4-10-25 BSD Work Session

001Good evening. Welcome to the April work session of the Rose Tree Media. As dictated, welcome to the April work session of the Rose Tree meeting. Yeah, it's not going to work. Yeah, just he'll mute it. You should be good. Okay. As dictated, welcome to the April work session of the Rose Tree meeting. Yeah, it's not going You're good. Okay. Good evening. Welcome to the April work session of the Rose Tree Media School Board. The school board holds monthly work sessions to carry out its responsibilities in public as dictated by the Sunshine Law. At these meetings, the board standing committees conduct the work of the board through discussion with administration. Standing committees function as committees of the whole with all board members serving on all standing committees with one member acting as chair. We welcome the

002public to these meetings and depending on the length of the agenda may be able to entertain public comment. If we're not able to address comments, we encourage emails to either committee chairs or the administration. As a reminder to where our conversation should focus, the students are the center of the RTMSD learning community. Our mission states that all students will reach their intellectual, emotional, social, and physical potential in a safe environment that celebrates diversity, individual talents and efforts, and promotes collaboration, caring, respect, and leadership. Students will be wellprepared to create meaningful and productive lives in a global society. All right. So we will begin with uh education and wellness. First up is English language arts K to8 program recommendation. Thank you Dr. Napster Williams. I'm very excited to turn over control. Um Dr. Emry is going

003to share her screen. Uh we have a wonderful group of educators uh that's here tonight to talk about what's going on uh in kindergarten through 8th grade with the language arts the ELA program uh with the pilot and looking to make a recommendation for next steps as we move forward. Dr. Jannine Mry who is uh administrator in the district. She works partially in the curriculum and instruction office about half of the time or so and then she works partially as an assistant principal at Glenwood. the other half of the time. So, she spends, you know, a good 16 hours a day in each place. So, 32 out of the 24 hours to be able to get stuff done. Um, and I'm thrilled that she has a couple of our instructional coaches with us and a

004couple of our classroom teachers, one from the elementary level, one from the middle school level. Um, it's an exciting presentation, so I encourage everybody to take some time to watch and to listen. Thank you. Okay. Good evening and thank you for having us today for the work session. I'm Dr. Jannine Barry, supervisor of literacy K through 12. With me I have Evan O'Neal and Katie Melenich, two of our fabulous instructional coaches. Towards the end of our presentation, we'll also have two classroom teachers speak on their pilot experience. Alexis Azaf, one of our eighth grade teachers, and Hina McCafferty, one of our second grade teachers. Assistant Superintendent Bill Dockerty will close. The first few slides will look familiar. Um, today we'll give you an overview of our curriculum selection. So, we'll start with our instructional vision

005for literacy. This vision was created by Rose Media teachers and administrators. Our goal is to make our students proficient communicators and critical thinkers who love reading and writing. We will use research-based practices and help students develop strong foundational skills. This process all began with the recent changes to act 14 that challenged us as a district to find programs that are more aligned with structured literacy. The act requires that we establish a program of professional development and applied practice and structured literacy. This includes teacher training in evidence-based intervention practices, explicit and systematic instruction and phonics, and reading comprehension and content knowledge. So, we started this long road in 2023 to better incorporate evidence-based literacy practices. In the fall of 2023, we developed the ELA steering committee and the ELA program search subcommittee. The program search committee

006began searching for new curriculum for Rose Tree Media's elementary and middle school. And the Delaware County Intermediate Unit held a structured literacy professional development session for our kindergarten through 2 grade teachers, elementary administrators, reading specialists, and MTSS teachers. In the winter of 2024, our committee went to visit other districts to see foundations and Hagerty in action. We had a funological awareness professional development with representatives from Hagerty. And our reading specialists and administrators joined the countywide reading network through the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. In the spring of 2024, we had an ELA audit, a program review by the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. This audit found many strengths in our program. We had structures to support students enjoyment of reading and at least 80% of students met or exceeded grade level benchmarks. Areas for improvement were we

007needed to improve Pennsylvania state standard alignment. Teachers were supplementing curriculum to meet standards and we needed to improve our researchbased literacy practices. Last spring we adopted the Hagerty font phmic awareness program and had an amplify English language arts introduction for our middle school teachers. In the summer of 2024, Amplify representatives presented Amplify CKLA, which stands for core knowledge language arts to elementary staff and administrators. In the fall of 2024, the amplify English language arts pilots began pilot began at the middle school and we had presenters visit to showcase various programs focused on elementary reading, writing, phonics, and comprehension. In the winter of 2025, we were able to gather feedback from teachers. And in February, we started the piloting of collaborative classrooms and amplify CKLA. And here we are. We completed our pilots and we worked

008closely with program specialists to get a snapshot of new curriculum in our elementary and middle school classrooms. We also gathered and reviewed program feedback from our administrators and teachers. Based on feedback from teachers, students, and administration, we have come to recommend amplify core knowledge language arts for elementary K through 5 and amplify English language arts for middle school 6 to 8. We found that amplify CKLA aligns with PA standards and research-based practices for teaching foundational reading and writing skills. The structure and progression of the program helps students build knowledge and vocabulary as they move from grade to grade. Amplify ELA for grades six through 8 offers rich text to build student knowledge. The program provides cohesive grade appropriate instruction and has a strong crossgrade connection. So this graphic here is called Scarbo's reading rope. Scarbor

009is a psychologist and a literacy expert. He used this illustration to show the skills needed to have a fluent reader. Amplify core knowledge language arts helps teachers build strong foundational word recognition skills. Students also build their language comprehension skills like vocabulary, background knowledge, and verbal reasoning. Because of their ability to meet students needs, Amplify has received positive reviews from ed reports as well for their knowledge building approach in both elementary and secondary. So, here are some of the changes you'll see in our curriculum. With Amplify, our lessons will focus on building knowledge rather than skills. Topics are connected, and we'll spend more time really making sure students develop strong background knowledge and vocabulary that will help them comprehend text. Research shows that building knowledge is critical for long-term reading success. So, what will an instructional

010day look like? In kindergarten through 2 grade, students complete two lessons a day. Skills lessons focus on phonics and word recognition, and knowledge lessons focus on broadening students knowledge and language comprehension. In third through fifth grade, lessons begin to combine skills and knowledge with increasingly complex text, close reading, and morphology. We have here Mrs. McCaffry, who can tell you more about the experience her and her students had while piloting Amplify. Hi. Um, so in second grade, the reading program is designed around two 60-minute blocks, one for the skills strand and one for the knowledge strand. The skills strand focuses on phonics, phmic awareness, and word work. The knowledge strand builds background knowledge through rich interactive readalouds. So in the skills strand, each skills lessons follows a predictable structure, starting with word work, moving into reading

011decodable texts and including writing that builds across multiple lessons. The writing process is thoughtfully scaffold, guiding students from planning to publishing. In the knowledge strand, students explore texts well above their independent reading level through readalouds, vocabulary instruction, and discussion. Even complex content like insect life or westward expansion is made accessible and engaging through themed stories like fairy tales, tall tales, and fictional narrators who teach non-fiction content. Students responded enthusiastically. Lessons were fast-paced, informationrich, and designed to keep kids engaged. The readalouds were the longest component, sometimes 20 to 30 minutes, but those could be adjusted as needed. When the pilot ended, my students were genuinely disappointed. What I loved most was the structure and flexibility. Lessons had a consistent format, which helped students feel confident, but there was enough variety through games, reading options, and hands-on

012components to keep them interested. I also appreciated how much student learning could be measured with the data collected, though sorting through the data was a bit of a challenge. Overall, the program supported strong engagement, meaningful learning, and student growth. Thank you. Thank you. The middle school curriculum is designed to spark curiosity about the world around students. The authentic text and topic and topics validate students diverse identities and support their social emotional growth. Lessons incorporate technology and include audiovisisual resources such as author interviews, dramatic readings, and spoken testimonies. Writing assignments vary in purpose, audience, genre, and length, and are essential parts of the curriculum occurring daily. To tell us more about the eighth grade experience with our Amplify ELA pilot, we have Alexis Asa. Hello. In the middle school, each Amplify lesson begins with targeted vocabulary

013work using the Vocab app, which is an interactive program that helps students build both academic and text specific vocabulary. The lessons center around mentor texts and include close reading questions that require students to site evidence and apply key skills. At least once a week, students complete a timed on demand writing prompt aiming for about a 100 words in about 10 to 15 minutes. In our units like perspectives and narrative, students analyze techniques in exemplar texts and then apply those techniques in their own writing. in our novel study Frankenstein and in our narrative non-fiction unit the narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas students uh completed text dependent analysis questions and guided discussion um was provided for each chapter the lessons cover a mix of fiction and non-fiction and it's presented in an engaging way for

014our students for example in the space race units examined historical NASA photographs researched astronauts or cosminauts and wrote firstperson blog entries as if they were on a space mission. Many of them were fascinated to learn about animals in space like Leica, the first cosminaut, and Ham, a NASA chimpanzee that they had never heard of before, as well as the Apollo and Gemini missions. This was a very engaging unit, especially for our English language learners, some of whom are native Russian speakers, and they found a lot of personal connection in the content. Students responded well to these lessons, rising to the challenge of a rigorous, fast-paced structure, which emphasizes both reading and writing every day. One challenge has been fitting all of the task demands into our current class period, particularly on our shortened days, because

015there's just so much for our kids to do. We've seen real growth in their writing this year. The frequent short prompts build stamina and responses grow in complexity and length over time. By the end of a unit, students are producing thoughtful, extended written responses that synthesize what they've learned and often challenge each other to write more and score higher each class period. What I loved most about Amplify was the engaging content, the clear structure, and the way that the skills spiral and build across the units. Vocabulary is reinforced continuously, and students get meaningful practice annotating, analyzing, and writing. It also makes data collection easy which gives us real insight into the students progress. Thank you. It's been an amazing opportunity to to experience the Amplify CLA and Amplify ELA programs in our elementary schools and

016middle school classrooms. Now, Mr. Doerty will close next steps for the school board. Thanks. Um, first of all, thank you to the team um, that's here tonight. You did an amazing job. And I want to give um, an acknowledgement to Christa Considine who's not with us this evening who has led this process over the past year and a half, two years. Um, so it's been quite a journey. So for the school board the next thing that you will see so the materials for this programming has already been budgeted. So when when the budget is approved this will be included. So your next action will really be we'll be signing a contract between the district and the amplify company. Okay. So I just wanted to say that and again um thank you to all of you

017for your um collaboration your professional professionalism your judgment and um presenting tonight. So, we appreciate it. Um, questions. I just wanted to make a a quick little observation or comment. So, my daughter is in um the eighth grade and doesn't have the pleasure of having you as a teacher, but she has can be a little bit salty as a teenager when I ask about the day. um but has been raving about the the Frederick Douglas amplifying section and it's been really great to hear her not just talking about how she enjoys lunch but something more meaningful. Um and so that seems to really be working because it's actually getting her to think and in um an engaging and thoughtful way. So anecdotally I just want to say thank you for all of that and for

018making a a pleasant car v drive actually. I would when you were giving your presentation I it was um it took me to the new changes that we're making at the high school too where instead of having Can you speak up a little bit? Oh, sure. Sure. Um it it reminded me of what we're doing at the high school level where instead of having seven courses a day, we're going to have four now. So you go more indepth on every day rather than dotting around a lot of different topics. you go more in depth into one topic which facilitates better learning. So it seems like we're doing this at all levels now. Thank you. Um I thought this was so helpful as well. Thank you all of you for the information. Um my question is

019kind of related. So I think I want to make sure I heard correctly. So at the elementary level it's two 60-minute blocks. Is that right? Of time throughout the school day. Did I hear that right? Okay. It it it's two two lessons. So, okay. So, there's a skill and a knowledge portion. Okay. Um they're actually both about 60 minutes. They're both 60 minutes, but that's only till second grade. Oh, so I guess my question is does um the amount of time that you're allocating to this um reorganize how you spend the rest of your day? Is there something that is no longer taking place in the classroom or it changes what other things look like? How does that kind of play out? It actually is the the same amount of instructional time and then with

020the with three to five there is a little bit of extra time. We're we're trying to um still incorporate time for students to select books and have that love of reading and so we're we're trying to use that time wisely to continue to encourage students to pick their own books and read their own books. So we're we're we're figuring it out. That was actually my question. I too was a parent of a pilot student in fifth grade. Um and was curious about book selection if that sort of book selection independent reading is still happening in the classroom and um the writing if that changes what the writing looks like in the classroom in terms of you know more of the free choice style versus tied to the text. Sounds wonderful and I love everything. It

021was just that question of like what does this change for the rest of the school day but that all makes sense. Thank you. Well, writing will no longer be a separate entity. it will be incorporated in that knowledge strand. But um the the love that our students have had for reading, for selecting their own books and reading genres that they enjoy, it's something that came up over and over again with our teachers, with our administrators. So we're not going to let that go. We will make sure that we incorporate. Thank you so much for this presentation. That was great. I'm really excited about this new program. I'm wondering this was a response to changes in regulations that we did this as I understand it from what your presentation was and that um there was a

022requirement for structured literacy and uh some sort of deficit in evidence-based literacy practices. So can you can you describe what is like the gap that you're filling by changing this practice? So, one of the things that the changes that were made again were across the state for structured literacy. And what I was surprised about when a lot of the criticism came out about Lucy Caukins and the and the work that we were doing with that programming with unit of study is that there were a lot of districts that were not doing direct phonics instruction along with that. We've been doing that for years. is we've used um project read along with that for years. So we've always had this direct phonics instruction along with um our comprehensive piece with units of study. So I think

023the key piece the key difference here is the way that the knowledge base is embedded with the skills. Um teaching reading it's really complicated and it's really fascinating and it's really fun to watch the especially the younger ones how they learn to read. But when we read, it's such a complex process. And there's this balance of figuring out what the word is, but also having the background knowledge to understand that context right away. There's been debate and discussion about this within research literally for ever, right? For 50 years at least. So, um, so again, this is an evolution of the science. I'm sure 5 to 10 years from now there will be more research and then a different iteration after we see the impact of structured literacy. People will be studying this and then 10

024years from now we could be back here saying well we need to tweak it again. So again, this is an evolutionary process and it's really that link between skills and then the background knowledge that is being linked into one reading activity, but it is a complex process. Well, it sounds like it's been controversial. It maybe not this program, but the the the discussion of what's the right way to do it and that, you know, it it has been and people feel very passionate about it. But again, just like many other arguments, it became very um polarized but also oversimplified. It was either this or that, right? But we were doing a little bit of both anyway. But I didn't know that some school districts weren't teaching direct phonics to students around the state. We did.

025But again, a lot of the debate and a lot of the posts on social media that I heard about um were saying, "Oh, I can't believe if you use units of study and Lucy Caukins, that's the wrong thing to do." Well, it's only the wrong thing to do if you're not also doing direct phonest instruction. The other thing is which was um with our district like you know when we bring it here our student achievement data right on assessments. We are not in a district where our kids are um failing like we have great evidence that our kids are overly are overwhelmingly successful. We do believe that this will and through the pilot we learned that our kids will continue to be challenged even more in a different way with this programming. Question about that.

