turnstine doctor sorry hi hi my name is crystal

066sackle i'm on south broad street in lansdale my daughter is going to be going into kindergarten this year um i wanted to talk a little bit about masks due to her situation she was diagnosed with epilepsy last june during the pandemic it was a very difficult time for us and i read that there is a report on the american medical association journal that talks about how it increases the amount of carbon monoxide inhaled to unhealthy levels after just three minutes that they measured levels in 45 children ages 6 to 17 and it was six times higher than the unsafe threshold they are also including physiological and psychological harms including hypoxia shortness of breath increased acidity and toxicity activation of fear and stress response immunosuppression fatigue headaches decline in cognitive performance chronic stress anxiety and depression

067my daughter is not able to wear a mask during this entire situation i was also diagnosed with stage one lung cancer i didn't catch anything else during this whole mess i didn't wear a mask all the time either because i have anxiety and other medical issues but i ended up with stage one lung cancer okay and finding out from a family member who works at downtown school district that multiple people committed suicide during this entire situation is horrible so i'm pretty sure mental health can trump some other things that are being talked about today freedom to me and freedom according to the constitution is the power or right to act speak or think as one once without hindrance or restraint you cannot trample on freedoms of other people due to your fears this is america

068this is not cuba this is not russia this is not china you don't have to be here if you don't want to be here [Applause] thank you mrs suckle hi my name is emily sparr i live at 134 heartwood drive in lansdale i have two kids in north penn to be honest i didn't come thinking i would be up here speaking but i feel kind of moved to um i i came it's i want to just say it's been a hard year for everybody obviously you know and everyone's gone through something in this past year and a half i guess i work in long-term care and i work in a nursing home and you can just only imagine what we went through it was horrific i've been in long-term care for decades it was the

069worst thing i've ever seen the one thing i felt i was consumed at that time with what i was going through at work it was horrible but the one thing i can say is i felt so appreciative and grateful that my kids there's decisions being made i felt they were safe from the decisions those were not easy decisions to make i didn't envy any of you in in the roles and what the decisions you had to make but i thank you i support you and i'm very grateful for you that's it thank you [Applause] thank you mrs barr is there anyone else up hi my name is beth staub i live at 143 addison lane in montgomery township and i'm here tonight because i'd like to offer a heartfelt thanks thank you to everyone here

070on the board and everyone in the administration for the impossibly hard decisions that you've had to make over the past 16 months what you've done to keep our kids safe our teachers safe our bus drivers safe is keeping our community safe and we're here all of us because of those things we those things kept us safe enough so we can come here and discuss what should be done so i appreciate that so i've been observing and attending these meetings over the past 16 months and i found them to be increasingly troubling i wonder how we got here with so much divisiveness it's confusing it's shocking and it's not just happening here it's happening all over our country um i think the one thing that we have is common ground is we're all here because we

071love our children okay however that love is being manipulated we are being fed disinformation not all of us some of us that is being turned into fear that fear turns into distrust it turns into hate very quickly it's dangerous these are treasures they're wedge issues and they've begun years ago this has been going on since i was a kid but you you remember when the trans bathroom issues were happening based out of fear and ignorance the wall fear of people coming into our country and critical race theory another issue kind of came out of nowhere not even sure where that came from and also the masks and vaccine issues i want i want to i want to say how did how did we get here and what is the end game on this i feel

072as if they're outsourced outside forces that are influencing this they're aiming to weaken our educational system weaken our community and weaken our country and we have to stop we have to stop and start listening to each other we have to stop uh listening to these lies and the these conspiracy theories that are really killing people they are hurting people real people this has been a hard hard year but if we truly believe that our children are what we're here for and we want our children to thrive in our community and our country to thrive we have to understand that our freedoms are not absolute if we really believe and yearn for liberty and justice for all we need to stop and think about where this is going and where it's come from thank you [Applause]

073thank you mrs tob is there anyone else we'll have time for one more and then we'll move on to our agenda items okay seeing none um and a reminder we will have a second opportunity for public comment at the end of our meeting okay so next up will then be the approval of minutes from the june 17 2021 acting meeting do i have a motion so moved second i'm gonna rip right through that one motioned by mr fusco seconded by mrs ramich any comments or questions seeing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries next up we will go to the committee reports first up is personnel the personnel committee of the board met in executive session on july 6 2021 to discuss matters of personnel including the appointment of staff staffing

074considerations and collective bargaining next up is finance mr fresco please thank you mrs stoll for the first time in a very long time the finance committee did not meet this month in august the committee is scheduled to meet on august 10th at 6 p.m the meeting will be held in person at the esc end of report thank you mr fusco i think that's the shortest finance committee meeting report we've had okay safe schools mr casa thank you madam president safe schools committee met on monday evening june 28th mr dirk briefed the committee on work underway in preparation for the opening of the crawford stadium facility at north penn high school this work includes installation of safety and security equipment as well as operational and safety planning a review was also underway in cooperation with the

075facilities and operations and policy committees to align district regulations with the board's vision for community access to the stadium mr durr then presented the public version of his annual school safety report to the committee the report which is required by state law include a summary of assessment standards and strategies used in the district it also included an overview of emergency management and security department work which took place during the previous 12 months the report also concluded with goals for the next year the full public report can be viewed on the emergency management and safe schools section of the district website finally a special guest mr max schachter founder of the non-profit safe schools for alex presented his work to the committee mr schachter shared the experience he and his organization have had advocating for greater

