April 27, 2021(Special Meeting)

001good evening everyone and welcome to the april 27 special meeting of the pine ridgelands school board please join me first in the pledge of with allegiance and justice tomorrow roll call ms williams mr lyons here mrs mizbach here mr kashani here mr ditullio here dr mihalik here dr meyer here mr moy here mrs swo here thank you thank you ms williams we will move to our recognition of visitors before we deliberate on appointing a new board member ms williams or mr stoverner do we have visitors in the waiting room we do mr john cory is our first caller mr stobiner will reach out to him now i think mr corey knows the drill but please limit your comments to three minutes this evening everyone good evening mr corey it's pete lions you're on with the

002board hi mr lions this is john corey i live at 306 north quinn court um i'm here tonight just to talk to you guys a little bit um first before i say any of my comments i want to i said it before but i'll say it again your guys job is not easy you guys dedicate your time and you get your volunteers um i think your job is hard and this year's been even harder and now this job has gotten really hard i appreciate your efforts um i've always been respectful i will always be respectful for those members of this community who are choosing not to be respectful i disagree with all of that the emails to you guys should be respectful people should share their opinions but it should all be respectful in my

003opinion as far as the coach losing his job i am a football parent i've coached in the youth in this community for a long time when i read through all the stuff i haven't commented until i had a chance to form an opinion some of this stuff just doesn't make a lot of sense to me which is why i'm here talking to you guys tonight first the the issues of you know uh um a policy that goes into the locker room i looked for that policy all over pine richland's you know web pages and i can't find it so we're referencing a policy that i don't i don't know where the where they're getting that policy from so it's i can't find it i'm having a hard time understanding how we can reference something we

004don't even have next is how the investigation was handled i talked to a bunch of pr families and football families who were who taught were talked to their sons were talked to by mr salapac and they feel like their words that they were lied to and how it was approached meaning that it's just a conversation it's very casual a bunch of those families have then gotten letters of reprimand in the mail from the district around those conversations and the district now will not talk to any of those families about those letters of reprimand which i don't understand how we got to that point either guys how we gotten to a point where the district no longer will talk to families about letters of reprimand they've given their kids that's just not anything that makes any

005sense to me um next thing is you know if you read coaches you know if you did or didn't he did an interview with the pg and he talked about you know he felt the same thing he was ah he asked mrs bowman is this this serious and the word he got back was it's just casual which is why he in his words showed up in flip-flops with a t-shirt and he apologized he said he was wrong and he got frustrated in the interview process and i think in the end that what i learned is that this administration put a professional improvement plan a pip in place for this football program three years ago and since that pip was put in place this program has been completely clean there's nothing in there in that three

006year period which kind of explains why coach might have been frustrated he still handled that interview wrong and he said he did um and we're also talking about a man who's a 23-year educator in phys ed i would want him to have the same levity to handle some of these situations that we trust the administration in these buildings to handle when you're talking about teenage boys and physical altercations i'm hoping that the board followed up with some of these allegations and that there actually is cooperation when we're you know talking about a man losing his job and again this has been completely clean in the last three years since the pit was put in place that's three minutes that's three minutes mr corey could you take 10 seconds to wind up your comments sure um

007lastly i'm asking you guys as a group you're the only people in this district that can solve this you have the power to ask questions you have the ability to go to administration and say you need to explain this to us this district is not in a good place right now guys you're the only people who can solve this so i'm asking you to work for all of our benefit to try to make this better and have more conversations please i wish you guys luck tonight thank you mr corey next is mr randy davis so foreign it appears the call did not connect so we'll move to the next hmm voice message system seven okay we'll move on to rob brown good afternoon rob brown good afternoon mr brown this is pete lyons you're on

008with the board we ask you to take uh three minutes for your comments thank you mr lions so um what i guess my concern is with the board and with the administration is i do not have a child in the program but what i would like to address is a question to the board as well as the administration as far as integrity and the integrity piece is if one of the candidates or appointed had a background or history of domestic violence was known before they were appointed or elected would the board or the administration approve of that person being within the pine richland school district i believe the community would like to know if that's the question that would be suffice if it is as well as our superintendent um dr miller if they would

009approve of that moving forward so with that i go back to the administration not renewing mr casp coach k's um appointment to another year of uh coaching because in my eyes the only people that have a documented history of violence or um hazing which has been pointed out by the board really is just a couple of board members which is really kind of sad so in this case we all know this it's public record we have a right to know we have done right to knows with existing board members and i really don't want to call back in the sense of the administration saying okay great because they won't answer questions on these calls and and i understand the whole you know fraternity type thing of you know with the administration the board what i

010would like to know is is would any of the board members today approve of an appointment or an election of somebody who has a history of domestic violence to their home or residence would they allow that if you will not if you're not willing to answer that then we all know where that comes from i would really ask you peter to resign your position as the president of the board and mr miller i'm sorry you know me i know you um you have uh you know coached in a district that i know what you have done to individuals um as far as coaching i don't know how you could actually move forward with us so that's three minutes mr brown please wind up your comments i appreciate that thank you very much mr lions um

011mr lyons i just asked you to resign if if you can't resign mr stobiner that was the last uh community member that wished to address the board so you all still good you know this is where you're up against courage in the face of community members who would rather burn the house down than deal with the democratically elected body that makes decisions that they do not agree with so it takes courage to be here i thank you all very much for showing that courage to volunteer and to serve this is what democracy looks like mr brown thinks that's what it looks like some people think facebook is democracy it is not these are the norms these are the conditions we operate under we've had a resignation and this body under the rights entitled by the

012legislature has not just a right but an obligation to appoint a replacement from the members of the community and that's what we're gathered to do here tonight so we have outlined a procedure well honed over years to do just that we have two different portions of candidate interviews the first portion tonight will be a one-on-one one on many interview with each candidate focusing on what we call the big three questions you all hear those in a moment when we go through that portion of the candidate interviews each candidate will hear the same three questions in order and they'll be interviewed one at a time after we're done with the first candidate the second candidate will come in without having had the opportunity to hear the first or second or third candidate's answers so we thought

013that would be more effective my understanding is that each of you have agreed to voluntarily leave the room uh and ms williams you've determined an order for the candidates as well have you not yes i have um we're going to go if we'll have mrs dawson stay in the room and if everybody else would step out we'll then we'll go in order by mrs ravati mrs baisal mrs hayden and then mr delicio so there's some seats out there that you're welcome to [Music] and we'll give mrs dawson two minutes to tell us a little bit about herself as well welcome ms dawson so you do have a couple minutes to give an introductory statement well for that opportunity each candidate and then we'll go into the big three questions well i was contestant number one

014in the junior miss pageant and i didn't win so just let you know that out of the gate but um i'm here tonight [Music] because i care a lot about our community and for this reason i ran for the board many years ago and i served on the board for 10 years willingly not stressfully even though many of the topics that we discussed were stressful but uh tonight i'm here because i had actually originally ran for this seat and although i'm not interested in seeking any kind of board reelection or anything i did see it as an opportunity for me to once again serve the community in a way that i'm familiar with and in a way that i have a proven track record for representing the community and one of the things i pointed

