NLSD Special Board Meeting - April 28, 2025

001Okay, I'd like to call the meeting to order, please, and begin with the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I aliance 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. You know what? Roll call, please. I don't just run through the names. You got it. Miss Snider here. Uh, why are they doing this to me? Miss Rhonda here. Mr. Kerr here. Miss USA here. Mr. Green here. Mr. Chrisman here. Mr. Miss Williams here. They didn't give her a chance. Miss Cole here. Mr. Fedora. We have a new way of calling. I'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting. Call your attention to the uh civility uh disclaimer on the top. Uh I have a couple remarks

002I'd like to make. Tonight's meeting is going to be a little bit different than they normally are. Uh Dr. Link will then do his slide presentation uh to bring us up to date on information. The board will have an opportunity to ask questions after the slide presentation and then we'll open the door public comment. Our policy technically says five minutes per person and a half hour in total. I would like to ask the board to increase that length of time and give everyone who wants to speak an opportunity to speak staying with the five minute limit. Uh however, if you haven't done so, you need to sign the signin sheet. There's probably still one out on the table out there. If you want to speak, sign up because Dr. link will go down and he

003will read off the names and and we'll go from there. Uh Miss Malurus will be the timekeeper. She'll give you five minutes. When you get to one minute, she'll let you know that you're down to one minute so you can kind of get to the point and wrap it up. Please come forward to the podium when you speak so we use use the microphone and uh and we can hear you. Any questions? Anybody? No. Okay. Just just a couple of things and and there's been a lot of stuff floating around and I I just want to clarify an item or two if I can. Uh there were quotes going around saying that board members only wanted to raise taxes to cover their salary increase. Well, in case you don't understand, we don't get paid. So,

004there is no salary. There is no salary increase. That has nothing to do with the taxes. Someone else said that half the board members don't live in the district. Well, if you want to be on the no lei school board, you got to live in Walderport, Slington, or Washington Township. Uh, we can't be school directors in Caddy, New York, and Allentown be school directors up here. Uh, so if we raise your taxes, we're raising ours. Just so you understand that. Uh, somebody else kept saying, "We don't care about seniors or retirees." Uh, as I look up and down the board, I think five of the nine members uh are either retired or partially retired. So, uh, we have a couple of young moms, couple older moms, couple of dads, grandpas. I think we have a

005pretty good cross-section of, uh, of people in the area. I'm not going to do that one. Uh, class sizes are falling. Uh, well, they're not as big as they used to be during CO or during the baby boomer area, but since CO, uh, we're up a little over 100 students. So, the numbers have risen a little bit. they kind of are predicted to balance out at that point and and we'll go from there. Uh you guys are raising taxes. That's crazy. Well, inflation was down about onetenth to 1% last month as I remember. But in the four years previous, the compound inflation was like somewhere below 20%. All right. In the last 5 years, we raised taxes like 9 12%. I'm sorry, 10 and a half%. So we're about half the rate of inflation when

006when it comes to raising our taxes. Uh we get a small amount of money from uh federal government, much more from the state and a bit of kind of other stuff money interest donations uh like neurbank for example gives us thousands and thousands of dollars for STEM camp in the summer and uh that's where our money comes from. uh and of course grants. Uh the state was sued and told they have to fix their system of funding education and so far they've done nothing. And I saw a couple of comments where people have talked to state legislators and uh they refused to do anything. They refused to take their funding. Uh I have a good friend named Senator Dave Argo from Tamaka. He's been trying for years to get rid of property tax and change

007it to income, gas tax, whatever. he can't get any kind of on any kind of consensus out in uh out in Harrisburg to do that. So, the bottom line is they won't raise the taxes. So, we at the local level have to and then we become the bad guys. Uh couple of things that we've done. We've hired our fourth resource officer and all the supplies necessary to go with that. Uh we have many many more participants in extracurricular activities than we had in years past. We started a crochet club, well attended. We brought back some band activities. We introduced lunch and learn at the high school. And if you haven't heard about that, check it out for people coming from all over to see what we're doing there. Thank you guys in in the high

008school for a fantastic job. Uh and also next year, for the first time in history, we're going to have a girls wrestling team. And we already have enough ladies signed up to put a team on the floor. So that's going to be another activity that's going to be good for our students. Uh I also wanted to say that the administration didn't come to the board and say we want to build a new building. The board at their committee meetings have been looking at this for two three years now. Uh the education committee under Mr. Kern has been saying how are we teaching our kids? What curriculum are we using? Are we using the right one? Are teachers communicating? Are they collaborating? Or are they just doing what they did? And we can't do that. We

009have to bring that together. So that started uh the finance the buildings and grounds committee uh under Miss Culpa Mr. for Dorcha started looking at what do we need to have fixed, what do we need to be repaired, when does it need to be done, how much money do we have, etc., etc. Uh, as a result of that, the administration sat down and started the new comprehensive plan. And, uh, I think it's the first feasibility study that we've had in like 20 years. It's been a long, long time since we've done that. And, and it was time. Uh, he'll talk about after we get to that. Uh, one last thing and then then I'll be finished for the night. There was a lot of conversation about the Northern Lehigh School District having an audit. Uh,

010someone was suggested we should be forced to have an audit to see where we're spending all the money that we're spending. Uh, and then I understand someone called the county. I don't know why you would call the county, but that's what I understand. Well, guess what? We do an audit every year with the local auditing company. Happens every year. uh Orman and Associates. They do ours, they do others. Uh it's been almost perfect for the last 8 to 10 years since Sherry and Rhonda have been keeping the books. Uh I often say I'm not an educator. That's not why I'm here, but I understand numbers. When the auto report comes out, I get excited. I read it cover to cover. It's like 107 pages. That's that's my thing. And I just want to quickly point

011out a few things and then I'll be done. Uh to look at the financial statements, you go to the last page first. Summary of audit results. Internal control over finance reporting. Material weaknesses identified. No. Significant deficiencies identified that are not considered to be material weakness. None reported. Non-compliance material to finance. No. Federal awards. Material weaknesses identified. No. significant defici deficiencies identified that are not considered to be material weaknesses. No, none reported. Any other findings as per section 20.516 of the uniform guidance? No. Uh there were there were no no problems whatsoever. And then I want to read one more section in here. Uh items that could make budgeting difficult for Northern Lehi. Uh, and one of the things that will make it good is we've had significant savings in our electric costs over the last

012several years. And I remember being at meetings where people were coming saying, "Why are you throwing away all the old lights?" Well, because the new ones are more efficient and they work better. And and that's why we got rid of those and put them in and we're seeing some significant decreases in our costs. Uh, retirement rates, medical rates, all those things have have kind of gone up over the years. uh special education costs have have gone through the roof. Uh and to ensure that these students receive and I'm reading now from the report uh necessary support while maintaining compliance with state regulations, the district may need to relocate professionals to other areas. Uh no requirements to say if you're going to go to a charter school. Uh, and it cost the district $32, $359 for

013a person to go to charter school if they have some kind of disability or regularity. One other thing, and and this is my last, I promise. The Go Lee High School District continues to reflect a district that is suffering from significant financial plight. It remains a district with almost no industrial base from which to draw property taxes, forcing local property owners to bear the brunt of the funding for a quality education. While the financial burden limits the programs the district can do compared to similar affluent districts in the neighborhood, Northern Lehi continues to move ahead with cutting edge technology programs and opportunity for students. Uh some of the things they mentioned is you know we have K to 5 uh laptops etc etc. There's a lot of things that are doing here and the other

014thing it offers one of the best educational programs K to 12 and envisions an even brighter educational future and I think that's why a lot of us are here. The district also continues to look for grant monies and partnerships in order to cover developing focus on safety and security advances in technology applications and staff training and support. Uh that's all I have for now. Uh I think we went through how we're going to handle this. So now I think Dr. Lincoln it's your turn for the slides. So we'll turn this over to you. Thank you Mr. Green. Good evening everyone. It's nice to see all of you. uh going to spend about 35 to 40 minutes uh giving a presentation. Uh after the presentation, those of you that have signed up, uh you'll be given

015an opportunity to comment on um you know, whatever it is you signed up for to comment on this evening. There is only one topic uh and that's the superintendent's my uh presentation. There will be no action taken tonight. This is an information session only this evening. And again, I appreciate you all coming and um let's get started. So tonight at the special board meeting, we are going to review uh key points from a recent feasibility study which Mr. Green had just referenced. We're going to address some common questions the school board and administration has received and we're going to re reviews of recent surveys. The feasibility study uh was approved on May 13th, 2024. So about a year ago. Alloy 5 in conjunction with the Mccclure company were selected to conduct a feasibility study after

016a request for feasibility studies was issued um and first reported their findings on October 14th, 2024 at a public school board meeting. The last feasibility study was conducted in 2006, approximately 18 years ago. Feasibility study key points. We're first going to consider existing infrastructure improvements. So no additions just cons uh existing infrastructure improvements recommended through the feasibility study. This information was previously shared at the October 14th 2024 board meeting, November 14th 20 November 4th 2024 building and grounds committee meeting and the January 7th 2025 building and grounds committee meeting. We're going to take a look at Peters Elementary School, Slington Elementary School, the middle school, the high school, and then the fieldhouse maintenance building and stadium complex. So, the next series of slides that's going to address each one of those buildings on the school

017district property um has all been shared before. I am not going to go through each one line by line. We will post this presentation. I'm going to recommend to the school board that we switch it up a little bit and not wait until the full minutes are approved. We post the presentation as presented this evening unapproved to the school district website tomorrow. So, you'll be able to access it. It will be on the school district website. Um there's a lot of information in here and I'm not going to spend hours going through it this evening, but it is accessible to you. Peter's Elementary School uh to do just building upgrades to Peter Elementary School. If it were to stay online and not be shut down due to a transition to a common campus model, we're

018looking at approximately 12 to$14 million to to renovate Peter's Elementary School over years. It wouldn't happen all at once, but the um engineers and the architects are recommending that we address, and these are the big bucket areas. Uh, anything in red is high priority down to dark green which is very low priority. ADA and code compliance upgrades, interior doors and hardware, electrical upgrades, fire alarm system replacement, and upgrade um the public announcement clock system. And then things like uh replace the ballast roof, replace the the clock system, replace the some kitchen equipment, replace a heat pump, uh building envelope improvements, plumbing fixture replacements, and then replace the heat pump system that's actually in the best condition out there right now. So all of those big buckets that I just listed over the next two slides

019are line itemized almost like the cost for each singular project within there. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to read all these to you. These will be available to you. Just know that the total comes to about 12 to 14 million. Okay. So here's the list for Peters. Here's the rest of the list for Peter's Elementary School. And now I'm going to transition to Slington Elementary School. As many of you are aware, Slington Elementary School um was the most recently fully renovated building. Uh so the need for uh capital improvements there is much less. All in uh from the feasibility study, they're recommending improvements at the cost of about 2.2 to $3.8 million total. there. The big bucket areas are upgrade the HVAC system controls, electrical upgrades, fire alarm system replacement, and install water softener.