076accountability and transparency in the state of florida after the parkland school shooting and the impact that accountability has had on the safety of schools mr schachter lost his son alex in that shooting in one of the first classrooms he debuted a public safe schools data dashboard his organization has created for pennsylvania which can be viewed online committee members engage in informative discussion with mr schachter about how his organization might partner with north penn to further the district's work on its own data collection and analysis we agreed to move forward in collaboration with mr schachter to be the first school district in the state of pennsylvania to advance his goals and mission of safe schools for alex i would highly recommend any community member interested in the safety of our schools to watch that youtube video

077of the safe school session the july meeting of the safe schools committee will be cancelled and the next meeting is scheduled for monday august 30th at 5 45 p.m end of report thank you mr casa and i would concur i would encourage anyone to watch that safe schools video um mr schachter it was um a heartbreaking presentation um and he's doing great work keeping his son's memory alive so um thank you for that arranging that does anyone else have any comments or questions okay we'll move on then to the education curriculum and con instruction dr g please the education curriculum instruction committee did not meet this month in august the committee is scheduled to meet on august 3rd at 6 pm that meeting will be held in virtual format thank you dr g next up

078will be policy mr fusco please thank you uh the policy committee did not meet this month in august the committee is scheduled to meet on august 10th at 5 pm again that meeting will be held in a virtual format and a report thank you mr fusco facilities and operations mr casa please the facilities and operations committee met on monday june 28 2021. the committee reviewed the following items that were recommended to be moved to this evening's action meeting for the board's consideration a change order request for the knapp elementary school project and a hand soap dispenser ownership agreement with pennsylvania paper and supply company to provide hand-soaked dispensers at no cost the committee was presented and discussed informational items including an in-depth update of the knapp elementary and crawford stadium projects and public access to

079the to the crawford stadium i'd like to add after the comments of the softball team that certainly the facilities and operations committee mr schneider deserves a lot of credit and his team for the work in advancing the improvements of the softball field the next facilities and operations meeting is scheduled for monday july 26 2021 at 7 pm and will be held in a virtual format thank you mr casa next up is the north monco technical career center dr louis campbell please thank you madam president the north monco technical career center joint operating committee met on monday june 21st and approved measures to prepare for the upcoming academic year these included a new health and safety plan a memorandum of understanding with local law enforcement officials and the establishment of a capital reserve fund the next

080meeting of the committee is scheduled for monday august 16th at 7 p.m end of report thank you dr lewis campbell the montgomery county intermediate unit mrs romich please great thank you the mciu board met on june 23rd we voted in new members from school districts including potts grove pv upper dublin wissa hicken upper perk norristown methecton and jenkintown dr speaker thanked president maura burrie for her three years of dedication in service to the mciu board dr speaker shared that that paz beau has recently granted mciu cfo and director of the office of business services sandy elding with a renewal of her status as a pennsylvania certified school business administrator for the period of four years the mciu board approved the calendar of iu board meetings we granted approval for the american rescue act and ursa

081health and safety plan and advise that the existing pandemic committee and workplace safety committee are going to combine to form a new mciu health and safety committee to allow for ongoing review and open dialogue regarding any health and safety concerns from mciu staff or administration the mciu board approved the following budget items for the upcoming school year title 1 prri the office of professional learning access administrative time study summer food service program montco works wioa patent pde events and gifted service learning the mciu board approved the following contract agreements for the upcoming school year food service for child and adult food care program summer food service program and the national school lunch program transportation custodial services for mciu facilities and head start locations the human resource updates include the hiring and welcoming of twelve new

082employees one retirement nine staff members assigned to support the 2021 extended school year program head start summer camp program and ten temporary hires for the montgo works now program the mciu board approved continuations of contracted technology service agreements to ports to support school districts for the upcoming school year the continuation of data support services for soderton and the continuation of technology leadership services for the pottstown school district the mciu approved a number of contract service agreements to support many trainings programs and services the next meeting of the mciu board is wednesday august 25th at 6 45. thanks an end of report thank you mrs ramich does anyone have any questions or comments from mrs ramich seeing none then we will move on to the north penn educational foundation mrs ramich again great the foundation did

083not meet in july however subcommittees have been meeting to plan upcoming events such as the golf outing which will be held on october 5th and to prepare for our build a bag backpack campaign and to revise our bylaws we will be bringing the school board our proposed changes in october i'm sorry in august or september our next meeting is august 3rd end of report thank you mrs ramich where is the golf outing is that at um pinecrest like it i think that is still in up for for discussion okay but yes we'll we'll have that soon gotcha thank you all right legislative mr mcvean please thank you mrs stohl the pennsylvania state budget passed on june 30th and took positive first steps to equitably fund education and support all of pennsylvania's students it includes a

084300 million dollar increase in basic education funding 100 million of which will go towards the most or the 100 most underserved districts in an attempt to level up their funding here in north penn our funding from the state is estimated to increase by 6.8 percent or about 755 thousand dollars special education also received a 50 million dollar boost including an estimated increase of 1.7 percent or about 111 thousand dollars for north penn other programs and efforts such as the pre-k education school transportation learning loss remediation program boosts we'll also see funding increases and all this budget signifies one of the largest increases for school funding in decades support for other legislative items from last month's report such as charter school funding reform and senate bill 1 fell away in harrisburg we will not see that

