NLSD School Board Meeting - February 9, 2026

001to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Too many chair here. >> You can come this way. [clears throat] Okay. Remind you then if I forget. >> Okay. >> We have a roll call, please. >> Miss Bilby >> here. >> Mr. Fedoro >> here. Miss Husach here. >> Miss Pulp >> here. >> Miss Snder >> here. Miss Thompson >> here. >> Mr. Weber >> here. >> Miss Williams >> here. >> Mr. Green >> here. >> Okay. Uh public comment. Uh I see uh Miss Bender wants to speak. Uh do you want to wait until the agenda comes up or do would you like to >> It applies to the policy portion and the calendar. So,

002however I'm supposed to do that, >> you you'll wait till go back and Okay, that's the only person I have. Several other people have said they would like to talk about the high school. So, you will be at the end of the agenda doing public comment just so we're all on the same page. Uh, you all received copies of the regular schoolboard meeting held on January 12th. Is there a motion to approve those in? >> So, move >> second. >> Got that. Okay. [laughter] All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed, no. And so ordered. Uh before we go into special boy reports, I like to say I'm sorry for the New England Patriots for their lousy showing on Sunday, but that was for Sherry. But anyway, >> yeah. >>

003Uh special board reports. Uh Gail. >> Uh thank you for the carbonly remediate union. We did have our January board meeting. Um we voted in a member from Jim Thorp. So we are back to a full board of 14 there. Um we also celebrated school director recognition month similar to how we had done so here at Northern Lehigh. So want to thank the IU for that recognition as well. Um we did have our auditors uh come and give our financial report from Campbell Rapold. um and your sits no audit findings. It was a clean audit for the 2024 2025. So uh again we're pleased to report that uh the dedication to that um sound financial management is continuing. Um the last thing I would like to report is that on December 9th we had our

004uh annual toy adaptation day that is hosted by the IU. A lot of times that is utilizing uh students from our LCTI or CCTI programs and they take uh toys and make them adaptive to our special needs children. Um so things that you have to push a button. Some children may not be able to do that. They use our 3D printers and some switches and they adapt the toys so that all children feel inclus inclusive on those activities and they're able to get their hands on toys and be successful. Um, so I want to thank again that, uh, group for continuing with Toya Adaptation Day. That's all I have this evening. Thank you. >> Thank you, uh, LCTI, Mr. Federa. >> Thank [clears throat] you. I have a number of things to, uh, announce. I'll

005start with some good parts. The we had our skills USA last Wednesday. Uh, we have three winners and I don't want to take anything away from the students who may be announcing that. I so I won't do that right now. Um, we have three winners who will be going onto the the states. We also are having our National Honor Society on February 10th and we'll be holding that at LCT or LCC. We also have our public auction on June 18th at four o'clock and we have completed our annual comprehensive plan that's going to the state. on another end with the care with the health care costs going up we are going to be facing for the first time in I'm I'm not even sure 15 years or whatever else of needing to furlow faculty and

006staff and uh that is really a very difficult thing to do when you have programs that have students on a waiting list. So, we're in a dilemma right now how we're going to be handling that. Uh, we're hoping that we will have some retirements that we can fill in, but unlike a regular school district, we have teachers who have professional uh certifications. For example, we're not going to be able to move a plumber into uh healthcare or welding or whatever else. So, it is it is a major problem that we're looking at because we're looking at that as a part of our budget. we are now put into by the state a position where we need to have a 60-day waiting period to go over everything and get our budget. So, our budget normally would

007have been voted on this month or I'm sorry, January uh at LCTI and then brought to the school districts. That is not going to happen. We're going to have to wait the 60 days until we put that into place and then have the LCTI board vote on it. we will not be getting a budget to the district till June. So, and it's not our fault. It's basically the state's laws that we need to follow. So, that is where we're at right now at at LCTI. Um, and of course, the the cost of health care all around, I think, is up like 29% now. Uh, in the consortium, uh, Sherry's I don't know if that's accurate, Sherry, pretty well. >> It's 19. No, it's 17.75. >> Okay. I think is what we ended up at. >>

008And so anyway, um those are the things that are are we're dealing with at LCTI, but as I said, the good things are we do have students going on to the states with uh our skills Olympics. That's all I have to report. Mr. President, >> um I also noticed that the uh LCTI had a reorganization meeting and I would like to congratulate Mr. Fredo. I think you've been elected. Is it vice president or vice chair? chair. Yes, >> vice chair, vice chairman, uh of LCTI. Congratulations. Uh okay, moving to legislative report. Snider, >> Nothing to report tonight. Uh okay. I uh normally give a short report tonight. Mine's going to be a little longer. Uh I'm sorry. And it has to do with uh Eli Liy coming to our area. And uh it's fantastic for

009our community. uh you know they're building a plant in the area. Uh we found out that Dr. Bieber, for example, has been involved in this for years and had to sign a non-disclosure agreement saying she would not have any discussions about the things that were happening because they wanted to keep them all uh under under wraps. Uh, one of the things they were looking for and and I'm not saying they came here because of L3 L El LC. They were looking for an institution that could educate their potential workers and their workers in the future and they were quickly enable to to check that box because of of LRIC being in the area. And we had done something similar with Amazon. If you remember, we were like one of four schools uh in the [clears

010throat] whole country that Amazon took on and and uh send a lot of people there. Uh the bottom line is we're getting a $5 million grant uh to set up some labs. Uh and they're not set up yet. It's not finalized, but seems like it's going to be like a really really uh fantastic setup and and situation. Uh we're also getting some some other grants. uh $163,000 grant from the state for some other items and uh it it looks like it it's going to just be a fantastic program. We've already been contacted by several universities saying uh hey uh how's our reciprocal agreement with you guys? You know, we want to take your guys and when they get out in case they want to go to a fouryear. So, uh, it it looks like at

011this point in time, and nothing's guaranteed, and but but you start there, you go two years, there's a lot of four-year universities are are ready to snap up to people and and give them the last two years to get him a uh a degree if they so so desire. So, that's uh that's a pretty big deal for the college and and I think it's great for our community, our school districts, etc. So, uh, that's kind of our report for the night and, uh, we'll go from there. Okay. We have committee reports under meetings. You've all received copies of those. >> Good evening everyone. It's great to see everyone tonight. So, me and Maddie will be reviewing school events and also we will be wrapping up winter sports as well. Students who are interested in taking

012the ASVAP test were allowed to on the 4th. Clubs in our high school are picking up more fundraisers. So, our Patriot Club just finished their fundraiser with um popcorn and they did it with double bed. And our student council is continuing to sell Gertude Hawk chocolate bars. If anyone wants to buy some, me and Maddie can hook you up with them. National Honor Society has their induction for new members and officers this Wednesday on the 11th at 600 p.m. in the high school auditorium. We congratulate all new members and officers on this big accomplishment. National Honor Society and Student Council members have been working on Valentine's Day cards for the senior citizens at Fellowship Retirement Community. On the 12th, selected members will go to the community and deliver the cards. The citizens love to see

013the students and they love receiving the little notes that were written in the cards as well. We had a planned virtual day on the 6th and we will also have off on the 13th and 16th for President's Day weekend. That is all I have for tonight and now I'll pass it on to Maddie who will go over sports and review other school events. Thank you. So to celebrate the end of the first semester, the administr the administration is rewarding the students with a Dunkin Cruiser. So on Thursday, February 12th, students will be able to get free drink samples or gift cards during lunch and learn. So it's just going to be like in the parking lot and they're going to be allowed to go out and then get something and then they'll come back in.