026Do you did you do map testing for the students who were in the pilot program and did you see a significant difference because were some kids in a pilot and some kids weren't? So, you had data? Well, the the map data that really wouldn't be um a very clear assessment over doing a pilot and then the map testing because the map testing really is a progression over a year, right? But obvious but I'm sorry. Oh, so you didn't have enough data to know. You didn't do math. We wouldn't have enough We wouldn't had We wouldn't have enough data to make a correlation between the pilot that they did and their and the kids math scores. We don't It's We don't have enough information. Yeah. Okay. Right. I think we're good. Thank you very much. All

027right, we will move on to uh student services, the student services trend analysis. Thank you, Dr. Napson Williams. So, coming to the table and getting set for a presentation is Mr. Dan Arison. So, Dan Arison is our new director of student services. And this Dan, is today your eighth day in district? Eighth day. Yes. I I believe I'm being hazed right now to be presenting on my being hazed on my eighth day to present in public. But yeah, I'm excited about it. So Dan has had an opportunity um since he came in a week ago uh to start to take a look at at who we are and what the data is. Um I'm excited the fact that that he's going to deliver this. As you know, Heather Collins has been working with us. Heather's

028actually out this week. she's going to stay on to take care of our um cyclical monitoring with the state. Um but Dan has a fresh set of eyes, right? With his professional background and with what he's done in his time as an assistant director in Garnet Valley, it has given him great professional experience. With a new set of eyes coming in, there is no um hesitation, you know, in terms of the conclusions that he's drawing. There's no emotional connection, there's no well, you know, we did this, we did that. it it's very authentic in terms of what he's going to look at uh and how he's going to share it. We al we had um is Dan gets set. Here he goes. Um just some of the questions that you went through about the the

029the pilot. Um it was it's been fascinating to talk with some of the staff and I was here at Springton the other day and met with a group of students. but to hear directly from the students perspective about their experience with the pilot, what was hard, what was different, what they liked and what they didn't like. Um, and some of the feedback that we received from the teachers uh in terms of how we were approaching the pilot and the type of work that we were asking the children to do. One of the things that we heard almost universally um was that it challenged children in a way that was different than what they had experienced than what we had been asking them to do in the past, which we see as a good thing. Um,

030and the kids did not shy away from that. It definitely is different, right? There's a a challenge in in terms of of what we are looking at. Um, but that's what we want children to do. All right, Mr. Harrison, you all set? All right. Yes. So, thank you. should have done that. Thank you, Kim. Um, at Indian Lane this morning. Uh, so I was able to spend about a half a day there. Today, yesterday I spent about an hour at Glenwood. So, I'm trying to just slowly get into each of the buildings, not just to look at data, but also hear from folks that are on the ground saying like, "Hey, this is what I'm actually seeing." So, I'm excited to look talk about the data tonight, but then also hear from people as well.

031Um, most of the data that we're going to talk tonight was for our cyclical monitoring that is happening in May. Um, PTE monitors will be on site uh May 6th um to to just see how we're doing and we expect good things to come out of that. Um, but that's where where the the root of tonight's data uh will come from. I've also had the opportunity to talk extensively with Dr. Lacass, Dr. Orin and Miss Marvel as we've talked through it. Um what we're going to do is we're going to try to keep it pretty high 30,000 foot view talking specifically about our PEN data uh which is the publicly available data that uh drives our IDA funds. Um and we'll look at a couple different of the graphs that that are available online. We're

032going to look at it specifically from uh disability categories which is what PEN data is and then also least restrictive environment. So, where our students are receiving their education and then we're also going to look specifically at how that data then impacts other areas of our student services department um specifically nursing psychologist and related services. This connects to the goals of Rose Media School District, you know, spec specifically creating a contemporary learning environment for all of our students, promoting and supporting the well-being of all students, and providing equitable opportunities for all students. I deliberately put these in a different order, leaving closing the achievement gap down at the bottom. When we're talking specifically in special education, we're talking about making sure, yes, we want to close the achievement gap, but we're also using federal law

033to guide our programming with a child's individualized education plan. And the one key law that we want to talk about is an Andrew F decision from the Supreme Court where there's two prongs that we need to talk about. One, we want to see a student that is making meaningful progress with his or her program, but there also needs to be an ambition, a program that is ambitious in scope. So those two prongs are going to be areas that we're going to talk about not just meaningful progress but also that ambitious in scope outcome because what we've noticed across the the Commonwealth since COVID there according to the office of uh dispute resolution or ODR there's a 36% increase in litigation against school districts because of students not making what parents perceive or parent attorneys more

034so perceive as not making meaning meaningful progress. or a denial of FAPE. We want to make sure that when we're uh developing our programs, we want to be ambitious in scope and making sure that students are making meaningful progress. And if they are not, then we come back to the table, we talk about why that is and we make changes. Okay. Uh this was a great suggestion from from Mr. Dockerty just to remind the board. uh in early March, the preliminary budget was was presented and this uh slide came directly from that presentation. I linked the full propos uh budget proposal down at the bottom left and it's posted online for those in the public that that wanted to view it. But this slide specifically showed that the board saw that that we could use

035some some extra support in special education. There were uh four FTEEs at our at our elementary schools. We were adding a teacher at Springton Lake, a school psychologist, uh, and then behavior support, uh, in the form of a registered behavior technician, uh, or an RBT, special education aids, and then reallocating a coach as a special education coach. As we go through the other slides this evening, I just want to remind the board, we're going to talk more about the why behind why these uh these positions were were were needed. Um, I'm sure the board has heard pre before I got here the justification, but hopefully tonight will further clarify what we were thinking. Okay, so just really at a 50,000 ft view, there are just over 4,300 students in our district, as you're aware, 632

036of them, or about 14.7% are receiving special education. That's significantly below what the Pennsylvania state average is for a district of having students receiving special education services. I don't know the answer as to why, but my my smart guess, for lack of a better phrase, would be the robust MTSS system that the board has been supportive of that's in the district. I had the opportunity this morning at Indian Lane to sit in on an MTSS uh meeting. The team was buttoned up, you know, and I had the opportunity to tell them that at the at the end to say like, "Wow, there was not any admiring of a problem here. there was like here are some students, here are some needs, here are the data and here are some action plans and let's get on

037to the next thing. It was it was a really cool thing to to watch and that's you know coming from a district that's also high high performing across the street. I was very very impressed with with the work that I saw today. So when when we look specifically at at these pen data uh counts just to orient the board and the public to this chart. First and foremost, down at the bottom, uh I have linked the website where the publicly available data can be um accessed. You're able to access not just Rose Media's data, but any school district in the Commonwealth. You can go back um as far as 2007, 2008, all the way up to the 2324 school year. When Dr. Collins and I were looking for a trend analysis. We very purposely selected

038the 2019 2020 school year because we wanted a year just prior to COVID and then see where we are right now. What we noticed in the postcoid year, so 2020 2021 forward up until the graph that we chose for you know the most recent data the data was about the same. There was very little variability in rotree media in those years postcoid. Um but there are some differences that we wanted to point out from that 2019 2020 school year. Um and then the present data. So first and foremost looking at that at that red arrow going straight across our percentage of students receiving special education services is about the same 14 15%. But what has changed is what it is a percent of. The district's growing. There's more students attending schools in Rose Tree Media,

039which equates to more students receiving special education services. There are, according to the numbers here, about 72 more students receiving special education services. So that 1% could be a little a little deceiving if you think, well, 1%'s not that much. It actually equates to about 72 students because of the growth of the total population, which is why some more special education teachers would be needed to maintain that high level of service. Okay. I want to jump down to specific learning disability and this connects to the ELA presentation that we all just heard. This was one area in where rotary media was was a little different than than the state trend, right? You'll notice the state trend uh there was a decrease in students being identified with a specific learning disability. If you compare 2019 to

0402023, but in in Rose Media, there was an increase of students with a specific learning disability. Talking to the psychologists, one of the things that we're wondering is what the impact will be of our new ELA curriculum and how that will help our students maybe not needing special education services in that specific area of of ELA. Um, that is one area that I that you know in making the transition. I keep joking about literally going across the street, but I feel very comfortable and confident and I'm excited to hear that Rose Tree is going with ampl amplify CKLA and ELA. Um, Gartner Valley was also doing that and is is looking to implement that program next year and I was a part of many of those discussions there as well. also special education um I

041think is going to fit very well into the mix and planning of of what amplify can look like particularly with the model of instruction that we see here in in Rose. The last area that we wanted to point out are the three areas that are starred uh the disability categories of autism, emotional disturbance and other health impairment. The reason why we pulled those three in particular out is those three disability categories are the ones that are most often associated with behavior. Right? So when we hear about behavior happening, oftent times there is a level of comorbidity or direct need in one of those three disability areas. And if you look at those three areas combined, an interesting bit of dynamic comes out. There's actually a decrease in the total from 2019 to 2023 in Rose

042Media. If you put the three areas together in 2019, it's 48% of students who had an IEP were in those three disability category areas. In 2023, it's just over 45. So, we might think, well, why are then we hearing more and more about behavior if we are seeing a decrease in in the number of students identified? I think the next graph which is also part of the pen data reporting points to that very very clearly. If you look at the the two bar graphs that are represented with the yellow arrows, there is a substantial increase in the amount of inclusion that's been happening in Rose Tree since 2019 to 2023 and and that is a great thing. Students having opportunity to the general education environment is something that we want to strive for. Yes. Inside

043the classroom or outside SE is special education. Yeah, special education. So that and and thank you for pointing that out and I the acronyms and the and the um the abbreviations are from the state. So I'm glad you're pointing that out. So special education inside the regular education 80% or more. That first column that would be students who are spending the vast majority of their day in a gened classroom. So they're in there 80% or more. They're only pulled out of that general ed environment for 20% or less of their day. Then LEA I'm going to local educational area. So that's the school district. That's our school district. That's the school district. Yes. Correct. And one last question. Does the whole state data include cyber charter students? It's a that's a great question. The uh

044the state data. Yes, it does. It does. So the overall average would include charters as well. Just I asked that because we've been shown data in the past that shows what a how a significantly higher proportion of cyber charter students have been identified with learning disabilities than in the um general uh population of students. It's a great point because then the the um the cost sharing that happens is substantially different. Yes. To get more money. You got it. It's and it's not just a little bit. It's a lot more. It's a lot more. So um so the inclusion numbers in in Rose have increased substantially and the red areas it makes sense as more inclusion is happening. Children who are educated outside of the general ed setting that middle bar graph 40% or less of

045their day would go down as would students who are placed in out of district settings. Now when we look at that we say okay well inclusion is is up and and that is a good thing but one thing that then we need to do and and being someone who grew up in a video game era right so I'm thinking Nintendo and Mario brothers specifically inclusion when we think of that and these graphs represent the noun the place of where education is happening now what we want to do and this is where the increased staffing will really help is is take that noun and put it as a verb and think about inclusive practices, right? What are the things that we are doing to make sure that education is meaningful for our students so that they

046can make progress in an ambitious program? That requires professional development for our gened teachers. It requires special education teachers to be experts in areas of differentiation, but it also requires specific tailored professional development for our special ed teachers as well. So, one of the things that we're looking at in in our data and and with this trend is so this is fantastic. This is great. We're we are in, you know, doing a great job with inclusion, but now how can we increase our inclusive practices and level up the programs that we already have? Okay. Sorry, can I absolutely can you go back to that graph? Sure. It says special education inside regular classroom 80% or more. Mhm. The next one is special education inside the uh regular classroom less than 40%. Correct. Does that mean

047there's there's something is there because 80% would excellent question and a weird gap there and and and I wish I could say I could tell you why the federal law decides that we're going to have a gap of why why these numbers are what they are. Um my my best interpretation of that would be 80% or more is what is considered an itinerate level of service. It's the lowest level of special education service that you can can receive. So a student who is in a gened setting between 80% to 100% of their time is classified as itinerate. I'm going to skip the middle for a second because full-time is less than 20%. Then supplemental is everything in between 20 and 80. And somewhere along the lines, someone in in the federal government decided, well, 40

048sounds like a pretty good number that we should start looking at because it's about between 80 and and 20. But that's kind of where where those numbers come from. So that supplemental level is is is a huge disparity because if you have a child who's being educated at 79% of their time in the Jed environment, that child's needs are very very different than the child who's educated 21% of their time in the gen setting. Does that make sense? Okay. So, and these last two slides, you I I've kind of referred and alluded to these questions, but what we wanted to do is put them out there explicitly as we look at this data. These are some of the early questions that Dr. Collins and the rest of the team in our student services department were

049looking at as we went through. We're very excited to see what the ELA curriculum is going to do to help our numbers in that area of specific learning disability. Um the multi-tered systems of support teams, like I said earlier, buttoned up. And one of the things that we think special ed can do more of is contributing to those teams because special ed teachers are experts in the area of differentiation. They're experts in the area of thinking about how students learn differently. Hi, thank you. Could you just hop back to to the first one a minute and um No, not the last slide, the first question on here because that was my question. Can you provide a little insight into how you think that that this might help? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So, one of the

050things that and and the and the team that presented with with ELA, um the structured literacy approach that's really going to have phonics and phmic awareness at that kindergarten level very early on looking at those five core areas of reading, not just fluency, comprehension um and vocabulary, but the phonics and the phmic awareness. that's going to really help our students with direct systematic instruction um in those early reading grades that we would hope then would help with decoding skills which are then going to help our students grow as readers in those early reading grades. That would be my very broad Yep. Are we to assume then that the greatest specific learning disability is reading? I would want to look specifically at the numbers to really glean that out, but I think that's a very safe

051bet and a safe assumption. It has been my experience in both Ridley and in Garnet Valley that reading is the area that we have to really look at and that's where the numbers have been coming from. I would want to confirm that here before I would say final answer. Sure. Where the Thank you for this. It's very exciting and you're eight days in. So, thank you. Going to ask you a hard question that you don't have to answer. Um, so when the um what is the criteria as you're looking at how much time a kid spends in regular classrooms and whether a kid should be in a special ed classroom only? What's the threshold you're looking at and how how do you decide how much time do we have tonight so we can really talk,

052right? So, yeah. And what do you and our current practice versus what you're thinking about? Yeah. So for for me, one of the things LRE or least restrictive environment, a student with special education, they have rights that are that are protected. And the last thing that we want to do is start violating their rights and having litigation because we're not being thoughtful with our approach. One of the one of the core tenants that I have in my mind and what I hope to continue to bring forward is least restrictive environment is not the same for every child right every child's needs are going to be different and we have to be very very thoughtful as a team and think okay where can a child be most successful so that they are having meaningful benefit and

