001thank you good evening everyone and welcome to the Radnor Township School District's regular business meeting of Tuesday September 27th I'd like to call this meeting to order and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance with liberty and justice for all okay as I said that disembodied voice we do have one board member who is joining us remotely tonight and I guess there was a little bit of a delay in the in the audio so miss Susan Stern is joining us remotely and we will move on from here I want to report on Executive session the board met an executive session on the following dates September 13 2022 for personnel and legal and September 27 2022 for personnel and with that I'd like to move into our report from students and issue a welcome to Sammy
002and Sophie good evening everyone as you know we are a few weeks into the new school year and the excitement of the new year has not worn off yet as I'm sure you remember the first day of school was a little bit rainy but that certainly did not dampen the mood of the rhs students even in the pouring rain the students greeted each other with smiles and hugs in the parking lot and on the way in despite there only being two grades in the building at a time the energy was electric since the Juniors and seniors already know the lay of the land their respective student council members organized grade-wide socials for the first day the seniors enjoyed Pizza in their last first day of school while their Juniors had a blast at their water
003ice social to start off with some sports news the rounder girls soccer team has had a great start to the season they played three games last week winning threw nothing against pen crust 2-1 against smart bowl with both goals from sophomore Ivy chackelson but unfortunately losing four nothing to Episcopal on Friday when they're not hard at work competing RGS is taking time to give back to the community on Friday the 17th the team held a soccer clinic for the middle school girls the clinic was open to all girls 6th to 8th grade who wanted to practice their soccer skills many of whom you will see playing for RGS one day in the future the boys soccer team has also had a very successful start to the season with an 8-2 record as of last week
004while they did while they also did not manage to beat Episcopal at their game on Saturday losing one nothing they had an incredible win of 7-1 against Marple Newtown on Thursday with goals from Jacob schleb Blake Steele Brian Chavez Matthew wilkinton and Roman Rivera to name a few after a few weeks of intense training the boys and girls cross country teams finally got to begin competing in a very impressive performance and despite the heat Junior Zoe Margulies got first place overall at the central League meet last Tuesday even on the very hilly course of Rose Tree Park she ran the 5K in 20 minutes and 9 seconds Junior Luke Bowden also gave a great performance coming in second overall out of nearly 150 boys with a time of 1713. finally before I switch over to
005some band in club news I have to highlight how rounder girls field hockey went undefeated the first nine games of the season they unfortunately lost to Downingtown West on Saturday but last Tuesday they beat penncrest nine nothing and they beat Marvel Newtown 4-1 this past Thursday with many incredible Saves by goalie Megan doll in addition to putting on Great Performances every Friday the band has also been busy fundraising earlier this month the band had their annual mum sale allowing community members to get their hands on some beautiful fall flowers while also supporting the rhs students the mums will be delivered to Wayne Elementary school on October 1st where the band students will unload the truck organize the flowers into orders and deliver them to people's houses recently the band also began their annual pie fundraiser
006where they sell pies from the popular Lynn Villa Orchards community members can select from a plethora of flavors including Classics like pecan apple and pumpkin These funds will go towards helping the band go on their annual trip together which will be to Disney World in February if you haven't ordered one of these scrumptious pies yet don't worry there's still time the fundraiser goes until November 11th and the pies will be delivered on November 22nd just in time for Thanksgiving per usual the League of Women Voters Club has been out and about having a real world impact at the Fall Festival on Sunday the 18th from 12 to 4 members of the club volunteered by sharing information on voting with any curious passer bag last Tuesday on National voter registration day the club set up a
007table in the rhs library to encourage any eligible high schoolers to register to vote the table had plenty of information about the registration process to help out any newly legal student understand their constitutional right to vote and they also gave out some very cool National voting registration Day stickers which no high schooler could resist speaking of the library the rhs library and the rounder Memorial Library have formed a new Teen program that will come to the high school on the first Wednesday of every month last week some members of the senior student council along with a few other Library enthusiasts met the rounder Memorial youth librarian Maria to plan some fun activities that could take place at each meeting some of the ideas generate included t-shirt decorating Bingo bedazzling bracelet making and trivia the program
008will be open to all rhs students and take place during the new lunch and learn period which Sophie will talk about soon thank you all for your time and I'm now going to pass it over to Sophie thank you Sammy good evening everyone now that school has finally started we have a lot more to update on since last meeting September is usually filled with lots of activities including Sports back to school night and even upcoming elections for the Freshman Class student council the girls tennis team started back in August and their season is unfortunately coming to an end in early October the girls are one of the top seeds in the district during the first week of school the team hosted a honeygrowth fundraiser in which 20 percent of the proceeds went to rgt the
009fundraiser was an overall success about a week ago the team had their annual senior night which honored 13 seniors the girls won seven to zero against Ridley and their next match is tonight against Conestoga recently the team's Captain Mia Shea was named Mainline girls athlete of the week Mia has gone 6-0 individually so far and the team is extremely proud of her for this accomplishment Mia and her fellow teammate Lena shiraki also made it to the Cil semi-finals where Elena took home another Cal singles title title after winning last year in other sports news the girls volleyball is hosting their annual learn to play volleyball clinic at the high school gym next week the clinic is open to middle school and Elementary School boys and girls the whole team will be there to help teach
010kids how to play and improve their skills in addition to the clinic the girls also hosted a Chipotle fundraiser on Wednesday September 14th where 33 of the sales went to the volleyball team a few weeks ago the girls played against Agnes Irwin and beat them in a close 3-2 match unfortunately the girls lost the next week to Harrington 0-3 the girls will have a chance to redeem themselves and their game tomorrow against Springfield High School the golf team has also stood strong with only four losses this season so far both the girls and the boys have played impressive matches against teams like Haverford Springfield Harrington and More in their match last week against Springfield Junior Captain Sean mazzalupe's won under par 34 turned a team score of 212 to 200 in a matter of minutes
011the team won this close game by one with a score of 200 to 201 the girls also had a massive win against the previously undefeated Springford team the team was led by Arden jansen's impressive 37 for a par 35 game leading the central League leading them to win the 165 to 167. last week both the girls and the boys competed in the central League championship for a spot at districts next month after six hours five boys and three girls earned their invitations including senior Tegan Kessel Juniors Luke Evans Arden Jansen Sean mazzolupi Robbie slinkert and Russell Eagle sophomore Michael slinkert and freshman Elena Finelli the future looks bright for the team but they still have a long time before their season is over recently parents from all grades were invited to their radnor's annual back
012to school night for the first time in two years the back to school night was in person freshman parents arrived an hour earlier for an orientation to the high school students volunteered to hand out schedules and direct parents to their child's classroom when the freshman orientation for parents ended parents from other grades started to flow in like before parents followed a time schedule to meet all of their children's teachers and learn more about the courses they were taking while it definitely was a longer night parents appreciated meeting their children's teachers and enjoyed hearing more about the courses at rhs last Thursday the high school hosted their annual activities Fair the activities Fair displays all the clubs at Radner and gives students a chance to sign up the lobby cafeteria and music hallway were flowing with
013tables of various clubs it was a little overwhelming considering there are over 100 clubs at the school but almost everyone was able to sign up for one activity clubs range from sports like Ultimate Frisbee and squash to service clubs like Spanish service club and note in a toad the options were almost Limitless and almost anything you could imagine was likely available as a club a new change to the schedule is made this year at the high school as they introduce lunch and learn at first students question the change from Community periods to lunch and learn instead of 20-minute Community periods lunch and learn occurs on block days and gives a one-hour period for students to eat lunch talk to teachers or meet with their Club the time is split into two half an hour sections
014so teachers can have a dedicated time to either lunch or help with students if students do not have any clubs or teachers to meet with they can use the time to study or hang out with friends well the first few days of lunch and learn were a little chaotic students began to adjust to the new schedule many students like it because it gave them more time to meet with their teachers and provided a nice break in their day with that we thank you so much for your time this evening and we will see you all next month thank you thank you Sammy and Sophie oh you're getting a round of applause yeah that's a pretty exhaustive rundown of what's going on in the high school and you just skimmed the surface of it so thank
015you for that and thank you audience for your support of the student representatives to school board with that I'm going to turn over the meeting to our superintendent who's going to do his monthly report for us thank you good evening thank you Sammy and Sophie for your report usually people don't applaud after the superintendent's report but we'll see if you've set a high bar and Welcome to our all our students and families that are here it's wonderful to have you here we'll be getting to those recognitions next and thank you for for joining us so very quickly I just want to go over a few things as as Sami and Sophie had mentioned the excitement in the start of the school year as we go to the first slide we are off to a great
016start uh the excitement in the air with all of our students and our staff this school year has been really wonderful you know I did have a teacher talking to the teacher about what is different and she said everybody is smiling and it's been wonderful to see those Smiles this school year so we have been really excited for this school year we're off to a wonderful start you can see many of the pictures uh there of our students and staff as they opened the day despite the rain I think it was Sammy who mentioned the rain despite the rain on the first day we still had a great deal of smiles and excitement as we started this school year I want to give a quick update on the next slide on our accessibility and wellness
017infrastructure project at the high school I've had an opportunity to update our community in August and then about a week and a half ago a week ago I guess I sent another update on the status of our prod of our project this is a project that we are very excited about this is a project that is addressing a lot of needs that we had in our high school facility it is unfortunate that we have faced some challenges and hurdles with the project those project hurdles began as we dug down under our Fields when we hit dirt that turned out that the EPA changed the I learned a lot about a mineral called Vanadium it's a mineral that is existing here in Pennsylvania very prevalent in this area and the EPA changed their parts per million
