001thank you very much to order it's the meeting of the scranton school district board of directors for monday march 7th please stand for the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all mrs orr would you take roll call please this is chesak present mrs cleary present ms cruz present ms fox liz good martin present mr holmes president ms hume president mr mcandrew president mrs gianni present a present one absent may i have a motion to approve the agenda this evening anything on the question all in favor any opposed okay okay mrs orr executive sessions were held on february 28 2022 and this evening to discuss personnel litigation real estate and negotiations thank you welcome attorney adi do you have
002anything to report i have no report this evening president yani okay thank you superintendent mctiernan yes thank you president yani good evening everyone i have a lot of great student accomplishments school accomplishment accomplishments to announce tonight first students at john adams elementary recently celebrated tuesday held on february twenty second two thousand twenty two students and their teachers participated in lessons and activities related to the number two they also dressed in tie-dyed shirts and donated non-perishable items to the keystone mission as a way to help out the community thank you to john adams at neil armstrong elementary 23 students and their families participated in jump on board a jump rope event to benefit the american heart association february was heart health month and as such pe teacher miss johnson coordinated this event to help raise money
003to support this cause overall 1238.85 was raised by the students and donated to the american heart association also at neil armstrong mrs coyle's third grade class was challenged to promote kindness within their lives and that of others by completing various tasks beyond their everyday norms students wrote thank you notes to aramark employees gave out random compliments made new friends at recess and donated at local charities all acts of kindness were logged by the students and it quickly became evident that kindness is contagious and practicing it will continue with mrs coyle's third grade class going forward so thank you at neil armstrong to all of those teachers and students third and fourth grade students at john f kennedy elementary also recently competed against one another in the moby max math fluency contest students practice their math
004skills both in school and at home individual progress was posted on a leaderboard that helped to spark added excitement for these students the top three fourth grade students were daniel pandey luke ferguson and kyla kilpatrick in third grade the winners were ishna regma safa safa barry and priest gurung so congratulations to all of those students john f kennedy also they've been busy there also recently participated in the scranton wilkes-barre penguins robo readers program students who elected to participate in the program logged the amount of books that they read over a set period of time and were rewarded with free hockey tickets at john g witter elementary school second grade student rayon matumi presented an impressive google slide presentation on the ice age to his class and principal mr wolfe rayon created the presentation on his
005own with help from his classroom teacher mrs amy beebe and additional guidance from teacher miss julie farrell so congratulations to rayon congratulations to all district elementary teachers principals and students on conducting read across america week in correlation with dr seuss birthday schools from the ssd joined schools around the nation in celebrating this importance of reading activities included inviting special guest readers from around the district and community to share their love of reading with our students and thank you to many of our board members who went into our schools to read with our kids i'm sure it was better for you guys than the kids congratulations to scranton high school boys basketball team who won the district championship and good luck in the state tournament congratulations to west and high school wrestler shannon core who won
006the heavy heavyweight title and as a district champion congratulations also to tyson cook jason williams and mj torrey who took second place in districts and also aiden kalauji who finished third in the district competition all of the above wrestlers advanced the northeast regional tournament this past weekend and west granton's team overall plays six so congratulations to all of them and at regionals tyson cook won by major decision placing third in the 2022 regional tournament he advances to the state tournament next weekend in hershey congratulations tyson and good luck we'll be cheering you on and lastly a name that i mentioned year after year congratulations to victoria watkins who won the third consecutive diving district championship she competes at the state level on march 17th at bucknell so congratulations to everybody and uh for all of
007the awards and all the things i announced tonight that is all i have thank you thank you superintendent mctiernan i can't say i'm probably speaking for all my colleagues here that going in and reading reading to the students was the highlight of my week last week okay we also have our student representatives here we have jeannie rafferty from scranton high school and tyler michael from west scranton good evening everyone throughout the month of february and continuing into march a number of exciting things are taking place within our district through all of our elementary schools read across america was celebrated with theme days special activities and yes readers students at scranton high school even participated in read across america by reading to elementary students at neil armstrong and whittier elementary scranton high school's student council created
008an online platform for cyber elementary students to participate in the fun of read across america each day too at mcdingle's plaza the pta hosted a scholastic book fair for all students at the plaza the fourth grade hosted a parent and family stem night students heard the real story of the three little pigs and created a model house with their families at south scranton intermediate a parent information night for all stem academy parents took place parents were able to receive a look into what the new program will involve for students on march 22nd south scranton intermediate will hold easter bunny pictures for all students from 4 30 to 7 30. at scrinton high school a student is close to complete completing a pre-employment transition program through johnson college and kane logistics the program is conjunction with
009ovr kane is going to hire him full time when he is done with the program the autistic support class along with the eca club completed a survey of the school staff and students for chinese new year students went through the school and interviewed close to 100 staff and students each person in the survey gave their birth year and students provided them with their spirit animal and their personality traits beginning this month the sadd club will be encouraging students to take the pledge to text less and live more which is a national campaign to end distracted driving rusbeli amonte an advanced eld student was accepted to wilson college and received grants and scholarships totaling twenty eight thousand six hundred and eighty two dollars she will be studying veterinarian sciences at scranton high school in honor of
010february being the american heart month the student council raised 350 dollars for the jack of hearts foundation this foundation is a corporation dedicated to supporting the families of pediatric cardiac patients in northeastern pennsylvania two band members at scrinton high school diana castillo and nancy ho both won awards in the pema regional orchestra competition lackawanna college also held an e-sports tournament for students alexander montezuma and michael bernotsky both complete competed in the mario kart tournament alex took second place and michael took third on 2 22 22 the scrinton high school counselors celebrated the class of 2022 by dressing as twins having pretzels at lunch and creating a photo book lastly scranton high school's boys basketball are now the piaa district 2 6a basketball champions the boys defeated williamsport on saturday night and will now play west