015out in my essay was about communication and i think that our district right now is under a communication attack and i i really am heartfelt here to step in to um make it a seamless moment for us because i again care a lot about this community and i know how the system works and um i'm here to help and that's that's really why i'm here thank you miss dawson for the big three questions i'd like uh mr khashani uh handle the first one uh mr ditullio question number two and ms misback i think three is really apropos for you and if we could just follow that order and make it easier because i'll forget if you guys could remember sure so uh mr kashani why don't you begin my pleasure thank you peter may i

016call you therese of course good to see you terese and thank you for that opening statement i it uh well said and it touches my heart to to hear you say such a heartfelt message um i too am very saddened by this state and attack was is a good word we're under attack uh so i'm going to change this question actually has a number in it but i'm going to change the number in it because the number isn't relevant for this particular circumstance the and the uh the rel the number is two years but we're talking about seven months uh so for me i think i think so up on the big three yes which question you got am i looking at the wrong one i think you are big three questions you're good yeah

017not two years but i'm going to change the number there's no reason to ask her about two years make sure you do it yeah from your perspective what are the biggest challenges facing our school district in the next seven months yeah i mean like i said as an interim you know stepping in interimly i see that the biggest challenge is the um the rapport with the community i right now in this moment and the transition from a coveted model to hopefully an in-class learning model i mean these are all have been attacks on the on you know our education model this year i think that you know you all have navigated that as best as you could um but again um assembling an opinion from the community is a very challenging thing to do and

018i have had a lot of practice at it and one of the things as a board member is that you cannot um you have to weigh everything you know there's like beyond a reasonable doubt and a preponderance if i'm in a court of law right and a preponderance is that's like what i think right but you know beyond a reasonable doubt is like let's put it all on the table and you know it's not what i think is what i i can weigh you know so the biggest challenge to answer your question in the next seven months is um you know how we um portray ourselves to restore trust that has been attacked and somehow fractured and broken thank you craig hey therese how you doing hi greg hey uh it's good to see you

019back in the boardroom um and good luck tonight so assuming um getting right into a question assuming that the school board is facing a tough budget decision and the choice is either to raise taxes or to cut a program what would you do so the this is no stranger to me we did this during the peasers event and um you know that that was very stressful for the community at large and so again um different seasons for different um ways to look at things and i think that what we've just come out of economically has been very dramatic um as a you know a country a world and so um one of the things i know about this community's budget is that you know about 80 percent of it comes from us the people not

020from the state not from the feds and um you know that makes our community voice a little bit louder so again when you're navigating do you cut a program do you raise taxes you have to know what your 80 voice says because we're the ones paying the taxes so i think people live in pine richland because they know what we deliver here in the way of academic excellence and whole child care and um those opportunities so to answer your question i don't know because i don't have the facts in front of me so when i would have that and i would get the sentiment of the community based on uh and again i've navigated this in the past with the peasers and you know we have lots of people show up so i i don't

021know until i know and we know together thank you okay hi teresa all right um so i'll just go right into the question so what is the best way to address differences of opinion on the board or between the board and the administration what is your view so again i picked my topic for the essay to be communication because i think that clear communication is extremely important and i think that sometimes messaging is challenging because of perspective you know so sometimes the administration may think they're delivering a clear message and we may feel like we're delivering clear questions back but if you could repeat the question just one more time so i don't miss the essence of it so what is the best way to address differences of opinion on the board between the board

022members i'll i'll add in between the board members because it's on that's what on the board means or uh between the board and the administration well you ask good questions and um you deliberate based on respectful civil discourse which from time to time is um you know based on the individuals that are discoursing so i think that the difference in opinion is about asking good questions and having discussions that respect difference of opinion so that consensus is derived eventually based on those questions being answered thank you i hope that was a good answer thank you mrs nelson can we bring in miss uh mrs robati you can you can remain because there's no more secrets you already know the questions so um yeah i mean it just mrs roboti it is greg hi welcome back

023so yeah yeah just have a seat check and make sure your your mic is on i think christine by the way is your mic definitely and i couldn't hear you it is i will a little bit closer to you there you go is that better christine she's a low talker i've got my little voices sorry have a seat have a seat okay yeah actually totally get that so um yeah you could an introductory statement and then we ask you the big three questions the same questions we're asking each candidate in order tonight sure first off thank you for convening for a special meeting for this matter i know that board directors do volunteer a lot of time that largely goes unnoticed it's one of those thankless positions out there my name is kathleen ravati i

024am a mother in the pine-richland district i have a one daughter who is currently in eaton hall upper elementary i'm sort of a born-again pittsburgher i grew up in this area in the allegheny valley but spent most of my undergraduate and law school days in the midwest first at notre dame and then at loyola law school in chicago where i stayed for the next 20 or 30 years as my daughter got older i obviously had her later in life i really wanted her to be around extended family and we have i my siblings are both still in pittsburgh they have kids and so she's growing up um as well as her her father's um sister is here so she's growing up up amongst family you can read all that in my in my application i

025guess what i'd like to say is i'm not here as a result of what has happened over the last two to three weeks that did not prompt me to come here and sort of maybe in anger or protest i actually have considered getting involved more fully with the district since my daughter was at wexford elementary it's only when you become a parent that you realize how important the people that make the decisions for the school are the materials that they read and study the information that they get and the administration that they select you want them to be accountable to the people that vote for them um they have to understand the gravity of the position so i think i was probably the last person to get my application in because frankly in this climate

026i sort of was thinking be careful what you wish for um but i bring to the table a lot of crisis management experience both as an attorney and a member of a senior management team when i was at the ymca in chicago you know when a kid dies in your pool or one of your housing facilities burns down you're faced with some of the same pressure that you all are facing now and i think i bring a measure of calm authenticity experience level-headedness and being a lawyer doesn't hurt either although you know that's not what would not be my principle job as a director um you can read the rest of my background on my resume and i thank you for your time thank you so thank you very much for that opening from your

027perspective what are the biggest challenges that we face as a district in the next seven months you have a heart crisis right now and it seems to be um deflecting attention away from any other issues such as strategic vision other decisions that the board needs to make for the administration to function properly i think part of the reason there is a crisis is is twofold and i do not in full disclosure i do not know any of the coaches nor any administration or any of the directors first there's a tendency when things like this happen for people to rush to judgment the first thing that they are frustrated with is the inability to understand how it happened why it happened so suddenly and frankly they don't have an understanding of the process you all are

028bound to um including things like confidentiality and personality investigations so there is a lot of noise on facebook and elsewhere about why is the secret why didn't we know but as you and i both know personnel matters are extremely sensitive um and there's no perfect way to handle it this is not a situation where any of you were going to be applauded for the decision whether it was right or wrong and i have no idea because i am not privy to the facts the second thing that struck me is it's not clear from the communications that went out um who conducted the investigation and i would hope with um uh i think it's mr murray he used to be a football coach i believe no basketball you did um that that you would hope there