053making growth in their areas of need that requires us working with our psychologists It requires us working with our speech therapists, our occupational therapists, regular ed teachers. Most importantly, it requires us to to collaborate with parents. Parents have to be at the table and understand and be a part of the discussions. And when things are not going well, we have to have honest difficult conversations to say not, hey, Dan's a terrible kid and you know, we don't think he belongs here. No, absolutely not. That is not the conversation we're having. But the conversation we are having is, hey, Dan's struggling. this is how we think we can do better and these are some of the resources that we have and sometimes that requires a little bit more pull out which goes to one of the

054questions that are up here. It's uh second to last bullet but how are our licensed staff providing direct instruction in our students areas of needs. So when we talk about having legally defensible paperwork and we don't want to find ourselves in litigation. We have our psychologists who are doing tight buttoned up evaluations that are identifying areas of need. We're then going to use our licensed staff, whether that's a teacher, a board-certified behavior analyst, an OT, a spe a speech teacher, and we're going to provide direct instruction in that area of need in the hopes that a child is then going to be able to make progress. Child's not ready to be in the gened environment. We need to own that and say, "Hey, not yet. Maybe in a little bit, but not yet. Um, as

055we talked about this, I think it's either last work session or the one before. It's on, I promise. Sorry. Um, about the fact that, you know, the budget is accounting for five additional um, special education aids and as you're doing this analysis and trying to get kids into um, gened as I I I suppose that's the goal, right? to have as many children in general education as you can. I always just wonder is is is I have more enough. I mean, is that something you're always looking at? How often are you evaluating it? Um just to, you know, give kids the best opportunity they can to be in that gen situation. It's a great question. Mr. Roth is sitting over there saying absolutely not. I could use 50 more, right? As all of our building

056principles would would be saying. Um, I would and as I continue to talk with the building principles, if we ever would need to come back for more, we would come back and and have that dialogue. I trust the team's analysis going into say five would be maybe the floor of where we need to be. What I can tell you from my previous experiences, not so much in Garnet Valley, but even going back to my time as a teacher in Ridley, um, one of the things that was very, very helpful, so I was that direct instruction teacher who was pulling children in emotional support out, but as we were trying to then take something from that classroom experience that was a little bit more self-contained and then expanded out into a gened setting, the paraprofessional staff

057was crucial to that success because they were the ones that were then going to go with the student, help that student kind of be that Jiminy Cricut on the side on the year saying like, "Hey, remember this." And then you fade that support away. So five, yes, we want to make sure there's program support and then if we need to have more, that would be a discussion we would need to have. Um, I had a question as well. I'm curious to know um I I loved the data tables that showed um the count trends from 2019 23. I'm curious to know if you were to break that down by elementary and secondary and looked at those trends, would you see differences? Um, I'm most curious about the students that are coming in to our district

058brand new. Um, many communities and states have seen an increase in kids birth to five that are eligible for early intervention and preschool special ed. Are we seeing larger percentages of our incoming kindergarten, first grade, second students that have special education needs than we've seen in the past? Um, if you can't answer that now, that's okay. But I'd be really curious to know about that. You know, if those trends also apply to our certain kind of the district is I I want to talk to our psychologist and I can certainly get that data for you. I can tell you that the general trend that I've noticed just in previous experiences, yes, students are coming from early intervention. More students are coming from early intervention needing more services. Uh, but I would want to confirm that

059for here in Rose Street. And and Kelly, I can tell you anecdotally that over the last two years, yes, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of children coming out of early intervention. Dan will be able to look and get the actual numbers for what that looks like, but it it definitely is an increase at the lower elementary level is part of the increase that we see. I have one other question. I don't know if this is I don't know if this is a fair question, but as it's um not just the children being in school, but also what's going on at home, how do we bridge that gap? Like what do we offer as far as how we work with families when they have children who have these needs? Yeah, that's and that's

060a great question and and in the last slide, we also want to look No, you're it's a perfect question. It's a great segue. Um Yep. So, not only just our psychologist and related service providers, but you know that that second to last bullet. I I was blown away and excited to hear about how we have psychologists as a related service to be able to help students who are coming in with some carry-in behaviors that maybe are going to make it a little bit more challenging to be ready to learn. Um, we may need to to look to add a little bit more of that. And I would want to work with Bernardet and our home and school visitors and social workers that if we need to to build that part of of our our department

061up a little bit, we may need to do that. But the fact that there is already some supports in place, it's a great starting point to be able to do that. Yeah. What what do we currently do with families, you know, as we work with their as we work with Oh, sorry. I'm not usually this soft. Um, what is it that we do um for families? So, we we we get these kids in and their parents are not educators or school psychologists or anything like that, but their kids have special needs and do we currently work with our families to say this is what we're implementing at school and it would be really helpful if you extended this at home. you know, do do we coach our our the parents of these kids? Yes. I

062And I would, you know, in eight days, I've gotten it to be able to see this just a little bit with with our teachers. But the thing that and particularly and I'm pulling now from one MTSS meeting that that I attended um earlier today. But what I was really really excited about was watching the teachers and talking about the genuine relationships that they have with the parents and families to be able to meet just not the the the child but also families where they are and try to to move forward while also honoring the challenges that they may be facing at home as well. Right. Some of I I was fortunate that, you know, as an adult, I was able to be home to to help my children. When I think of my own upbringing

063though, my mom was working a second job so that my brother and I could then have different opportunities. She wasn't there to be able to help. So, making sure that that we're honoring our parents' experiences is also very important. Yeah. And I asked that question because similarly, my mom was a special education teacher before least restrictive environment came into play. Okay. So she went to people's houses on her own time to try and help. So I'm wondering now that we have least restrictive and and the kids are where they need to be, do we extend that help to their families? And um just in addition, this is Bill Doerty again for those of you on Zoom. We did contract, our district did contract with effective school solutions through um grant money. I forget which grant

064that was, Vanessa, exactly, but we did hold parent workshops um on Zoom and our student services um department surveyed the parents to ask which topics they would like to hear more about. So, we did do that as well and there have been um and obviously we'll continue to offer opportunities um just for general information, but also specific information for parents as well. Bill, how well attended were those Zoom meetings? Yeah, I'm not sure. I would have to I would have to go back and look. And based on the data that you gather, um will there be any um additional trainings for paraprofessionals? Will there be additional trainings for the teachers? Is that the goal of the data? So, one, as far as teachers and and paraprofessionals go, there's certainly going to be training as far

065as the amplify program goes with ELA. And then one of the things that we want to continue to do is work with our low incidence teachers and and the teams in the classrooms to be able to make sure that we're implementing programs with integrity and full fidelity. Yes. Thank you. And we do have um our flex day option where you know teachers can participate in an inservice activity and then they earn a flex day. But some of those flex options are specific to um teacher needs in response to students. So some of them direct rel direct um there's a direct correlation with student behaviors that they're seeing or it could just be um educating kids with a specific need that we're seeing a trend in whether it's ELA behaviors whatever the needs are then um

066we are respons responding with professional development. Any other questions from the board? Okay, I think we're good. Thank you very much. All right. Next up, we have um more CNI the enrollment courses under 15 at Penrest. So, as Mr. Ry Shushell, assistant principal at the high school and Mr. Ed Roth gets set up here. Um, as you know, in accordance with board policy that every year at this time, um, we ask the board to allow us to run certain courses with enrollment that is under 15. So um as course selection is underway or right you'll talk about where we are in that process and then um as we're getting up on the screen here we'll talk about um those courses specifically. Thanks. Good evening everyone. Uh thank you once again for inviting us here to

067talk with you. Um where we are in the course selection process and the scheduling process is uh course selection is completed and uh parents and students have received their verification forms uh via mail to review and we're in the process of making some adjustments uh after parents have had a chance to review them. Um we had a very productive schedule team meeting today in um entering uh student requests into eSchool. Um and I want to thank uh Mr. Harrison uh for setting up uh training with us with eShool uh to help us do a much more efficient process in doing the scheduling. So in theory we should be able to feed all of the requests into the computer with all the different parameters and it will help generate a student centric schedule for us. And

068what I mean by that is courses will be scheduled based on the request students made rather than setting a schedule and then hoping to feed in the request to that and and um assume they'll fit and if they don't having to readjust for the students. This will be make it a little bigger. I'm sorry. Um having difficulty figuring out how to do that in the Zoom. I'm sorry. Can you just do just do it right in the document? We're done. Oh, I see. Okay. Is that better? Yeah. Great. Sorry. Um, so at any rate, we're looking to build a much more student centric schedule um with lots of flexibility built in for our students. Part of that is um with the increase of um uh periods available for teachers to teach, we're able to offer

069some courses that may or may not have had a chance to run in the past. uh in an effort to uh hopefully bolster enrollment in those and build uh programs in in sequential courses. Uh so I'm going to talk a little bit about the courses that we will be offering uh next year and there's a couple that we won't be able to offer just uh for a myriad of reasons. Uh so we can start there at the top where our our modern Shakespeare course and modern intellectual history uh low enrollment uh uh I'm sorry low requests from students but also um fitting them into the teacher schedules just wasn't going to work in a way to make them run. Hopefully we'll be able to look at them and re-evaluate and see what we want to

070do with them for the future. Uh there are a couple of courses that we're going to run concurrently with each other in the same room uh uh in an effort to help these uh programs grow in what we're doing. So one coupling we're going to be doing is the uh second level of digital photo and digital design which is actually labeled digital photo one and digital design one. Uh the introduction level to those courses is is the first level of them. So this will be the first year that this uh these courses would be running. Um, and uh, in an effort to try to make them grow, we're going to run them together concurrently. Um, and the intro level is already run concurrently, so the students that have had the intro level are used to

071running those student courses together. Um, sticking in the art world, AP drawing, um, and art major 4, which I believe art major 4 is a new course offering this year. Um, so it's the next level. We're able to expand those art major offerings. Um and so it will run at the same time as AP drawing uh which a lot of those kids are kind of doing some similar projects in those courses. Anyway, uh our AP physics C courses uh one is our electro electronics and magnetism and the other one is uh mechanics. Those courses will run concurrently with each other um uh as they kind of already do this year. um a new coupling. We're actually going to be able to combine uh both of our advanced studies in technology. Uh architecture is one of

072those and engineering is the other. Uh previously those students were just kind of spattered into the other technology courses that were being offered as kind of an independent study. So this will give the students a chance to interact with each other. And as I was talking with Mr. Grammo, it's going to be cool that the architecture students can kind of design the building and then talk with the engineering students about how that might function and develop into that. So, a really great opportunity for them. Um, our AP Chinese language uh students will combine with uh our new course offering um and pardon me for the the pronunciation of this. Wen Hua um is is kind of a new elective uh that is a higher level elective for Chinese. And since the Chinese language course also

073deals with a lot of culture, those students that will be in for the UNWA, which is a culture course as well, uh we'll be able to uh pair with each other with that. Uh courses that we are looking to offer as a standalone um that are below 15 um art major 2 and art major 3 both trying to get the continuation of this program. We're hoping to really build these art major programs so that we'll have a cohort of students of of 20 to 25 for each year um coming in from 8th grade into doing this. So, it's going to take a little bit of time to build um our theater lab course and I'm actually going to go with the two right below that uh adventuresbased fitness and intro to ensembles. Uh we're actually

074going to be looking to combine our life skills students in with those courses. And what will happen is our life skill students will rotate in. Uh we're going to be offering eight courses in this realm. Only three of the courses that we're offering in this um rotation were below 15, but there's eight in total for each semester that the life skill students will rotate through and give them an opportunity to take courses that they wouldn't normally be able to take and be in classes with um their cohorts um in learning and developing together. Um the multicultural literature course um we'll we're looking to run that to add breadth to our English courses. Um advanced child development and the only reason I mentioned this one here is uh originally in our program of studies that we

075it was going to be offered as a two credit course. Um due to some other circumstances it's going to be uh only one credit and run only one semester. There may be a couple of independent study kids that do the whole year. Uh but this is what's going to function best for the program and for our building for next year. Uh Trouidors and Ambassador Choir um are ensembles that currently run. Um typically they have lower numbers. Um the Trouidors is a meant for teners and bases and they're developing voices and trying to figure that out and that works really well with lower numbers. And the Ambassador Choir is our traveling performing choir. AP music theory we're going to be running and we're actually going to be running both music theory in the fall and AP

076music theory in the spring. Some of those students are actually taking both of those courses. Uh so they'll be really prepared to do well on the AP music theory course. Um AP African-American studies we're going to be running again um keeping that breadth of studies and social studies. Um AP economics um is actually all of the students are taking both micro and macroeconomics as a block course for the year. Um, history through film is a new course. So, we're trying to help that program grow by offering that. Um, French language one and I'm sorry the number is that not not there. That should be I think there's a total of five students in um those courses combined. Um talked uh really long with uh Kimberly Rivier about this. Um and our our our school right

077now is part of the PSMLA uh Golden Globe uh award. And in order to make sure we have a continuation of that, uh they do a benchmark test at level one and then another test uh at AP level. Um and if we're not able to offer the level one course, then we're not able to continue with this. Uh so um Kimberly is going to working really hard on trying to bolster those numbers in and French one moving forward. We've got some ideas on how we're going to do that. um lemon North Africa. We're going to keep that um partly because of the breadth of studies, but also if we're offering the other lean and it's a half credit, we kind of have to offer another one on the other side of that so it it

078syncs up. Uh similarly with our LCA course, um in order to make sure that the half credits line up for the teacher schedule, we we we're offering that. Any questions? So those French courses are that includes eighth grader rising ninth graders in that registration at this point. Yes. In fact, it is all rising ninth graders at this point. So it's it's it's any student that hasn't started French yet or only took uh French 1A in 8th grade. Any other questions from the board? Okay. I was also asked tonight to talk about our Keystone exam schedule as part of this FYI. Um so we are uh shifting our Keystone exam schedule uh slightly. In previous years it was four days of testing. This year we need to increase to six uh days of testing. Part of

079the reason why is we have a significantly larger number of algebra 1 students that will be taking the Keystone exam. Um, in fact, it's probably about oop, excuse me, uh, about a hundred more students. And also, we have 118 students that need to take all three exams. And if we're combining um, algebra 1 and literature on the same day, that doesn't really give them a fair opportunity to do that. It also increases the likelihood of students who would need to then do the makeup day and then they're being pulled out of their regular classes to be able to do that. So in doing this, it it gives the best opportunity for all of our students to do well with this. Um we also um have AP testing running the same time through those days. Um

080and so our resources are stretched very thin with teachers to be able to pull off doing both the uh algebra 1 and the literature and the AP tests on all on the same day. So this allows us to really use our resources effectively with that. So, this is what the schedule will be. And I'm sorry that's really small for you. Um, is that a little better? Um, this is what the schedule will be uh for these days where we'll be running on a three-hour delay and uh the courses that uh come in after testing will rotate through so that students aren't removed from their morning classes for six days straight uh right before we're getting close to finals. Okay, thank you. What What did the accommodations line mean? What does accommodations mean? In the test,

