001begin with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all yep thanks uh i'd like to welcome everyone to the tuesday november 16 2021 radner township school district regular business meeting i'd like to uh let everyone know that miss duffy will be joining us by phone remotely welcome miss duffy and i'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of mr sean hughes who is the principal of lower marion high school and who died early this weekend and to the entire lower marian school community for their sudden and tragic loss we are our thoughts and our prayers are with that entire community i'd like to report that the
002board met in session earlier this evening november 16th in executive session to discuss a personnel item and with that we have our report from students welcome good evening it hasn't been so long since we've last seen you but as always so much is happening at radnor november 1st was the first day of lm week but um as every year everyone hurried to check out the decorated hallways before homeroom on monday the seniors were dressed up the most in their usa gear and of course they had their traditional lunchtime party as a blast of music through the cafeteria courtyard this year to abide by coven 19 regulations tuesday brought a teacher in service day but that didn't stop the seniors from coming to school to participate and practice in their dances for the rally on that
003thursday due to students having off on tuesday the typical tiki tuesday was pushed to wednesday and students celebrated in straw skirts in a sea of floral shirts as the week advanced more underclassmen participated in the theme days too due to a ready rainy weather forecast the pep rally was on thursday the excitement through the school intensified from the beginning of the day to the time the band marched through the hallways declaring the beginning of the rally groups of students would rush down to the junior lot in order to get in front a front row spot for what was most of their first lm pep rally the football team the cheerleaders the teachers and the senior students all enjoyed their time performing a variety of dances in preparation for the 125th game on saturday we also
004received a wonderful new some wonderful news when dr batchelor and mrs kevius put on their annual skit and crowd engaging announcement of a half day monday depending on the results of the game but before set game came flashback friday whether it's throwback thursday or in this year's case flashback friday students enjoy this themed day the most aside from rally day it gives us an opportunity to wear one of our parents vintage shirts or maybe a letterman jacket or maybe even a 70s a sparkly 70s suit so we can take memorable photos with each other while looking stylish at the game the ruckus was as packed as ever as students squeeze their way through the crowded bleachers bringing back a sense of normalcy what also break back his sense of normalcy was our football team's triumph
005over lower marion as we won 33 to 16 for the 10th year in a row that's when the ruckus dispersed for a minor second before everyone came back together in a giant clump of happy and proud students as they stormed the field as promised the school received their half day monday which also happened to be pajama day putting a cap on the 125th radnor versus ellen marion lower marion rivalry celebration as the second week of november came along student government resumed with their formal dance plans the freshmen are working fast as they begin to plan their freshman semi-formal on the 26th of february the juniors have already started looking for senior prom venues which is a year from away and the actual seniors are taking a quick break after ellen week and applying to colleges
006before they ramp up again and plan fundraisers for their senior semi-formal on january 29th and senior prom at the ben franklin institute on may 14th sammy will cover the sophomores as for student government as a whole the officials for each grade are attending a zoom present presentation with a delaware county official tomorrow during community period to learn about seat belt safety in the seat belt challenge over the past weekend the note and the tote club traveled to philadelphia to deliver care bags to those in need the club was founded in 2019 and it continues today as students fill up bags or totes with necessities such as toothbrushes and toothpaste reusable water bottles small snacks maps of nearby homeless shelters and especially now that the winter is picking up gloves hat and scarves hats and scars
007the club places inspirational notes in each tote and on saturday saturday they distributed six bags and three blankets as for the third week this week of november our actors and actresses of this year's fall production clue on stage amidst their tech week where they figure out lighting and sound cues before their opening night this thursday at 7 pm this performance will mark the first live performance ratner hosts open to the public in almost two years the participants are very excited as they have worked hard to put on a great show about the famous clue board game which brings me to next week although school is closed for the majority of the time for fall break audition materials for the spring musical mamma mia will be available to those interested in trying out as i said
008before radnor never stops so i'll pass it to sammy to continue with november events thank you thank you austin good evening everyone these past weeks have flown by with a lot of exciting event events some of which austin mentioned um it seems like every week since the end of october there has been a wild rhs sports game to attend the varsity boys soccer team had a strong season but unfortunately lost in the district one championship game to bishop shanahan on november 4th well we all look forward though to seeing what they will accomplish next year for some more exciting news the girls varsity soccer team also had a fantastic regular season capped off by an exciting three-nothing victory against villa joseph marie to clinch the district one championship title on november 4th both the girls
009and boys district championship games were held back to back at strathaven as was neutral ground so an enthusiastic crowd of rhs fans went out to support both the boys and the girls the rgs win two days earlier against villa maria academy had already qualified the girls for states but the district title was well deserved i remember sharing with all of you back in september that the rounder girls soccer team had a 5-0 record and thinking to myself they must be pretty good this year well that thought proved to be correct as the team has had a fantastic postseason performance luckily enough the first game of state playoffs for rgs was held at radnor's very own inky field a huge crowd of parents younger aspiring around their soccer players and of course the ruckus came out