011chester east on wednesday night tickets for the game can be purchased online on the pia website there are so many exciting activities happening within the district in march thank you all for your time thank you jamie [Applause] good evening the students at charles sumner used stem-based methods on february 2nd 2022 they built sculptures using toothpicks and marshmallows during read across america week students were busy reading all different kinds of books they also wore crazy hats crazy hair and wore crazy clothes throughout the week students also had the opportunity to dress like their favorite character from their book from their favorite book and on a different day they wore pajama pajamas to read their favorite book students dressed like they were 100 years old for the 100th day of school it was a fun-filled month at
012charles sumner elementary school fourth grader liam manley from isaac tripp placed second in the state of pa on island study experimental designs portion of fourth grade science home run derby with a score of eleven thousand nine hundred forty five students at trip had an amazing week for read across america week students participated in fun learning games and stem activities mrs rucker would like to thank all of the guest readers who read throughout the week at west granton intermediate school sixth grade students under the direction of mrs dixon participated in the math league competition the math league competition is the largest network of local and state math competitions the following six students placed in the top five joshua carpio nathan rivera benjamin fryed cali branning and emma schulk the art club also made over 100 valentines
013for the genome early veterans the valentines were delivered to the center by the club club's advisor miss corby eighth grader rhys griffiths was named february student of the month for citizenship the emotional support class celebrated black history month by making a quilt the squares of the quilt were created after students researched and learned about the achievements of prominent black americans and their roles in u.s history implementation of the district's sel program began in march march is gratitude month at west intermediate weekly activities have been planned and the response from both the faculty and students has been extremely positive the wsis sel billing team is grateful for all that the board does for the school community west green high school students from mr nats art class were accepted into the pennsylvania art education association 2022 youth
014art month exhibition which is taking place virtually the exhibition allows only three students from the teacher's home school to be exhibited in this statewide competition congratulations to the following students for their achievement jasmine ogid ojeday victoria hearn and lucy pollock freshman elena lee was awarded the gold key award from scholastic art in writing for for her design titled picture card portraits of the world gold key entries are automatically considered for national awards good luck elena congratulations also to seniors tori hearn and chloe slater their work received honorable mention awards seven classes at west granton high school are receiving pre-employment transition group services with goodwill in the office of vocational rehabilitation some of the learning support and emotional support students are taking part in a virtual career fair on march 9th with junior achievement on march
0153rd nine students participated in a virtual youth leadership academy done by the p-a-e-a-l center thank you thank you tyler thank you both for coming tonight and spending some time with us and updating us on everything that's going on in our schools we all appreciate it [Applause] director gilmartin would you provide us with an update on psba absolutely i am going to share some of the things that i will be sending out in the morning uh to all of the districts in our region but there are a lot of good things coming up in the spring with psba right now psba is accepting submissions for photos for their worth a thousand words section in the bulletin magazine and with all the good news that's been shared already this evening i'm sure there are plenty of those
016to go around so there is an email address jackie j a c k i e dot in ue i n o u y e at psba.org where those can be submitted to which those can be submitted for consideration and i can certainly that'll be coming to you in an email in the morning so you can share that out into superintendent mctiernan as well uh their psba has also unveiled an advocacy engagement program i know so many of us here and our colleagues around the region do a great deal of work on their own you know really engage in advocacy efforts outside of what we do as a collective board so there is a new website to with a form to track that work and to keep tabs on it and and share it out through
017daily edition the newsletter that comes to us all the bulletin magazine and at signage and with signage at psba events so a link to that website will be coming as well uh there is also a school director profile survey and responses are due you may have already seen that come through if not you if you have not responded you may have received on tuesday march 1st a second request email and if that didn't work there will be well i guess they really want this information um there will be a link coming in that email tomorrow that you can share with your colleagues if you've not had a chance to respond to that yet there is a board leadership monthly exchange coming up tomorrow that is an hour long session from 12 30 to 1 30
018for board presidents and psba liaisons vice presidents as well to connect with their colleagues across the state and it is broken out into uh regional rooms and always a great conversation so that's the board leadership one coming up tomorrow there is a link where you can register if you've done that you you're in for the the whole year and then the following week on the 15th is the all directors monthly exchange i'm just making sure i'm correct here in this other email yes march 15th is the all directors monthly exchange and the 17th is the new directors monthly exchange so our new colleagues might be interested in that and on april 25th it is spring advocacy day and that's something we've all discussed in the past uh we participated virtually in the fall and it
019seems we'll be back in person this year there is a virtual option for anyone who's unable to travel we won't be doing meetings virtual meetings but there will be a social media toolkit for people to support the efforts on the hill that day and if you're interested in traveling and being there with us psba will be working to set meetings with our legislators so lots of good stuff coming up and i i also wanted to mention and this will be part of the email tomorrow with all the wonderful things you shared tonight superintendent mctiernan i would love to really see us redouble our efforts with the success starts here webpage i reached out to mr coyle about something specifically today and i think that's something that all of our principals could be sharing these these
020wonderful updates that that you're sharing with us here and you know really get them out across the state so i'll make sure you have that too thanks absolutely thank you thank you director kim martin at this time we'll welcome public comment uh each speaker will be allowed three minutes and union officials will be allowed four minutes so we will start with anthony pamela i'm anthony pamela from 225 lake scranton road in scranton a happy taxpayer i paid my taxes two weeks ago and i thought i'd like to come to the meeting and voice some of my concerns when i read these to you please don't consider them a witch hunt they're not intended to be a witch hunt i'm just asking that you might investigate certain things as responsible leaders in our community so that
021oversight of things that are going on in the district that fall on your as your responsibility would be taken care of so i'm asking at the beginning that if i could have your response not tonight but in writing before the next meeting if that's possible so here's my first request will you ask the board solicitor to investigate the following does pennsylvania law allow a school board to modify or reject a mandate given it by an agency of the commonwealth or of the federal government and i invite your questions after i read the four or if you'd like i could make more comment second item will the school board be willing to hold a public meeting with interested parties to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a particular mandate third question will the school board