018when you want to dispose of the dirt and that set us back several months as we looked and tried to figure out how did we want to plan to adjust the EPA has since readjusted their their and it has gone all the way back down to what it was before the dirt is safe it's safe to have on our grounds and all of that but some of those challenges we were also faced with a large challenge of our water main we thought our water Bane was under our driveway when you're dealing with a building that's as old as our high school it turned out that our water remain was under Anki bleachers luckily our contractor worked carefully you know as we removed those bleachers and didn't break the water beam but we wound up having
019to move and relocate that entire water main we've also in the last 17 months of this project been faced with a global pandemic and supply chain challenges and we are still faced with some of those supply chain issues as we wait for different pieces and parts to arrive for the project and also the the the shortage of workers that everyone's been experiencing through all that the project has continued thanks to our construction management team all of our team on the construction Team every time we hit a roadblock we redirected and started working in another area or we opened up a different aspect that is why I think students some of you said you know back in the spring gosh they were working outside but now I don't see them outside as soon as we hit
020challenges we moved inside to the pool area we moved inside to other parts of the building to keep this project moving forward and to keep focused on a November focus on a target of November completion date I am getting more and more concerned obviously with construction projects but we're still pushing hard for that November completion date we have been able to host our volleyball in the gymnasium even though we've been amidst construction and adding air conditioning to our gym facility we've been able to have field hockey soccer on Anki field and have those games we're able to get our certificate of occupancy for Anki bleachers so our fans could be out there we are now working very hard to hopefully host a home football game so our marching band our cheer our Color Guard Ken
021and our students and all our fans and our community can come together we are hoping for sometime in October and working really hard for that October 21st or 22nd would be our next home competition but we may not hit that that is the challenge with with construction projects that if we hit other challenges between now and then we will have our alternative for where we play students that are here or students that are listening it was really nice to see that our students traveled to the last couple of away games to support our team and and support our players which was wonderful to see so the games will go on we're working really hard and hoping that the games by the end of October will be able to be home for some games as we
022move forward the we continue to communicate with our boosters and our parents and our student athletes about the project and where we are in the status there are some just key pieces that need to be done as we look at the track the track needs to be completed it's been milled recently and now we're going to be pouring Pavement in the next few days there's retaining walls that still have to be completed in order for us to safely host a game but it continues to be our Focus to try to and we know for our seniors especially our seniors who are participating in you know marching band and cheer and and football and color guard they'd like to be home this season and everybody's doing everything possible to hope that we can do that this
023this season if you have other questions or curiosity and students as well please let us know we're happy to answer questions and we have a lot of information on our website about the project we're really excited for how it's going going to look when it's completed and we're excited for the accessibility that this is going to bring to our entire campus we go to the next slide just shaping the future timeline So speaking of construction and boy you know you would think we're in one construction project why would we ever enter into another one this this project at the high school has been part of the board's commitment and the administration's commitment to look at developing a long-term facilities plan we need to make sure we're being good stewards of our tax dollars and making
024sure that we have a long-term plan for all of our buildings for some of our buildings we have neglected some things over the years and it's time now to make sure we're setting up that long-term 5 10 15 20-year plan so that we can budget appropriately and we can be responsible to make sure that our buildings continue to be the wonderful learning environments they are in that we made a decision in June as a school board that we need to look to replace Athen Elementary the building is from 1963 the costs and the challenges with renovation renovating a building like that really don't make sense at this point so with that decision Vision now comes a lot of work I want to share with our community and share with the school board we had a
025chance to talk at facilities about this that even though we are looking to replace Ethan please understand that it will take us at least two to three years to just design and understand how we replace it and what that could look like and invite our community and especially our Ethan parents to be part of this discussion and then also from the time we actually begin Construction construction could be anywhere from two to three years so you'll see there for a total potential project you know we're looking at enough these two by fours make it very hard for me to see the PowerPoint 48 to 64 months which as we said is a four to six year process as we move forward we are also looking at addressing over the next 5 10 15 and 20
026years other needs in our other buildings across the district and we'll be sharing more of that in January at our facilities committee meetings as we move forward so our calendar committee is meeting and every year we have we we discuss our calendar and you can imagine some of the same topics come up each year as we look at our calendar we do have a committee that's meeting right now we are discussing the idea of whether or not we want to seek some additional information um you know from the community as well as we look at our our calendar we want to make sure first off that our calendar is being inclusive of holidays holidays that our families and our students are celebrating we also want to make sure that our our calendar makes sense for
027their educational program as we move forward there is no way to make the entire Community happy with whatever calendar we come up with there's always every year why do we start before Labor Day or like or why can't we start before Labor Day or why do we start after Labor Day can spring break be shorter can we have a break in the winter all of those things we're looking at even looking at what does what do snow days mean moving forward as a district as we continue to have this discussion so more to come about our school calendar but want to to make everyone aware that the committee is looking at our calendar and we'll be sharing more information as our community and eventually the calendar is always approved here normally it's approved around December
028January timeline we're going to try to move that up and improve our calendar sooner if possible for you know for future years next I want to just share something we're very excited about we are on our agenda tonight is the approval of a contract to add cameras to our buses to add cameras to the outside of the buses to deter you know residents people living in our community or people outside our community anyone from passing our buses when the stop when the stop arm is raised it is a very scary situation when our students get our exit a bust depending where they are in our community those stop signs are absolutely critical and absolutely critical that our community stop when those signs are up so that our children our students can safely cross the street
029last year we had one of our classes Mr Paul Wright's class and this is done to many of our social studies Department classes they encourage the students to write letters to government officials to write letters about what things can you know suggestions the students have about how we can improve our school district effect and one of those letters came from Dua al-ab rawi and do is with us today Duo wrote to the school board about why don't you do something to add cameras and do something to increase the safety for our students so I'm excited to to inform do it she knows this now that your letter was heard and that tonight we are approving a company that's going to install those cameras and the wonderful thing about this company that's doing it is that
030it's not going to cost the taxpayer any money but it gets repaid in the tickets uh that that you know that are going to be issued when somebody's captured passing those stop signs it is also a benefit for our community because if you pass a school bus with a stop sign and a police officer is there not only is it a large fine it is also points on your license and you could actually have your license suspended at that moment with this system there is a penalty of a ticket and this company that has been doing this for for you know in other districts and other areas Across the Nation have found that they have reduced that once somebody this happens they don't repeat it and so we're hoping that you know we're going to
031keep our students safe by adding this and do it would you like to say a few words uh about this program I'd like to welcome you to our meeting come up to the microphone foreign hello everyone I'm Dua LeBron I would like to thank you for inviting me to attend this meeting and I would like to invade my sincere thanks to my teacher Mr Wright and principal Miss kevgas I am very happy to learn that my proposal from last year to have cameras on buses shall be put in place to enforce the law my idea was due to the fact that there are many drivers do not stop when they see school buses stop to pick up kids for the safety of your kids I'm glad this idea will be converted into reality thank you
032foreign thank you so much for joining us tonight and thank you for your thoughtful letter uh and and Mr Wright and the entire social studies Department thank you for having an activity such as this it's really wonderful that our students have that opportunity to get involved with writing government officials and writing their school leaders so thank you upcoming events um there's a little it's busy we are we are we have we have gone right back to our uh some of our pre-covered normal activities and it's really been exciting to see so uh for our school board and our community there's just a list of events I would like to take special note at our flu connects please take note of our flu clinics uh in those dates for uh students and staff as we move
033forward through the through this upcoming school year and going to the next um so I'd like to just take a moment to to wish Mr Michael petiti um all the best Michael is uh had a wonderful uh offer uh to go be uh director of no it's not the title Chief Communications officer for Penn Charter and while we are absolutely excited for Michael and for the opportunity this presents for him and his career and excited for the Penn Charter Community for getting just an outstanding leader and outstanding Communications person we are sorry to see you go and we wanted to take a moment Michael just to thank you now the students here you all know Mr petiti because that's the guy who read all those questions at those board meetings there was a board meeting
034last year that Mr petiti is communications director for public comment we we clocked it read longer than the movie Titanic uh and and so you know Leonardo DiCaprio DiCaprio my gosh that's horrible excuse me I need a communications director has nothing over you Mr petiti um Michael in all seriousness we can't thank you enough for all that you have done a good Communications Department uh really works behind the scenes when we look at our school start time initiative and the amount of information that was on our website that was shared with our community we looked through covet the amount of information that has been on our website to share with our community our Radnor reader each Sunday something that I don't I've never seen any other District put together that much information that goes out