020Uh repair areas of mechanical condensation and repair sidewalks. Again, Peter's Elementary School naturally being in the best condition of all of our properties. I'm sorry, Slington Elementary School. And here are those big bucket items broken down into line items. Okay, next we have the middle school. This one we kind of addressed in like two steps because if there was going to be any sort of additions, this building here would have to receive the first addition. So, we're going to look at it as if they were going to do no addition and just address the needed uh capital improvements or if they were to do an addition and some capital improvements. So, left column, right column. If they were to do the full scope of work, um, we're looking at about 12 to 14 million total

021with all those big bucket areas listed up there behind me. If we were to do an addition on here, all those some of those big bucket things and all the line items within them, actually, some of them go away. Okay? So then that cost to do the renovations, not the addition, the renovations actually goes down to about 7.4 to 9 million total if an addition is completed. Again, the next few slides for the middle school, it's all the line item things recommended through the feasibility study with associated cost. Next we have the high school high school um projected cost to do the capital improvements to the high school is about 14.4 to $16 million. Again, big bucket items are listed down there. Everything from again, you you'll notice some things in our buildings. It's almost

022like a pattern fire alarm system replacement. really that doesn't necessarily mean like the sprinkler heads. What that means is the control panels for all the fire alarms. We we'll see that a little bit later. Um again, a water softener installation, uh code compliance, clock systems, uh some kitchen equipment, case work, building envelope improvements, um some some interior lighting, uh air handler and chillers, and uh some exterior improvements to the facade of the building. Those are broken down in the line items over the next couple slides here again which will be available to you up on the website in the near future. Okay. The next kind of area on the on the properties owned by the school district is kind of down by the athletic campus on the other side of the high school. the fieldhouse,

023the maintenance building, really maintenance building terminal, um, and the stadium here for total improvements. Uh, we're looking at about 5 billion to $6.2 million. Um, electrical upgrades, replace the stadium lights, some ADA upgrades, upgrade plumbing fixtures, replace the turf, press box renovation, and a press box renovation. Um, some of you may recall back in like 2018, 2019, we did something called a guaranteed energy savings product where uh project where all of the lighting fixtures throughout the district. So, every single lighting fixture was upgraded to a um high efficiency, lowcost fixture for cost savings reasons. The only one of our complexes that that did not touch were the athletic complex complexes. So, the stadium, those those lightings do not fall into those upgrades. Um, so that's something down the road where we would like to say

024that's probably our most expensive lighting, the stadium lights. We probably want to look at transitioning those into um high efficiency, lowcost lighting. Again, this is the breakdown for those uh for the athletic complex. Okay, another part of the feasibility study was to maybe not do all those singular capital improvements and consider transitioning to a common campus where Peter's elementary school would eventually go offline, be integrated into Slington Elementary School, but the first thing that would have to happen would be for sixth grade currently at the Slington Elementary School to come to the middle school. So then the grade configurations would be K to 5, 6 to 8, 9 to 12. That's what we would consider a common campus. And eventually we would take Peter's offline um and look to look to sell it. For this

025particular building, the light glue section would be the designated area for the addition. So that would be a proposed singlestory addition. Uh so basically if you were to leave the auditorium, turn right and go all the way to the end of that hallway, kick out the wall, that's where we would put the addition then. Um and then we would have to do some kind of like secondary type of uh entry points as well as re redo some of our um like van drop off areas especially for our children with special needs. So, the middle school addition, which would be about $18,500 ft², um is estimated to be anywhere from 10.6 million to 12.2 million for probable cost. Um if you would want to do the additional infrastructure improvements on top of that, you're looking at

026about another 7.4 to $9 million on top of the cost of the addition. Okay, next we're going to take a look at Slington Elementary School. If you've been following along in uh the public presentations, you'll know that here we're looking to do a um so likely second grade would backfill the rooms vacated by sixth grade. We would still have to put an addition on for kindergarten and first grade. That would be the light the larger light blue section up here. That would be a two-story building. We are also proposing that we we add on a much larger additional gym space dedicated for like athletics, not only for the children during gym class, um but also I'm sure most of you are aware just about all of our gymnasiums in the district are used by the

027community youth athletic associations and some adult groups um really throughout the school year. So, we would like to be able to continue that tradition. And then the current gymnasium at which is actually a gymnasium/stage/ auditorium at Slington Elementary School is undersized. If you've been to any of our events there, especially any of the senior citizen events, it's tight. Um we would keep that online to do um kind of smaller large group activities. So that space would still be available. The very small light blue box over here would be a um an addition onto the cafeteria, which would be some dining area, but then also some addition to um the current Slington Elementary School kitchen to make sure that all the food can be prepared in a timely manner for the children. So, Slington Elementary School

028addition, just in addition, is projected to cost 26.8 million to $30.2 million. probable cost. Okay, so that was a quick walkthrough of the feasibility study. um again which can be found in all of our board minutes either uh in the minutes with the presentations linked or through the live streams as you I hope all of you are aware but if you're not I'm going to remind you all that every single committee meeting and school board meeting going back I think a couple years now uh can be live streamed to the Northern High School District YouTube table YouTube channel which is linked to the um uh school district school board web page on our website. So they're all available there. You can just look at the presentation or you can watch the presentation with the voice

029over. So some questions that have either been asked at previous public meetings or have come to us through the surveys or uh from people attending publicly at meetings. Why is the district building a new school? Again, I really want to emphasize there is no recommended option within the feasibility study to build a new school. This is not something for the school board to consider. That's good. Um, why is the district moving the central office to Peter's Elementary School? The school district is not relocating its district office to Peter's Elementary School. That goes against everything um that has been laid out in a feasibility study. Why doesn't the school district repair the public streets around its campus first? I hear you. Um, but the public roadways in the community are not managed by the school district.

030So, um, again, that's not something that we would have control over. At one point, the current middle school, the building we're all in this evening, housed four, four, and three grades. Um, so why is an addition needed if sixth grade is relocated there? So, we kind of did a deep dive into this. Um, I don't I don't know if you can all see that, but again, it'll be posted up on the website. A lot of information, the next three slides are dedicated to this question. So, you know, a little bit of historical context, uh, why it seemed to work before. So the middle school previously housed up to four grades um and then it dropped down to the junior high uh level which was um 789. A significant portion of the students attended LCTI formerly

031Lehigh County VOTE. Some of you may remember when it was called Lehigh County VOTE. Uh students were offsite for either a full day or half days reducing the current be uh building utilization. Less students in the building. Several instructional spaces were repurposed from shop areas. There used to be a metal shop and a wood shop within this building. Um, these were not originally designated as academic classrooms as they are now. Uh, we had floating teachers, right? So, teachers that didn't actually have a classroom, sometimes called teachers on carts, um, commonly delivered, you know, the special classes or some of the exploratory track type curriculum. Uh there was no no dedicated rooms. Instruction occurred in shared spaces or carts. Uh crowding and stop gap measures were the norm. Hallways were not notably congested during peak years.

032At one point, three modular classrooms were were required for core content instruction. Um there are still two of them out back. We use those for uh storage and um we allow the Northern Lehigh Youth Athletic Association to use the other one. Um and some classes had to be held at the current high school during the junior high years. So more students, we have a few now, but many more students would actually have to take their coursework over at what became um the senior high school. So what's that current reality kind of then versus now lens? um instructional program has evolved significantly. Teaching and learning took very I'm sorry. Teaching and learning looked very different compared to the 1960s and early 2000s through the early 2000s. Modern methodology, state standards, federal laws and curriculum offerings require

033specialized instructional spaces, greater use of technology and small group and individualized instruction. now how we currently deliver instruction. Um so kind of think of it as hospitals don't look or operate like they did 20 30 40 years, right? Healthc care and medicine has evolved. Well, shame on us in in education if we have not done the same thing. We had to evolve our physical spaces to be able to meet the demands of how teaching and learning occurs today. Um current building includes this current building includes four special education classrooms. one of which is operated by the CLIU. Those classrooms were not required back in the previous iterations of the school building. These programs require dedicated, properly equipped spaces not previously accounted for. That is a federal law. We cannot ignore that. Uh building configuration has

034changed. Previous renovations have resulted in fewer full-size classrooms than in the past. So, we had to break up some full-size classrooms to produce small spa, small group instruction type areas um down this hallway and uh somewhat down the um what we call the administrative hallway. So, this kind of corner right out here. All right. Next question that we have received is why is an addition necessary if sixth grade moves to Northern Lehigh Middle School? Relocating sixth grade without an addition would result in the following things. displacement of five current classrooms to non-instructional spaces. So, we would have to start looking at things like the cafeteria annex um that greenhouse area back there. Uh we would have to kind of fall back into the traditional instructional spaces. Um today's standards demand more than square footage. Instructional

035quality is tied to access to adequate dedicated learning spaces. Shared or temporary spaces hinder academic programming differentiation and collaboration. We are required to differentiate for our students anymore whether they have a learning disability, a physical disability or not. We implement what is called multi multi-tered systems of support for academics and behavior um at all building levels. And that's before a student even gets to qualifying for an an individualized education plan, which is special education. Um, so a building that is purposely built uh with an addition would afford us modern curriculum delivery, compliance with evolving state mandates, and a respectful inclusive environment for all students, including those in special programs. Why is the district considering to close Peter's Elementary School when enrollment is increasing? Enrollment is not projected to increase. Right now, we're at about 1,600

036students. Feasibility study um outcomes showed that around 2032, we're actually supposed to kind of dip down to about 1550, right? So, not much um but it's not projecting that we increase uh through the feasibility study. This is a snapshot again this slide has been sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh shared out a couple times in the last few months as part of our budgetary process. Uh you'll notice you know so 2122 school year right y'all remember what was happening then many students withdrew from the school district so we dipped down to about 1494 and then we slowly started to kind of build our way back up actually pretty steadily two years two years are the same numbers next school year we're

037projecting to be at 1,609 students the the kind of wildcard variable in that is what is our incoming kinderg kindergarten class going to look like? Right now, we have 87 children fully through the enrollment process. As I look to Mr. Schneider, right, just to confirm this, 87 children fully through the um enrollment process for next school year. So, typically what happens is that 87 is going to stay stable for a while and then like in August everybody's like, "Oh, I got to register my child for kindergarten." And we're going to see that number spike up again. We're anticipating high-end 125 children for kindergarten next year. So sharing that um through the feasibility study and I think this is very important information because there are recommended building capacities that come down from architects and actually from

