NLSD School Board Meeting - May 12, 2025

001I pledge algiance to 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. I'd like to uh call your attention to the civility and decorum at the top of the uh agenda and also like to remind everyone that this meeting is being recorded and uh being broadcast live. May we have uh roll call please? Certainly. Mr. Chrisman here, Mr. Fedorcha here. Miss France here. Miss here. Mr. Kern here. Miss Cult here. Miss Ter here. Miss Williams here. Mr. Green here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Okay. Uh members of the public, uh you can comment on agenda items when we get there. Please, please, there signup papers in the rear. If you want to comment on agenda item,

002please sign your name on that and let us know what item you want to comment on that's on the agenda and we can go from there. If you just want to comment in general, that'll happen at the end of the meeting. Okay. Uh you've all received copies of the minutes. Is there a motion to approve those minutes? So move. Motion. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion or questions? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. No. And so ordered. Uh special board report. Missku. Thank you, Mr. Green. Uh, we did have our uh meeting last month and uh we had a very nice event. It was our spring fling event. So, they um thanked the board members for being there and continuing to support the IU and their

003programs. We then uh went to our meeting where they did a special presentation on um what they say is it's called CNI or curriculum and instruction and what those student programs are. Um things like our math 24 items coding or um the STEM connects camp reading Olympics just to name a few. Um so they kind of service all of those at the IU foster them for our students. uh across the 14 districts that the carbon and leh high intermediate units um service. Uh so it really fosters um engagement of our students. There was an event through the journalism program. So student journalism summit which was the first time that it was held again. There was a roughly about 200 students um across the districts that attended that were able to collaborate with each other on

004journalism type events. One of the new items that came out and for some of us who knew it before it did go away prior to COVID but uh they did bring it back. Uh it's student forum. So that is for the leadership uh aspect of um the events. So leadership and collaboration skills that the that they work through. There were currently nine districts involved with it that just brought it back. Northwestern Lehi was one of them. and uh they started to prepare a quarterly meeting that the students would lead and develop and reach out to different areas to get some information along with career interest and assessments going forward. They are going to reach out to all the school districts. So hopefully our students will be able to attend moving forward. Um, we also wanted

005just to mention that the only mandated budget by Pennsylvania uh statute by a board action um is our general operating budget for the IU. I am happy to say that all of our districts voted and there was a weighted vote of a 531 yes and zero nos for our general operating budget. So, we're thankful to our board here um as well as the rest of the boards in the IU to get that approved for uh the 2526 school year. And, uh we also did approve our 2526 CLIU calendar. So, you're welcome to go out into the website to take a look at those. Um there are some videos that were posted, so feel free on cliu.org. uh some nice things to see about um our students here as well as other districts and what we're

006able to collaborate with by having our connection with the IU board. Uh we do have our next meeting next week. It is at the IU building down in Schneckville. Uh meeting start at 6:30. So you're welcome to join if you wish. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Fcher. And thank you. uh we passed our uh PSPC which is our associate staff's contract for 5 years. We also are having our surplus sale in June. We are all I'm very happy and proud to say because this is a a new club, a new program, but also I think it's a very special program because it's the future teacher program and we're doing that at LCTI right now uh to encourage our students and any student to go into the education profession. They won the education rising chapter

007award. So it's that's very it's much an honor for them. Another honor is that 88% of our students have passed the national certifications which is called the NATI for their trade area and that is very high and we're very proud to have that happen. It's 88%. We are we also updated our strategic plan and our senior awards which is our graduation night is May 29th 6:30 at the PPL center. That's all I have Mr. President. Thank you Mr. Georgia Snder. Anything this evening? I have nothing tonight. Okay. Um, LRYC, a couple of things. Attendance still remains down, uh, despite all kinds of advertising, working, etc. And we had kind of an interesting scenario about a month or so ago. The state police came onto campus and and they went around and they did safety checks

008and uh, as a result of that, uh, they're recommending putting in more cameras. They're recommending replacing the wiring on some of the cameras that weren't real good because there were just some safety items that were necessary there. Uh, and it's not cheap. It's like $1.2 million for safety and security. And, uh, the board approved that. So, we're going to move forward with it. And that's all I have. Uh, committee reports. You all have copies of those. Here it is. Good evening, everyone. It's great to see you all again. Olivia and I have some end of year stuff to cover and that are occurring at the high school this month. To start, algebra keystones will be on Tuesday the 13th. Literature Keystones will be on Thursday the 15th and biology keystones will be on Tuesday the

00920th. Students will be attending prep sess have been attending prep sessions to prepare for these keystones over the last several weeks. The cast and crew of Big Fish have been nominated for three Freddy Awards with an individual nomination for Adriana Danny Luck for outstanding solo performance. Best of luck to all nominees. Student council will be lending a helping hand to students and teachers during their elementary a day on Tuesday the 27th. Senior Gage Testor and Jonathan Urkinger have received the Elmore Elmer El Elmore Gates Enterprise Award for an outstanding senior career in technical education at LSC. They will be recognized as a ceremony for this award on May 22nd. Like Mr. Fedora said, LCTI senior recognition night will be held at the PPL Center on May 29th at 6:30. Freshman orientation is June 3rd. Current

010eighth graders will be coming to the high school during the school day, cycling through stations that will explain high school expectations, lunch and learn, as well as any questions that they might have about this transition. That's all I have for tonight and thank you very much. Thank you. Hello. I'll be finishing up some of more announcements and then I'll also be covering the sports report. Final seniors finals will be on Thursday the 29th and Friday the 30th. Seniors last day is Monday the 27th as well as senior awards night later that night in the high school auditorium. This year's senior class is going to Kalahari on Tuesday the 22nd. This parade of seniors will take place on June 4th. Baseball finished their season 7 and 13. Congratulations to all the boy baseball players on their

011season. Softball will continue as they will compete in district 11 3A semi-finals on May 22nd. Senior night for baseball and softball was on May 8th. Good luck to all senior players on their future plans. For track and field, there were five medalists. Caitlyn Brothel, who won bronze for long jump and became a Colonial League champion for her 800 meter run. Anna Triss won bronze for discus and javelin. And then Landon Clem also won bronze for discus. Track disc districts for track and field are this Tuesday and Wednesday at Whiteall. Spring Sports Award night will be held on Monday, May 19th, starting at 6 PM in the high school auditorium. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much both of you. Any questions for student reps? Are you still pass? You ready?

012No report. No report. Good. I mean, you know what I mean. Dr. Stoker. Uh Dr. Stoker was not able to join us. I didn't see her there this evening. So yeah. Okay. Uh Miss Malarus, you're up. Actually, uh I'm going to request a variance in the order tonight. If we could, I would like to acknowledge one of our student representatives now. Sure. And then uh excuse both of them before we go deeper into the business. Um, so this evening I would like to thank and recognize the service to the school board and to the school district for from our senior representative, Miss Jayla Cook. So this is Jayla's second year as serving as a student representative to the school board, which means that fortunately for her, she's going to go on and start her life

013after high school. Unfortunately for us, we're not going to have her at our meetings any longer. So Jayla, we are immensely proud to acknowledge the remarkable service and leadership of Jayla Cook to the Northern Lehigh School District and its board. Jayla has demonstrated exceptional dedication, resilience, and commitment to her peers in a broader community through her role as a student representative to our school board. First as a junior representative and now as our senior representative. Since kindergarten, Jayla has consistently pursued academic excellence, achieving honor role, high honors, or placement on the principal's list nearly every single marking period that she has been a student with us since kindergarten. Her rigorous academic journey includes honors, advanced placement courses, and dual enrollment courses where she has excelled with distinction. Despite a demanding schedule, Jayla has embraced numerous

014leadership roles, proving her capacity for effective time management and strong organizational skills. In addition to her academic pursuits, Jayla has been a trusted advocate for her classmates, ensuring their voices are heard in schoolboard decisions that impact academics, athletics, and the arts. Her empathetic leadership style and commitment to service have left an indelible mark on our school community. Beyond her role on the board, Jayla has served in various leadership capacities, including Northern Lehigh Northern Lehigh High School Student Council as committee secretary, National Honor Society as a representative, Students Against Destructive Decisions or SAD as treasurer during her sophomore year, and Northern Lehigh High School Girls Soccer Team as a manager also during her sophomore year. One of her teachers, Mrs. Amy Shunk, who is also the student council adviser, shared with us the following about Jayla.

015Throughout her time on the student council, Jayla has consistently demonstrated reliability, initiative, and leadership. She is not only someone who shows up, she actively contributes, organizes, and most importantly leads. I have full confidence in her ability to mentor younger students and serve as a positive role model for her peers. When leadership is needed, Jayla is always among the first I turn to. Moreover, Jayla's dedication extends beyond the school environment as she successfully maintains a part-time job at a local business while balancing her academic and leadership responsibilities. Her resilience and work ethic are a testament to her drive and determination. Jayla Cook's commitment to education, leadership, and community service has not only distinguished her as an exceptional student, but as a leader who inspires others. We are deeply grateful for her contributions to the Northern Lehigh

016School District and confident that her legacy of service and achievement will continue to inspire future students. Please join us in recognizing and celebrating Jayla Cook for her outstanding service to our school district and her unwavering commitment to excellence. Jayla, please stand. So, Jayla, thank you so much. Um, I could have gone on another two or three pages there. Uh, I would like to present to you this evening the traditional uh senior representative clock engraved with your name on it. So, hopefully you will have this placed in your dorm room soon. any decisions yet? LSU. Going to LSU. Congratulations. So, um, this evening I would like to present you with the clock and it says in recognition of student representative service to the Northern Lee High School board, Jayla Cook. Thank you so much. Thank you

017so much. Thank you. I'm going to miss you. Oh, I'm going to miss all of you. I like thank you so much for affording me this opportunity to give my you know peers like a voice and I really appreciate that. Thank you. And you're leaving the school board in good hands with Olivia who will be our senior representative next year. [Applause] Thanks again. And again, uh, ladies, thank you for the report this evening. You can excuse yourself, but you're more than welcome to stay if you would like. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Anything else you want to do? Um, no. I uh thank you for allowing that to occur at that moment and we will transition back to the business manager report. [Applause] Is it the same as this cherry? So give me one second

