001for a moment of silence. 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. [Music] Can I have an attendance check of directors, please? >> Miss Good >> here. >> Mr. Kog >> here. >> Mrs. Alio >> here. Dr. Kaufman >> here. >> Mrs. Hanley >> here. >> Miss Holtz >> here. >> Miss Kamik here. >> Mrs. Lowry here. Mr. McCertie >> here. >> Thank you. Are there any additions to the agenda at this time? Could I have a motion to approve? >> We have a first and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Opposed. >> Motion carries. Executive session was held on September 2nd from 6:15 to 6:34 regarding
002the establishment of a voluntary employees benefits association. An executive session was held tonight from 6 to 6:30 p.m. for personnel and safety. Could I have a motion to approve the minutes? We have a first and a second. Are there any questions on the motion? >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Opposed. Motion carries. Mrs. Mr. Petroski, would you like to review the board goals? >> Sure. RD will provide learning opportunities to meet the needs of a diverse population and a dynamic workforce. RSD will continue to build transparent and trusted relationships with all stakeholders. RD will continue to build a culture of safety and support for all students, staff, families, and the community. >> Thank you. Moving on to public comment. The purpose of public comment is not to debate with the board,
003but rather an opportunity to address the board on matters of concern, official action, or deliberation which are or may be before the board. The board requires that public participants be residents, including pupils of this district, or taxpayers of the district. Those wishing to address the board must state their name and address when recognized by the president of the board. Each individual will have three minutes. Mr. Celely, you're up. Mr. Celely, your turn. >> Uh, Bill Ci says live by mom. Uh I just noticed in the uh publications there's an average class size for this current year and the average class size comes out to 13 and a communication that I receive in the business manager for 62 comes out to 806 students and that's about 20 plus students over what it should be. I I
004I can't comprehend. Um the budget for FY I've asked for several times and have not received one yet. State aid, I would like to know the position of the state with respect to state aid. And one thing I believe you could do is invite with the direct message be at the meeting etc. And that is the uh legislature uh bids. I don't know what you're doing with bids but really uh an aggregate again of school districts developing bids. Excellent. You can save money. class size. I don't know what class size you're reaching for, but I know uh I stepped back and taught after I had a divorce and things became a little hectic. I said and I went up north, took a couple of courses. It was mid year. took a couple of courses and
005uh one of the things was class size in the district that I worked at and I did go back to teaching and it was a lot of fun also that's where I met my wife so I couldn't leave her okay uh we have class sizes ranging from 32 to 42 no difficulty If the student is in school, the student wants to learn. Student doesn't want to learn, out the other way. Go and get a job. Maybe you'll make $14 an hour for the rest of your life. >> And that's it. >> All right. Thank you. >> Give them commentary. some of the items we might be discussing tonight. >> Uh yes. U moving on, we have a PSBA honoral recognition for uh Megan Hanley for five years of service. I know she's not here, but
006Megan uh is joining us on the phone. So, I just want to say congratulations Megan on um five years uh of service. >> Oh, thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you. >> Uh moving on to board business. Uh under own business, we have uh PA solar. Um Mrs. Sadlinger is scheduling a walk through for alternative systems placement. Any is there any update on that? >> Okay. We have no new business. and then the intermediate unit 9 report is attached from their August meeting. Moving on to our principal reports. Mr. Hendel, would you like to go first? >> Sure. >> Um, so we started off the year, we're in week three and uh, so far I'd like to say that we're off to a very good start. Um, thanks to Mr. Mley back here with the
007kindergarters that are coming in. A lot of them are still trying to figure their way throughout the building and uh, so we're trying to start their day off right. So with the behalf of Kevin here and the kindergarten teachers, uh we've inst or instituted a kindergarten program now where all the kindergarters come in here after all the students arrive and they have all of them eat breakfast. Uh they got a nice little nutrition program based off of cabinet year and uh so every day they come down say the pledge of allegiance to the national anthem and they return to class. Uh it's worked out well so far. Day three tomorrow. So we're hoping to continue to build. uh after school busing uh has been way better since what we started a couple weeks ago and
008that is a a direct result of the staff in this building and uh Mr. Muccio and his staff that are over there. Uh this year we assign teachers to the buses to assign seats. Uh the teachers stay in those buses until the buses pull out. The grade levels will walk their students out to the bus and we've really cut down departure time by about four to five minutes. So, that's very good to start the school year off. Um, and thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Petroski, we just got the award yesterday. Um, Jane Dixon in Adora Snacks Pool Foundation has donated $4,000 to the Francis Sranetti Elementary School to help offset the cost of snacks for snack time for all the teachers so that the teachers don't go out and have to buy those uh