038PTE themselves. Right now our current configuration Peter's elementary school is about 87% capacity. Slington's at 93. The middle school is at 73. and the high schools at 83. So, I'm just going to let that linger there for a second. Okay. If we were to put an addition on the middle school, those percentages shift still 87 at at Peters, right? Because it still would be K to2. Slington would dip to 66%. The middle school would go up to 81% and the high school would stay at 83%. If we were to go to a full common campus model, K to 5 at Slington, 6 to 8 in this school building here, and remain 9 to 12 at the high school, they balance. They come 81%, 81%, 83%. The recommended capacity for school building is 85%. because that

039allows for bubble classes that come through. And we have some bubble classes right now, the rising third grade class. So this year's second grade class, we would call informally a bubble class. When that class goes to third grade, we're actually going to have to take one of the teachers from Peter's elementary school in second grade, I believe, a teacher from from Peter's Elementary School to go to third grade just to kind of track with that class so we can keep our class sizes down lower. 85% is the target number for schools. Okay, so more questions. What is the total cost if the district consolidated into a component campus and made all improvements? Well, if you kind of go back through all those previous slides that were colorcoded red, yellow, light green, dark green, um it's

04076.8 million to $89.2 million. I apologize. I don't know why that slide's doing that. Um, what is the total cost of the necessary bonds for a common campus with interest if approved? So, the total cost with interest is $100 million spread out over 25 years. So, let's dig into that a little bit more. Would this result in a 3.5% tax increase for 25 years due to the bonds? The answer to that is no. It would result in a 3.5% increase over the next five years for bonds and normal increases such as salaries and utilities. This includes our current $18.7 million principal debt from previous capital projects like Slington Elementary School. So that's inclusive of our current debt, which by the way is the second lowest for a school district in Lehigh County. Um and then

041after five years that would level off. How would this would how would this be funded? Well, the school board really has three options in front of them, right? They can stay status quo and do nothing. And I by that I mean not do any renovations, not do any building additions or they could do all those kind of singular capital improvements and not go to a common campus or they could go to the common campus model. Whether the school board decides to do only a capital improvements only transition to a common campus or do both it will require the purchase of bonds and use of a portion of the fund balance. Each option will require property tax increases at some point during the project. Remember, some of those singular projects are millions of dollars just by

042themselves. Excuse me. Would all Peters Elementary School staff come to the combined Peters Elementary Slington Elementary building? Secondly, is there opportunity to cut staff? So yes, the plan would be to transition all PS faculty, staff, school police officer, administration to Slington Elementary School after additions are complete. The second part of the question, we are not recommending that we use this as an opportunity to decrease staff. I would be very clear in that due to the enrollment of a K to5 school approximately 750 students. Uh so that would then become our largest school as far as enrollment goes in the school district. Um it is not recommended to furlow any positions. We would operate in an upper and lower school model. Right? So if you looked at that addition, you can see that they're easily the

043building is connected but we can easily partition where the children are within the building and they can function like a school within a school. Okay. So what does that do for transportation? Right? This is an important topic for us. What are the implications for transportation? So, I'm just going to kind of read this table to you. Again, this will be available on the website. In our current model, we drive 1,799 miles daily. The proposed um which would require an additional four four and a half buses would drop to 1,485 miles daily. So, less miles, 314 miles less daily. the run time average would drop by one minute. Okay, so about 38 minutes is our average bus run now would drop down to 37 minutes. Now we have some um bus routing software uh that does

044things that I don't fully understand. Uh but our coordinator our our coordinator of transportation is well adepted in this. So we can actually write down to a minute of how long each bus run is. We can calculate this and he's run all the models for if this if we were to transition to a common campus number of rostered students per bus average would stay about the same. It would go up by one student 36 rostered up to about 37. Daily fuel gas cost right now um it's 37 $3757 or it would drop down to 2721 that's daily. So it' be about $10 less daily fuel diesel cost, right? So our vans run on traditional gasoline, our buses run on diesel. That would go from $246 daily down to 154 less mileage. Monthly transportation cost for

045buses and vans. So cost of the bus and driver only, not fuel, would actually go up by about $1,800 because we would have to add about $4.5 vehicles. So, it would go from $166,210 to $168,000. Um, yeah, $16867. The bus stops needed daily would drop from 1,214 bus stops down to 972. So, we'd have about 242 fewer bus stops. So, some other things to consider about transportation. While we do see an increase in our transportation cost of $16,716 um for the year, the reduction in fuel cost over the same time would generate a savings of a little over $18,000. So net difference, we're coming out about $1,15 ahead when you look at the cost of labor compared to the cost of fuel. Fewer stops will improve the safety for our students and drivers and aids.

046We now have data on this. I think many of you are aware that we instituted the bus patrol system so we can track how many bus stop violations there are. The more bus stops there are, the more violations there are. Um, fewer miles will reduce the wear and tear on the vehicles. Um, and then this is important. This all assumes that sixth graders would be considered walkers at the middle school like the seventh graders and eighth graders currently. Again, that was a lot. You can review all of that when it's up on the website. What is the market value for Peters Elementary School if we were to close and sell it? So now, right, real time low valuation would be about a million dollars in 2025. This is based on comps of other school buildings

047that have been sold within the last couple years. It would rise up to about 1.1 million by 2030. If you're assuming an average of a 3% annual growth, high valuation, so if somebody could come in, purchase that building, and really not have to do any sort of infrastructure changes to it, kind of almost like turnkey for them, whatever the purpose would be, you're looking at about currently 1.8 million to $2.4 million up to a high end of about a little over 2 million to 2.8 million in 2030. Tax revenue would be determined based on the who on who the purchaser would be. Right? So, whoever purchased it, they're either going to be taxable or they're going to be non-t taxable. We can't control that. What would be the impact of moving sixth grade to the

048middle school on existing staffing and certifications? We would be able to cover all required courses and it may create some additional flexibility for Northern Lehigh Middle School teacher assignments and may have master scheduling implications for grades 6 to 8. That's something that we would have to explore as we go through the process. Would we offer additional elective courses for a true middle school model? That's the goal, right? We want to provide all of our students with many opportunities to have access to highly engaging curriculum. We need additional time to explore what this would actually look like though. Is there a need for an additional assistant principal or dean of students in sixth grade move if sixth grade moves to the middle school? So currently we have Peter's elementary school with about 390 children in it.

049one administrator and one principal at Slington which has almost 500 children 487 and one principal. If sixth grade moves to the Northern Lehigh Middle School, there would be approximately 380 students and it would have one principal and about approximately point4 assistant principal. Uh Mr. Williams, Mr. Williams, raise your hand there. If you haven't met Mr. Williams yet, he's our new secondary assistant principal. He's doing an excellent job. He just did a phenomenal college career readiness fair. I hope some of you got to see it or at least read about it. He shared amongst the middle school and the high school. Um so it kind of fluctuates but it's about a 4060 split administration. So we would not recommend that we add an assistant principal. However, we would like the opportunity to explore the possibility of

050a dean of students for Slington Elementary School and a Northern Lehigh Middle School if we transition to a common campus model. I mentioned this earlier. This was a question that came through uh earlier on in the process. Why do fire systems have to be upgraded at all schools? This recommendation is so the control panels can be upgraded as well as meet ADA voice requirements. It is not the actual sprinker sprinkler head. So, as we transition into upgrading, which we're going to have to do eventually either way, um our fire systems, it has to be the light strobe, the sound, but also a spoken voice uh to comply with ADA. What does moving sixth grade to the middle school accomplish? Well, it relieves overcrowding, eases capacity issues at Slington Elementary School by re relocating space, reallocating

051space, aligns with the curricular needs of a true sixth grade model. It improves our special education continuum of services in Northern Lehigh. Like many school districts, we have a group of children that qualify for special education services. they are they are are most um in need of the most additional support because of their type of disabilities. So we have what we call a life skills program at Peters Elementary School at Slington Elementary School. There's not currently one in this building and then we have one at the high school. The children that would be going to the the middle school stay an additional year at Slington Elementary School. then they leapfrog over this building and start at the high school younger than the traditional high school student. If we were to go to a common campus

052model or at least put sixth grade in this building, that would afford us the opportunity to do something that we've never done before, and that is to have a full continuum of services for our most needy children in the school district. And by needy, I mean it comes to um the supports that they need for learning. Hold on. um access to dedicated resources, enhanced learning environments and multifunctional um large group instructional spaces. If we were to do this, we would reimagine what we are doing currently in our current library here to open it up to be more of like a maker space, project based learning, steam and STEM type activities. What does moving kindergarten through 2 grade to Slington Elementary School accomplish? Greater convenience for families. All children are now on one campus. Enhanced safety

053and oversight. All the school district school police officers, some of us are with us this evening, um would all be on one main campus. we would not have one individual school police officer out in Washington Township um by himself where often times the closest state trooper right because that falls under PSP domain could be 20 30 40 minutes away. Um here we would have all of our officers on one campus ready to support each other very quickly if necessary as well as much quicker access to Slington PD and Walnut Port Walnut Port PD god forbid if we ever needed them to come in. Operational and financial efficiencies. Listen, if we take Peter's Elementary School offline, there's going to be a lot of things that we don't have to do anymore as far as our maintenance

054and custodians go. Um, every time one of our maintenance people has to go out there, they need to get in a truck and drive out there to serve whatever it is that they need to do out there. That goes away. Um, as well as all the cost of utilities associated with uh, Slington Elementary School, all the cost of the property upkeep like cutting the grass, all the acorage out there, that goes away. Um, snow removal that goes away. and we would be able to turn around our campus here much quickly when we have things like winter winter events. Um improve staff collaboration. All of our all of our professional staff and support staff and administration would be on one campus. That would be a game changer for for professional development days. Um and then expanded

055student opportunities. um you know, more opportunities for our K5 students to participate in additional programs and services as well as infl enhanced flexibility for special education services as well as opportunities for and this is something that we're really trying to push um here in Northern Lehigh in many school districts across the state um encouraging young people to go into the education field. Right. Well, one of the best ways to do that is to get our high school students interacting, supporting um working with our younger children, K to um K to six. So, for instance, we have a um our National Honor Society student government at the high school near the end of the year, we put them on a bus, we take them over to Peter's Elementary School to spend a day working and supporting

056the young children over there. Well, that becomes a walk, right? we no longer have to pay for the transportation to get our older children working with and mentoring our younger children in this type of model. Okay. So now let's go into some of So there were three surveys issued. Let's go. We're going to do I'm going to do a quick walkthrough of these surveys. I'm not going to address everything because I'm not going to read it to you because they're self-explanatory. Okay. Again, all this will be made available on the district district website. So, community survey first, we had 270 responses. That's about a 3.2% response rate based on the per capita tax roles, which is a target, right? It's not an absolute of about probably a little over 8,000 people. First question, is this