085address at least until our representatives reconvene in late september also on june 30th senate bill 664 was signed into law and became act 66 of this allows families to choose to have their student retained for one year as a result of the disruptions to education caused by the pandemic family request forms are online and due today from the state and that's linked here in case anybody wants to take a look the pennsylvania department of education announced this past monday the school districts will have the option to continue offering free school meals during the upcoming school year participating schools will receive a higher federal reimbursement rate per meal and a report thank you mr mcbain any comments or questions seeing none then we will move on then to the solicitor's report mr summers please thank you

086madam president i would like to make the board uh publicly aware of the fact that the board did meet an executive session for the uh immediately prior to the meeting this evening for the purpose of discussing a matter of collective bargaining involving the north penn education association and north penn educational support professionals association and to receive information on a confidential student matter and also as part of my report like to make the board aware of the fact that acts 65 of 2021 has gone has been passed by the legislature and approved by the governor that act makes certain amendments to the sunshine act specifically with regard to items agendas of public meetings being required to be posted publicly at least 24 hours in advance of public meetings and it imposes certain limitations on boards to

087act on business that was not posted on agendas at least 24 hours prior to meetings there is a mechanism to add an agenda item at a meeting and take action on it but there are certain parameters that need to be followed certain things that would need to be posted after the meeting so it certainly would encourage act any action that the board is is going to take to be posted 24 hours in advance certainly um the history north penn has been to do exactly that have the agendas posted well in advance of 24 hours but occasionally there's a need for an item to be added within 24 hours of a meeting so as we have those instances arise we'll just have to be cautious to ensure we we comply with the new required procedures which

088will go into effect at the end of august i've already talked to mr scracky about it and he's familiar with the requirements so it's just something to keep in mind as we move forward so that concludes my report thank you mr summers okay next up then will be the superintendent's report dr dietrich please thank you i recommend approval of the items under the consent agenda agenda namely items regarding policies gifts to the district travel contracts various bids the medical director medical and dental examiners and clerks student agreements and alternative placements do i have a motion so moved do i have a second second motioned by mr fusco and seconded by mr casa are there any comments or questions i actually have a quick question if i may on policy 903 i was going to ask

089mr summers this one specifically as it pertains public participation in board meetings it says there's a new line here it says if the board determines there is not sufficient time in a meeting for public comments the comment period may be deferred to the next regular meeting or to a special meeting occurring before the next regular meeting that's language i believe from psba that was suggested to all districts across that's correct it's from this policy is uh was drafted by psba with a couple of slight modifications from the district that particular language although suggested by psba is actually directly out of the sunshine act as well okay um so it's statutory language it's not discretionary at the option of the district i know this is the first reading maybe we can soften the language to make

090sure that uh there is some public comment even if time is tight um as we've done here so many times one clarification this actually is on for adoption this evening no i apologize that's okay thank you mr mcbain does anyone else have any comments or questions okay we have a motion on the floor so all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries recommended approval of the personnel items as per the attached motion so moved second motioned by mr fusco and seconded by dr lewis campbell are there any comments or questions are we introducing okay all right so um all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries and with that action we welcome don walsh as athletic director i think don's in the audience rita whalen as pembrook assistant principal tony beckered

091as assistant director of technology jamie rivera special education supervisor all of those individuals will remain after the meeting to mingle with the community and with the school board so welcome thank you congratulations to all recommend approval of the 2021-22 health and safety plan and the 2021-22 emergency instructional time template do i have a motion so moved have a second second motioned by mr fusco seconded by mr casa are there any comments or questions just ask if maybe dr teacher could reiterate because it came up so often the public comment the optional mask policy what would have to be the standard for us to to go up to mandate masks again where that guidance comes from sure so if uh those that are able can uh just scroll ahead and find that in the uh health

092and safety plan or check on this later otherwise i'll just read it now and that is that regarding the wearing of masks at this juncture we're saying that masks would be optional with the exception of any applicable federal orders so there was a question during public comment regarding masking on buses we did get notice from the pennsylvania department of education that despite the fact that governor wolf had lifted the mandatory masking that there is actually an applicable federal order regarding transportation and that pde interprets the school buses as public transportation and therefore we were to notify our community that mask would be required on school buses per that federal order so as long as that's in force we would enforce that regarding face coverings at the secondary schools and at the elementary schools at this

093juncture those face coverings would be optional and we do have in the self health and safety plan that if the incidence rate goes above 20 cases per 100 000 and the positivity rate is over 5 percent in the county the board would commit to revisiting whether or not the mass would remain optional and this conversation would be guided by recommendations from local health officials based upon the data in our particular area and the vaccine availability and eligibility so that's uh the part that's in there that's in regard to mass it does note that district would reserve the right to universally require mass if the incidence rate or positive rates arise in the community or in the school environment and they could vary from school to school and we would make those decisions in collaborations with

094the montgomery county office of public health um thank you dr jurgen one other question there was one other comment that was brought up about quarantining for vaccinated versus unvaccinated students i believe the guidance on that is actually mandatory as well is that the case yeah so as things stand right now there is a public health regulation in montgomery county that does require quarantining and require contact tracing however their current guidance or excuse me the current regulation with the montgomery county office of public health is that those who are vaccinated would be exempt from the mandatory quarantining again if that should change we would take that guidance from the montgomery county office of public health but those regulations are dictated by the montgomery county office of public health so whether or not that could change we