010to support the girls the quarter-final game which was this saturday at exeter township high school against northwestern lehigh is certainly one girls will remember given that the power went out after the first half delaying the game while rauner was still down one-nothing during the second half once the lights were finally fixed emily diudelo tied the game with a penalty kick sending the game into overtime freshman ivy jackelson scored the winning goal in double overtime after an assist from jane diudelo advancing the team to tonight's semi-final game against nefacton high school and as we all found out right before this started they won um with kate fajukis going two goals so yes we're very excited to hear that and hopefully everyone will go out to support them in hershey pa this coming weekend um but rgs
011is actually not the only rhs team to make it to the state level competition this year with the coaching of radnor xc and track alum joe manion two rounder boys made it to states for cross country senior jimmy kurtz and sophomore luke bowden both boys were in the top 50 out of 368 varsity boys in the district one championship race at lehigh university with jimmy running a 1636 5k and luke running to 1640. in the states race which took place november 6th in hershey pa jimmy came in 101st place out of 239 boys and luke followed close behind finishing in 107th finally the girls ultimate frisbee team ended the season with the fantastic performance at the kit kat tournament played at fairmount park the girls wore their wackiest outfits complete with colorful hair dye and
012sparkly face decorations per usual radnor clubs are out and about making a positive difference around the community earlier november action earth participated in the darby creek valley association's invasive plant removal equipped with boots garden gloves and shovels rhs students helped create habitats for native plants to grow and helped increase the bio biodiversity in the area after a year and a half randor model yuan will be taking their first in-person trip to attend a conference this weekend on thursday the club will travel travel to rutgers university for the classic rumon conference staying until sunday morning for members who joined both this year and last it will be their first time having the true model un experience including attending strategy negotiating negotiation meetings from morning until night eating dinner out with the team and even attending a
013model un late night dance social finally thanksgiving is right around the corner and tomorrow radnor high school will be holding their annual thanksgiving dinner due to coveted restrictions the dinner will be served for the second year in a row and a take out to go format rather than the normal sit-down occasion at randor high school rhs students were encouraged to donate classic think thanksgiving staples including turkey green beans stuffing and of course pies speaking of pie since not everyone has the time to craft the perfect holiday confection at home the sophomore student council is selling pies made by lynn villa orchards as a class fundraiser community members can choose from an array of flavors including caramel apple pumpkin and pecan these funds will go towards supporting a variety of class sponsored activities including movie nights
014and school dances i wanted to end tonight by saying the ratner community is thankful this year for everything the school board and rtsd administration have done for their community a lot has happened over this past year but you all continue to work hard to make the district the best it can be i hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving and austin and i look forward to seeing you next month thank you sammy thank you austin okay and now uh well we have a presentation i'll turn it over to dr batchelor oh no i have the report from superintendent first sorry about that that's all right and then i will take the first presentation if that's okay too though that's after this good evening good to see everyone um well they pull up the powerpoint for
015tonight for the super chat remarks i just want to another shout out to our girls soccer team for just winning tonight and it was quite sammy an exciting game on a saturday with the power outage and the team willing to stick it out until we could play again so i know the states will be on saturday so we're hoping the community come out and support them in hershey on saturday i wanted to talk about on the first slide our normal numbers that we share each month want to share and i say it's a normal report unfortunately we can see the last three weeks we see a little bit of dip in the in the previous week but we each week on our at our ratner reader we report out not only the statistics for the
016district of known cases that we know about we also do that by building as well radner elementary school the principal just shared some information today we've been seeing an uptick of some cases there and we're taking some steps to offer more rapid testing i'll share a little bit more about the rapid testing we have available to make sure that we're helping understand what's going on in each one of our buildings but again this information is shared every sunday in the random reader we also have the information on where the cdc identifies our county for spread rate and we are still continuing to be in in high as noted on that chart to the right the smaller box i want to share some information with the board and the community about the recent mask mandate so
017it's on our next slide i shared information with our community trying to clarify this continues to evolve all of this information and even today there was some additional information shared about the state mass mandate as i shared it with the community uh you know a pa commonwealth court uh identified that the mass mandate as you know unenforceable and void um the rationale behind that uh was determined that the proper regulatory process you know require that this should have gone through a different process in order for um for the state and the state department of health to require masking there should have been a regulatory process that was followed that wasn't filed wasn't followed in doing that and giving that ruling that right there that decision voided the mandate from the state the governor then appealed
018the state health department and the governor appealed and that appeal then put a stay on the commonwealth court decision and put the mandate for masking back in place while we wait for the appeal regardless of what happens at the state level one of the things i shared with the community is whatever happens to state level it puts it back on the districts and the governor came out previous to these recent this recent commonwealth decision the governor of pennsylvania governor wolf had shared that the mass mandate was going to he planned for the mass mandate the state had planned for the mass mandate to expire on january 17th so either through the courts or january 17th or another change that we're hearing today that could be sooner there's more discussion today from the commonwealth court judge
019about what date that this should all make maybe even sooner in december so we'll have more to look at and understand as we as we move forward but whatever happens at the state level we are then governed by our health and safety plan so my message i shared with the community before the state mass mandate went into place radnor township school district our board adopted a health and safety plan several weeks before the mass mandate went into place we adopted a health and safety plan that required masking as an administrator i had recommended in august not knowing about the variant not knowing um there were so many unknowns in august that we we decided to start the year masking our students in order to understand what type of spread we would see but also to