018here as we get reconnected. Just got to wait for the light to turn green. There you go. Okay. Okay. Good evening everyone. Tonight we're going to do our next installation of the budget presentation for the proposed final budget for the 2526 school year and district long-term planning. This will uh look very familiar to you if you've been attending or following along online. Uh so many of the slides are the same. Um and that being said, uh I will uh first begin with the district profile. This slide you have seen before. This has not changed. We are still currently anticipating about 115 to 125 students for our incoming kindergarten class. As of the end of last week, we had 89 kindergarten students fully registered. The employee profile slide has also not changed. Uh we are anticipating

019267 employees next school year. This is inclusive of one additional special education teacher for Slington Elementary School, one PAR educator at Peters Elementary School and one pareducator at Slington Elementary School. This slide is a trend of our fund balance and where we currently ended the June uh 30th, 2024 school year. We ended with $18 million uh just over $18 million in our fund balance, anticipating this year adding roughly about $725 to $750,000 back into our fund balance. Okay. The next few slides will address recommendations for each of our schools. Peters Elementary School. We're recommending to transfer a second grade teacher to the third grade due to class size. That rising third grade class is one of our larger classes in the school district. We're also recommending to add a PAR educator position funded through the

020general fund to prioritize first grade students needs and assign pareducators to support the reading and math intervention needs of students at risk in those subjects. Slington Elementary School, we are recommending to add one special education teacher uh fund it through reintegration of outplace students. So soon as we bring back two or three uh outplace students that would go into this newly um created classroom, the offset of paying for them to go out of district would cover the cost of the teacher inhouse. And additionally uh we'll avoid the cost of having to outplace two rising third graders. also looking to add one para educator position funded through savings of a reintegrated outplace student who has a onetoone para educator currently when we hire that par educator directly for our classroom it will be less expensive than

021our current cost at the middle school recommended action is to repurpose a northern Lehigh high school business technology education position vacancy due to a retirement at the end of this school year and uh repurpose that into a new secondary music position to be shared with Northern Lehigh High School. Also to consider building a sixth grade wing wing on the middle school and relocating sixth grade to Northern Lehigh Middle School. Recommended action for Northern Lehigh High School is to repurpose that business technology education position vacancy due to retirement to a new secondary music position to be shared with the middle school. This slide we did share on uh Monday, last Monday evening at the finance committee meeting. It is the proposed bond budget impact. So currently we have outstanding bonds that are in the amount of

022$18,785,000. We have yearly payments of $2 million a year and those current bonds will end June 2037 with the proposed uh principal bond payment of $50 million going for uh the consideration of the common campus. Um the bond would be adding $500,000 increase over the next 5 years beginning in the 2526 school year and ending in 2930. This represents a 3.5% increase over the next five years beginning with the 2526 school year. This builds incrementally the $500,000 into the uh bond payments to cap out over the five years and an additional $2.5 million in fund balance which means at the I means not fund balance in bond payments. And then um our annual bond payment beginning in the 2030 to 2055 school year will be $4.5 million each year for until the 2055 school year.

023Real estate tax collection rates 94.75. This has been uh our collection rate over the last um four to five years. uh 3.5% proposed final tax increase is what was approved at the April board meeting, which will give us an additional $669,000 in tax revenue. The rest of the uh revenues for federal state revenues have not changed in our budget at this point in time because we do not have a state budget yet and we have not heard from federal revenues. Okay. Here on this slide, I would like to focus on um some kind of one-time cost that would come out of fund balance or through other uh budgets uh budget streams such as grants. So really here on this slide, we're looking at the Northern Lehigh Middle School furniture replacement down through and including Northern

024Lehigh Middle School water softener and filtration in this building. The ones closer to the bottom half of this slide uh would be for the 26 27 2728 school years. And then on this slide it is potential um expenditures out through the year 2032 2033. These slides have not changed since the last presentation. Again, uh we're very appreciative of the Northern Lehigh Education Foundation who has committed to cover the cost of the summer elementary steam camp at a cost of $30,000. We will need to make or administration will seek direction this evening from the school board on whether they want to include the Open Horizons summer camp this school year uh at a cost of $48,696. [Applause] So this slide has been the same that has been projected um at the April board meeting um since

025the April board meeting I'm sorry 3.5% was what was included in the tax increase. So this was the slide that was actually shared on last Monday night at our finance committee meeting. So we now see that we are at a budget shortfall of 860,292 because there is a 3.1 3.5% tax increase built into the local revenues. Um our expenditures have not changed um since the original budget presentation in April. So the tenative big picture is we have um almost $43 million in expenditures. Revenues with the uh 3.5% tax increase is 41 million. Um our revenues are we are then recommending to use fund balance for those one-time purchases that Dr. Link talked about. um along with Perser's increase in healthc care increases and uh $200,000 toward bond payments being that we would use a million82,000

026out of our fund balance. So our budget shortfall is still $860,000. Again, that does include $500,000 for an additional bond payment depending upon what the board decides to do. Um, we could either keep the budget the same and um use fund balance to shorten that gap or uh we could remove that fun or the um common [Applause] canvas real estate tax increases. I'm just going to leave this slide up here. We shared this last um Monday evening at the finance committee meeting. These are where the preliminary budgets were passed in these years. And this is where the final budget tax increase was over the last uh five years, six years. And then again impact on property owners. Um we have a 3.5% increase which is 669,000 in additional revenues. Lehigh County. Um, a median assessed

027home valued is 151850. At the 3.5 uh% tax increase, it would be $134 a year. That's not a monthly cost. It would be $134 a year, $11.16 a month, $2.58 a week, or 37 a day for 3.5% increase in Lehigh County on a median assessed home value. In Northampton County, 46,200 is their median assessed value, which is 123 thou $123 a year increase. That is $10.25 25 cents a month, 2.37 a week or 34 cents a day. Value of a current mill in Northern Lehi is $670,000. And then Homestead Farmstead relief. So we have um Homestead Farmstead, we received an additional $218,000 again this year in Homestead Farmstead relief. So you in the box to the right you can see that the 23 24 school year all taxpayers that qualified applied and qualified for homestead

028received $354 a year off of their real estate tax bill. Last year during the 2425 school year or this current school year it was $427. Next year for the 2526 those rates have been set. We do have the list of our homestead farmstead properties and we do also know that dollar amount that we are receiving from the state. So every taxpayer that is qualified and has applied will receive $500 off of their tax bills which is an increase of 70 almost $73 from what they received last year. Okay. So administrative recommendations and also this evening administration will be seeking direction from the school board. administration is recommend recommending the utilization for fund balance for one-time purchases. Those are that table slide furniture down through um a water uh softener filtration system here. Uh debt service

029payment and the cost forers and healthc care increases pass a 3.5% tax increase in conjunction with utilization of fund balance to close the gap in addition to generating some revenue for upcoming years for possible construction or capital improvements. 3.5% includes $500,000 for a new bond payment for a common campus if the school board decides to go that direction. Additional uh addition of a special education teacher at Slington Elementary School to open an emotional support classroom and reintegrate outplace students. Addition of a new power educator at PEES and SCES, Peters Elementary School and Sington Elementary School. planning to extend the Northern Lehigh High School flooring project. So, all floors are replaced over the next three years. $270,000 in the 2526 budget has been included as part of the one-time purchases. and then to discontinue the open

030horizon summer camp and instead redirect those dollars that would have gone to the summer camp for two additional par educators uh working 180 school days. One for Peter Elementary School and one for Slington Elementary School. So as far as PAR educators go, administration is recommending two additional for Peters and two additional for Slington Elementary School. So now uh we will open it up to questions and comments from school board members. After uh they are done, we will then go to public comment on these topics and then administration will go back to the school board members to try to seek direction as to what include what we should include for the final budget in um June knowing that nothing is final until the board votes on a final budget in June. So, at this time, I'd

031open it up to questions uh from the school board members. Dr. Link, how many students are in that Horizon's program, the summer program? How many students? Approximately 70 is uh what we would be looking for. I'll looked to Mr. Pine to confirm that. Yeah, about 70 average. Okay. As far as the um the flooring, the 270,000 um my understanding that's a grant. So the 270,000 is 25% of the total cost of the project. The other 75% comes from a grant um which Mr. Man successfully applied for. Uh so that's um you know close to $800,000. I forget Mr. Man. Uh where we at? Uh yeah, about $800,000 of grant money. So it's it's unlikely that we will receive that grant money again. Uh so administration is strongly urging the school board to include that in

032this year's budget and then continue to plan so we can do the parts of the high school floor that are not covered by the grant next summer and then the following summer until all the floors are completed at the high school. Yeah, I like that it is a grant and that we are, you know, being able to utilize that grant and only pay that 270,000. So, I like that one a lot. Dr. We talked about um over the next two years finishing the high school floor. Is there a benefit to doing the whole thing at one time instead of extending it? Uh so we we tried to consider or try to kind of see see um logistically how we could do that. Uh there's just not enough time in the summer to get it all

033done because the first phase of that uh which is why we were able to be awarded the grant is to remove the mastic under the tiles which contains asbestous um which is not a health issue right now until it's disturbed. But once you start to disturb it, you have to shut down the building and do ongoing air monitoring as the employ as the um contractors are in there. We we just couldn't do it all in one summer. So, we're recommending for um logistics and budgeting reasons to spread it out over three summers. Okay. Thanks. I just hope it was a better deal if we did it all at one time. That's that's why I was asking. Thank you. You're welcome. I would like another clarification on um the utilization of the fund balance for onetime

034purchases. I understand you guys are saying uh 1 million80 something um on that list of the long-term stuff. Is that like including everything or because some of the stuff doesn't really have a number. It's just in researching phase. Would those be items to be considered so that number could change or the um stadium press box is researching and then also the security camera upgrades, right? So, some of those would not be addressed in the upcoming okay um budget year. They're they're a few years out. Um so, some of those, you know, we have to, you know, kind of adjust for inflation, go out and get new quotes as we get closer to doing those projects. Uh but the ones for the 25 26 school year um those are those are very close to what it's