022respect the sensitivities of male and female students when the board allows if the board allows i'm not sure they do if the board allows transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms will the school board review at a public meeting the accommodations that have been made or will be made for transgender students that affect non-transgender students and lastly will the school board identify who in the scranton school district has the responsibility to allow or deny an outside agency access to a school building school classroom or school assembly for the purpose of giving a presentation will the board welcome and provide the opportunity for public input on the content of a presentation by an outside agency when which has been allowed or denied access does anyone on the board have a question for clarification so again
023i repeat i'm not passing this as a witch hunt just as for oversight thank you next we have adam mccormick good evening my name is adam mccormick i'm an educator in this grand school district and trustee on the sft executive board i want to take a few minutes to speak to you today about the new scranton stem academy first i think that the stem curriculum for our students is a great idea i also know that kat miller is an excellent teacher and a great choice to spearhead such a project however i do have concerns with this plan i question the decision to eliminate the library a resort that resource that 1500 students or approximately 15 percent of students in the scranton schools have access to in order to provide a resource for 60 to 120
024students or approximately one percent of our population as there's in the library last week a student came up to me and asked how she could borrow a library book your plan will effectively eliminate that opportunity for that student and all others who may have used that space the decision to eliminate librarians several years ago put a nail into the coffin of our students independent reading opportunities this would be the final nail for the 1500 students who may not have the opportunity access or transportation to visit another library or bookstore further the library at scranton high is one of the only places where students and teachers have an opportunity to gather in any capacity outside of a classroom the scranton high school library has hosted mock trial practices yoga sessions for student athletes group projects for
025every subject area the library is where our school-based behavioral health offices are where our gifted education students are taught and where our speech therapist meets with students this is where many meetings are hosted and where students and educators have met to collaborate it has been a place where scranton high students and their families have gathered for recognition and photos for events like national signing day this plan takes away that opportunity for 1500 students the school district wants to spend four million dollars for 60 to 120 students with the hope it continues to grow while removing this communal space for fifteen hundred students if it is the idea that the library space is underutilized then hopefully the examples mentioned shed some light on that but even so if you hope to use that space more i
026hope you choose to use it in a way that benefits all students most importantly it appears as if the plan is being rushed in order to implement it for the 22-23 school year i've had several questions posed to me about the curricula for not only the stem subjects but also those not under the stem umbrella like ela and social studies are there finalized curricular for these subjects this is being implemented while students are still coming out of the disrupted educational schedules of the pandemic where many of these 7th and 8th grade students may have missed out on age-appropriate school activities for social and emotional learning and we immediately isolate them into small groups of their peers we have a very diverse population who do not always have the opportunities or exposure to these diverse courses
027and now as sixth and seventh graders we want them to decide is the current plan the most effective way to engage students in this valuable opportunity did we consider developing the seventh grade stem curriculum as a track within the middle schools this would not only allow students participate in the program and remain with their classmates and friends but also give the school district the opportunity to pilot the program to these groups i believe i've does that four minutes or three i'm a union trustee don't union official that's fine i have like 30 seconds in there um sorry i lost my place now why didn't we consider develop i read that this would not only allow students to participate in the program and remain with their classmates and friends but also give the school district the
028opportunity to pilot the program to these groups the next year implement an eighth grade curriculum and so on then once the administration sees that this program provides students with the opportunity and rigor we had hoped consider spending the money to remodel the library after all the stem mobile or steam mobile is now abandoned behind memorial stadium something none of us want to see again again i want to make very clear that i think the stem curriculum for our students is an excellent idea and i commend the board for recognizing the need for such opportunity but now please make sure that we do in the best way for all of our students thank you thank you mr mccormack excuse me could i ask a question please were you speaking were you speaking personally or on behalf
029of the union i just want to clarify whether those are the views of the union or they're your personal views uh those are my personal views and people have come to me asking some of the questions so i said i'd come and but that is the view of the union then if you're speaking as a union official is that the view of the union that's my personal view that i'm speaking to now okay thank you very much for clarifying that thank you okay next we have ryan uh nat do you guys mind if i lower the mast on wyatt no no that's fine go for it because you might be voting on that tonight uh my name is ryanette i am uh the art teacher at west grant high school taxpayer uh last time i
030was here to speak at the board i was actually elementary teacher at new armstrong elementary and now i have a new position at west grant high school taking over john hart's position in the photography classroom and and developing some new curriculum for our school earlier you heard about three students from west grant high school who were in the youth art month exhibition and they are being shown in a virtual setup which i will send an email to you tomorrow with the link so you can actually view the exhibition uh the more views that the pennsylvania art education association sees it really helps us by promoting the arts and the department of ed actually reviews some of those numbers to see how the arts are surviving and striving in pennsylvania and they are growing right now
031some paea members were just doing a major presentation at the national art education association conference which was held in new york this past week and uh paea is the second largest community of art teachers in the united states and we're part of that and we have some members here of our school district we had uh also one student from west grant high school who was in the scholastics that exhibition is open for anybody to view at the everheart museum at this time i highly recommend taking a stop over at deborah hart museum grab a little culture see a couple uh birds and see the art that's presently on display definitely have to go see it i also have a announcement that uh wes grant is going to be trying to establish a new art gallery