095could you know see what happens in the future i also think the community should be aware that there is discussion going on about the opportunity to use the available tests uh rapid tests for example are available today that were not available last year at this time readily available at least and there's some discussion that perhaps rapid testing could be used in place of mandatory quarantining for individuals that would be subject to the quarantining requirements of the montgomery county office of public health that has not yet been adopted that's in discussion but i just want our community to be aware of that so we will stay tuned in that also thank you doctor are there any other comments or questions we have a motion on the floor so all in favor say aye aye any opposed

096motion carries recommend the approval of change order gca to low bar incorporated in the amount of no cost for various changes encountered during the construction by having a contractual change made to apply the unit cost allowance 1a to the change order total motion so moved motioned by mrs ramich and seconded by mr casa are there any comments or questions seeing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries recommend that the attached stipulation to settle the real estate tax assessment appeal between north penn school district and kepler investments llc concerning the property located at 2975 advanced lane parcel number as listed be approved as presented the board president be authorized to execute the stipulation for informational purposes please know that the current assessed value of the parcel shall be increased from 619 thousand

097five hundred fifty dollars to one million four hundred seventy nine thousand dollars do you have a motion so moved have a second second uh motioned by mr fusco seconded by mrs wesley any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries recommend approval of an athletic training services agreement with grand view hospital for the period of august 13 2021 through june 30 2024 as per the attached to a second motion by dr g seconded by dr louis campbell are there any comments or questions is this the same athletic training um group that we've been using it is yes and the coach of our softball team mentioned mike and melissa are two trainers they are she contracted with grandview health and they're very good it's important to know this contract is free

098for the school district the training services will be provided for free no cost for a three-year period plus plus a ten thousand dollar annual contribution to the north penn education foundation plus a commitment of ten thousand dollars worth of advertising each year wow that's great thank you thank you very much yeah just one other comment yeah okay it gets better we actually are uh coming off the third year of a three-year contract with grandview health and the last year the contract was 60 000 so we're going from 60 000 to zero and they also agreed not to bill us for the second half of this school year so we won't pay anything from january to june even though we were under contract to pay 60 000 for the year so that's an additional 30 000

099that's going to be free for the school district and savings that's great thank you mr sparky can you remind me i know that this has been discussed at foundation meetings but that 10 000 is that incorporated into teacher grant request or is that contribution been used for special projects this could be for teacher requests which are given out usually about twice a year and so teachers apply and they're able to provide enhancements or tools or special projects within the classroom so the impact of that ten thousand dollars could could be felt over our 13 elementary schools um it could be felt and um the impact is is great so we're grateful for that yes thank you very much to grandview hospital that's very generous okay um so we have a motion on the floor or

100all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries okay thank you dr dietrich now we'll move on to the finance report mr scrocky please thank you madam president good evening everyone i hope you're doing well uh quite a few updates tonight first to piggyback on mr mcbain's comments about the state budget just to reiterate north penn is going to be receiving about 756 000 in additional basic education funding we did budget for a 200 000 increase but we're receiving 756 000 in special ed funding we're receiving 111 000 in additional funding we budgeted a zero increase so that's nice to get that additional money and the news gets even better north penn will receive 666 812 dollars in additional unbudgeted state revenue in the upcoming year uh that's the total so the approved budget did

101contain a 5.8 million deficit so we did get that gift of six hundred sixteen thousand dollars from the state that will help reduce that deficit right from the start of the fiscal year also the district will receive seven hundred twenty four thousand one hundred fifty one dollars in additional federal funding that's being passed through the state funds are allocated in three areas learning loss summer enrichment and after school programming i believe the spend requirement on that is similar with sr3 that we can spend that money up through 2024 so that was another nice surprise with the state budget so all in all while there was no charter school reform as we were advocating for we certainly are appreciative of the additional state dollars that were not included in the budget mr scrocky those state dollars

102they're not in any way tied to coveted funding that is like a state-related increase correct for the base again inspection basically yes correct right so it's not a temporary increase in order to worry about being removed in two years and both pieces of that additional funding for basic ed and special ed did flow through the funding formula for both of those programs which is good because that definitely benefits north penn yes so the 660 000 is that like capital dollars this is just educational money educational money correct you know capital versus o m and that that's not applicable in this case no capital dollars okay thank you second piece of good news we did recently undergo another moody's evaluation moody's is our bond rating agency while we haven't had a new bond issue in two

103years moody has been conducting annual reviews of school districts to determine if their current bond rating is where it should be so i'm pleased to report that north penn did continue to maintain its double a1 rating with a stable outlook and as a reminder we are one of only 19 school districts in the state of pennsylvania that have a double a one rating or higher the next higher the next higher rating would be a triple a there's only i think three or four districts in the state with a triple a rating but next time the school district considers a bond issue we're going to be putting on a full court press with moody's to have that triple a rating we feel that we're deserving of that and just real quick for context there's 500 districts

104in the state 500 districts right we're one of 19 with a rating that high that speaks to the board's commitment to the financial stability of the school district mr saraki to clarify as part of this stringent moody's review and thank you for going through this each time and especially with coven and all the other responsibilities if the fund balance were to drop uh drastically does that affect the like say let's tap the fun balance right now and settle up everything how does that affect moody's no question it would have an adverse impact on our moody's rating probably the number one criteria there's a long laundry list of criteria that moody's uses with their rating they put it all into their proprietary formula and out comes the rating but the number one factor more than anything