035actually going to be. I there's just some things on this list that I think are more priority versus some other items that I would feel like aren't so much priority. So, I'm kind of questioning like, do we need to do all of it or can we just maybe pick and choose some things that would be beneficial at this time? Are you indicating all of it of the 2526 school year or all of it of the two pages? Um, for my all of this in the 2526 school year with a total amount of 1,82. There's six of them. There's six of them. It's only 460,000. Thank you. The rest are just Gotcha. Those are balanced. Okay, you're right. Were proposed on the books for future and then the additional monies just let you know is the

036pieers healthcare increase and the bond the $200,000 for bond payment. So that's how you get to the million82. I have a question above that list as well. The uh water softener and the filtration. I thought that was something that needed to be done on all three of these buildings, but the middle school is the only one that's on this list. So, they will appear in future iterations. Right now, we want to address address the um this building in particular because it's actually discoloring the water. Um, and nobody appreciates the students, the employees when the water comes out and it has that brownish tint to it. So, we want to address that one right away. I I would highly recommend to the school board if you decide to not go in the direction of a common

037campus, then we consider putting the other two buildings in here for the upcoming school year. But as of now, the other two buildings, they're not showing discolored water. Is that true? Is that correct? Um, one more clarification on that water softener. Um, weren't we supposed to be doing the water softener for the high school because of the pipes being the way they were and the flooding that occurred the water softener were to help that? Yeah. So, the first thing we would like to do at the high school, and we're looking to do this as a summer project with our internal maintenance team, is to put a um I don't know the technical term of it, uh but a valve in there that first decreases the water pressure going into the building. That's the first thing

038that we want to do. Is that something that we are considering doing in this budget year? Yeah. And it's not because we're doing it with our own uh maintenance people. Yeah, it would. and the the cost of the parts is not significant. We can actually absorb it in this year's budget. Um that's something we can move on uh this summer. Um I'd like to just bring up one other thing about water. Um so the architect when they did the feasibility study, they had in red domestic water system replacement for the middle school. So we are not looking at doing that and it's not necessary. Is that the determination? If so, if we were to do that, ex certainly if we were to put an addition on the building, we're going to want to really look

039at the entire water system in here. Um, but for now, what we want to prioritize is a water filtration uh and water softener. Okay. So, at the current time, if we don't add on, we're okay without doing that um system replacement. Correct. The first step would be the water softener and the filtration. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. So, um, says we can do questions or comments, right? So, it doesn't have to be necessarily a question. Yeah. Okay. So, I'll address the elephant in the room. Um, the common campus. Um, I don't necessarily have a question. I just want to make a comment just to throw it out there at this point. Um, with the information that we've been getting and the feedback that we've been getting, I personally am not in favor of

040it for multiple reasons. [Applause] Um, one one reason actually uh was brought up uh maybe two meetings ago. So maybe not this year, next year, probably even in 20 years from now, but eventually we're going to be considering, you know, a school may need to be replaced. If we get rid of Peters, we're going to be landlocked right here. We got nowhere else to go. Um that's number one. Number two, um the $100 million price tag, our residents, our homeowners, they just can't afford it. And I think uh most of us or at least all of us, you know, being elected, I know when I personally ran, I ran on fiscally responsibility. And I don't know if I can pass that on to the homeowners knowing that. Um I personally think we're better off investing

041that money into our students, into our education. I know standardized testing is a catch 22. I know we all don't love it, but unfortunately some of that is how we are funded by the state. So, if we're going to be investing in our kids, let's give them a better education and not just a shiny new building. [Applause] I would also have to agree with um Chad on this. um not in favor of this big project, at least not at this time. Um I also have, you know, thought about some of the situations where these Peter's kids are they are, you know, a little farther away from the, you know, others. But in a sense, that's a good thing. These kids are, you know, allowed to be young kids and not exposed to the teenagers and

042all the things that are going on in this world today. We have enough of that on social media. So therefore, I think we need to keep these kids youth as long as we can. Um I also think that um putting them all in one campus could also be a detriment should there be a safety issue that should occur. Um they're all in one building and not separated. Um at least right now they're separated. Um, I have many other reasons why I am not in agreement with this, but I'm not going to waste everybody's time right now. Um, Chad pretty much said most of it. So, [Applause] I I have a question on on the same thing and a comment. Uh first of all I I do want to say from an educational uh perspective the

043plans is is wonderful. It has so many educational values to the plan. I realize the cost is is another issue. So you're taking one of saying we really should look at something educationally for our students but we also have to look at the cost. What my question is if because the fe feasibility study has been done and it has a lot of good components to it. If we choose not to do the building construction plan this year, can that still remain on the books for future look? And I know it has a lot to do with looking at a bond eventually and so forth. I'm I'm just asking if for some reason we don't pass it to or don't pass it on in June uh is there a possibility to keep that at least that

044idea on the books because again I really feel the value of the educational value of a campus like that. So, so we can the feasibility is done and we can also use that as a road map to addressing capital improvements that are necessary at the buildings even if you do not do a common campus. So yes, we have that information. I would recommend that we get into a pattern of updating that feasibility study of about every 5 to 6 years. Um, as far as leaving it on the books, that is direction that the school board would have to give to administration. Um, in other words, like, do you want us to continue to um keep money in the fund balance for that type of project? Do you want to dedicate those monies to something else?

045Uh, so really that answer lies among the nine school board members. Thank you. You're welcome. I I personally think there are too many unknowns at this point in time to make a commitment like this. Um we don't know how what's going to happen when they shut down the federal department of education and how those funds are going to be redistributed. We don't know what's going to happen with social security. That's one day they're changing, one day they're not. um the the way the stock market is, I just don't think this is a commitment we should make right now. I'd rather I'd rather start to see us um avoid sharing positions where possible. So, I'd like to I like seeing the additional staff listed on here to see about getting that education to the students. Um,

046the thought of the common campus I like. I just don't like the price tag of it, which is hard for me to to say, but I think the most important part is to make sure that our students have the appropriate level of staff members assigned. So, I would rather see our money spent on not necessarily sharing between even our close campuses here, slating our uh the middle school and the high school. I know our our middle school did some really great things that by by sharing staff, it deters a little bit of that. And I see some of the the need for these special education teachers. So, I'd like to focus on the teachers and the students first and then maybe down the line future look at it later and see what it looks like

047down the road. I I agree. I really like that we are looking to hire um a special education teacher. We're trying to bring those kids back from the schools they're attending now, which are costing the taxpayers money. Um, even down the road, you know, I know some of our buildings aren't at the feasibility percentage level that they say they should be. Maybe some of this space could be utilized to actually help the special needs. We could actually get some more in-house uh of that stuff like classrooms and things. And I'm definitely in favor of the more staffing. I have to agree with pausing the common campus. I just think the the expense is just not um it's not affordable right now. But I would like to give our students the best opportunities they have to

048succeed. So whether that would mean we look at staffing, whether mean we look at what would need to change in a building to make them safe or to be better. Um that's what I would be in favor of. That's why I was questioning about the the feasibility study and some of the items that were on here. Is there something that we should be prioritizing that should go on this long-term planning if we don't do this common campus? Should we be adding something to that? So, just one more thing. Um, I think, um, we have great most we have a lot of great teachers. Um, but I'd like to see teachers actually teaching again and not just giving them tablets and actually teaching. Um, I think that's I think that's really important. I understand technology is

049new. We got to roll with the times and they get that 100%. Uh, but they need hands-on physical teaching. I agree. I'll make a comment. I'm not in favor of the common campus. Um, you you can you can you can move the money around. We can get bonds. We can get loans. In the end, it's the taxpayers are going to pay for it today, tomorrow, 10 years, 20 years. In order to do this common campus, the taxpayers are going to pay for it eventually. And I'm I'm not in favor for it. You know, one of the things uh as a school board member and one of the reasons I got on the school board, I was an educator and a principal for 36.8 eight years exactly here, including in the Northern Levi school district. When

050I decided that I'd like to be part of the school board, my main focus was the education of our students. I had some grave concerns. Um, I was employed in a very high performing school district. I wanted us as Northern Lehi, my children went here, my grandchildren go here. Um, I wanted our school to be one of those high-erforming schools. I was a little bit dismayed at where we were curriculum-wise. I was dismayed and I disagree with Mr. Henrichi emphatically as far as the use of technology because we had none during the COVID situation. It came out loud and clear how far behind we were as a school district comparison to other districts that were performing well ahead of Northern Lehi. I think we made a a great commitment as a school board to improve

051not only the use of technology which if we don't get into the 21st century we're behind um the utilization of technology if done correctly will not only enhance education it'll actually exceed our students to higher academic levels because when they go to college the same thing's going to be expected of them and they're going to have to have those skills necessary to succeed in college. I think we're on the right step. I do want to say uh Mr. Pine has done an excellent job in motivating and leading our teachers into making major curriculum changes in every curriculum area. Some of them were dated and you could correct me, Mr. Pine, a 20-year-old curriculum. No wonder that we were lacking some performance. So, I think we really ripped the band-aid off. Kudos to our staff, our

052teachers especially, and our administrators for uh being doing a thorough job in following the plan and change their curriculum. However, on the other side, you know, we have to understand that students need a safe building. They need um a secure building. I'm not necessarily saying we need a common campus for that to happen, but I want to make sure that we do take steps as a board to make sure that the safety and security of our students is there. You know, we're in a building that when I started back in 1979 in this district, this was the high school. It's been renovated, I believe, twice since. And we're still discussing things that need to be replaced in this building. things get old, they get used hard. So, even if we don't go through with the

053common campus, which I don't see as a necessity at this point in time, I'll be honest with you, and I've weighed this decision. However, keep in mind that this building is going to need some major improvements, which are also going to cost some money. So, that's that's where my heart and soul is. Um um I I I do believe that I was kind of forthright with my agenda getting on the school board. I had no agenda other than improving the education of our students. And I think we're on the right track. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Public comment. Mhm. Okay. Thank you. Uh, directors, we will now open it up for public comment for those of you that have signed up. Um, our first person to sign up is actually Dr.