014Um the first literacy night at Peters Elementary is on March 5th. K through 12 K through two students who struggle with literature have the opportunity to come out and get extra help. They are also being given materials to help in their learning. High school students are encouraged to come out and help. This is support this is to this is to support the continued effort of Bulldogs helping Bulldogs. The esports season starts this week and their first comp competition was today. Theater season is in full swing and the theater cast and crew are working tires tirelessly to give an amazing spring musical. This year's musical is Anastasia. It will be performed between March 12th to 15th and tickets are available to purchase online on the Northern Lehigh website. Most of the sports have ended. The boys

015basketball team ended with a 715 record. The girls basketball does have a chance to make districts and ended preseason with a record of 9 to13. Girls wrestling ended with a record of 4 to3 and boys wrestling has one more meet at Freedom High School on February 20th and currently has a record of 1 to5. And lastly, the new botchi ball program has a record of 4 to2. They are first in districts and will be hosting the first district match next the first district match February 9 19th in the high school gym at 3:30. Come out and support the botchi ball team. Thank you. >> Any questions? February 19th. >> Yes. >> I I might be wrong on this, but I remember something about chocolate bars before. They gave one to every board member before [laughter]

016I I I just it's in the back of my head. I don't know. I'm just kidding. Thank you for your report. Any questions for the students? No. Not we. We'll go to page two. Solicitor report. >> I do have a report. Thank you. Uh very very briefly um about a month or so ago I um reported to you regarding the Coleman versus Parkland School District decision uh which upheld the board's right to amend um its agenda at the board meeting uh based upon a vote and certain other uh requirements. Um there is a uh house bill, it's house bill number 2146 that has been introduced and in short um the purpose of that legislation is to um unwind the uh Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in um the Coleman case. Um they're basically uh it would

017delete subsection E which currently allows school districts to vote at public meetings to add any matters uh not previously on the published agenda to the agenda uh for that public meeting. So um we are uh tracking that bill and we will keep you apprised accordingly. >> That's it. Okay. Uh moving item H. Uh Dr. Stoker. >> Thank you Mr. [clears throat] Green. I have several items to report on this evening. Uh the first is our middle school curriculum guide and high school program of study. On the board uh agenda for this evening, you'll see the middle school curriculum guide and the high school program of study for approval. Thank you to Mr. Pine, Dr. Bali, Mr. Williams, Mrs. Delgado, our school counselors, and the school teams for updating those documents to reflect the offerings for

0182627. These documents have gone through our curriculum council, the board curriculum committee, and are on the agenda this evening for approval by the board. We look forward to that vote so we can begin scheduling students for the 2627 school year. Last week, we celebrated National School Counselors Appreciation Week and Food Service Workers Appreciation Week. Our school counselors provide invaluable support to students academic, social, emotional, and career development, guiding them every step of the way. At the same time, our food service workers ensure that every student has access to nutritious meals, helping fuel their learning and well-being. Thank you to both groups for their dedication and daily impact on our students success. And I know Mrs. Frink is here this evening as well, so thank you to your team. Uh last week our students represented the

019district at the 2026 Skills USA District 11 11 Championships at the Agrilex in Allentown. We are proud of their dedication and skills they demonstrated in a variety of hands-on career and technical events. The awards ceremony took place Wednesday evening at Parkland High School celebrating their hard work and accomplishments. We applaud all of our students for showcasing their talent and their commitment to their future careers. The following students competed in cosmetology, Gabriella Gentiel from 11th grade. In cosmetology model, Leila Gring 10th grade in commercial banking, Samantha uh Maldonado in 12th grade. In automated industrial technology, Seth Winch in 12th grade. The unofficial results of the Skills USA Championships that were held on Wednesday, February 4th, are that Seth Winch in automated industrial technology earned second place in me meron mechatronics with his teammate. Congratulations to Seth

020and his partner for earning that top honor. Uh tomorrow night, um as previously stated, at 6 PM, some students from our high school who attend LCTI will be inducted into the National Technical Honor Society. They are Joy um McCammon from 12th grade in cosmetology, Jaden Trunk in 10th grade for electrical technology, Jaylen Orusa in 10th grade for emergency health services. Congratulations to these three students on their achievements and induction into Nths. Uh we also want to thank SCR uh Sleington High School class of 1965 for their generous $1,500 scholarship donation. This gift will support one or two deserving seniors this year and we sincerely appreciate their continued commitment to our students. Um I'd like to take a minute to recognize some retirements that will be on the agenda this evening. Lori Midow will be retiring

021after 20 and a half years of service to the Northern Lehigh School District. Miss Midau received her bachelor's degree from State University of New York. She continued on with post-graduate work at Cedar Crest College and D Sales University before obtaining her master's degree at Cababrini College. While at Northern Lehi, Miss Midow taught fifth grade before moving to her current position as a fourth grade teacher. Miss Midow will truly be missed by the students and staff of Northern Lehigh School District. Thank you, Miss Midow, for your dedication and service to the Northern Lehigh School District families. We wish her a well-earned retirement. Don Tulio will be retiring from the Northern Lehigh Middle School after 27 years of service. Miss Tulio began her employment at Northern Lehi in April of 1999. During her time with the district,

022she has served as middle school detention supervisor, substitute secretary, substitute paraprofessional, and most recently a licensed health room assistant. Northern Lehigh School District is grateful for her dedication to all of the students and staff, and we wish her a wonderful retirement. Lastly, Trish Whisha Whan will be retiring from her position as administrative assistant at the middle school after 27 years of service. Mrs. Mrs. Whan began serving the students and staff of the Northern Lehigh School District in August of 1999. Throughout her years of service, Mrs. Whan has been known for her consistent reliability, dependability, and always going above and beyond daily. We thank Mrs. Whan for her dedication to the Northern Lehigh School District and wish her a very happy retirement. Additionally, this evening we have a presentation for the board and public on our

0232526 middle of the year data report. >> So, good evening everyone. As we reach the midpoint of the school year, this middle of the year snapshot allows us to examine how students have progressed from the beginning of the 2526 school year until now. This data helps our building leaders and instructional teams assess growth, identify trends, and make timely instructional adjustments to ensure students remain on track for continued success through the end of this year. Earlier this year, our administrative team presented the building beginning of the year local assessment data for the 2526 school year. Tonight's slideshow builds on that work and focuses on the progress students have made through the middle of the year. It highlights growth with it within each school and compares middle of the year results to beginning of the year data

024to inform instructional planning moving forward. Board members, this presentation was shared with you through the last board update. In the interest of time and from previous board feedback received, a detailed explanation of the data will not be provided this evening. Instead, administrators will guide us through the slides and respond to any questions that the board and public have. At this time, I'll turn things over to Mr. Schneiderite, who will begin with the data from Peter's Elementary School. >> Thank you, Dr. Stoker. Good evening, everyone. [clears throat] >> I got it. Here we go. There's Peter's Elementary School in its glory. Um, so our first slide is data taken from our Dibbles 8 benchmarking assessments and represents the beginning of the year and the middle of the year data for Peters Elementary focus focused on early

025literacy. I'll leave it up there a moment. If you have any questions about that data, please do let me know. It looks to me like I I look at Ker and I see like the blue, which is the good one. they were at 14% and and now they're 31%. That to me that's more than double. That's fantastic. And I look at the opposite for those well below. So thank you very much. That's report that's pretty positive >> in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or feedback? If not, then our next slide has the de basically the same data. It's dibbles 8, but it now compares all students in Peters Elementary School to all students in grades K through two in the nation. You'll see 2.7 million and 2.4 million respectively. The top

026data set is the national average for K through2 students and the bottom is Peters Elementary. So, I'll give you a moment. If you have any questions, please do let me know. Am I good to move on? Okay, thanks. Uh, slide three here. This data represents our middle of the year math data for Peters Elementary School. Uh the beginning of the year is on the left hand side and the most recent data is on the right hand side. Below each will you will see the breakdown by the grade level. So I'll leave it up there for a moment if you have any questions. >> What is one of our uh online learning platforms? You'll see we use it K through 12 as an assessment tool for us. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Mr. Schneider, as

027you're going through some of this, is there a way that you can share with us what the team's working on or what you see as these are numbers, great. I get it. But there's there's some underlying things that the team's going to start working on. So, what can we see that team working on that we can prepare for end of year and say end of year, this is what we're looking for? Obviously, you want the numbers to increase, but you're working on something. Certainly. Um, so right now, as as I'm sure you're all aware, um, we are engaging in a math pilot. So, it's a little bit of a a a tricky time, I think, at both Peters and Slington because right now, I have six teachers that are piloting two different programs aside from