009for their students. and if a student comes in that doesn't have a snack from home, uh they will pro provide it for them. So, other than that, the rest of it is in my board report and um I can speak for our staff. We're off to a good start and we got some great business. >> Are there any questions at this time? >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Hendle. Mr. I'm not sure how I'm going to follow that, but um so far the staff has re returned energized prof uh participating in professional development sessions focusing on student engagement, safety protocols, um instructional best practices, and most of all, grace for me, their new principal. Um uh I've been doing my best to improve school pride and climate. That's one of the things I really wanted
010to focus on, and we're trying to get more out there. So um we began an imple implementation of new programs such as one herd one heart fund which the same organization donated to us for that um and we are currently helping a few students get devices that were unable to pay for them because of uh breaking them um and things like that. So um that's been pretty cool. We we started with $5,000 and they said anytime we need to add to it they'll be more than happy to add to that. um you know so the teachers are listening where um students might be having economic issues or various things going on in their lives and we we use that fund to help reach out to them and help them. Uh we currently have the Rotary
011student of the month who was Sarah Zamaroski. Um she was voted on by your teachers for her performance in the classroom along with uh being an excellent soccer goalie for the soccer team. Uh this year we had a blazing start to the school year with 31 new enrollments at the middle high school. So every time we turned around there was a new kid coming in the building. Um so that was that was uh it's a record under underneath me being here. Um fall athletics are underway with strong strong participation across golf, football, volleyball, soccer, across country. All teams have shown improvement. Uh I will do my best to um broadcast this further on our social media platforms. Um I'm trying my best to put in the morning announce the morning email. Um and we plan
012on having morning announcements where where we're bragging about things that kids do. Uh plans are being made for homecoming activities in October. Um we're trying to do some of the things that we did last year and then adding a couple different other things uh to make the homecoming a really fun experience for the kids. But everything's been very positive. Um there's been a lot of hard work from our staff and students. Um again, we're focusing on academics, behavior, and opportunities that support student success both inside and out of the classroom. >> Are there any questions? >> No questions. >> Oh, no. I'll do that at the end of the meeting. >> Okay. All right. Well, thank you both. It sounds like you've had a great positive start to the year. Um and we look forward
013to um as you guys continue on for the the next season here. All right, Mrs. Hindel. >> Yeah. Hi everybody. Welcome back. Um I'm just going to talk about two things that did occur over um the summer um through our special ed program. One of those was our extended school year program. It is called ESY for short. Um, we had 41 students that were eligible to attend. That eligibility is determined through their IEP meeting through seven different criteria that we have to examine each student for. But we had 41 of our students who qualified and we had 28 students that attended. It's three weeks in the month of July. Um, we have one teacher, five paras. Um, and we do some transportation with it. it is a legal piece that we have to do. It
014is a cost to the district, but it is something that that we have to do. Um, it was very successful. The kids showed growth um and they enjoy coming in in the summertime. So, that was a big thing that takes up my month of July that I just wanted to mention. Um, another big thing I do over the summer is safety care program. That is our annual restraint training that we have to do for um in case we have to deescalate and actually physically restrain a student. Um Brian Slaughtery is our in-house training expert. He did um five different session with um teaching staff. There were three red reertifications. So every year um we have to be reertified. All the administrators have it. Um all the special ed teachers, the paras, there's one grade level
015teacher K to five. Um some of the specialists teachers in this building and then there's a handful of people in the middle high school. Um the majority of the restraints that we actually have to do do occur in the elementary school building. Um and that is something that we do annually and then anybody that has to be readertified. It's a two-day training. Um and that is something that we have we have about 50 I want to say there's about 55 56 um staff members that are trained. So it's about half of our half of our um teaching and parah and administrative staff. Um the other thing I just want to quickly mention is our annual public notice. It is something that I'm required to do annually at the start of the school year. Um it'll
016be going out this week to all families. Um it has to be posted on our website. I have to share it um pieces of it with um the local public radio stations and it pretty much just outlines all of our procedures for special education at the district. Um and it has, you know, contact numbers in in there as well. So that that was included in there for you to look at. That's some great reading there. Let me tell you, special ed is a little dry. Um and then at the end was just all of my numbers. Just real quick, we do have a total of 168 special ed students as of when I wrote this report. Um that is up from our big child count in December was 152. So we are up from where