032which is going to be on the second floor annex of the auditorium we are going to be presenting a immersive art show filled with lights and installations that people could walk through on march 31st it will be open to the public from 6 to 8 p.m i hope everybody can come and attend it's going to be something to knock your socks off the goal of this space is actually to try and see if it works as an art gallery that eventually mr duke and i have discussed about turning into a full-time art gallery that can be a display space for the students of west scranton south intermediate west intermediate and all the elementary schools in that community so it becomes a study gallery with art on display all the time with changing shows throughout the
033school year not that many probably two or three because it's a lot of work but we have a lot of things that we have to do to make this space come up to where it needs for display i do have some issues in my own coming from new armstrong the west grant west grant has been a lot of work for me this year and that is due to some building issues the classroom um having a few issues putting things in the school dude has been difficult so to say i have a closet that's just leaking water right in the room i have a fan on it so it cuts down the mildew smell and earlier this year i did have a lead paint issue whereas paint was coming down which was remediated but it took
034a month where i was removed from my class for a month until that was completed and that happened and took place during december um that's all i have for this time i apologize i went over my time a little bit but thank you for hearing these out and uh hopefully i'll see you march 31st for the art show president yani can i just ask him one question why are you having difficult putting things in school dude can you explain that when i actually went to put uh something in school dude such as a leak from the roof in my closet i you had to choose a a little subject quote there like what was the issue to put i had to select roof and then type in like leak issue it kind of was like
035confusing because you had all these different things you had to choose and there's a lot of things in west grant that need to be addressed such as just simple painting of the walls because my room was not the only room that had lead paint the best way to remediate that is just painting over it and sealing that as opposed to having it up open and exposed there's a couple spots in stairwells and in hallways that should just immediately be touched up and and sealed as soon as possible but school dude when i finally went on to it it is kind of like difficult and i'm a contractor even and uh during the summer and it was still a little confusing i know a few teachers haven't been putting things in there because it's kind of
036put on us to get that in there and look it just looks confusing when you go on so it's just something i want to bring to attention the board okay uh well ryan i first of all thank you for all you do because you're an awesome teacher so thank you number one number two i encourage you to put everything in there because we don't again that that keeps track of to make sure that things get done so if there's something confusing then we can help you so we can i can send somebody out to help you uh of what needs to go but it's very important that you do doc because that's our documentation so i would encourage all of the teachers to continue to do that uh uh just a quick question if i
037could ask real quick uh i have missing handles from a whole bunch of desk drawers in my room do i put net inside i would put anything that that is in your room that's property that is not up to par in that to make sure that it's addressed yes okay all right i'll be i'll be busy for about an hour and a half typing things in so i'll i'll start working on it as soon as i can get all that in there thank you very much everybody and i enjoy your evening thank you thank you and superint superintendent mctiernan um who would um staff reach out to if they're having difficulty with something like that they're building principles well they can reach out to yeah i would i would say the proper channel would be
038to go to mr deluca and then mr deluca would go to mr rucker okay that would be the appropriate channel thank you sure okay we'll hear from karen bond hi um i really didn't want to talk at the meeting because i hate talking at these meetings um i want to thank i sent an email to the whole board i want to thank ms mctiernan for actually getting back to me and mr mcandrew for getting back to me no one else responded um i'm a sub in the district i subbed scranton high every day my son graduated from scranton high in 2020 and i have a senior this year this might be my last year subbing in this district because you guys are not the lowest but the second lowest paying district in our surrounding area
039which is really pathetic um scranton scranton school district pays 90 a day i did call kelly services to get all the other information of what the district pays um riverside is the lowest at 80. um and then we're next at 90. valley view and mid valley pay 125 a day old forge pays 98 a day abington heights is on a tier payment thing you work for one to thirty days you get a hundred dollars thirty one to sixty days you get a hundred and ten dollars and after sixty one days and over you get a hundred and twenty dollars um north pocono is a hundred dollars a day and then it was something weird after 15 days you get 125 but it's like something weird there don moore doesn't use kelly services so you can't
040get that those are the only districts that i would be willing to travel to so those are the only ones that i actually looked at i come to scranton high every day i am in this building every day subbing you guys pay kelly services for subs i know everyone's short subs but you pay kelly services for subs there are no subs basically because who wants to get paid ninety dollars a day mcdonald's pays their employees fifteen dollars an hour walmart pays their employees seventeen dollars an hour subs make twelve eighty five an hour that's really really sad um and so i don't know what you guys could do i know it's not on the agenda to talk about but if you guys could discuss it to look into the matter because like i said 90
041dollars a day is very sad all right thank you hi mrs bond how are you nice to see you you too uh we did explore the option of raising um we did talk about this and mr laffy you can chime in if you want of using esser funds at one point i don't know if the board remembers that and it was not allowable so you know right now again things are budgeted for that's not included in the budget right but we can continue to explore that with the board but again it would have to be budgeted for uh i i agree i i think subs number one we can't get them number two um it's not just in scranton though it's across the nation where not only sub shortage but teacher shortage so i do
042agree with you that uh we need to find a way to pay our substitutes more we will continue to explore that but at this time we were unable to do that with the path that we tried right well maybe i mean it's something to look into for next year sure i realize it's not going to be for this year right so it's but it's something to to look for because if you think about it you guys pay kelly services for subs which you basically don't have so you're paying them and then you're paying teachers taking away their like preps and their that stuff so you're kind of double paying because teachers get paid anyway but then you're paying them to sub and cover classes yeah i don't think that's totally accurate mister yeah we we
043don't pay kelly's services unless we pay for a sub so if there's no sub we're not paying kelly services i don't know if that makes sense we are paying teachers to cover classes that's absolutely accurate but as far as kelly services we only pay them if we have a sub oh okay okay uh mr laffy you uh do you want to add anything no that's that that's correct superintendent mctiernan it's only for positions that are or some positions that are filled for the debt correct okay okay but you're right and and we agree that you that substitutes should be paid more but again it's it's a budget and we'll continue to uh look into as we move forward we'll continue to look at creative ideas okay thank you for your time thank you thank you