081it was like 98 kids. Oh, I'm sorry. So, um we have uh in with these students um we have the approxim students in each test that need accommodations and what that requires is um small smaller setting. Um some students even need a onetoone because they need the test read to them. And so that's just stretching our resources even further that we only have x number of rooms and people available to testing accommodations are part of some students IEPs. All right, thank you all. Thank you. Have a wonderful evening. All right, next uh we have a let's see a few contracts under student services. Are there questions about those? Any questions about the contracts that are listed? No, I was just going to make a comment about how I really appreciate the um leadership conference at

082Sandy Hill. Um all the students that I know who have participated have gotten so much out of that conference and you know really good for teaching our kids leadership before they leave this building. Yes, that's a um son's pointing out an overnight field trip with the high school that's been scheduled for November 15th to 17th. Mr. Jacobs, um one of the teachers over at the high school and and Mr. Roth and the team just do an amazing job. Um and any child that wants to attend attends. Um so it's it's incredibly well done. All right, so we can move on. It's a CNI, the overnight field trips, and um H is applied video technology for the Springton Lake Auditorium. And if I can just point out, Dr. Napsson Williams, um this work that's being done

083in the in the Springton Lake Auditorium was included, it's budgeted this year. This is something that was approved um previously, and this has just taken some time to get everything together to get them to do the work. So, um this is what we are expecting. it'll be ready to go. So, it'll be up and and running uh for the opening of the academic year. Okay. Do you mind if I just add a real quick comment? Um I just received word today from the company who's doing the work that the tariffs have impacted the cost. So, the cost has raised $5,000 and that will be included in the contract for you guys to sign before the next meeting. So, all right, we'll move on to finance and operations if there are no more questions about education

084and wellness. All right. Um, first up is the K1 Center update. Thank you, Dr. Napsson Williams. So, we have members of our outside professional team who are here this evening. Uh, David Schrader, Phil Solomon, Jennifer Grafton are all here from the team. So, I'm going to turn it over to them. They've got a a presentation just to kind of let you know where we are right now and and what's going on in process as we continue to move forward with the full day K and first grade center. Very exciting times. Um, I think David and Phil, I don't think they're tired of hearing from me yet on my questions because they keep answering all of them, but I'm excited for them to uh to be here tonight. And we're just waiting for the the presentation

085to come up on the screen. It'd be a good time for a haiku. Dr. Malashsh just got here. Mr. Docker and I just had a discussion today because I'm going to share stuff about the fields later and I had a couple of different haikus I was going to put in. I held them back because there are already a lot of words in uh in the in the presentation, but you know, last weekend was the poem in my pocket um throughout town. So, I know I heard from Did you get some pizza or a goodie? I I did not, but I did hear that many of our children were very busy throughout the day in the burrow. It It's fantastic. Um, Miss Hatton, the librarian over at Indian Lane, and the team that she works with

086do such a beautiful job uh to encourage the children's participation and then to hear the stories and to see the pictures of them out and about. And the folks in town are so gracious and and granted a lot of them are from here, right? They're from the area, but especially on a weekend there are a lot of people that are not from media. They're not from the bur. They're not from the district who are out and about and shopping and they listen and they engage and interact with the kids at Trader Joe's and they give the kids the most, right? And they do it through the I have not been there, but I've heard they do it over throughout the store. I Well, I was just going to ask if anybody knew the the score

087of the Phillies game, but anybody watching? It's not great yet, but growth mindset. Um, we're down by one. Okay. But it's only the third and baseball is a little longer, so I think we have some time to regroup. Thank you very much. But it was great hearing about the poem in your pocket. We're getting very close. Let me see if I can if I can pop it up. Well, we'll take Dr. Malashsha's version. Well, thank you for having us tonight. We have a very short presentation. It's a it's it's really a little bit I apologize. I should know that by now. Um, so just just three key things. We're going to go through some of the inspiration, a little bit about the schedule, and then some next steps. So, David's going to start talk about

088some of the programming we've been doing and the things that have been inspiring programming to this this portion. Sure. So, thank you very much and I did want to make sure that Jennifer Graphne Ganister gets acknowledged here. She is our K to2 leader new to us and uh we'll be very engaged in your projects. So, um so this has been an interesting time. We've been programming which is assigning the spaces that we need for a project like this. And in doing that, we've also been trying to work through a process of almost virtual tours of spaces to try to work uh almost backwards from things that are out there to try to support the educational programs you have. So, two presentations, actually the third one with the architecture in the high school was very intriguing

089to us, but certainly literacy and all of the learning support type programs that we just went through are the kinds of things that we've been talking about uh supporting through this project. And so, we kind of call this design aspirations. And of many of those virtual tours that we've been going through, we've been looking at a variety of space types. And as you can imagine, when you start to look at space types, you have to think about the square footages that go along with that. But certainly the extended learning environments are the kinds of things that allow both the push in and the pull out concept for learning support. These are also projectbased spaces to allow the students to have both individualized areas to work as well as team-based areas to work. And at the

090K1 level, we're certainly focusing on several major things. One obviously is literacy like we talked about earlier. A second one is community building and socialization. So you have to have spaces to support that and then play clearly at that level along with the foundations for all of the other academic types of programs that we're trying to develop. So the spaces you see here are spaces that we've been looking at as teammates. Uh both these teaming spaces as well as those individualized spaces that you see on the right hand side. You will eventually see models of the project probably in the next month or two and they'll have spaces like these to begin to look at. Uh we as a team have been looking very heavily at that connection to nature, daylighting and so on. It's

091interesting when you look at projects like these, you see the same age grouping and while all of us even at our ages really appreciate the daylighting and that connection to nature, it's even more important at this age range. And so those kinds of spaces are the kinds that we've been building into the projects. Those team-based spaces, more of those uh projectbased and then outdoor indoor uh connections are important. The other things that are starting to happen more so in the buildings that we're seeing are both these little these small pullout spaces for the individual to do the things that they need to do, but also uh graphics and built-in manipulatives in the spaces and in these circulation areas. And so the concepts that we've been talking about are these tactile type spaces throughout the building

092so that you don't get any of that institutional look. Uh it's really child-based and age-based as you start to develop these kinds of spaces. This is just another one of those and many of the buildings that we've been doing these days have some level of graphic content. That graphic content is age specific. We try to make sure that it's something that you can interchange as the uh the buildings evolve and as your educational programs evolve. The community spaces are critical. Back to that literacybased program. Uh all of those types of spaces on the left and then again those community-based spaces on the right. All uh age appropriate to the K1 population that we've been talking about. So all of these are getting square footage allocations in the program. Next time we're with you, I suspect

093that you will begin to see some of those spaces popping up in models. Awesome. Thank you, David. I I have a very short update. I'll get center. Um, you know, schedule's moving along fine. We're still on track for everything. Civil engineering is advancing well. We have had the wetland survey. There's no surprises. That's a good thing. Um, so that's all good. No turtles that we have to worry about. There's all these kind of things that you have to look for for environmental. Um, so all that all that's going well. We're still looking to have the construction of the project, go through all the design, everything else. You'll see much more about design, you know, in the coming months. Uh, looking to land the project uh for construction between May of 26 and May of 28.

094That's when it would be done. So, kind of spring of 28 to leave the summer to move in. Uh, we had looked at, you know, maybe pulling that back a little bit towards December. There's really no benefit to that. Uh there is some float in the schedule right now which is always a good thing because there are unexpected things that could come up. Um we've all experienced COVID and all those kind of things and who knows what's going to be uh in the future. So it's good to have a good uh schedule with a little bit of float in it. Uh it should give plenty of time to move in as I said uh in summer and then be ready for that for that school year. And the next steps is as David said, we

095are we are finalizing program uh you know their team will be doing a lot about the developing schematic design which you'll see you know these ideas advance quite a bit. We do have virtual building tours um 360 tours of any building for anyone who hasn't seen uh gone on any of the tours for early learning. We can certainly get that to everyone. Anyone can participate uh and very shortly we'll be looking at schematic design presentations to you. We did have a um we did have a presentation today about energy efficiency. So it's never too early to start that in the process. The earlier you start thinking about efficiency, the better you can design it into the building. So we're already talking about HBAC systems, efficiency, renewables, those kind of things. We'll be bringing some of

096that information to you with payback life cycle costs and those kind of things in probably the next month or so. Um, so all of that can come together into the schematic package which is kind of sets the building up. From there you kind of design out everything else and you're you're setting all of your systems at that point. So still early in the process but uh you know all the pieces are coming together and very pleased with how everything has been coming together with this project. I have a question. Sure. Do we have a conversation about um prioritizing some of these pieces like um like uh environmental impact and and different designs of things that we want in the building? Those Yes, you you will certainly have input to that. I mean, we're not bringing

097that just to show you. We're bringing that for decision. So, you know, there there are some good, better, best kind of solutions uh in terms of efficiency and such. And I I'm sorry. I well I just want to be clear like I I think especially now with I mean we just found out that we were already impacted by tariffs I like as a as a board do will we prioritize the places where we want to spend money will we have a conversation about that so all all good questions we we will be tracking the budget as we go um you know there I don't no one actually knows what what will happen in the longer term but as we get more data because you know uh both David's team and my team are always bidding

098projects. We're in the market. We're we're watching that. We start to see impact, we'll have to we'll talk about it. There are contingencies built into the budget um both for both for just um regular design contingencies construction, but there's also some escalation in there. Um just anticipating escalation was going to continue. Um it was not as steep as you know if something terrible happens with tariffs and it's 10 or 20%. That's not the kind of escalation. So if that starts to really materialize in the market after things shake out, we will have conversations and then you know we would have to prioritize what the what the most important things are and and then work to that and some of it too Hillary um discussions will be ongoing over the course of the next year if

099we expect to break ground next June right over the course of the next 10 months 11 months there's going to be a lot of talk about what's going to be finalized as David talked about you'll start to see some more uh detailed schematic designs and we will talk about the big picture things the board about what it is that you value what does the community value what are we looking to see uh and what's that going to be when it starts to get into more specifics again over the course of that time we'll have more discussions in here and there may come a time when it's you know what do you value A or B you know as Phil is talking about you know this is one cost if we want to do this this

100is a second cost if we do this if we eliminate this and include this you know to go through um very conscious of what that dollar amount that that a little over $81 million and what that means um you know and our responsibility the board's responsibility you know to be good financial stewards of this is what we expect this is what we want to do at the property this is what we expect to see in terms of the building um you know to provide the opportunity for the children that are there to match up with what the teachers are doing uh and as as as Phil and David talked about you know with the project coming complete in the spring of 2028 you know we will expect that we will launch the full day kindergarten

101In September of 28, the first year that the building is open will only be full day kindergarten. We will not move the children who are going from kindergarten to first grade in the four elementary schools. We will not move the first grade into the school that first year. So it'll start kindergarten in year 1, 2028, 2029. It'll be kindergarten, first grade, 2029, 2030 be the first year that both of those grade levels will be in there. I just want to say enthusiastic yes to all of those images you showed. I mean, you don't need to be an architect to appreciate that. They were beautiful, especially the tactile learning, like you said, like those cutouts and spaces for individual kids. I'm just really thrilled we're able to offer this to our community. People don't realize how

102buildings affect little learners and their brains, and I'm just so pleased that we can really give this to our community, and I'm really glad that you're on a team and and can give that for us. else. Thank you. It's, you know, Jack, you bring it up and it's something that we've talked in here just about the developmental stage and what it means for kindergarteners and first graders. You know, traditionally the school buildings like the ones that we have in district or or any place here in the county, the majority of them were designed to be elementary schools, kindergarten through sixth grade, any schools like that are designed with older children in mind. Then the younger children have to adapt. but to truly have a space that developmentally is appropriate for kindergartens and first graders. We've

103had the discussions, some the initial discussions about ramps rather than stairwells. What does that look like? How do the children navigate the building? What's the organization of the classrooms together? Right? Where are we asking the kids to go? Where are the bathrooms going to be located, you know, for the children to get get to? It looks different for for five, six, and seveny olds, you know, as they're going to as they're going to be in a building like that. Um, and having that opportunity is something that's unique. as as the guys are here presenting just um something I want to mention because it it's come up in some questions as I've heard from folks and I'm thrilled I've had the opportunity to meet with some new community members that I had not yet met over

104the last couple of weeks and people have reached out via email. Um one of the questions that that's come up a couple of times as we prepare to transition we'll be launching a new website about the project so we can focus specifically on it. You know, is there were discussion back then in 2016 2017ish, you know, about the school and the decision at that time was to do a KTO to five school and that was the decision that was made, you know, which was eight years ago, you know, in terms of where we are. We've taken the information that we had at that point. We've looked at the needs of where we are in the district, the property that we own, and what we are able to do and have applied that differently, right, to

105what is the solution. Um, one of the things that I've learned in in these decades, you know, as an educator, is is there's no in quotes, and I'm doing air quotes with the people that are looking listening online, there's no right way to organize schools. There's space and there's money, right? And and we can adapt as educators. The most adaptable of anybody involved in a school are the children, right? It's the adults that that sometimes struggle. There's no right way to organize schools. There's what works best for a community to service the needs of the families and the children who are there. Um, I'm thrilled with the the foresight that the that the board has taken on and it's been a journey to get to where we are, but to make the commitment to say

106that we're going to offer full day kindergarten and provide a center for kindergarten and first grade where we can truly focus on those kids and on a property where there are some very natural tie-ins with the children at the high school and what does that look like? You know, one of the other questions that's come up is, you know, was about the the notion of a community school and I believe in community schools and neighborhood schools. You know, when you again neighborhood being an air quote, so what does a neighborhood really look like? You know, the the media elementary school as a neighborhood school looks different as a neighborhood school than Glenwood Elementary School looks like as a neighborhood school just in terms of access and accessibility. And how are children arriving on that site?