028our our core program that we are utilizing right now, your week of math. Um, I believe we'll be ready to uh move forward and present at the next board uh board committee meetings what that decision may be from um from our teams. Uh, we actually had a meeting just on Friday about looking at that. So, right now it's a little bit challenging as far as specifics because we're actually using three different programs right now to determine the validity of again which one we're looking to move forward on. as part of one of the long-term things I'm looking at, Miss Husach. Um, you know, we have a very defined and detailed um, reading intervention program where we have tier 2 and tier three programs that we utilize. In math, it is a little different and rightfully

029so. Math obviously is different than ELA. Um, in math, oftentimes teachers are working at the classroom level, um, taking their [clears throat] core lesson and then breaking it down into stations so students get a chance for that specific practice. So, one of the things that we um you know had meetings on just on Friday at our inservice was how we can better meet the needs of students within math. And I think a long-term goal is to uh as we're working on right now, both Mr. Briner and I define what our MTSS framework does for our ELA programs. We're also looking to now take that next step, but we can't do that quite yet until we have a math program because obviously an intervention that goes along with that would we choose the program and then

030we look at that intervention. So this year um we're looking to continue to sort of highlight what we're doing within the current program to meet those students needs during our intervention time. Hopefully that was uh that made some sense. So any other questions? [snorts] >> Um you you discussed the piloting of the two different programs plus the current curriculum, >> correct? um will there be an opportunity to pull the individual programs data and compare them across the three at the end of the school year. So for example, these are the LL scores of the students who use this program. These are the LL scores of the students who use this program. And these are the ones who are using the program we've had in place. to kind of get an idea of how these programs

031align. Is one of them showing dramatically greater results? Um, is what we have showing greater results? Um, just curious. >> So, that is certainly possible, but it's it'll be very not challenging, but it'll be very hard to understand. One of the things we've been looking for at the board level is consistency in what we're getting and using to analyze data. Each of the two programs we have has its own individual data set. So it would be like basically comparing three different data tools and trying to make them it's three sets of apples and trying to make them each an orange. So um again we can look at that data for me because I'm not uh we don't do PSSAs we would have nothing nothing consistent to compare it to at that time. So again that

032might be something Mr. Briner can you know uh you know discuss when when he's up there. But again, we can pull that data. We can look at what the students are doing um you know, in relation to this data tool at the end as well. But again, it's trying to compare something that's a little hard to compare because you know, very similar to how you typically see an implementation dip when there's a new program. We've got two new ones and we're trying to compare them to one that's been there for a while. And so I'm not sure basically I'm not sure what the meaning would be behind it. It would be hard to understand what the data means, but certainly it could be a data point. Hopefully that's understandable as well. So, okay, any other

033questions? I will then move on to my last slide. Um, if you remember, uh, thanks to us transitioning last year to touchscreen Chromebooks and removing a technology as an earlier barrier in kindergarten. For the first time ever, we were able to get kindergarten data at the beginning of the year. Typically, the middle of the data, middle of the year data was the first time we assessed them, but we were able to do that earlier. Although the reason this is separate is because we didn't able we weren't able to get it on September 2nd like we were the others. Um so this data reflects the both the beginning of the year and middle of the year data points just for kindergarten. So I'll leave it up there and if you have any questions please let me

034know. Okay, >> getting back to what [clears throat] uh I I don't know her name, the woman in the audience said, >> could you not could you break down the students in EXL who are under one pilot and show that data and all the students that are in another pilot, show that data. data to show their growth to see which group shows the most growth. >> I believe we could. It wouldn't be an official report from there because I'm not sure you'd be able to do that, but I can certainly pull that individually and put that together. >> Although I believe the we were looking at the end of the year, I believe we would already likely have approved a new program at that time. So, if you were looking for something from the beginning

035of the middle of the year, I'd have to get working on that right away. Mr. you get my drift. Like if we're going to approve a board or approve a program moving ahead in March or April or um at the board's will, then you know if we look at June and see oh this was this one did something different that this one did you know I'm not sure that >> I think that's what she was getting at. >> Yeah. So again that at the end of the year again we can you know I can pull that data it would just would be hard to make make it have meaning because without the >> well if you see proper context >> if you see the most growth in one group >> Mhm. >> you that to

036me would tell me that that program is the most impactful. >> Mhm. >> For the three months. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. The only thing I would say is three months for some students is not a lot of data to collect to make a long-term decision for the school district. I would think >> you would need more examples than than one group of students for one year to come up with a definitive answer. That would be my feeling on I would like to see it. I definitely would like to see it. >> Again, it's absolutely data we can pull. My concern also, Mr. would be you know that's assuming that is a you know again what it's looking at as far as the data point right so um you know the the data means only

037as much in a context of other data around it right so it's absolutely data we can pull again I can you know work on that take a take a while to pull individual students from the different pilots and again it won't the graphs will look different because it won't be directly from my excel I would have to just run those reports myself but those are certainly things I can look at from beginning of the year till the middle of the year just to have that data available. >> And we have to consider too there's a lot of other variables that go into student growth. Um so it's not just you know an instructional program that we're using that impacts the child. It's what the instructional practices are in the classroom if they're getting tier 2

038tier three interventions. There's a lot of other factors I think that you know contribute to whether or not a student is achieving and growing. It's a lot of context between points. >> I was going to say is that um the data >> that's being asked about right now would be the same kind of data you [snorts] would be needing to use to recommend a program to us. Explain why. So that data is needed before the end of the year because you're going to recommend recommend a program and I'm hoping it's going to be the best. >> Oh, me too. >> And the only way we can do it is through that. >> Yep. Yep. and we do have a lot of data. I'll let Mr. Fine speak regarding he's been leading the math pilots um

039with regard to this election. So, do you want to talk a little bit? >> Sorry. Just in general, I I would hazard against that being [snorts] a central component of the way that we make this decision in the way that we've gone through the process. We've talked to districts that have been in years 2, three, four of implementation of the programs that we're looking at, and we've had conversations with them in which they've shared with us the progress they've had in data. But as we have in the conversation of ELA and the CLA, a new program's not an antibiotic, right? It's it's not 24 hours and you're going to see results. Uh ultimately, there are a lot of factors that go into that. We have, you know, teachers who are learning how to use the

040program. We have diversity of student populations in those classes. Uh, I don't I I would hazard against us just saying we're going to make a decision based on the outcomes in LL based on those groupings. That being said, I can certainly get that together. I can easily get that together and I can make that part of what I share with school boards. That way, you're aware that you see that that's there. I would just very much hazard against that being the central component around which we decide because we may very well end up seeing that from both programs. They're not performing as well on EXL as they were with the existing program for all the reasons that we've talked about before with the LA adoption. There there is an implementation curve and that our teachers

041in the pilot haven't even had the luxury of a full year of implementation. So while that implementation curve is usually based on full implementation, we haven't even really had the luxury of that. A lot of the work that we did with our pilots was to in addition to the research we did of school districts outside of us who had used these programs and had success with them uh make sure that our teachers were comfortable were bought into these programs that it was a good fit that it worked with our classes and [clears throat] they were seeing at least anecdotally maybe qualitatively the types of outcomes that we're expecting. I think quantitative outcomes after three months of piloting. I think that's that's a that's a difficult place to to put our selection process in. >> But

042but thank you for clarifying that you could get the data that we're referring to here. >> I Yeah. And I can actually include that in if not this Friday's update, at least next Friday's update. I'd be able to pull that easily out of my Excel. >> Thank you. >> I thought it would be hard. I guess you >> Well, I say easily. I mean, it's it's very very fundamentally possible. Easily. I don't mean like in 10 minutes. I mean, but I I can very readily do that. >> I don't think any of us up here are saying that that should be the qualifying factor for choosing a program. You know, the teacher feedback is very important. The the way that students interact with the programs that are important. This would just be nice to see