044mrs bond next we have jennifer telesco good evening i'm a teacher taxpayer parent of students in the district and an sft trustee i'm speaking tonight in regards to the additional 15-minute time concerns i'm speaking particularly on behalf of the whittier staff although that is not the only school it is by far the most extreme example of disparity and disrespect as i mentioned at the article 10 meeting that we had i sat through hours of negotiations and superim superintendent mctiernan explained the intention of the added time she reiterated that intention at our meeting for clarification directing teachers to attend meetings some four out of five days to have data or disciplinary meetings leading up to and including the exact time one is supposed to be at his or her classroom or duty was not one of
045the reasons given for the additional time disrespecting just what teachers do every day for example the decisions we make the planning the conversations we are already have having with our colleagues regarding student growth and how we can meet all of their needs that disrespect was not the intention the intent was to allow teachers time to be prepared for their classes for their day to perhaps complete tasks one cannot do make copies gather materials ask a colleague a question and yes go to the bathroom things we cannot do because our coverage because coverage remains an issue and our preps are non-existent teacher morale continues to be and staff continues to be in an all-time low we know we still cannot trust the administration let alone be given the respect we deserve i am incredible thank credibly
046thankful that the board and administration can find the time to visit and applaud the job well done by teachers and staff i only question does anyone know just how much time and effort it takes to do all that we do i know some of you do i hope the rest of the board and the administration soon realize this before more of our teachers leave and everyone is left wondering why i believe my children will lose many great teachers and at this point i can't blame them one bit thank you for your time and consideration and for one point of clarification in regards to the other speaker with the school dude one of the reasons why it's so inefficient is that we never receive a receipt that it's been made or even an acknowledgement to tell
047us that they're going to do anything about it we put it in there and it's lost i know that from personal experience because of all of the issues that atoms with the ventilation and circulation i never received anything in regards to that until i spoke at the meeting and had conversations with you thank you mrs telesco and we have mrs rosemary bowen good evening directors i would like to start with two things one i i feel remiss that i did not do this at our last board meeting mr lunardella who was a principal at the john f kennedy school recently passed away lou was a member of the scranton federation of teachers during his teaching time in the district and then he moved on to be a principal at kennedy mr nadella never had one
048grievance filed against him on the contrary he was one of the kindest and most gentlemanly man you'd like to meet we could certainly use a whole lot of mr nardellas in this district and i wanted his family to know that we respected him greatly when he was in service here and we will not forget the kind of gentle man he was we wish him well and his next placement the other issue we have to think about tonight is something going on in europe i'm hoping that the district has put out a flyer to our teachers that they should be recognizing what's going on in the ukraine and they should be recognizing on a map where ukraine is and they should be recognizing on a map where russia is and latvia is and romania is and
049poland is because it's going to be the end of a democracy if our country sits idly by i don't think that's going to happen but our students need to know i recently i'm bringing this up because recently i read in the paper that test scores were low this year well i hope they didn't pay a whole lot of money to find that out giving kids a test during a pandomic is not just obscene it's the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars that you could ever imagine that money could have been used to feed the people in the ukraine children who are right now in bunkers with no food and no water and i would guess if we put maps if we had maps to put on the walls in our schools very few of any kids
050would be able to find the ukraine because half of me comes from russia i'm disgusted with what i see and what i'm listening to day in and day out and i'm hoping our district takes part in recognizing what's happening in the ukraine and that we do something as a school district to help alleviate some of this misery over there also i want to recognize what anna mccormick brought to your attention tonight it seems to me every president of the united states most certainly of recent years the first thing they do when they leave office is figure out where to put their libraries what state is their library going into and then millions and millions upon dollars are put into those libraries the university of scranton when they put their new library together marywood university when
051they did the same with theirs temple university penn state university harvard university yale university odd infinitum all of those universities major universities throughout the world the centerpiece of that university is the library you cannot expect students in this district all of them ten thousand of them to get to a library someplace in the city of scranton that's not even real reasonable to think they can't we just celebrated as you've acknowledged read across america i too participated in that i enjoyed doing it but i had to take a book and read the book where did this come from there's no library in the school for me to go and grab a book to put a district like ours and this building with the library that was designed for the students in the scranton school district 18
052000 books are disappearing if you read in tomorrow's newspaper that russia went into a country and burned down the library and took out the books and burned them on the street check your history books for 1936. the first thing that's done is get rid of the books burn them get rid of them because it's the weapon of choice we should not continue to destroy this district's books and our libraries no library should be destroyed ever and no book should be destroyed it's the foundation of this country this democracy that we live in the democracy that we pledge to every day that we tell our children to do and this is heartbreaking i taught reading it's a fundamental right in this country it's freedom you see what's happening every day you see what's happening mrs mullen
053could you finish up i am going to finish thank you i hope this board acknowledges the fact that this is a mistake closing the library in this building as you just eloquently heard from mr mccormick is a disgrace it has not been well thought out it has not been strategically figured out or tactically figured out and i'm hoping you will take five minutes to say wait a minute let's figure this out you don't even have teachers yet writing your curriculum for stem you can't get them thank you mrs bond so i'm going to wait and listen i want to hear what's going to happen to this library upstairs and i hope you fix it thank you thank you uh attorney audi or superintendent mctiernan is there any comment that you'd like to make other than
054what we've we've already responded to no i'm i'm good thank you okay okay i'm fine as well thank you okay thank you okay moving on may i have a motion to approve the meeting minutes of february 7 2022. i'll make that motion second second one second on the question all in favor any opposed okay may i have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second on the question i would like to remove the following item from the consent agenda item b5 approved disposal of assets at scranton high school okay may i have a motion then to approve the revised consent agenda with b5 removed i think that we have to have a motion to remove it a second second okay on the question and all in favor or do we need to roll
055call there let's do a roll call this is this is chelsea this is um i'm sorry to approve this would be the consent agenda with b5 removed okay um yes mrs cleary yes ms cruz no msg martin yes mr holmes yes miss hue yes mr mcandrew yes this is johnny yes seven affirmative one negative motion passes okay okay moving on to budget and finance director gail martin let me just do it we'll have b5 first though so let me get that open b5 we will have a motion to approve the disposal process for the library assets in the scranton high school library to make room for the preparation of the scranton school district stem m academy following district policy 706.1 as per the attached do we have a second second on the question so on