107the opportunity for second graders and fifth graders through fifth graders to be together in a building who are all at the age and developmental stage of being active participants and everything that goes on in the school environment is different than kindergarteners through third graders being together in an environment. Kindergarters in that first full day, first real public school setting is different for them. They are learning how do we do school? What does school look like? It's more intact and and more of the kindergarteners together. First graders are starting to expand in terms of what they're doing a different reality by the time they get back to the second through fifth grade school full active participants and everything that goes on on a daily basis from assemblies to programs that are going on to experiences and

108opportunities within the building. And I'm going to add to that, and it was what Jackie said too, is that now all kindergarteners and first graders in the district will have the same experience at the same new environment that's catered to kindergarten and first graders. Um, there was some concern among people in the district that we have four old elementary schools and we would have one sparkly new one. Well, now the uh quote sparkly new school every student in the district will have an opportunity to take advantage of and what they learn and the norms that are done they all start in one place the same norms and how things go whether it's assemblies and behavior and everything else and then they take that to all their different schools. No, when when you can take 20

109kindergarten teachers and the special ed teachers and the support folks all together at the same time, you know, as Dr. Barry and the team went through and talked about the LA program that language acquisition and what the foundation is that we can provide in that foundational bookend for kids in kindergarten and first grade all in the same place to be able to have interventions to be able to provide support to be able to work together is going to be such an incredible opportunity and benefit for the children who are here. Um, again, the the greatest benefit that we have in our district, the greatest resource that exists are the human beings who work here, right? We are fortunate. We have an incredibly talented and dedicated staff. To provide a facility that supports what they're doing

110for our youngest learners is something that's truly beautiful. Dr. Malashsh, I this is inspiring and and those pictures are gorgeous. And the first thing that popped into my head, the first thing that popped into my head was uh what's the transition going to be like for those first graders going into second grade after being in that wonderful space and interactive space and then they're suddenly in a very traditional or more traditional kind of space and also about their socialization with the kids who they will not be with anymore. Uh I know it's 2030 we're talking about, but still I'm curious what you're thinking. I I definitely want to hear it. I will say right like I think our current spaces are also pretty nice. I don't want to put too much emphasis on we have

111this beautiful picture and then they have to go to our other spaces. I mean just the interactive walls they're very good. Um they are good they are good schools but you know that's uh it's a whole different experience is what my point is. So, it's Ken, it's a it's a good question and something that there will be ongoing discussion about between now and when those children prepare, you know, when they come in as first graders in the fall of of 2029, what that first grade year is going to look like and what transition looks like for them to get ready to go back into the elementary schools, you know, with the children with whom they're going to be in their neighborhood school or in their in their local school. Um, that's part of the discussion

112that go on over the next couple of years as we talk about what's the curriculum going to look like, what's going to look different, what's going to feel different. Um, I agree with Susan. U, we have some great schools. Media Elementary School is one of the most beautiful schools I've ever been in in my life. Um, to go through, but yes, set up in a very traditional manner. Are there things that can be adjustable in the hallways and in the envelope build in the envelope of the building? Some again, the the the magic happens with what goes on in the classroom. Um and we will start to take a look at what does furniture look like, what materials are we providing, how are we organizing what goes on classrooms, you know, what are we doing

113to support whether it's in terms of professional development or materials, but what are we asking teachers to do and how can we provide for them? You know, the the evolution with education is it continues to grow and to change going up, right? that the children that had arrived as as five-year-olds in in kindergarten have had dramatically different life experiences than when I was five years old in Detroit, you know, back in the in the mid 1970s, you know, and it has to constantly change and that will continue to grow all the way up through to the schools. Having this K1 center will have a dramatic impact on what second grade through fifth grade looks like. And when that starts to change, it'll also have a dramatic impact in what sixth grade through 8ighth grade and

114then up into the high school. Listen, Mr. Roth is thrilled, right? that first group when they get there and it's it's not going to be till the late 2030s, right? When they hit ninth grade, but when they get there, it's going to be a whole different reality. Are there any other questions from the board? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Milan, for having All right. So, uh, we will be moving to the capital projects update and, um, while we're setting up the the screen. Oh, it's already set up. Never mind. But I do want Okay, they're winning now. The Oh, the Phillies are tied now. But I I do want to say to board members in the room, I'm like I'm doing these hand gestures. I want you to speak up so

115people in the room can hear you because our um the audio is great for people who are listening, but if I'm having trouble hearing you, you need to make sure that people everyone can hear. So, it may sound like you're yelling and I don't know if it sounds like I am. I'm used to it. I you know, as a teacher, but we need to make sure everyone can hear you. All right, we'll move to capital projects. I'm off first. I, you know, after following this beautiful building we're going to build, I take a little offense to our old buildings, right? Yes. So true. I mean, we're doing a lot of So, this is this is where this is where we come into play. So, it's a good it's a good followup to uh go forward

116with our capital projects. Uh, I'm Michael Nolan, supervisor of maintenance and operations. I'm Dennis Sini, manager of capital projects. Let's talk about our good schools. We're dealing with them. Um, let's see. Rose tree and and Glenwood. We're going to continue our electrical service. We started last month. We need to finish up this summer to assist in our air conditioning projects which will be happening. Um, media skylight and rose tree windows. They're all in fabrication. And I do not see any reason for any delays on this project at this point. It'd be in pretty good shape. Yeah, we might have to add a little piece in from the awning um from the from the storm the other day. We had one panel that was damaged. So, uh we're looking at I had someone out come out

117today to check that out. Yeah. My fourth grade neighbor across the street is very concerned. So, I will be sure to tell him it's going to be taken care of. Yeah, it will be taken care of. Franklin Lake Track. Um, that's going to be dependent upon our EPA storm water management review. Um, I'm hopefully going to get this out to bid May, probably June, be honest with you. Um, and we'll have to see what the timing goes as far as when the bids come in and when we get approval. So, probably late summer, early fall for construction. our air conditioning upgrades at Glenwood and Rosary. In fact, they will be starting next week. Next week. Yep. We're taking ceilings down and the corers of both schools and we're going to start our roughin work. So,

118there'll be a little bit of what's the word? Well, everything will be safe. Um, they're going to start taking some ceilings down, but it's, you know, it's a good advantage to get new ceilings and new LED lights. um so we can get those project underway so we can meet our deadlines by the end of summer. It's going to be a tight project. I mean the units aren't coming in until late July, early August. So that's going to be tight to get them in, but we're pushing. Springton Lake Cafeteria, again, we're starting over spring break. They're going to start doing some interior demolition work. um start work for the new toilet rooms and eventually start right outside with some new foundation, work for the addition. Yeah, materials um some materials starting to come in tomorrow um

119being dropped off at right after lunch and yep, they're going to start some demolition in the break room or the uh chill room I think they call it. Um and also build some temporary walls to, you know, keep everybody safe. They're also adding a um a door in the storage room for um evac in case in case we need to evacuate egress an egress door because we'll be blocking off one of the doors. So, just to make sure everybody's, you know, safe during construction. Okay. Our Penrest High School Indian Lane projects are out to bid now. Um bids are coming in on the 22nd. I'd like to bring this contract award to the April 24th legislative meeting which will give us time to order materials. Okay. And this is for family consumer science TV studio

120five science rooms and Ephus at Indian Lane. I think someone asked me last time about the repair. All the Ephus is getting a new coating so it will all look new. And just tell people again what Ephas is. exterior insulated finish system. It's a synthetic on foam insulation. Thank you. I'm gonna drop that into my daily conversation now. I just thought it look like I'm in the know. I had to ask Dennis when I got here what it was, too. I always bought it driving. Yeah, I was the one who asked the question because I didn't know if we were replacing it with something else or we were repairing it. Okay. Recoding it. Yes. Okay. Hey, HVAC media and in the in lane that project those projects are in the actual design phase. We're going

121to bid those in the fall for next summer installation and our beautiful schools. Yes. Yes. Schools are beautiful. That wasn't that wasn't my point. That wasn't my point. I do want to thank um I want to thank you all for always working so hard to keep everything on schedule. Um, and also I'm not sure how how what role you have in the communication of certain projects, but I I will say again anecdotally that both of my children were super pumped about the cafeteria expansion. So the way it's been communicated to even the our students, right, they are very excited. Well, one is a little quite honestly excited but also jealous because she will be leaving before it's done. But the other one is very very pumped. And so I just say that of course from

122this end I know we all value it and recognize its importance but I think we got to give whatever role you play credit to Dr. Saladino on that one. It's been great and so it's like his baby and he's very pumped and yeah he's very very but I appreciate that you know it really it does seem to be something that the students also um it's respond directly to their needs and they recognize it as such and so that is special. Thank you. It's going to be quite nice when it's done. And and I will I want to add too that while our schools are older, they really are beautiful and they're so clean, they're so clean and they're so wellmaintained. And I don't say that lightly because, you know, I've been to my nephew's school

123and it looks great on the outside, but it's terrible on the inside. So they are beautiful and our kids do look well maintained. But we are I definitely have to give um some props while I can to our building foremen and the custodians. I mean, I came from another district and I must say when you walk into schools at this time of year, typically the floors are not as shiny. But when I go in there at night and things are buffing floors, so I I really have to give them some credit. They do an amazing job. And folks, just because he's here publicly and thank you, special thank you to Mike and to his team for last Friday in the midst of the a aftermath of the storm um and the challenges that that occurred

124with media having to go to an FID day. Uh, Indian Lane was on the edge. Um, Mike and Vanessa and Bill and Barbara and the principles and their teams um throughout the course of the morning early in the morning talking about what's going on um when the decisions were made. But but Mike and the the facilities folks at all the different schools and the the district team uh the work that they did to make sure that the buildings were safe to get into. Um that people the ed center was out all day that people could move over here to Springton to do work. Um but that things were taken care of and appropriately watched. Um you know just in nobody expects in the beginning of April that we're going to deal with a weather event

125such as that uh that's going to have such a dramatic impact. Um but planning preparation and great communication and leadership you know with the team uh definitely uh showed through. I would also say just thank you because I have to eat some crow here. The foresight that was shown as much as I loved that beautiful tree at Indian Lane um storm like that indicated the importance of making sure that if we have anything that is going to be a safety hazard or dead to take care of that and to have that foresight. So thank you very much. You know, Susan, we actually talked about that tree that was behind Indian Lane in the playground, which was removed when we redid the the surface and um and reset all of the the playground stuff. The tree

126was not well. U but we talked about we don't know that that tree because of the damage that came through in that area that that tree would have survived which could have been significant uh significant problem. So, yeah. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. I just was hoping to make it through a whole weekend without 5 a.m. call. Right, Bill? I called you again. Thank you. All right, so we're going to move on to the 2025 2026 proposed final budget, the PDA form 2028. Give us a second to pull it up. I think people should be able to see the the screen for the proposed final budget information. We will be starting in a few seconds. Dr. Napson Williams as they get set up for the the board members, there were some questions um at

127the the last meeting, the last work session about some of the things that inform the decisions that are made uh with made in building the budget. So, I gave the board members a just a brief handout that Dr. Scott and her team put together. Um the top chart just shows you the enrollment. Uh now this is the official count from the October 1 count that goes through. Uh I can tell you that we have finished the academic year with a higher enrollment than we had in October 1st of each of the years. But you can just see the the difference. And um Vanessa's team, they broke it down by school. In 2019, there were 3,953 students enrolled in the Rose Tree Media School District. On October 1st of this year, there were 4,269 students. Uh

128and Dan Harrison when he did his presentation told you that there were more than 4,000 4,300 students in January of this year. Um so our enrollment continues to grow to go up. This is a desirable place for people to raise their children um in a community in which to live. Um the second piece was there was a question about the impact on the budget for the new positions that were added. Uh, and you'll be able to see again what those are this evening when um Heather and Vanessa go through the the presentation. Um, but the impact is $1,146,6950 based on those new positions. And then the impact on the cost of benefits for those positions is $92,821. Um, so a little over um $2 million for the impact of those new positions. And again, you'll

129see the list that's in there. Uh, one of the slides that's on here talks about uh what the uh the average tax assessment. Um, and then uh one of the ones that's on here has the tax assessment of $500,000. $500,000 tax assess assessment is actually at the 75th percentile for the district. Um, so we look to find out where that fit in the chart. And then the other one, the other table that's on here for you that's that'sformational uh shows the residential property differences when we talked about that there have been an aggregate an increase of 600 new residences between 2019 and 2025. Uh and this has a breakdown between Edgemont Media, Middletown Township, and Upper Providence. uh takes you through each of the years from 2019 through 2025 uh with increases uh and decreases.

130There are a variety of reasons um that are provided. It's it's not an exact with the information that we've received from the municipalities. Um sometimes a residents can come off the tax role. Um Vanessa be a veteran has received an an exemption. Um it could be a a transition to um from a residential to a commercial property. Um it could be that the raising of a house and the house was not replaced on a property uh as well. So there are variety of reasons. We do not have all the specific reasons for the individual ones um you know that that have taken place. But you can see just the the significant difference and and two of the things that really jumped out at me um on here is that shows that both media and Upper

131Providence have shown a decrease in aggregate um of ones going through I thought it was weird myself. And then with residential that Edgemont and uh Middletown Township with Middletown Township in aggregate being the largest increase with 58 in and among themselves uh in aggregate increase uh in those six years. Um so just some information the board had asked about you know that informed the information that goes into this larger presentation. Uh but I'm now going to turn it over to Heather Hogan um to deliver. Joe, can I ask one question about the money? Um, you about the incremental of the new positions. Yes. Heather and Vanessa, we often have um an assessment of um you know, when teachers with longevity retire, they're at a much higher salary rate than our what we generally hire. We

132hire new teachers. Um, and there's often a an evaluation of how much money that differential is because often that money helps um supplement the hiring of all these new additional um positions. Do we have that information? So, a specific amount of what the new positions are costing you guys. It's often Tom that usually presented that information and so correct we don't have it we can get it I know it's often a substantial amount of money do you and when we budget you know for the new positions that are in there I think we budgeted step three of the right does that sound right Bill uh step three of the of the the teachers guide you know to go through so it's at the lower end um of what the guide is you know for payment.

133Um, and I think we what do we say we had five teachers, six teachers retire. Heather, do you have I don't eight teachers retire. So, they did take a look at what that looks like. Um, I don't believe that we have what that breakage is in in dollars tonight, though. But we can find that. We can get that. Yes. Okay. So on the first slide, we'll go back over the timetable. Um PTE requires the district to approve our budget by June 30th. Rose Tree Media has historically um approved it in at our May legislative meeting so that we can get our tax bills add in time. So the next steps are at the April legislative meeting, we hope to adopt the proposed final budget. And then May 2nd, we'll make it available for public inspection.

134On May 12th, we will have public notice of intent to adopt our budget. And at the May legislative meeting on the 22nd, we hope to adopt our final general fund budget. So then we'll go on to some budget key points. And the last time that you viewed the budget, some of the differences are that we do have eight faculty members retiring and one resigning. We also have an administrator retiring. The administration had contractual increases of 3% and faly of almost 5%. The ad soup 2 confidential employees, transportation, custodial maintenance groups and the secretaries are still um to be negotiated. So we don't have those figures for us yet. Paser's rate increased um.1%. We are maintaining all of the current programs that we have. The first look of the budget included an increase of medical of

13513.48. Our final look is 12.72. So that's a little bit of a a decrease from what we saw last month. And our prescription, we originally had the first look at 10%, it came in at 9.74 in the final look. And unfortunately, our first look of dental was 5% and equipment at seven. But we still have um our vision is already guaranteed through June 26 and we still have waiting on figures for life, accidental death and workers comp. Can I ask you a question here before we move slides? Did you put something in as a placeholder for these contract groups that are still being negotiated? Was it? Yes. Yes. Right. Okay. I forgot the YouTube can't hear my headshake. Okay. Um, so as Dr. Malashsh mentioned and Bill mentioned previously, these are the new positions in

136the 2526 budget. We have two elementary classroom teachers at Indian Lane, two um teachers at the elementary level for bus size, a special education teacher at each of the elementary schools, also one at Springton Lake, a reading specialist at Springton Lake, the math teacher at Penrest, a school psychologist, an RBT, five special education aids, and we are reallocating an instructional coach for special education And so this number did change slightly from what Dan presented and we are hazing him. That's why we didn't let him know that. So he had 17 and now there are 18 positions a teacher was added. So the changes since last month that you saw um our social security and users went down just a little bit but in revenue due to the salary changes that we've made and the transfer

137taxes we increased by 80 grand. And then you'll see the salary decreases but the slight benefit increase. And then we made department changes to lower our projected use of fund balance to $2,784,53. This slide just depicts the same thing and reiterates that we're proposing a 3% tax increase. And we have the lovely pie chart which shows the increase in local taxes due to the proposed tax increase, the increase in state subsidy based on salaries for the retirement and social security um reimbursements and then very little change in federal. So um you know federal is a very small amount but in past years it's been like.17%. So you know federal contribution is now double what it used to be but double of very little is still very little. Can I ask a question? Oh, I'm sorry.