029was an independent investigation sort of personalities removed from it and overseen by somebody with experience in these matters you'll get through this the next seven months cannot be about firing on the football coach um this one part of the district you know in my view sort of the education of all students um full enrichment of all students is your is your number one priority it's going to be difficult and it's it's not going to be popular i do think you have to stick with your guns about upholding the policies you drafted and adhered to and not given to public pressure thank you hi um first of all do you prefer kathleen okay hi kathleen so first of all i got to tell you i'm going to steal this born again pittsburgher i lived out of

030i lived in cleveland for a while so i'm going to use the born again pittsburgher again i think that's a great line but that's uh that's not the question here so um the question well first of all thank you for coming out but the question that i have for you is um not that we're not facing tough things already but in a different instance assuming that the school board were facing a tough budget decision where the decision was based on we raised taxes or we cut programs what would you do that's a tough one there's never enough money in any budget corporate or not for profit or educational to go around i i think you're going to have to probably like maybe there's a balance maybe it's not all of one maybe it's a partial

031tax increase that is justified to the community or explain to them as to why there's either a budget deficit or a shortfall of operating funds cutting programs is also tough because they're important to students and i i don't think we knew that as much as we do now having just come out of the quarantine and the homeschooling i saw my own daughter suffer greatly from lack of interaction with their peers and lack of programming other than being with me all day um yeah it would depend on the circumstances and it would depend on if it's a short-term budget problem or sort of a long-term funding problem um but i think you'd have to consider all options and again you don't join the school board or any board to win a popularity contest tough decisions have

032to be made and this part part of the job is sort of taking the heat unfortunately but you all are bound by different duties than someone that's not a part of the board and so i think that's important to understand that hi kathleen um uh it was nice of you to come tonight thank you thank you for coming out to serve the community um so the question is what is the best way to adapt to address differences of opinion on the board meaning between board members or between the board and the administration first i think it's important that you're in an environment where everybody is feels free to express uh disagreement and to sort of argue the opposite side eventually you have to get to i don't know if it's um compromised so much as

033it is and you'll eventually get to a consensus a majority of the board will eventually decide that it needs to be one way versus the other you try to do that with as much acknowledgement of the you know competing director's position and if you can incorporate some of it what is it it's not an easy thing to do but this happens on boards all the time um everybody has to have an opinion it doesn't mean you need to vote like your fellow board director if you don't believe in in the matter disagreements with the administration i believe that's always going to happen i sort of equate dr miller to the ceo um who who has an agenda he wants to push i mean or he wouldn't be a good educator right um the divorce job

034is to sort of weigh that and make sure that it's in the best interest of the district as a whole and that it's what the your constituents want and you know uh nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors um that's why you have executive committee [Music] it's never going to be most likely won't be harmonious decisions all the time and i think you have to be respectful of disagreement allow it to occur and then make the best decision you can thank you very much mr roddy do i stay you you remain you can sit now thank you but i but i like standing there did you ask mrs weisel to come in mrs beisel welcome back thank you thanks for waiting so this is just your time to give your introductory statement to the

035board and then we have three questions before we bring the next candidate in the floor is yours yeah just pushing just make sure yeah there you go now you're good all right well um i'm an introvert so i have to write everything down so my apologies for reading um but i just want to start by saying thank you for this opportunity and your continued service to the district i know that serving on the board of directors or the school board can be a little bit of a thankless job so i just want to commend you all for your service um i realized that you've probably never heard of me and i'm a little bit of an unknown in the district um and a little bit of an unconventional choice maybe my two sons are in

036kindergarten in second grade at wexford elementary i was a small business owner in pine township um until the covet 19 pandemic shut us down i've spent the past 10 years working in national education reform specifically in the charter school movement not advocating for charter schools to come to find richmond so i have to put that out there but i am um i fundamentally believe that a high quality education is a right in this country and that every child should have access to a great public education regardless of their race their socioeconomic status or the zip code that they live in i'm here today because i did feel called a service as i've watched the events unfold in the district over the past couple weeks my family moved 456 miles specifically to live in pine richland

037we bought the worst house in our neighborhood because it was all that we could afford at the time because we felt that pine richland gave our children the best opportunity to be successful and thrive and to grow up in a safe and supportive learning environment i bring with me a background in public relations communications and stakeholder engagement my experiences in public education span from everything expand a multitude of disciplines everything from teacher well-being to serving students with disabilities to family engagement these are serious times in this district and i know what's keeping you up at night it's a coveted 19 outbreak in one of our schools and someone getting really sick or even dying from that outbreak it's a student taking their life because of bullying or something far worse than we can even dare

038to imagine there's more than 4 600 students in this district and every single one of them is counting on you and um and i really believe that i can play a critical role in restoring community trust and faith within the board and the senior leadership and getting us back to what matters in our schools is making sure our kids have the best op the best education possible and a safe and supportive learning environment and i hope i can bring us be the bridge to bring us all back together thank you thank you mark yes thank you courtney so from your perspective what's the biggest challenge facing the district in the next seven months so i think the biggest challenge facing the district right now is obviously we need to do some healing there has been

039trauma experience in our community because of the situation with the football program but also the global pandemic that we are still all experiencing but i think as we move forward from that we may need to refocus on our teachers and their well-being and their mental health because i know that they have been through so much during this pandemic i see it in their eyes when i drop my son off for kindergarten i see it in the videos that my son's teacher posts so i'd really like for us to focus on teacher well-being and mental health and then our students well-being and mental health our kids are going to have long-term lasting effects of the global pandemic on them i know my my second grader washes his hands until his knuckles bleed because he's afraid of

040giving grandma and grandpa cove at 19. and so i think that we need to make sure our kids are okay we need to make sure teachers are okay and we need to make sure that we're prepared for this new normal that we're going to be going into in school and on august what does that look like you know parents want to know will my kids still have a virtual a virtual option what's school going to look like are there going to be math there's just a million questions that are running through our parents minds right now and i think that it's preparing for that and making sure that our kids and our teachers are well for the next school year thank you hi and just for my information would you do you prefer courtney mrs

041beisel miss bicycle call me courtney i never know if i'm a miser or mrs because i didn't take my husband's last name okay i don't know just connie courtney i i think it's important that people are called what they want to be called okay so um hi and thank you for coming out uh tonight um and i'm just gonna start off by asking you the question that uh yes we're facing a tough situation in the in the community but there are other situations that do come up so assuming the school board were facing a tough budget decision where we either had to raise taxes or cut programs what would you do so um i am like by nature a very like thrifty frugal person and i if i were a real housewife of wexford i

