School Board Meeting - 5/15/25

001I don't like that. I'll call to order this May 15th, 2025 regular meeting of the board of education. Please rise for the pledge to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May we have a roll call? Elizabeth Bberman here. Mary Lee Hall here. Samantha Hall here. William Hall here. Jeremy Hash here. Jennifer Hankle here. Nathan Hankle here. James Holly here. Joseph Wilson here. Thank you. I want to announce we had an executive session on April 30th to discuss the superintendent evaluation. An executive session on May 6 following the personnel and policy meeting to discuss safety items. And prior to this meeting, we had an executive session to discuss personnel,

002salaries, and benefits, safety, security, and legal personnel. Moving to item 2.01, 01. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented. So move. Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Any nays or abstensions? All right. Hearing none. That motion passes. Um item 3.01, 3.02, and 3.03. Sue, you said I could do this in one motion, correct? Okay. So, I entertain a motion to approve the April 10th, 2025 minutes, the May 6, 2025 personnel and policy committee committee meeting minutes, and the May 6, 2025 building and grounds committee meeting minutes. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Any nays or abstensions? Hearing none, this motion passes. And item number 4.01, 01. I will turn it over to Caleb so that he can give

003the student representative report. Thank you. Um, as I was just talking with Mr. Hall, um, got a very busy season with AP exams, keystones. Um, so good luck to everyone. Still testing everyone. Hope you get your scores back and you're happy. Um then similar moving forward, we had the scholarship um foundation scholarship awards night last night. There was 157 different scholarships totaling $174,000 which is very impressive and it shows our community's investment in their students and their futures and big winners from what I heard. Then I believe tonight, tomorrow night, sorry, um the International Thespian Society will be holding their um recognition and program in the auditorium and that's put on by the International Thespian Society, our chapter here. Then for Memorial Day, school will be closed on the 26th and the last day of

004school. the end of the marking period and graduation will be on May 30th and hopefully does not rain again. So, wishing for good weather and wishing our seniors best of luck. And then some other notes for you guys. We had teacher appreciation week from May 5th to the 9th and that was put on by student council with big help from Mrs. Morris. She was very very nice and helpful for coordinating and planning with student council and and it was just a great week for for appreciation for teachers and staff. Um got them some ice cream, some Sons of Sicily. It's very nice. Um then we had our student council officer elections. Congratulations to Mackenzie Hajj for president, Kendall Woods for vice president, and me for board representative. Um, got reelected. So, thank you to all

005who voted. Um, and we have our spring sports coming to a close and just a shout out to all the teams. I know there's still some going, but there's been some very good seasons, very sad ends to seasons, um, and some some close games and matches. So, and then happy spring everyone. It's here Colin wreaking havoc. It's all I've got. Thank you. Um, as this will be our last board meeting before the end of the school year, I wanted to um just say thank you to Caleb for his service on the board and I just wanted to offer just a brief commentary that um I would say the three words that I would use to describe him. He's diligent, he's very goodnatured, and he is very thoughtful with the reports that he puts together. And

006I know when I first met him to welcome him on the board, I was so impressed when Dr. Sterner introduced me because he knew everything I had to tell him. So I was like, "Well, you're already prepared." So thank you so much for this year and we look forward to next year. Happy to be here. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item 5.01. I will turn that over to Dr. Bryson. Thank you. Uh stepping in, acting president Thank you, Paul. Um, I'm actually uh pleased tonight to be able to um join Mrs. Hall to recognize uh some of our retirees that are joining us here this evening. And uh joining me and Mrs. hall is also a couple of our administrators that I'll say a little bit about our our retirees that we're going to

007recognize here this evening. Uh, and just in general, I would say we have an awesome staff, whether that's teachers, custodians, administrators, and so I think we all take great pride in recognizing the years of service and just all that they've done to contribute to making this a special environment where students can grow and learn and uh move on into the community and be productive citizens. So, if you'll join me, Um, we'll start off this evening uh with Mr. Buffington and I'll let Mr. Buffington introduce our retiree. So, it's been my pleasure to work with Earl Kaiser. He's been at our district for um 15 years. Uh he's a Sesquan grad. Uh in high school um he had lead roles in the plays. Um and he also lettered in band. Earl is an entrepreneur. He's got

008a printing business. Uh he also has a feeasantry business. If you uh Google Kaiser feeasantry, you will find a pretty cool article um in the Lancaster Farming uh newspaper uh with with Earl in in there. So, he's worked hard for us um in the summers carpet cleaning uh and he was always the one in the high place. You know, if if we needed something cleaned that was up pretty high, Earl was there. Um so he's involved in a lot of things and um he was in many many of our buildings um and uh most of those years at Shrewsbury. Um but one unique position he had when we had the friendship project uh he was our uh he was security at at the friendship project and I can guarantee you there was no worker on

009site without their security clearances. he made sure of it, you know. So, it's my pleasure uh to work alongside Earl for all these years. Can we get a picture? Yep, absolutely. Right here. Congratulations. Thank you. [Applause] Next, I'll uh ask Dr. Rogers to come up and he will recognize another retiree. We'd like to um recognize our retiree from special education, Patricia Kellski. Patricia joined our um district in 2010 as an elementary substitute caller, substitute secretary, clerk, and instructional assistant. Following year in August, she was appointed as elementary guidance clerk for administrative assistant for our elementary school. So both f all three, so uh friendship and uh southern elementary school. um that's where I got to know her a little bit and knew that I wanted her to kind of be on our staff and in

010special education. So in 2015 16 I asked her to join us as we were trying to restructure some things here in central office with special education and she willingly accepted that and transferred over to become an administrative assistant. Um she took a lot of great pride in the work that she was doing within us including uh a major project that she worked on for us in the summer of 2019 where she was involved in organizing and updating um our operations handbook for special education. That has helped a tremendous amount of new staff that we have in special education within that. Um she was known for always kind of while she was kind of always cold here in the office. You could always find her wrapped up in a blanket with fingerless gloves right out of

011her keyboard in the middle of summer tons of times as well too. While she was cold that way, she was always known for her warmth, her compassion, and her big heart. Um, we really loved that she embodied our mission and loved she loved knowing that her work helped others to change the lives of our students every single day. She got that working in our central office was still for the students and she embodied that every single day with her warmth, compassion and her big heart that was felt by all. She took a lot of great pride in one of her our Suski grads, her daughter Mia. Um, and she can't be with us today because she promised Mia upon her retirement to celebrate Mia's accomplishment of being accepted into law school in her retirement that

012they would go to Disney World together. So, that's where they are right now enjoying um some nice fun filled adventures at Disney World. So, Patricia, we thank you very much for your your service to our district. Next up, I'll ask Dr. Hollinger to come up. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight on the occasion of Mrs. Mrs. Monica Msik's retirement from the Southern York County School District. She was unable to attend tonight, but I believe it is important to mark this important milestone. I only had the opportunity to work with Mrs. Mystic for a few years after she transferred to Southern Elementary School after many years at Friendship Elementary School. But in in that time, I got to know her well. Mrs. Mik dedicated herself to a life of service. This started

013even before her teaching career where she started as a nurse and she enjoyed the the part that she enjoyed most about being a nurse was teaching others. And so the natural transition was to then become a teacher. Um she was a teacher here at the district for nearly two decades before she finished her career with me at Southern Elementary School. Um her journey to Southern Elementary exemplifies her dedication to service. After COVID enrollment changes required a teacher to transfer not only grade levels but buildings. And she put her hand up and said, "I'll do it." Um and that's how she came to to Southern Elementary. And that's not an easy thing for teachers to do. they like to stay in their home building. Um so um she volunteered to change buildings and grade levels um

014just to respond to this need. So Mrs. Msik, on behalf of the staff and students that you have served, thank you and we wish you all the best in whatever adventures retirement brings you. And last this evening, but certainly not least, I will have Dr. Sterner, come on up for our last retiree. Good evening. In 2003, Mr. Chris P first joined Susuanak High School marching band by supporting the band front. He would continue through roles as assistant band director and since 2007 has been the director of our of our bands. Over the years, he's mentored colleagues, wrote curriculum, and built up an award-winning competitive band program. If you're not familiar with the difference between a competitive and a non-competitive marching band, the non-competitive band, directors, go home at night. Great leaders inspire others to leadership.