056the question i just wanted to say excuse me i'm voting no because i was under the impression that we were keeping the books i just wanted to read something really quick so during the operations committee meeting on january 10th after this stem presentation i asked a question and i asked what the plan was for this grinton high school library ms katona miller answered my question and she said that in quotes that is something i was looking into with creating classroom libraries within each of the english or reading classrooms so that students would still have access to the books that are currently housed within the library because at the current moment they are not being utilized effectively and mrs mctiernan then stated that they did have a meeting the previous week or the week before and
057that miss catona miller had a plan in regards to what that would look like and that at the next education committee meeting that would be a great place for miss miller to expand on what that plan would be and how she had hoped to distribute those books amongst the classrooms more or less libraries in classrooms rather than the library so being that i was prior to last week's meeting i thought we were keeping the books and that is why i am voting now i need to chime in here with my understanding that we yeah we are guessing and i i apologize perhaps i should have read the second page here the disposal procedure as per district policy would you like me to go over that i would because the whole board received the whole procedure
058of how we were distributing the book so what you heard tonight from individuals is not correct uh this we are distributing the books there is a schedule you have received that in your board packet i believe more than once of that schedule so i believe uh mrs gilmartin if you can continue to read certainly the disposal procedure as attached to this motion the re allocation of assets will occur first within the district it is currently in progress finalizing march 15 2022 there will be a sale of remaining library assets then a donation of unsold library assets which will as we discussed at the work session include students correct waste paper sale recycling of non-donatable library assets and final disposal of library assets to be completed by june 15 2022. but i guess like from that
059initial meeting the operations committee meeting when i asked that i was under the impression that the the books were going to be at script in high school they were just going to be distributed instead of in the library they were going to stay in the classrooms that's how i took it miss miller you did say at that operations committee meeting that out of the 3 000 books i can't remember the correct number 2500 are staying within this grand high school building this building yeah that is correct i can look up the exact number on the form i've been updating it weekly we're currently at the elementary level but the vast majority of books selected on that list are for teachers within scranton high school okay so they will be in school and classrooms in scranton
060high school yes that was the intention of the virtual form all of the books were listed on there by call number order or it could be sorted by author or by title and teachers have had the last uh three or four weeks so far to go through and make any selections on the list so scranton high school received that list first and then it went to ela departments first and then the rest of the body of teachers and then the following week it was then opened up to west granton high school scranton high school teachers were still able to continue editing on that form throughout that week after scranton high school then it went to the intermediate schools again at that point scranton high west grant high and cyber as well were able to continue
061editing on the form and now as of this morning it was open up to our elementary but again all four of those levels are still able to keep editing and it will stay open until march 15th i've even had one day a week on thursdays available where i was staying within the library for any teacher that wanted to come in and pick books and i've also been helping any teachers that were looking for specific categories of books um such as one teacher was looking for world war ii and so i was pulling books related to that topic for them to keep within their classroom as well miss miller have you included that time table and everything you discussed have you included that in all the fret in the friday packet yes um i believe three
062weeks ago i included it on that draft master schedule yes last week i included it with the board packet and within the drive that uh miss uh were set up for everyone and then i did include an updated one in this week's packet as well thank you so that's three weeks in a row correct correct correct and tonight i heard the word destroyed i'm not really sure what that is a very inaccurate statement um that i'm hearing that we're destroying books so i think the word burn was used i don't think anyone up here intends to burn any books no so there's been some um obviously inaccuracies that have been stated tonight so uh thank you for continuing to update the board on this process i'm sure you'll send another update again this friday on
063how many books we have left and who else has to who else has the opportunity to get those books and we are absolutely positively not burning any books so um that again i'm not really sure where that is coming from or why somebody would even say that so thank you thank you mrs miller thank you for all of your work on that i appreciate it appreciate that update on on the question um the scranton school uh high school library i assume has been in existence since the school was established as someone whose edu whose qualifications are in english reading and teaching while i'm sure that the bulk of the books out of that library will find useful homes i do think it is not realistic to expect that every single volume in that library is
064either continuous continues to be relevant or continues to be in a condition where it will find a home so to say that every single book is going there i think is a is a touch misleading and perhaps disingenuous that every single volume in there needs to be preserved as someone who has worked with books my entire life um and in publishing there is a point where volumes reach the end of their life and to take a an outdated book or a book that is in poor condition and put in a library simply to pay lip service to not diminishing the number of books would i think be disingenuous and not in the best interest of the students i think in the 20 years since the library was established educational use of informational research is trans
065is transforming i think that classroom libraries where possible i think that this system sounds to me extremely efficient and extremely efficacious and i think that it would be i'm also disappointed that the union is apparently has reservations about the establishment of the stem academy because i believe it's one of the best innovations in the district certainly in the time i've lived in scranton i also think what we're we're talking about books but we're also talking about stem right i understand what you just said there director hume but i personally believe stem will be a fantastic program but i'm not convinced it's still the best use of the district's money it's my belief that we would benefit from restoring pre-k before instilling this program for 120 students and getting rid of a library not just books
066that services over a thousand and is more than just a library to me is an efficient use of our space and again it's a proven statistical fact that schools with libraries test scores are 10 to 15 percent higher on standardized testing that is actual a fact on the pennsylvania state website so i think the argument isn't just books it's a perception of getting rid of the entire library itself superintendent mckiernan is there a way that we can designate in the high school uh a space where they can go read and study like kind of like a library and also is there a way to get these books online like an online library um you know if somebody from scranton high wants to check out a certain book we can they can go look up the