020try to limit the quarantines to limit the amount of students that may have to miss school so we put a mass mandate in place this court decision does not impact local district health and safety plans you know as far as we know right now is our understanding so it is still up to us to decide what we want to do as a district once this mandate no longer ceases whether because of the courts or january 17th or some date sooner it would then fall back to us as a school district to decide what we want to do for masking moving forward and it's something that we would do and have to have a board vote within our health and safety plan you know to adjust it either way so the next slide talks about what
021we'd like to do in december is that the administration will bring forward to the board some options for how we can move forward as a school district uh after january 17th if we find out that we have to respond sooner you know based on some of the changes going on in the state again the masking requirement will stay in place for roger township school district until we change our health and safety plan so our plan right now is that at our december board meeting the administration will bring forward some options now if you recall because time is getting away from us but in august we actually talked about some potential options we discussed some potential guard rails for how before there was a mandate in place we discussed guard rails for how we may want
022to as a school district how we may want to set up different guard rails for when we may want to mask or not mask or optional or different points of the day we discussed some options now we know so much more information than we knew in august so the administration will work in the next couple of weeks between now and december to put together some additional options for the school board for us to discuss here and share with our community and then we can make some decisions on how we may want to adjust or not adjust our health and safety plan depending what happens with the mandate and also most importantly all our decisions are going to be grounded in what is going on with our students and how do we make sure that we
023ensure uh you know continuity of in-person education while keeping everybody safe in our district as well so more to come december will be a busy meeting just looking at these options as we move forward i want to also share an update with our community and the board on our test to stay program our test to stay program is that the board approved and we added to our health and safety plan the test to stay program gives us an opportunity to keep more students in school and that has been our goal and to keep more students in school and to do it safely so when we have a close contact those closed contacts if they are asymptomatic and not showing symptoms they can participate in our test to stay program which requires them to have take
024rapid tests at school to make sure that they continue to be negative and those students are continuing to mask which we all are and continue in school so we've had 10 students so far have been in the program as of november 12th and all 10 thankfully have been i don't like sharing statistics like this i'll knock on some wood i've got some wood around me have all been negative as we move forward and it's kept those students in school which has been a positive for us next i want to mention our after school rapid testing speaking of positive we haven't seen anything positive about this which is wonderful this has really been a great program no one has tested positive so far and i'm sure there will be some but we are offering after school
025rapid testing twice a week for our students k to 12. this really came about as many of us who are parents working administratively uh realized how hard it was it's you know as it became easier to get vaccine it became harder ironically to find rapid tests or to find a pcr test or it would take a couple of days to schedule a test so two days a week every tuesday and thursday we're offering free walk-in rapid testing for any of our students k-12 many of our families and students have been taking advantage of it it can be really helpful to to i think put people's minds at ease if there is a close contact uh and so we we want to encourage our community to still take advantage of this again anyone can be tested
026k-12 uh it does there is a qr code and identification information that you do have to fill out if you go on our website it's really simple and you can just walk in for those tests at any of those locations even though the location may not be at the school your child attends you can still go to the other building we're just we're trying to rotate it so everybody sees that it's open to everyone you don't have to go to that particular building to attend the testing after school and then the vaccine and booster clinics we're very excited to be offering the vaccine and booster clinics for those who choose again this is something that is optional this is something that is up to the community for those families that would like to see their
027five to 11 year olds be vaccinated we also have the booster shock clinic for our our staff as well during the school day we want to thank springfield pharmacy they worked with us a year ago with many of our with one of our largest vaccine clinics and again they'll be supporting us uh mr stitzel and dr duke mr petit and and and you know our von brian from our operations department there's a whole team of administrators that are working together to put this together we may be you know reaching out for need for some volunteers we're especially needing volunteers if anybody's watching this or anybody's in the audience who is who is a nurse or someone who's a doctor who would like to join us to help administer the shots that is something that we're
028most in need of is to have people who can help administer the shots so please reach out to mr stitzel if you're somebody who was able to volunteer to help give up the shots on this sunday that's the sunday the vaccine clinic for our five to 11 year olds yes it says the 19th which is friday the the 19th friday is the booster shot for the staff so you have a lot of two by fours in your way of the view so yeah so the booster shot is for our staff and then the vaccine clinic is sunday november 21st for the five to 11 year olds and information will be going out this week for sign up times will be forthcoming later this week for those families who have expressed an interest and last but
029not least just upcoming events uh you know there's never a time in the year that is that you know we're busy all the times a year so many exciting things happening things that i'm sure we'll talk about later one of the things that i was just so proud of as i left the district office to drive over here tonight was to see the the collaboration among our ptos our community our social workers our building administrators everyone who came together to help put together thanksgiving baskets for our community members really was just wonderful to see the number of baskets that are being given out the number of people who volunteer time to help put them together the families having an opportunity to come pick up those baskets tonight i just want to thank so many for