054Hoy, but Dr. Hoy, I think you want to speak on a different topic. Okay. So then, um, the next one would be, uh, Mr. Bower. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here. Uh I had the wife and one of my younger daughters read this before I came here because amazingly people watch this on the internet. Uh and believe me, I feel sorry for you that are in public office cuz I made comments and got comments directed towards me for speaking. So here we go. Uh basically my concerns are about this bond. Most of you board members already mentioned uh we have many many years to pay on this thing yet or from coming to the previous meetings. It was discussed that we refinance other debt into this new bond and then we're

055looking for another bond to do the common campus. Uh basically I'll read my statement. Hopefully it'll be short and sweet. We have no money to pay for it off early and we keep adding more to the original bond previously taken for upgrades to the Slanton Elementary years ago by rebonding for expenditures, money we did not have. And there's talk about another bond to expand schools and do repair upgrades. It will add more money to the remaining bond and again by restructuring such bond. We need to reduce debt not create more. I believe it's wise to tackle in small avenues which everybody knows which uh you said about the middle school. I agree. We let these buildings go too long. It still needs to be done but not by like the major expansion we're talking about.

056I believe it's wise to tackle small avenues not major and start repairing on current uh state of buildings instead of non-essential upgrades. And why haven't we learned in the this is a little political statement. Sorry dear. Uh I told my wife I wasn't going to. Didn't we learn about COVID? The government dumbed down our kids. Luckily, like one of the other board members, there was computers. There's kids still struggling in today with CO. That has the aftermath effect that we're still dealing with because our government thought it was good to keep all the kids home, which you found out later on in life as time goes on, good and bad. And then basically I want to say I got an email around I think it was like 4:00ish which was the end and it was

057sent by Mr. Pine and he's just sending it out. The comment isn't directed towards Mr. pine but I don't know if how many people in the community I'm sure you school board members know and the other powers that be but basically it says 2025 school year well school if you are looking to recover credits lost to due course failure or take additional summer classes to qualify for a specialized program then please re review this important information about summer school opportunities and I'm going to list it as the email goes on and once again Mr. pine just had to send it out. The comments or anything isn't against him. Bulldogs Academy through Accelerate Education dates June 23rd to August 15th. The total This is the best. And I got to laugh out loud. This is the

058best. the cost $286 or $572 per course that's going to be put onto the student or the family with the expiration of ESR funds which were evidently government funds like from COVID or something uh are no longer there uh and we must pay it like for those parents or whatnot. My concerns are uh it's bull crap. That's dumbing it down in a political version of what I want to say. Uh why are there no funds being given to cover such this program? I understand they pulled those funds, but we're talking about expenditures here there. Why isn't there funds for that that the taxpayers already pay? Uh we talked about over the time about this common core campus that is going to affect the family. I'm not saying this rude, but most kids that are having

059struggles come from unprivileged families or whatnot. So, you're adding more stress on You said one minute. Okay, I'll try and go quicker. So, basically, I believe there's other avenues we can go here without this common core. Yes, the buildings have to be upgraded and all that, but do it in small steps. You look at the wish wish list. Some are good, some are bad. With my experience in previous employment, I'm not a professional, but when I had to bid out for the sprinkler system that needed to be tested, I got three bids. One was both of them were from well known in this le valley that were crazy. The third was from a company up in Jim Thorp, which was a quarter of the price what the other two went by their name and marked

060up the thing. I think the school board for these projects if they bid it out separately have more control and more power and the common it's good in the future possibly for that but we couldn't pay for it the last 20 years I don't want to say like why monkey around it doesn't fit this district at some point if it does meet the district that it would work but it's the taxpayers eventually it's going to come down to businesses are going to raise their prices too so taxes everything's going to go up so I'm against it because of financial reasons. Thank you. Uh next we have uh Mr. Horn. First of all, I'd like to say thank you to all who said no to the common campus. The question I have and I probably won't

061get an answer is whose idea was the common campus in the first place? Second topic is spending. Um why are we so far in debt? There should be like a common comprehensive evaluation aiming towards financial records, efficiency of the school and wrongdoing and misconducts. This would ensure the operational security and protect his taxpayers. Period. The water issues. Um to my understanding that would be the burrow. What? Ain't we paying for good water, but yet we got to pay all kinds of money for filters and everything else? I don't get that. That's the roads. The other day I took a ride up to the elementary school just for the heck of it. It's been a long time. I'm going to drive up that way. You need a 4x4 with monster truck tires on to go back

062and forth on uh whatever what is it? Shadow Road or whatever. What a mess. Wouldn't that be the state or the burrow to maintain that? And now I'm going to pick on teachers. Uh the questionnaire that we had there was how many% of the teachers weren't even from Northern Lehigh School District and answered that. So that should be thrown out that idea. Uh, the second thing on teachers, to me, they're all, you know, I I'm going to curl some hairs on this one, but to me, they're overpaid. You know, what's their salary, yearly earnings, how many days per year do they work per what? I get it. They have to deal with the kids. Some of them ain't angels, that's for sure. I wasn't. But anyway, when you compare that to a regular worker, you

063know, how much pay and how much of the taxpayer money, you know, are we paying out for insurance? is just one of the things on that. What I see here is most of you the teachers in other words are indoctrinated like aka to me my term is brainwashed. Let me explain. You went to school, went to college, got a job at school, and never worked a real day in your life. Many of us worked our asses off to get where we're at. And now with all these tax hikes, you know, you want to make it harder. And finally, closing, I think it's time to see new faces on the school board. Thank you, Mr. Next, we have uh Mr. King. [Applause] So, I know it's kind of been brought up before and some people in

064the audience may not know how bad the water actually is in the middle school. This was filled up in one of the water fountains earlier this week, I believe, or last week. So, there are maintenance projects that need to happen. Nobody in the community is sitting here saying, "Let's not spend a dollar." We all realize that, like you said, the buildings need upkeep. They've been around for a while. Things do need to be spent. If I ran the numbers correctly, looking at the feasibility study where it was laid out in green, yellow, and red. If you add up all the projects other than expanding the buildings, it came out to roughly 40 to $47 million for every single thing on the wish list. I think the school board needs to look at that and say,

065"Okay, maybe we'll skip the common campus model right now, but let's say we want to tackle all of the red projects and all of the AR projects that need to be addressed in the next 5 years." Whatever that number comes out to be. If it's $15 million, $20 million, look at refinancing a bond right now to say, "What can we do to take care of twothirds of our most necessary projects that have to happen right now? Like Mr. Links or Dr. Link said, five years from now, we'll do another feasibility study and say, "All right, where are we at now as a district? What do we need to do going forward for the next 5 years? What needs to be addressed?" The other thought that I had thinking about this over the last two weeks

066was what if we look at this and say let's start with expanding the middle school. Move sixth grade over here first. Then we have extra room inside of Slington Elementary for our special education projects. Whatever needs to happen throughout the district. We can get that project done in the next 5 years. We have extra space. We're not wasting selling off our property as a district at Peters and letting that be for nothing. That is an asset to the district. To turn around and say we spent millions of dollars over the last 30 years keeping that building up and going and right now you want to turn around and say, "Well, let's sell it and at best case scenario we can get a million to a million and a half dollars to sell the property." Seems

067very foolish to me to turn around and let's just sell that because we want to. The other thought that I had about this was has anybody on the district even actually gone to Washington Township and said, "Hey, we're thinking about selling this property. Is it even feasible for us to do that?" Because Washington Township has some very strict zoning laws. That property obviously is zoned as a school property right now. Are they going to allow us to sell that to anybody that wants to buy it or are we going to have to jump through hurdles to get a zoning variance just to sell that building? The property owners out in Washington Township love the fact that they're across the street from an elementary school for the last 30 or 40, 50 years. They don't want

068that turned into a commercial office building or whatever else it may be sold off and repurposed for. So that's something the district has to look at. If we turn around and say, "Let's move forward with the common campus with the idea of selling this property in eight years down the road, are we even going to feasibly feasibly be able to sell that property or is it going to turn into a boat anchor that we're not able to get rid of because it's zoned as a school board and Washington Township may not let us get rid of that property." Those are all things the school board needs to really take into consideration and ask before any vote would actually happen with this. My other thought that I had obviously the education, the curriculum is one of

069the most important things. Feasibility study addressed physical problems, buildings, safety, things like that that need to happen. But in this feasibility study, nothing looked at what is the long-term education look like 5 and 10 years from now. With the advance of AI and artificial intelligence and augmented reality, the traditional classroom structure is going to be nowhere like it is right now. 5 years down the road, 10 years down the road, everybody's education is going to be customtailored to the individual child's needs. We're not going to necessarily have 20 or 30 kids in one classroom with one teacher. You may have one individual augmented reality teacher that's customtailored to that student for the entire 12 years they're in their curriculum. and it's not going to be anything what you traditionally think it has been over the

070last 20 years. Where that technology is going is something the school board needs to look at. So yes, maybe we spend $10 million in making sure our buildings are the most up-to-date modern technologically advanced get the kids ready for a college education. Absolutely. That's money that needs to be spent physically just moving these buildings and closing down Peters. So I would strongly advise against doing that and doing our research of what needs to actually happen first before we move forward with such a big project. Thank you. [Applause] Next we have uh Miss Crystal Bilby. So I have uh been going door to door talking to some of the people that live in this area. Um, I had 19 senior citizens actually cry on their doorsteps telling me that they can't afford three 3.5% increase. They

071are telling me that they're already struggling right now to pay for medication or food. If you add this increase in, yes, you're saying $75. For me, it's $300 a year. Um, these people are going to struggle even more. I talked to people who were renting their home saying,"Well, how does this affect me?" Well, don't you think if your property taxes go up, your rent's not going to go up? And they were like, "Ouch." I think these are things you need to consider. Even with the common campus, you still want to have a an increase in taxes. And for some of us that own quite a bit of property, um, I can't afford it. I'm already paying almost $6,000 a year in taxes. And so when you add the additional onto it and then the additional

072next year and then the additional next year and then the additional next year, even at $300 a year, that's $1,200 in the next four years. I can't afford it. I've had people ask about my property on 873 and put in town homes. Are you guys prepared that if they got that to have those housing development put in back there with 1,200, you know, town houses that they wanted to buy my property for, can you can you what are you going to do with those kids? Um I just we rank pretty low. 401 in Pennsylvania from World News and Report. Middle school uh 12% um scored at or above a proficient in math, 47 in reading. High school was 49 and 23. I think our money needs to be spent on the education of these kids,