057the first time you've heard about the proposed common campus? It's about a 50-50 split. What is your connection to Northern Lee High School District? Top three were the respondents were an alumni, a parent of a former student, or a resident with no children in the school district. Are you a resident and or property owner in the Northern Lee High School District? Now, remember, you were supposed to be either a property owner or a resident in Northern Leh High School District to respond to this. Two people decided to respond anyway because they weren't in those buckets. That's all right. they actually canceled each other out. Um, but just know that about almost 100% of the people fell into this category. How long have you lived or own property? Uh, the greatest number about a little over

05871% it's been over 11 years or more. Have you interacted with Northern Lee High Schools in any of the following ways? Overwhelmingly 80% of the people interact by attending events whether it's sports, performances, musicals or just kind of meetings like we're all here for this evening. Um and then it goes down to volunteering which I love to hear. Please continue to volunteer. Um and then other do you believe the common campus model would positively impact the local community? About 50% said no, 30% said yes, and a little over 20% said you know what, I'm not sure yet. Do you believe this model would make Northern Lee High School District more attractive to families? About 60% said no. 26 or so percent said yes. The rest said not sure. Do you think a common campus would

059help a district attract and retain highly qualified teachers and staff? Excuse me. About 60% said no. About 18% said yes, and about 22% said not sure. Do you support the proposed common campus model for the community members? About 55% said no, 22% said yes, and about 23% said I'm not sure. Would you be more likely to attend events? About 67% said no, 15% said yes, unsure. Are you concerned about the potential for tax increases? About 91% said yes. Um, and then I don't know about 7% said no and about 3% said I'm not sure. Would you like more opportunities to learn about the proposed common campus? About 57% said yes. 42% said no, which led us into the next question. Are you interested in participating in community forums or focus groups? Interestingly, about 65% then

060said no. Um, and 35% said yes. But I'm glad you're all here tonight. Please keep coming. What do you see as the top three benefits of a common campus? I am not going to read all these. I'm just going to let this hang up here a little bit. Again, it'll be available to you in the near future on the district website. Okay. What do you see as a top three concerns regarding transitioning to a common campus? Next, we're going to do the employee surveys. We had um 175 responses which is about 66% of our total um employee all of our employees in Northern Lehi. Uh by far the greatest group to respond was the professional staff. So teachers, school counselor, school nurses um and then our support staff. Which buildings do you currently work in?

061knowing that we have some people that change buildings throughout the day or throughout the week. How long have you been employed by the district? Um, I love seeing this. The majority of them, it's been more than 11 years. Do you believe transitioning to a common campus would positively impact your ability to educate um or support students? 60% said yes. A little over 15 said no. About 25% said, "I'm not sure." Uh, there we go. Do you believe access to shared resources like facilities, technologies, events would improve on a common campus? 80% said yes. About 13% said not sure. The rest said no. Would a common campus improve the sense of community among staff? About 66% said yes. Little under 10% said no. About 25% said I'm not sure. Would this transition improve your ability to

062provide meaningful educational experiences for students? A little over 50% said yes. A little over 15% said no. The rest were uncertain. Do you think a common campus would make your job more efficient by streamlining streamlining resources and reducing redundancies? 64% said yes. 15% said no. About 20% said I'm not sure. Do you believe this transition could positively impact your work life balance and overall wellness? This was about a third. A third. A third, right? A little bit of shift there. Are you concerned about how this transition might detract from the quality of work you do? Over 75% said no. Uh eight about 8% said not sure. and about 14% said yes. Would this transition require changes in your role or position? About 65% said no. About 27% said they're not sure. And less than 10%

063said yes. Do you believe a common campus would improve safety and security for our district buildings? About 79% said yes. Uh about 14% said not sure. And the rest said no. Do you believe the transition will positively affect professional development opportunities? About 62% said yes. About 27% said not sure, and a little over 11% said no. Do you see clear benefits to transitioning to a common campus? About 75% of our employees said yes. Uh about 10% said no, a little less than 10% and about 15% said they're not sure. What concerns, if any, do you have about transitioning to a common campus? I'm just going to let that slide linger up there for a little bit. What do you see as the biggest opportunity for improvement with a common campus? I should have said when

064you see this when you see a slide formatted like this. This is like a thematic analysis of all the responses that we got. Right? So if I would have written out every single response 106 slides would have gone up to about a thousand slides. So, um, what we looked for here were what are the common threads through responses from each group that responded. Okay, parent and guardian survey results. Uh, we had 249 responses. That makes up about 23 that's about a 23% response rate based on current unique families enrolled in the district. Right? So, understanding that some families have multiple children in them, right? So there's going to be less responses than one, you know, one parent and guardian per child. How many children do you currently have enrolled in the schools? Um, you know,

065about 48 about 44% said one, about 39% said two, and the rest said three or more. What grades are your ch children currently in? You can see the breakdown on the screen behind me. Do you believe that a common campus could offer your child an improved educational experience? About 50, a little over 50% said yes. About 23% said no, and about 25 26% said they're not sure. Do you think a common campus could improve access to specialized programs? Almost 68% said yes. About 15% said no, and about 17% said they're not sure. In regards to a transition to a common campus, how important are expanded educational opportunities? Overwhelmingly, people said a score of five, which is very important. In regards to a common campus, how important is student safety and security? Overwhelmingly, a little over

06691% of the respondents said very important. Um how important is a sense of community for students? Again overwhelmingly uh about 63 64% um people said very important. How important is efficient transportation? Um again greatest respondent uh category was very important at about uh 68%. How important is access to extracurricular activities? Again, very important. Uh about almost 64%. Have you ever had or do you currently have children attending multiple school district buildings? Uh 62% said yes. The rest said no. Would it be beneficial to have your children on one campus? 69% said yes. Almost 16% said no. Um and about 15% said they're not sure. Do you think sixth grade is more appropriately placed in the middle school? About 75% said yes. About 12% said no, and about 12% said not sure. What a two schedule

067system. So if we were to go to a common campus model, start of day, end of day, we would have one start, one end for K5, one start, one end for 6 through 12. um as opposed to the current three schedule system be beneficial to your family? And about 52% said yes, that would be beneficial? Uh about 27% said no, and about 20% said they're not sure. How would this transition affect your family's participation in school events? Uh school events? About 76% said no change at all. I'm going to keep doing what I do. Uh about 21% said it would increase. Um and the rest said it would decrease their participation. I will say when we have an event here in our schools um parents and guardians show up like they really come out to

068support their sons and daughters. Do you believe this investment would improve educational quality in the community overall? About 53% said yes, 20% said um no, and about 26 27% said they're not sure. Are you concerned about the potential for a tax increase as part of this transition? About 75% said yes. The rest said no. How do you think the common campus would model would impact transportation? Um almost 50% said they they think it would improve it um or at least for their circumstances. About 18% said more challenging challenging. 12% said no change. and about 20% said they're not sure. What concerns, if any, do you have about transitioning to a common campus? I just let that hang up there a little. And what do you see as the biggest opportunity for improvements with a common

069campus model? I'm now going to open it up to school board directors for questions and comments. Um, Mina, I don't know if you want to facilitate this part of the part of it. Okay. Sure. Uh, I quickly have two things I have to say. I forgot to mention that we had an executive session uh before this meeting. Shame on me. Thank you for reminding me. It was personnel items that were discussed at that meeting. So, uh, I just wanted to announce it. And I also forgot to say that that uh report that I was talking about earlier from from Orman and Associates, the financial report that was also posted online and it is still online. So if you want to look at it and and look at the numbers, it's still there for you to

070look at. Okay. Having said that, uh anyone on the board want to comment on the slides? I'm looking right. I'll go first. That's surprise. All right. Um, so obviously looking at and reading these numbers, there's a lot of back and forth. Um, one thing I wish I probably would have seen, I don't know if it's something that you're able to answer or not. On the employee survey results, of the employees surveyed that took it, do we know how many of the employees actually reside in the district? No, that was not a question. And uh the survey was anonymous. Okay. Do we know of of our all of our staff? Um how many actually live within the district itself? Do we have that? I do not know that answer now. Um but that's something we can

071find out. I think we can find that out. Yeah. Okay. Sure. So, the qu uh school board members, if you don't have a mic by you, can you really project your voice, please? Um, Mr. Chrisman's question was, "How many of our current employees are school district residents?" Um, I do not know the answer to that now, uh, but we can find that out. Anything else, Mr. Chrisman, at the moment? Yeah, one one other question. Um, I'll try to speak louder for you guys in the back. I apologize. Um, in the renovations list, uh, probably a big portion of the cost of some of these renovations, there's a lot of ADA compliance things. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here. A lot of these ADA compliance stuff, um, we are grandfathered in since we have not

072made any significant changes outside to a lot of these buildings. So although they are red and they are critical, we are technically still grandfathered in unless we start making major changes outside and then at that point we would have to be compliant. Is that correct? So I'm I'm going to say generally yes. And then I'm also going to look to our architect to maybe jump in on this one. Um but but yes um we're grandfathered in for long for many of them. Um, but I do think that there are some things that we should just do for our students and visitors um to make sure that they have full access uh to our buildings. Um, so yes, we are currently grandfathered in. Yes, I think there is room for improvement. That being said, I'll turn

073it over to uh Miss Emily Leuza from Alloy 5 who is one of our uh architects. So technically, I'm sorry Emily, if you want to you may either stand up and face the audience or use the mic. Thank you. I can talk to a mic. So technically in 1992 when ADA was enacted and passed nationwide technically every building was immediately out of compliance. So ADA is not I wouldn't it's not the same as building code compliance where you technically are grandfathered in. It's a little bit looser in the sense that you may continue operating, but it does not save you from being sued at any moment in time. So, if a building is not to ADA compliance, technically a lawsuit can still come about and um can be won because anything not to the ADA

074standard is technically out of compliance. So, it's not to say that every building immediately has to be upgraded. It is just to say that it is there there are potential issues or lawsuits or um things of that nature that can come about because of the non-compliance. I know it's not that straightforward, but hopefully that helps a little bit. Thank you. Okay, I'm good for now. I'm sure I'll have more later. Still looking right. Anyone else on the right? Any questions, comments? No, we'll come back to you. Don't worry about it. Okay, looking left. Just a quick question. The time frame, if we would choose one or the other, so if we would choose to go the renovation way, what time frame would those changes be projected for? And then if we choose to go to