030their their generosity and giving and thinking of others it's really it speaks to how wonderful our community is and that's all for my comments tonight thank you dr batchelor is it okay if i take the uh the next item sure all right and we have a presentation tonight uh the pennsylvania school boards association 2021 honor roll of school board service so psba has been honoring long-term school directors for their volunteer service to the local communities through the honor roll school service program for more than 35 years school directors are recognized with an honor roll certificate when they reach 8 years of service and again every four years thereafter when board members reach the milestone of 24 years of service they begin to receive plaques to honor their service at the milestones and every four years
031after that psba representative mr ator martinez is in attendance tonight to present their certificates for 12 years of service to miss lydia solomon and for eight years of service to ms susan stern so i will take a moment to introduce mr martinez invite him up to the podium thank you for joining us today mr martinez thank you dr bachelor good evening i'm here tonight on behalf of to honor two school board directors with their years of dedication to the radnor township school district a school board service has long been a crucial part of our nation's legacy and its commitment to public education as the first school boards association in the usa psba has a rich history with more than 125 years of service the consummate school directors are described as ethical principled individuals with a
032deep desire to serve they believe in the value of our public schools and local control public education for the benefit of all students today school districts are expected to offer more services along with world-class instruction with limited resources these expectations provide a tremendous challenge for school directors who are unpaid volunteers who give off their time to contribute to the schools and communities they serve the school's continued effort to provide high quality education towards syria to all students during the pandemic further highlights the key role school directors play in educating our children for more than 35 years psba has been recognizing the contributions of dedicated local school directors with long-term service the owner role is the association's way of taking those individuals who exemplify leadership by giving unselfishly of their time and talents for the betterment
033of public schools serving students across this great commonwealth it gives me immense pleasure to recognize the following for being part of this rich legacy lydia solomon for 12 years of service and susan stern for eight years of service please join me in a big round of applause [Applause] thank you very much i think michael wants to take a quick picture thank you very much [Applause] well thank you very much that was very kind okay we are now going to begin public comment at this time the board shall provide an opportunity at each regular business meeting for eligible participants to comment on matters of concern official action or deliberation which are or may be before the board prior to official action by the board the board requires the public participants be residents or taxpayers of the
034district persons with a legal or contractual right to address the board or persons recognized by the presiding officer as having a special interest such that addressing the board would be appropriate eligible participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface their comments by an announcement of their name and street address individual comments shall be limited to not more than four minutes as per board policy zero zero six the administration will follow up on general questions raised during public comment sometime after the meeting parents with questions specific to their child's educational experience are encouraged to reach out directly to their child's teacher and or building principal should you be unable to attend this board meeting you may submit your comments by email to board comments at rtsd.org or in writing to mr michael pettitti
035radner township school district 135 south wayne avenue wayne pennsylvania 19087 do we have any public comment at this time welcome good evening my name is doug mcconnell i live on poplar avenue first i want to congratulate susan stern andrew babson sarah dunn and lydia solomon on your re-elections recently uh i think people rather than township made a wise decision i actually have two comments but i'll start with one um i'm a 1971 graduate writer of schools and started writing in kindergarten i learned a lot of history in my time there a special requirements my father taught history and government i learned about the european discovery of america the colonization the revolution the early years of the country manifest destiny the war between the states reconstruction the gilded age the trustbusters world war one the jazz
036age the great depression world war ii and the most and the post war era including the struggle for civil rights and i even lived with some of that was mr king your teacher in the back your teacher no no i'm sorry i have to come back mr mccomb please bring the mic just a little closer to you forgive me that's okay thank you continue um my point was i was never taught in rounder schools about the 1921 tulsa race massacre the destruction of black america's wall street where it triggered it no class ever mentioned let alone discussed in any depth the overthrow in 1898 of the duly elected biracial government in wilmington north carolina by a group of white supremacists in fairness a lot of those things were not publicly known or they were buried
037for decades possibly until after i graduated so can't blame the school completely for that i heard a very little bit about jim crow and the ku klux klan and what was sort of what it was but never learned in school about the vigilante justice that they would have the the lynchings and all that kind of stuff i learned that from my parents the kkk is a domestic terrorist organization if ever there were one and it's still in existence today i did not learn until recently that a substantial percentage of the real estate deeds in down in the south had clauses in them explicitly prohibit that real estate from ever being transferred to a negro which is what we called african americans at the time despite the equal protection guarantees by the american constitution in the
03814th amendment and i only learned about the redlining by banks of certain neighborhoods when i took sociology and economics in college not in regular schools okay these were major elements of american history and i was never taught around her school and i would hope now that i would be i bring it up because some people say that by teaching these facts even though they would make some people uncomfortable it would be teaching the elements of the critical race theory stuff and that is utter nonsense historical facts are facts crt has never been taught at any rather school at any level it's not taught in just about any public school system in the country in grades k through 12. but crt is the newest dog whistle intended to induce emotional reactions in some people and we