043if if you we see one that's like the kids are dramatically making a change, then, you know, >> that would be something that would be nice to see. >> Yeah. Can I just chime in real quick about that topic? Um, so one of the things so as Mr. Pine said um it is absolutely possible to pull that data. One of the things to uh just keep in mind with the data that is going to be pulled in those different classes. >> [clears throat] >> The way the algorithm for the on uh benchmarking um in EXL, not to get too technical, but the way it works is students stepping into the arena on an ongoing basis and then they also take a benchmark that uh confirms essentially where their pinpoint is or where they are. And

044so the students that are in our pilot are not necessarily using to the level that other students are, [cough] right? they're not using it as much because the the pilot um programs also come with their own data uh tools. So um not that it's kind of the analogy you use is apples to apples to apples and making oranges. Um again our students that are not in a pilot are using to a greater level than the pilot students and that could affect the data. I'm not saying that it would or doesn't. I haven't looked at it. I'm just saying not to get too technical and it could affect the >> It's a perfect time to transition. >> Perfect. Thank you everyone. All right. I'll jump right after that then. >> All right. Good evening everyone. Uh

045I am going to be uh presenting the data for Slington Elementary School. My first slide here is our middle of the year benchmark for math. uh uh the middle of the year data is on the right and we I have uh placed the beginning of the year data in IXL for math on the left for comparison. I'll give you a moment to take a look at that and then if there are any questions more than happy to do my best to answer them. Okay. Good. Okay. Going to move on to my next slide. My next slide is uh very similar uh except now we are looking at ELA. The [clears throat] uh ELA uh benchmark for the middle of the year is on the right uh and the data from the beginning of the year

046is on the left. uh for comparison and again I will give you some time to take a look at that and then if there are any questions >> feels like the data is status quo can you help kind of dig into the I'm sure there's something happening but it looks status quo to me that if you look at the beginning it looks the same as the middle >> sure so uh there is a slight uh increase or improvement I guess in the day in what you would say the data But the one thing to remember about the data is uh it's kind of like a moving target. Okay? So the benchmark uh scale scores are at one level at the beginning of the year and then they're at the higher level at the end of

047the year. So you certainly don't want to see slipping in terms of your, you know, data more red and more yellow to oversimplify it and less green and dark green uh uh on the other side. Uh so you want to say see it the same. So you're maintaining or you're improving. Um and uh again if you look at the percentages um and the numbers there is uh there is improvement. Um I think uh I have it here 24% it went from 47% on on benchmark at the beginning of the year to 49% on benchmark uh midyear um in 3 months. So >> but again moving target uh scale scores or benchmark cut scores are getting higher uh meaning the on level benchmark is higher at the middle of the year. >> So it's not having

048the same number of DNA keeps it keeps getting higher as the >> correct. Okay that's correct. Any other questions? Okay, my next slide is our Dibbles um assessment in grades three, four, and five. I should have mentioned for we assess in uh grades 3 through six. For dibbles, uh it is just in grades three through five for uh those early literacy pieces. Um at the top you can see the different grade levels broken out both uh beginning of the year and middle of the year and then at the bottom is our composite score for the entire building. So I will give you a moment to uh take a look at that and then answer any questions that you may have. Okay. You good? Okay. And then my final slide uh is very similar to Mr.

049Schneider writes slide uh in terms of comparison from the building level and the national data. So the national data um uh for students that are given the dibbles assessment um nationally is at the top both beginning of the year and middle of the year and then for comparison where we are we are on the bottom uh beginning of the year and middle of the year. So if you uh want to take a look at that and then if you have any questions I will be happy to answer. Okay. >> Okay. Seeing none, I will be passing it over to Mr. Williams for the middle school. and I already thank you. Appreciate that. [clears throat] Good evening everybody. Um the following slides that you're about to see are going to represent uh data from Northern Leh

050High Middle School for the 2526 school year. Um again, uh Northern Leh High Middle School houses grades seven and 8. Um the data that you're seeing right here represents the beginning of the year and this is September on the left and November on the right or middle of the year data uh for math to this point in time. as of tonight. So, one of the things that I did want to mention, as of tonight's board meeting, we've actually um given three snapshots at the middle school. Um but due to the recent weather related virtual instruction days, that window for that third snapshot was extended till Friday. So, as of tonight's meeting, we don't have that data, but it will be presented um the next time that we do present um data for you. Um, so

051I'm going to leave this up here just for a moment and make sure that there's no questions that I can answer for you when you take a look at it. >> Okay. And then as I said, this is our data for ELA. Again, what you're seeing is the beginning of the year data uh from September and our middle of the year data from November. Again, there was a third snapshot um that was taken by our students. That window um just ended on Friday. So, that data is not here, but I'm going to leave this up again for you to take a look at. Um, and as you look at both um of those slides for math and ELA, if there's any questions that you have for me, please let me know. I'll be glad to

052answer them. No. Okay. There's no other questions, then I'm going to turn it over to [snorts] Dr. Raleigh for the day at the high school. Thank you. >> I I just want to say, Mr. Williams, like I'm looking at your slides and I'm seeing slight improvement and and that makes me feel good. I would like to see more obviously, but I'm I'm happier seeing, you know, three students moving up, two students moving up as opposed to going in the other direction. So, at least to me, that's a positive thing that we're moving in the right direction. So, >> I appreciate that. >> Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thanks, Mr. >> All right. So, we are going to end with the high school data. Um, again, our high school houses grades 9 through 12, but

053I'm in charge of this clicker. So, here we go. So, as you can see, this is the middle of the year uh math data specifically for algebra students. Um, these are the students that um either will take the algebra exam in May or they have just completed semester 1 of algebra and they took it um in the winter. So again, this slide shows middle of the year over the course of the first semester beginning data. Um the first benchmark was in September to the end of January. I'll let that um up there for a couple >> for a minute or so. And if you have any questions, please ask. >> And this is one class of students, correct? >> This is all the students in the fall that took algebra in the first semester. Good

054question. And as you can see there, our red's going down. Moving target, but our red is still going down. >> So if they took algebra in the fall, >> are they going to be taking it again? >> So that's a great question. So we have some students who take algebra as a semester course. Um they most recently took the Keystone assessment not too long ago, a couple weeks ago. Um, we also have a group of students who takes our new algebra actually it's not a new course anymore but algebra algebra 1 plus course which is a year-long algebra course. So those students who um are in that class will not take the keystone until May. >> So how will you show us the end of year? >> So what we'll do is so for those

055students those students are truly like compared to like what the middle school in Slington showed you in Peters they are year-long courses. So, we will show you um their beginning of the year all the way to the end of the year, which will actually end in May then. That's a great question. Thanks for that clarification. >> Can you go into a little there? I don't know. Maybe I don't like red, but [laughter] >> sorry, >> there's there's a lot of red up there. and we're talking about changing curriculum and doing all these other things and new pathways and all of that and some of those pathways don't include math and I see algebra up there. It's really red and it's a little concerning to me and Sure. >> kind of can you go into a

056little bit of why that might look like that or what we're doing to improve that? >> Sure. So, so that's you know that question specifically you know we've if you look up there the way that is right now is those are only that's only reflective data that is reflective of students that are taking algebra right now. Um we are going to shift that a little bit for the second semester in that we are going to have all students who have a math course. So that could be geometry, that could be algebra 2, that could be trick, calculus, all of those things. Right now, we have not traditionally included those in our EXL data because it's really is a tool that we've traditionally used as a practice tool for our trigger courses, lit bio algebra. So

057we've looked at that data saying, well, you know, that's not reflective of our high school, of our entire population of students who take math. That is reflective of just students mostly as freshmen. Now remember, there's a big, not a big, but a significant population of kids that took algebra as 8th grade. That data is reflected in Mr. Williams' data. When they come as freshmen, that's when they're taking algebra 1, most of them. Um, so this data is only reflective of those kids. It's going to be interesting what our spring data looks like because we're gonna we're going to still break out the algebra kids, but we're going to also show you math overall at the high school, which we haven't traditionally done. Um, so we think that we're going to see a lot less red