042would say where there's a courtney there's a way so i think that i would first focusing on you know how can we do this program best how can we do this program more effective cost effectively what are their innovations can we go out and get grant funding is there a way we can combine programming can we look at other places that might be um might need uh um that we could pull some money from from there if we've exhausted all those options i'd look at the program and see like well what's the student engagement in this program is it critical to the mission and vision and values that you're trying to instill in the district as a fiscal conservative then um i think that after we go through all of the steps of can we

043find more money is there a way we can do this program differently or better using less resources is there you know is it vital to the mission and success of our district um i would take all that into account so i do like to base everything on fact and logic and looking at you know what what the data is telling me after all of that i would probably cut the program if we're getting you know that if we're hearing back from everything that we've looked at saying well the kids are kind of into it but not really or you know there's other programs that we have that are doing similar things um so it really depends on what the data tells us about the program and how it's being used and how it fits in

044with the rest of the educational model and the mission values of the district hi courtney hi so my question is what is the best way to address differences of opinion between board members or between the board and the administration so i think you know coming from a place of understanding that we're all here for the kids like that that is our grounding we all want to do what's best for the kids and i think that coming from a point of let's put everything out on the table let's work together let's understand where everyone is coming from and come to a common solution let's hear every single void if we are at a standstill then they're surveying out to the parents and see what they think on a direction to go to um but i think

045that when you ground yourself and we are here for the kids we are here for the best interest of the district let's leave everything else at the door and come up with the right solution then you will nine times out of ten be able to come up with a win-win that will benefit the students and make sure that we're doing things for the best interests of the district thank you very much and if we could bring in mrs hayden welcome back mrs hayden so at this time we'll just ask you to share a introductory statement to let us get to know you a little bit better and then board members will ask you the big three questions that we're asking of each candidate this evening [Music] sure start over yeah i didn't say much my

046name is amy hayden um i've been a resident of the township uh about a year a little over a year i moved here with my family from brentwood school district where i was a school board director for a little over six years and that is one of the reasons i put my name in the uh offering here because i feel i have the sorry i apologize i had my code shot yesterday so my brain's a little foggy this evening i slept most of the day i put my name in the ring so that i could potentially provide some assistance in this temporary board position walking in i do know you know the state rules what the role of the school board would be and i know it's a temporary position i was hoping to lend

047some of my expertise while learning about the district and the township at the same time thank you thank you mark yeah thank you peter thank you amy um from your perspective what's the biggest challenge facing the district in the next seven months well there's the big one that everyone knows about it's everywhere right now there's a lot of uh public concern uh and lack of confidence in the district and some of the decisions they've made obviously the people that are in the room know knows what happened the people in the public hear bits and pieces they don't have the whole picture and it's hard for people that don't understand the whole picture to accept something they may not agree with at face value so the biggest challenge will be to restore confidence in the school

048district and the board and the administration and the decisions they made and moving forward as a whole community from that point thank you i in um do you prefer to be called amy mrs hayden what would you pick fine either it's fine okay um amy um thanks for coming out and um again we've we've talked about the tough challenges directly ahead of us but other challenges that face the school board things like assuming that the school board is facing a tough budget decision and the decision is we either cut a program or we raise taxes what would you do that is a very familiar question uh the district i came from was landlocked had no way to expand their revenue base other than raising taxes so this was literally a yearly conversation so i did

049take a quick peek at the proposed budget and i saw that you were tapping some of the fund balance potentially um to overset the deficit which i'm assuming is code related because of all the unaccounted for expenses that popped up in the past year personally it's not the end of the world to raise taxes obviously public is never happy to hear that but when it comes down to it we need to make sure the school district can proceed and grow to meet all of the needs of every student now and in the future and if we cut a program yes that can cause a short-term deficit and it hurts a lot of people immediately and raising taxes could hurt homeowners in the long run but at the center of the room is the children so

050personally you know i'm not saying i'm voting on it today i would look at taxes at a higher priority because the long term of the school district not just today is what is important hi amy hi so my question is what would be or what is the best way to address differences of opinion between board members or between the board and the administration the best way honestly is prank discussion which i know board members disagree day in day out um and it's hard when you're on the minority position and you're you're you feel you're not feeling heard um the best way to move forward is as a board to come to the decision that once a vote has been taken place you need to work together and support that decision a vote is a vote

051it's official it's on the record and two i'm not saying it happens here but to talk behind or bad mouth or second guess it doesn't promote the public uh confidence you know that you need from the community an administration um you know i as a member of the school board i had participated in some furloughs which obviously is never a good experience um but we had the backing of the administration even though they didn't want to do it you know we had to foster that working relationship and so we we had to move forward with it thank you thank you very much mr ditullio mr d'alessio our fifth candidate welcome back mr delecio you're welcome to have a seat and uh simply give us a few moments introduce yourself to the board and then we

052will go around and ask the three big questions we're asking each candidate this evening the floor is yours okay thank you microphone if you could flick on your microphone you'll get a little red light yeah green light i'm so used to doing these on teams that don't have to worry about that um i am chuck lissio uh i live in gibsonia i i'm going to pause you while mr karpinski uh replaces your mic since that one's a little out of balance better yes that sounds great uh charles d'alessio i live in gibsonia normally i go by chaz short for charles i have two girls in the district one who is graduating in this year and off to college and then the other one who's moving from eden hall to the middle school both have been

053in the district since kindergarten it's been a good experience for both of them my oldest competes with the pine-richland crew team my youngest is more interested in things like uh performance whether it's chorus or learning the guitar she's been a little disappointed this year because those things have been cut back but everyone has to live with that when i uh sent you the uh the my application i had indicated that i thought that of these principles my strong area or interest area would be in thoughtful planning as i went through the did a little bit of research on the website today there were a couple other things that popped out and i'll hit you with those real quick one would be health and wellness which has always been part of my life and philosophy that's

054important obviously to the kids in this district second would be title ix which is something that you have discussed here and while it's a very old law it represents an opportunity or opening up opportunity to everyone and i think that's important finally and i had forgotten about this beatty tech i did uh two years at beatty tech as a fill-in teacher there was a computer-aided design class that went from full-time to part-time the teacher didn't want to take it it was open for two years and i filled in so i've been a teacher at beatty tech it's an important program for all of the districts that participate uh be certainly interested interested to see what's happening with that and i would say that's my introduction thank you thank you thank you so would you prefer

055that we call you chas or mr uh jazz which is fine okay thank you chess so this is a very unique situation because the seat is temporary so we have seven months and over those next seven months what in your opinion and from your perspective what's the biggest challenge that we face as a district i would say that managing the the change in things as the as covid and the pandemic progresses paying attention to what's happening restructuring things throughout the summer and getting prepared for the fall thank you hey chaz how you doing um full disclosure chaz and i do serve together on the pine township board so i have had occasion to meet uh chas before and deliberate in a board setting so full disclosure but chaz so obviously we're facing tough decisions right