039should be aware that that and address it appropriately by identifying it as just a dog whistle and then moving on how am i doing on time i'll be back after bruce thank you mr mccone is there any other public comment mr petite other emailed comments yes mister and i have two anakin van rossum 716 south roberts road turbine school board i'm alarmed to understand that members of the community have shifted their sights to what one can only consider trying to ban books from reading the website these individuals have created it is clear to me that the books targeted are not simply sexual in nature but in fact are books that promote healthy and informative conversations for students who are who are in the lgbtqia plus community i'm sad to see this homophobic homophobic rhetoric when
040i left radner and went on to college i was shocked at the number of students who finally felt safe enough on a college campus that they would come out and be who they truly were one of my closest friends masqueraded as a straight male for our first full year in college because he had been so ridiculed in his high school for acting gay quote for nearly 19 years of his life he denied who he truly was and do not wish this fate to fall upon our rather students these books seek to not only inform on safe sexual practices but several tell the true story of what it is to grow up gay or the difficult feelings of a transgender youth being stuck in a body that is not theirs the student does not feel comfortable
041talking to their parents about this their friends perhaps not even the school counselor surely a book that makes them feel not so alone is something we must provide to let these students know they are not alone and that they should feel comfortable being who they truly are i implore you to take that to not take that away from your lgbtqia plus students many of which i'm sure we do not know they identify as but we can hope these books will empower them is unacceptable for our school to submit to a homophobic agenda that is simply guised as a worry about a book being quote sexually explicit in addition to at least one of the books provides vital information on safe sex practices the students of radnor especially high school students whether their parents like it
042or not have unlimited access to pornography across the internet and their parents can only do so much to prevent it modern day pornography can be quite harmful to many young people as it does not always teach children the realities of sex i am not condemning pornography but what i am doing is telling you that many books will lead the young adults of rauner to have safer and more informed sexual practices and we should be providing that information to them young adults who want to engage in consensual sex will find a way to do it so why wouldn't we want them to be informed on the safest ways to do it to deny the young adults of random books that educate them properly on safe sex that make them feel not so alone as they discover
043their individuality that provide education comfort in ways they might they may not get at home is to fundamentally fail our students thank you do you have more comment mr patini yes um this one came in but i do not yeah here we go sorry melissa sykes 720 marlin mainland road a commonwealth court judge has lifted the school mask order across pennsylvania in a ruling issued tuesday afternoon judge christine fizzano cannon said the commonwealth's mass mandate will end on saturday december 4th the court had previously shot down the mass mandate last week but acting secretary of health allison beam appealed that ruling to the pennsylvania supreme court which triggered an automatic stay in the case and left the mask order intact the group of people that sued to end the mandate then asked the commonwealth court
044to lift the automatic stay and fazzano agreed with the arguments raised in their petition to the court the state order is no longer in place after the appeal rather students have been in mass since 2020 we are in a much different place now than we were when the pandemic started it's time to allow parents to make the decision if they want their child to wear a mask or not in a passport meeting you discussed how masks were optional during the 2021 summer school programs in ratner it's time to make masks optional again those that think masks work and find comfort wearing a mask can continue to do so it's time to stop rad or mask mandate and give the option to families when will you change the health and safety plan and then as well
045for now thank you mr petiti dr bachelor yeah i just wanted to point out and uh thank mr stern mrs stern has adjusted some of public comment our preamble statement i just want to mention that um in our preamble statement we also list now that the administration will respond to any public commenters and that at the end of public comment the when the period concludes those things that we can respond to uh administratively you know will respond to so one of the things i want to i want to thank her and leadership for that one of the things the last public commenter we shared at the beginning of the meeting today's news is new news about the masks um you know this what's happening today right now the bottom line is no matter what happens
046with the decisions at the state level everything we understand right now is that we fall back to being governed by our health and safety plan so our health and safety plan if there's a change that's going to happen december 4th we would fall back and follow our health and safety plan our health and safety plan still dictates masking we're planning at our december board maybe december 4th seriously not december 4th our december board being to discuss what options we want to follow could we wind up moving that timetable up potentially for when we want to make a change but we will at our december board meeting be discussing masking and how we want to move forward as a district but no matter what happens at the state level we revert back to our health and
047safety plan that still that at this moment requires us to have all our students mask and certainly we will be looking at today's ruling and to understand the impacts as to other public comments just were shared last week there was not last week excuse me last month there were a few public comments about concerns about books there was brought up tonight with a public commenter we do have a board policy when our community members do have a concern about any type of materials whether it's in the classroom in our library specifically to our library there is a board policy that governs how we respond to that when we receive written concerns about a material in our library the committee that the board policy then outlines how we move forward to review that book we are