035each week to our community we can't thank you enough for your dedication your commitment and all that you have done and we wish you well in this new position and we know we still have your number to reach out and we hope you'll reach out to us as well I do have a a gift for you on behalf of the school board and the administrative team and I know some other board members wanted to just wish you well as well I'm waiting for the Applause for you Dr Batchelor but as you said it might doesn't oh you're so generous thank you um thank you though and um thank you for your remarks Dr Batchelor and I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of the board although I'll give other board members a chance to
036weigh in as well to offer some remarks Mr petiti you and I have known each other for a long time in fact I was curious how long and if my email if my inbox is any indication I believe it was an email I sent you in November of 2011 when I was had a child who was on this girls tennis team at the middle school and they had their first ever undefeated season and we were throwing a big party and I said Mr petiti do you think you could come over and take some pictures we were all so excited and uh today your department is everywhere capturing and Reporting out on numerous rtsd moments such as those in fact you know an event is official when the petite pan is on I now know what
037this means when this guy's walking around like this with his camera radner's communication work stands out as evidenced by the Inca trees that we get from other school officials around the region and the state about how we do what we do when it comes to communication let alone the awards that the communications department has won so we are grateful for having had your Communications leadership and look forward to seeing the Radnor Township School District continue to evolve and grow in the field it's my personal belief that organizations can do all the best work in the world but the impact is fully realized the more people know about it I don't know if this is a direct correlation or not but it's sort of like that tree falling in the forest saying you've set a really
038high bar for the rtsd Communications Department because I I think we all agree that your passion has always run deep to promote all of the efforts and accomplishments of our district and we're confident we'll uphold that standard and have potential to set it even higher from here so I think on behalf of the board we'd like to wish you the very best of luck at Penn Charter thank you so much for your commitment to Radnor over these past 11 years and the only request we would have is to stay in touch in other words keep communicating thank you as is there any other board member who'd like to weigh in Dr Babson I'm looking to the right and then I'll go to the left this is very I won't be that eloquent um Amy but
039um or Miss Goldman but um Mike you've uh just done an excellent job with us and I just want to say that I really appreciate your work with the GRCC committee and I enjoyed working with you and all the best at Penn Charter thank you Miss Dunn I just want to say thank you I too have known you for a long time but you may not remember me I was one of those parents when you introduced the Radner reader who sent you a nastygram and said no I really just need the email about my kids school I don't need all this other junk please stop you know sending me things I don't need um and and but I and you thanked me for my candid input and as every good communication you know I hope
040you'll continue to give me feedback as this process continues and um thank you thank you for the Radner reader it's something that you know when new people come to the district the first thing I ask them is oh are you on the email for the Radner reader so thank you for pushing what you knew was right and helping us to see how important Communications are in our district and communicating properly thank you thank you Miss Dunn Mr Jubilee oh Michael Michael Michael um you did indeed sit a high bar and I just want to mention someone who knew you before even Amy Miss Goldman and Miss Dunn before you were at Radnor I watched you grow up now I'm kidding um no I think sometimes what what our community doesn't see is as impactful as
041what they do see um being the leader of Communications in a school district particularly in these last three years has been anything but easy and what you've been able to do with Dr Batchelor and our board and our community sometimes there's not a lot of Glory in putting messages together and putting out some very difficult and sensitive Communications and you do it with a plum we're going to miss you greatly we know you leave a legacy you're a good footsteps to follow and I just hope when ratner's playing Penn Charter for some championship in the future you know where your loyalties lie first thank you Mr Jubilee Mr petiti do you have anything you would like to communicate in your last evening with us uh well I'm overwhelmed um thank you everyone for those kind
042words and thank you to the entire writer Community for these 11 years of a Great Moments and experiences and got to work with so many great students so many great staff members parents families organizations that help the Radner Community Manor students the ABC house scholarship fund the alumni groups I mean countless people in the township who really care about and love kids and I had a chance to work with all of them and it was really great experience for me personally and professionally and got me to where I am today to be able to take the step in my career so I owned out of gratitude to the community and you know great School Board too for the support over the years of communications I've been through various school boards I've been through various superintendents
043you're great thank you for your support um but through it all I think Communications has held strong and I've tried to evolve through the years to make it that way and I hope it continues after me so thank you again [Applause] all right now you still have work to do tonight yes we're back to work um all right thank you again that was really nice all right and we're going to actually move into some additional recognitions we have one tonight for the Radner High School seniors who are named National Merit Scholarship for semi-finalists and Miss Solomon is going to lead us through that recognition so I am so honored to give this recognition to these students because to me you're the ones that make me most proud because this is the business that we're in
044so um we want to congratulate the following High School seniors who have been named to the National Merit Scholarship who have been named as National Merit Scholarship finalists semi-finalists all right either way this is set up I'm going to read your names if you come up make sure I give you the correct uh award here and then um I'm going to explain what the word is about so we have Leon Chen thank you I'm going to ask you to please hold your applause Leah I'm glad you got oh please stay up here um we want everyone to appreciate you we can ask you to hold your plus until we're done and then um I'm gonna read what the award is about Alexander Chung and please excuse me if I kill your name Sabina oraso congratulations
045Alexander Goldstein Emily Holtz Elizabeth Johnstone Skyler Lee Edith McKenzie Jason O there you go congratulations and Aurora rayer all right wait a minute if he could congratulations Zoe Simone dobin congratulations Anton scavort Sav congratulations Christopher tybersky congratulations Jessica Wong congratulations Mia Shia congratulations Lauren you congratulations and Christopher jaw congratulations these students again have been named to the 68th National Merit Scholarship program the 17 students are among 16 000 High School seniors from across the United States that are eligible for some 7250 scholarships worth nearly 28 million dollars High School juniors enter into the 2023 National Merit Scholarship program by taking the 2021 PSAT which is the National Merit Scholarship qualifying test the Nationwide pool of semi-finalists representing less than one percent of U.S High School seniors includes the highest scoring entrance in each state to
046become a finalist the semi-finalists must submit a detailed scholarship application which includes information on the semi-finalist academic record participation in school and community activities demonstrated leadership ability employment and honors and awards received a semi-finalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout High School be endorsed and recommended by a high school officer write an essay and earn sat or ACT scores that confirm the students earlier performance on the qualifying test so the superintendent along with the school board and the entire Radner community congratulates these students their teachers and their families and parents on this outstanding achievement and and we have a special request from the board that you turn around they want to acknowledge all of you too if you would just turn around and let them congratulate you as well we're so proud of you
047again to me this is our highest honor and so I congratulate and salute all of you and now we're going to ask you to exit this way for a picture so families you're welcome to join the students for their picture if you'd like you're welcome to stay and see the next recognition the rest of our meeting whatever you'd like but that's what's happening now the students are going to have a picture with our Communications Department facilitating that and we're going to move into our next recognition which is going to be presided over by Ms Monahan and I know Mr petiti there's some crossover in some of these groups for the pictures for the students okay um Miss Solomon did such a great job with all those students this is a tough act to follow but
048I too am very honored to be giving this award and recognizing these five Radnor high school students I will do it in a similar fashion because it just works so efficiently Miss Solomon I'm going to call up the five students and then I will read a description for what they are being recognized for so I would like to call Senior Sabina araso okay okay senior Rafael faganjas just wait right there Juniors Daniel caper congratulations Sabina eraso you're a double winner okay Junior Jacob Kellerman is he here no and last but not least Noel Maldonado okay these students are being recognized for recently earning the national Hispanic recognition Awards through the college board's National recognition program the award recognizes students academic achievements in school and outstanding performance on the PSAT National Merit qualifying test the PSAT
04910 and or AP exams award recipients must have a 3.5 GPA or higher score in the top 10 percent of their PSAT cohort and or score three or higher on two or more AP exams according to the College Board these National recognition programs Grant students with academic Honors that can be included on College and scholarship applications thereby connecting students with universities across the country who use these honors to identify students through college boards student search service the superintendent the school board and the entire Radnor Community congratulates these students their teachers and their families for this outstanding accomplishment and I'd like you to face the front and turn around and and wave to the board as well so they can recognize you congratulations [Applause] wonderful what a nice night of recognitions students you can now get
050your pictures taken with your families as well thank you Ms Monahan for doing that recognition for us and thank you Miss Solomon for doing the other one at this time we're going to move into the public comments section of our agenda as per board policy 6 meetings and public participation the board provides an opportunity at each regular board meeting for eligible participants to comment on matters of concern official action or deliberation which are or maybe before the board community members may make one comment per public comment period for no more than four minutes per comment revisions to policy 6 were adopted by the board at the May 24 2022 regular business meeting and went into effect on September 1st public comment can be made either in person or by telephone recording when circumstances prevent a
051Community member from attending the board meeting if you have any any questions about how to make public comment by telephone recording please visit rtsd.org backslash board for more information do we have any public comment this evening welcome please help yourself to the microphone and just state your name and Township hi this is Linda douthwaite I live in 362 Merlin Road in Radnor Township um I am a mother to a my third child who is a senior at Radnor High School um I'm going to start off by start before I I say what I'm going to say I'm going to note that I have a huge deal of respect for the school board I understand that you do this because you care which is why I I'm here because I care um and for Mr bachelor