056now things going on but a specific instance assume that the school board were facing a tough budget decision where we either had to raise taxes or cut programs what would you do i think it would depend on what programs were slated to be cut there may be some that it's kind of a hard thing to to respond to without really getting into the details but i would there needs to be an evaluation of uh first you know what what programs could be sacrificed or changed or scaled back in order to deal with the limitations that come from the budget i think you have to recognize that those limitations are real that's just part of life but then after you know that evaluation and discussion amongst the board i think it simply becomes down to a

057decision as to what's going to be sacrificed versus raising taxes i don't think you should be opposed to raising taxes but i would also tend to think without knowing all of the workings of the district there should be some opportunities for cost savings without raising taxes hi chad so i have the third question um so what is the best way or what do you think is the best way to address differences of opinion between board members as well as between the board and the administration i think that the initial thing that needs to be done for that is that there needs to be a history of clear and open communication i think that people have to understand how to address each other without becoming combative i think it's very important to listen because i think

058sometimes communication doesn't our communication breaks down not because people have very different opinions but because they're not understanding it the same way or in fact not using the same language i did serve on the board of directors of aia pittsburgh that's a professional organization we occasionally dealt with some controversial issues one of them had to do with the eligibility requirements for a uh an awards competition and it was these are very big things and you know people see the awards as a way to promote their business and the issue came down to for a competition in pittsburgh where if the project were in pittsburgh but the architect was in california could they still enter and as the board we had to make that decision it became controversial and in fact because there was a high

059profile project in pittsburgh designed by a firm in california which everybody thought was going to win if it was allowed in but after going through all those discussions the board while still divided did reach a majority decision personally there was one guy on the board who i really never got along with and rarely voted with him but we wound up on the side that said open this up don't be afraid but the most important part was we managed to keep the group working without creating animosity that was while there may have been some that night it eventually just went away that was just through communication being respectful and really listening to what people are saying thank you all very much thank you board members for your questions the next phase of our interview process uh

060has two components as well we will ask you more free form questions if desired and you may ask board members questions for that first portion if a board member has a question to ask uh ms williams i believe we designate you how do you have a list for us to go in so ask your question ms williams will designate the responder and the subsequent responders and then we'll rotate so we don't keep picking trees over and over again to go first as an example because you're right there okay so if there are other questions from board members at this time i do actually have one this past summer a group of concerned students and concerned parents approached the administration and the board with concerns related to diversity equity and inclusion at pine richland and palmetto

061school district as a board member how do you see your role to meet the needs of traditionally marginalized students with that we'll start with mrs weisel thank you so this is a question that we talk about in my professional job almost every single day um because we develop tools and resources for the education community and one of the big topics that we deal with is diversity equity and inclusion i think the first thing is one of the principles that we always say is not about us without us so making sure that those students and the parents and the teachers that are part of this are part of the conversation so that they're not being so decisions are being made about them without them um so that's the first thing i would say is making sure

062that everybody has a seat at the table when you're making these discussions another thing that i would recommend is putting together a dei frameworker handbook for teachers for the board for administrators to use develop it collaboratively with stakeholders but put together something that um you know frames how you're going to talk about things how you what norms you are going to bring to conversations and discussions and and being leaders in it you know i i think that that's a big part of it too is that when students and parents and teaching staff see you changing the way you talk about it and think about it they will too because you're the leader so that's i would just in summary bring together all those stakeholders so that they are part of those conversations start working with

063that framework in order to change the norms around it within the district and change the way that you talk about it within the district mrs dawson so any organization that is successful has a mission vision and values and part of how any successful organization functions is by having uh you know standards for certain principles built into their mission vision and values and so um these are just ways that we operate as an organization and as a member of a board you know that is part of the responsibility of a board to set the tone in in agreement with the administration as to how those mission vision values are created and policies around those things and that is that is the objective manner in which you run any kind of successful organization as far as um

064you know balancing that or individualizing that that becomes um you know part of this stakeholder opportunity at the moment in time based on the person who's experiencing you know i work in health care and this is not foreign concept to me because it's baked in it's already baked in you know so you treat others the way that they want to be treated but you also have you know norms that you bake into your mission vision values so we have to always keep in mind that we're an academic institution and when you're an academic institution that means that learning must take place and the way and manner in which learning takes place is a unique and individualized experience as we you know designed the you know little student in the room with all the moving parts

065um you know so uh how that's experienced by each individual student should be ingrained in the culture so you cannot move your organization away from the strategic mission and the objectivity at this for the sake of always appeasing what seems inequitable or you will lose at what you're trying to accomplish so i hope that makes sense in saying that leadership matters in that if your strategic we as leaders have a mission of vision and of values the administration carries it out we objectively apply that that should be sufficient mrs hayden there are always marginalized groups in any community and the role of the school is to include them and one of the off the top of my head one of the best ways is review the curriculum one and i know it happens every so

066often but when you do so review the curriculum to make sure that that is addressing that as well because if it's part of the curriculum the kids hear it every day from the teachers and it flows down to the other students and that carries through and then the older age groups like student groups and creating a safe environment especially in the high school in middle school you know when everybody starts getting their own little opinions and forming their little groups then that can lead to exclusionary groups so i think it should be top down from the administration looking for a more inclusive curriculum that covers more areas than traditionally as we know and has been that way for a very long time and i think we're at that point where you need to incorporate that

067in the day-to-day thank you mr delucia delicio we'll be next well i would i would say that i certainly support the point about looking at the curriculum for that but i would i would say that pine-richland has not been a district that has not wanted to include people and in fact has taken certain steps to actually promote inclusion so i would think that the first thing to do would be to take a look at what has been done in the past and evaluate the results as a way of determining what you would what the next actions would be the second thing would be that i think it will be building or you know or particularly like grade specific that what you would do at eden hall will be different than what's done at the high

068school and then finally it would be an ongoing process of going back once certain um ideas are vetted and and you know the thinking is let's do this in eden hall and let's do this in high school go back and find out how it's working and and see if uh from the people in the building you know teachers and staff if what the board is has promoted is working and adjust as necessary and then build that into an ongoing process it shouldn't be just done at one time and we shouldn't forget about what's been done before is your body first of all the pine-richland school district is not going to solve the problem of inequality and marginalization um as noble as that sounds my colleague mentioned a sort of a top-down approach to culture but

069bottoms up is really important too and one of the things i notice about the district is from day one uh wexford elementary now eden hall there's a rams way ramway i may have it wrong my daughter recites it to me all the time they are instilling values in in the students i think they do a great job at recognizing and identifying problems when they happen and sort of trying to nip it in the butt i i recall this situation i have a very good friend who is the mom of three african-american children and this really hits the sweet spot for her it definitely has to be something that the entire administration school board promotes and actively includes i will say one thing you know adding additional programs seminars webinars to teachers on these kinds of

070things they're already pretty tapped out i mean i think we have to be somewhat sensitive to how many times are they going to go through a new retraining how many times are we going to change our curriculum you have to be responsive to what's going on in the world the same time not knowing exactly what the inequality is is it is it um poverty is it race is it religion some of the demographics are not within the lord's control and that's a bigger problem and there's just pine richland it depends on what developments are going up and i spent some time before the township board with respect to some of these issues and there's a lot of development right now whether it's going to lead to more diversity is a good question um so you