075the common campus, what time frame would those changes be for? Sure. So So good question. Um both of them would be spread out. The the renovations one would be spread out for, you know, probably at least 10, 15, maybe as many as 20 years depending on what the project is and the criticalness of the project. if we were to go to a common and we could start that honestly some of those projects if we were going to try to do it um kind of peace meal uh over the years um you know we could start that as ready as ready as the board is as soon as the board is ready to take action on any of them um knowing that some of them uh have much bigger price tags. So we would need to

076you know need a little bit more time to plan those. you got to go out for um you know put everything out for either an RFP or a bid that that type of stuff. Um if we were to transition to a common campus model um I would say we could probably break ground on that within like the next year especially for this building once we go through working with our financial adviserss and getting all that firmed up and that would take over a period of time. Yeah, that would that would take uh lessa again, but I I'm thinking that would probably take until Peters would actually go offline at 8 years. Probably about eight years. Yeah. And then the you had mentioned that if we choose to do either the common campus or the improvements,

077any of those items, they would have to go out to bid. So it's not it's not just one contractor that would bid it. Would we get multiple bids or is it kind of a this is it? So it depends on the cost, right? And I'll I'll look to either um our school board solicitor, Mrs. Mrs. Molatorus, or back to our architect for a more definitive answer on that. But we would have to follow all bid requirements. Um, so I don't I don't know if anybody wants to weigh in on that a little bit more deeply. Is your question is will we get one contractor to do the whole project at Peters or we get individual contractors to do like one to do the wiring another? No. No. So say we say we progress and say

078okay we want to do the common campus. We have a value of what those estimates are. Would that common campus request go to multiple general contractors or engineering firms or however that goes out? So, we might have contractor A give us $1 million, contractor B give us $10 million, contractor C20 million, and we can choose. Correct. And it will be the same uh RFP, so the same bid. I'm not certain about that. I'm going to let I'm going to let Emily uh answer that particular process. Yeah. So, we we discussed this a little bit. They um because of the way the transition would happen, they would architecturally we can kind of document them all at once. Public bidding wise because they are two separate buildings and everything. It would be two separate projects from a

079project standpoint, a construction standpoint, excuse me. um public bidding works. Any larger school district projects such as both of these um would have to go through public bidding. So, not only would we have to do public bidding, we'd have to do Act 34. Both of these projects require that both go through the Pennsylvania Department of Education review. That sets your cost per pupil. So that is essentially in short it's called the Taj Mahal act in from the 80s. Um it's so that you are not overbuilding per um how many students you are housing. So everything has to go through that. Um that wasn't exactly your question but um just know that there are standards in place for that cost and also how we did that cost estimate. Um, but public bidding wise, it has to

080be publicly um, it has to publicly go out to contractors. How it works in Pennsylvania is you get four primes. So, you have a GC, an EC, electrical contractor, a plumbing contractor, an HVAC contractor. So, you um, in other states there are single primes. Here's there's not. You have the four um, the four primes and you get bids for each of those. how um lucrative the project is, how um phasing works for your project. All of that kind of determines who and how many bid. There's no requirement for that from a public standpoint. You put it out to bid and you kind of see what you get in return. If you feel those bids are not favorable at that time, that can be assessed. If you do not get a bid for an EC or

081another contractor, that portion of the package has to be rebid and you have to find contractors to do so. Um, that being said, they would be bid as two separate projects. Um, did that answer everything that you asked? I think getting close. Okay. No. Um I I'll add some clarification maybe if I can. So if you were to say do the um moving everyone to the middle school this year um and the cost that you have uh quoted right now have you taken into consideration the cost increases for materials is that included in this number that was not included from the tariffs um again this was completed kind of back in October. Um, so we don't have any incre honestly I have a project in actively in construction now and I still don't really know

082what the tariffs are. Um, so it is very unpredictable at the moment. Um, what we do kind of um, note is that what it was not included because we don't exactly know your timeline yet. Um, but usually what we hold is a 4% es escalation increase per year. So, you know, if if we're projecting, and again, we didn't put it in the study because we didn't really put a timeline to any of that, but um you know, project two years out, well, you can kind of guesstimate your increase. And honestly, by the time these things are constructed, who knows what's happening with the tariffs anyways. So, all of that is kind of very much in flux right now, unfortunately. So the overall project being about 89,000 or a million um for everything that could eight

083years down the road look like 160 million. Sorry. Okay. Yep. Exactly. Okay. Depend all depending again on cost increases and fluctuations. Yep. Exactly. That's it. Bob, any questions concerning it at this time? Well, we said that the the project was going to take about eight years. So, current elementary students really will be in high school. So, we're really talking about the impact of elementary school students pertaining to middle school. So, if I have a student in second grade, I don't know how long it would take. Let's say we decide we're going to go with Common Campus. I'm not saying we are, please. Um, I don't need my name in the paper. Just asking questions. Um, if how long would it take to do the middle school portion, which we said would be the first phase,

084how long we we get bids, uh, you know, we decide we're going to go with it. We're going to move sixth grade here. We get bids. How long is going to be, you know, till we put the shovel in the dirt to the end? Three years, four years. So currently um if we started today documenting um we would have anywhere from I'll say 9 months to a year for documentation. Usually you leave about 2 months for a bidding period. Um that leaves you enough to advertise um and then leaves you a few weeks open for bidding and then selecting your bids. Construction timelinewise it's not that large of an addition. Um however there are you know some things that have longer lead time items um electrical equipment things like that. Um so we've projected somewhere

085between um 12 and 16 months for construction um for just the middle school edition. Slington was slightly more complex. It has a longer timeline. Um, it also has something that this building really doesn't, which would be phases. So, that building, as you saw in the diagram, has essentially like three separate additions for student disruption and, you know, making sure we minimize all of that. That would happen not all at once, so we're not touching every end of the building all at the same time. Um, you would have a little bit more phasing there. documentation would be a little bit longer because it is a larger school. Um it's a larger documentation process. It's about 43,000 square feet as opposed to the 18 that was here. Um so documentation would probably be um anywhere from 14

086to 18 months. And then the construction, I believe, I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I believe we had something around 24 months for construction for that. So essentially three years for the middle school project to be completed and then additional, if I'm doing my math quickly, four and a half years approximately. Now that for the elementary that being said once our documentation it depends how quickly you want to do things too, right? So we could speed things up on our documentation end that we can start documentation of Slington while this is under construction or while this is you know at the end of its construction documents. Um that is also a possibility. Usually that has to do with borrowing capacities. So, how quickly the money can kind of turn

087around. Um, but that just know that this timeline could also be consolidated as well. Thank you. Anything? No, I'm good. No, I'm good. Okay. Back to the right. Oh, sure. I got I got one more. Sorry. Um, so in regards to taxes and tax reform and all that good stuff, which again, I'm not a fortune teller, but I'm will I'm not a betting man either, but I'm willing to bet that's probably a reason why 95% of the reason why people are here. Um, do we as a district have the ability legally to cap taxes for senior citizens individually? So, we did ask our um legal counsel to look into that. I believe you asked that question previously, Mr. Chrisman. Um so, I'm going to ask attorney Rodic to answer that. There you don't have the

088ability to legally cap. There are different programs that are out there that provide certain exemptions based upon an individual's qualifications for those exemptions that go beyond senior citizens. It could be veterans, it could be disabled individuals. Um, we did put together a memorandum that broke down each of the potential options that are out there and what those qualifications would be. Some of them do not fall within the school board's discretion. Um, they are exemptions that the individual taxpayers would have to apply for via different entities. Okay. I was just curious if we as a district were allowed to cap for a certain I didn't think so, but No, I just wanted to throw it out there to see if it was even possible. No, but there are exemptions and and things like that that could

089help abate some of the taxes. Just to piggyback on that, I know just for clarification, sorry, clarifying here, we can't cap them, but is there a way to separate them and say this group gets 0% and this group gets 1%. This group gets 2%. Or is that You're kidding me, right? You would even bring that up. You're kidding me, right? Somebody's got to pay for it. It's just a question. That's the idea. The the information is coming out. So if you have it for the seniors, you you'll get your chance. You'll get your chance in a minute. Right. Okay. Thank you. [Music] Okay. Right. Anything down there at all? I don't think um the only comment I would have is when when I'm looking at some of the parent results and some of the uh

090staff results like like Bob was saying, if you have a student who's currently in 10th grade as a parent, this isn't going to affect you at all. So, if they answer no, that's that's why. Uh, conversely, if you're a teacher who teaches 11th grade English, it's not going to affect you at all. You know, it's going to be all it's going to be all the same. So, I think I think that's why some of the numbers came in where they did on that that it's just not going to have any effect. Like you said, it could be years until we get there. Last chance for looking right. Anybody? No. Left? No. Okay. Uh, with that having been said, we will open up to public comment. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Green. So, I'm going

091to call out the names that in order on each stack of sheets in front of me. I'm going to apologize in advance if I mispronounce your name. Okay? So, I'm going to do my best. Um, so the first person to check yes that they would like to comment is Brian Schllock. Brian, you're up. You're up. Again, remember for public comment, it is public comment. We're going to request that you keep your comments uh appropriate for a public setting. Uh as well as you will have five minutes uh to comment. At the end of the five about four minutes, Mrs. Molus will notify you that you are you have one minute left. Um, and it is public comment. All comment should be directed per policy to the school board president. Um, it is not a back

092and forth at this time. You simply have five minutes to comment. Uh, Mr. Schlock. Okay. First thing I want to know is who actually started this whole common? Put the mic on. Is this on? Hello. I think I can talk loud enough. Who started this common thing? This Who started this? Who started the common campus? We heard you, sir. This is public comment. It is not public question and answer. Oh, so now you don't want to answer questions. We're following our schoolboard policy, sir. So, there's no sense in coming here. You people got a You guys got big issues. You guys are displaying surveys. Was any of these people, did we all get surveys? No. No. Were these people were us taxpayers? Were we given notice of any of this? Did we get a letter

093in the mail saying that this is what you wanted to do? Spend 126 million? Anybody got one? I rest my case. I never got a survey either. All you guys want to do is do what Jews want to do, not what the taxpayers want to do. This is the Biden administration right here. What kind of administration? I don't know. Okay. Next, we have Kelly Leno. Hi, how are you? That was one of my comments is wondering who the surveys went to. Um, can't hear. Sorry. Can you hear me now? That was one of my questions is who the survey went to. Um, as a taxpayer and as a parent of this district, I got no survey. So, my voice was not heard and that that bothers me. Um, I also feel of the imbalance, right?