052as well you've got a really difficult job to do and you do it well I'd like to also thank you for your hard work and perseverance in particular through covid which I know must have been a very severe experience and I know they were very late night meetings and I I watched some of the school board meetings so thank you um I'm here to talk about the renovations to the high school football field from discussions that I had earlier this week with Dr Batchelor I understand that he the school board and the township manager have been working very hard to try and get the football stands open as quickly as possible so that some of the games can be played at home I know that it's hoped that the last three games would be played
053at Radnor but this is not a definite and there is a real possibility that none of the games will be played at home this year there is no doubt that this project will be of huge benefit to the Future students to Edna I would however like to take the time to recognize the price that has been paid and the negative impact that this project has had on the current football team chair the marching band and the color guard in addition to the families of these students don't forget that these students have already had to experience the painful experience of being a student during covet for the seniors they will not get this year back if the work is not completed soon they will have to deal with a disappointment of not experiencing the thrill of
054Friday Night Lights at a home game they believed you when you said it will be finished in time I know that you said we hope that it will be finished in time but that's not what they heard they feel let down and I feel it's important to acknowledge this has been taken from them for the last two years not a single home game has been played at Radnor this has resulted in the following few students traveling to games the impact to T morale and to the very important social interaction of high school and middle school students that wander around the stands and back and forth to the snack bar along with supporting the team the marching band and color guard has not played their performance to Radnor supporters at every performance so far the band
055points at the home stands and we have seen their backs you cannot see the routine you cannot properly hear the music it's just not the same the marching band is an amazing and I think the best band in the area but not only that it's it's an entire social entity and a support structure the band has worked really hard at band camp and evening practice but have yet to perform to the home crowd the football players and my son is a football player and a band member four minutes is expired oh oh hurry up sorry um they're playing in unfamiliar surroundings with the majority of the crowd against them they have none of the glory of playing in front of their peers or being lifted up by crowd support their defeats have been all the
056more humiliating because of this my son is the first family member to play football I have to say that football is not what I expected I thought it was a bunch of Meat Heads and everyone got hurt the sport had involved a pretty much year-rounding commitment from the team the fit with Fitness maintenance over the winter and spring with summer training three to five times a week and around three hours of practice a day during the season is dealt with I'm so sorry because it just for a matter of fairness for everybody I totally hear your remarks if you could finish it up and if you want to submit what you haven't written to the board you're welcome to do that afternoon I've only got a teeny bit more okay I wanted to get to
057my main point I'm facing the facts here um what is more the camaraderie empathy and support of the team was also something I did not expect this builds greatness that is difficult to achieve with just academics which I think is the essence of what the Radnor school system is trying to achieve in closing I would ask that you the board continue to work as hard as you can to keep this the pressure up to get things finished in time and there is the support the Radnor Community to help where is needed if when all of this is said and done we do not get the work completed in time for the home game I suggest that you meet with the students and explain how hard you tried answer their questions and make it clear to
058them that you are truly sorry and they matter thank you thank you very much Mrs doubtwith and if you would like to use any of my four minutes as well I think what you had to say is really important so if you'd like to continue so we have you're here to make some public comment please begin with your name and your town awesome um my name is Art is this working and my town is Ratner wait a last name too please for the record thank you I wrote it down there for the record as well and um yeah sure my last name is Sherry and yeah I would love to do introductions just so I get to know all of you better if we could do the whole day is maybe your first and last
059name and your town that would be helpful for me too Mr Sherry we don't do that during public comment I can probably get my four minutes to that if you'd like if you don't want to do introductions that's totally cool too yeah if you have a comment to make we are more than happy to hear it but we're not going to do it so a couple things I would like to talk about tonight um I've been subsidy teaching the past couple weeks in the township so I've been really fortunate the students in Radner are so amazing brilliant and really and the teachers too it's really a beautiful environment so thank you all for making that possible and I really appreciate all of your service here tonight I know like to Mrs Sunset like you all
060did was that's truly commitment so I admire what you all do thank you very much for that um but tonight I really like to represent the students I've been fortunate to get a lot of their feedback and what they've been telling me time and time again is that they feel very rushed like at the middle school they say they only have two minutes in between their classes and that's just frankly not enough time to get into their classes in time they're always late and they also need time to you know use the bathroom get a drink of water so I think we need to improve that maybe to at least five minutes I've never I've been fortunate to substitute teach it about 40 different schools maybe more and I've never seen only two minutes in
061between periods it's just not enough time honestly um so hopefully we can change that and address that and additionally they comment about their lunch and recess time that they feel rushed for that too currently they're only given 30 minutes for both their lunch and their recess and to me um they were saying time and time and again today that eating quickly is not healthy for us and I didn't really I didn't know that that was something they taught me did and I think that's a really good point they need time to chew their food to socialize it with their friends a little bit to you know play outside so I think giving them an hour is very reasonable and I would love to hear what you all think would be an appropriate amount of time
062for play because I think that really helps us learn right when we can play we can get to know each other and it's not just about being in a classroom that model is sitting at a desk waiting for the Bell that's kind of based off like a late 1800s model where the idea was to make them into Factory workers make them into the military maybe make them compliant and obedient which is there's there's a place for that perhaps but I think we also need to focus on encouraging and empowering empowering them you know giving them life skills so maybe that's cooking culinary skills where they can grow their own food they could have like apple trees outside things that they could prepare for their and with more time for you know lunch they could do
063that and also I think giving them maybe fresher and healthier ingredients we have amazing farmers markets around here so there's an opportunity maybe we can get we can partner with some of them because the options right now where it's usually like cheeseburgers Pizza Pasta like that's personally something that I don't think is healthy I wouldn't feel comfortable with my nieces and nephews eating that and that's what they're being given I would like just more options if that's something that you want to give your kids I support that but I also think giving them fresh produce fruits vegetables and giving them the chance to cook their own food or prepare their own food if they want to do that I think that's a really good life skill that's not being taught so maybe that maybe martial
064arts as well learning how to defend themselves um like they've been doing procedures in case God forbid an intruder comes into the school and I think that's really good but I think also giving them skills to learn how to defend themselves properly there's amazing martial arts schools around here we could potentially partner up with I think that would be very beneficial for them and a lot of them already study martial arts and they really love to practice and quite frankly they can teach the courses themselves a lot of one of them is almost a black belt that I was talking to that are in Taekwondo so we've got some really Brilliant Minds I think a more collaborative environment maybe where it's less competitive I heard Miss Solomon say today the highest honors National Merit and
065as someone who was a national american-mender student I don't think there's really much like congratulations them but all the students are brilliant all of them are special skills four minutes has expired thank you very much thank you Mr Sherry um any other public comment in the room Mr petiti where'd he go oh he's doing pictures okay I'm just wondering if we happen to know if there's any record he left already for Penn Charter no no no um can't get out that fast uh if there is any recorded public comment no Dr Batchelor saying no okay great thank you very much so at this point I'm going to ask Dr Batchelor if he has anything he'd like to say in response to the public comment received this evening yes just like to thank the public comments
066um you know as to the first uh comment um you know the the board and administration is committed to working as you know as hard as we can uh and the whole construction management team to make sure the project is moving as fast as it can and we do recognize that the the challenge for our seniors um tomorrow morning um the high school administration is actually going to be meeting with the football players the marching band the cheer the color guard uh to talk to all those students and to let them know here's the status and to talk to them about in answering questions uh and uh you know thank you for we we had discussed and you talked about you know we we've met with the students before I know the Administration has been
067communicating with them and we want to continue to let our students know what's happening and let them know how important they are we all want to see them playing on our fields and we also want to make sure the project is done well we don't want to cut any Corners we don't want to rush anything that shouldn't be rushed but I we certainly appreciate your comments tonight and then also the other comments about um just want to thank to Sherry for the comments about the the passing time and those pieces we will share that with our Middle School administration and that also we do have a wellness committee that our food services department is actually convening uh shortly in the next coming weeks and part of that Wellness committee is to look at our uh
068you know what the nutritional value of our meals that we serve in all of our cafeterias we've had a little bit of a break with covid from the traditional cafeteria and it's something that we want to get back to and focus moving forward so I think our public commenters tonight yes thank you very much for coming out and sharing your thoughts Mrs doubtwaith and Mr Sherry at this time we're going to move into our reports from board committees for curriculum I'm going to turn it over to Mrs Dunn the chair uh good evening the curriculum committee met on Tuesday September 20th in the garden level of the administrative building at five o'clock we had actually a very quick meeting this month we covered an introduction to the lunch and learn program at the high school
069and how that's going so far and and the plans for it going forward and we also got a summary of the title funds we call them or title one through four the the federal funds that the district receives each Year look forward to our next meeting on October 11th again that will be at 5 pm and it's currently scheduled to be in the basement of the District administration building sorry Garden level thank you Ms Dunn for facilities committee Ms Monahan is the chair facilities committee met on September 20th as well we however had a very long committee meeting on the consent consent agenda this evening is in agreement with Brandywine Realty for parking rtsd bus drivers ratification of a level two change order in regard to the accessibility and wellness project and all authorization for