071can't control the input inflow all you can do is give good programming from the get-go and nip it in the bud when you see it and the parents have to be involved to a large extent because the kids are going to pattern parents so it's not an issue i don't think any board can solve but you do you do have to give voice to the problems that are occurring maybe take constructive input from the folks that feel marginalized and get some ideas from them what what would make the situation better for a group of people that are currently marginalized it might be easier than we think thank you do we have any other questions from the board at this time dr mahelik thank you all for demonstrating your courage for being here and stepping up

072so we've been through a pandemic we're still in it we've learned a lot along the way so what about it should continue in education once we're through it six months from now a year from now which should continue that we've learned mr d'alessio if you'd like to start i think that the option of remote learning should be continued in some manner i have heard that some kids have just flourished in a remote learning situation i i would not say that i would understand exactly why but i have i believe that there are some kids who will react better to that i think that there is a certain there are benefits social benefits to being in the building uh perhaps that becomes uh some variation of the hybrid model that is here right now uh and

073then um the other thing that i would simply add to what should continue would be an emphasis on health and things that we can do um to be sure that everyone's staying healthy i'm not advocating that we wear masks forever but there are certain things whether it's you know just sort of keeping your hands clean and covering that will be beneficial during our next flu season ms roboti i think the district did it a really remarkable job in adjusting to the conditions that were sort of imposed upon it everything from the teachers to the communication rachel hawthorne who is your the best communicator um i've ever seen honest to god she responds to every single annoying email i send her um she's a great front person for the board um what to continue i mean

074that's the question of the day depending on where you live and what state everybody has different ideas about what's supposed to happen i think we do have to start demystifying this for the students and sort of taking away the climate of fear i don't think the statistics bear out sort of the predictions that were made about coven 19 certainly with people in immune compromised situations very dangerous for i don't think there's any very few fatalities and children obviously the teachers are concerned too i don't i don't uh believe that we should continue the masks again i don't think their efficacy has been established and i think it's it's a real social barrier for the for the kids and the teachers i have a hard time communicating through the mask when i can't see somebody's lips

075i have a heart i have a hard time understanding my daughter right now when we both have a mask on it's a barrier and i think i don't get me wrong the teachers have done an unbelievable job the remote learning was thrust upon them without any notice and you know first two weeks might have been rocky but they picked it up immediately so you have good plans in place they were enhanced over the year and i saw things get better and better the next year as far as remote learning and continuing that that i mean that's a huge fiscal and um physical burden on the district i i have no idea sort of what that costs to have remote teachers because i believe that's where we're at now teachers that are 100 remote um they're

076not they're not having the teacher teach both online and in school people at the same time anymore i also think that um it's important for children to interact with people their own age on a regular basis and learn how to navigate through life um it's very easy to be a top student secluded in your room with your computer never having interactions both social academic and otherwise with your peers and unfortunately life's life's tough and i you know i would probably have done very well with remote learning because i would have been finished really fast but i would not have learned half the things i did had not been you know going to school every day and learning the other things about life that are important um obviously we have to wait to see what the

077state the governor says about mandates i know that the schools are in danger of losing funding if x y and z isn't done all those things need to be looked at but i think we have to remove the stigma of fear from our kids so that this isn't the only thing they think about thanks mrs dawson such a relative question because i think that what we collectively have learned from covid is based on one's perspective [Music] as a healthcare person you know i have certain perspectives i think that what we've learned academically or in a learning community is as was stated one size doesn't always fit all and we were surprised to see that you know some students learn better remotely and that's a good thing i always had that hunch myself because not all

078students need to socialize at the same mandated rate as other students so i think that was something that perhaps we've learned about the academic environment i also do think that there's probably opportunity for those that learn in a certain different way can either accelerate their learning in a in a remote way and feel quite content and still find socialization in other forms so um to answer the question i would say what should we keep i think that we should keep the perspective that the great job that you did asking the parents and the students what they want should continue and then use that to make further decisions as you transition into a again new learning model that would probably be more like a new norm based on that input that you did a very good

079job at gathering thank you mrs hayden i just realized in my introduction to dan mentioned i do have a child in the middle school currently so we've been on the front lines with everybody else with the whole virtual hybrid in person everything seems to change every other day so from my perspective what would be continued after the pandemic the one thing i did appreciate was the one to one technology that was provided by the district to all the students to make sure no matter which option they chose they have the capability to do the work i we personally were able to afford internet so i'm assuming there was some sort of program and that so that should continue to make sure every student has at least internet capability in their home not relying on mom's

080phone or something trying to do their work because using the one-to-one technology going forward when a student has a sick day even if we're not streaming streaming classes live like we did previously in the hybrid they're at least able to access their homework and know what they missed same with vacations families travel you know you just have to walk around all your teachers and say teacher i'm going to be out this week can you please give me all your worksheets this way they can log in remotely from the beach from where they are and make sure they are keeping up with their school work another thing i would say is with the crowding in the spacing it might be and everyone loves the smaller class sizes depending on the state they may even come down

081mandate fewer students per square foot and i think looking at that if we have the capability to potentially do that ahead of the state or anyone telling us to that's never a bad idea to limit the number of students in a space thank you thanks this is basil well i i just do want to commend the district on what an amazing job they have done during the pandemic i think when you kind of live in the pine richland bubble you forget that there's kids in this county that have not yet gone to school yet in person the district that we left they had their first virtual their first in-person day for kindergartners on april 22nd so i just want to thank you all for making really hard decisions at the start of the pandemic and

082throughout it to do what was best for our kids i'm really excited about the virtual school option continuing i do work in charter schools there's a lot of really bad virtual charter schools in pennsylvania and i think it would be amazing if we could bring those kids back to the district because i believe they will get a better education some of them are good but a lot of them aren't and so if we're able to bring those kids back into the district and have a better education than they're getting now in one of the virtual cyber schools i think that that would be amazing for those kids i do love the option that virtual schools give to parents it's a it's an alternative to homeschooling where you have a curriculum given to you but you

083still have your kids there and you're still part of their their education and so i do think for a lot of families that's a really great option so i'm really encouraged by the district looking at that and finding the right solutions for our kids um you know i agree i love as a mom of little ones i love the smaller class sizes where my kid went from 24 students in a class down to 16. i know that that's a big burden on the district in terms of teaching and space and stuff like that but i just saw my kids really benefit from that i agree with the keeping up the cleanliness of the kids we have not had pink eye this year we have not had the stomach bug so i think masks are working

084and the cleanliness that the kids are doing um so i i appreciate that um and i just really would love for us to continue this creative problem solving i mean the stuff that i've seen come from my only perspective is wexford elementary but the stuff that i've seen come from my kids teachers and the way that they've been able to solve problems and the way they've been able to teach the kids about resiliency is i think amazing and i would also love for us to continue our appreciation of how hard our teachers work i did not know how hard it was managing a classroom of 16 uh second graders until i listened to it on a google meet so i think that we all really came to have an amazing appreciation for how hard our