094So, there's 115 proposed graduating kids in my daughter's class as opposed to the excessive amount of school tax that I pay. I am a fairly new resident and my school tax is double from where I came from and I was came from a school district not far from here in Pennsylvania um with a comparable house that I bought. Um and the graduating class was double the size. Um and just a comment regarding tariffs. If the supplies were made in America, there would be no tariffs that we would even have to look at. Oh, I'm sorry. There was one more thing I wanted to ask. Very, very sorry. Uh, the big thing that I wanted to really ask when we talk about charter schools, do we actually know the percentage or the number of children that

095are attending charter schools because that cost is higher for the taxpayers. My daughter attends a charter school because we tried Northern Lehigh and we did not last very long in the school district. Um, and I had to pull my daughter out. Um, and so she does attend a charter school and a lot of it is special needs children. So my question is with those costs going up, why are they ch turning to charter schools and what is Northern Lehigh doing to re to pull those kids back into the schools to help them? Next, we have Ted and I believe Sandra Young. Good evening. Excuse me. My name is Sandra Young and I've been a resident of Washington Townsville for over 30 years. I'm a proud mother of four, all who attended and graduated from Northernly

096High School District. My oldest is, excuse me, my oldest son is a global product line manager at a $1.8 billion company and worked a few years ago with the Philadelphia Eagles football team collecting and analyzing game stats and data. My daughter is an architect and one of the n at one of the nation's most leading architectural firms in Boston, Massachusetts, where she designed schools. Ironically, my middle son served proudly in the United States Army for nine years and now works as security detail in Harrisburg. My youngest son is a highly skilled equipment operator for South Whiteall Township. I'm sure you're wondering why I'm sharing my children's accomplishment with you. I'm sorry I'm so emotional, but this is a very emotional um night for me. I do this I do this because Northern Lehigh played a

097significant role in their success. The education they received in the same buildings used today helped set them on right track. These facilities, while perhaps not the newest, most modern, provided them with the foundation they needed to build a successful, fulfilling life. Although I did not grow up in this area, I'm truly grateful that I raised my family here. Northern Lehigh is a special place where students form lifelong bonds and have opportunities to participate in a wide variety of activities. It is a close-knit community that offers experiences and connections the larger districts can't. When my ch when my children attended this district, the average class size was about 160 students. Based on the current information that I was given, not what you were displaying on the screens, uh the average class size has dropped to approximately

098110 students. This represents a decrease of of about 50 students per grade or roughly 650 students across all grades K through 12. National studies consistently are showing a decline in birth rate and an aging population. Trends like that continue driving enrollment downwards and increased fixed uh income households. Considering these factors along with the current $2.6 $6 million shortfall that was mentioned at the last board meeting. I find it hard to understand how a project costing upwards of $114 million can be justified. It does not seem fiscally responsible at this time. Additionally, [Applause] additionally, according to an article in the US News, 68% of students in Northern Lehi are economically disadvantaged and eligible for free or reduced priced meals. Because our area lacks a significant business tax base to help fund education, the financial burden falls

099heavily on the 32% of the families who are not economically disadvantaged as well as the broader local community, including many residents living on fixed incomes. Northern Leo Ohio has the second highly high highest millage rate in the county and the district's ranking within the state has excuse me and the district district's ranking within the state has de declined from where it once stood. One minute left. One instead of trying to emulate districts like Parkland, Emmas, Whiteall, we should focus on investing directly in our students. Our pri provi priority should be helping the 68% of economically disadvantaged students rise above their circumstance and achieve success, not building grand facilities that do that do limit, excuse me, that do little to address their real needs. I would also like to address the survey that I'd heard about.

100Apparently, the survey was conducted regarding this project, but it was sent only to a select group. As a taxpaying resident of Northern Lehi, I never received any information from this district explaining this proposed PO project or the potential tax increase. Yet, it's yet it's funny how my tax bill never seems to lose track of me when it's due. I strongly suggest that going forward all residents be included whenever there is an intention to make changes and that could impact their financial contributions. In closing, yeah, read the last statement. You got five minutes. So, in closing, I want to say that I fully understand how hard it is to sit in your seats and make these decisions. I, meaning Sandra, served on the school board several years ago and know firsthand the challenges you face. However,

101throughout my time on the school board, I always kept one focus at the center of every decision and that was the students. Rather than pursuing a one campus concept or building additions, I urge you to focus on strengthening the curriculum. The world and technology are changing faster than ever. We must prepare our students for the future, equipping them, I'm sorry, equipping them with the skills they need to succeed, not simply giving them a fancier facility. Please, let's focus on what matters most, the students, their education, and the future of our community. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Okay, next we have Crystal Bilby. Hello. Um, I probably will not be as eloquent as that was. Um, so bear with me. Um, I we moved into this district about seven years ago. Uh,

102my daughter graduated in 23 from here and I recently got my escrow account and 50% of my mortgage right now is taxes, which I understand that's not all you. Um, but that's a big hit. I own quite a bit of property and I know that you want you talked about being able to cap things, but that has to go somewhere and that somewhere is me. I I own a small small farm that doesn't fall under the being in the farm act, so I can't apply for that. So, my acorage then acquires more money. Um, I was also going to bring up about the disadvantaged families. There are families that are paying right now in Slington $1,500 for rent. What happens when you guys raise their taxes another $1,000? those homeowners are going to raise the

103taxes of these families who are already disadvantaged. I think that you guys really need to take that into consideration that we have a very high elderly population who's on a fixed income who can't afford the next 3.5% that you all voted on except two. Um and by the way that was Chrisman and Williams um when it comes for election time and this is why it is a very very important that every single person in this room gets to the election that talks about the local elections that your state elections. This is why it is so important because the other people on here aren't thinking about what you voted them in for. Two did, the rest didn't. It's very, very important. Um they I love the idea of a common campus. It's great. We're $2.5 million.

104Maybe not do everything all at once. Maybe cut the things that can't be done so that we don't have to raise taxes so we don't push people like me out of the district because that's what's going to happen. People are going to start looking at properties and go, I can't afford the taxes. How is that fair? How does that put more money back into here? You're going to have people that buy my property who have already asked to put in rental homes. Is that's not the what we want for this area. this area is so beautiful. It's why we bought the property that we bought. Um, I just think there's a lot of things that can be cut on these things that don't need to be done right now. We just She just got done

105saying, "We don't know what tariffs are going to do." Then why are we doing it right now if we don't know what we're looking at? I I know that if I'm buying something, I can't put a $30,000 roof on my house and go to my boss tomorrow and say, "Can I have $30,000 raise because I just put a roof on?" That's what you're asking us to do. You're asking us to pay for something that you all decided was a good idea without getting honestly 90% of us didn't never got that survey. If anybody in here did raise your hand. I did not get I just think that and you guys were saying 60% well 60% of the people that turned in those surveys. So that number is even lower. Um, I just I just find

106it we need to think of academics first. I think there's a lot of ways we can assure up the academics here and not be raising taxes. Um, if it takes, she said, eight years um to go over all of this stuff, what happens with those prices? Okay, we get it. We say $10 million bid, we get that bid. We all know it's going to go over. Stuff's going to go up. what happens in four years when you say, "Okay, it's gonna level out in five years." Really, the next board's going to say, "Oh, it leveled out. We don't need to add any more money." I just think it's it's not economically feasible. And I think that if everybody here, spread the word, get out for your local elections, be writeins. I'm running as a write

107in because I we need to be fiscally responsible. Academics first, fiscal responsibility second. [Applause] Okay, next we have uh Sarah Cidell. Hi. Um, good evening. I just want to say that I'm sure you guys are used to speaking in front of people. I am too, but my heart is over here pounding. It's hard for everyone. So, um I we we got a lot of information tonight. I just wish we had gotten that sooner. Um even what I wrote down tonight to say has changed a bit. Um so, over the last two weeks, there's been countless posts on social media regarding the proposal that occurred at the last board meeting or even before that, but really we weren't aware of it until about two weeks ago. Um some people focused on the tax increase. most people

108did. Um, some focused on the common campus and some tried to just gain clarity of all where did all this information come from? Um, I think clarity is the biggest part of it. We didn't have this information first. Um, we didn't get the surveys. Uh, as you've heard many times, um, I actually did take a survey, but I got it on Facebook. Facebook, not from the district. And even looking in the search tool tool on the website, you can't find any of the information that was presented to you unless you know to look on YouTube and watch the board meeting, which I spent a very long night watching that board meeting after I put my son down to sleep. Um, I think the district needs to take a step back and listen to the taxpayers.

109Um, we've heard we don't know what's going on with the tariffs. It's a lot for us to a it's a lot to ask for us right now. We don't know. There's no clarity with anything. It could take 10 to 20 years for the uh renovations. What was the cost of that? You broke down individually, but what was the overall total? I didn't see that in the proposal. Maybe I missed it. Um but again we weren't told that those projects will take a short amount of time. Not a short amount of time to do but a short amount individually as compared to um one long project 8 to 10 or over across eight years. Um and it's probably going to take longer. How long has that bridge taken to work on? I understand that's not you

110guys. I don't think, but that's still closed. Things happen. And we went through a period of, oh, those kids are co kids. That's why they can't read as well in fifth grade. Well, now we're going to have construction kids. Um, they're going to be the minimal disruption, but it's going to happen. There's going to be disruption. Kids get distracted by squirrels going by. Um, I should know I am a teacher and I am a teacher in Allentown School District. Um, and just to say the school that I work at in Alllettown School District has a cafeteria, auditorium, and gym in one. We have two modular classrooms where the AC buzzes all day long. Um, this was our first year with air conditioning and we scored a 569 on the US News and World Report whereas

111Slington Elementary scored in the one 1,192. So, we don't need all the bells and whistles. We need teachers teaching and we need the taxpayers to not be up in arms and getting upset cuz they're modeling for students the anger and the disruption and the fact that we can't just talk calmly. Like we're not setting a good example for our students and that's the reason they're here. And I'm all over the place because like I said, you now gave us the information, but it was a little too late. So now everyone's angry because they didn't see this plan. All they heard was tax. And I get it. People can't afford it. Some people can. But why would we sign up for a tax increase over the next five five years? I guess that's all I have

112to say. Oh, I was also the one that started the petition because we weren't given this information and currently there are 285 petition votes against this plan whereas there's less people who took the survey initially in two weeks. Next we have Paul Vaughn. Hi. Um I'm sure the compass the common campus things if in an ideal world would be a wonderful thing. This isn't an ideal world and this isn't the the time or the place to go that route. Um, when you listed on there all the different renovations that are needed, I'm assuming the reason those renovations haven't been done now is money. I would think it's not neglect. I would hope it's not neglect on your part. I would think it's that you didn't have the money to do them. There was a whole