073not campus, one big campus. Do I think that we absolutely need things fixed? That's not what I'm saying. I just think I have to use what's in my checkbook and pay my bills with that or I have to cut costs. Why does the school board have an exception for that? I don't understand how the common sense reality for almost all of us who have budgets of our own. I can't put, like I said before, I can't put a $30,000 roof on my house, go to work the next day, and say, "Please give me a $30,000 raise to pay for my roof." That's not how it works. I know that you all live in the district, too, but I have been doortodoor for the last two and a half weeks talking to people, and I can

074tell you, I think I've maybe three people that said, "Come campus, great. Let's do it." Until we talked about money and they were like, "Ow." So, I really think that you guys need to say no to the common campus and really really reconsider that 3 3.5% proposed increase. Thank you. Um, Miss Kelly Leno. Hi. Thank you. I don't have prepared remarks. Um, but I just want to come up here and and so I live in a half a double. It's a one of the new um newly developed places here and I'm already paying $4,000 a year just in school tax. That's not local. That's not county. That's not garbage. That's not anything. You add all of that on, I'm now paying over 6,000. Three and a half% per year, you're now adding another thousand dollars

075onto that. I am a single parent with no help. Um, and I'm on limited income. So I am asking and when I look at the common campus I really don't see the benefits for the children. My daughter attends CCA because the school was not able to fit what she needed. So again going back to the education and see what the children need I think is really important and I don't think the common campus is the answer. So I'm asking to vote no. Thank you miss. Next we have Miss uh Miss Lauren Gancer. Thank you. Um, I hope that most of you took the time to read the email that I sent. I did receive four responses. Thank you to those four members. After looking over some of the power slides, I did see that only

076about 34% of Northern Lehigh employees do reside in the district. Therefore, more than 60% would not be subject to this tax increase. If this passes, no matter how small it may be, it still is an increase. Most people try to live within their means. It would be a nice gesture if the school district did this on occasion as well. I did submit a right to know and it was denied because I refer to the project as the closing of Peter's project and not the common campus project. That kind of reduces my confidence that my uh right to know was not recognized for. I would hope that the administration knew exactly the project I was referring to. In case you haven't been keeping track of how the community feels, I'm sure you have and it's evident

077here. I urge you to please hear us. Let's put this on the back burner and consider the population who will endure the expense of an unnecessary project at this time. Those of us concerned about this have not have have not had an increase in our incomes. So, think of how unfair this project is to so many residents. I actually spoke to a few of your employees in the district who did tell me they were not in favor of this project and I told them I would not reveal their names. Um, most of them even signed the petition that was against this project. So, you have I mean I think we're close to over 400. I don't even know what the number is. Um, do we always use the same bond company? That was a question

078I had um because it just seems that it's always the same bond company. Um I've never seen a copy of the newspaper ads that I was told were um paid for and put in the newspaper. Uh proposed projects taken out, would that reduce the budget shortfall? And does Northern Lehigh employ a paid grant writer? I was just curious if you do have a paid grant writer. I don't know if anybody can answer that, but do we have a paid grant writer? Do we have a paid grant writer? A paid grant writer? Yes, we do. You're asking me? No. No, we don't. Okay. So, we need No. Yes or no? But we have people who write Do you want to respond or do you want me? Sure. We have people who write grants. We do not

079have We do not have Go ahead. just wrote one for quite a bit of money to fix the floors. Uh the Stoker uh writes grants on a regular basis. We also know other people who write grants, but we don't have a person who does nothing but write grants, but we do get a lot of money every year on grants and you can add to that as you see fit. But I just think that's important because there is grant money to be had and if we pursue those grants a little bit more aggressively that that would help as well. And I agree that the um education is forefront and I think we should focus on the educational needs and you've probably heard this before but we're northern Lehi. We're a small district. We are a gem,

080you know, in the making. And uh we have salt of the earth people here. And we, you know, I I've said it before, we're not Parkland. We're not Liberty. We're not those those school districts. And we can afford hamburger and hot dogs while they can afford steak and lobster. So, let's just keep it within our budget and pay for hamburger and hot dogs and get the best bang for our buck. Thank you. Next, we have uh Mr. Smith. He had to step out. Okay. Thank you, Mr. B. Next, we have uh Miss Bender. Good evening. Um, I realize that I'm about to make myself extremely unpopular and there were probably people in my yard with torches and pitchforks after this meeting, but I feel like it's time that somebody finally spoke for the needs of

081our students and not the needs of our senior citizens who also have very valuable needs and their concerns are very valid. I am a taxpaying resident of Northern Le High School District as well as a very involved nonprofit organization volunteer and I get to see firsthand what happens in many of our buildings on a regular basis. I've come to a few conclusions throughout the course of all of this while I have been attending board meetings on a regular basis yet have not seen most of the people behind me until they suddenly realized there might be a tax increase. I find that there is a clear disconnect between the members of our community who are older residents and the needs of our children. It seems that those who no longer have school-aged children have separated themselves

082completely from the goings on of our district until the potential for tax increases come up. Then suddenly people attend meetings and begin to complain about what does not need to be paid for in our district or what is just fine with our buildings. But let me tell you, they are far from fine. Through my support of my children, I am able to see these things. I will list a few examples. At Peter, there is such a shortage of classroom space that a teacher prep room is being shared with OT, which leads to less than ideal learning and working conditions. While students are supposed to be receiving additional services, teachers are running a photocopier or laminator in the exact same space. This is a clear distraction to the learning environment. There's nothing else that can be

083done because there's no more space. The PA system at Peters has constant glitches that lead to the sound of telephone buttons being projected through the entire school at random times during the day, a further distraction to the learning environment. There are many other issues in that building, but I'll leave it at those examples. In the middle school, the stoves in the FCS room are at least 30 years old and barely work, as I experienced this weekend firsthand while I helped with the National Junior Honor Society senior citizen prom. The water, as we have seen, is so brown that they had to use extra funds to purchase bottled water to ensure that the Jell-O stayed the color it was supposed to. The gym floor at the middle school has so many dead spots that it's an

084embarrassment to our basketball teams when they host games, and there isn't even water for the opposing teams to use in the locker room. Students are using furniture that is outdated and broken. Slington is probably in the best condition, but it is bursting at the seams with students. In addition, it is the only building in our district where one administrator is solely responsible for four grades worth of students. This makes it nearly impossible to meet all disciplinary and academic needs at once for those students. And this is in no way to say that this administrator does not do a fantastic job. It is simply an disadvantaged situation where he is required to do much more than any other administrator in our other school buildings. In an attempt to save money, I have noticed that teachers are

085oftentimes reassigned to different positions, but that only leaves behind holes where they used to serve. Some of these holes were addressed in tonight's meeting. However, there are still spaces left that have not been addressed. As a homeowner, my husband and I constantly need to think about what maintenance will be coming our way over the next several years, and we need to plan for that financially. It is obvious that previous school boards neglected to plan for the maintenance of all of our buildings and now it has come to a head and everything needs to be done at once. That is neither the fault of our current board nor our current students. But the reality is that these things will need to be done at some point and they aren't going to go away or get any

086better without investing money. Currently, we have somebody running as a writing candidate for school board under the platform. No tax increase at all. Regardless of what the board decides, there is a boatload of money that needs to become that needs to come from somewhere. No tax increase is financially irresponsible. I've also noticed that many opponents of this project don't seem to understand that our district, as well as every district in the state, cannot just go to IKEA for furniture or have random community members do maintenance on our buildings. While things might have been like that at one point, it is no longer the case. In 10 years, many of those opposed to this project will no longer be homeowners in the district, but many of the students will still be here learning. It is our

087duty to the community to invest in the future and not only focus on the present. I encourage the board at the very least to put an addition onto the middle school and renovate this building to ensure that our sixth graders have adequate educational opportunities and that the situation at Slayington Elementary is improved for all students. I am not in any way opposed to the entire common campus model. However, thank you all for your time. Okay, that concludes everybody that has indicated that they want to speak at the meeting this evening. Um, I think I put question, but I would like to speak. I'll look to Mr. Green. Uh, she she put a question mark. I didn't I wasn't quite sure, but I'm sure. And this is Miss Marie. Maria [Applause] Barney. My name is Maria

088Barney. I grew up in Slington. I attended three schools. I went off to college, undergrad and grad. I was always very proud of the education I received here. I'm sorry I haven't been to any of these meetings before. I'm sorry. I have been an educator in the past on the college level. And I'd like to say one of the things I was most disappointed in is when the proposal for the common campus went out on a survey. It eliminated the vast majority of the residents of the townships and the burrow of Slington. I being one of them. I would certainly have advised against it. I am against it. I don't see the reason for it. Ultimately, I think improvements can be made in the buildings. I think improvements can be made in the quality of

089the education of the students. As far as technology sir, I think reading is more important. Reading is teaches a young person to imagine, to create, to make their own mind up about whatever it is they're studying. I agree with this gentleman over here. We need to get back to educating the students. I understand there are some health issues with the water. That surprises me. Certainly that should be repaired. So I'm not against send spending money for repairs, but I'm against spending money that we don't have. Who in their right mind would do such a thing to put us further into debt, especially in these days and times? As far as the elderly in town, I am one of them. I am retired. I live on a fixed income and I don't like what I see

090is happening to the economy in the United States and I don't expect it to get better anytime soon. It's not that we don't want our young people to have the best, but we do what we can. I grew up in a poor household. I am proud of that fact. My parents made very much out of very little. Um, I also want to ask when I go to vote for a school board member, I have no idea who you people are. I just see names on a ballot. I personally would like to know who you are. Do you live in the burrow? Do you live in a township? Do you live in Walnapport? What your philosophy on education is? What your experience has been as a working adult, but I don't know anything about you. So

091my vote basically means nothing. Sometimes I end up voting, well, I'll split it between male female. I don't like doing that. Um, the ranking of this district is mediocre statewise and I think you need to work on that, concentrate on that and not moving students around and building new buildings, closing Peters. I agree it's a safety issue if you concentrate all the students in an area. We've been fortunate that we haven't had a big eruption of violence in the school, but what happens when that happens? Everybody is there. Uh what else? I saw just briefly on your lists that you wanted to spend money on replacing furniture at Peters. I understand that while some of that may be needed, but if you're but if you're going to close the school, I ask that you consider

092what you spend in that. And I also agree that I'm not quite sure how that building would be used. Doesn't seem like a lot of big companies want to move into this area because of the taxes. So, I think uh let me see. A few years ago, I read an article in the morning call, and it was an article about the poorest towns in East Central Pennsylvania and western central New Jersey. Slington was ranked the 10th poorest town. So, that's what we're dealing with here. And I think you all need to realize that. Thank you. [Applause] Did you sign the paper? I signed in the back. I was a few minutes late and I signed a sheet in the back when I walked in. There was a sheet in the back there. Oh, Mr. Barheight.