015Mr. Pool's coaching tree speaks for itself. At his final concert in the high school auditori auditorium earlier this week, Mr. Pool shared with the crowd that one of the first people that welcomed him him into the southern York County fold was a young musician, Wes Harlor, very warmly citing Mr. Pool's impact in his interview. You'll see Wes's name later on this evening's agenda. Wes is one of many warriors that were inspired by Mr. Pool's example. Not all went into careers in music or careers in education, but all of them were touched by his passion for working hard, serving the community, and persevering. Perhaps the most impactful hallmark that I take from Mr. Pool is one that struck me when I first saw it. I thought it was odd that Mr. P would often get the

016band started and then would seem to drift off to the side. It seemed humble but unusual for a band director to do this. But but as I would get to know Chris and understand his style, I came to appreciate that Chris never wanted the spotlight to be on him. Rather, throughout his more than two decades of encouraging and supporting Warrior band members, he wanted the spotlight, the glory, and the pride to be in and on the students he was mentoring through music. This was never more true than when the Keystone Indoor Drill Association stopped by the high school this winter to announce his induction into their Hall of Fame. Chris, we wish you a retirement full of golf, time with family and friends, and lots of good music. And we also hope you get to

017see what autumn looks an autumn evening looks like from anywhere other than a football field. Thank you for your dedication, your passion, and your friendship. Congratulations. Oh yeah. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, moving on to item 5.02, the power of words. I'm going to turn that over to Dr. Robert. Uh, thank you, Mrs. Hall. Uh, just just a quick note for Earl and Chris and Monica, Trisha here. Thank you for your service and dedication to our district. Um, I know uh you probably have many other things this evening, but if you want to stay at the entire board meeting, you may, but like to discuss yourselves, you may also do that. I just want to put it out there. Thank you, Dr. Pepper. Okay. Uh well, thank you, Mrs. Hall. Uh we'll start off uh with

0185.02, as you mentioned, the power of words. With us this evening, we have Mrs. Ashley Gonzalez, who um is the art teacher phenom from Southern Elementary. Uh but there's a reason why she's here this evening. Uh back in March um she had the privilege to represent our district in uh Kentucky and presented and shared this presentation power of words. Um based on that uh she also had an article that was published as a result uh that led to this uh this presentation. So after reviewing it myself, Dr. Bryson, Mrs. Green and a couple other members of our administrative team. Uh we thought it would be a great opportunity to have here have her come here this evening and share uh the power of words and the presentation that she has done. So Ashley floor is

019yours. Would you like me to hand that out for you? Sure. Good evening everybody. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Um I had the honor uh to present in Kentucky this lesson. Um this lesson started off when I first had an afterchool arts club called the creative minds. And we were a service learning um project uh of students that we would do service learning projects for the school and the community. And this was actually a lesson that the students came up with many years ago. Um, and we kind of kept it as a tradition. And the students wanted to um, bring joy and happiness to others. So, we walk into school no matter who we are. They said the students are, you know, they walk past each other.

020Some are friends, some aren't, and no one really knows what kind of day someone's having. They don't know maybe what's going on at home, um, or any challenges going in their lives. And sometimes someone just needs a little pickme up, like just a little, hey, I'm thinking of you um or something positive to make them feel good about who they are and um and what they they are as a person. So the project started where students created bookmarks and they had to research inspirational quotes that they felt inspiring to themselves. So things that people would feel good about um in hopes that it would bring them joy. And then students had to research quotes um and different words that they themselves thought would bring joy and inspire others. And so they had to create some

021artwork on a bookmark um and then they designed their bookmark based on their quote and um added some of their artwork. So with this students were able then to um create a piece of art and then also um represent their voice and give it back to others. And the way they did this was hiding them in the library. Um so we went as a group and then I started doing it with different grade levels and I would then take the students to the library and they'd hide them in books or they'd hide them between the books. Um working with the librarian, Mrs. Lanigan. Uh it became a really fun project. And when I first started this off, um actually was with uh I think Caleb's grade when I had him. Um which I'm very proud

022of Caleb. Very exciting to see how wonderful he's doing as a uh student representative. Um they wanted to uh put some in the middle school. So they actually then because they were sixth graders going to middle school uh and they hid some in there. And so this whole project was inspired by that which I then wrote an article for Scholastic Art magazine um so I could share the message that the students you know had created and um share it with other art educators. So um I thought it was such a great lesson that I applied in Kentucky to present it and it got chosen which was I'm very excited about and uh this is kind of where the project led. So, here's some examples that students had created. And the cool thing is is that

023they didn't hide their own bookmark. So, they kind of all made them and then they would just pick one that they didn't create and they would hide that one. So, um it was really exciting. They had so much fun um hiding them. They had so much fun finding them. And so these are some of the bookmarks actually that we just did just um the past couple weeks. And in your notebooks um are ones that students created for you and they also created the notebooks for you. Um so the cover has some of their artwork as well. And the really great thing about this is they're taking their creativity and their love and their joy and they are creating a little piece of art and giving it back to the world. So, um, yeah, thank you

024so much and I hope you enjoy your bookmark and it brings you some joy and happiness. These are wonderful. Thank you so much, Mrs. Oh my goodness, such a idea and congratulations on your recognition. Incredible. I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing it. Thank you. And that's it. I I had to end it with this one. I thought it was cute. Thank you. And if you've never been to Southern Elementary School's uh art cultural fair, you really need to take uh the opportunity to get over there next year. It's unbelievable. I I I swear you must have at least half the parents as volunteers or a couple really really good ones because there isn't an inch of wall space um that's not covered by unbelievable artwork. So, thank you, Ashley. As well as the ceilings,

025too. Yes. Well, I appreciate your support of my education. So, thank you. All right. Thank you again. Thank you. Um, item 5.03. I will again turn it over to you to Dr. Refert. Thank you, Mrs. Hall. Uh, I don't know how I can top Ashley presentation, the retirements, and Caleb since he, uh, always seems to reduce what I have to say. So, thanks, Caleb. Uh but uh just real quick, blink of an eye, we're 10 days away, which you know, it's amazing to think that, you know, 170 days school days prior, we're just starting a school year. Now we're 10 days away uh from the commencement for our 2025 graduates. So, what an amazing year. Uh just to continue with my theme uh with safety, I wanted to take a a quick moment and I

026know uh Earl had just walked uh had just left uh but just take a moment to thank you Mr. Litel Mendes, Sergeant Smuck, um our maintenance custodians, officers from Southern Regional as well as Pennsylvania State Police for the support this year and the support this year during our extracurricular activities. Um there is not an evening event that they're working behind the scenes whether it is you know whether you're at the stadium inside getting set up getting chairs set up for uh you know the the the musicals or uh for the elementary concerts that are occurring those behind the things behind the scenes is just amazing of what they do and I don't think we take enough time to publicly appreciate and you know acknowledge them for for what they have done. And then for the

027safety and security, that's another piece, you know, our our school, our district is what are we doing to continue to to show that presence and that safety and security. So that's why I wanted to continue to recognize our safety and security team because, you know, as we close out the year, they have shown a lot of dedication uh for those small things that go on behind the scenes that make those big events happen. um under supportive and I wish Mr. I didn't kick Mr. Pool out too too early but congratulations goes out to Southern County School District uh because our district was nominated first time for the National Association of Music Merchants 2025 best communities for music education award. Uh we're pleased to announce that our district was recognized this week and we have such

028an amazing music program uh directors and student musicians and proud of earning this award for the first time for our school district. Um under collaborative culture um in an effort to uh seek continued feedback uh for about our schools uh the district uh sent out communication regarding participation in our spring uh Pennsylvania Department of Education PTE's climate survey. uh that has been issued to our staff, parents, and students. As Dr. Hughes and I had shared during our March committee meeting, education committee meeting, we're hoping to increase our parent survey. So, parents, please take a moment to complete the brief survey and let us know how we're doing as a district. Uh as for student participation, uh parents will need your support uh as students need to complete the optin in order to participate in the

029survey. Uh so please return that back to your school uh student schools so that we can start that survey uh at the building starting next week. But I wanted to thank everyone in advance for your time or participation in the climate survey uh because we do utilize that survey those survey results uh to address concerns and make improvements with their school. Uh just a couple reminders, this Saturday uh is jazz festival at Shbury Elementary. uh please come out support the house band which is Southern Middle School but Cesco Hanox uh jazz band we have I believe two other jazz bands uh from other schools that'll be represented and then the melting pot which is a a national inter I won't say international I can't say but uh they will bring the uh the roof down

030because they are phenomenal u elementary band or elementary school board recognition is Monday May 19th 7:00 p.m. high school auditorium middle school spring band concert is next Wednesday the 21st. Uh we do have commencement which is on the 30th for our 2025 graduates. Uh we're really proud of what our graduates are not only what they have done but what they are going to be able to do as they move forward. So uh let's have a great finish to the uh 2024 25 school year or not. Choice is choice. Thank you. Moving on to item six, public comment. Um, as a reminder, when you come up to the podium, please state your name, your municipality of residence, and observe proper decorum. And for that, I have Mrs. Val Dennis. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity

031to speak. My name is Val Dennis and I live in Shrewsbury Township. I'm in the midst of proctoring two weeks of AP exams so I can empathize with the students hard work. Um today teachers were there hours after school um with study sessions and with review sessions in general supporting homework and classwork and it's so crucial that we remind ourselves of their dedication and have gratitude for our teachers. Um, a board member once said to me, um, I never consider becoming a teacher because they don't get paid that well. And it's true, sadly. You know, they're first world nations. Um, it's almost double. Um, so I think it's important that we continue to look at the reasons for our teacher shortages, to ask our teachers, um, what they need most from us, and to work

032with them to increase our support of this profession always. Tonight I will speak to items on the agenda from the hard work of custodians to the creativity that we just saw of an art teacher as a librarian. I especially love that project um to mechanics because all create in-person public schools and the next generation of healthy adults and as adults we all have unconscious bias or implicit bias. This refers to the automatic and unintentional attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding and decisions. These biases are ingrained and stem from past experiences and cultural context. And that's a whole lot of words that simply mean that sometimes we think things about others that just aren't true. I don't know what you assume about me from initial or from speaking. I'm not intending to change anyone's mind.