113list of them for each and every one of the school buildings. So, we didn't have the money necessarily to do that, but we have hundred and some million dollars to do this. And so, you don't have to cut grass at Peters. So you don't have to plow snow at Peters. I I was looking for the offset of the of the $100 million. I saw maybe a million dollars to sell Peters. Okay. So $1 million versus a hundred million. A little bit of difference in the in the police officer being at one school or at the same school instead of having one at Peters and one there. Not cutting grass at Peters, not piling snow. I I just don't see it. There's There was nothing. And I came tonight waiting to see what the offset was

114to spending $100 million. I don't see it. I had a son and a daughter. Both went through the school uh got a great education. There was no common campus. They got a fine education. And I was hoping I was going to see something in one of these slides. You showed us a whole bunch of slides and a whole lot of numbers. But when it comes right down to it, I didn't see any offset for hund00 million. I think this is the wrong way to go for now. Thank you. Next, we have Glenn Williams. This is your [Music] first. Hope the board is well. Um, some some things to to note. I somebody brought up numerous times about the surveys. I I couldn't help but note that the number of surveys that were done by the

115folks in the committee that actually got them sort of equaled the number of percentage of people who actually got the surveys by their students in the district. I I would think that if more people in the community had gotten the surveys, there would have been a better response and maybe the numbers would have been as as comparable as to the folks in the district who actually got their their surveys. Um, as far as this project going forward, it's troubling that we we want to create new space and new buildings and and more opportunities for our children, which is fine, so long as what I didn't hear was that the educational level and our standards of where our ranking is in the state for the educational opportunities, uh, that our scores will increase. Uh we talked

116about buildings, we talked about finances, we talked about taxes. What we didn't talk about is how this will directly projectively uh increase the um educational ranking of our kids in the state. So that was a little troubling to me. Thank you. Next we have David Deal. Again, David Deal. Okay. There were some people that that left that were in the back. I don't know. Next, we have Brian Guyger. I I definitely am against the cost of this project. It's a major project, one that this district has never taken on before. Um my only other concern that I have is what happens in 8 to 10 years when you get all these new people you say you're going to get to come into Northern Lehi since you consolidated the schools and you no longer have property

117to build another school if you sell Peters. [Applause] Leave this one here in case the gentleman comes back. Uh, next we have Keith Horn. I'm sorry. This is the guy who did the show, right? But just in case he comes back. Before I begin talking, I would like to give you a warning. Um, I graduated here back in 1978 from Northern Lehigh School District, participated in Betch Auto Body Repair and proceeded to be mechanics. Done that all my life. I retired at 62 and a half. And it was good schooling. I mean, it was for real. I did a petition that I wrote up that I like to read now. public. I have I I guesstimated 124 signatures. Didn't have much time to put this together. Didn't have much time to get people to sign

118it that agree with me, but I'll read it. No to the Common Campus. And now on 413 of 25, I Keith Horn as a residents of Northern Lee High School District area am writing this petition in regards to the common campus that school that the school district is trying to push through with no letters being sent by mail. I say vote no to this an individual who pays school taxes with no children in school district for over 25 years. It is getting way out of hand as Northern Lehigh School District is one of the highest school tax in the area. I'm on a fixed income retired as many others are too. We're coming out of a democratic build back better system which was a total flop and now the school board wants to do this.

119Without doing my own research, I would have never known what their intentions were. As we the people unquote of Northern Lehigh School District, here is a list of signatures that say no to this common campus idea. As you have in front of you, you can see some of them are Mr. and Mrs. So, it's probably more than 125. I put together an outline which I'll go over. Some of it was touched on. Um, you can't mail out notifications. That's why I I got on this. This that that was it took me a lot of homework to find out how to get in and do your survey, which I did. Um, I think if the solar panels would have went through, we wouldn't be going through this right now this year. The school board thinks we

120have bottomless pockets, I guess, because how can a 62 67 year old afford this? Um, many are on a fixed income. I myself, if I want any extra money, I got to go do something on the side to make a couple extra bucks. And uh you want you know some of the older people, not me, but I'm talking for everybody the older like in their 80s. What do you want them to sell their house because they can't pay school taxes? Two words, karma. And how about another one? Killozer. Something needs to be done about these apartment houses. You got, you know, all these kids coming in school now. Okay, I understand there's going to be declining, but I I think these landlords are making out like like bandits. I mean, they have people, you know,

121single women coming in, not to pick on women or anything like that, but they I'm coming in with how many kids and we are to be paying for them to go to school. I already paid for my children to go to school. It is okay. It should go by the number of units. And this is just my opinion, but it should go by the number of units, the number of children, and then start paying. Why should people that want to buy a place in this area have to pay high school taxes? That would make me make a a final decision. And no, there too many landlords getting rich. That's the bottom line. The special needs, okay, I feel sorry for their parents. I really do. I mean, that would wow. I'll take a minute. Okay.

122So, that goes back to how many vaccines? Back when I was in school, you needed three. Now, you need how many? 57. I mean, it's crazy. Peter school to me, it's not in bad shape. I do yoga there on Thursdays. You go in the bathroom, there's no cracks in the wall. Ceiling looks good. The building is nice. Let it alone. Keep it. Uh, the young lady can she already touched on the imbalance at graduation. And I that was a good one. And uh when I make big decisions, I take the good and the bad. I weigh it out. Positive and negative. All I seen up here was positive. How about the negative that's going to come out of this besides out of our pockets? We have a good president now. 10 seconds. Why don't we

123wait and see where these tariffs and all this money and things start building back again in the United States? Give this a break for a couple years. Can we do that? Next we have David Altri Altter. Okay. I think you started. As a former elected official, I'd like to address you with the respect that you deserve. I pay taxes in this to school taxes to this district for 52 years. My son graduated 40 years ago. He got a great education here. He went out and had developed his own business and he retired at 55 and he gives back to the school district every year. The three concerns I have, very simple ones, ones that are not going to cost a lot of money. First off, Northern Lehi is located in Slington, Pennsylvania. The main street

124to Northern Lehigh School District is Center Street. Center Street is in bad shape and has been in bad shape probably for 40 years. It's time that the school district and the burrows sit down and develop a plan to improve center street. The street that all your school buses go over, all the pe the teachers go over, everybody that works here, all the the members of the school board drive over that street. And I think it's time that you ought to sit down with the furrow and develop a plan to improve that road. Secondly, the the roads on the school district are in beautiful shape. I walk that whole school district every almost every day. You handicap accessible is a federal requirement. And at the Northern Lehigh School District, you don't have to go very far

125to walk right out in front of the school and see the deteriorated condition of the handicap accessible to Northern Leai School District. Painting it blue don't make it right. You have to repair the concrete, too. And the third thing, as a prod veteran, I would like to see Northern Lehigh to better maintain their flags. But last year, I had a four times I had to talk into the speaker till they finally changed the flag at the administration building because it was so deteriorated. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Next, we have Donna Baron. [Applause] Hello. My biggest concern, one of the um main concern is really the taxes. I'm retired too on a fixed income, but even if you have young children, everybody kind of lives within a budget. we just can't financially

126afford to have a common school where I don't think is really necessary that um I think we could just do the upgrades to the other schools and stay within a more feasible budget for us. And the second thing is I live up here by the elementary school. How are you going to control the traffic? It's horrible now. I mean there's just I don't even know how you're going to control traffic. there's not enough parking spots for teachers or I should say faculty and they park on the street which is fine. It's a public street. I'm not really complaining about that. But now if you want to bring more students, more um faculty to this area, how are we going to um resolve the parking issue and even the safety with all the extra traffic that's

127going to be coming up that way? That's really all I have. Next we have Fred Phillips. Evening. As we all know, it's not easy for you people to make a decision on finances, especially when you're relying on taxpayers. But the questions I want to for you to consider for this major project is is it the right time? Do you understand the tax base the people are paying from the elderly to the people or maybe not making six figures or whatever? Inflation, we still have it. Most likely it's probably going to go up still and there's a possibility of recession. How about the interest rate on the bonds? To my understanding, we have a the school has a Moody A1 rating. Does that guarantee us a sweet percentage? I believe at the one of the meetings

128it was 5% at the time. Could that be going up? And what is the the return investment on the taxpayers giving money? Obviously, yes. is investing in our students hopefully to you know give them a path to hopefully make good money down the road when they go to a secondary or a trade school or whatever. And the other question is why did it take so long to make a decision decide to do after 18 years say oh okay we got to take all look at all these buildings and we have to do some upgrades. We all have homes. We all have upgrades. We don't wait forever hopefully because, you know, we do save our money to fix a roof or replace a water heater or whatever. So, what I'm asking the school board is to

129vote down the $50 million project or whatever it is right now. First off, paying off the bonds is going to take 25 years. Secondly, considering the finances of other people, everyone has daily, monthly, yearly expenses and paychecks only go so far. If the project does go through eventually and things are getting fixed and all that, who says 10 years down the road something else doesn't need to be fixed? And here we go again. Eventually, probably going to have to be increasing property taxes. So why not just take care not saying the bare minimum because we need to repair things that do need fixed but we have to consider because of the inflation and other fac factors at play. And I leave you with these two things. Focus on the needs of the students and not

130the wants of the adults. And I do challenge you all. I challenge that to come up with other ways of trying to bring in funds so we're not always relying on the taxpayer or grant money. Thank [Applause] you. And next we have Ricky Smith. I brought a few of these things up a couple weeks ago when I came to the meeting, uh, but I'd like to bring them to light again. Um, outside of just a tax increase, what are you going to do in 10 or 15 years from now when the farmland keeps getting developed and we push out all the seniors and we have younger families with children coming in here and we have to add more buildings. When Peters is sold and this renovation project that you're you're talking about now, this common

131campus, you have no more open space. None. So then what? Where are you going to buy land? It's an issue. The other thing is is the roads around here. Have any of you drove that development adding all this additional parent traffic up here? Because the kids aren't going to ride the bus. They're going to be up here with their parents and it's going to be a complete gridlock. Has there been a traffic study done of campus and the public roads and what are the results of that? So, I just hope that you guys can just keep in mind that our pockets are shrinking and I think you need to keep up with the buildings, but I don't think the common campus at this time is the right move for this for for for this district

132at this time. We just can't afford it. Thank you. Next, we have Linda Near. Ner. Hey, next we have Jeff Dong. [Music] Good evening. I'm a 38-year resident of Slington on Main Street. Um, I've seen my taxes overall almost quadruple in those 38 years. I worked hard for a living. um went through numerous vehicles, 30,000 miles a year, tank uh tanks of gas, toll money, um tires, brakes. I worked hard for that money. I'm retired now with a disability and I don't expect to get bled to death over wasteful spending of money you can't even manage the way it is. Matter of fact, the press box I sat with a 40tonon crane with Amquip Reynolds, I I couldn't help to notice $1.4 billion in renovations to a press box. Are you kidding me? That's ridiculous.