138I would never apologize for asking a question or asked to ask a question. [Laughter] What are dear department changes for one and a half million? So, We had several department changes. Um, so we cut some things from the budget such as uh port so I'll jump in a little. So we as we talked about at the March we would go through so March was what everyone requested right? So since March we've going through and looked at some things trying to analyze whether or not we needed some of the requests from different departments. We can go through all of them if you like, but it was definitely there were requests that some of them were more capital than general fund requests and some were after conversations were things that weren't an immediate need. Jack, I can

139I can give you one concrete example. Right. So, one of the things and I'm looking over to Mr. Nolan sitting over there. There was a new vehicle, a new work vehicle was included a after we lost eight vehicles in the f eight vehicles in the fire and we're in the process of replacing them. We removed that new work vehicle out of so facilities, buildings and grounds is a department, right? Could be the high school. There could have been something, you know, each of the different areas to go through. But that's a real concrete example. And the poor guy sitting there, he's like, I I still could have used it. Okay. Okay. I think though you raised a good point with the fire is that all of our vehicles are going to be the same age.

140And in the past we've kind of replaced one a year every year and you know with them all being the same age it's going to look like a windfall for several years but then we're going to be hit really hard at some point. So how do we make sure we acrew for that or or do something that allows us to have a little bit of flexibility there? Right. Mr. is already working on a preventative maintenance plan and what it looks like when the guys are using the vehicles and how we're taking care of them. This slide is the actual picture from the 2028 a breakout of our revenue of local sources. So our local revenue is 103,691,023. Then you can see the detail of our state and federal revenue giving us a bottom line of

141the 126,340,746. Then there's your pie chart of our expenses. I'm sorry and maybe this question is better for later. I just apolog It's because of you. Um I am really concerned. I know there's no way to figure out what's going to happen with the craziness that's going on right now with the federal government, but how are we planning for some of these expenses that will likely be impacted? The least of which are the cost of vehicles, but also supplies for our schools. So, going back up to the federal, the budget has about $436,000 of federal expenses. And if something were to happen then because again when we go through this none of the federal things are ever approved at the point that we're doing the budget. If those monies were to go away at this

142point it would be again just coming out of fund balance. It would be an increase of our usage of fund balance. And it's not only that money going away. That's not even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how we might be impacted by tariffs. You know they're they're here. They're gone. They're here. They're gone. But but on some level correct and I know it's difficult it's a challenging question to prepare for that and those are the things that we would have to work through like if prices start changing then there are definitely other things that we possibly would not do Vanessa I think that's the I think that's the best most honest answer we can give right now with that right there's there will be a constant evaluation you know again one of the

143advantages and and you all see it each here or have seen it each year as the as the auditors come and present. And we've had clean audit after clean audit. Um the folks in in Vanessa's department, you know, and upstairs on the third floor do an incredible job of monitoring where all the dollars are, where they're supposed to be going, excuse me, and how they're being spent. So there's a consistent and constant evaluation going on about what's left, where are we, what's happening. Um, so there'll be ongoing evaluation about what are we spending money on? What does that look like? Will we come to a time where there may have to be prioritization? We may. We don't know. I mean, that's the just like planning our households right now. You know, again, because there's been

144a level of of fiscal accountability and good stewardship with the money that we receive. Um, you know, we have a nest egg that we save. you know, we again as appropriate through um you know, the state requirement and what the limits are on that, but we have that, you know, to be able to rely upon if we need if we need to. Just want to say I think we've all mentioned how much we appreciate the both of you and we're so happy about our clean audits, etc. I don't know that I'll ever appreciate you more than maybe over the next few years. So, thank you in advance for your work. Thank you. Do we have any data on Do we have any data on um how much of our um real estate taxes come from

145the transfer taxes? Um the 1% that everybody pays when they buy a house or sell a house. And I and I asked that question because you can see on this data of how many housing units we've added and you know Edgemon added 15% higher housing units, Middletown 11%. And and as we look at all these new housing units that are either coming in or not going in each year, that's a source of revenue that's very variable. For 2526, um it's 6150. We have budgeted 1.8 8 almost 1.9 6150. It says current act 511 taxes, but that's transfer taxes. Yes. Can you tell us what tuition from patrons is? I don't remember what that is. Um, so we have students in our district that attend like Elwen and other institutions and then we have to pay

146the original bill and then we build back for it. Back to expenses. Any questions on this slide? And since we like to depict it, this is um from the 2028 directly showing again our expenses in each of our functions giving us a total of 129,24,799. And everyone's favorite slide, the impact to the taxpayer. Um, so we used an assessment of $297,540, which would mean an additional $73 for the taxpayer. The median of 385673 means $95. And then an millage impact of a $500,000 assessment would be $123. And to clarify, that's annual, not monthly. Just correct. Yes. So, where do we go from here? The slide was stuck. All right. We will continue to review our expenditures and our revenues. We'll update our approved federal programs if and when we get them. But um we hope

147to adopt the proposed final budget as I said at the April 24th legislative meeting and the final at the May 22nd um legislative meeting. Any questions? Any more questions from the board? Okay, we have a question from the audience or comment. Go ahead, please. question is when will this be posted on the website? We'll have it posted tomorrow. By the end of the day tomorrow. You're welcome. All right. I think that's it. Thank you. All right. So, we will move on. Uh, next up is the athletic fields [Music] update. Thank you, Dr. Napson Williams. Let me get situated here. All right. So, I have the good fortune to um deliver this presentation this evening. Uh as the district, as the board knows, we've been working with a company called ELA Sport. Um they have offices

148in a number of places throughout the state. The contact we've been working with Hugh um is out of Lancaster County. Um they do athletic facility design and consulting. They've done work throughout the state. Um most recently they've done the work the projects up at Rner. Um they're engaged at Garnet Valley and the significant project that they have undertaken. They're doing work at at Strath High School and Middle School and Wallingford Swarmore uh as weather as well as a number of other district. So our relationship goes back with them. We originally met with them back in the summer uh and then the project started in the fall. much as many things uh as is it has moved forward a little slower than I really would have liked um which is why I'm delivering the presentation tonight.

149We received the information from Hugh uh at the beginning of the week um in the form of a draft report that's about 95 pages or so. A lot of information, more information than the board really needs to go through and and spend time seeing tonight. Although uh there's additional discussion uh for us to have. So, the athletic fields feasibility study, this little tagline for us, fields for the future, investing in our champions today, right? Had a little bit of a ring to it. All right. So, so again, there's there's not a ha coup, Mr. Doc. I know we asked you talked. I there's there's a lot of words in here. Um, so first is the why, right? Um and the biggest why is our fields are tired, right? Like so many other things, the the

150fields are tired. Um we there is a a thriving athletic community in the Rose Tree Media School District uh and in the surrounding area, right? We have some wonderful uh and competitive athletic teams at our middle school and at our high school. Uh and we have great community organizations that that in which children are engaged. um having that and and having a place where it's thriving. The fields take a beating. The the fields don't just do not get a rest. Um they are used throughout the course uh of 12 months of the year. Um so at best the the fields are tired. So we brought in the LA Sport. Um we wanted them to take a look at uh all of our and we're looking specifically at the outdoor athletic facilities. Uh the primary focus

151of of what took place was at the high school uh which is has our our largest complex um of athletic fields outdoors and then here at Springton Lake uh over at Indian Lane. U we also asked them to take a look and they did. They they looked at at media over uh Baral Field um the softball fields over there. They looked at Glenwood and they looked at Rose Tree. Uh again little bit difference in terms of the size of the facility and the work to be done. Um but it does tie in and I'll show you later on you know what that looks like. You can see the goals uh which are the things uh which we spoke with them about. Um the other thing is is you know as I came in um I

152heard a lot about a plan there's a plan for athletics and a plan for the fields. Uh and while there was work done a decade and a half ago or more um you know in some of the fields over at at Penrest High School, there really was not a comprehensive and and sustainable plan for this is what we are going to do other than uh the incredibly dedicated facilities folks that we have that are out there working on the fields um you know on a on a regular basis. Again, just purpose of that of the of doing a master plan and putting a master plan together. One of the things that that we have all heard um is that we want, you know, our our community wants and our kids deserve um top-of-theline facilities that

153are not just aesthetically pleasing, but they're easy to maintain, sustainable, and they provide for the student athletes in the best and safest venues possible. um because of the number of sports that go on in our fields, soccer, uh field hockey, so much lacrosse, um football, um you know, and and all of those things, we want them to be able to serve multiple purposes, right? We we are not at a time anymore where we're designing or putting in or just using purely dedicated individual fields. Uh it just is a is a luxury in a public school that we do not have. Um and we are not in the Midwest where we still have hundreds of acres upon hundreds of acres to reach out to uh and to take advantage of to to build. Um you know

154the the access is one of the things we've spoken a lot about. Um you know even with the fields with where they are access has not always been um provided for all um you know and then is it something we can do with capital investment over time you know what is a time frame to be able to put it together. some key insights that the LA sports folks found. Uh, and they did everything from site visits and took pictures and analyzed the the number of teams, both indists, community teams, uh, what does the usage look like? Um, you know, and and all of those different things uh to go into and inform what their recommendations are. Couple of the recommendations, you know, is the recommendation for the installation of of additional synthetic turf fields. and

155over at Penrest a bit of a complex in one area as well as over here at Springton Lake. Um, one is the, you know, there are a couple pieces that go into that. One is the usability, right, of the field and and they are usable um more often than a natural grass field just because of the the systemic drainage systems that are put into it. The other piece is is children are being asked to compete on synthetic fields. if they are not practicing on synthetic fields. There actually is a safety concern and a reality of what the difference is. There's a difference with starting and stopping and turning and planting um you know and and again we're asking the kids to compete in that arena and as they are not just here at the stadium

156at Louiswis Scott Stadium but in other districts in in our league um you know just to kind of make it an a relatively level playing field for them to practice and to compete. Um again comprehensive program what's it look like for the quality for the safety and overall experience. So just a a quick insight on the process. Uh lots of meetings and lots of conversations administrative staff with athletic staff with coaches. Um a lot of crunching of the numbers and and looking at the use of facility forms you know coming out of Dr. Scott's office coming out of each of the individual buildings. Uh the building secretaries u Mr. Aller and Miss Brown were were fantastic with the amount of time they spent uh and putting information together. Um our community groups, you know, all

157the different community leagues, uh individual coaches and and the folks that run those leagues as volunteers uh to be able to provide information. We also had some open public input um that that took place. There was a meeting here in this library on February 20th. There were about 60 people. I unfortunately was ill um was not didn't have that opportunity to be here that evening but about 60 people here. Folks were broken into groups uh asked three questions. What's good? What needs improvement? And anything else? Um Mr. Wilson had sent out that we did electronically and posted on our on our social media sites just a basic open online one question survey. Um share your thoughts, share your questions about what we're looking at. Um the the ELA sports folks did a bit of a

158word cloud um did an analysis a word analysis through all the information. There were a handful of things that came up. Field came up most often. Um you know and which kind of makes sense and to address the field. Uh turf or synthetic fields was the second most common word. Softball and sprintton were third and fourth. Um you know so there really was a a focused attention uh on what we were looking at you know and and just the desire to address these fields that people gave a lot of anecdotal stories you know just about the overuse and the fields are tired and going to other complexes and other facilities again you know in the the short time that I've been here um I've had parents and and folks implore that I go out and

159visit other school districts which Mr. Dockerty took me on an extensive tour this summer and we visited uh every other school district in Delaware County. Uh had the opportunity to see uh to see the sites. It was a a fascinating tour. All right. So, I'm going to get into a little bit of detail about u what we're looking at uh and what we're talking about. So, this is an overhead photo clearly of Penrest High School um and the surrounding fields. Also, I've marked off on here is the the site of the future K to1 school and where that will be uh and what that looks like uh and where it is. So, the the fields are numbered. This is uh just for um for perspective, this is Rose Tree Road that runs down along this

160side. Long View Park is over on this side. Um this is field number one. Field number one currently there's a a softball back stop. Um it is not used right now uh I don't believe at all for competitive softball as the girls are the teams are playing overall field. There's also multiple line field that can be used for um lacrosse or soccer that's up here. Fields two and three that sit next to one another. Field and these are used as competitive fields. Field four is not currently used as a competitive field. that's used as a practice field. Field five that's used as a practice field in the fall. It's a JV baseball field um in the spring. Field six also is used as a practice field. It's not used as a competitive field. And I

161say competitive by the school. If you come out on May the 3 this year for Laxa Palooa, which I encourage folks to come out and to support, um incredible community event, incredible fundraiser. um goes to to to honor a wonderful human being and and keep the legacy of the work that he did. Um all of these are used as competitive fields um for Laxa Palooa. And then fields seven and eight, this is where the varsity baseball field is. There's also a competitive soccer field. This is where the varsity soccer field um you know currently the team currently plays. So you have an idea about uh where those fields are. Um this is uh use of the estimates of the use of the fields right how often are these fields used during the course of the

162year. So the stadium that Lewis Scott stadium that's there um in round numbers about 320 times we believe it's actually more there are more events that go on and more folks on that field than actually are um people that register for use of facilities. Right. That is that's not a place that there's no lockdown on the Lewis Scott Stadium field. Uh and all of our fields right there. If you can come in at random times or on weekends, even if there aren't things scheduled, you will find people that are on them. Uh Penrest one, which is used by us in the fall. Um Penrest 2, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Um and you can see what those numbers. And again, seven and eight, that's where the baseball field and the soccer field uh

163is. Um you know that right now best estimates that we have throughout the course of the year is that it's used 457 times for 457 different events, right? Which is is more than once every day. Um you know, well, two fields, yes, two fields are there. You're correct. All right. So, this is going to be a little bit small looking at now. I'm going to take you in on some closer pictures, but just to get and I want to talk about the overview of what it looks like. So, there are are three significant things that are included uh on this map or you know on this this schematic that they've put forward. Um and again, just for an understanding of where we are, this is the stadium, right? Lewis Scott Stadium. This is Penrest High