033I simply want to share my experiences and my thoughts about students and education. I will say that both my parents grew up without running water. I understand the idea of poverty and the poverty mentality and the students that are continuing to cope with that in our district and elsewhere. My parents are turning 96 and 88 this month. I turned 57 last week and I'll keep showing up for students, parents, and families. My mom knew the value of education. She read to me from day one. She would keep a list of frequently misspelled words, multiplication tables, and a paper wheel of state and international capitals to test me in the car. I had my own educational public media ch media channel right there in the car. Her mother refused any financial handouts even though they could

034have used them. I don't believe in bailing out children, teens or adults contrary to popular beliefs about woke people or left people. I believe we work with the poor and all the pushed aside so that all can be self-sufficient and have dignity and worth for their lives. And that is one of the intentions, the primary intention of public education. Several years ago, I chose to attend the film, Whose Children Are They Here in New Freedom? The intention of the film was to promote far-right Christian charter schools. For decades, charter schools have been proven to be academically and socially inferior and financially gutting communities, gutting finances on the front end and on the repair side. These are known facts. And yet here we are in an odd progress of water torture or death by a thousand

035cuts with various policies and decisions small and big attempting to dilute a school district that as we've just seen has and is already proving student achievement and adult life readiness. My intention in attending the film Whose Children Are They was to listen, to understand, and to participate in continuing dialogue with all those who are interested in the education of our children and teenagers. I continue to work through face-to-face conversations and have them often. This is our way forward. In answer to the questions, whose children are they? They are everyone's children. Biological, adopted, blended families, single parent families, foster grandchildren, transient, military, migrants, two moms, two dads, grandparents, raising grandchildren. There is no perfect nuclear family. Families can be nuclear, but that's different. Divorce and death are part of society. Each family has its joys and

036challenges. A parent once said to me, "I'll be so glad when my children don't have to be all all around those other kids." She was referring to her white middle-class children being around poor white children. After graduation, we are still living in the same community and world. And we are around those people, all of those people. Whether we want to admit it or not, we live here and we work together or we fight each other on screens or in person. Public schools educate everyone developing essential social skills. Other versions do not. Male, female, black, white, brown, Asian, indigenous, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu. Whose children are they? Everyone's. May we continue to have gratitude for and support our public schools for the sake of our children, all children in our community, and the health of the

037next generations. Thank you, Mrs. Dennis. Um, I do not have anybody else. Is there anybody else that was signed up? Okay. Um, item 6.02. Any discussion on anything? Okay. Moving on to item seven, the consent agenda. Um, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented. So move. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yeah. Could I actually lift out an item? I don't know if I do that here or after this. I want 7.20 out of the consent agenda. Okay. Mr. Litz, how would I do that? If Mr. Wilson and the second are okay with that. I'm okay with that. Okay. And the second as well. Sure. Okay. Then the motion would be for everything other than 7.20. Do you want me to do that? No, no, it's done. Okay,

038gotcha. No, I would just vote. We just So, I just think Okay. All right. Um, so I have a motion in a second. Any discussion? We had that, right? Okay. Any nays or abstensions? Hearing none, that motion passes. Okay. Okay. And then discussion. Now we are at 7.20. Do you want a motion before we start that conversation? All right. I will entertain a motion to discuss the approve. To approve to approve item 7 what was it? 2020 20. Second. Um okay. So I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I just wanted to probably ask Dr. repert to highlight what exactly this is. Um, we had it last May, I believe. And so, I just wanted to have conversation about specifically what this was, what it's not, and everything entailed because it's it's it's

039sneaky, but in my opinion, fine. And I just wanted to make sure that everybody else knew what this was, too. Thank you, Mr. NLE. Yes, the uh the emergent tree which is a program that we use for our tier 2 and tier three students uh primarily in special education as a way for us to monitor but also uh identify first we identify behaviors you know through their uh IEPs you know what their focus is on and through the emergent tree uh this is a way for our teachers then to track whatever those challenging behavior aviors are and then they're able to then utilize that data when we have progress monitoring. So each quarter, you know, each of our students that have behavioral goals within their IEP have have to have progress monitoring done. So quarterly

040then this would then provide those reports for our teachers that are entering in this information for the students based on are they uh let's say being on task. Let's just use that as a simple were they on task on you know during those 45 days they'll be able to identify during certain periods what percentage of time the students were on task. So then when the teachers are then reporting that data back to the parents they're able to see are those students making specific growth regarding to those specific behaviors that are within their within their behavior plans. Uh Dr. Rogers is here with us this evening. uh we had spoke at length regarding this uh but that is the only part of the emergency that we are using. emergency does have other uh resources uh that

041are available through their umbrella of resources, but this is specifically the one that we're using for our students with IEPs, tier 2, tier three, and allows our teachers a quicker way to, you know, record and collect data for those specific behaviors and then report on those on a quarterly basis uh to the parents so we can determine does that goal continue? Does it need to be modified or does the student, you know, complete and fulfill the requirements of that uh goal and they can have that removed? Thank you so much, Dr. Rafford. And I just wanted to clarify when I said sneaky, I wasn't meaning that there was anything nefarious by any chance. It just I read it, I didn't understand what it meant. And so, it really is just data. It's not, you know,

042nothing more than being able to cross reference what the goals were at the beginning of the year, what they are now, if we're on point, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, thank you. If I can real quick, Mr. and maybe you can answer, Dr. Did we um with this agreement, did we s sufficiently utilize this last year and get our bang for our buck out of it? Absolutely. We're we're using it, as Dr. Robert said, for our um special education students um especially those students who have a positive behavior support plan. So we're using this um for the majority of our buildings. We not using it for all of them, but we're also utilizing it for our regular education students as well, too. So, especially in the elementary buildings, um we have certain students

043that we are tracking to see whether or not we need to qualify them for special education. We're providing behavioral interventions for them as well, too. So, it's behavior tracking um software that we're utilizing that will help us understand trends, whether students making progress or not making progress towards their goals. Um it also helps us because it's like a fivepoint um data for each item that we're looking at. So Dr. Reppard gave the um the uh example of on task but not only that but like we'll we'll break it down to how often do we have to prompt the student to so in that five point data point we would have five being that the student was independent during during an instructional time where they had to complete a task on their own. Four would be

044maybe they need two prompts in order to do it in that time frame. Three would be that they need um between three and five prompts if you will. And so it kind of gives us a an idea as well too of how much support they need to be in order to to to garner that independence for student. So we have a lot of trends that go along with that as well too um that help us with the behavior tracking. And then as those points are entered, do they go off to an off-site analysis and then come back with a report or how? No, it's it's all within just the software program itself. So um the data is um they use and I even received some as as late as today as far as with director

045of technology for the company um in looking at understanding how much security they they do take within their and what their privacy policies are. And so they have encrypted um software that makes sure that the student data is only accessible to those that have access to it. So um there's strict access to it. I for example don't um you know I can ask for it for our teachers and they can share that with me and some of our building administrators but I don't have access to any like regular access to any of our students within that because that uh and that's how encrypted data if you will and so there's only certain software designers and stuff that for the back end of things they have access to it from the companies they as well too

046and then there's no third party access whatsoever that they have the only third party that they would have is any of the contract contractors that are doing again like I said building or user experience type of stuff but there's no there's no um advertisers or anything else like that. No one has any access to that whatsoever. Um and in fact they they state their privacy policy that the only way they would share that is from actual legal um subpoena request. All right. Thank you. And this is used primarily by the social workers. Are they the ones that are tracking all of this for the tier 2 and tier three or no? No, this would be one of our special education teachers. Okay. Um sometimes it's our counselors that also have it that are managing some