133But you need air conditioning and whatever. I don't want to get smart here, but this is the wrong time to be bleeding people dry. I mean, we're being taxed on everything we have. And now I'm retired and like I say, I'm going to be bled to death with the money I got. I mean, uh, I have a nice home. I keep it that way. Maybe I should let it run down and park cars all over it and just let the value of my home uh, decrease and then maybe my taxes will go down. I don't think you want that Not at all. I'm I'm here to speak for all the other retired people and people that just don't have that money to give out. To me, it's totally wasteful. I see the brand new school

134buses go by my house. What was wrong with the old ones? That costs a lot of money. I know you lose federal grants if you don't spend the money, but when you're when you're spending other people's money, it's easier to say, "We need this, we need that. Let's waste it on this. Waste it on that. Not to us people. [Applause] Oh, you want to Yeah. recall those? Yes, please. David Deal. Okay. I'm going to call again for David Deal. Okay. And I'm going to call again for Linda Nyer. Okay, that concludes um everybody that has signed up. Uh yes, Mr. May, can you bring down any additional papers? [Music] Thank you, sir. Okay. We have um Bob Cox. I'm okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. You don't want that. And we also have [Music] Ron Bower.

135Okay, sir. Like I stated previously, the big thing is taxes. I work in healthcare. Times are tough. I'm knocking down 20, 30 hours overtime to make it go with my family. That's my choices. My main concern is like I dis discussed before since I lived here in 2004. My taxes have gone up every year. I felt I have a senior and a junior. They got a good education. That's not the gripe. I feel the pain of dealing with some of the upgrades here that are in the presentation. problem I have is the most common thing that out of since I've been hearing about this and trust me my schedule doesn't limits me to being able to come to these things. So I watch them online. I see the previews actually these guys have online but

136the most common sense tonight was hey what do we got to do was out of Mr. Kern with the possibly just the middle school. Yes, there's things that stink and quite honestly looking at these proposals and it's the way local government is. If it's the local tax, if it's the county, they cry public safety. Public safety. We got to do it for public safety and it's supposed to make everybody feel good. Try not get too political here, but I can pretty much tell you every year there was a tax increase. Right now, I live in a townhouse. It was my choice, me and my wife. No property, no yard. I'm paying uh85 from when I moved in in 2004. You are almost at the point of raising the taxes double from where I originally stayed

137started. Out of my mortgage close to between $5 and $600 a month and my mortgage is $1,200 a month goes to taxes. The biggest is this school district. My kids got a good education. I'm not going to argue that. Teachers, they need to be paid. teachers do more than what you know some of the comments I see where they're getting ripped here or there. It's bull crap in my eye. I have people that are looking to go into education and I have family that was in education as well. The the key thing here is to be spending that money every year for the last 20 years you did an increase. This is not going to fix the problem like other people said. It's going to fix somewhat of the problem but is it going to

138fix all the others? What are you going to do next year when these are like say 3.5? Now I know politically I know it doesn't have to pass a 3.5. You do 3.0. That's where I believe these are going to go at. And with that it's basically that's just for this project. where did that money of the last 20 years go that okay you're raising them for 3.5 and next year when you raise them so that 3.5 that's going to pay for this project's going to go more because if you want good education you're going to have to pay them you got to take care of the people in order to get that and I'll close within the comments without getting political you're hearing tariffs this that I don't want to say they're scare tactics

139But reality, let's keep I hope from this board you keep the politicalness out of it. And I'm a pretty good person at reading and from coming to the last meeting I can see where people are going to go and it's I'm not trying to be smart to anybody, but it was like I I know the like just within the second meeting certain board members might not like Mr. Chrisman because he's asking questions. Trust me, because I'm somewhat like him. I get the same thing if I go to public meetings because I speak up. But the bottom line is here, let's use common sense. Maybe down the road it needs to be done, but is it going to be it's a temporary fix? What's going to happen five years, which everybody said, you know, the high

140school? Okay, the high school, we're getting grants for the flooring in that. And no offense, you look on the outside here. Mold. How much does it cost to get a power washer to do the outside of the building? There's mold. And these problems here did not just happen this year. It's from previous administrations, previous board members that left it go, left it going. And that's the typical thing in closing before I run out in a minute. Look, because I went on Northampton County. I live in Walnport, so it's Northampton County and Ly County. Everybody that has high tax millage is the school district. Everyone that has high school is doing these expan expenditures. Northampton, Parkland, we hide it. Look at their tax base. Why? Because they did all these beautiful buildings. And like people said

141before, my daughter's got an excellent education here. Give the money to the teachers or do what we got to do and stop doing that. We don't need an increase. Thank you. [Applause] And next we have Lauren Ganser. Hello. Can you hear me? Okay. Um, first I want to say thank you for the you know having this meeting to get the information more clearly to the people. Um, the three sections of your responses I saw was three and a half or 3.2 2 response was 3.2%. Um they were not very favorable for this project. The most favorable were the employees and I thank Mr. Chrisman for asking that question um about how many people actually live in the district and will be paying those taxes. Um and like you've heard tonight, hardly anybody knew about this.

142And I have heard too in like some conversations that this has been going on for about a year, this dialogue, but most of us don't have time to attend the schoolboard meetings. We entrusted the school board and the administration to watch our dollars and um you know doing this project is not watching our dollars. We have a high occupancy of um retired people who are on fixed incomes. I for one did not send my kids here. I I have three children. I sent um two of them here for four years. The rest of the 13 years or of my youngest and my other two were paid I paid for out of pocket for a private school. So I saved the district a lot of money by not having my kids educated here. while still paying

143the high taxes. Um, some of the graduates I've spoken to don't even want to come back and live here because they said they can't afford the taxes. My son, I asked him, if we leave and sell our house or we, you know, we he gets our house, would you want to live here? He said, no, he said because I can't I won't be able to afford those taxes. Um, I was so happy that so many people came out and got involved and um, the petition I thank Sarah for doing the petition. It is almost at 300 people. I mean, the people are speaking to you and we're I mean, we're trying to tell you this is a big taking on of a lot of money which may not be necessary. every neighboring school district have

144don't have a single campus, you know, a central campus or a common campus. Um, the Peters Elementary is a that is like a gem that school and to keep those kids innocent until second grade is that we're doing them a very good service, I think, if we do that. Um, and I I like, you know, I like the fact that one gentleman, you know, pointed out that he didn't see any, you know, dollar amount. I I came in late, so I missed a lot of the meeting. Uh, I was working a track meet, but uh, and I I also wanted I didn't know if, um, who your bond your bond council was. I didn't see that. Was that on the um on council is to our attorney's office at Kingspry. Okay. Dave Fry. Okay. And

145um in closing, I just think you have to look at the makeup of your taxpayers and who's going to be able to afford this and what's going to happen when people are forced to sell their homes and you get people other people in and I know that uh the rents will go up because the landlords will have to pay the taxes, not the renters. So, I yeah, I just think you need to think about this a little bit better and think more of the taxpayers. We're the ones that voted you guys in and we we have our faith in you. So, thank you, [Applause] Lauren. The presentation that you missed is online. It will be on the website. So, if you want to go on there and and see it, you can. The slides that

146were shown earlier that you missed trying to watch my Okay. Well, just letting you know it's there if you uh that concludes everybody that has signed up to speak tonight. Good. Could I could I make one comment? I will default to Mr. Green. What was the question? Could I make a comment? You didn't sign the paper. I I signed my name on, but I after hearing all the stuff people last chance. Go ahead. Okay. I just wanted to tell people my father gave me a piece of you get to the the And can you also tell me your name, miss? Yes. Susan L. I built my house 47 years ago and my taxes were only $800 a year back then. I was working three jobs to to do what I had to do and I

147never had any children because I was never married. And now my taxes are over $4,000. And if we have to pay that increase, my taxes are going to go up to around $4,700 a year. If I had to pay my taxes in 1992, I wouldn't have cared that they were $12,000 because I had a very, very, very good job. I cannot give what I don't have. And nobody else in here can do that either. You have to have the money in order to give it to whoever is asking you for money. That's it. Thank you. Okay. Any comments from anyone on the board? Want to say anything? Any more? Add throw one more thing out there. Uh first of all, thank you guys all for coming out, voicing your opinion. Thank you all for coming

148out, voicing your opinion, both good and bad. Uh second of all, when I asked the other question about uh earlier that Mr. Link and the attorney that said that there are certain programs for certain people to get tax relief. Um I personally benefit from one of the veterans tax relief programs. If you are a military veteran and you are retired and you are receiving disability, you are entitled to some tax break. If you need help with that, I can help you, point you in that right direction. Also, there's a lot of information on the VA websites. Please seek that out and get the information you need. There's a lot of programs out there to help you. Yeah, I do have Can I ask a question? Can I still ask a question? Um, I'm going to

149ask a question. I know we uh did the physibility study, but whose idea was this? Did it come from Mccclure? Did it come from Ally or Alloy? Whose idea? Like we didn't we did the feasibility study. We got all the ratings, everything. But then whose idea was it to okay let's do this common campus? I I really want to know. I mean maybe I missed the meeting that it was discussed of maybe I wasn't there but honestly I want to know whose idea was it for the common campus. I'm and and obviously other people want to know also. I mean was it was it Mccclure? Was it Alloy? Like whose idea was it? Like I don't remember discussing it as a board. Somebody had to have probably brought it to us. Was it parents? I

150don't know whose idea was this. Sure. So the answer to that question is it was a recommendation or I should say an option within the feasibility study. Okay. So we asked them for options moving forward. This was one of them. Okay. So then we voted as a board on that. Then you approved the feasibility study. Okay. An outcome of the feasibility study, an option was all of the capital improvements, a common campus or capital improvements and a common campus. [Applause] Okay, I'm kind of confused because I have a feasibility study here from August and basically it's just telling it just telling me how our campuses were like um you know I have here that you know let me go back to my notes uh like Peters was average Slayington was good uh the middle school

151was rated average like I'm looking at this but I don't see anything here on this one that's showing me the the common campus. So what you're looking at there is not the feasibility study, Mrs. Williams. That was a presentation. Um the say feasibility study. The complete feasibility study was like about a 100page document uh that was shared with board members at a public meeting. I have one for from January 7th. Yeah, because it says feasibility study midpoint check-in board meeting August 12th, 2024. So somewhere along the line that we discussed a common campus. I must have missed it. That's all you said. Any other questions on the right? Anyone? No. Looking left. Anything? Anybody? No. Okay. Okay, if there's no other questions for the board, uh it's time to adjurnn. Is there a motion to

152adjurnn? So move. Motion. Is there a second? Thank you. All those in favor journ, please signify by saying I. I. So we go. And so ordered. Thank you all for coming and uh hopefully we'll see you in the future.