105else is what the fund balance is and as i mentioned to the finance committee and the board before that we're really at the sweet spot of our fund balance not too high not too low it's right where it should be and also it's always important to point out with this that that comes in conjunction with the fact that north penn has the fifth lowest taxes in montgomery county so really when we talk about return on investment with high student achievement and low taxes it's again it's really at that sweet spot level thank you mr scrocky mr schrocky one more question when did we receive that double a rating for the first time oh boy you're going to test my memory now i think it was 2016 or 17. okay thank you okay next item i

106have just a reminder for our community that we are in the new fiscal year and we do have an increase with the real estate tax rebate program that the board implemented several years ago the rebate now is tied to the pennsylvania state property tax and rent rebate program so if you're eligible for that program you're also eligible for the north penn program this year's rebate is 60 percent of the state amount and so the maximum rebate for a homeowner could be 585 dollars that's in addition to what they might receive from the state and also for renters it would be 390 dollars in addition to what they might receive from the state so please if you are listening to this or if you know a neighbor or a friend that receives money from the state

107through their program please encourage them to reach out to our business office and file a rebate application also along with a new fiscal year comes the unfortunate part of the real estate taxes being issued the bill should have been in everyone's mailbox on or about july 1st or july 2nd the fact that we're at july 15th now if you are a property owner in north penn school district and you have not received your tax bill please reach out to your elected tax collector in your municipality it's in the statute that failure to receive your tax bill is not an excuse for non-payment so it's important that if you have not received your tax bill to reach out to your elected tax collector also this year marks the second year the board authorized six installment payments

108for our tax real estate taxes the first installment would be due at the end of july the last installment will be due december 15th so if you have a desire to spread out your real estate tax payments uh please keep that in mind you need to make a one sixth payment of your tax bill by july 31st and everyone in the school district is eligible for that if you're a property owner regardless of your residential or commercial or industrial property status everyone in the school district is eligible for that and finally just another school nutrition services department update the total right now of curbside meals that have been delivered to families in north penn school district since the pandemic began is 1.4 million curbside meals another reminder that the meals are provided on tuesdays throughout

109the summer from 11 a.m to 1 p.m and again from 4 30 to 6 30 p.m at the following schools colt elementary inglewood elementary hatfield elementary oak park elementary and penndale middle school and this program will continue until august 17th august 17th will be the last date for the curbside meal pickup and again mr mcbain alluded to this that free meals will be provided to students for the entire 21-22 fiscal year no payment will be required for breakfast no payment will be required for lunch we will have a la carte this coming year that will be a charged item though for all of court and please follow the north penn school nutrition services department on twitter at north penn sns okay so now to the numbers of the financial report the treasurer's report for the

110month of june we had cash receipts in june totaling 15.5 million our disbursements for june totaled 39.7 million so this is really the last month of our negative cash flow starting in july we return to a positive cash flow situation with the collection of real estate taxes or available funds that we had through the end of june were 69.2 million and that's about a 4.4 million dollar increase over last year i mentioned last month that you know the 2021 fiscal year we did have a deficit budget but our latest projections are that we actually have a situation where we're probably going to be adding to the fund balance so not only do we cover that deficit there's probably going to be a situation where we can add to the fund balance this year and that's

111through increased revenue that we were not expecting in particular with earned income tax which was very robust over the past year and the real estate transfer tax was just completely off the charts we set a record for the collection of real estate transfer tax and that is the one percent tax that is charged anytime a property changes ownership we receive a half a percent the municipality receives a half a percent so that set a record and that certainly was not expected over the past year plus we had reduced spending we did have reduced hours in staff that contributed to that but nonetheless between reduced spending and increased revenue that six million dollar initial deficit was wiped out and we're probably going to add several million dollars to the fund balance so we need a motion

112for the treasurer's report from the month of june please could i ask one question let's do the motions so motion by mr fusco seconded by mr casa okay dr g go ahead it wasn't we can pass the treasurer's report the question was about the state budget update so we can pass the treasures right does anybody have a comment can i just make comments on this i i want to just second um that the interest in wanting to really promote the um tax rebate program we've had several individuals who made public comment who identified as seniors and we are doing the best we can to get the word out but really the most effective strategy for getting that word out is through word of mouth and so please help us take that information out into the

113community because we really do want to see that program benefit our seniors in our community mr scrocky i also want to let you know that i received feedback this week about from a family who for the first time in the pandemic has needed to stop by to pick up food and they were so incredibly touched by the team that greeted them the amount of food that they received but the best story came when their youngest child got to pick out fresh fruits and vegetables he chose to pick out some pears which he was very excited about and some cute zinnies so not quite sure if it was a cucumber or zucchini but regardless the cute cazinis were a big hit so i really just want to continue to thank that team for the work and

114just wanted to share that that story [Applause] so mr scracky my question was about special education funding under the state budget was there any increase for school districts relative to funding for special education yes north penn received 111 000 which was welcome because there's been several years in the past where there was a zero dollar increase so 111 000 out of our budget is a small amount but again it's certainly more than what we've received in years past so we are appreciative of that thank you are there any other questions or comments go ahead mrs mr kraki regarding the real estate transfer tax the half percent so for this year we did not anticipate what we received correct correct right i believe the overall surplus for that was about 700 thousand dollars okay in excess