047of our uh students and then um our school psychologist may also um utilize it as well too. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? All right. Hearing none, that motion passes. Okay. Moving on to item eight. That one to do. No, she did. She did. No, she didn't do no needs or abstensions. No, abstensions. Oh, might have been quiet, but I heard it. Oh, did you hear it? Okay, we didn't hear it. Sorry. Sorry. We just didn't hear it. Okay. Um, all right. Moving on to item eight, the committee report for education. Mrs. Hankle. Sure. And Dr. Dr. Robert, I gave you by accident my paper that has what I do and what you do, but I have a memory and I think we're good. All right. And you know what? I left mine in my

048office. So, I think we're going to be the two of us. And if not, we got Dr. Hughes over here. There we go. All right. So, let's try 8.01 quick data for high reliability schools. I know that's not me. Dr. Reer to Dr. Hughes. That's me. So, thank you, Mr. NLE. Uh for school board directors, uh you have with you uh 1.8 eight uh which is the uh the summary of our five buildings regarding to quick data. All righty. Um and so that's actually it says action. Is that supposed to be action? That should be information. That's information. I'm on the wrong one. Look at that. All right. Yep. That takes us to 8.02 revisions to the 2025 2026 district student handbook. Dr. Reppert. Thank you, Mr. Hankle. Uh so last month we presented the

049student handbook and we received uh some feedback uh from the board regarding some recommendations for changes. So I just wanted to highlight some of those changes for ev uh for the board uh based on those specific things. Uh one item that uh we did have a discussion regarding uh the remote learning days. uh we had virtual learning days that was initially uh indicated in the student handbook uh that has been changed to remote learning days. Uh so I just wanted to make sure that the board was aware we did take that item into consideration but we did need to make that uh change specifically because of the Chromebooks uh from from K through 4. Uh we also made a modification based on I believe it was Mrs. hall. Uh we we spoke spoke last week

050or sorry last month changing uh sports to athletics uh when we're looking at extracurricular activities so that now will be identified and more recognizable in the table of contents and also added athletics extracurricular contract uh so that as I mentioned now it's more recognizable and easier to identify. Uh we did have a discussion regarding tardiness uh which was on page 90. So I'm just kind of going to read this uh verbatim. Uh so the change that we had made in the handbook uh specifically now will state uh students who come to school in a private vehicle may have one excused tardy per school year provided the notice submitted by the parent guardian indicating the reason beyond the drivers or students control the final decision will be made by the building principal or designate. Uh the

051reason why we wanted to put this in there is there are some extenduating cir circumstances that may happen mechanical flat tire or whatever may be. Uh so this would provide students with one opportunity if that does happen and excuse note would come in and it would be excused. Now if it's something that would occur you know a continued you know second third fourth time then it would not be um an excused absence but it does take into consideration that sometimes those situations do happen. So we did make that modification and based on discussion with the school board at last month to change that within the handbooks which is great. Thank you. Well, and I want to thank the uh the administration uh the board uh as well as some of our staff that really put

052a lot of time into the development of this when there were these uh suggestions or recommendations that that came to us about how we can you know clarify those and make sure the uh those were articulated in the handbook. And I also would like to highlight that uh specifically that tardiness change in the handbook that all came from a board email that came our way from the general public and it seemed the request was reasonable to me. I I looked over at the handbook and I thought, you know what? Yeah, no, it it does seem reasonable that we should have, you know, a grace extended to one one thing that could happen and obviously not a pattern of behavior will be something that, you know, we'll we'll excuse, but one absolutely seemed like it was

053reasonable to me. So, that again to just show the cooperation between, you know, when I get emails, I respond. I try to contend with them. I try to think of what I can do. Sometimes it's obviously way above my payroll, which is nothing. And um but yeah, and then with the conversations that we had with other district administrators, I mean, they implemented it right off the bat, gave us something a rough draft to look at, and so that's how that process got started. So, thank you so much for that. Uh does anybody else have any other questions or comments about that? All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and move to approve the revisions to the 2025 2026 district student handbook. May I have a second, please? Does anybody have any nays or abstensions?

054All right, that motion carries. That takes us to 8.03 graduates for the class of 2025 from Suscohan High School. Um, I'm going to cover that one. I'm going to go ahead and move to approve the 223 graduates for the class of 2025 from Sesco High School pending completion of all graduation requirements. May I have a second, please? We were quick on that one. Do we have any discussion besides congratulations? Yeah, big congratulations and a round of applause. All righty. Any nays or abstensions? That motion carries. That takes us to 8.04. Um, I'm going to go ahead and move to approve an agreement with Harrisburg University for students to participate in dual enrollment courses for a term of 5 years through April 30th, 2030 at no cost to the district. May I have a second, please?

055And then Dr. Ripper, did you have anything that you wouldn't want to say about this one? I can't remember. Well, I I would just like to say I I think through these dual enrollment opportunities, it's really providing our high school students the opportunity to get a jump start on that postsecary. And I don't have the specific number. I know Mrs. Hankle, you have it in your mind. Uh about how many we have approved this year or reapproved this year. It's been a lot. um it really is providing our our our high school students that those opportunities and more specifically if there's a career path or interest now they can start getting focused you know in in some of those. So I know our administration and our students thank the board for the approval of these

056u dual dual enrollment and these affiliation agreements and it takes time. I just wanted to highlight that you know one of the agreements that we had with uh Grove City uh G Grove Grove City Grove City um you know that was back during Dr. Dr. Mullen I mean some of these agreements sometimes take a year to from from a parent or somebody else asking can we go ahead and draft an agreement to having it actually come to fruition and then come before the board. I mean it takes work. It takes time and so I'm I'm very very happy to be able to present these to you. Does anybody else have any other information? All righty. Any nays or abstensions with this one? All right. Hearing none, that motion carries. That brings us to 8.05. I

057move to approve the purchase and implementation of the Hing Mifflin court hardcourt writing workshop program for grades K through two for a period of four years at a total cost of $11,19124. May I have a second, please? Second. All right. And then can we have some information on what exactly this is and what it entails? Absolutely, Mrs. Hankle. And this is where we'll turn it over to Dr. Hughes. Woohoo. So, I want to thank everyone um for this opportunity this evening. Um one of the things that we have been looking at, we adopted the heartline hardcore into reading into literature program two years ago. And while we have been really looking at how our curriculum goes K through 12th grade, one of the things we identified in our teachers came to us and said we

058need more in the area of writing for our um primary sorry K through 2 grade students. We have the formation of letters through our 95% program but the grammar and some of those other components we were missing. So, we looked at different programs and I want to give our reading specialists a a huge shout out. Um, our reading specialist from Friendship, Amy Mener and Ellen Dunlap, Andrea Musmacher from Shrewberry, and Sarah Malakis from Southern. They went through and really looked at the alignment of many different writing programs out there. And one of the things we came back to is the fact that we had a third through 8th grade program and all those other programs didn't align with being able to make sure that the standards were being put in place correctly. So we vetted

059a lot of different resources and they did the alignment. When we looked at the hard court what there is for kindergarten through 2 grade we said this is the perfect match because it goes with our program. But we didn't want to stop there. We took it to every one of our teachers in our buildings and had them vet through it as well to look at the program and many people came back. The the comments were all coming back and saying thank you. This is something we need. So, we're very excited to be able to bring this the continue the writing process for our primary grades. Does anybody have any questions? Um Dr. cues. Since it's oriented towards kindergarten through 2 grade, how does this coincide with what we're trying to do with uh deemphasizing Chromebooks,

060is this more hands-on? Is it? Okay, it is. So, one of the things with this is that it really looks at helping students to structure sentences and really pulls in those grammar pieces in the other ones. So um a lot of these programs use mentor texts which are like children's books and other things and kids have to write about what they are reading or what they are seeing or hearing. So this program will help them to continue the the actual graphic writing but also being able to put it into sentence format. Okay. So they're writing with their hands. They're not typing. Right. Okay. And then does it have a digital aspect to it as well or no? No. Not for the the K2 one. Okay. All right. Fantastic. Does anybody else have any other questions?