048doing that for whenever we receive those written concerns about those materials in our library and the same goes for within our curriculum whenever parents have concerns as a school district we want to continue to partner with our community and when there are concerns please reach out to your child's teacher reach out to the administration if you have concerns about content or material that we're teaching in our classroom thank you dr batzler for that update okay we're going to move into our board committee reports and first up is the curriculum committee report ms solomon the curriculum committee met on november 9th on this agenda our board action items that were reviewed in committee they include a generous donation from the radner education foundation for the amount of sixty thousand dollars this is their funding for the
04921 22 school year and we want to again thank the raf for supporting our schools in that way there was also um approval of a partnership agreement with paws for people to provide therapy dogs for rms and rhs for the 21 22 school year and approval of two overnight trips one was rhs jv and varsity baseball team for april 2022 an overnight trip for the rhs cross country team um i don't have a dick i think that already yes for the state championship i think that already occurred um and then we received a presentation from mr bechtold where he presented two options for the academic calendar for the 2223 school year and we will be discussing that in december dr kearney led an informative presentation on the elementary the middle school and the high school
050assessment calendars for 2122 and our high school principal ms kevkis provided an update on the keystone testing and the next curriculum committee meeting will be on december 14th thank you thank you ms solomon the facilities committee report missed on uh i was unable to attend the meeting last week but ms monaghan has prepared a summary for the board that's right ms monaghan thank you the facilities committee met on november 9th and special meeting of the board to conduct committee work the board action items included the rhs accessibility and wellness project ratification of change orders to be moved to the full board for approval mr dolan provided an update on the project along with visuals of the prog progress which was extremely exciting and the next facilities meeting is scheduled for december 14th as a special
051meeting of the board to conduct committee work thank you thank you okay the finance committee report mr moore yes i believe most board members were in attendance as that was a special board meeting to conduct committee work so i will highlight just two items uh on the agenda tonight number one the wayne legion baseball a local baseball league is very much thanked for their donation of a portable batting cage to the rhs baseball team and i'll also highlight one of the contracts that's on the agenda under agenda item 10.03 for the lakeside educational network i think as many in the district already know that we have been using lakeside for counseling services in the face of unusual mental health challenges that uh our community and our students have been facing um as a result of
052covid but also um to the extent uh that covett has shown us that we've had problems all along that require a more serious investment in the mental health of our community and so i thank the district for recommending this contract which will increase the amount of services that lakeside is providing to us for this year the next finance committee meeting is also anticipated to be part of that special board meeting for committee work on december 14th thank you thank you the policy committee report ms goldman the policy committee met also as part of november 9th special meeting of the board to conduct committee work and the policy that we discussed that day was policy 252 suicide prevention and self-harming behavior this policy was recommended for review by administration in order to more closely align its
053content with current practices and with the new policy 236 threat assessment that the policy committee passed last month additionally this policy was reviewed to ensure compliance with act 71 requirements this policy you'll find is agenda item 14.01 on tonight's agenda and it is up for a second read and adoption the next policy committee meeting will take place on december 14th at 7 pm if we have policy work to do as part of our special meeting of the board to do committee work thank you and although we didn't have a government relations and communications committee report dr babson when will our next meeting be it will also be part of that meeting on december 14. great thank you so much all right we are up to our consent agenda so although board action is required it
054is generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items with 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 board president will move it to an appropriate place on the agenda do we have any items anyone would like to pull from consent this evening okay uh seeing none i would entertain a motion and a second to approve items 9.01 through 15.02 a motion from ms uh monahan and a second from dr babson all those in favor uh miss duffy are you able to give a vote here as well yes i okay great yes the consent agenda passes unanimously nine to zero thank you so much and let's see we are going to move right into our
055board liaison reports and first up is the delaware county community college ms solomon no report delaware county intermediate unit the delaware county intermediate unit board met on november 3rd for its general business meeting on the agenda were approvals to support professional development opportunities for the districts and iu staff approval of opportunities to support educational and community partners and families with a variety of contracts approval to enhance student learning and work experiences and support future educators with abundant some dual enrollment agreements and there was approval of other grants contract leases appointments and services um the next general meeting of the board is december 1st at 6 45. we also had committee meetings on november 10th and on those at the committee meetings we there was a facilities committee meeting which had to do with some furniture
056at one of the locations cubicle replacement that was necessary and some change orders for some work that was being done at the sharon hill location at their for the education committee agenda there were new policy council community representatives that were introduced to us and those folks play a really important role in overseeing the early head start and head start programs having a big parental involvement in that and then on the personnel committee agenda there were two items up that the executive director walked us through one was the potential for a vaccination requirement at the dciu for employees some of whom are participating who are employees of federally funded programs and so therefore beholden to the federal mandate um to get have a vaccine requirement and then the there was also conversation about an employee referral
057program because like in the rest of the educational space the iu is struggling to find employees for its many many positions so it was a pretty chockful board committee meeting agenda and for november 10th and the dciu committee meetings will take place december 8th so it's two wednesdays next month thank you federal relations network dr babson uh nothing new since last time but just a reminder that the equity symposium will be on january 22nd in dc as will be the advocacy institute january 23rd through the 25th thank you delaware county school board's legislative council mr moore the legislative council met on november 10th i'll talk about two updates from a group that joined us as a guest at the meeting children first which was formerly known as public citizens for children and youth there were