017we were last school year. Um, and I do have three initial evaluations in process as well. There's 27 students with a 504 and 16 gifted students. So, you know, like I shared before, our department does service well over 200 students. So, that's that's all I have. It's dragonfly. [Music] >> It's not a bat. Are there any questions for Mrs. Hindle? All right. Thank you. Uh, moving on to the business manager's report. Mrs. Sadlinger. >> Thank you, Mrs. Good. Um, so my report is attached as well as several um attachments for your review, cash flow update. Um, as you guys know, the state budget is still stalled. There's no meaningful updates that we've been given. It's very silent. Um, we continue to operate on general fund reserves as well as local real estate tax dollars until
018at least October. Uh, if if we need to have a conversation in October with you guys, we will. As far as if there's any need for us to look at borrowing money at this point, I don't see that happening. I'm hopeful that they're going to have something sometime this month, early October. So, uh, we'll keep you posted as we move forward with that. Um we are in full swing for the 2425 audit. Um the mayor Doole firm is in our office this week. So today's day two. Uh it is going well. Um preliminary numbers are going to put us right right close to what we anticipated with a uh with a positive ending of about $50,000. um our revenues will be higher than what we budgeted and our expenditures are going to be higher than
019what we budgeted just because that's the way it all worked out. However, our bottom line looks like it's going to fall uh very close to what we had anticipated that of plus 50. Um I'll have more on that at the October meeting. We'll have firm numbers for you then. Um the public school facility improvement grant that we've been talking about. Um HHSDR is completing the bid documents and the timeline is listed there in my report. Uh they should have those completed by October 24th and uh submitted for code approval. We anticipate having advertisement go out at the end of October for that. So that's our our timeline for advertising on bid on network. Um, as Amy mentioned, I am working with PA Solar to set up another walkth through so that they can uh see
020some of the potential installation sites. Kind of had to put that on the back burner with the auditors here. So, we'll get back to that hopefully next week. Um, the nutrition PL for July is attached. We are running at a negative at 7,300 which is always how we start the year because there isn't any funding coming in but we are purchasing food so that we can service the kids. Um apologize my August numbers aren't listed there. I will update that for you. Um cyber enrollments are listed total of 32 at this point. Rocket enrollments total of nine. Uh outside placements currently sitting at six and Jeff Tech is sitting at five students. And that concludes my report for tonight. >> Donna, for the auditors, when will we be getting like, you know, a presentation from
021them if they're here now? >> It will probably be November. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Good. Okay. Any questions? All right. Thank you, Mrs. Petroski. >> Okay. My my report is attached. Um just some highlights. Um Eric had mentioned the APN that we will be sending out later this week. I'm going to attach with it also the annual safety AR that has to go with it. So that those will go together so parents aren't getting inundated with multiple mailing. So we're going to attach those both together um probably the end of the week. Uh stakeholder engagement. Um I don't know if anybody was listening to the radio on Sunday. I was on talk of the town. and it was not my forte, but I I guess it was okay. People thought it was fine. So,
022um so um some of the things also I'm working pretty closely with the foundation. We're trying to um get some draft documents together for grants. As we had talked, we're work considering the re the restructuring of how the FSG gym turn it into a multi- um multimedia presentation area as well as an athletic facility. Um and going to seek out some funding to do that um with in conjunction with the foundation. Um I had linked my goals and I just keep updating those as things happen. So, if you just want to look at those, as you can see in red, I just keep adding the things that as they are completed on the superintendent goals. We've spent the last couple weeks with the principles and the leadership team just really kind of doing all the
023things that we need to do get to get ready for the school year and then to roll out. And these gentlemen and Erica have done a spectacular job. Um, for neither of them being administrators, you wouldn't know it. They ask questions. They put everything into motion that they need to put in motion. And so they've been working super hard. Um, and I couldn't be more excited about the administrative team that we have right now. Um, Donna has been working super hard with with this audit. Her desk was totally full. So I every day I walked in there, okay, I got to leave know those papers. So she also has been working super hard. Um, I attached our leadership meeting schedule so everyone's aware of that. Staff and personnel. We have today actually at leadership we
024started plan the o 20 October 24th inservice. Um as Mrs. Heindel always make fun of me. I like to stay ahead of those inservice agendas. So we'll have that probably planned by the end of the month. >> She's actually a little behind. >> I like to have them ahead of time. Yes. Um so for staff recognition this each staff building has their own little recognition. So that will be starting. I think um Mr. Hindle has his row the boat or and um Mr. Powski has some things going on at his level. So we'll be hearing about those. Um Mr. Vote transitioned on Monday to student affairs. Um and then as I shared in objective we have all of our hires for tonight. So just to bring your attention to the programs that we have coming