061Yeah, the price tag is it for is that each year or is that all four? I'm assuming it's all four. All four. Okay. And what it does is the upfront cost to this is really all the teacher manuals that come through with this and then it has the every year they have an online component that our teachers can use and it has things that they can print out online and um kind of use with our our students. So we're not locked into buying workbooks. They can pick and choose what they're they're and literally download it from the teacher portal and print it out for students. I love that you you said that it we're not locked into workbooks. That's that's fantastic. Any other questions? Any nays or abstensions? That motion carries. And then that takes

062us to 8.6. I'm going to go ahead and move to approve the purchase of the implementation of, and I love this word, let's say it together, dibbles. eight for grade K through six transitioning from the current AC acadance reading assessment at an annual cost of $1,533. May I have a second, please? Second. All right. And Dr. Hughes, are you doing this one as well? Yes. So, we currently use an assessment called Aadians. And several years ago, once again, I have to give a shout out to our reading specialists. They said, "Kim, we're really looking and seeing the research isn't supporting Aadians as much anymore." The Acadians and Dibbles actually were the same company and they split off and Dibbles went with more of a researchbased process whereas Acadians didn't quite take the same route. So

063they actually did a year where we did some pilot programs to be able to see how this one compared to the scores of our students compared to what we were doing with the Acadians and found that the dibbles gave us much more accurate scores. So that's why we are coming now to say we'd like to switch for after doing a due diligence and making sure that we had you know data to help us support why make this change. Any other questions? I just have a question. So if you I don't let me think about how I want to say this. So if you have a student that has been assessed on a cadence and then next year it's going to be dibbles like how do you adjust for that change? So there is a um

064we have like a a metric which will help us make that adjustment but really because we give it at the beginning of the year we're looking at the student progress starting at that very beginning of the year midyear and end of year. So while it'll show us the trajectory over time we have some some ways to be able to help support why there might be a slight dip in that. Okay. Thank you. Is there going to be any gaps in the kids who are about to go from, you know, maybe from middle to or elementary to high school or middle school, sorry. Um, no. And that's one of the things actually the Acadians program um they don't have all of them going up into the middle school. So, we were um we kind of have

065a cut off there anyway. So, and I know what we use for our special ed students, we use a different program. So, a lot of our middle and high school students are in another program that we assess their reading skills that are more aimed toward middle and high school. So, ones that are in sixth grade and about to go to middle, it's a whole different program anyway. Correct. So, there's no Yeah, there's there will be no gap in their Nope. Reading. No. Nope. Any other questions for Dr. Hughes? Any nays or abstensions? That motion carries. That takes us to 8.07. I move to approve the following novel adoptions. One, searching for super by Marian Jensen. And then the second is the Myer Psychology for AP course, fourth edition. May I have a second, please? Second.

066Um, and then I just wanted to go ahead and kickstart conversation. I absolutely adored Searching for Super. Um, it's a sequel to Almost Super. Is that Yeah, get me into memory. Um, fantastic. I would say, and Dr. Hughes, you can probably tell me, too. I think you have to read the first one to be able to it's it's just too too much information. So for the Myers psychology, um Dr. Hughes was already telling me that they didn't have very many choices anyway. You know, the AP course dictates what the text what the well college board dictates dictates what the um AP uh test is going to be. And so it really does have to be a straightforward textbook that's just going to cover all the things that are going to be tested. And so we

067didn't really have do we have three we were looking at two we were looking at we had three but once again one of them was kind of like a cheat sheet for not a true textbook at all and so by the nature of this being an AP course anyway I mean we don't have this in writing but that to my my judgment is an opt in. If you don't want the class don't take it. You're opting in if you take the class. And so caution's not the word that I would use, but I just wanted to highlight for parents because we are transparent about our curriculum. This is a high school. It's a very heavy book, high school um textbook. It's AP. It's psychology. Have conversations with your teens. I'm not going to talk about

068anything that's in here, but it is a psychology class. And so you're going to have abnormal psych. You're going to have sexual orientations. you're going to have gender. That's going to be on the AP test. And so, if we want to turn out students who potentially want to go into the psychology field, that's my degree. I wasn't shocked, I will say, by it. And I actually thought that for a psychology book, it was pretty factual. I might not necessarily agree with everything in my major that I took, but you have to learn it. The DSM covers it. And so any parent that's wants to be cautious about what's in this course, feel free to go ahead and email me. I know Dr. Hughes would talk. We're we're very open and honest. But it was actually

069pretty spot-on for psychology and and I was more than pleased about it. But I did want to highlight the nature of it. It's a psychology course, so no surprises really, right? Um does anybody have any questions or any comments? Okay. All righty. So I'm going to go ahead and ask will yeah any nays or abstensions for that one hearing none that motion carries 8.08 um that's information because these were all it's none of them are at cost to the district so the speakers approved through the vetting process. Dr. Reppert did you want to have that one? Absolutely. Yeah. Just something I just wanted to share with the board. uh when the school board approved the revision to the board policy uh back in October, one of the specific components was that if there are speakers

070that are re coming back that are annual annually coming back uh same speaker, same information that we would not have those speakers have to come back each year, you know, to be uh reapproved. But every four years those speakers would come back to the board um for renewal. Uh with the caveat that if there is the same topic but a different speaker or the same speaker and a change of the material that we would bring that speaker or that topic back to the board for approval, you know, at that time. Uh so we are we we currently have a uh a document that we will be sharing with our administrators at the end of the year uh as well as Mrs. Hankle just so we have a list of what speakers have been approved what

071the topics what the dates are so we know when that next time we would have to approve them. Thank you so much Dr. Rford and you can see the speakers that we're going to approve well we're not going that have already been approved. Um, I did want to highlight that uh Jonathan P, who is no relation to Mr. Chris Pole, is a DEA special agent that's going to be presenting to Southern Middle School students at no cost to the district. That one was fantastic. attention. Has been removed. Exit Jen, are we just are we good? Are we Can we go to like 809? Is that where we pick up? Uh, yeah, cuz I didn't have anything more. Well, I had a comment. I had a comment. Oh, sure. Are we Are we back? Are we

072back? Um, it was just the one that we were on. It was 89. You were commenting about one of the I don't think they're filming. They're good. Are they on? Okay. You were talking about the uh about the speakers. Speakers about the DEA agent. Oh, yeah. My comment was it's super cool. And I also want to add that I love that Caroline Dum is coming back and she's giving some time to the district because she graduated last year and we miss her. Although we really do love Kayla for the EMT EMT students. That's right. All righty. Does anybody else have anything about 8.8? Any other fire drills? All right. Other business. Other other business. All right. 8.09 uh curriculum maps. Dr. Hughes. So, I'm very excited. Um we're showing you one of our art maps

073tonight. And um one of the things Ashley Gonzalez had her presentation earlier this evening and um I just want to reference back to we had the art and technology fair um just a few weeks ago. One of the things as a curriculum director that was the neatest for me to see is the final product of what happens with these maps. And it was absolutely incredible. I could see from the different products that the students have completed which maps and which instruction but our teachers have done such a phenomenal job with really creating all of these things and then the products that our students are putting forth. Um so it's very exciting for me to see when you see the final product. So tonight we're going to be improving career seminar drawing one elementary band grades

074four and five elementary string orchestra grades four and five engineering 8 English language arts 5 English language arts 6 English language arts 7 English language arts 8 health grade 8 painting 1 personal finance and sports 2 physical education grade seven, physical education grades 8, and weight training and conditioning one. Once again, I want to just um thank the teachers, the we've done um over 70 maps this year and the hard work that all of our teachers have put into this and all of our um content facilitators that have helped with this whole process. I just want to give a shout out to all of our teachers and the hard work that has been really the fruition is on our website for everyone to see. All righty. Um I move to approve the following stage one

075curriculum maps as districtwide master maps indicated on the agenda. May I have a second? Second. Um does anybody have any questions for Dr. Hughes? Thank you again so much Dr. Hughes. really appreciate you. Right. Any nays or abstensions? That motion carries. That takes us up to 8.10. Update on the artificial intelligence committee. Dr. Recert. Thank you, Mr. Hankle. Uh just for the school board and the uh the public uh when we had our personnel policy committee meeting uh we did discuss more in depth about the uh policy 8 point 815.1 the use of generative artificial intelligence in education. Uh just to kind of review some of the key points with that. Uh the committee that was developed to review and develop and propose the policy not only included three of our board members. Uh we

076had district administrators as well as our teachers you know that are the ones that would be implementing you know the uh the AI policy uh specifically in the classroom regarding the responsible use of it. Uh some of the key points that Mrs. Paul uh had reviewed during the uh personnel policy meeting specific to that is that uh you know we're providing the AI literacy tools for our students and staff so they understand specifically you know what are the pros and cons but specifically how to utilize it. um evaluating I think that's the most important part where you know when we're looking at these uh tools these resources evaluating them uh not only with our staff but with our technology department to determine the uh the use of it uh but the prohibiting you know the

077uh AI and use of employee hiring and evaluation uh but more importantly I know this was a question a concern that came up from the board and may come up with parent about the acade academic integrity, you know, having specific guidelines that our students need to make sure they're aware of, not only at school when they're using it, but if they're writing a scholarship application, just as an example, for our our seniors or our soon to be rising seniors, you know, there are specific uh impacts of utilizing your own voice. you can utilize it as a tool, as a reference, but when you're converting that into your final product that you're turning in, uh it has to be in your voice. But more specifically, you know, going back to policy 815, which is our responsible