058because there's a lot more kids taking different math courses. Um, and I think that's important for you to see and for all of us to see. >> So, you're just showing us algebra now, though. >> Just algebra. At the end of the year, you're going to show us all the kids. So that's you're really not showing us >> the same students growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. >> So the ones that you just asked about, Mr. Weber, the algebra 1 plus kids, >> those we we can show beginning of year to end of the year. >> Exactly. >> Correct. [clears throat] The students that are that just now started to take an algebra 1 course. We're going to show you those beginning of semester, end of semester. Then

059we're going to show you the kids that take maybe another math course this semester, second semester only. >> Breaking it down. >> Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So we won't we won't all lump in it together. >> Yeah. But that's a great question. >> So is this data correlated to our Keystone test then too? >> So then if I see that much red and these kids are taking the keystone tests, >> is that are they compared in a way that when they take the keystone test, is that why we're on the lower side? And how do we >> how do we grow that to push them to the more proficient side? This is a little scary. >> So I want to answer that in in two sections if I could. >> So what you don't see and

060I think what we've tried to share in the past, but it's hard it's hard for us as educators, it's hard for me after 28 years really wrapping my head around this, but you know, we know we have students significantly below grade level in math. Okay. So, we have students who are, you know, in ninth grade taking this alge one test who maybe are performing on a fourth or a fifth grade level for whatever reason. Those kids you will see are in there in the red. What you're not seeing is that a significant number. And I I can have that data for you and show you that, you know, maybe at the um at the end of the week report that goes to you because I think it's important for you to know. There are kids

061in that red who in one semester have grown more than two grade levels. They're not proficient yet, but we've taken them from a fifth grade level now to maybe an eighth grade level, maybe to a seventh grade level. Some kids we've taken more than that. So that's kind of what's hard when you're showing data like this is our kids are Yes, we have a significant number of kids that are below proficient for whatever reason. and they lack foundational skills whatever it is but we are growing them but you can't always see that when it's a proficiency graph you don't see all the movement from within so that's the one thing I wanted to say to you so it's [cough] a collaboration that happens because this is a foundational thing that'll start at the middle school

062or even at our elementary schools so I don't my my opinion I don't think it's right that just the high school in this case the data we're seeing that it's the high school's responsibility to bring them from what you're saying is a fourth or fifth grade level to what they're currently at. So, what are we doing as a district to to help with these numbers in the high school but at a lower level so that they can expand up there? Because that's that's I think the connection then. >> Sure. Sure. And >> so I can respond to that. So there are two things that I I just want to kind of piggyback off something Dr. Bali said. In the middle school, we typically have 30 plus students who are taking algebra 1 as eighth graders.

063It's years ago, it was about one class. Now, we're up to almost two classes. So, it's sometimes 40 plus students that are already proficient or advanced. So, what you're seeing on this slide are students who are taking algebra typically as freshmen, but we already have 40ome plus students who have already on their Keystone exam gotten proficient, typically advanced. Um, so this is just the students that are left as part of that cohort moving through into ninth grade. And then we recognize that those skills need to happen all the way through that there needs to be math fact fluency. There needs to be a lot of things that we're building on because math is a subject that builds on, you know, previous knowledge. Um, so that is why we are looking at a new math program.

064Um we think that we can get a lot of bang for our buck out of um you know some of the new programs are out there and the way that they um the way that they are um conceptualizing math so that students are understanding the concepts not just doing um you know rope memorization or they're not just doing procedural types of problems. They're actually understanding conceptually what they're learning. >> Um how many students in nth grade does that represent? Sure. Um >> just I don't need the exact is it? >> Yes. So >> 60 that >> I'm sorry about 60 there's about >> um so that is I have percentages here about that. Um let me see >> just so I know. >> So our yearong kids haveund students >> in the ninth grade class

065and not all of them are so they don't all take algebra. They don't all take our semester. >> Some might have algebra this semester as a freshman. >> So that's remember and some have the year-long class. So yeah, I I can get you the exact number. >> How many students that actually represent? >> That's a great Right. >> It's not It's not a lot. >> Yeah, it's it's anywhere from like 40 to 55ish kids. >> Yeah. >> That's a great question. >> And we're focusing on health because of the keystone. Correct. that's that's the reason you're doing it's not the the whole math >> correct and I think that's why you know we really feel that it's important to break break it apart and show those other math classes that are also um you know

066because this is just algebra this is just you know that group of kids and and to your point sir you know it is a small number it's not a it's not a huge number >> right now >> yeah thank you for that so second part that I just want answer then we'll move on to uh literature but um as far as and you asked um I believe Mr. Schneider right this too what are we going to do about it so you know I think I think what Dr. Stoker just brought up, you know, our maths department, you know, really actually as recently as Friday, you know, we looked at some data and as we talked about, we look at the data, but then we talk about what are we going to do about it. Um,

067so they're very actionfocused on those things like really taking time in that 80 minute block for those students who we really need to focus on foundational skills. Who are those kids? What does that look like? is that 10 minutes out of the AED block every day. Um, also something else that we feel is really important is, you know, getting kids exposed to what Keystone type questions look like, not two weeks before the test, not even a month before the test, but in September. So every day, every other day in my 80m minute block, the first 10 minutes is we're throwing keystone, you know, questions at them so that when they get to that point, they're like, "Huh, I know what this is. I know what this looks like." And they're not. So it's just like

068little things like that, instructional shifts that, you know, have to be purposeful and strategic and, you know, hopefully all together those things will make a difference. So >> So as as those are there and lunch and learns coming Yes. or there are those students >> being helped during lunch and learn and how >> is that connection happening? Is that becoming like a more of a >> mandatory thing than >> Yes. So that connection, I think what's beautiful about lunch and learn is the goal was that we would prepare them to be able to make decisions on their own to say, "Wow, I'm one of those kids that I need to get to my math teacher because I didn't quite get today's lesson or I just, you know, got a 60 on the exam I just

069took." We want them to be able to develop that understanding and that realization on their own. If they don't quite get there on their own, you know, after being invited a couple times, then it becomes mandatory. Um, for any student who is performing below 60, so below passing, they're scheduled. There's no option for them. Um, and they still have an opportunity to lunch. So, they might have to go to Mr. Long, their math teacher, for the first half of lunch and learn, then they can go for the last half and do their thing. Um, but yeah, you know, we give them a chance in the beginning. We want them to be independent in re coming to that realization and making that decision, but then very quickly we schedule them if they don't quite get to

070that themselves. So, but thanks for all those. They're great questions. All right, so moving on to literature. Again, this is middle of the year um literature. I'm going to let that up there for a little bit. Um but again, these students, remember, we're semester. So, these students took the first benchmark in September and then the most recent one in January. And then I'll leave that up there for a minute if you have any questions. [snorts] [clears throat] Okay. And then finally, um this is pretty exciting, but uh if you look at our this SAS, what I forgot to put in there was biology. Um, this is our biology benchmark. Um, if you remember, we used CDT prior to this. That is a a test that looks similar. It's the same maker as uh Keystone, but

071we have recently um acquired uh the SAS biology um curriculum. So that is a highly rigorous um highly engaging much more um hgs standards. Gosh, I couldn't think of philosophy for a minute. Yes. Um driven uh curriculum. So SAS is just the maker and we use their benchmarks that are associated with that curriculum. So as you can see there um our data drastically um improved over the course of the semester. So, I'll let you look at that for a minute and then if you have any questions, please let me know. Okay. So, I want to thank you and I want to thank all of your support as always. Um, and I appreciate all the questions that you have and we're going to continue to work hard um at the high school. So, thanks for all

072that. >> And that is the um end of uh the middle of the year data presentation. We will be back um near the end of the year after um our students take the end of the year benchmarks and we will share out uh where that data stands at that point. If there are any other questions, we can certainly take those. You're certainly welcome to email me. We will uh post this um data presentation on the um nlsd.org website. So, if you want to reference it there, you can. And with some of the questions that you had earlier, we'll get some answers for those as well. >> Okay, that's all I have, Mr. Green. Thank you. >> All right, Miss Donald, >> thank you. Um, board members, I did email everybody yesterday the distribution of the