093Yes, sir. Um, you you didn't check that you want to speak or do not want to speak. I'm guessing you would like to speak. I would like to speak. I'll default to Mr. Green. Sure. Okay. Mr. Fox. My name is Scott Barheight. Uh first of all, I want to say thank you to the board. Uh, none of this is easy and you put a lot of hours, a lot of effort. Um, all of you do. You care about our community. You care about our kids. And so I want to say thank you to you for that and I appreciate that. I was going to speak about some economic things with the project but based on how the board members talked um I don't think there's any reason to do that at this stage. So what

094I would say was the educational part. I was an educator for 36 and a half years and magic happens between a good teacher and students and it's that good teacher and it's that those good teachers both men and women who just make a difference in the kids. Bob I agree with you. We need the technology. We got to teach the kids the technology, but we also have to have these teachers be important role models for our kids, our grandkids, and it makes a huge, huge difference. The one criticism I would have watching my grandkids grow up coming through the system, they got so little homework, it drove me crazy. I would always, as an oldfashioned teacher, I would always say, "What do you have for homework?" "Oh, I don't have any, Grandpa." I say you

095have to have homework recognition. No, I don't have any homework grandpa. And we'd have this little bit of an argument. So, I would ask you maybe to focus a little bit on on a combination of the technology and some of those old-fashioned values of making sure uh people are responsible for doing their work and they spend a little time at home and so on. I think would help our kids immensely. Uh, in that respect, I think what you saw and what I saw is we're all our community is struggling and everybody is struggling financially today. It's been a tough number of years with inflation. It's been a tough number of years with property values, people buying, and you what you've seen in the community is people are scared. And so again, I just want to

096say thank you. Thank you for your efforts. and uh I'm grateful that you serve. Okay, that is everybody that has signed up. Okay. Um Mr. Green, at this point, administration would like to ask for direction, not a final vote, but direction on what we should plan for in the June final budget presentation. So on the screen behind me and one of your your second to last slide in the packet in front of you is um the areas that we're looking for direction on. The first area is utilization of fund balance for one-time purchases. Those items listed in the 2526 school year, debt service payment, pasers payment, and healthcare increases. Is it this one? Yes, sir. Okay. So, again, administration is seeking direction on whether we should include this for the June uh school board meeting.

097The first bullet on there. I'm in favor of the first bullet on the list. I I agree. I think we make need to make sure that we have the safety and the education for all our children. Yes. Anyone else? Why don't you Are you going to do this? You want me to do this? Well, I I would like to prompt, but I I would like you to facilitate the conversation at the school board. I I'm in favor of using the fund balance to um take care of all these items here. I mean, pacers and healthcare increases are always going to be there. um let's take this opportunity to use the fund balance to take care of that for this time. Um we may not have that opportunity again in the future. So I'm all for

098that. And the items that are listed on the long-term project planning for the 202526 school year. Um again, it's the water softener and filtration for the middle school. Um the grant, I think that's a great opportunity. We should definitely take take advantage of that one. Um, and then of course the maintenance truck, the PA system for the baseball, softball, and the furniture if the furniture absolutely needs to be replaced. I think that one's a go. Yep. Next one. A 3.5 tax increase. LA blah blah blah. You have it there in front of you. I don't need to read it. Thoughts? I am not in favor of this one. Not favor either. That would be a no here too. Anybody else express their opinion? Okay, that looks like that's a no. Uh, addition of special I'm

099going to ask a clarifying question on that one. Should administration interpret the lack of support for that as a removal of the $500,000 for the fund balance? I'm sorry, for the bond payments. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you for that direction. Thank you. [Applause] Addition of a special education teacher at Sllayton Elementary to open an ESO classroom. We want to do that. Yes. Yes. You got that one. Uh, new powered at Peters and Slington Elementary educators. Yes. Yes. Got that one. Uh, the flooring project. We've had conversation on that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh, discontinue open horizon. instead appoint two additional parent educators. Can I clarify something on that? Um was it 48,000? Wasn't didn't Sherry didn't you say actually it would be like 56? It would be 60 56 if we add the two par. So

100it's okay. So it would actually be a little bit more money, right? It'll be about 8 grand more. Okay. I'm in favor of this. Um, I would prefer, as I've mentioned before, to have the supports throughout the year rather than just in a short uh summer program. I agree. Same. I agree. Yep. I think you got that one. That's it. Okay, sir. Administration uh appreciates the direction. I would like to compliment the community on how again for the third or fourth session in a row, how everybody conducted themselves. I think it speaks highly of um your concern and your respect uh for each other and for the members that are trying to make difficult decisions on your behalf. So again, I appreciate how everybody conducted themselves. Thank you. Uh and that concludes the business manager

101report for this evening. Okay. And I guess you're on. Thank you, sir. and we're going to do a brief presentation for our monthly um just give me one second here for our monthly data presentation is okay uh each year in May we give a school safety social emotional learning and school climate data presentation. Uh so I'd like to share some results uh for this May. First, we're going to talk a little bit about the PA school climate survey. A little bit of background about the survey is that the Office for Safe Schools of the Pennsylvania Department of Education offers this survey to school entities in the Commonwealth. The survey is free. The survey was administered in Northern Lee High School District the week of April 7th and it was um sent to secondary students. So

102471 total uh secondary students responded to it. Is not a mandatory survey. 49 staff members responded and 20 parents responded. The survey covers uh kind of three core areas of interest that helps uh administration make decisions when planning on things like uh school culture. Uh those are the three domains are student support, social emotional learning and safe school safe and respectful climate. For an area to be marked favorable, it has to be a score of a 3.4 or above. neutral, meaning that it's not positive or negative, is uh uh greater than a 2.5 but less than a 3.4. And then anything that is red or unfavorable is a 2.5 and below. For our middle school students, uh you'll see that for the most part, everything was rated neutral. So the total average school climate score

103was 2.64. We were a little bit uh below uh the 2.5 cutoff which put us into the social mo emotional learning average domain score was just shy of 2.5. Uh so clearly a little bit of work to do there. Student support average domain score was 2.65 also in the neutral range and safe school climate average domain was 2.78 also in the neutral. towards the bottom there, they they give you a set of data that's actually looks duplicative, but really what they do is they look at the statewide data, but then they also do a snapshot of the statewide time frame comparison data, which just so happens was the entire state uh time frame. So those numbers match. Um so you'll see that, you know, we have um we're neutral in every area but one at

104the middle school. um and we come close to kind of the state statewide average um for our middle school students. For high school, again, we had one area which was social emotional learning where we are a little bit behind uh just just shy by 200ths of a point from the 2.5 cutoff. And again you'll see uh for high school students that same area social emotional learning average was also the as an average the state fell below that cutoff. Um we are actually 1/100th above the state average. It's splitting hairs. Um and the next group that we received data on was the staff responses. Uh here it's just a side by side of the statewide data in the Northern Lehigh School District data. Uh total average we're coming in at 2.9 just 300s below the state

105average. Uh we are again a little bit lower in social emotional learning about uh 1300s below and we are a little bit above in student support and a little bit below in the safe school average. Parent responses uh came in a neutral range. we are at 3.12 and again you'll see that for that we are um about a tenth of a percent uh bel or a tenth of a point below the state average. So as a whole we're kind of coming in a neutral range but it's clear that the social emotional learning aspect we need to um put a little bit of effort forth in that area. Okay. Next we have a set of data which comes from our northern Lehigh police department. So that is the the school district operated police department. This is

106a comparison back to the 2122 school year. Uh these are all the different incidents that they were involved in. Um all the different categories. Uh you'll see that since the 22 23 school year, we are trending down again. Um and this is uh reassuring, but of course we also want to make sure that our school police officers in the district um you know continue to uh promote safe schools and we also have learned that they have become really ambassadors to our students. Our students be are many of our students are comfortable going to our school police officers and letting them know um that a student may be uh considering making a bad decision. And often times it allows our school police officers and our administration and our faculty uh to not have that occur. So

107it's a very proactive model. You may be familiar with the safe to say something. Uh this is a statewide system where it's an anonymous callin line where um community members, students can actually call the number or use the app to report a concern. This is how this comes through the state attorney general's office. These are their categories to code um calls or contacts to them. They in turn turn around and send that to a team of administrators and our school police officers in the school district here for us to investigate, intervene, uh bring support to students. Um, and you can see that we are actually at the same amount as last school year, uh, but down 17, uh, tips from the 22 23 school year. Okay. This year we implemented our bus patrol system. This

108is the first time that we have data on this. Uh since we've implemented bus patrol, uh there has been 219 notifications. Of those 219 notifications, 177 were found to be citations uh where there was actually a school bus stop law broken. We also conduct a title 4 survey. This is a very simple survey. Uh the question in the survey is having SPOS's in northern Lehigh school district. So that's school police officers in northern Lehigh school district and in our schools makes me feel safer and more secure. This is sent to employees and to students. 95.3% of the students who participated in the survey said yes. And 97.7% of the employees who participated in the survey also said yes. And that is the uh May monthly data report. Any questions or comments? I'd just like to