085teachers work and everything that they're giving our kids and so i would just love to see that continue as well after the pandemic thank you are there any other questions from board members at this time i do if no one else because i've already asked a question but if no one else has i have one question um so first of all i'm just going to give you guys a heads up as an example of a difficult board decision because this is going to be a difficult board decision we have five obviously qualified candidates so i just want to thank you for that um i also want to not thank you for that because you're making this difficult so we only have one vote tonight and so i'm going to apologize for that ahead of time

086because four qualified individuals are going to walk out of here not a board member tonight so i just want to keep that clear one thing that i wanted to talk about is is at some point during tonight every one of you has mentioned communications um and in one way or another so one of the board goals that we have set for ourselves is during and this is directly from the board now is direct communications with our stakeholders with the community so what i would like to know from you is what would your perception or how would you envision good communications from the board as a whole as a group to the community sorry mrs hayden thanks for that easy question um obviously i'm parents so i've been getting all the emails and all the information

087on the website and everything and i'm also on a couple of facebook pages and people are complaining either it's too much or not enough but i i can't tell you know everyone has a different opinion um so i believe that the district has been doing a best job they can this whole time because things change day to day week to week minute to minute and communicating via email one thing i know that could also be implemented is calls like an automated system where you're calling information such as hey can attend the school board meeting and we're discussing such and such um because not everyone reads emails especially and i know they include a lot of information but they're very long sometimes i'm trying to skim so if i make sure i got all the important

088information but i don't always read them line for line but a quick little phone call may be a little uh more accessible to a lot of people who don't check their emails or even those that don't speak english as well maybe they can't read their emails because it's very long and complicated to them and another thing that you could potentially do is i know you get the in community magazines you can put a bit more information the lengthier pieces in that knowing things that are coming up you can put more information like articles about what has been done what's planning on being done you know to keep the community informed it's a little more uh robust than the pine creek journal which is the weekly publication it's monthly so you can give a bit more

089information in one go and they can leisurely take in the information thank you mr d'alessio well uh i my impression is that the traditional communication and traditional i mean website email publications things like that that's all fine meaning that information is put out there you know you can certainly go on to the website and find out information about what meetings you know this meeting was advertised and you could certainly find out you know what's going on and people have the opportunity to attend it seems that we had the example early at the start of the meeting where some people did call in and while i don't know what restrictions you're under it would seem to me that that one area that could be improved is that that ability to respond to something specifically that doesn't

090mean that someone needs to answer tonight but i do think it would be beneficial if there were a means that uh perhaps mr alliance could say you know thank you we will respond to that comment by the end of the day wednesday or you know however that needs to be worked out maybe it would be saying the board secretary will get back to you via email at at this particular time so that to me that seems to be um the the area that is say the weakest that there's there's not really um while you do are open to people coming here to talk there's not really an opportunity to to get a response i mean maybe a a forum like a town hall needs to be created i'm thinking about the way that it's handled

091with political candidates where and i realize it's taking on a lot of responsibility but somebody stands up front and will answer questions and often the best candidates are the ones that can navigate through that um sometimes what will happen is the candidate will say i cannot respond to that right now but then they'll have some staff or say we'll take your name and we'll be getting back to you in two or three days and so that person's concerns are taken and addressed so perhaps a town hall would be a interesting addition thank you um so i am a communications person my bachelor's degree is in public relations and advertising from penn state most of my career has been set in suspension public relations and communication regionally you know how hard your job is and you

092are doing an amazing job at it um you know i think one of the and i could talk about this all night so i would try to be free but you know i think one of the communications challenges that you all are having right now is that people don't know you and they don't know your why and they don't know we're here yeah we voted for you but i didn't know who i was voting for i just like and that's a lot of the people within the community is that you walk into a ballot room and you're like oh they're an incumbent they're this you know i mean a lot of people are uninformed voters i think you'll have far more informed voters in this year's elections theresa i think we're actually neighbors you look

093very provided for papers i didn't even know that we're neighbors right so i mean i think that that is one of the challenges it's even harder right now because we're all wearing masks i'm not going to recognize you when we walk out of this room so i think that it really is like coming from you know being able to engage more in the community and let them know your why and let them know why you were doing this and how much you care about your their kids i think that um so i think that that's a big piece of it i think it's like moving away from just like communications in the traditional senses we have the website we have all these things and really focusing on relationships and um you know letting the community

094know who you are and know where you're coming from and knowing where your heart is i think as we move forward in the community we need to take a trauma-informed approach to communication because our community is hurting we heard that on the phone we see it in the facebook groups people want to feel heard they want to feel cared about they want to feel empathy and so how do we lead with that while still maintaining everything that you're going through and transparency and and all the things but i mean how do we really get the community to understand that your actions and decisions are in the best interest of the community and of the kids and of the safety and well-being of everyone so i think that that's an important lens to apply to your

095communication i think that there's ways that we can modernize our communications more um so then you know how do we like not as long as an email or you know more engagement on social media through the channels and more videos and more visuals and more storytelling and those things that really make this district and all the wonderful things happening it come alive um and like i said like telling our story more talking more about your why and why you're doing this and how you were meeting with your heart and moving more away from communicating towards engaging and creating those relationships with the community so that they do know where you're coming from thank you mr body i firmly believe that there are plenty of communications and sources of information from both the administration the board

096the staff already in place um and that even if you add more there will be people that choose not to avail themselves of those resources and it's funny because if some of the folks commenting on facebook and whatnot when the announcement about the termination came had actually taken time to read the procedural rules that the board abides by they would understand it wasn't a secret action but they're following their rules about the confidentiality of executive meetings the board is not in charge of the board has a fiduciary duty to the district and it's going to make decisions that make some people happy some people very unhappy so you're never going to please everyone you have to take the information and the facts that you have sort of make the best decision you can and then

097stand by your guns i think one of the ways you can improve communication is by multi-blasts sort of the communication to i believe parents and the community came a day after the actual termination i understand the whys of that is someone that has formally handled employment cases um perhaps there's a way to even direct people to you know our rule doesn't allow us to share executive committee minutes um and all that sort of thing this isn't sleight of hand this is us doing our proper governance i i don't agree that sort of a town hall free-for-all would be productive but perhaps there's a way to get a parent representative liaison to the board i'm a c louise with liaise with the northern regional police with the township some other entities in the community it doesn't

098have to be a voting position but perhaps there's a way that that parent can get input from a group and then bring it to the table um a free-for-all never benefits anyone and it's it usually is emotional can get very nasty and you lose sight of what you're trying to accomplish i do i do agree though that parent input might be a way to sort of segue that communication so that they know that someone that is just like them understands what's going on or has been informed to the extent you can thank you mrs dawson i think of communication in three categories the first category is proactive which is um setting expectations it's sort of appealing to the thoughtful the thought space and i think that the district does an excellent job at that you're