164School that sits up here. You have tennis courts that are right here, right? So, fields seven and eight. Um, so what the recommendation is is is to reconfigure this entire complex and to make it a multi-use uh synthetic turf complex that would have you having a baseball field this and a softball field and then a multi-use sport field for use in the fall. Um, this would all be synthetic. There would be um bullpens, there would be batting cages, there would be dugouts, scoreboard put through. Uh and this would all be synthetic, right? This this whole area through here. This also has the addition of a parking lot um to come in because of the additional use that would come with this facility. Softball field, baseball field, multi-use field that's listed on here and a synthetic

165piece that's there. um the need for additional parking. We all know that we need additional parking at Penrest High School. We need additional parking during the course of the academic day. Uh one of the things that honestly terrifies me as a as a superintendent is the number of kids that park over at the mall uh and walk across the road and come up to walk to school because there is not enough parking um for all the children that have driver's licenses. So, this puts in a parking lot in that space. This also takes these two fields, fields two and three that are, you know, that it's the same exact layout with where they currently are. Also makes them synthetic fields. Um, both of them there'd be hard surface uh access, you know, for the width

166of a a golf cart for an emergency vehicle to come through, for people to be able to walk up on or a wheelchair to be able to have access to be able to get up to these fields and also up because we have another softball field that's here. um and the other grass field that's down there. So, this is the the major change. Now, the other piece would be there's work that needs to be done on the grass fields, each one of them that is here, right? Uh um and I'll get into some of the details with that. Uh but this is the significant change in the complex, right? Fields seven and eight, the parking lot and fields two and three. So, I know this gets into impervious surface and everything else, but would would

167we consider moving um the fields one, two, and three to the right more where we still have land there? Correct. And can connect that that drive that comes to the parking that's for fields seven, eight synthetic extend that from not just a walking path, but a driving path putting some more parking over there. And so, we will I will I will ask that question. My my answer is I'm I'm not sure, Shelley, with what he did with the map. I I will we will have to ask um about what this where where our boundary goes. Yeah. Well, there's so this this is the they're currently laid out just like this right now. Um so, and that provides us, right? So, one of the things as I I've talked with a lot of folks about is

168is the desire for uh if there's an opportunity for softball to be back, you know, to have two fields at Penrest High School. You know, one of the advantages that that's been discussed by coaches and by folks, but playing over at Brawl, uh, is that there are two fields there, so both teams can be playing um, girls could travel from one game to the other. Having them both at the high school, you know, is has been a distinct desire that we have heard from folks about um, both adults and community members and and um, our student athletes. And that would mean reactivating field one for softball. The It would Yes. Yeah. Good question. Thanks, Ken. So, yes. So, it would field one, which is up here, right, which is where the softball field is. It's

169a a beautiful field. Um, we're actually going to ask our the the grounds guys um to um spruce it up again. We did the softball team did pictures up there last year, which turned out beautifully well. They've asked if they can do that again this year. Going to be talking with Mr. Nolan to see if they can work that out. Um but it looks great. Yeah, it's a it's a great field. It's a great location. Um and probably of any of the fields up here has been not used anywhere near as much. Go ahead. Especially if you can use parking across the street on Rose Road. That was Yeah. Is the parking for that? So still the parking for here is down on the school proper. The the parking for Long View Park is directly

170across from there. Um it would open up an interesting discussion, you know, and this would be a whole other discussion with Middletown Township. Can you put a pedestrian bridge, you know, from the parking lot to the site, which is a a discussion we will branch at some point with them. Uh, but right now you could park and walk across Rose Tree Road um to go through. It is not striped. There's no crosswalk. There's nothing like that there. Again, a discussion for, you know, with with us with our with our uh friends of Middletown Township to talk about, you know, where's the baseball field? Forgive my now you've takers. Yeah. So the the baseball field right now sits right see where the green dot is? That's where the back stop is. So it would reconfigure it

171and have it again this is the the initial rendering of it but have it facing the other direction. And part of that is because if this is an entire synthetic facility, um just the color of the of the infield, right, which would be synthetic, would still be a a dirtish color. Colors are not my strong suit. Um so I can't tell you what that would be, but it would be a dirtish color. So I wish I was with a bunch of art teachers earlier. They would a burnt sienna perhaps some art teachers earlier who would have given us a much better you know but I I think that's a piece of it. Oh yeah. So in the fall it would be a multi-use. You would see hockey or soccer. Um it would probably be we

172would probably have it striped for lacrosse as well, you know, to be through there. And then softball would be someplace in this general area or corner. um not shown in in what ELA did, you know, is I would expect that some place because the JV baseball field would still be over here is I would expect that we would have some sort of out building here, bathrooms, perhaps concession, you know, that kind of thing. And and it's something that I've I've talked to a couple of our booster leaders about. You know, I think there's some some interesting discussions with some of our community groups, you know, for possible participation in that design and and possible funding of what that goes through um as we look at it. But I would expect that would be some place

173right through here because I think I think we need bathroom facilities to be out there um you know and accessible for for folks. Can I ask a question about um so hypothetically you you couldn't have a softball game going on at the same time as the baseball? You could have a softball and baseball game going on at the same time. They would be fenced differently. Now the fences would be close together. I can tell you that I worked at a at a large high school where softball and baseball faced one another. It was probably eight feet between the fences. You had some interesting people standing in the back. Occasionally you would get a ball from one game would go into the other game. Very very rarely would that actually take place though. Uh but yes,

174conceptually they could be there at the same time. That's a discussion for the athletic department about how do we schedule and what does that look like, you know, and who's on that field. They could practice at the same time. Absolutely. Could practice and would practice at the same time for sure. Yeah, good question. Um we also know and and this will come up later in the slides too. So the we are a year out from replacing the the synthetic field in the stadium. um it is coming to the end of its of its life cycle. This just is a little bit more blown up of what it would look like in there. Um this is that that synthetic complex, right, where we're talking about the baseball being back here, softball being back here, multi-use field

175that goes across there. Um, you know, and and one of the things that for those of you that have had baseball players, there are definite drainage issues, you know, that occur here. The synthetic field addresses, um, you know, because there's a full drainage system that goes in underneath that. Then the parking lot, the spaces, Mr. Dockerty and I've already have already had some discussions. I'm sure Mr. Roth who's sitting over on the side has already looked at the number of spaces that are there. What does that mean during the academic day, right? I mean, that provides an availability for the high school to be able to use. And again, something that I've heard from uh a lot of parents and and students about um but what does that look like? And like I said, I

176mean, we would expect that an out building would be probably someplace on this side or on this side um of that, but the guys um Hugh and and David Trader, David, you know, is aware of the they all have plans, the IC and Trader folks with the new school, they've got these initial copies as well. What's the squiggly line going through the field? It looks like Is that Yeah, this one. That's elevation. Yeah, Gus Hman will be able to tell you a whole lot better. Yeah, my understanding is elevation. It's the only word about it by now. Jackie might know a little bit better, but it's just a shift in where the elevation is, which impacts the design when they put in the the under part of the um synthetic pro um piece. I can

177this one. Yeah. Um that land at the end of the other turf thing that that is our land. Correct. Where you Yeah. Right there. That's what I have to I'm not positive about that. Shel is is my honest answer. Okay. I have to look and see where our property ends here. This is ours here. This is field one, right? I don't know off the top honestly off the top of my head where we end there. Um parking parking parking. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It's there there's definitely a grove of trees that are there. I just don't know whether there are as a part of the community or their middle townships. I'm not a big fan of, you know, paving paradise for a parking lot there, but we don't have enough parking. And so if

178we're talking about having building a a crossbridge or something else, right, additional parking for that one and the field one down below it might be beneficial. Right now, I will tell you squeeze that in. You know, this is the just a a very loose schematic of what that initial discussion of of the new K1 center will look like. We will also have parking here and here, right? So, there'll be significant parking that will be added here. Um, one of the things that's required uh and it's in the initial design of the building that the Shraider folks have been working on is that there has to be hard drivable surface around the building for emergency vehicles. So it will definitely be accessible as a walking path from these parking lots to get here, right? So So

179that exists um or will exist. Was there a K1 field in in that? So the initial plan has a K1 field here, has a field here, an additional 100 yard by 60 yard um field that that's here. um Hugh did not include that in in when he did the overlay from the two um but it's not included in the the numbers um or the use of the fields with what he has presented to us right so um right now there is a small field that is down here uh there's a which I I think has been used possibly as freshman baseball at times the back stop and then as a practice soccer field that's down in that area um you know right now but that does not take that that's not in consideration of what

180Hugh has shared in his design BLA sports folks. So that was the blow up of of those. This just takes you again just a little bit closer in on those two synthetic fields. Um you can see where the hard surface is for the access bleachers, all that kind of thing that would be in there. And then this is the field one would be up in this corner. Then Springton Lake. So what's missing from here? Um again because of the the draft that came through is this would end up being E which are the softball softball field for here at Springton Lake. Um the the final recommendation for softball for Springton Lake is not in here, but as we come through with the additional uh updates that we'll we will have that. But this so you

181can see again the not as many fields uh but the overhead this is the the media little league complex that that's down here. Um, and I I think there is only one picture that that's like this just that they show as a schematic and that's recommendation for um this is the the track that Dennis was talking about the bidding going out for um that the board approved uh a while back for the synthetic track uh the all weather track to be in here. The recommendation is for a synthetic turf field uh to be included on that property as well. All right. So then I'm not sure trying to think of whether Ralph, are you able to move that? Yeah, there you go. Perfect. That dialogue box. Thank you. Um, so this comes through and this

182is this where there are some things for the board to think about, right? And for all of us to think about because there are costs associated with each one of of these things. Um there are also approvals that are associated which each with each of these right as again as we work uh as partners with um the folks in Middletown Township, you know, so I'm just going to kind of go through these because these are some think about we're going to have a discussion again on May 8th about them. Right. So field one, that's this top field up here. Softball and a multi-use piece minor renovations uh provide paved access. Again, that's that that hard surface to be able to get to the field. um that they talk about the possibility of what parking looks

183like at the K to one school uh and can that serve field one uh and fields two and three. This also needs work done in the grass um you know and in in the surface that up there fields two and three and and you can see this appears as number two and three in the list. Um there are two options. The first option is is just major renovation of uh the natural grass field uh including drainage, you know, a sandslit program underneath um and then paved pedestrian access to get up there. um or for two and three to put uh synthetic turf in there. And then the possibility of eight field lights um which are those are not a if you do synthetic turf you have to do field lights that are on there you

184know but one if you're going to do synthetic turf do you want to do and the eight lights basically what it would look like you know four that would be stationed around each of the fields um that would provide an additional or two additional lit fields uh in the complex field that's this field up here minor renovations and again that's for the grass that's on there us as a practice field discussion about what other what else does that look like. One of the considerations back and I don't think that I that I mentioned it in here before um but is also providing access for the marching band for practice. Uh we have a a great marching band uh at our high school. They use these outdoor facilities for their practice um during the course of

185the year. So that also is a consideration that goes into where are they going to be and what is that going to look like. So, minor renovations to the natural grass uh piece that's up here at field number four. Number five, um that talks about two options. One is uh if there is not uh this synthetic turf facility that's built over here, that option to do major renovations um you know with the drainage uh to reconstruct um and to regrade the field because of the multiple use and what's going to go on over there uh as well as the paved access. you'll see that paved access in each of them. Uh also number six, field number five option number two um is to make it have it as a dedicated ball field which we would

186not need to have the um use this as a multi-use because the multi-use would appear up here as well as in fields two and three but make it a dedicated baseball field or ball field that's on there, team shelters, dugouts that are on there, scoreboard, you know, that kind of thing. Um field number six. Um two options. One, keep it as the natural grass. It needs to be drained. The work needs to be done with the sod that's in there. Um if not, and we're going to make it as parking, you know, then it's converted to a parking lot, which change what's that what that looks like. Field seven and eight. There are two options for this. One is the construction of the synthetic turf facility. Um, and on here again, which could be part

187of it to go through, could be something additional, but 12 field lights which would cover that entire complex down there. Um, baseball, softball, multi, you know, the the multi-use field that's on there, dugouts, um, you know, at both of the fields, uh, batting cages that are there, um, scoreboards that are set up, uh, and to go in with the parking lot for destinated access, you know, and that out building that would go through. The other piece would be uh again looking at the same spots. Field seven and eight um if we do not do a synthetic piece out there again it needs major renovation would still replace would would change where the baseball field is located so that we would have baseball and softball still in that complex that's there. Um and again um ball

188barriers, netting, scoreboards, you know, that kind of thing. Uh and then Lewis Scott Stadium, we know that we need to replace the synthetic field a year from now. Um the u surface of the all-weather track uh is also um coming to the end of its life cycle and then to put a hard surface a paved access in order to get to the visitor fields. Right now uh to access the vi I'm sorry the visitor bleachers to access the visitor bleachers is over grass and not a paved surface. to break it out in the chart form for Springton Lake recommendation of a synthetic field, you know, inside uh the the track which is right here. Also fencing to go around that. Um if not to put a synthetic in there, synthetic field, that field needs a

189lot of work, right? It it needs drainage to be put in. Um it's going to need to be resolded. Uh but there's significant work that needs to take place there. looking at fields B and C. Um similar program to go through reconstruction of the infields. Um major renovations with the drainage drainage system needs to be put in again. Even when I went I met with a group of kids at Springton on Tuesday, I think Barbara, does that sound right? We were over there on Tuesday. Uh, and one of the questions about what can we do better for the school, uh, one of the young ladies talked about just how hard the fields are, uh, when they're out there playing on them, um, as beat up as they are. So, you look at the overlays and

190again the drainage that goes through. Uh, and then, um, this multi-purpose field, lacrosse and hockey, you know, they come back here, same thing, drainage, paved access to the field. Uh, and looking at the final recommendation for softball, which we are still expecting from him. I don't have uh pictures for the other fields. They're very similar. Looking at Indian Lane, um mo moderate renovations recommendations. The baseball field, there's a relatively new baseball field that's over at Indian Lane that our students use. And then Aston Miltown Little League uses that field. Again, they're good partners um you know, the with the use of the field over there. Looking at the multi-purpose track, there's not a recommendation to make it an all-weather track because of the expense and the upkeep that is there, but to do some work

191on the cinder track uh that's that's uh currently out there and provide access to it. Uh same thing over at Glenwood at the baseball field. Again, um you know, we we do some we have partnership um you know, our friends at Aston Middletown Little League um do a bunch of work out there. In fact, the board just approved work that they want to do at both of the fields. Uh but there also is work that needs to be done in the grass and the drainage top dressing uh irration and that kind of thing. Uh and back behind rose tree the grass field that is back there primarily our students do use it for fizzed believe rotree colts uh use that quite a bit as well but same thing there just has not been a whole

192lot of attention paid to those grass fields through the years. That's we actually have a question about that. I know you know the little league teams contribute a lot to the quality of their fields. I mean, you just look at the overview of Springton and the most beautiful fields on there are the, you know, med the media little league ones. Um, but as we as we think about the, you know, some of the fields are overused, there are a lot of community sports teams that use our fields. Yes. Rose Tree Soccer, Rose Tree Optimist, Lacrosse, and they're all great organizations. They sure are. And I guess the question is um are we accounting for their utilization um of our fields and do we do we foot the bill for all of that? Do any of