109say I'm um very proud of the fact that Lehi does take very seriously those safe to say tips and follows through um and provides the support as needed to our our students. Um it's it's it's a great um it's a great use of our resources. Thank you. Also, I think it's a good and bad thing to see these numbers about the bus patrol data. Uh, it's crazy. I mean, I'm glad there's people getting repercussions for driving like idiots, but I hate to see that number being so high. Yeah, we're hopeful that um we see that number decrease uh as people become more and more aware of the cameras on the buses. I think it's a very comprehensive report and I I'm very thankful that it had been done and it I think uh it's something

110that opens some of our eyes to what's exactly going on uh in our district and I think it's a very pleasant surprise. Thank you, Mr. Okay, that concludes the monthly data port uh report. Next, under uh my report, um it's one of my favorite times of the year when we get to recognize uh some of our retirees. This year, we have two retirees, a teacher, an administrator, and I'm very grateful for what they have done for the school district over their time here in Northern Lehigh School District. And I'm also very excited for what lies ahead for them. First, I would like to recognize Miss Vonda Lson. Don't believe Miss Lson was able to join us this evening. Um uh yet it is my privilege to recognize Vonda Lorson for her outstanding contributions to our

111school community. She exemplifies the qualities of an exceptional educator, dedication, expertise, and an unwavering commitment to student success. Miss Luren joined our faculty in August of 2004 as a teacher of business education. She earned her bachelor's degree in business economics from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown before obtaining her teaching certificate in computer information technology at the K to2 level from Gwyn at Mercy College in 2004. Committed to lifelong learning, she furthered her education at Wilks University where she earned a master's of education while continuing to serve students in our district. Since joining our faculty, Miss Lorson has demonstrated an exceptional depth of knowledge in her content area. She not only possesses a strong command of her subject matter, but also actively seeks to expand her expertise through professional development, collaboration with colleagues, and refinement

112of her instructional practices. Her ability to connect complex concepts in to real world applications ensures that students engage deeply with the material, making learning both relevant and impactful. Beyond the classroom, Miss Loren extends her dedication to students and the broader school community. As a life as a longtime game worker, she has contributed to the school experience in ways that go beyond academics, fostering school spirit and strengthening relationships with students outside the classroom. Her commitment to both education and extracurricular involvement enriches the overall student experience and highlights her dedication to the school's mission. In recognition of Miss Lrison, today we celebrate not only her professional achievements, but also the lasting impact she has had on her students and colleagues, her depth of knowledge, dedication, and ability to create meaningful learning experience, make her an make her

113an invaluable member of the school community. It is my sincere hope that her retirement her retirement years bring her much joy and fulfillment. On behalf of the board of education in the school district, we thank you, Miss Lrison, and we wish you the best. So, even though she's not here, I think she [Applause] deserves Next, um, I would like to recognize, uh, one of our administrative members, part of our leadership team, who is retiring at the end of the school year, our athletic director, Mr. Brian Gist. After more than 30 years of devoted service to the Northern Lehigh School District, Brian G is retiring, leaving behind a remarkable legacy in education and athletics. Throughout his career, Mr. G has demonstrated unwavering commitment, leadership, and passion, positively impacting students, athletes, and the broader school community. Beginning

114as a math teacher, Mr. G spent 11 years teaching every math subject offered for grades 7 through 12. As the math department chair, his leadership resulted in a 30 percentile increase in student performance, setting a standard for academic excellence. In addition to teaching, he played a pivotal role in extracurricular activities, serving as head track and field coach for 11 years, leading the team to championships in 1999 and 2004, as well as an assistant football coach for six years. His dedication extended to student mentorship, including serving as the class of 1998 adviser. For the past 20 years, Mr. G has been a driving force in athletics as the district's athletic director. Under his leadership, Northern Lehi's athletic program flourished with major facility upgrades, including new turf field, a renovated running track, gym improvements, and the addition

115of a nine basket disc golf course. He spearheaded significant advancements such as sports medicine contracts, the creation of the athletic honor code, and the establishment of the Hall of Fame, or as we know it, the Ring of Honor, and the implementation of online ticketing and digital athletic management systems. His passion for enhancing the student athlete experience also led to the addition of middle school programs for cross country, track and field, softball, and soccer. Beyond Northern Lehi, Mr. G has, excuse me, has been an influential figure in league and district athletics. As Colonial League president for 13 years and vice president for two, he guided the league through expansion and modernization efforts, including website redesigns and upgraded technology for track and field events. His leadership extended to district 11 where he served as president of the

116athletic director association and contributed to championship events for over 15 years. A four-time athletic director of the year, Mr. G has been instrumental in shaping the district athletic culture and f fostering a sense of pride within the community. His dedication, vision, and leadership have left an enduring impact on Northern Lehi and his legacy will continue to inspire future generations. On behalf of the board of education and the northern Lehigh school district, I extend our deepest gratitude to Mr. Brian G for his outstanding service and wish him the very best in the next chapter of his life. Mr. Guys, thank you for everything you have done. We have a member in the audience this evening um that has um waited very patiently to speak. So we appreciate your patience. Dr. Hoy and uh Dr. Hoy would

117like to say a few words about Mr. G. Good evening members of the school board, administration, and community. It's been uh my name is Josh Hoy. Um I'm from Reading, Pennsylvania. Um I'm a 1996 graduate of Northern Lehigh. It's been I think 33 years since I've sat in this room and uh ironically two of the the most influential educa educators in my life are sitting here. My cousin and who was also my fizzed teacher Bobby he is to me but Mr. Kern and uh Mr. Gist. Um I I follow um Dr. Lincoln. I got to know him when I worked at the intermediate unit in Burks County for a number of years as a a STEM administrator for the county. Um, and he does a phenomenal job keeping an update on the district on there

118and and really showcases a lot of the great things that go on because like I said, I moved out of the area a long time ago. But, um, I saw that he had a posting for a a director of athletics and I I knew Mr. G was the director and I was like, oh, maybe they added another position, but I knew this was a tiny district and I was like, it's probably not true. So, I reached out to my cousin and and lo and behold, I found out that Mr. G was retiring. Um, I I can count on maybe two hands of people who changed my life. Um, two of them are sitting here and if I get emotional, I'm sorry because Mr. Gist means a lot to me. Um, I hold this up. He

119probably doesn't remember this, maybe he does. He was my calculus teacher my senior year. It was his first year teaching. He told us he went to Kutztown. I had no interest in KZtown University. I was going to Penn State to be an architectural engineer. That was my father's dream, not mine. But that's a whole another story. But anyway, um this is a 3x5 index card and he did a lesson the one day on optimization calculus. It's how I I really fell in love with calculus about how many blades of grass would be in the state of Pennsylvania if the entire state of Pennsylvania was covered in grass and you only got a 1 inch x one inch sample. So we got partner work on this and we it was all about sample size optimization. and

120you learn really fascinating stuff. I'm going to come back to this in a little bit to finalize and and I have there's a reason for that. But um but Mr. Gist um when I realized I didn't want to be an engineer anymore, which took a couple years, I had a lot of family in in in the Lehigh Valley who were in education, too many to list, but Mr. G was the person who I got a chance to sit down and talk with about education. And it was him that made me decide to go to Kutztown and it was him that made me decide to become a math teacher. I always loved math and I loved working with kids. I I believe in servant leadership and I believe in serving the community. But I went into

121teaching because I wanted to make somebody else feel the way Mr. G made me feel. I I I wanted to make a difference in someone's life because when I changed majors and was changing paths, I I went through a pretty tough time in life. Um and and it was my cousin and it was Mr. Gist that really guided me in the right direction. And and I will go to my grave remembering Mr. Gist. I have a lot of great stories about Mr. Gist. I know he's an avid Seahawks fan. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you still are. But I know he's an aid Seahawks fan. He used to talk him down passionately. I remember him telling me the story about the practice which were called the NTEEs, the teacher exams, and he had

122a question where you had to talk about a situation where somebody made a mistake and they had to do something differently. And if I remember correctly, his essay was about the Houston Oilers running prevent defense and the Buffalo Bills making the greatest comeback in playoff history. And that was his example. Um, and you might be like, "Man, those are really dumb things to remember, but but that's just who he was and and and and the impact he had on my life." Um, he was the type of teacher that even if you didn't understand calculus, he just wanted you to enjoy the experience in school and just understand the why. He explained the why, not the memorization of this, not you need to know this. It was the why. Um, we didn't have honors calculus when

123I was here. We didn't have AP calculus when I was here. It was just calculus. And he made everybody enjoy that class, but more importantly, he made everybody enjoy being a student in this school and a human being. Um, I wish that I would have gotten the opportunity to spend more time with him because I he didn't know I was coming and I haven't seen him for for many many years. Um but it was my dream to teach calculus and and I got to teach AP before I went into administration. Um and I I taught five years in the classroom and that fifth year I got to teach AP CL cal and I used this lesson and I also used this lesson in my applied algebra 1 class, my statistics class and even my college

124algebra class. So the idea that a teacher of this caliber can take something as you talk about calculus, people go, "Oh my gosh, why in the world do you like calculus?" It was a concept that can be used in everyday life. So when I when I think about this lesson and I and I I really, you know, I'm somebody who speaks from the heart. I I've put some notes down, but I speak from the heart. Um, when I think about this, a lot of us, we care about our grass. You know, I think almost maybe too much we care about our grass, but there are some patches of grass you might look in your yard that are this big and they might die because they didn't get enough water. They didn't get enough sun. We

125go through a drought. But there's a lot of other grass that just it's okay. It makes it through. It's still green. If I didn't have this man here and I didn't have that man out there, I was bitting the grass that wouldn't have survived. So, Mr. Guys, thank you so much. Whatever your future holds and from here, I hope we stay in touch and and I hope you really enjoy retirement because retirement, you you really enjoy and deserve your retirement because you are one of the best, if not the best teacher I've ever had. So, thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. [Applause] [Music] Thank Thank you, Dr. Hoy. Mr. G, don't sit down yet. Uh, please please come on up. And Mr. G, as a token of our