067category um like kind of an online category something that everybody has access to the books they might just not be in the building but we'll get it to you eventually and here's a way to do it we certainly could look into it to something like that because if they're in the classrooms a student should be able to go into any classroom they want and get that book so that's that's a great idea okay i'm sure we can do so i don't know if we you know how fancy we can do it but maybe we can have you know just start off a list in the office of where they are that's a great idea okay um your first question yeah so i know that a lot of kids go to the library to check out
068the books to study is there a way we can find another space somewhere here that's another thing maybe they reserve time or something like that but something that they can go and do sure i mean i can't say sure i have to talk to mr coyle to see what space is available if there is something available okay um you know i know tonight we heard a speaker talk about they get pictures when they are signing uh their last national letter of intent i'm certain in this giant building that we can find other areas where they can get a picture taken um you know that that is a beautiful area um with change not everybody likes change i understand that i am very excited about this this program uh i think moving forward i think everybody
069will be but again it's something different and you brought up great points so did the speakers so you know we write down and we try to figure out how we can address those issues okay thank you sure so anything further we are in our meeting i'm sorry we're going to continue um mrs orr would you take roll call please mrs cleary i'm sorry this is mr oddie may you address that yeah no we need to follow the uh the the order of the meeting and we've already had our public comment we have just we've listened to the comment and then we made we had some comments roll call missus or mrs cleary yes ms cruz yes ms good martin yes mr holmes no ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes mrs cheswig now mrs yani yes
070six affirmative two negative motion passes uh director good martin we're on yes we will have a motion to accept the 2019 and 2020 single tax office audit reports be prepared by robert rossi and company the cost of the service was shared between the school district and the city of scranton wait a second on the question mr laffy is everything as it was at the work session there are no updates there's no updates okay thank you that's correct welcome ms cruz yes ms good martin yes mr holmes yes ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes mrs cheswig yes mrs cleary yes mrs gianni yes aida firmino b8 we will have a motion to accept the 2020 audited financial statements and 2020 single audit as prepared by bbd llp second is there a second i'll second that okay
071thank you on the question mr laffy same here the version that you were the version that we reviewed on monday evening was the draft version there's been no uh material changes to the draft document other than maybe a correction of uh of an audit finding that was listed that was corrected so other than minor grammatical errors that would be it the the financial aspect of it has remained the same thank you roll call please ms martin yes mr holmes yes ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes mrs cheswick yes mrs cleary yes ms cruz yes this is gianni yes ada and director good morning i will be posting that on the district's website as well for the public review thank you i appreciate you clarifying that i couldn't get this to scroll down i don't know
072some of them are working and some of them are not this one is moving b9 we will have a motion to approve the proposal for forecast five including five cast five cast plus and five site the financial impact prorated for nine months is twenty one thousand sixty three dollars and seventy six cents the contract expires on 12 31 2022 the forecast 5 software will aid in multi-year budget forecasting trend analysis for both expenditures and revenue and year-to-year budget to actual comparisons second on the question roll call please mr holmes yes ms hume yes mr mckander yes mrs chesick yes mrs cleary yes ms cruz yes ms martin yes mrs gianni yes eight affirmative and finally b10 we have a motion for a real estate assessment settlement pin number at 142 north washington avenue a reduction
073from assessed value of 331 to 331 thousand two hundred dollars to one hundred and eighty three thousand nine hundred and ninety two dollars the impact is a tax revenue reduction annually of twenty one thousand and forty eight dollars is there a second second on the question mr audi or mr laffy could you detail the process to um what's the word i'm looking for it's escaping me right now can contest this uh what it would cost the district approximately absolutely in order to contest this um first of all we'd have to have our own appraisal which could run approximately eight thousand dollars then we would have to have the appraiser testify which would be another couple thousand dollars and then we would have the fees for um doing the actual litigation which could run anywhere from
074you know five to six thousand dollars approximately so i think we're all in let's say 16 to 20 16 being probably a minimum 20 probably being a maximum but that would be a one-time cost that's a one-time cost okay and the 21 000 reduction mr laffy is annual that's recurring correct okay thank you thank you so anything further on the question okay roll call please ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes this is chesak yes mrs cleary yes ms cruz yes ms good martin no mrs gianni no mr holmes no five affirmative three negative motion passes sorry i went a little out of order there okay under community relations director holmes c2 yes we have a motion to accept the fidelity the fidelity bank education improvement tax credit funding to support the scranton sd dual enrollment
075program the financial impact is eighteen hundred eighteen thousand seven hundred fifty dollars that is nine thousand three hundred seventy five dollars at each high school second on the question mr laffy do you want to provide us with a little bit of background of how fidelity bank is donating this money certainly uh president yanni and again um this was brought to our attention uh after the work session on uh last monday um it will be run through the commonwealth charitable management which is an education improvement tax credit as director holmes mentioned the specific purpose of it is to assist with our dual enrollment programs specifically to support families with they would prefer to support families with low to moderate household income again each school is granted nine thousand three hundred seventy five dollars and um the
076the district will work with the principals at each school to support this program thank you and thank you to fidelity bank i know this is a big help to our students um anything further on the question uh roll call please mr mcandrew yes mrs cheswick yes mrs cleary yes ms cruz yes mr martin yes mr holmes yes miss hume yes mrs gianni yes state affirmative okay under education director cruz all right we will have a motion um to approve the esl consultant contract with educate everyone llc um the consultant is melanie wolf greenberg as attached have a second sec on the question i just like to thank um mrs graybeck for the work that she put into this thank you welcome mrs chessy yes mrs cleary yes miss cruz yes ms good martin yes mr
077holmes yes ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes mrs johnny yes aid affirmative under operations um director hume thank you president we have a motion to approve effective tuesday march 8 2022 that the ssd will follow the cdc guidelines on masking in our school buildings and school buses universal masking by all students and staff will be optional while lackawanna county is in the low or medium level of transmission based on the covert 19 county check table universal masking is recommended for school districts in a high level of covert 19 transmission but this is not mandated zero financial impact um second on the question um i'd just like to say that we've put for the last two years the district has followed the cdc guidelines fairly religiously and they have helped us through to to continue to