115of what we budgeted so when we're looking at next year would we still be conservative and would you still consider being conservative in that approach and not included despite all the you know what's happening with homes that are selling before they even hit the mls we did for our current year budget the 2122 budget we did increase the projection for the realty transfer tax i think we made an adjustment in june before the final budget was adopted it's still conservative though you know we our hope is that we maintain our conservative nature and then we can have numbers that are higher than what are expected at the end of the year so we're hopeful that that will continue but we really haven't seen anything like this with a real estate activity in a one-year period

116that we had in the last 12 months and mr scrocky with that as well with the process that conservative nature and you're still ending up i think this is our second or third year are you falling within that point five variants right now which is i mean that that is really bull's-eye for budget projections yeah last year was a little bit off that goal of 0.5 because of the pandemic it kind of put things a little disarray um so those variances will be exceeded by a little bit more but that always maintain we always try to maintain that as our goal half a percent variance in either direction and i think that's important for the public to understand it's not that we're just lowballing it and then seeing how much more comes in over the

117top that's actually i believe one of the issues that moody's also looks at is that you're hitting your variance projections over the years you do thank you i think on our revenue side over the last seven years our variance the average variance has been about 1.1 percent or something like that which is pretty tight indeed thank you are there any further comments or questions okay we have a motion on the floor so all in favor say aye i don't do we have a motion did i miss it then i'm sorry i was talking so much where was the motion um it was mr fusco and miss second by mr casa okay great thank you so um all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries okay thank you next up we have the sanction and

118approval of invoices for the month of june and they totaled 45 million six hundred ninety 533 dollars and eighty five cents i'm recommending ratification of those disbursements do have a motion so moved motion by mrs romich seconded by mr mcbain any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries okay next up we have the budget transfers for the month of june and budget transfers totaled 1 million dollars 364 41 cents i'm recommending approval of those attached budget transfers do a motion second motion by mr fusco seconded by mr casa any comments or questions all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries and finally just for informational purposes we have the financial reports and we do go into those reports in more detail at the monthly finance committee meetings

119thank you president stahl thank you very much mr skraki okay um is there any other business for anyone okay skipping ahead then we will go right to the second period of audience of citizens just a reminder we are doing a half an hour so that would take us what to 20 after nine okay thank you okay you're gonna hit the button and i'm out of the gate okay my name is william patchell i live at 404 bonnie lane montgomery township it is probably the finest piece of real estate that anybody could hope to move into i hope you have four or five hundred thousand dollars to move in there it's it's a little exclusionary and a lot of people that live there very happy the police department is absolutely fantastic okay we have a great

120water system unlike flint michigan which is wretched okay and it's a fine working sustainable economic viable community of people that are doing very well and they like it like that so um what you have to understand is a lot of these things are very good and a long presentation here but we do have information which i'm glad i bring this stuff along i get these right to know even though mr saraki is very very hard-pressed to do it a special education iep 2187 children now that's that's a pretty large number each of those people is is challenged and we have uh uh let's see this is a smaller number it's 800 and 850 i'll put my glasses on i'm wasting my time here i'm down at 142. okay we have 850 gifted now the 94

121000 people live and live in this district okay in this entire district you have 850 that are gifted okay now i guess you know about the graduation um that was only 970. i'm telling you the birth rate of the united states is going downhill okay and what's going to happen is it's going to look like i watch nhk about japan most of the rural areas are completely abandoned and not many people are living there because they forgot that a sustainable society needs to have babies so you know a lot of the millenniums now um oh yeah we're get we're getting a dog so people are not having any children okay and the kindergarten registration uh as of may 18th was 773. now there's only 773 from 94 000 people but you're spending more and more

122money i don't quite understand that it's like i'm selling less cars they keep going up in price we keep laying people off and nobody even knows what the recall is they don't recall little kids coming back well how are you doing well i broke down in academics here's what real people are doing with real money what they do is they're going to be virtual my son graduated he's doing very good work virtual for a long time please don't complain about it if you have if you have a problem uh talk to your friends off off the job site you have to in a modern society the academics the the people that are being employed are globally you might have two from singapore two from thailand three from i said nobody's oh i'm sorry sir you

123get the idea though you're getting you're getting more and more money mr patrol i might add tal mentions a pretty terrific place to live too second hi again i'm wondering if the motion passed if it passed i wasn't able to determine that or maybe i was out of the room it did excellent l-e-v-e-n-11. the address of my organization is 129 lakeview drive new hope pennsylvania okay okay excuse me kevin is that a camera it is is that not permitted no that's permitted you're fine thank you hello north penn my name is kevin from the bucks county anti-racism coalition and i am here today in partnership with a movement for black and brown lives here in montgomery county this is chris i'm here to talk today about drained pool politics and if you don't know what

124i mean you can read the book the some of us by heather mcgee where she talks about back in days of yore back in the way back in the 20th century when america had some of the most elaborate and large public pools in the world states used to pride themselves on these pools back then they were segregated as many things were at the end of segregation after many hard-fought gains people of color were permitted to swim in the pools what happened next was heartbreaking instead of share the pools they decided to close the pools no one was swimming anymore however certain people could take cold comfort or in this case hot discomfort in the fact that they were better than certain other people yet nobody got to swim i'm here to tell you that equity