058multiple representatives from that group who attended our meeting the first update was about their justice and education program that's a hands-on leadership experience for sophomores through seniors in public schools and through that program students apply their talents to collaborate and generate policy recommendations on challenging issues facing public education and will participate and speak at events in the community as well my understanding is that this has already been promoted at randor high school but to the extent that there are still nominations to be made you can nominate an emerging youth leader at children's first pa.org the website for children's first the second update from children's first that occurred during our meeting was to talk about a rally that was to occur in harrisburg on november 12th in conjunction with a court case william penn school district
059versus pennsylvania department of education which has you know come to be known more commonly as the fair funding trial um that's a trial that is now before the commonwealth court uh the rally apparently did go forward as planned november 12th and in addition you know there's been a lot of media coverage of this trial and you know if you pay attention to those articles i think you can learn a lot about how our system of public education works in pennsylvania um and how it does not work in our commonwealth and uh there is even a live stream that's available which i can give you the link for at the end of this update but uh if you you know if you watch that live stream you'll you'll learn a lot that's striking about how inequitable
060and inadequate funding is throughout the commonwealth much of the recent testimony has come from the superintendent of panther valley school district uh and we've heard a lot about the types of tough choices that that school district has had to make just to keep a roof over the heads of students in the school buildings let alone offer an excellent education it's a stark reminder of how good we have it here in render but also a reminder of our own obligation you know with the resources we have to do the best that we could we can do for our students we shouldn't be leaving any students behind in radnor and we shouldn't be leaving anyone any students behind anywhere else in the commonwealth as well so i would encourage everyone to you know take a look and
061follow the reports on this trial i know we heard some updates about a different commonwealth court ruling but i would venture to say that this fair funding trial is much more significant for what public education will look like in our state moving forward and so the link for that live stream uh two of the legal organizations that are participating on behalf of the petitioners the public interest law center and the education law center have created a website www.fundourschoolspa.org and the link to that live stream is available there and and this this is only broadcast live and is not recorded so you you have to you know catch time available when you can during the day if you want to actually see what the court proceedings are are looking like there was also a legislative update
062at this legislative council meeting i'll skip the specifics of that there's just a couple weeks to go in this before the legislature breaks for the holidays so we'll see what comes out of those two weeks what kinds of bills actually end up emerging if anyone and that is the national legislative council meeting will be december 8th that is the report uh thank you mr moore i just side note i think i thought i did read that something about literacy came out uh so maybe make a note to find out about the literacy one if you don't mind i don't mind thank you uh pennsylvania school board association i'll just make uh one update to my fellow board members as uh you may know and uh will now be reminded um newly elected school directors have
063to complete five hours of state mandated training and experienced school directors who are re-elected must complete three hours of state mandated training so to any of our colleagues who have been reelected you should make arrangements to complete that training and psba offers options and resources for you to complete that training and so you can go to mypsba.org and you may well also be getting an email from psba with registration options for that and it's my understanding that one site for that training could be at haverford january 8th from 11 to 3 15 pm so you may want to pencil that in as an option in case that is convenient for you thank you very much parks and recreation uh ms donner dr babson this month so we've actually oh we we've actually laughed uh here
064we are and we're not even at the the monthly parks and rec meeting yet which is going to be happening on thursday this thursday in this building at 6 30. okay uh radner educational foundation ms duffy are you able to give a report yes um the radner educational fund uh foundation is currently um reviewing grants for its in its fall grant cycle so there'll probably be more news to come shortly on which grants were rewarded and our next board meeting is actually this thursday november 18th at 7 p.m great thank you radnor high school scholarship fund mr jubilee yes the radnor high school scholarship fund met last evening december 15th and we discussed our uh upcoming event on december 11th a new event that will substitute this year for breakfast with santa called children's secret
065holiday shop it will be from 10 to 12 noon at radnor middle school's middle school bus loop outside it'll be an opportunity for children to buy presents and gifts for family and friends um and it'll be a new event we're hoping it goes well hope the community will support us and we'll hopefully provide more information on the reader and elsewhere in the community it's really geared for kids though it can be any age for probably about three to eight but it'll be coffee and other things for adults as well our next meeting will be january 24th thank you uh radnor page ms don uh no report and madner committee for special education ms monaghan yes the champion soccer league finished its season this past weekend and they'd like to thank all of the high school
066student volunteers their parents and all the champions families for making it successful and a fun season and truly this would not happen without the time and support of the student volunteers from the high school each week so definitely standing ovation for all of those student volunteers other sports news champions basketball league is being planned for january and a swim club is being considered for those 10 and older special needs students there are two champions coaches who are retiring this year so if you are interested in volunteering your time either board members or anyone listening please contact kathy mayer on november 8th the radnor committee for special ed presented to router middle school pto members this was a continuing continuation of information sharing at the pto level with the committee being invited by the pto presidents