099proactive you um you know let us know set the tone and give us things to think about there's a second type which is reactive and reactive communication is usually what occurs when you're mitigating something negative that is emotionally charged and the thinking about all this other stuff is sort of absent from the moment and that's where i think you know a collective community such as a board and a community at large is challenged because that's that's where trust can get broken down and then the third category is a responsive a responsive uh communication and that's the place where both the thoughts and the emotions are mitigated together by a personal approach and i think that during covid personalization has been very very challenging i think that emotions are higher i think that the things that

100are near and dear to us as humans have been stolen away from us very slow and rapidly all at the same time almost that we're used to being emotional now and so um i don't have facebook i don't use social media i don't want that noise in my life so my responsiveness is usually on a personal level getting to know my neighbors i walk my dog you see me i have a cute little kobe dog you know her name is ruby [Music] but um but i think that that is the place where we have the most opportunity as a community and how to mitigate this current communication crisis that we're in and um you know that's one of the things as a nurse that i'm pretty practiced up on so the other thing i want

101to say about that is as a board member in my past board life you know the personal emails so getting back to some of the comments about you know why don't we respond i would find myself after board meetings or when something was discussed getting personal emails and that's how i became responsive because i would get to know and reach out to that person to better understand both the emotional and and the thought behind what their need was to have better communication which is what brings me to the good questions so that we can collectively come to a reasonable agreement that addresses everyone's perspective thank you thank you all and i can guarantee you that dr mahalik is kind of charged with some of our board goals we'll be discussing some of the ideas and

102some of your ideas are going to be stolen just saying so thank you not stolen informed you say potato if there are no further board questions we can move at this time to questions from any of you for us it's not necessary to direct your question uh i may if that that helps but is there anything that you as candidates would like to ask us about time richland about serving on the board that we can answer for you before we move to voting it's pretty unique to have two uh two people with i think combined almost two decades of board experience come out for this and we we appreciate that i want to thank you for your thoughtful answers and suggestions i want to say again it seems obvious to me that this is what

103democracy is but i it's not that obvious in this community right now one of the emails i got i got a few this month and one of them uh suggested boy this is a pickle you know i understand you've worked in employment law you understand we have obligations what if we could have a body independent body parents people in the community we have a lot of professionals a lot of professional experience good people who could come review decisions of the administration and sort of you know i said yeah it's a great idea we'll call it a school board this is how we come together and this is how we make decisions as a community if we reach a successful uh majority tonight we will appoint one of you to fill a seat on this body

104through december 5th 2021. as ms dawson pointed out it's got nothing to do with the election there is an election pending so i've been asked that question to clarify uh in the community i've also been asked because it may seem sort of easy and obvious there is a candidate who also withdrew right why we just don't appoint the person who's still on the ballot and the answer is uh that's just not an option uh they're not here tonight so uh they did not apply so i can't i can't speak to that any further this appointment has nothing to do with the election and all the vagaries of what may or may not happen due to a withdrawn candidate so no matter what happens in the election and this is important too no matter what happens

105in the election the appointee tonight will serve through december 5th 2021 as will the uh four members of this board i'm sorry three members of this board whose seats also expire at that time it's worth mentioning uh that there are five of us mr greg ditullio dr carla meyer myself mark kashani and dr mahelik there are five of us whose seats go on until december 2023 you are all looking in fine health i look forward to serving with you through 2023 in december uh regardless of the outcome of this election as well so i just wanted to clarify that again what you've done by coming here tonight is to elevate the democratic ideals of our community this commonwealth and the country i cannot thank you enough for that just a quick comment on behalf of

106the senior team again we really appreciate you being here uh it's been a pleasure to listen to your thinking and the questions that are asked are really tough uh and some of them do not have uh clear answers even when all the facts and information is on the table and even after uh civil discourse and so that's the challenge i think of leadership and governance it would be wonderful if just getting it all on the table would make it clear it just sometimes doesn't work that way and so it is a pleasure to serve with the board and it was a pleasure to listen to your thoughtful responses tonight thank you uh board members so just to review the mechanics of the voting process am i good to go barb i really need to go

107in your folder you don't do this that often so in your folders you should find several sets of ballots you're going to start with the white ones for round one so we will vote each of us on this piece of paper we can fold it off pass it down to ms williams she'll collect it and then she'll read our name our vote is public there are eight of us so we're looking for a five vote majority once we have a five vote majority our normal convention is we will move to the approval the appointment motion itself uh where we all may vote eight of us recognizing that's how this body works uh that the entire body recognizes the uh will the majority and that becomes our are you collecting over i'm still talking okay all

108right let me give you one more second see if i forgot anything else in the most likely event in the first round there is not an obvious winner with five votes by convention this board drops the lowest vote getter or getters so if we had whatever combination you can come up with but two only got one vote we would then proceed to the next round without those two candidates in the voting any questions especially from board members who are actually voting okay and i i wanted to echo what greg said thank you this is tough you're you know you all bring something and thank you for coming out tonight tangled up here okay for round one we have mr kashani voted for mrs dawson mr moy voted for ms rovati mr ditullio voted for mrs

109dawson mrs swope voted for mrs hayden miss dr meyer voted for mrs hayden mrs misback voted for mrs beisel dr mahalik voted for mrs hayden and mr lyons voted for mrs hayden so we have mrs hayden has four ms ravati has one mrs dawson has two and mrs beisel has one by our voting convention we will require a second round of voting mrs beisel and mrs ravati only received one vote and are not eligible for the second round of voting and mr delesio will not be sorry and mr delisia yes so the next round is gold and you'll be voting for mrs dawson or mrs hayden i have to get up again thank you there is a tendency to fold your vote even though it is about to be read in public uh that i

110always like to remark on at this moment it is intense i was realizing i was holding it three times and you know i mean it's passing it's passing a note in fourth grade back to school right no cheating okay we have mr ditullio voting for mrs dawson dr mahalik mrs hayden mrs misback mrs hayden mr lyons mrs hayden dr meyer mrs hayden mr kashani mrs dawson mr moy mrs hayden mrs swope mrs hayden we have six for mrs hayden and two for mrs dawson given that i will move immediately to item 2.02 which is a motion to appoint mrs hayden amy hayden as school director for region 1 for the term ending december 5th 2021. i have a second second motion has been made and seconded any discussion all those in favor say yes yes

111yes opposed congratulations [Applause] we really appreciate so much all of you taking the time to come out the energy in your writing and your applications was evident the thoughtfulness the experience that you all bring to this community we hear time and again from people that we need to take advantage and elevate the depth of resources we have especially in people in this community you've shown once again why we need to do that every time so thank you all and ms hayden ms williams we'll give you some information about uh swearing in at our next regular board meeting thank you all thank you so much everyone we are adjourned to an executive session to discuss personnel and potential litigation matters thank you you