193the organizations help contribute to it beyond besides little league? We know little league does but you know we're footing the bill for a lot of this it seems and um a lot of our fields aren't in great shape because of the overuse. Yes. And and I don't have to defer to Dr. Scott. There's there's definitely a fee schedule for the use of the facilities. Um that chart that I showed you um for Penrest in the fields accounts for the outside groups that use them. I did not do individual charts because they're not used as much at the elementarymentaries, you know, or at Springton, but it does account for the usage that's in there. There is a similar chart for Springton um that the LA sports folks put together. Um there's definitely is a there's a

194a a fee for the use. Um the only really the the only ones where we don't also use the fields are the there's a different contracting relationship with middle um I'm sorry with media little league. There's a Vanessa 24-year lease on that property. Does that sound right? 25 years. Um I'm not sure though. There's definitely a multiple decade lease that exists u with Media Little League that was just re-uped um you know for those the fields that you can see in that picture over at Springton. They do all of the upkeep, all the maintenance, all the work that goes in, you know, and all the improvements um that are there. Um the other groups, um you know, all the different the optimist group and the soccer clubs and uh Aston Middletown and all um there's

195they all play a role and contribute to to what goes on for sure. This is just an overall picture this, you know, with the just because there are there there are real costs and impacts, you know, with maintaining uh the natural grass fields uh as well. This is something that, you know, and I can think back even to when Mike Nolan was interviewing with us last summer before he came on board, something he talked about the program, you know, for the upkeep from for the maintenance and what does that look like? You know, looking at our team, uh what we ask the guys to do, what they're provided with, you know, what that what that uh what happens uh on a yearly basis. So, next steps. Um, prior to the the May meeting, I I

196expect that they're going to finalize the conceptual plan as well as associated cost estimates. Um, there are some real costs that are associated with doing these, right? Um, you know, it the if you if you took just penrest by itself in the synthetic that syn the synthetic complex with the uh baseball softball field, multi-use field and the the dual fields, fields two and three as synthetic fields in round numbers probably $10 million, right? for those fields in and of themselves, right? With a you know, and then looking what does that life cycle and and we'll look at what does that look like comparison for the upkeep versus comparison of grass and to do the work. There's also cost associated with improving the drainage in the grass fields um you know and and the soding you

197know the the they are beat up right the the grass is tired. So there are real costs that are associated with you know with doing any of these. What does that look like? Right. As as we talk about and it's timely um I think and and you know kind of the push why I've kind of been pushing it this year to have the discussion as we're talking about the new school because and all of this right we would have to go to Middletown Township. We'd have to go what does it look like for drainage? What does impervious surface look like? Right? What does that look like with that whole big picture? That's all has to be part of the same package when we go through and talk with Middletown Township uh about doing the improvements

198and doing that work there. When we talk later in the spring about we know that we're going to need to borrow money, right? We have ongoing projects in the district over the next, you know, five years, eight years, what does that look like? What are we expecting to come through? The cost of the new school that's being built, what does that look like? Right? How do we phase that? How do we do that together? Right? So these are all part of those discussions. So there are conceptual plans, cost estimates to be finalized. Um talking about that overall field structure and what direction is it the board wants to go and what direction are we hearing from folks they want to go. Um and then talk about what the the overall implementation schedule, you know, is.

199Um at the earliest, you know, and this goes back to our, you know, the the partnership with ICS and and the Shrader folks, you know, we will look to approach Middletown Township beginning in September with the plans to start to talk about what does it look like on these properties as we um look at that that full unit. And Dr. Mash, the media little league is up through May 31st, 2037. 2037. Yes. Perfect. Thank you. I knew it was a longterm. I have a question. Can we add to the list? I mean, we saw the um I don't know if it was a pros and cons list or just a cons list about grass, but could we have a larger conversation about both options? Yes. not including uh not not the least of which is

200I think we're going to we have like a first read for an environmental impact policy. So what the environmental impact of each choice is and um and the way that other school districts are going. I think only half of the NFL uses turf at this point and I think it's being phased out in places. So I just want to make sure that we're kind of looking at the full picture. Thank you. Most different alternatives with turf. I was at the conference I was at this last weekend. I saw three exhibitors with diff with competing turf solutions. One of which involved wood instead of rubber pellets on top of the turf. Uh that you know they claimed to reduce the temperature significantly. I don't know the well I don't know. They're very small pellet. Anyway, I'm

201just saying there's there's options to to look at that have different environmental impacts as well. So yeah. So the finalizing the conceptual plan that'll happen at our next work session on May 8th. I I expect that on May 8th that we will have a final piece from the ELA folks that will be able to say this is what the recommendation and these are the options that they are recommending and then it's up to it's up to the board right it's up to you know what we're looking at administratively it's up to the board to have that discussion of this is what we think we can bite off to do or this is what we think we can include as part of a larger project with the new school and this is what it means right

202it's some of it is that looking you know because none of it is going to be ready in September of 2025 Right. Right. So, what's it look like in 26, 28, 30, 35, you know, as we're going through um and to start to talk about that 10ear piece, you know, of what do we have? What do we want? How are we going to get to where we want to be? I have a couple of questions. So, um they're going to list out each of those options by price, like each of the projects basically individually. Yes. Okay. So, that'll be May 8th. Will ICS also have their updated budget around then or at that meeting? Uh it's a good question. I not that I expect Jackie. I can certainly Vanessa have any other thought on that

203about I don't know that they're that we are going to see a whole lot different other than the 81 with that original number. I think that is their hard and fast with where they are. Okay. But in the past, I'm pretty sure they outlaid before previous project around when you would expect to outlay say that 81 and when to when they're going to spend the money. Yeah. Or need the money. Yes. Yes. We can now we can talk about this. I apologize. That No, I didn't say it correctly. And then could we also at that same time roll in conversation about that bond chart? Yes. And so we're having a real holistic picture al together. So, um, Allison and Ken and Brad will all be here. Our finance folks will all be here on May

2048th as well. Um, because we've been having those discussions parallel as well, right? So, when do we want to go out? What do we want to borrow? Right? What's our what's our whole program that we are expecting, you know, to to say this is what we need to do over this next large period of time. Uh, and as we do that, when do we expect to borrow the money? Remember when when we borrow money when we bond out money um the expectation from the state is that you are spending that in a certain period of time right which we've had a lot of discussion about over the last couple of years because of where we are with the work that we've been doing um whatever money that we bond out we will not sell all

205at the same time I don't believe you know it also gives us an opportunity to look at and to say what are the interest rates where are we right now is it good is it not good do we think it's going to get better right and we can you know look and what the forecasts are. Um, but those those folks will be here on May the 8th as well, right? Because we had the discussions previously, we asked them to take the look at what does the chart look like? What if we go out longer? What's that time look like? Um, so yes, they will be here for it. Good question. And as um you know I think I remember when the the Turfield was built, the first one, the one in the football stadium and

206um it doesn't seem like we've done a lot as a district um with a plan for our fields. We haven't been planful. We haven't been thinking like, you know, looking out 10 years, this is what we're going to do this year. This is what we're going to do the last year. And I'll I'll go back 20 years. you know, our our pool in this district closed um in the fall of 2004 um because it was leaking and they couldn't find the leak and it sat empty for many years and the new pool opened in 2014. And so I guess as we are looking at making significant investments into these fields that have really not had a lot of TLC um or thought for so long, I would like to see a plan that kind of

207goes on a rolling basis so that we're not caught in the position where we're in where lots of deferred maintenance and care is now all of a sudden upon us where everything is in bad shape and needs a ton of work. Yeah, Chel, I I agree with you. I mean, I I like structure. I like I like that there's a structure that exists. There's organiza organization and there's an expectation of what's going to happen, you know, and again, you know, point to Mike, you know, it's one of the things as as he came on board um with a new set of eyes and a and a new perspective to to look at. Um I think putting a plan together and articulating it and publishing it and putting it out there so folks can see it.

208Now we can say and this becomes a challenge with the the board and what one board can tie a new board into doing. We can establish it you know and each individual board can choose to fund the piece that they want to fund right now. What happens five years from now you know ideally we are all still sitting at the table Dr. Scott that's that's for you. We are all still here together. Um you know that we are moving in that direction. We can say oh when we talked about that this is where we are. But I think having that plan and putting it out there, you know, I think it has to be. And again, it's not it's not the folks that have been at the table over the last 20 years have have

209worked incredibly hard and there's been other challenges that have existed in our community, in our world, in the reality of what's going on. You know, I think that to a certain extent that we have a luxury right now to be able to say that we're taking the time to do it, you know, and we've got a group of people who are willing to put it out there, you know, and I think it's been one of the great things, you know, not just from the board or the coaches, you know, here in district and the administrators and the teachers, but talking to folks in the community, right? People that that have that thought and this is lay it out there. At least we know what's coming and how can we plan for it and what role

210can we play in doing that? You know, I think there's discussions with that. That's why I said earlier, you know, even with an out building, I think there's discussions with our um you know, with our our community groups and and the clubs and, you know, is there some way that we can tie this in together, right? This is it's for everybody, right? That we're going to have people that are going to use these fields and use these facilities much longer than the short time they are student athletes in our schools, right? Yeah. And my my statement was not an indictment of anybody here because absolutely none of us were at this table back then, right? But to your point, you know, 10 years from now, I don't think there's going to be a lot of

211us still sitting at this table. I'm just, you know, things change and at least it would um it would have to be addressed every year if it's part of the plan. Um new administration, new board members, whoever it is would have to look at this plan and say yes, we're going to continue it or no, we're not. But at least constructing it, constructing it and having a plan as the start. I agree. Okay. I think that was Bill. This is where the ha coup is going to go, but I figured I was expecting this was going to go a little long. I held it back. So, this is also going to be uh posted online. Right. So, um yes, I'm see. Thanks, Teres. This will be up uh Mrs. Wilson tells me it'll be up

212before the end of the day tomorrow. Okay. So that folks can see it. Um and if folks, if there are people that are watching or that are watching this recorded and they have questions, reach out, right? Happy to have the discussion and to talk about any questions. All right. Any more questions from the board? Oh, well, this is a question from the a community member. here. My whole life community needs couple things that that I want to say. Uh they um I'm sorry. Um people can't hear you. So um if you have a question, I'm just going to sort of repeat. No. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'll do it. But you just had a comment that there is no freshman field at Penrest. There's no longer it used to be, right? I

213remember it was it always would get muddy and it was not usable. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. Okay. So, there is a um a statement about the softball field and the issue of sunset creating a safety hazard. It's something uh to consider. basically a bunch of these fields. The questions was okay. It's just a a Okay. It's just a comment about the community members and the comm the clubs that are in the community. um doing a lot for the fields. We know media little league um there was a statement about Springton Lake and Media Babe Ruth um takes care of the fields and I mean you can tell that they do. So um thank you for that. Okay. So, there's a question about what is the plan um when construction does take place so our

214student athletes can continue to play. Um okay. All right, one second. We have another um comment or question from the community. Um, no. We're about to get a question. Right. Um I'm sorry. I just people are they're silent. So, I just want to sort of try to sum up what you're saying and um you're just talking about the importance of media little league, Ashton Middletown Little League and uh Rose Tree Soccer, the Colts, and what they contribute to the community um and their important role um in helping develop our students um helping them thrive. So, of course, that is important. Um and just go ahead Their Praise are certain. lady over here was talking about the Thank you. Um it was just a comment about the importance of having a time frame right and making

215sure that this is done and that the children um the students here um will have fields that they can be proud of. I think I summed it up. I think I tried. All right. All right. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. So there's a comment about um liking the turf fields and perhaps maybe you would come to the next meeting on May 8th when we're going to discuss it, right? So maybe your viewpoint would be helpful. And there was also a question about the baseball and softball fields at Penrest being too close. And I had a a similar uh question and we we'll um when we get more details we can think about it. And I think one of the gentlemen talked about the the shadow. I believe he was talking about that field right sunset. Um

216so yes, thank you for that. I think there was a a bathroom area, right? But yeah, so the the question was, is there a need for a central bathroom outside? It it doesn't appear in the plans, but we expect that yes, where that parking lot is that there'll be an out building there with bathrooms, possibly concession, possibly storage. Uh but we definitely need something out there. Yeah, agreed. All right, we have some something else. Go ahead. I I believe that ELA that they'll either be here or will be online, but they will deliver. Yes. Okay. Uh I think we're good. We can move on. Right. May 8th, we'll have further discussion um about the athletic fields. Okay. Um for finance, we have four other things. I don't know uh Dr. Scott. So, next we have,

217excuse me, we have a Sandy Hill camp and retreat center agreement. Uh if there are no questions, that will be on the agenda for um approval. the Delaware County Community College budget. Um, and maybe Shelley, maybe you can speak to it. I know they've had like we used to get more information. I know they said that due to financial transition in the finance office, all they were able to provide was the amount. Correct. And I didn't get any other information other than that, but a $12,000 increase is a very, very, very low percentage. Correct. Um, and so we should be lower than last year. Pretty happy about that. Okay. And they said if more information becomes available, they'll send. And just so everybody knows, I'm glad to see it that it is a state law

218that people who signed on, we it's it's part of signing on. And um, a local district has tried to get out of their sponsorship of it and so far they've been very unsuccessful with it. And moreover, it is such a boon to our district when you look at how much people pay for a course at Delaware County Community College. If you're in a sponsoring district versus um not a sponsoring, it's it's half and if you're a high school student, it's 25%. So, we get really um great value for our investment. Thank you. And so, that will also be on the agenda for approval. And then we have a list of budgetary transfers. And if there are no questions, those will also be on the agenda. And then the budgetary comparison reports which we will have

219posted. Oh, you know, excuse me. We'll post those tomorrow as well on the website. Questions about that? All right. Moving on to human resources. Human resources is very straightforward for this month. Um there's only one retirement that is on here right now. Uh many of you probably know Frank Taylor who's been electrician here in the district um since 2011. Uh he has submitted his retirement. So he is finishing up his tenure with us. Uh Frank's working has worked in all of the buildings uh throughout his time here. um has been a good source of uh historical information, especially as the new guys have come on board. The other items that are in here are standard uh a lot to do with our summer programs and with staffing um you know and and that kind of

220thing. And then uh policies, we had our policy committee meeting um late in March um discussion. We discussed a number of different policies. Policy 229 student fundraising policy 123 intercolastic athletics policy 304.1 which would be a new one for us which is nepatism. policy 204 which is attendance and policy 820 which also would be a new one sustainable practices. Uh there is information in here for you to take a look at and to review and I believe it's all been updated. Right. I think Gail has right that's on there uh from our last discussion. We have our next policy meeting is on the evening of April the 21st. Um so I look forward to seeing folks. We'll be at four o'clock in the boardroom at the Ed Center. Any questions, comments? All right, that's it

221for this evening. Have a good night.