067thank you to all the ptos for their help in communicating their events and news to parents and students on november 15th the board met and provided or discussed an update on the inclusion seminar which is targeted for february march time frame with shelly moore and more to come on that and the next scheduled meetings are for the board on the rcsc board on january 10th and then a meeting with administration on january 12th thank you okay do we have any new business at this time okay miss duffy no okay uh board announcements i'd like to announce that the next round of board meetings are tuesday december 7th at 7 pm we will be having our annual board reorganization at that time as well as a regular business meeting immediately following it and that will be
068in the ground for conference room of the radner township school district administration building at 135 south wayne avenue on tuesday december 14th beginning at 5 p.m we will have our curriculum committee meeting as well as a special meeting of the board to conduct committee work and both of those meetings will again be held in the ground floor conference room of the district administration building on south wayne avenue and our next regular business meeting will be tuesday december 21st at 7 pm here in the radnershire room of the radner township school municipal building on ivan avenue and radnor the other thing i would just like to let everyone know is that leadership and dr batchelor you know kind of following lots of comments that we've heard in the last year and taking feedback from what we've
069heard individually as board members we are going to be looking at some opportunities for the board to engage in a more casual fashion and hear feedback and interact with the community moving forward i wouldn't expect that to happen before the holiday break but you know it is something that we talked about in leadership and that everyone on the board has expressed individually a willingness to do and so we look forward to sharing more information about that in the coming weeks alrighty at this time we have an additional round of public comment and once again the board will provide an opportunity at the end of each regular business meeting for eligible participants to comments on comment on matters of concern official action or deliberation which are or may be before the board the board requires that
070participants be residents or taxpayers of the district or persons with a legal or contractual right to address the board or persons otherwise recognized by the presiding officer as having a special interest such that addressing the board would be appropriate we remind everyone that eligible participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and preface their comments with an announcement of their name and address and that individual comments are once again limited to not more than four minutes as per board policy zero zero six the administration will follow up on questions raised during public comment sometime after the meeting and parents with specific questions to their child educational experience are encouraged to reach out directly to their child's teacher and or building principal and once again should you be unable to attend this board meeting you may
071submit your comment by email to boardcomments rtsd.org or in person or in writing to mr michael patitti radner township school district 135 south wayne avenue wayne pa19087 do we have any public comment at this time sorry if you're twice but welcome mr mccomb doug mcconnell 2016 poplar avenue wayne my second comments about some suggestions made during public comment period on the october 26 meeting some make sense and should be considered well i believe adopting a particular one would be a problematic the second suggestion made was that any member of the school board should be able to pre and permitted to reply to any comment during the meeting presumably verbally the comment the commenter's stated intent was to start a conversation while on first blush this seems to make sense unfortunate reflection i think this is
072a bad idea not not the thing that you're talking about your most recent thing i'm talking about board meetings i believe the current system by which the board as a whole listens to the comment meets in private as a board to consider it and reach a conclusion about what the board's response should be and then issuing a board's response is the most effective way to address the public comment as a public entity my reason for this is my perception that in many cases the motivation of some of the commentators is to create controversy in public arguments or clashes with elected school board members rather than provide enlightenment i'll just stop with that i think that you should continue the process that you currently have thank you very much thank you mr mccone is there any
073other public comment mr petit is there any written public comment yes mr and i have one comment okay thank you cassandra newton eagle road wayne good evening since the role since there will no longer be a mask mandate by pa how is rtsd justifying the masking of children as i have stated before masks are emergency youth authorization and one must have informed to consent if you are using the health and safety plan to mask children how are you obtaining informed consent after the mandate has ended also will you be using the dress code to enforce masking if so how does that work is that the end okay uh is there any other comment that is all okay thank you so much all right so at this time i would entertain a motion and a second
074oh i'm sorry you know just before you do just trying to stick with our you know the based on the two public comments or just share just want to share two things one thank you for the feedback on the uh public comment uh section and and uh you know as a school board i think people are often surprised to realize that you know our work has to be done in public you know we're only allowed to meet in private for very few items it's a personnel item a legal item or something that's dealing with real estate or security was added to that list everything else we have to do our work in in public and when we do our work in public it's an opportunity for the public to be able to see what the
075work is and also to give us comment but i think the public commenter was correct too it's not an opportunity to have a dialogue because then we wouldn't be able to get our our work done as a board however that's why administratively when comments are raised we will follow up with with commenters and even this last one that was just raised again about you know what authority um you know the district does have authority under our health and safety plan to set masking requirements so in light of what is changing and evolving we as a school board and as a school district will have to look at how we may or may not want to be changing our health and safety plan based on these changes and we will be looking at looking at that
076as a school board and as a district thank you okay so at this time i would entertain um a motion so moved and a second to adjourn solomon and a second from his don all those in favor and miss duffy yes okay motion to adjourn is unanimous good night everyone thank you like