073single audit that we did receive from our [clears throat] auditor. Um, I do not have the bound books yet. They did not make it here by today. I'm hoping to have them in the next week or so. Um but um we are looking at March um to put the approval of that financial audit on uh the agenda for approval. Um [clears throat] my next thing is post issuance compliance. So now that I have my financial statement, um each year Pennsylvania school districts are required under federal security laws to submit annual financial disclosures on the electronic municipal market access website, which we like to call EMA. Uh, information published must include prior year's financial information such as the district annual financial report, the AFR, the single audit statement that we just received, and the school district's

074continuing disclosure tables, which are standardized summary tables, which include key financial and operating data required by the district's continuing disclosure agreements. So, the purpose of these filings is to give investors a clear year-to-year snapshot of the district's financial condition and ability to repay debt in a consistent and comparable format. I must also post the current year's approved budget as well. Failure to comply can result in disclosure non-compliance which may negatively affect the district's credit rating, investor confidence, and further borrowing cost and could expose the district to regulatory scrutiny or enforcement by the Securities Exchange Commission. The district must also publicly state that this requirement has been completed accurately and on time. At this time, I am reporting that the district submission for the 2425 year was completed today. Lastly, the 2627 governor's budget. So on

075Tuesday, Dr. uh Link, Dr. Stoker, Mrs. Dada, and I all gathered to watch the governor uh Josh Shapiro's state budget for the 2627 school year. The proposal continues investments in public education by advancing adequacy and equity through increased basic and special ed funding while strengthening student support services and school safety. It also maintains ready tolearn funding, expands mental health and safety initiatives through the PCCD, and continues tax equity funding to address longstanding disparities across Pennsylvania. The governor's proposed budget includes for Northern Lehi an increase in basic ed funding of $372,772, $76,287 in special ed. sets our ready tolearn block grant at $372,616. Includes an additional $25,992 and readyto-learn adequacy funding and $24,8 in tax equity funding. So again, that's roughly about $8 $900,000 in additional revenue to the district. These well not additional because the

076ready tolearn block grant was just slightly increased. um it resets the number. Um overall, we're probably close to $500,000 in additional new monies in the governor's budget. These figures are preliminary estimates and amounts may change as the state budget moves through the legislature process. So again, I am currently working on the 2627 budget. We will budget some of these increases in, but not to the max for fear that we don't get everything that the governor is promising us. That's all I have. If anybody has any questions. Yeah, I do have a question. Sure. So, you gave the those numbers. Are those numbers based off of what we got this year from the state? >> This is what he's proposing in addition that we're going to get >> compared to what we currently have now. Correct.

077>> So, because we got some extra this year, >> correct? >> So, then that will be additional. >> That's additional to what we already have this year. >> Correct. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. Hearing none, superintendent report. Dr. link is not here so we won't have that unless you have anything to say [clears throat] on your behalf. No, >> nothing additional. >> Okay. Thank you. An executive session was held at 6:15 this evening in the administration conference room. Uh we talked about student discipline, uh some legal items and some negotiation items. U she's pushing >> next. >> Oh, okay. That's coming up. All right. Thank you. Uh, I thought I missed something. [clears throat] Uh, okay. Moving on to personnel. If you go to item B, uh, Tracy Huffing,

078the effective date there should be March 23rd rather than March 30th. Uh, other than that, I don't know that there's any additions or corrections. Uh, I would just say we're losing some really, really, really good people here and and we're going to miss them in in our classrooms. So, uh, is there a motion to approve the personnel items? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Okay. Motion to second. Question or discussion. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos? No. And so ordered. Okay, we're going all the way over to policy. >> Uh, and I think someone wanted to comment on policy. If you like, please. >> Yes, that's me. You can come up if you want. You can stay there if you want. Wherever you're more comfortable. >> Okay, time's

079up. Sit down. That's it. >> Um, all right. My name is Katia Bender. Um, I live at 1067 Pineree Drive in Slington and I'm here to ask the board to make some considerations before passing the um district calendar for next school year. So, this school year was the first time in many years that I've noticed that we had an awful lot of random virtual or inservice or holidays um very much peppered throughout the year. So, that there was a very inconsistent amount of 5-day week stretches. In fact, we only had two stretches that were four weeks in length this school year and one fiveweek stretch. This does not include closures or virtual days for inclement weather. [snorts] I see in the calendar for this coming year that there will be two fiveweek stretches, but not

080a single four-week stretch. And mind you, five weeks is the maximum stretch. There's nothing longer than that. Um, children thrive on consistency and routine and constantly having them go to school for a 4 day week and then two 5 day weeks and then three 4 day weeks and then another 5 day week. Um, [clears throat] it creates a lot of interruption in their general routines. I realize that according to the school calendar, a virtual day is considered a school day, but everyone is also aware that children sleep much later on a virtual day. Assignments for Slington, for example, are not posted until 8:00 a.m., but we don't need to get dressed and have breakfast and leave before we begin those assignments. So, children can sleep a lot later. This is going to disrupt their regular

081routine. In next year's calendar, beginning from the beginning of November through the end of April, there is not a single stretch that is more than three weeks long of 5-day weeks. When we add into this the possibility for inclement weather, it becomes even less of a guarantee as we have seen this year. February and March, for example, have consistent areas where there is a virtual day or a holiday followed by one week of five-day followed by another week of 4day. In fact, we are currently in one this year and I see it coming up again next year. Our students had the virtual day on Friday. They will now go for another 4-day week this week, a 4-day week next week, and then we're suddenly back to five day weeks. I'm not suggesting that we remove

082days off or inservice days or virtual days that are scheduled. I am suggesting that we work on trying to combine these at the beginning or the end of a scheduled holiday break so that we aren't constantly switching the schedule. I also understand that there is only a certain amount of weeks that children can go to school and still be actively engaged and paying attention. five weeks seems like an acceptable amount of time, even four weeks, but the constant one week here and one week there is extremely disruptive to their schedule. Um, I also just wanted to point out that um, there are no early dismissal times listed at the end of the calendar. So, there are school start times and school end times. There are early dismissal days listed, but what those times for each

083building actually are are not there. and it would be extremely helpful to the community and parents if those were somewhere where they could be easily accessed. In addition, there's an inconsistency with the hours for Peter's Elementary School with the school handbook and the calendar. The school handbook states that dismissal begins at 3:10 p.m. at Peter's Elementary School, while the calendar states that dismissal is at 3:20. These are 10-minute differences that theoretically shouldn't make a big shouldn't [snorts] be a big deal. But when you consider that students are only getting 20 minutes of recess, yet we're ending the school day 10 minutes earlier than stated on the calendar, this seems kind of confusing. We [clears throat] could be adding those 20 minutes to their recess time to increase their ability to retain information throughout the school

084year instead of ending the school day early. or we should adjust the calendar to reflect the hours that they're actually attending. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Pender. Uh we had some discussion on that. I don't know if you heard it at the committee meeting. We went over the calendar in depth and uh I'll let Dr. Stoker uh respond if >> Sure. You had a lot in there and we appreciate we appreciate the feedback. Um just to to kind of hit on some of that. So students have to come for 180 days um uh or they have to hit the instructional hours and we have by contract our teachers have to be here for 190 days. Um we work in conjunction not just with families and faculty and all of the um contracts

085that we have to meet in our district but we also largely try to work within the LCTI community. Um so our calendars coincide with other school districts as well. Also, some of those professional development days that are in our calendar are on those particular days because um we want to make sure that LCTI is also open and can be um you know the most of the kids at the same time rather than one school closing and another school closing at different times. So, we do um base the calendar on a lot of that data and a lot of that input. Um so, we hear what you're saying. Um but just understand that uh you know there's a lot that comes into this and a lot of variables as well when we try to plan that

086out. So we appreciate the feedback um from from a parent perspective. Um but uh again you know there's a lot that goes into building that calendar. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh so we are at personnel >> policy >> I know >> can I question [laughter] regarding the calendar when she was talking about the 10-minute difference what is that about like the start time like what she was saying like the end time like is there what's going on with that? >> So when we do the building instructional hours that's completely based on instructional time. It does not include recess time. does not include transition times. So, it's based just on instructional hours that happen during the day. When we look at how many hours occur throughout the day, then we subtract for early dismissals and