078use, which covers all technology, it really gives us the opportunity to ensure that anyone who's utilizing our school system, our and what they're producing, whether it is on the school Chromebook or they're using their own personal device completing it, completing an assignment, there's still that responsible use more importantly with the academic integrity. So that is a component that we want to make sure that our students understand as well as our staff understand that you know we need to be responsible with how we utilize not only AI which is the current topic but there will be future technology and future advances in technology that we need to continue to educate our students our future learners how to use that appropriately how to use it responsibly moving forward. Does anybody have any questions for Dr. Rert? Do

079have a couple of questions and thank you for your explanation. Um, it is in reference to elementary students and when the cuto off would be that, you know, they're learning the basics and so I h I would have concerns as a parent that that would be too much temptation for them and they wouldn't be able to learn. So, I understand that this is used by staff, you know, as a way to develop different lesson plans to different types of learners, but wouldn't that be prohibitive for all of our elementary age students that they wouldn't be introduced to this at all until maybe high school when they're ready to use it, if even that would be a possibility. So, well, I I think and Dr. Hughes was really supported and chaired that committee. she may have

080a a response or two with that. But I I think the the critical piece is that there's an awareness at a young age because students probably are are already using it. Uh I like like Joe last night, you know, being at the uh the concert last evening and standing in the back the number of students because it started off elementary and then we went to the uh the the middle school orchestra. the number of students that were sitting there on their devices, you know, during that. Now, they could have been looking at the QR code uh if they got reception, right, Joe? Uh but it it it really is how are we teaching? We don't as educators, we don't know what's being taught in the home, but more importantly, we know that the more we

081can provide our students with an understanding of what they're doing or how they're utilizing it, then we hope that they make good choices when they're out when they're outside of school. Um but kids, we know our students are getting these devices earlier and earlier. Um you know, I could say go back a few years, very few maybe elementary students had devices. Now it seems like everybody has a device. Because we gave it to them. What's that? Because we gave it to them, right? Uh but when it comes to the uh the use of and and using AI, it's a matter of educating and I think that that's the most critical piece is educating the pros, you know, what's good about it, but then also what are could be the potential consequences of it. Dr. is

082there anything else you can share with that? So I think one of the things that we've identified is um it goes back to the education. So, there are a lot of programs right now, um, code.org is one of them that's looking for kindergarten that they're learning about AI, but not actually putting their hands on a computer. They learn about some of the the dangers of the internet. They learn about. So, you're building an understanding and a capacity starting in kindergarten, but they may not actually have anything put into their hands until much later. Um the other piece that we're being very careful with with AI is that many of the programs out there have a um a student age of 12 or up for them to actually access access what the AI app would be.

083So we're looking at all of those pieces, making sure that we're we're you know identifying what can and what can't be used by our students. But we also have to understand that generative AI is something like a chat GPT which is not meant for our students under 12. There are other things that are AI that are more um where you give the student and it has four pictures and they have to click on something that has a shape to it. That's considered AI. So it's really understanding the difference between artificial intelligence and then also the generative AI which is the one where you're putting the information in and it's designing it for you. So, I think those are the pieces that we are looking at right now is making sure that we're training our our

084students starting in kindergarten about not just AI, but the dangers of the internet because what we don't want is for someone to hand a student a phone and not know like why don't you talk to people that some of these sites go right out and you can interact with other people. So, we want to make sure that we're training our our students starting at a young age about the dangers of that and why you have to be very careful. And we also want to make sure that we're really looking at students being creative in their their their responses. So, limiting um a lot of the pieces that would go with um the artificial intelligence. Um, I know one of the things that we're looking at from our um, librarians are right now looking at how

085do we do some of these pieces with hands-on components like how do you do coding and those types of things by actually looking at coding blocks that never go on the computer. So, it's teaching them the practices and the general information without actually putting them online. Okay. So, there's a lot of pieces that we're looking at right now to make sure that we're we're we're getting students ready for their future, but being age appropriate as we move forward with that. Okay. So, the Chromebooks then essentially would be preloaded with what can be accessed and what can't be accessed and it would just be cut off for that specific age group, 12. And what we do like right now we have on our you know a list of places that students can go from their library

086page that take them to those areas. So we we have a lot of and it's really under a teacher control of not just handing the student a computer but really helping them say this is the the website we're going to this is what we're looking at. Okay. Is there a lot of elementary teacher representation among the AI committee that discuss what they want and what they wouldn't want as far as AI when it comes to not just their lessons plans and safety lessons for the children when they use technology whether it be on their personal cell phone at home or whether it be at school do they have a a big voice in the AI committee to be able to speak to these things. So we're at the first piece that we started with was

087the actual AI policy and that started with the PSBA and the committee looking at that. We're in a second phase right now which will be teacher um and student professional development and part of that will have that committee will continue to build what what teachers need to know, what students need to know and then they will be the ones that will be helping the vet the different um programs that are out there. Okay. So, we have some teachers that have already started saying like, "Hey, I'm looking. I'm finding these pieces." And then, um, we have other teachers that are still kind of like, "Hey, this is a brand new world. I I need a lot more information before I start delving into this." Sure. because it seems dangerously tempting for someone to be able to

088fake what they're learning and then when we have graduates turned out and they go in the work world and they really don't know because the technology has been doing the work for them. That's a concern. Well, and part of that is making sure like part of that professional development is what is the purpose behind the AI. So, we shouldn't be handing students just, you know, devices and saying here you go. It's really about what is the purpose on why are you using the AI. So sometimes it may be to develop an understanding of how to create directions and seeing whether the computer can take the directions that the student created and what happens with that. So there's different ways that you can use these programs, but it goes back to the instruction and the lesson

089planning behind them and making sure that there's always a purpose. It's not that we're using AI to just generate. We're using AI to for a specific purpose. Okay. So, as as you were speaking like this world is developing very quickly and it's you know what's real right now is going to be totally different in a month. Um do the teachers feel supported that they are getting the um their own education in this as well as so that they can therefore teach it to the kids. So we had we started the year with one presentation that was from Chris Clayton from the um Pennsylvania Education Association. So they were even looking at legalities behind the use of AI whether it's teacher or student. Um the first level that we're really seeing is that we have to

090train our teachers and how they can use it. So if they're able to use it and use it with um an expectation and use it for their own development of whether it's lesson planning or helping them to find information, um part of that is to make sure that all sources are legitimate. So we're having people starting to delve into those areas. But I think the first area is for people to be able to start the process of really looking we're looking at professional development right now that will take um our committee has vetted about four different courses right now and I did one that was through the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Um the courses are actually filling up so quickly there was another course from the department that we couldn't get into. None of us

091were able from the committee were able to get into. So, we're on a wait list right now for that. But, um, it goes to show how quickly this is moving and how we're trying to get as much information. Um, I know that people on the committee have been trying different courses that are out there. There's people that have been taking college courses. So, people are jumping very quickly to try to get um, this group to be able to help other people as we're moving forward. because if there's a way that we as a board could support, you know, keeping ahead of it, I would like to do that instead of being beyond the a and I think that would come back just as we find more presenters and things to be able to help with

092those training opportunities for people. Okay. Thank you. I would say that one of the things uh so uh Mr. Wilson, Mr. Hankle, and myself are all um the board members that are on the committee. Speaking for myself, Mr. Wilson, you can say what what your side of it is. I I would say that we I enter into this committee with a great deal of suspicion and skepticism and caution. Um I think we all are. It's new. And the ideas that I've continued to emphasize and I know I I've heard it from others as well is that we definitely need to have a critical thinking component that coincides with this. um you know it's not just the internet now and I think that our our students are trained to not believe everything that they see on

093the internet but AI is just a completely different I mean you can even see the the AI synopsis of the internet how many times have you googled something see the AI synopsis and you're like that's not right but if you enter into that thinking that everything that it says is true and and it's and sometimes it can be horrifically wrong. It's not just giving details that are a little bit it's completely wrong. It it can malign whole whole people groups. It can it it's it's not something that shouldn't be entered into without great caution. And that critical thinking aspect Dr. Hughes had talked about it before is just so key. And then I would also say too that especially from an element. Well, here's the other thing too to reiterate. It is already happening. Teachers

094are already using it. Students are already using it. So when we talk about it from a policy perspective, if we don't come up with a policy, we don't come up with guidelines. If we don't come up with framework, then that means that we don't have any voice into what should or should not be done. That means it's free reign for everybody to do anything with no guidelines. So there's that aspect of it too. The caution is okay well we've got to have something because by having nothing that means it's just going to continue to go without without anything. Um but then the other thing that is always a great concern to me when we were talking about in the committee some of the things that elementary students could do that would be appropriate for them