070the administration to provide consent to the township to install incremental storm water management system at North Wayne parking lot our next meeting is scheduled for October 11th at 7 30 pm thank you Ms Monahan and we'll move to finance with chair Mr Moore thank you Mrs Goldman in addition to several routine items that we see every month the financial reports that we approve disposals that we approve there are a number of items on the consent agenda I'd like to draw your attention to first I'd like to thank the donation of a compost tumbling composter for the Watershed program that is very much appreciated there are some tax assessment um settlements for approval tonight as well there is a resolution to a point to accept the appointment from the treasurer of Mr Brian Pauling as Deputy
071tax collector which will have the benefit of we have always kept our tax collection services within the district or at least that has always been our recent practice we have been paying a negotiated fee to the elected Treasurer however the treasurer approached the district and said he did not want to accept that fee even though he is entitled to do it and this Deputy tax collector appointment is something that will allow us to accept that kind offer not to have that money being sent to the treasurer so that is very much appreciated we have under the agreements Dr Boucher of course talked about the bus Patrol agreement there are a number of agreements for support and paraprofessional services dovetailing with the public comment about Food Services a number of our local eateries do provide food
072in our cafeterias and some of those approvals are on this as well and I believe that covers everything on the consent agenda that is of note and our next meeting is expected to be October 11th thank you thank you Mr Moore and we'll move to the policy committee chair Ms Duffy desire of the policy committee met on September 13th we had a very quick meeting we moved four policies forward for a first read which are on tonight's consent agenda policy 8 11 bonding policy 812 property insurance policy 813 other insurance and then policy 814 copyright material our next policy meeting is tentatively scheduled for November 1st at 7 pm thank you Miss Duffy and government relations and Communications committee Dr Babson chair sure so the GRCC last met on Tuesday September 13th at 7 pm
073we welcome new teacher liaison Jenny Clark and agenda agenda items comprised a progress update regarding the build the building of the Radner Spirit gallery we also discussed psba board leadership elections and I would refer to consent agenda 15.01 for that and also finalizing our proposals for the psba legislative platform uh regarding that last item Ms Duffy will provide some information in tonight's PSB and liaison update the next year CC meeting is TBA thanks thank you Dr Babson all right this evening we have one priority discussion and action item and that would be District initiatives the recommended action is that the board approves the 2022-2023 district initiatives Administration will review the progress for us of the 2021-2022 district initiatives and requests board approval of the 2022-2023 district initiatives before they begin their presentation I'd like to
074entertain a motion so moved Ms Dunn made the first motion second my second Miss Duffy made the second all right with that I'd like to turn it over to Dr Batchelor to walk us through this item thank you uh each year we approve District initiatives uh and we take the time to identify those areas that are you know board administrative initiatives we recognize that the initiatives we identify each year do not represent all that we do as a district there is so much that we do as a district but these are the pieces that rise to the board level as initiatives to help continue on our goal of continuous Improvement and to keep our district moving forward and continue to unlock the potential in all of our students so as we look at those so
075tonight what we'd like to do is give you a quick summary of our initiatives from last year I'm going to in a moment have Mr Dan bechtold their director of secondary teaching and learning and Dr Sean dukevich our director of Elementary teaching and learning to quickly summarize the initiatives from this year which will then lead us into those initiatives for this current school year uh just as a reminder if we go to the next slide what influences our impacts and guides us as we select our initiatives each year we look at our mission as a district we look at our our vision our core values and also our comprehensive plan we recently uh submitted you know the comprehensive planning the board is familiar with used to be strategic planning in the state of Pennsylvania and
076has evolved into comprehensive planning and all of these initiatives this year and moving forward connect not only to our comprehensive plan but are supporting our vision our core value and our mission and our you know and our our I will say our goal of striving together to unlock that potential in all of our students so the initiatives for this show on the next slide um are here they are uh excuse me for this current for this past year those initiatives were uh you can see all six of them uh that are quickly listed uh here on this slide I will turn it now over to Mr bechtold uh to walk us through these initiatives with with Dr dukavich so Mr bechtold thank you Dr Batchelor uh the first Initiative for the 2122 school year was
077The District's response to the covid-19 pandemic throughout the year the district monitored data adjusted our health and safety plan and responded as necessary to ensure the safety and orderly operations of our schools uh on the next slide we also had our special education and student services department who worked diligently to meet the needs of our students with IEPs and 504s this included things such as professional developments for our employees as well as ensuring that programming did not take a back seat as students were looking to learn throughout the school year last year we talk about uh the response to the covid-19 pandemic the redder Township School District's technology department partnered with our curriculum Department to create the Radnor cyber Academy and we're really proud of this this is something that we use to meet the
078needs of students interested in a fully online cyber program and we did this through a partnership with the Chester County Intermediate Unit this program assisted numerous families who required flexibility during the covid pandemic to meet their educational needs last year our second initiative was continuing our diversity equity and inclusion commitment and the district worked with sage Wellness last year to provide professional development for our employees and Sage was uh was great at providing guidance throughout the course of the year go to the next Slide the district continued to maintain our guiding pillars and facilitated meetings with Steakhouse stakeholders and provided updates to the board and Community throughout the course of the year uh Dr kevich will continue on the next slide with initiative number three thank you Mr bechtold uh our initiative number three last
079year and continues on this year is the implementation of multi-tiered systems of support uh that last year we continued to partner with the mciu the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in consultation as the implementation unfolded we also wrote Our comprehensive plan last year to align with mtss as well as other plans that the district had previously written such as a special education plan our Title One School way plan at Wayne our gift of plan and others along with our initiative last year we developed a several different layers of core teams to help with the Fidelity of implementation the consistency amongst the buildings and so forth as far as supports these roles included everyone from district office Personnel to assistant principals at each building to teachers counselors coaches and building level teams as well and all of
080these folks were instrumental in the process of a multi-year implementation plan that was representative of each level so these different slides here were presented to the board and the community and our staff and teachers through different professional development sessions over the course of the year to demonstrate our plan in incremental components so that it was a practical and pragmatic approach to implementing mtss and on that final slide there at the bottom you can see that mtss as I shared before is very well connected with many other components of our our district goals our initiatives and our written plans that are federally mandated last year specifically we did Focus as well on mathematics it's a continued focus in our core instructional time and in consult with our mciu presenters and professional Developers also last year we
081developed an mtss steering committee this was representative mainly of Elementary folks because the the biggest shift last year happened at the lower levels so we had Representatives at different grade levels in all three buildings in elementary to help guide decision making as we went we made adjustments throughout the process and we've made ongoing updates to the school board and Community as we've gone through moving along to initiative four shaping the future this is a a goal and initiative that continues and Dr Basher shared some of this in an opening remarks today as far as our progress goes but communities heard quite a bit about our the unfolding of our shipping in the future initiative with regard to our facilities planning which will now inform our 5 10 15 and further comprehensive plan regarding our facilities
082and infrastructure this also included enrollment projections which we continue to update the board about as far as our community and and how things are going in that respect and how that informs uh our decision making with regard to our infrastructure projects along with this work last year we had a timeline and action plan that continued unfold over the course of the Year this included a feasibility steering committee a monthly progress updates to the board as far as the feasibility study and several meetings with the Breslin team who helped developed a facilities plan and the audit of our buildings to report findings and continue to work forward uh finally moving along as part of this whole process we continue to engage with the community over several sessions that happened in the evenings the elementary buildings where
083entire community members were invited to attend and provide feedback to this process for initiative five we're going to turn it back over to Mr bechtold all right thank you Dr dukevich our next initiative sent around the Radnor High School accessibility and wellness project this Ada infrastructure project was many years in the making drawing on support and feedback from countless stakeholders in our community next slide please this project featured much needed upgrades to a number of areas including but not limited to the bleachers on Prevost and Anki Fields track around Prevost Turf on Prevost storm water management system uh ramps and other accessibility walkways a two-story Field House restrooms upgrades to our pool area a new Fitness and Wellness Center locker rooms and a sphere gallery next slide please and we're going to turn this over
084back over to Dr dukevich for number six thank you Mr Buck told initiative six our final initiative from last school year had to do with our student wellness study prior to the pandemic we had planned to present this to the student wellness study and the findings to the school board but then we were interrupted uh rudely by a world pandemic uh so that that was put on pause many things changed since that time however what hasn't changed or many of the recommendations that came from that study in addition to the things that we've learned throughout the pandemic and the process that has led us to today those uh initiatives from that study have unfolded in many different ways which include the implementation of the aforementioned mtss process expanded Lakeside mental health supports at all levels
085a crisis team protocol on sap process that is now in place at all five of our buildings the culmination of the College of career Readiness study that was presented last spring and is now in motion this school year and Pace study which happens every other year analysis there for grade 6 to 12 which is all part part of that process as well moving along as I mentioned the College of career Readiness study was a very big process last year with consult from outside expert experts unfolded last year in the spring when the College of career reading this study was presented to the board and Community very happy with the recommendations there as they unfold this year as we move forward and finally as I mentioned just previously the the pace study which is done the