087and things of that nature. But that um the numbers that you're seeing reflected on here, that's what that's based on. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? Move the policy. >> We have a motion to approve policy. Is there a second? second over here. >> Thank you. Any other discussion on policy? >> Yeah, I'd like to just say um I think it's great that we are doing the unified leadership club. The botney has been very successful. Um and I am thrilled to see that we are continuing that with this particular club. I think it's great. The student support has been awesome. Um and I think it's a a win for both different groups at Northern Lehigh. >> Thank you, Don. Any other discussion on hearing? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >>

088Oppos? Nope. And so ordered. Okay, we're moving to conferences. We have one conference. Is there a motion to approve that conference? >> So move. >> Second. Thank you. Any questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. No. And so ordered. Uh curriculum and instruction. Uh, we have two recommendations there. Is there a motion to approve curriculum and instruction? >> There's a motion down there. >> Yeah, >> I'm sorry. >> There's a motion down there. >> So, move. >> Yeah, I thought there was a motion, Mr. Fedora. Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. Thank you. [cough] Any questions on curriculum instruction? Hearing? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Oppos? No. >> And so ordered. I have nothing under all business. Anyone? I

089have nothing under new business. Uh, moving into financial. Uh, I I'll take a motion to approve financial and then I'll have my comments. >> Is there a motion to approve? Second. >> Was that Natalie? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> I just wanted to make a comment on the Lehigh Carbon Community College budget. And perhaps I should have done that before. Uh the sponsor share of the budget for about the seventh or eighth year in a row is staying exactly the same. Uh the budget consists of sponsors, student and and state allocation. Uh the sponsors has stayed the same. Uh the state unfortunately as Sherry said, they're giving more money. They have flatlined us again. They keep telling us we're doing a good job and they don't give us any more money. So, uh, but

090we got no more money from the state. Uh, the reason Northern Lehigh's, uh, numbers is up is because it's based on your student participation and, uh, so the more students you have on a percentage basis, the more of that participation, uh, district participation budget need to play. Uh, we have some more students going. So, that's why our our share is up this year, but the overall uh, participation is is the same number. So, uh, just wanted to make that. Uh, so we're looking at financial. Is there any other questions? We have a motion on that, correct? Yes. Yep. And a second. Any other questions on financial items? >> Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Oppos? No. >> Uh, I think next is legal expulsion hearing. Motion to approve

091the expulsion hearings. order. >> Second. >> Motion and a second. Uh once again, we can't have any public comment on that. So, all I can say is it it hurts, but all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose. Nope. >> And so ordered. Uh correspondence. Uh we got the Sllayton Library annual report. Uh I read through a lot of it. Seems like they're doing a lot of good things for the community. uh a lot of good people working there and and uh I hope they continue information. You have minutes of the uh Lehi Carbon Community College Board uh Lehi Intermediate 21 board and the LCTI joint operating meeting. Okay. Recognition of guests. Uh >> the same as >> two are the same and one is different. Okay. So, we'll start at the

092top. >> That's a definition. >> It just says It just says high school. Uh, is that >> Amanda? Hi everyone. My name is Amanda Mayor. I'm at 112 East Church Street. I don't like coming to these things. I really hate to bother these guys, but today at the high school, no heat, not a good thing. And these these kids were not in that school for an hour, 2 hours. They were there for 4 and 1/2 hours in 40ome degree temperatures. Not acceptable. I don't know who dropped the ball. I don't care who dropped the ball. When we had a water mane break, those kids were out by 9:00, 8:30, 9:00. Today, they were there till 11:30. My kid came home freezing. Most of these kids came home, their red cheeks, red fingers. They were in

093those temperatures for 4 and 1/2 hours. Yes, maybe downstairs that temperature was coming up, but those classes upstairs were still 47°. It's like being in a refrigerator all day long. And I'm sorry, but that's really truly unacceptable. And I don't I hope that it doesn't happen again. And I hope tomorrow whatever we was the problem, we fixed it. But if it's not, I hope at a respectable time that our children are allowed to stay home. We have a reason for all the electronics nowadays that we have can do a virtual day. Why it wasn't called earlier, I don't know. But even 47°, we have all these campuses and you want to do a oneman campus. Why weren't those kids transported to the middle school or the elementary school where the heat was working or maybe

094was wasn't working? I think that middle school still under at right around hovering right around 60. What is the explanation of why our children have to endure a cold element all day in the morning for 4 and 1/2 hours? Please tell me cuz that's not acceptable. And if you think it is, that's a problem. Why were they had to endure that till 11:30? Why were they not sent home? Peters, they're done. Their their buses are done at 9:00. Why do we still wait? Oh, wait. We had to wait for a meeting at 10:30. While in a warm building, they're having a warm meeting while our kids are still in at the high school at 11:30 trying to figure out where buses are. I'm sorry, 11:00. Right around 11:00 is when they were let go. It's

095not acceptable. And I'm hoping that we can come up with a better plan. And I'm hoping that we can figure out if the heat's going to work tomorrow. And if it's not, don't send our kids. Don't let them sit there again. It's not fair. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, is it Cassie? >> Do I have to go up there? >> You can stay there if you want. Wherever you're more comfortable. >> Just don't stand out of the hall cuz we won't hear you. So, you know, I'm sorry. >> Just to piggy back off Amanda. Um, I don't want to go into everything she said cuz that was a lot of my points. However, when we were made aware and parents called, I was one of those parents initially relied to that there wasn't a

096heating issue. Um, secondly, if we opted to pick our children up, we were told it was going to be an unexcused absence because there wasn't a reasonable cause to pick our children up. Um, I think that's unacceptable. How are we going to have like I was actually leaving to go get my daughter at that point after being lied and then I said I have pictures of the classroom being 46° and that was still at like 10 something. um and told that they would get an unexcused absence, unverified whatever it is, even though they were there. Um and then as I was leaving work to come get my child, I was told that they were get we got the [clears throat] email from Dr. Molly. So, I just want to know why were we lied to?

097Why wasn't there open communication? We get roocalls, texts, emails for everything else. Um I think parents should have been notified. I understand and I was given the reasoning on the phone this morning that it's because staff had just found out 15 minutes before students got there. I don't know. I don't know what I want, but I just want it to be known it's unacceptable. We should never have been lied to either. >> Thank you. >> Uh high school. High school. High School, Mr. King. >> So, um, just to piggy back off of what everybody else has already said about the high school, there's no way somebody just walked in this building or the high school building 15 minutes before it opened and realized the temperatures were cold. There had to be if somebody was in

098that building at least an hour early. I don't know what explanation was given. There's no reason that heat should have been that low. If somebody sat there and said, "We turned the heat down to save money over the weekend." That's absolutely ridiculous. We knew what temperature it was going to be outside for a week in advance of what was going to happen. If somebody sat there and said, "Well, we turn the heat off on Friday when we leave." And that's just ridiculous because you were asking for pipes to freeze at that point. So, whoever dropped the ball needs to be held accountable for these things. This is the third school that has had heating issues this this uh school year. I don't know what is going on with our building and grounds maintenance teams. The

099lack of plowing that happens around here. The lack of maintenance that happens around here. You guys are asking for tax increases for things and you can't even properly maintain the buildings that we have. You're spending all kinds of money putting logos on buildings. You want to authorize us to put a logo on the outside of the high school. That is unacceptable for you guys to even ask the community for a single dollar more when you can't even manage to keep the heat on in the buildings that we already have. The board needs to take the responsibility to hold the people accountable. If this is one person that's dropping the ball, that person needs to be reprimanded. That person needs to be let go. They don't know how to do their job. I don't know what

100it is. Decisions need to be made. The board needs to take control of the authority that they have and fire this person. Two weeks ago when it snowed, I came up here to this parking lot to see what the reason was for why we were having a virtual day again. Washington Township was completely plowed. Looked perfect. I would common sense sit there and say, "Well, maybe they didn't plow the back roads yet. It was this high school parking lot. No one was in the parking lot at 4:30 in the afternoon. Nobody was plowing it. It was halfway covered with snow still." Those are the things that the community is outraged about. Things need to change. You guys cannot ask us for more money when you cannot properly maintain what we have. Thank you. >> Thank