126appreciation for everything that you have done for our students and your colleagues and the community of Northern Lehigh School District, I'm going to gently take this out here and present you with an apple uh for your service. Oh, thank you. Um, and again, uh, Brian, thank you. Thank you for everything you've done. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thanks. At least I had one success story, so awesome. Thank you. Thank you, I wouldn't call a success yet. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. Um, again, I would just like to we have a lot of great things going on here in Northern Lehigh School District. Uh, last week and this week was uh different recognitions for different groups of employees that we have. Uh, National Teacher Appreciation Week was May 5th through 9th. National

127School Nurse Appreciation Day was May 6th. Cafeteria Worker Appreciation Day was May 2nd, and National Police Week uh was May 11th through the 16th. Each building recognized the groups within their buildings and administration and the board thanked all employees by sending bagel, fruit, and cheese cheese trays to each school to enjoy throughout the day last Wednesday. We are fortunate for all of our employees and the work they do to support our students. Some of our employees in the last couple weeks have received kind of state and national recognition for the work that they've been doing here in Northern Lee High School District. Mrs. Amanda Barana Barana who is a middle school math teacher, instructional coach, and department leader was recognized by the Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of Mathematics by receiving the Master of Mathematics Award

128for junior high and middle school. So, she was uh the only teacher in Pennsylvania selected for that award and she is one of our instructors right here in Northern Lehigh Middle School and she absolutely deserves that award. I'm also pleased to share uh that last week we learned of two more NLSD teachers being recognized for their expert expertise and positive impact on the students they teach. We are thrilled to announce that two of our read 180 teachers from the special education department have been recognized at the national level. Mrs. Tammy Fristick at the high school and Mrs. Megan Henriitzy at the middle school were selected as two of only 180 teachers across the nation to be honored for their exceptional work with the read 180 literacy program. This award recognizes out outstanding teachers whose dedication

129opens new pathways to success inspiring students to rise above the challenges both in the classroom and beyond. So when you consider of all the thousands of so this curriculum is implemented in thousands of classrooms across the nation it's truly remarkable that two recipients were chosen from the same school district and even more extraordinary that they are the only two awardees from Pennsylvania. This speaks volumes about the commitment and impact of our educators. Also, last week, we are incredibly proud to announce that we received official notice that Dr. Tanya Stoker, who is our assistant superintendent and typically sits right down there, uh, but is not, uh, she's traveling, has been selected by the PASSA, so that's the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, it's the state organization for school administrators, by their women's caucus as the 2025

130recipient of the Wanda McDaniel Award. This honor highlights her exceptional leadership and advocacy in education, serving as a model of excellence and inspiration across the state. Dr. Stoker has been long recognized as a local education leader at the forefront of designing highquality professional development, promoting instructional excellence, ensuring equity and education for all learners, and building capacity in those she leads. Now, she is being recognized by her colleagues across the state for that very same leadership and advocacy. Their achievements are a testament to the exceptional exceptional teaching, learning, and leading happening within the Northern Lee High School District. So, let's give all of our award recipients a round of applause. And the last part of my update, I am actually going to turn it over to Mr. Schneider Wright, who received notification of a significant accomplishment

131at Peters Elementary School. Good evening, everyone. Uh, it's a pleasure to see you this evening. Good evening, Northern Lehigh community. Um, again, I reported to Dr. Link and Dr. Stoker and Mr. Pine the other day. Uh, something that hasn't happened at Peters, at least since, you know, that I'm aware of. Um, as you know, we have what's called the schoolwide positive behavior support or the Schweps program. Um, I think I say it wrong every time. I'm not sure. It's Schweps. Schwebs. It's not ginger ale, but um, we have the Schwebs program at Peters Elementary School. Think of it as a 21st century anti-bullying program, but instead of teaching students what not to do, we teach them what to do. For eight years now, Peters Elementary School has been considered a continued tier one fidelity school,

132which means our tier one program, which we teach all students, our core principles, responsible, respectful, safe, and proud. And the um programs that support those students, has been distinguished for many years. Uh just two years ago we earned tier 2 fidelity which is the way in which we um provide interventions to students when they do not uh you know show success with our tier one program. We earned that and we uh learned uh the other day that we have continued fidelity now for three years and for the first time uh we did apply for tier three fidelity. Um we've been actually told by your evaluator for approximately two years we've been talking about it and the answer has always been we're not sure you're ready yet. Um, so this year we felt ready. Uh, we

133put in our, you know, sort of application to, uh, be considered for it and we earned tier three fidelity. So, I'm not sure how many schools in Pennsylvania this happens. I'm not sure if there's a million of them or seven of them. Um, but it's something that I'm certainly proud of our team and I wanted to just take a moment to recognize uh, the team members who were a part of this accomplishment. Um, our tier one team includes uh, school counselor Mrs. Kelly Chromemer, our first grade teacher, Lauren Schuster, first grade teacher, Michael Smith, kindergarten teacher, Christina McShane, and our fizzed and health teacher, Dr. Jennifer Buts, and our tier 2 and tier three team include Mrs. Chromemer, uh Janet Beashore, second grade teacher, Mrs. Hedgedis, Suzanne Hedgedis, kindergarten teacher, Amanda Beashore, our MTSS specialist

134and our reading specialist, Josie Fluger, reading specialist, and Cara Richardson, reading specialist. So there's our team of tier one, two, and tier three fidelity uh schwebs program at Peters Elementary School. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Thank you to you, all your teachers, and all of your support staff. Well done. And that concludes my report, Mr. Green. Well done, boss. Okay. Uh item K, an executive session was held in the uh library. Uh we had one legal item, one personnel item, and we discussed cyber security. So those were the three items uh that we went over. Okay. Uh moving on to personnel. I'm going to ask you to for the moment delete item B. So we're looking for A, C, D, E, all the way down to K. Is there a motion to approve those items?

135Gary motion. What? Gary made a motion. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. And then I have a second down here. We got a second down here. Yeah. Thank you. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed? No. And so ordered. Uh at this time, we'll take item 4B. Is there a motion to approve that? Motion. I'll second. Thank you. Motion in second. Uh let's do it this way. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I those opposed. No. Are there any other votes? Abstension, please. Thank you, sir. That's because relation. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. Motion is approved. Uh 8 Z. Then we'll go to policy. Uh we have a whole bunch of policies there. Uh A down, A9, and B. Is there a motion to

136approve policy? Some move. Motion. Second. And second stop to the right. It's It's hard to hear at this table. Was that you, Gary? Sure. I think it was Mr. Chrisman. Christopher. He beat me on that one. Thank you. Any questions on the policy items? I've got a statement to make, Mr. Green. Um, this is another club that um has been basically I believe it was um proposed by the students um similar to our crochet club. So, I just think it's great that the students here are getting more opportunities to participate in different um things that they're interested in. And I I just think it's terrific that we're able to offer something to all the different students here. Didn't come out right, but I agree. That's what that's what I want to say. Any other comments

137or questions? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying I opposed. No. And so ordered. I have nothing under conferences. uh curriculum instruction. We have items A, B, and C. Is there a motion to approve those items, please? Second. Second. Thank you. Questions on curriculum and instruction. Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. No. So ordered. I have no new business or old business rather old business or new business, but I don't have anything out of either one of them. Uh so we'll move on to financial uh and that starts uh X all the way EFG all the way down and then financial u fees. Is there a motion to approve all the financial items? Motion. Thank you. Second. Second. Thank you. Any questions on the financial items? Hearing none.

138All those in favor of approving them, please signify by saying I. I. Oppos? Don't. So ordered. I have nothing under legal or correspondent. We got to do one more. Appoint a treasurer. Oh yeah. Skipped right on by that, didn't we? Uh I would take a nomination for the treasur for the upcoming year. I would like to nominate Donna Culp to do that position. Donna Culp has been nominated. Are there any other nominations? Any other nominations? Miss Donna has been nominated. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. Is there a motion to close nominations? So moved. Second. Motion in a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Those opposed, no. Congratulations, Miss Cop. You will serve as our treasur again. A lot of responsibility there, but you know, it's Sorry about that. I

139missed that. uh couple of information items uh there for your perusal and then we have any guests who would like to speak on anything other than what was on the agenda. If I could just speak one more time. Sure. Thank you for letting me speak again. Apologize to my family. Uh, basically from what one thing I've learned is, and I just saw it here, it's easy to come here and beat you guys up. It's easy to sit here and say this that, but without community involvement or people actually coming and I'm a firm believer if you're going to do the talk, like do the walk, uh, I'm other than seeing on Facebook about this tax increase, I'm at fault for not coming. But the last couple meetings, if you want to be involved to the

140administrators or the school board, come together as a community, come speak. They let you speak. And it's easy to sit here saying, you know, oh, the teacher should do this, the teacher should do that. The teachers within the district are awesome. Uh my experiences with my children, and it's easy to beat people up when we all disagree on certain issues, but I think we got to like respect one another, which we do pretty good. But uh just a statement that like somewhat like bothered me a little like how many teachers actually live in the district. It's I've been in emergency service for 30 40 years. It's almost like a police officer to sit there and say, you know, the teacher should live in the district in that. I know just with living in this area

141how officers could get like attacked or a teacher that no longer works for the district couldn't even go up here to the local giant without parents addressing them in that. So, it's respect to the teachers. Uh, they do an awesome job and it's hard as you as a board to always make the right hard decisions. In the past, maybe hey, to keep the taxpayers money, you didn't do those upgrades, but sometimes, you know, you got to do what you got to do. And hats off to the board and to the teachers of the school system. It's easy to beat people up, but at this point I'll be quiet and just, you know, once people saw what they wanted, a couple of them just walked out of here. If you want to, I think there should

142be more involvement within the community and it would make everything better where if money's being spent or vice versa. So, thank you for letting me speak. Again, we have no one else signed up. No one else signed up, sir. Okay. Is there any other business to be attended to, Mr. Chris? Uh, real quick before we adjourn, uh, I meant to say something during, uh, student update. I just wanted to give a shout out to senior Connor Sims for 100 strikeouts on his high school career. Uh, he achieved that on senior night. Actually, I think he ended with 102 or 103. Um, but I just want to give him a shout out for for that milestone uh, during his baseball career. Thank you, Any other comments or questions? If not, I'm looking for more. Did I

143see a hand down there, Natalie? Oh, okay. I just I saw we're going out there but thank you. Uh is there a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. No. And we're finished here.