086survey I should say which is done with students in grades 6 to 12 was completed and presented at the board level and implications from this study of course are part of our student wellness initiatives as we move forward so at this point I'm going to turn it back over to Mr bechtold all right so these next couple slides are essentially looking at the six initiatives that Dr Duke and I ran through and just where we go from here so when we think about initiative one the response to the coveted pandemic for the 2122 school year we are very fortunate to be where we're at and to have a true semblance of normalcy returning to our schools in public places as we look ahead to the 2223 school year the district will continue to respond appropriately
087and is warranted for any emergency or health related situations however Administration is not recommending that we continue this goal for the 22-23 school year the next initiative the diversity Equity inclusion initiative as presented at our August 2022 curriculum committee meeting we have contracted with the authors of belonging through a culture of dignity to help us continue our work to ensure that every student feels welcome valued and heard in our schools we were very excited to have Dr kronapple come and speak to all of our employees on opening day and are looking forward to having an evening parent presentation by Dr cron Apple come in the in the fall so stay tuned for that that is coming up in October and we're excited to have him come out and help kick off the school year for
088our Dei initiative with our community and with initiative three our next steps with the implementation of mtss includes a number of new things this year a lot of focus on tier one instruction as I mentioned before mathematics is one of our primary topics and focus for this year we expanded our social emotional learning curriculum called Second Step through the middle level so now it's a full K to eight social emotional curriculum we initiated a master schedule the Elementary's to make a the most efficient means of delivering instruction and delivering interventions and services as part of that mtss framework we have investigated the implementation and eventually we'll evaluate the process of lunch and learn at the high school this year two periods in the cycle week we uh we are investigating positive behavior intervention and support
089at the middle level as well it also marks year two of the consolidation of college prep courses at Radnor High School and we adopted several new intervention tools diagnostic assessment tools such as star 360 and elementary through 8th grade the implementation of linket which is a data warehouse and intervention tool for grouping students looking at data in many different Dynamic ways creating reports to support our mtss teams and finally the culmination of all these things together and moving mts's forward in our second full practical year with regard to an initiative four our next steps with our rtsd facilities plan is to take the feasibility study that was completed last year and presented to the board and move that forward and making recommendations to the school board for potential construction projects one example is the ithan
090project that Dr Batcher mentioned in in the opening also this year we'll be developing a long-term again 5 10 20-year facilities and capital plan to make best use of our taxpayer dollars to equip our buildings for long-term use um and again these projects will start to unfold as we move throughout the year and turn it back over to Mr Bechtel for initiative five all right thank you so as we look to wrap up the accessibility and wellness project we are excited for phased openings of our facilities for students employees and the public we can play we plan to conclude the work at Radnor high school and invest the time this year in finalizing and implementing 5 10 and 20-year Capital plan to make sure that the district infrastructure is well maintained and finally under initiative
091six regarding student wellness again the College of career Readiness study findings were presented last spring we are acting on those administrative recommendations this year uh as well the pace study has informed our school teams as far as additional social emotional supports uh needed with areas of concern underneath the umbrella student wellness of course is mtss and meeting the needs of all Learners continued implementation of social emotional Wellness initiatives at all buildings and the initiation or return to our homework study which is new to the fall of this school year as well and this time this brings us back to uh the four initiatives moving forward and back to Mr or Dr Batchelor thank you so our tonight on your agenda is the approval of our initiatives there's a quick summary on the slide in front
092of us of what those four initiatives entail there is a larger detailed sheet that is attached for any of our community that's watching and for our school board our school board had an opportunity to review and see a detailed sheet that lists each of the initiatives measures of success and process a timeline and then key indicators of progress for each of the four initiatives that we are excited to continue with take the next steps in these four areas excited about where this will take us as a district for our students for our staff and our community and as I discussed in the beginning our initiatives do not represent all that we do as a district they never represent everything that goes on day to day but these are areas that continue to move us forward
093as a district and also keep in mind that some things fall off the initiative list you know we're not recommending covid or response to covid on the initiative list because it is just part of what we do to keep our buildings and our district running smoothly and moving forward this year and that often happens with initiatives as we move forward so I will open it up to any board questions or concerns and that is our action item for tonight thank you Dr Batchelor Mr bechtold and Dr dukevich for running through both last year's initiatives and the ones that are anticipated for this year board members does anybody have any questions or comments to make before we call the vote on these Mr Moore uh thank you I have a question about the first Initiative for
0942022-2023 I've been following the curriculum committee meetings closely where some of the new data tools that we are adopting are looking to give us the ability to understand what student achievement looks like in ways that our current systems haven't been able to do and that's very much appreciated how much is that look at student achievement data going to also help us not just look at what's happening with students individually but if there are any particular students who as a group we are not serving well sometimes that's called the achievement Gap I don't really like that term because it you know it implies the deficit in the students but if we are not doing our job to serve particular groups of students you know will those data tools allow us to do that and thank you
095uh so link it especially one of the products we present at the curriculum meeting back in August I think is going to be the tool that answers that question uh Mr Moore uh it allows us to pull data almost seamlessly in a really much more efficient manner than we've been able to do in the past into a single dashboard and then manipulate the data in different ways one of those ways is to segregate the data by demographics so we can look at all types of things from from gender to grade level to ethnicity and any combination of those things as I mentioned and then look at historical progress over time so it enables us to really make informed decisions looking at that data in all different formats and then inform our teams and our teachers
096really at the district level the school level and the classroom level so that we are making sure that we're meeting the needs of all Learners and that's a tool that we have not had access to in the past we've had to do a lot of hand mining Excel spreadsheeting those things are really arduous and and time intense and I think now we're finding tools that enable us to do that much more efficiently and effective way and so I'm excited we just had a training um last week on link it with our coaches and our administrators so we're really diving into that data and our achievement report will be coming up planned for November and we hope that some of those tools will be able to be seen in our report to the board all right
097great thank you and suggestion about initiative number four I think you're Mike all right thank you can you hear me now um I have a I have one point about initiative number four um first of all I'm so happy that we are developing this long-term plan that's something I was advocating for before I was even on the school board um as we find ourselves at the moment where we are approaching the conclusion of the great work we've done on the accessibility and wellness project as part of our administrative recommendation for future construction proposals not just anecdotally but formally if we could really evaluate our architect the contractors who ended up getting the bids the construction management firm and have some kind of after action report I think that's something that would be valuable moving forward
098for a project like the iPhone project you know we're talking about five and a half years even if we start until we get to the end there are future construction projects that would you know come out of that Capital plan even beyond that I would hate to lose some of the lessons we may have learned from everything we've just done let's get it on paper so that future boards administrations whoever is involved with that and working from the benefit of our long-term facilities plan you know can you know internalize Dr Batchelor do you want to respond to that yeah no I I that is something that uh I think is is something that we need to continue to do as a district when it comes to any of our initiatives to take the time to
099evaluate and I think the timing will be well timed so we will look to do that all right that's all thank you thank you Mr Moore is there anybody else I know I'm going to miss Stern your do you have anything that you'd like to raise no I'm I appreciate the work and the um and the initiative and the focus on students thanks thank you anybody else Miss Solomon um it isn't a question it's more just a comment on reflecting all this on all of this um I think that this is superb I think that you really captured um the things that need to be focused on the things that have you know been brought to your attention um and I love the detail in this I think and and this is more um I
100don't know just just my thought on it looking on you know the scope of everything you're doing and it's a cautionary comment which is that I don't want to see our focus on facilities drag down all the other great things we do that are focused on students um and it's I understand it's something that you know there's interest in looking at and doing I just feel some of us are exhausted by what we've been through and it pulls away really some of the Merit for all the other great things that are happening here and so just if there's a way and I I liked Mr Moore's comment if there's a way sort of to protect us going forward um as we launch on other projects that um you know to me the other three initiatives
101you know that's that's really what I think um in the long run has the most impact on our community and our students and so um it's just my you know reflection on all of this I just thank you for that I I uh I we we need to always keep our focus on you know our mission as a school district and as a school district though we have to balance a lot of different pieces but I think that uh your your comments are are helpful so thank you thank you anybody else Miss Duffy um I I really have um no questions but two comments um one is kind of granular but um on initiative number three student wellness I just um just a suggestion or a I think you could argue that lunch and learn
102also belongs under that bucket from the perspective that you know that really is a program that's giving our children the gift of time and I think both for support to reduce stress for those that need the support and need access to students to teachers and also as we've already heard from initial reports from students that you know some kids just need a break in the middle of the day and it just slows down the pace so I just I I look at that as as part of a wellness initiative as well and then um kind of a larger more macro comment and I'm really responding I guess it was the beginning of this presentation then also we had the detailed sheet of the initiatives and at the beginning it's really the mission statement and I