078follow the cdc guidelines is the appears to be certainly in my opinion the wise course and um certainly anyone who wishes to wear a mask or who feels that they need to wear a mask it is decidedly optional there will be nothing in our schools we welcome anyone who wishes to wear masks in the school will be welcome and also am i correct if we do still hit the five percent per school that will require us to go to virtual yes that is correct the five percent is still in effect at as of today okay just to clarify a little further there there's no limitation on the number of virtual days that we can do it if needed right right so we have the 520.1 workaround which is was approved by the board and that
079was strictly for meant to be for covid related days so as long as the days that if we had to close hopefully not please uh but if we had to close because of covid then we still can use virtual days moving forward for the rest of the year that will also be extended we will have the opportunity to do that next year also okay thank you further okay roll call please mrs cleary yes ms cruz yes mr martin yes mr holmes yes ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes mrs chesak yes mrs gianni yes adafruit we have a motion to approve the updated stem academy renovations the project budget estimate is attached the difference from the original budget is an additional 120 386 dollars and the total financial impact of the um academy renovations are three
080million seven hundred and seventy three thousand three hundred and eighty six dollars give a second second on the question as i've said before i think the stem program will be a fantastic program i am just not sure at this time it is the best use of the district funding i personally believe we would actually receive more from the pre-k program being restored then servicing a program that will a program that will service 120 students so for that i will be voting now anything further on the question roll call please mrs cruz yes ms good martin yes mr holmes no miss hume yes mr mckandra yes this is chesak this is cleary yes mrs gianni yes six affirmative two negative motion passes under personnel director mcandrew f1 f1 we'll have a motion to approve the personnel
081report as attached okay on the question roll call please listen martin yes mr holmes yes ms hume yes mr mcandrew yes mrs cheswig yes this is cleary yes ms cruz yes this is gianni yes state affirmative f2 f2 we're going to have a motion to approve employee 804 settlement agreement second okay on the question roll club please mr holmes yes ms hume yes mr mckandra yes mrs chesak yes mrs cleary yes miss cruz yes ms good martin yes mrs gianni yes eight affirmative okay under policy uh director cleary g3 please yes motion to approve the stem academy academic athletic policy for prospective students who would be enrolled in the scranton school district stem academy starting in the 2022-2023 school year second on the question roll call please ms hume yes mr mcandrew yeah mrs jessick
082no miss cleary yes miss ms cruz yes ms martin yes mr holmes no this is gianni yes six affirmative two negative motion passes uh we have nothing under special education so we will go down to vendor relations director cleary again motion to approve the purchase of the stem academy furniture to corporate environments as attached pricing is based on ot 8147 cz2 source well number one two one nine one nine dash k eleven um or kii contracted a cost not to exceed two hundred and seventy four thousand three hundred and fifty six dollars and eighty eight cents and subject to proper execution of the contract financial impact not to exceed 274 356.88 this amount is less than the previously approved furniture budget on the question so i'm very excited to see um what this furniture will
083look like when i talked with uh miss miller about two weeks ago she said that it was going to be really funky and colorful and very modern design so i'll be happy to see it in person in this building anything further roll call please mr mcandrew yes mrs cheswig no this is cleary yes ms cruz yes ms good martin yes mr holmes no ms hume yes mrs gianni yes six affirmative two negative motion passes okay next we'll move on to new business under new business i was hoping to ask mr rutger if he could address our faculty and our staff concerns regarding building communications and if he has any update on the status of the tools that might be available to us i know we looked at the zoom program and if you could provide
084us with an update on that yes ma'am thank you all right directors uh i'm doing research and working with the business office we're looking at going to stop you there would you mind removing your mask yes ma'am thank you can you hear me better awesome all right so uh just doing our research and our due diligence trying to make sure we're making the best choice for the district i was working with uh you know mr laffy in the business office to try to kind of segregate out our expenses that we're currently paying for our phone service right now our phone service is bundled in through our internet and it's very difficult to separate those costs so we're dealing with still paying some for for the combined internet phone service and we still during the porting
085process have other lines through frontier that we're currently paying for so as it stands right now we're currently under contract with our current provider until march i believe it's march of 23. so if the board wanted to move forward with it we would be stuck paying for what we currently have and another phone service so that would be a choice that would have to be made right now we've tried to get in different solutions short term inside of the buildings i know i purchased a set of radios to try to spread out that we're getting them programmed right now we'll be deploying them out to different schools i believe the school that's going to receive these right now is going to be armstrong i'm kind of hesitant on doing that because each one of the
086radios is about for for each individual one and that's inclusive of programming a new phone is around ninety dollars so i made the purchase with these radios understanding that if they didn't work they could still be used by my maintenance people to improve communications throughout the buildings anyways so to summarize um what rob had said we're under contract until 2023 okay um we the zoom phones would cost approximately 100 000 the the actual phone service portion of it is around 43 000. and that's that's a swag right now because we still haven't finalized our our numbers 43 000 for the whole district for annually for a thousand lines yes ma'am in addition to that the reason it'd be higher is we'd be doing a hardware as a service which would be the phones the phones
087are not marked up as i said each phone is around 90 each for the common area and classroom phones and a little bit more for what we'd be using for admin due to having multiple lines and transferring and everything else like that those are a bit more the overall cost would be again this is a short estimate we don't have final numbers around 120 000 annually and it's not budgeted for at the moment the contract that we have now is there a termination fee if we try to get out of it early or no we see liquidated damages mr um i have a couple of concerns um i um first of all i mr mr laffy will shoot daggers at me but this is to me one of the highest priorities in our district because
088it relates directly to the unthinkable situation where the safety of our students and our staff may be at risk in a day-to-day operation um i i have a concern that if we allow that we could get locked into a like a bit like um lego that if we make a decision now because we have a contract that's running for a year but when that contract runs out in the year because we've made this decision we have to extend that contract and then when that contract runs out we have to do it we can get locked into a situation which is not the optimum solution and while i appreciate that there may be a cost in separating out the internet service from the phone service and it may in the short term involve an additional expenditure
089and i know mr bluff is going to look at me i am much more concerned that we