095tends to be in writing later. We're not talking so much kindergarten even first second grade. you know, the idea was was um brought to us that, you know, maybe they could start creatively uh using AI in order to generate ideas for writing. And I will say that for my part, I am so unbelievably against that. I I do not as as a writing teacher myself, and I think this goes even through high school, the number one problem you have trying to get students to write is to what to write on. And that's its own thing. If you can't figure out what what subjects to write on and what would be fruitful in order to investigate in a paper, you know, sometimes you have to learn that lesson, especially if you're doing an outline, picking the

096wrong topic, thinking you have enough information in order to to do all the things that you need to do and then realizing I don't. It's not a paper. And that lesson to have it have a computer tell you what to write on. I just outsourcing creativity and human ingenuity. Caution. Caution. I I do want to reiterate that because that was one of my biggest concerns with this is what does the learn, you know, who does the thinking with the learning. I think that's the mindset we have to actually have about this. if the computer's doing the thinking about what I should do on my science fair project or write write this paper about the student isn't learning and I think that's you know that's got to be our guiding principle in this um the other

097thing gosh show my age um now the other the other scenario that we definitely want to make sure we avoid is okay students um students using AI I to finish work that the teacher created with AI. It's like a snake eating its own tail. Nobody's learning anything, not the teacher or the student. I want to make sure that we have protections so we don't find ourselves in that scenario. So those are kind of my big concerns. Now do I use it every day in my, you know, in my business? Absolutely. But you have to have the the baseline again critical critical thought process to you know a lot of a lot of developers right now are using AI to create all this stuff and you spend actually more time debugging the thing that the AI

098created than if you actually just did it yourself. So but again you know six months from now it'll be an entirely different ball game. So I have I just have a question on um so one of the things that I think Mrs. Hall asked was you know in the elementary grades could we turn off that functionality? So I guess I'm just confused like what what are we using if we can turn it off and we don't have it like what how do we quantify that? I think you need to be careful with the idea of like turning off turning on um because even some of the software packages that are utilized let's say in the area of mathematics have an AI component that helps generate word let's say uh problem sets for students. So, as

099I answer this problem, let's say correctly, it moves me on. But if I answer it in a way that's incorrect, it'll identify what I did wrong and provide a problem set that addresses that area. So, you're unintentionally saying you turn it on and turn it off. But what the the area we're moving into right now is it's integrated in some even an example would be Google. If you get you get on Google and you you search something now, your first response is the geni is the is is a um AI generated response based on everything it found. So it's not necessarily something that if we just turn it off, we're okay. Um it's more a matter of just like you're saying critical thinking. as we move into this, we need to be critically thinking. In

100the scenario of even moving into this, we have to be critically thinking because it's not a yes or no, it's a how do we how do we? Um, and it's interesting because as I sat here, I hate to do this to you, Caleb, but I'm like, Caleb, how comfortable are you jumping in on this topic and speaking from your scenario both in school and out of school? I mean, I think that AI is definitely a strong tool, but can be utilized in ways that aren't really helpful to learning like like all of you have been saying. Um, I obviously don't use AI to do my schoolwork, but um not on record. [Laughter] Um, but I I think it's a a really helpful tool. Like there's there's certain softwares like perplexity is one that I've used

101um to find sources for my AP seminar like presentations and and writings like it's it's fact checked. I obviously do my own factchecking because it's AI. Um you can't really trust whatever you see. But I I've found it very helpful even like I use chat GPT to give me hints on the Wordle like um something like so small as that. But I really that's kind of the extent of my of my usage. But it's built into my phone like it's it's kind of in everything we do. So it's definitely a very big gray area. I would say I think the other piece to this is that we have to remember that it's a tool. It's not the lesson. And if we're using this as a tool, it's got to be purposeful. There's a reason why

102the teacher is including this in their lesson plan. And that's the the the the piece behind it. We have to really make sure that we're using this for the appropriate processes and purposes. Yes. Which brings me to my next point, and I know we're going to talk about it more once we get into the policies with this being new, but ethical considerations, right? And proper use of data. And does this policy start off say with the high school grades that if there is misuse of someone's cell phone and they're doing something nefarious in nature then is there enough bite here to apply a proper consequence for doing that? And and that would go if you look at policy 815 would acceptable responsible use. Yes. And then if you go specifically back to the handbook which

103we just approved that's that's in there regarding what are the the progression you know if you're looking at academic integrity misuse of electronic devices there's specific consequences that kind of go along with that. Um, and to go back to your question, you know, is there enough bite? I I think when there are situations that do occur that our teachers may suspect that there's a concern, our administrators, they're addressing those and they're addressing those swiftly. But yes, there may be a consequence that goes along with it, but it's also the education behind it. So then that's that conversation with that specific student about how it was utilized, what was the purpose, the reason why. Uh but we do have that support through 815 which is that responsible acceptable use and then that next step which goes

104back to the student handbook uh that is reviewed with the students at the beginning of the year. They're given it over the summer. Parents review it. They sign off on it. And then each of our buildings do handbook talks. And then I know there's a specific uh component regarding the acceptable and responsible use of electronic devices uh that this would be included with that. Also, I was just going to ask I'm assuming AI falls under the umbrella of 815. Yes. Right. Okay. So the district administrator in that building would have the authority to take that student's phone until the end of the day, give it back or what have you as a consequence for whatever long period of time. I I don't know what they are specifically in the handbook and what the progression would

105be, but I would think the the more egregious the the more you would skip and go right to the end of of taking it. Is that within our right? Right. And if and if a student were using uh using AI and turned in an assignment, you know, consequences there could be academic consequences too. Yeah. They could have to redo that assignment. They could get a zero for that assignment which would affect uh their grade. So when you look at academic integrity, uh there are decisions that could be made at even at the classroom level regarding that which at times has bubbled in up to the administration because a parent you know had that concern you know about their child getting a consequence for inappropriate use of AI. And I can say it has come to

106my attention then because a parent was not not pleased with that response. But I specifically go back at that point to 815, acceptable use, academic integrity, student handbook, and the consequences that were issued by uh the teacher as a result of the misuse. So many layers to it. Yeah. Thank you. So, so in you know the whole purpose of this at the beginning is is the AI committee and you spoke to the fact that the next phase seems to be adding in more teacher input. Um and although I I agree with uh Senkle that we we definitely need a policy we wouldn't want we don't want to be policyless in this by by no means. Um but the policy process is um and and should be a little cumbersome. It is uh a slowm moving

107process as as it should be. Um but hearing that sort of the next phase of that committee is that teacher input. Um and the fact that we're 10 10 days away from the end of the school year. Um whatever we do with this policy is going to have the impact in next school year. Um and if we end up with something that has unintended consequences for our teachers um then it will be once again an arduous process to fix that um by design. So there's a part of me that wants to I I don't even know if there's a world where we can get that that good teacher feedback into this AI committee when there's only 10 days left in the school year. I I don't know what that looks like uh moving forward. But

108um I I do think that having a better understanding of the the teachers perspective, you know, at at, you know, elementary, middle, high school, because obviously they're going to be drastically different, you know, in those three, but at least understanding that teacher teacher's perspective. And it doesn't sound like this committee has really gotten to that yet. Is that accurate? So, can I I'm going to speak to two things. I think the first was if you wanted to make a mod modification in the next year, you totally can do that. And yeah, just have to do it through the three month. We do this. Yeah, we would put it through the same cycle any other other policy which typically we run about six months on that. And for this purpose, I think the policy is a

109is a guideline. And if you talk to teachers, they want flexibility. you know to start and I think they're going to learn from the use and their PD which is the next step in the process is we have a policy we have a guideline but within that part of that guideline is staff are going to get PD and then next step is when introducing to to student use here are the real risks of AI here are the pros So, here are the don'ts and why. And when we go into this, just like a Google search, we have to be critical in nature of whatever we're getting back from that tool. Um, and part of that instruction too is what is AI? Because we're talking about it as if we have this knowledge of what it

110is and isn't and it's not complete even within this board meeting and it can't be. I mean, this is like uh Dr. Dr. Hughes said you you could take a college course on this and you're at the starting point, you know. So that's why the policy is I think written in such a way that it's going to provide a guideline and I absolutely think by the end of next year there may be a recommendation for updates to that policy. Um, and either way, we're utilizing it now. And if we have issues with academic integrity, we're addressing them now. Um, you can't get away from it really. It's it's a matter of navigating and teaching critical thinking in the process to be able to utilize. Yeah, I would I would piggy back on that that even