125does not need to be a zero-sum game anti-racism diversity equity inclusion culturally responsive teaching helps everyone one example is affirmative action i'm not sure how many of you are aware of this but affirmative action has helped more white women than any other demographic if you own your home if you pay taxes if you plan to send your child to college and you're making less than eight nine ten figures a year dei helps you speaking of sending kids to college paul robeson said we need to be citizens of the world and if you don't know who paul robeson is then you definitely need diversity equity and inclusion so let's not repeat the mistakes of drained pool politics let's get rid of this us versus them mentality lack of diversity in education hurts everyone but especially the

126students i'm here to tell you we can all come out ahead if we do it together thank you [Applause] thank you kevin still katie hersh still from north wales um i first want to thank you for passing the two gifts to school however i am beyond frustrated the conflicting guidance for home and school uses of funds we were told that money that was raised needed to be spent the same year that it was raised so that's what we tried to do we received five proposals for gifts to school we were able to fully fund all five proposals and all were approved by our general membership yet then dr centuro the same person who told us to spend the money rejected our attempts to do so these weren't frivolous expenditures these are long lasting gifts to

127our community the proposed gifts were banned equipment musical instruments and outdoor classroom accessible sensory playground equipment and aac or speech devices of these five gifts only the band and music instruments were approved meanwhile another school was allowed to build to fund an outdoor classroom and to my utter belief we continue to ignore the needs of our disabled community as someone who has worked with individuals with developmental cognitive and intellectual disabilities for most of my life i am disgusted we as a district have the opportunity to pioneer a training program for staff and parents to better support students who rely on these communication devices to exercise their basic human right to communicate and more fully participate in their education communicate what they thought of the story that was read or that they have a headache or

128which lunch option they want that day or simply mommy i love you i know what that you don't like the back and forth engagement with the community but i do urge you to sit with a mom in tears because her son continues to struggle with his aac due to lack of training of the staff and others sit with the teachers and staff who could have received further training on how to support these devices which they have been asking for and explain to them how abandoned music equipment are acceptable gifts to school yet the aac devices are not after that i implore you to sit with the parents and students with physical disabilities and differences let them tell you your their stories of how the existing playground equipment isn't accessible to their children and how the

129kids were so excited to finally have a structure they could play on sit with the ots and the pears and the other staff who could have had another resource for sensory regulation sit with the community members who desperately need more accessible and sensory friendly playground in our area because they too would have had access to this and again tell them why this gift to school was rejected north penn loves to boast its commitment of a conclusive education but the walk isn't matching the talk items specifically identified as needs from the staff and community to directly support our stated goal of inclusion were rejected how will you be addressing these issues as a taxpayer i'm concerned that you continue to raise our taxes year after year while rejecting gifts such as these i know you make

130decisions based on comfort but so why are you not comfortable with these gifts to school i want you to continue to continue to move our progress towards meaningful inclusive education for all of our students our special education neurodivergent disabled and entire north pain community deserve for you to do better on this thank you i have the proposals if you want to see them [Applause] thank you mrs hirsch is there anyone else who would like to make public comment this evening at the risk of keeping everyone one more minute okay couldn't be rudnick 306 abby lane lansdale i hope to keep this brief i want to you know thank you all for the hard work that you've really done over the past year um the school year year and a half right since march of 2020

131it was a very difficult time and as many people have said it is not something that anyone would want to be in your positions and yet you did it with grace and with the convictions that you had from the information you had and we are grateful for that i can't say that i agreed with every single decision but i also knew that i trusted that it came from a position of information and it was an informed decision it was a decision made with diversity of thought and i'm not talking about skin color i'm just saying that you know we all have diversity of thought i'm also grateful for the fact that we can all actually come in here today and sit and you can all sit there and listen to us just blab on and

132you have to take it and i appreciate that because i brought my 13 year old to come and listen to what goes on at these meetings and not only has she learned that we can all sit here and have differences and everyone has the opportunity to speak their mind she's also learned a lot about finances and what we're doing with our buildings and we're very grateful for the work that you're doing with all the facilities and i would love for that to be the most of the conversations going forward because i do know that you have all done so much to improve the lives and the spirit of the students in our school districts and that should be what we focus on we spent about 20 minutes talking about the masks mandate and it was

133a no non-issue that we spent 20 minutes 30 minutes on because apparently you've given them the choice so let's just move on and stop going on about things that have already been decided and let's deal with a problem when it actually you know comes and you have something in place already to say how we're going to address that and i do disagree i think you've been a very very inclusive team and again i'm not talking from a dni perspective i'm talking about just generally diversity of thought and process you did have us all be able to call in during zoom meetings and i'm very very assured that if there is a way for you to do that again going forward and put us in a position where all community members can share their voices and

134be heard you will do that i have no doubt about it so i disagree you've been very inclusive and you will continue to be inclusive i believe that because you've shown that and data does not lie data that's actual factual that is so thank you [Applause] thank you mrs rudner hi i'm aaron conroy i'm from 121 shearer street in north wales i did not expect all the discussion about mass today so i kind of came prepared with something else i want to talk about what a great job you guys are doing and what a great job the schools are doing i brought a visual aid this is my son in third grade dressed as johnny appleseed and look i'm you can't see it but he's so proud and so excited third grade at north wales