025up um in October, we'll have the building and grounds report from Mr. Elias. And um I've been working really hard on trying to get our policies ready for our first review committee. Um and that's all I have. Any questions? All right. Thank you. It seems like the start of the school year has gone really well. >> All right. We're going to move to buildings and grounds. Mr. McCertie, >> I have to find my place. Or is this information only? >> There's no motion to be made. >> Oh, yes. Our metal high security entrance project timeline is attached as an information only. >> Uh, moving on to finance. Mrs. Sorry. >> Uh, I move that the Ridgeway Area School Board approve finance um 10A through 10F as listed. >> I'll second that. >> Could you speak
026to the microphone? >> Can you hear? Hello. Yeah. >> Can you hear now? >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. >> I move that the Ridgeway Area School Board approve finance 10A through 10F as listed. >> I second that motion. >> All right. We have a first and a second. Are there any questions on the motion? Can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Mrs. Alio, >> yes. >> Dr. Kaufman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Stanley, >> yes. >> Miss Holt, >> yes. >> Miss Kemik, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lowry, >> yes. >> Mr. McCertie, >> yes. >> Mr. Kob, >> yes. >> Miss Good. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. We have no policy items this month. Uh, moving on to personnel. Dr. Kaufman. I move that the Ridgeway Area School Board approve personnel items 12A through
02712K as listed. >> Second. >> We have a first and a second. Are there any questions on the motion? >> Can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Dr. Kaufman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Hanley, >> yes. >> Miss Holtz, >> yes. >> Miss Kem, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lowry, >> yes. >> Mr. McCertie, >> yes. >> Mr. Kova. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Alio. >> Yes. >> Miss Good. >> Yes. I just want to remind the board that um at your seat are the PSBA officer elections. If you could fill those out before leaving tonight. Moving on to extracurriculars. Mrs. Alio, >> I move that the Ridgeway Area School District or the Ridgeway Area School Board approve the extracurricular activities items 13A as listed. Sir, >> we have a first and a second. Are there
028any questions on the motion? >> Can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Mrs. Hanley, >> yes. >> Miss Holtz, >> yes. >> Miss Kemick, >> yes. >> Mrs. Lowry, >> yes. >> Mr. McCertie, >> yes. >> Mr. Kob, >> yes. >> Mrs. Alio, >> yes. >> Dr. Kaufman, >> yes. >> Miss Good, >> yes. Motion carries. There was a workshop held on September 2nd, 2025. Are there any other matters uh be that come before the board? >> Yeah, I'd like to address the board. Um continuing to beat my drum for financial sustainability. Uh some things I want to be in our mode of thinking. One is that we would use a management tool of capacity utilization in analyzing things. Think of it as bums and seats. If you have a movie theater or
029an airline, you know, you want to fill up those seats, have paying customers for those things. In a school district, it's not quite the same. Our bums and seats would be, you know, filling up the chairs, the desks, the buildings. Little we can do about that. But we have other capacities that may not be utilized to the most efficient level and our biggest cost being personnel. I look at personnel capacities. Uh Mr. Cely in his address uh referenced a number of uh what I would consider low classroom size. I don't know if that's accurate but it's something of a concern. Uh I share the generation with Mr. Cely. And in our generation, we had large class sizes. And when I see these, I think, well, heaven's sakes, we're underutilizing our teachers. Uh, so we need
030to factor that into our way of thinking. Uh, the report that came out, I looked it over closely, uh, where it had, you know, assignments and so on so on. and with some clarifications, it's less alarming than I first thought. Uh, so that's a good report. That's the right sort of thing to do to be looking at those things and deciding, are we getting the most out of our capacities here? I could throw out some numbers. I won't do that, but they're just my thoughts. Um so if we can consolidate class sizes, free up time, maybe uh do things with fewer people. Similarly, we need to look at our extracurriculars, sports, drama, music. And we may have to reduce the offerings to match participation levels and perhaps to focus our talent pool on a narrower
031area rather than a broader area. And these things will result in some cost savings. Um, and I would say to the district's credit, and I think it's appreciated by many, hopefully all, for a district our size, we offer more varieties of classes. We offer a great variety of extracurriculars. I don't know if in our current financial situation, we can continue to sustain that. So, please give that thought, consideration, and if we are going to make any changes, let's not do a knee-jerk reaction. Let's do it planned, thoughtfully, so that we can continue to offer the best levels of education, which I think the district does. I'm not criticizing the district. I think we do a great job. It's just really hard to pay for. Well, Paul, I always appreciate your perspective and always looking out
032for, you know, our finances and getting us to think in different ways. So, I think as we move forward and head into budgeting um later this year, you know, these are things for us to look at and focus on um for sure. >> All right. Any other matters? Um, I'd like to thank Mr. Magalie for the treat. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. We always appreciate your little goodies. >> Yeah. Look forward to it. >> All right. Anything else? All right. Our um future meetings, uh, we have a work session on Tuesday, October 7th at 6:30 here at the cafeteria. and then our regular board meeting on Tuesday, October 14th, um at 6:30 here in the cafeteria. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Sure. >> All right. First and a second. All
033in favor signify by saying I. >> Opposed. All right. Motion carries. Good night, everyone. Thanks for joining us.