101you, sir. Uh, I see no one else on high school, but I have someone who wants to talk about busting. [snorts] >> So, I watched the committee meeting uh last week and it was proposed to do the pendot study. Do we have any news about that? >> We don't at this point. We're still doing factf finding and we expect to be able to bring that back in March either to a committee or >> in March >> to the committee meeting in March for building. >> Right. So I actually asked in September what we're going to do about this cuz my daughter is in the middle school and she has to walk 1.9 miles. So there's no resolution. He keeps bringing up $400,000 [clears throat] >> which is just a fake number. Half of the buses

102are empty. not empty, but they're not full. So, do you really feel, Mr. Green, that my daughter should be walking to school from Walnapperport, 1.9 miles away in this weather? >> Uh, you're you're asking me. I don't know if that's my decision to make. [snorts] >> You laugh every single time. >> I'm I'm not I'm not the one making the decision. All I can say from my perspective is is students even from my class way back when have been walking from Walnut the two point the two miles uh we're taking a look at it >> over I can can I speak please I don't believe personally that this board is willing to commit $400,000 >> there it's not $400,000 there that's the fake number that you keep bringing up over and over again it's not

103$400,000 >> did you did you hear the conversation from the bus people saying it would take x number of buses at x number of dollars and that's about what it was. >> But you're also having buses go half empty that go right past my daughter's residence. >> Okay. Uh let me let me just again put some of these things to rest please. When we assign buses, okay, they assign x number of students to that bus. All right. You cannot then just put other students on that bus who are not assigned to that. It doesn't work that way. If you have x number of students and every seat's full and your daughter needs a seat, I'm sorry, but you can't just take your daughter and put her on that bus. If you allow that to happen,

104could you imagine the the calamity that could occur? You don't know who's on what bus or where they are. It's it's it's not legal. >> I'm not asking for that. We can set it up. We can set it up that she gets on a a bus every day. >> But the bus was already full. >> No, it's not. I I I will take a picture tomorrow. It is not full. >> Okay. You're talking riding. I'm talking assigned seats. They're two different things. I don't want to argue with SU with you about this. We're taking a look at it. We're we're preparing to do the study and we'll know [snorts] what the results are. >> So, we are going to do the study or we preparing to do the study. >> We're looking at doing the

105study. We have not made a decision on that. The board has not taken a vote on doing the study at this point in time. When will that happen? >> Uh, possibly at >> March committee. We would invite >> at the at the March board meeting >> and the date >> it's the first Monday of the month in March. >> The date, please. >> Second Monday. >> Thank you. >> I appreciate second Monday. >> The committee meeting. >> Committee is the second. The board is the 90 >> on the website. >> What? >> The meeting on the website. >> That's the last person that's on. Uh, no one else has signed up at this point in time for discussion. So, if there's no other business to be attended, >> would like to say something for your

106concern. We just found out about the request for the study last week. >> That's not true at all. >> That I'm saying I have I did not know about it. I just came on to the board [clears throat] last week and so we only had that little bit of time to try to discuss what it was that you were looking for. We have to then contact Penn. >> We've been trying since September. >> And I I completely understand your frustration because if my kid had to walk, I would be upset, too. Um, but just know that we we are now working on getting the information that we need to do to get to PEND dot to see about getting the study done. It's not PennDOT doesn't move. You know, as DMV stuff, they don't say

107that. And also, if I may add one more thing, um, there are it's not just a $400,000 thing. There is money that will be allotted to Northern Lehi if that pendot study comes back. I've done my research. There's plenty of money that will come to the district. So, it's not just coming out of the taxpayers's dollars, which also I think we should be able to give to our community, my daughter, all the kids that are walking. We're we're taxpayers. I mean, it's my child's safety. It's all this children's safety. And I just I feel like you don't understand that, Mr. Green. >> I I I I do understand it. I do understand it. I'm I'm just telling you what the dilemma is, the finances of the district, [snorts] what we have to spend. I invite

108you, please, to come back during budget discussions and see if anyone is willing to spend any more dollars on doing that. At at that point, we'll have the final decision. It would be nice and easy for me to say, "Oh, yes, let's bust your daughter." But I don't know where the money is going to come from. And and that's the first thing that we have to do. >> And I understand that, but you also at the committee meeting, you said that we don't want to lose any custodians. We don't >> I I don't want [snorts] to lose any custodians either. However, I don't want to lose my daughter. >> And that's it. I'm done. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Uh >> any other discussion? Yes. >> Dr. Stoker, that to ease her concern

109her child will be excused, right? That left earlier by the >> Do you want me to respond to [snorts] the high school situation? >> Uh sure. So, um, to give you some information on the high school situation that occurred today, um, we had a failure in one of our electronic systems that would notify us of any loss of heat. Uh, when we had our maintenance, uh, department come in and when they not when they were aware that there was a heating loss, um, they worked on the valve that was stuck, they fixed that. Um they turned the systems up to blow at 120 degrees to try to get the heat up as quickly as possible. It was rising um and then it just plateaued because of the cold weather that was outside. Our maintenance department

110at that point um readjusted. They closed the dampers for the outside air coming in and did some extra things that they could do to try to make the heat come up faster. So, we were getting incremental um gains in heat throughout the morning and then it just kind of plateaued at that point. That's when the decision was made to um send students home. Um and that uh dismissal occurred at 11:15 in the morning. Um and students will be excused. So, if students were taken out earlier than that, um they were excused. I believe Dr. Bali spoke to some parents specifically as they were picking up their children and notified them that you know that this would not be an unexcused absence. Uh so to speak to that that that will be excused. We are at

111this point um monitoring the heat uh making sure that the systems are working properly. Uh we're checking this evening. We're going to be up early tomorrow morning and making a decision about um if there's heat at the high school and what that looks like for tomorrow so that everybody that would be coming into the buildings would be in a safe and uh you know warm environment. Um so more to come on that as we keep uh monitoring that this evening and then into the early morning tomorrow. >> I just have a question and I understand your maintenance crew is working on it. Yes. But in the same aspect, why are my why are our children having to endure that while it rises slowly? It's negative numbers outside. It should have they should have been sent

112home period. They shouldn't have to endure while it slowly gradually gets to a temperature. That's not fair to them. They 47°. Come on. Let me turn Let me turn the air conditioning on in winter time in your office at 47° and tell me how you would feel for 4 and 1/2 hours. Why was this decision made differently than what happened last week at the middle school? >> Are we continuing to take comments from the uh >> I I think recognition against guest is over. I'm sorry I hate to do this, >> but there is there are legal we are finished with recognition at this point and we want to know why that decision was made. >> At this point, we are finished with recognition of guests. >> We you had an opportunity to speak. We

113listened to what you had to say and and we're past that part on on on the agenda. So, it's time for adjournment. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So, can wait, hang on. I have one more question. >> Okay. >> Um, for the I guess I don't always understand, but there is a school code that the the building has to be at a certain temperature, Pennsylvania school. Um, [snorts] so they they do have a point of I guess I guess they need to understand of um there was a issue with the buses and getting buses from one school back over here and that's what the 11:15 problem was getting the kids out of school. So yes, it was 47°. Whoever lied to you, I'm sorry that that happened. >> The buses should have never

114even been sent out. Somebody walked into this building and saw it 47° in the morning. They should have turned around and said, "We got to have a virtual day." >> Come on, Mr. King. I I I've asked you before. I I've asked you before last week. >> Public comment is over. I've asked you before and and I'm going to ask you again. Public comment is over. Is someone on the board wants to make a comment? >> Is someone on the board, sir? >> What's that? >> I had made a motion to adjourn. >> We have a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? >> Yeah. >> Is there a second? >> Okay. There is no second. So, uh, I guess we're not going to >> We don't need a second to adjurnn as long as

115you're you're right. Okay. All those in favor journing signify by saying I. >> I oppose. No. >> And so ordered. The meeting is adjourned. conditioning for the board members tomorrow morning 47. with everybody.