103just at some point I'd like to suggest that we take a look at that mission statement and um and you know not necessarily immediately I know that can be a hornet's nest and I've been through many projects where you just go round and round in circles and I know it can be a real time suck so but you know what I do like about I really appreciate where our Dei initiative has evolved this year and when we talk about a sense of belonging um and and creating that environment I I really believe it is foundational to the idea of unlocking students potential and so um I I just think it might be time shortly to take a look at that mission statement and see if really creating that foundational environment of belonging also belongs in
104our mission statement because I think Dr Batchelor when I hear you said you know when we were talking about our Dei initiative you said we all need to own it everyone in this District the teachers the administration and the community and I you know if we're all going to own it um to me it makes sense to perhaps belong in in the mission of the district so thank you Miss Duffy is there anybody else Ms Monahan so I concur with um great how streamlined they are as well it does encompass a lot of areas that we should focus on I don't disagree with what Miss Duffy said as far as revisiting the mission I think it probably could be a nice tie-in with the Dei initiative that we have I do have two not so
105much questions but just kind of thoughts or considerations as we go forward into the school year the first is the fact that we are now entering into the second year of the consolidation of college prep courses and advanced courses at Radnor High School we focused last year on humanities and I think next year introduces Math and Science and I would just as a board member I would be interested in seeing how that's going so far not so much responding tonight but although we've had a year it was a quasi-covid year so I understand that it you know there may have been disruptions to get a good visibility of How It's progressing but just to ensure that the classes aren't too challenging for some or too easy for some so that in a sense we're not
106meeting any student needs so that is just something that I would be interested as we go forward of learning more about as we focus on this initiative the second question that I have relates to the second initiative and it's more a quick question the way I read this as far as the climate survey tool which I think is a very good thing to initiate I assume that that will be an ongoing survey tool that we conduct each year just to get a consistent kind of apple to Apple comparison of what our climate is within the schools and that's kind of a question it's not just for this year I think it would be it will it be continuing yeah that's a great question and that is our plan we haven't really gone beyond this year
107just because we wanted to make sure that all of our staff and students and teachers could be part of developing this and and part of this as we move forward we are looking to have the climate survey with our staff first in the fall or late fall and then looking to have to use the survey instrument with our students in the spring and then yes the plan would be to use this moving forward as well all right thanks Miss Monahan is there anything else any other comments or questions okay thank you very much for the work that's gone into this I remember you you brought this discipline to us Dr Batchelor when you started about five six years ago I think that this helps the administration really Channel its efforts and focus uh this exercise
108isn't just let's see what we can do for the district these are all good things but everybody needs to have a sense of focus and Direction and this going through this exercise does help give the administration those necessary guardrails so thank you all for the work that's gone into this and at this time I'm just going to reread the recommended action just to remind everybody that we are voting tonight to approve the 2020 2022-2023 District initiatives and with that those all those in favor please raise your hand and Ms Stern you can say I if you approve aye okay that's a unanimous nine to nothing thank you very much all right we are going to move into the consent agenda although board action is required it is generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items
109with the consent of all board members they are therefore grouped and approval is given in one Motion in the event a board member wants to discuss any item the broad president will move it to an appropriate place on the agenda do I have a motion does anybody want to pull anything uh yes I would like to pull item 16.02 please okay is there anything else that anybody wants to pull no okay so may I have a motion for items 10.01 through 16.03 except for 16.02 is there a motion for that all right mister I'll give it to Mr Jubilee uh Miss Solomon would you like to second that second okay all those in favor please indicate by raising your hand and Miss Stern uh okay that is a nine to nothing vote for those items
110I'm going to 16.02 Ms Dunn uh yes I'd like to move 16.02 for approval so you'd like to vote on that as a standalone item yes okay all those in favor of item 16.02 please indicate by raising your hand and I think we need a second I'm sorry five seconds okay okay um Miss Dunn was the first motion Ms Solomon was the second all those in favor Ms Stern are you voting in favor or no okay so that would be a seven in favor of all those opposed Miss Stern your opposed okay two opposed so the motion carries seven to two thank you very much and it that concludes our consent agenda for the evening and we are going to move next into our reports from board Liaisons and any Community announcements that anybody might
111want to share we'll start off first with the Delaware County Community College Miss Solomon yes the Delaware County Community College will be hosting their annual School Board appreciation dinner that's for all of you it will be on October 12th um they're starting it at 6 00 pm and they're saving it to go through 9 00 p.m and then following that will be the liaison short hopefully is on committee meeting there also is quite a bit of news coming out of the community college and I'll just highlight a few things number one they are searching for a new president and so there is a rapid timeline that is going to occur this fall they are using a search firm called academic academic search they are accepting applications for president of the Community College from September 16th
112through October 28th and they plan to announce the new president on December 21st second thing is that they are going to be closing and consolidating their Chester County campuses so they currently have three campuses in Chester County because Chester County does not have their own um Community College they're going to be closing the Exton campus and combining it with one of their Downingtown campuses so there will still be two campuses in Chester County instead of three but the Exton campus will be closed I think that's the bulk of what's most important happening there okay thanks Miss Solomon and the Delaware County Intermediate Unit Mr Moore is our liaison to that organization thank you the dciu board met on September 7th and then on September 14th we had committee meetings the next meeting is October 5th
113and there will be committee meetings on October 12th I'd like to give a little bit of perspective on something that the dciu does I know that here in Rader we might be more familiar with some of the services that they offer us particularly around special education early intervention sometimes we've talked about how there's a purchasing Consortium where we're allowed to combine with other districts and go through dicu to get better pricing on certain kinds of items certainly around here we're familiar with the technical school and the students who go to the technical school are involved in those programs one budget philosophy that the dciu has is that each program area is designed to stay within its own budget and so in addition to those programs the dciu will offer services to districts in the area
114and essentially those are services that the district can contract with the dciu to receive and so there was and so as part of that effort the dciu has something called an innovation Grant where there is essentially seed money that comes out of the dciu budget to get a new program or initiative started and then the hope is that that program will become financially self-sustaining if enough districts choose to take advantage of that service and send money to the dciu in exchange for that service so in an innovation grant that was presented to us at our September meeting which I wanted to tell you a little bit about as just an example of this is essentially a tech repair shop so a lot of districts even now more so after covid have an incredible amount of
115technology and part of their technology needs often include service and maintenance and sometimes just the basics of cleaning laptops before they are you know introduced back into the school buildings at the beginning in the school year so there was an innovation Grant at the dciu to create a shop where districts could send their equipment to the dciu where it would be maintained cleaned whatever it was the service they were looking for and then go back to the districts and potentially then because the dciu is centralizing this they could do that at lower cost than they might have been able to do in-house if they didn't have the department to do that or with an outside contractor just on a district by District basis what I like best about this presentation is that we've got to
116hear that the program also had student interns over the summer so there were students who had the from some of the member districts of dciu who had the opportunity for their internship to work on this and learn some technical skills with refurbishing laptops and all of that and over the course of the program after that seed money ran out and districts started paying for the service now in fact it is within the dciu a revenue positive program one that allows students to get some experience but they also have paid staffers that are working with and mentoring the students so that's just another example of the kind of thing that's going on at the dciu and perhaps we can learn about some other innovations that come down the pike in the future thank you very much
117Mr Mr Moore Pennsylvania School boards Association Miss Duffy yes thank you the psba legislative committee met on Saturday September 17th and Miss Goldman and I attended to advocate for the four proposals that we had submitted to the committee um just a reminder we put forth diversity in the workplace a proposal on gun safety School counseling and nonpartisan School Board elections of the four one proposal move forward and that was the diversity in the workplace I I think Miss Goldman would agree that it was a really fascinating or interesting process and it and the committee was very thoughtful in terms of how they evaluated and I I think we came across with some good lesson learns learned for the for the future when we do this so um which we can talk about more um but
118the good news is that there seems to be a real recognition of the need to address diversity in the workplace in Harrisburg the Department of Education actually has a newly formed committee on education Talent recruitment in which diversity in the workplace specifically building a Workforce representative of the students we serve is one of the five one of five of their key areas of focus and a recently enacted public school code created the committee and specifically identified psba as a participating member and psba asked our own Miss Goldman to serve on that committee which he accepted so thank you Miss Goldman for serving on that committee her first meeting was actually today so I guess the good news we will also have a direct line and in the know of what's going on so stay tuned
119a few other interesting items of interest for psba as one the Board of Ed will be conducting Regional roundtables on gifted education via zoom in October and that's to receive input on the current chapter 16 which is gifted education regulations and person who persons who want to participate I need to sign up there'll be an opportunity but they must register in advance and they can address the board there's also interestingly the State Board Council on basic education is considering the inclusion of financial literacy in PA's academic standards so I think that's something we have heard come up before bubble and so it is actively being discussed at the state level thank you Miss Duffy and thank you all for those really thorough informative reports to those boards to which you are Liaisons does anybody have