135elementary school he graduated from north penn three years ago he's now a senior at penn state majoring in environmental science so third grade he got excited about something and that excitement was nourished through elementary school and through middle school and into high school and he got the kind of education that is going to allow him to pursue that for the rest of his life and i am so grateful you guys are doing a great job thank you [Applause] thank you mrs conroy uh jason lanier lansdale pa uh quick thing on the covid and there's a lot of talk about bad and and and conspiracy theory data is data data from medical journals like the lancet like uh like jama like oxford medical these are the sources for information which tells you the efficacy of masks

136i would i would implore anybody who's interested to to know about the the efficacy as a mask go ahead and take a look it's not just the cdc and anthony fauci who who knows a thing or two about biotransmission so do yourself a favor and look into it other thing i want to talk to you about is address this the critical race theory aspect of things you guys have said hold on you guys have said many times you're not teaching critical race theory in fact there is a lot uh this it's just a graduate level program uh taught in law school if i'm not mistaken so and i agree with you there is critical race theory is taught in law school however it has been adopted and changed down to use some of the same

137tenets and applied to skid kids in school and why is that i don't know but i can tell you who agrees that that's happening is the american federation of teachers and the nea when the national education association says they are promoting critical race theory in school and that's what they say i have the document here that you can look at it they voted on it just a couple weeks ago it was july 3rd they adopted this they are promoting critical race theory so what is it that i'm concerned about with critical racer honestly the whole the concept of looking at things from different perspective not a problem what i'm specifically concerned about is some of the things that are coming out in other states that show not an inclusion but a separation based upon race

138and humiliation based upon race and in in two directions one is you take uh so these are in other school districts and and i i i mentioned this uh back on the sixth where they line up kids based upon their skin tone and they have the the lightest skin kid apologize to darkest kid and they keep moving down to the middle excuse me so they did that there it's on you can look it up on the web you can watch these things happening so on mr william just so if you told me you you assured me that's not happening in this school it's not happening in any of these school districts in any in the school district at all am i right yes it's not happening but i've heard from parents who say it is

139happening a little little bit difference a little bit different a little bit different is is that they they make uh they do a step procedure everybody lines up against backs against the wall take one step forward if you uh uh have a an iphone take another step forward if your parents have gone to college take another step forward if your your parents are married mr turn around and apologize to your time so are you going to do anybody on this board going to guarantee that that's not happening in the school district your time is up will you guarantee that that does conclude your public comment sir that concludes the republic comments would you guarantee that's not happening because if it's not happening it's not happening is it sorry you're disrupting the public meeting at this

140point you were disrupting the operation of this meeting right excuse me everyone please just remain civil mr lanier your time is up please take a seat is there anyone else that would like to make a public comment at this time okay seeing none [Music] hey everybody i apologize earlier i am not used to this whole doctor thing i'm dr frederick frolick it's been a new thing new thing for me so i'm not used to that so i apologize uh 526 north chesterton street i don't remember if i just said that i just want to talk about a couple of things real quick one division there is a lot and pardon my terms but it sucks this is a great town we got great people and on that topic and just for everybody in the room

141i have incredible conversations with several people sitting up here we got some great people up here i will never question anybody up here ethics their morals i think you're good people i think i've shared that with some of you online i do truly mean that obviously because i'm in a public forum and it's no one's blind here they know i'm the opposition in an election i don't care you're good people that doesn't mean we're always going to agree on things and i think a path forward has to come with respect and understanding that there are different perspectives on things and that's what i represent and that's why i'm here speaking tonight i believe in the beauty of our culture i believe in the beauty of our community and all of our students that being said

142i want to talk about transparency because the word gets brought up a lot during some of these meetings transparency is doesn't mean that we question the impossible decisions that you guys had to put up with the last year which i would would be scared what i would have done because i don't know i wasn't there however transparency it beckons that the board that serves the people open up as much transparency to the people so we could be a part of the process to help your initiatives work we need to know as much as we can so we can get behind things we need to know as much as we can so we can support you when need be or if we do need to challenge you we can give you a respectful challenge so you

143have an opportunity to try to decide how do we proceed and quite frankly in a united states right now that's so red and blue we need shades of purple i don't need to be red and i'm not a red guy i'm also not a blue guy i'm a purple guy and being a purple guy allows me to see how hard it had to have been for you guys i have love and respect for all of you because you tried the best you could and i think generally speaking compared to the other districts in the area we did do a pretty good job we really did were there areas we could have approved of course but last time i checked nobody here's over 100 so we weren't here in 1919. okay but the last thing i

144heard a lot of people tonight talk about science and conspiracy theories all these things trust me i don't think i have a microchip in my arm because i got vaccinated the first wave because i'm diabetic back in january not there but i do follow science cdc report october 26th of last year stated that there was virtually no effect closure of schools on the transmission of the pandemic you could check it out in october 26 2020 cdc report w-h-o catastrophic effect on students lives and recommending going back to schools everybody's favorite fauchi he just did this whole thing a couple weeks ago about let's return full bore and i'm not for that thank you for doing what you did but those people still can't argue can't agree because even today the world health organization says mask

145up cdc says no mass no matter what you choose i'm sure you're trying to do it in the best interest of the kids thank you for that thank you for giving us choice the only thing i ask is please let me know the levels thank you [Applause] okay um i don't think i see anyone else do i have a motion to adjourn so moved okay thank you very much everyone you