120any other community announcements that they want to make at this time okay seeing none that will move us into new business does anybody have new any new business Miss Dunn I just wanted to contribute the student presenters Representatives this evening did a great job talking about the various things that are going on the district and they mentioned a lot of fundraisers they failed to however mention that the color guard is currently selling really good chocolate bars if anybody needs them and I know that they carry them around the high school if you need to cost somebody there or reach out I can put you in touch with people from the color guard if you need them thank you for that reminder I've seen them with the chocolate bars and thank goodness the temperature dropped because
121it was a little precarious when it was 90 to be buying chocolate bars from this my daughter joined a club I think she buys one every day so good job okay uh Miss Duffy you haven't you're just another one um it wasn't on our agenda because it is in November but just when people are and when the members of the community are considering their November calendar speak up will be at the high school on November 10th and um it's a great opportunity to hear directly from the students on topics that are sometimes tough to talk about so mark your calendars do you have the date yeah November 10th 10th thank you anybody else have a community announcement this is good um and we have another Community announcement that actually has to do with our board
122and we have our new tradition of holding bagels with board members which is a chance to have more informal conversation with a non-quorum number of us so that next one is scheduled for I'm looking at Dr Batchelor October 12th is that October 13th at 9 A.M in the district office thank you yes so we invite the community if you have any interest in talking to us because it's difficult to have those conversations in the midst of formal board meetings when we have business to conduct and for other reasons why we can't get back into back and forth dialogue there is an opportunity to have more informal conversations with us at these bagels with board member events so we hope that if you're around and able to join us you will do that all right anything
123else nope okay that moves us then into our board announcements on Tuesday October 11th at five o'clock we will have our curriculum committee meeting on Tuesday October 11th at 6 30 there will be the finance committee and then at 7 30 that evening the facilities committee will meet all of those meetings will be held in the ground floor conference room at the District administration building 135 South Wayne Avenue in Wayne and then on Tuesday October 25th at seven o'clock we'll be back here in the Radnor Shire room of the Radnor Township Municipal Building 301 Ivan Avenue for our regular monthly business meeting yes and okay yes and we after at the conclusion of this meeting we will be returning to an executive session for a Personnel item um all right and with that we move
124into public comment as per board policy six meetings and parts of public participation the board provides an opportunity at each regular board meeting for eligible participants to comment on matters of concern official action or deliberation which are or maybe before the board community members may make one comment per public common period for no more than four minutes per comment these revisions to policy six were adopted by the board at the May 24 2022 regular business meeting and went into effect on September 1st public comment can now be made either in person or by telephone recording when circumstances prevent a Community member from attending a board meeting if you have any questions about how to make public comment by telephone recording please visit rtsd.org backslash board for more information and the slide for how to do
125that is now up on our screen is there anybody who has any public comment in the room this evening hello again nice to be back with you all um Mr Sherry yes and uh Wayne or just for the record all over Newtown Square as well sometimes depends on the night okay as long as it's within the township you're good to go um yeah and one thing I didn't mention earlier that um I really wanted to address is the paraprofessionals at Radnor I think they're world class they're some of the best I've ever seen truthfully I don't even like to refer to them as that I feel like they're really dedicated teachers and just looking at their pay that we're currently giving them doesn't seem to me like it's really a livable wage like 18 an
126hour I was seeing that in the agenda and the people that prepared the food only getting 15 an hour that just seems like if you take away you know taxes it's 10 bucks that's less than 100 a day I think we can do better in Radner I think they deserve it I think they work really hard and I know we can't make everybody millionaires I wish we could do that but we can't quite do that yet so I think we can find space in our budget to really give them a livable wage where they can you know get their basic needs and pay their rent or their mortgage and be able to shop for food that kind of stuff I think that's really important to that we show them that and I'm also a little
127bit curious about how we determine our budgets for different sports like why is it determined that one sport maybe has a larger budget than another sport and are we considering gender equality I heard that talked about in a class that I was substitute teaching for was a great lecture that the students gave but they brought up gender equality and I was one of those persons that I was kind of like I don't know if corporations really do that anymore because you know they have public information but with Radner it looks like we're paying a lot of the women coaches a lot less than the men coaches and to me I think that just sends a bad message to the students to you know the whole Community really it's not something that I personally would want
128to get behind I think we should I'm curious kind of how we determine salaries I guess um I would love to kind of have a better understanding on that maybe it's going to the final whatever you recommend thank you oh I'm sorry oh do I still have a little bit if you would like to do it during my public time I would love to have it better and I think the community would really benefit from that too maybe yeah not during your public time but there could there's always an opportunity for follow-up and we're taking notes on the things that you've said oh so how is that that like when does follow-up done would you like be reaching out to me publicly about that or how would I know so Mr Sherry the after the
129previous public comment I noticed you had stepped out I actually did comment on your earlier public comments and the other comments that were made and at the end of this session um I will make some comments about the public comment as well once the entire public conversation is over thank you Dr bash I really appreciate that awesome it's good to see you um yeah great to see you all too thank you um what else I just want to make sure and also yeah the fourth when I was at Wayne or Wayne Elementary School the fourth and fifth graders had a petition about wanting more recess time so I really wanted to honor that they had over like 200 signatures and I just felt like it was my obligation to bring that to you all attention
130um I think on a day like today it's good for them to be outside right like we have the Willows we have some amazing uh parks in Radnor so I think we should consider maybe like is it possible that instead of being in a classroom they can learn outside because we're really so lucky to have what we have to have those resources I think we should use those to our advantage if we can um I know the students would be really pumped up about it for sure um yeah that's it for this evening hope you all have a great night thank you for your service again to the township bye great thank you Mr Sherry Miss now wasted hi Linda douthwaite um Marion Road Radner first I'd like to congratulate you all for running a
131aim it's great meeting very well organized um very um uh informative interesting topics I like Mr Moore's comment about evaluating the what happened the background to the Ada project in terms of the architect the contract contractors selected the management of of that scheme and I think it's very encouraging to hear you considering that I know with the Iceland upgrades you're planning not to kind of try and do the work closing the school which I think would have had a very negative impact on the students and I certainly hope that maybe we can learn from the Ada project and the the delays and the problems that you encountered so that we don't end up in a similar situation with students missing out because of that so thank you very much very informative meeting thank you so
132much and thank you for joining us I'm going to see if Dr Batchelor has anything he wants to respond to from public comment at this point yeah just thank you for the public comment and and just a couple items um our paraprofessionals are uh incredible and often the paraprofessionals we hire in Radnor are certified teachers uh and we are very lucky um with that pool of paraprofessionals I know just recently we lost two or three paraprofessionals because uh and we're we're happy for them we're sorry for our loss but they received teaching jobs in other districts so we are truly lucky with the quality of paraprofessionals we have in our district and as a district we continue to work with our collective bargaining units our Collective Barney agreements to make sure that we are continuing
133to be competitive as a district as to our the question about our coaches uh that we don't uh pay you know male coaches or female coaches more than the other specifically I think on tonight's agenda you can there is a soccer coach inches and it does look like a disparity the base rate is the same so the base rate the starting salary for a girls or boys soccer for example or any sports is the same but there is longevity so the longer a coach is in one position they will have increases to that supplemental so a new person you know won't be making as much as somebody who's been coaching a sport for 5 10 15 years but the new person their salary will increase as well but no we make sure that all of
134our programs we continue to work very closely as a district with Title IX to make sure that you know we evaluate each year you know the equity in our Title IX practices and making sure that all of our programs are evaluated and and valuing uh you know Sports across all gender um as to the questions about uh you know being outside and the Willows actually we have been uh you know working with the Willows as a possible opportunity uh for the future for how uh that uh some you know something that here is here in Radnor how can we further uh use that space and other spaces outdoors I think our kids and students enjoy the opportunities and certainly covet has taught us that uh it's good to get outside and get some fresh air
135uh and just thank you again for the comments about um you know our uh with the project and our willingness to continue to evaluate uh and look to improve as we move forward so thank you I'm sorry to interrupt I I think I heard something from his death I just wanted Dr Batchelor to clarify I think I heard her say that we had planned not to move the students during a rebuild and I just wasn't sure that that's been decided I thought Ethan was still kind of a very open conversation I didn't want there to be any misrepresentation yes that we have we have not decided again this is a a four to six year plan as we said just to review again uh you know the design process alone could be anywhere from two
136to three plus years uh by the time we put a shovel in the ground um you know we could be three years out and that's a two-year process so that's where we see a window of four to six years as to where we would build on that campus that has not been decided that would be part of the design process and certainly we need to discuss you know do we build where the current building is located do we build on a different location on that piece of property is all going to be part of the discussion and then what the implications would be depending which location we choose so that was all all part of the coming discussion okay thank you Miss Dunn thank you Dr Batchelor and we have concluded our business for the
137evening so it's time to make a motion to adjourn who would like to do that so moved Miss Solomon who would like to thank uh Miss Dunn all those in favor Miss Stern you ready to adjourn okay with that we're adjourn thank you everyone have a good foreign yeah that's