111with a flexible framework, that's still more rigid than the nothing that we have now. that that's correct. You know, we're putting it in writing that says we're going to do PD, we're going to train kids of pros and cons. Everything I just said, we're putting in writing stating these are the things we're going to do. Um, and yet it's not so specific at this point and it wouldn't be in a policy. First graders are going to get D or second grade because that's going to evolve monthto month. And so that's why that framework is flexible, but at least putting a structure of here are the things that have to happen regardless of age or if the maybe the legal minds can jump in here with the with the constantly evolution the constant evolution of the

112AI is is the legal framework pretty solid on that or is it constantly changing too? It it it's a there's a lot of legal issues. There's a lot of unknowns. Um, as this develops, um, you know, I'm going to training too on this stuff. You know, the big things for us is, you know, I don't want teachers putting kids personal information into AI to generate an IEP. And that's I know probably one of the things this committee is talking about because it goes in there and it's not coming out. Um, the academic integrity. I've dealt with that with some clients on on those types of things. Um, you'll see in the news a lot of stuff about copyrights like where is AI getting the information and you know is the copyright protected and there's probably

113going to be fights about that. U but as the educators all said I everyone's using it in some way, shape or form whether it's inside or outside of school. And so it's it's trying to sort of navigate those issues and I fully expect as Dr. Bryson said there's going to be issues that come up and say Jeff remember we had this discussion back in May. Well we're trying to find in the policy where we address that then we'll probably make a note of it and say if we can be clear on that and on that but but there's there's definitely issues. You know, the big thing is making sure the staff uses it appropriately and kids aren't frankly doing things that they shouldn't be doing with AI, whether it's academically or or other as you've

114probably seen in the media in some cases. So, the one question I have that I still don't understand is we already have a policy for data privacy and protection. So the legal liability aspect that we need to be covered for would be covered under that policy. So I'm just I guess what I'm not understanding is like what is the specific use for AI for if it's covered in 815 813. Yep. 81511. I think many people are not considering there would be an example. I'm using this AI tool but do I really know what's happen if so if I input data into it I'm not making the connection to another policy when I'm doing that right I'm thinking I'm just putting it in and it's kicking this back without an understanding that the thing that is

115taking it in and kicking it back is also keeping what I put in and then potentially distributing online or through other vendors, paid vendors, that information. But don't we have to have protections in place for that as it is right now? I I think you do. Meaning you probably have existing policies on student records and confidentiality required by Furpa. Um, sometimes with policies in order to get a parent or student or teacher's attention, it's like, "Oh, here's the AI thing." And it may be reiterating some of those principles that are reflected elsewhere on it. I've not looked at any draft policy. No one's asked me to. I don't even know where it is. If if it's if it's at, and I'd be happy to do that if if you'd like. uh and we would cite

116that policy in the AI policy. So instead of rehashing everything, you're sending the individual to here's the data policy or here's 8.5. Did you say I think it's 8.15 81. So you wouldn't rehash all of the uh misuse of technology you're citing to it within the AI policy. Miss Hall, what if, if I'm understanding you correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, are are you asking if we already have legal coverage for other things, why do we need this AI policy? Is that what you're That's definitely part of it. Sure. Okay. Because my understanding, and Dr. Hughes, correct me if I'm wrong, it we never talked about legal liability in the committee or very briefly with things, it it's that just like she said, emphasizing that it's a tool. And so I would expect, don't check

117my math on this, but however many years back when school boards were first trying to learn what their policy would be using calculators when they first came to be, what what is the school district going to have the policy be for mathematic classes to use calculators? And yes, you could use a calculator to, you know, bang somebody on the side of the head with and use it as a weapon and that would be covered under the disciplinary stuff that would be in the student handbook. How are we as a tool going to use that integrated into our classrooms? And so the AI policy largely is covering not the legal perspective though obviously we have to have that overlap but uh as a tool how are we going to integrate that into our classrooms? How aren't

118we going to what are our promises to the community about how how the students are going to be using them and probably specific to grades and how teachers are going to be using it. Does that make sense? Yes. But I don't think that's in the policy, the grades and such. Well, it could be. I mean, as we Right. But it's not. So really what I'm getting at is the rationale for why we needed to have a policy was through PSBA for legal liability protection. And so what I'm saying is like that's what that was the rationale for why we had to create it. We have a policy that covers that. I think exactly what you're saying. Yours is intended or or this one is intended to be guidelines, but to me it's not really complete

119to be guidelines. I think there's so many open-ended questions and to Mr. Hall's point, you know, being able to go in and change policy. I mean, we all know this is going to be fast changing. It feels like to what Mr. Hash was saying, we're always kind of behind. And and I guess really what the the heart of my question is, if we are protected with legal liability, what what really is it that we're losing by I mean, I don't actually see this as a tool. I see it as a philosophical question. And I don't feel empowered to be here to be representing parents or teachers because how many people were in the AI committee? 20 actually 20. Yeah, it's it was a lot. 20. I mean, that doesn't feel like a lot when I'm

120thinking about parents, when I'm thinking about elementary, middle, high school, when I'm thinking about teachers and how they instruct with that. So, I guess really what my question is is, you know, what is the compelling reason that we couldn't give ourselves a little bit more time to hear some more of those voices and to be able to get that feedback because this is what I think of. I think that we are a district that is predominantly funded by our community and I don't feel that they've had any input into this conversation and maybe they don't want it, but I feel like we should at least ask. Well, the one point I just want to make, this is a new policy. You know, this a new, you know, 8 815.1 is a new policy. Uh, and

121we've had new policies that we've adopted. You know, the board has adopted uh two new policies this year and I think we have we have a third one on here. And so, I think when when we look at uh the development of it, you know, with this one, we specifically went out with Dr. Hugh's leadership uh as well as the board designating three board directors to be part of it in order to have more feedback into it. Um, and I think when we look specifically at some of new policies, you know, I think it's really comes down to the board, you know, to develop and determine, okay, what do we want and what do we do we want those policies to be and then the administration, we go through and then make sure that those

122are enforced. Uh so when we look at the AI policy when that was provided to us I believe back in the fall uh we we took a look at it when we had Chris Clayton come in and I know it was something Dr. Bryson said back in the fall we need to have an a policy because we currently do not have something. So then when it was brought to the board the board then developed the a committee administrative committee that we had that involved. So when we look at the development of the policies like I said the three previous two previous and the one we had the additional one those were developed by the board where there when you look at stakeholder feedback we had very minimal stakeholder feedback unless it came through public comment

123etc. This one I do agree that uh go to what Mrs. As Hankle was saying, if we don't have right now, we don't have anything. So now it's kind of a free, but we kind of do, right? We have the the legal liability. No, regarding AI, we don't have legal liability, but not as a tool. Not as a tool. We our teachers are already using it. Our students are already using it. We're already implementing in the classroom without any rules at all. None. So now this gives a specific focus to right degenerative uh AI use. And I appreciate your your caution. I am 100% behind exactly where you're coming from with it. I think I'm looking at it a little bit differently, but the endgame is the same for me as well. I would like

124to say it this way without any if we're worried that it's going to take a long time, and I think it is going to take a long time. And I also absolutely appreciate more parental feedback. I want that as well. I want the teachers feedback as well. So, I'm not saying willy-nilly go in, just write something, hope for the best. I want all that feedback as well. I would be more likely wanting to have a policy that says our policy is you can't use AI at all for anything anywhere anytime in our schools first to then wait to come up with you know whatever more perfect policy we can have instead of let everything come out through the floodgates because we have nothing in our quest to find something better. It's the there's nothing now

125that really terrifies me. So, so the one thing I'm thinking just as an example, we sort of all assumed that these computers were being used a lot, right? And then when we actually got the survey, it really wasn't as much as what we thought. So, I guess just what I'm stuck with is, you know, we're saying it's all out there. Everybody's using it, but like what does that mean? I don't know what that means. Do you know what I'm saying? It means that science that eighth grade science classes are being, you know, using it to come up with ideas for projects. It means that sixth graders are using, you know, AI to to help them write things both independently and teacher led. Yes. And you know, and teachers are saying if you have if you're

126you know, if you want more information on this, go use grammar or what was it? Perplexity. Perplexity. Perplexity is the one that's being recommended by our teachers right now with no policy with no policy to our students to use whether it's on their Chromebook or their personal device. I'm just saying that there's we don't really have any sort of structure around it yet and we need something there to sort of because again if we're giving if we're recommending tools for our students to use whether in or out of school without ever even vetting what that tool has in it whether it's got biases in it or you know any you know we right mention how accurate it is. I'm sorry. I I was going to say and what what this policy gives us um recognizing

127that we're already using it as a tool rec recognizing that teachers are already recommending its use to students. It's it states clearly that the board is adopting a a criticism first approach that is in the policy that before students are are told to use it or taught to use it for constructive purposes, they need to learn to criticize it and take apart what it's saying before that before that's recommended. Now, will that be done perfectly? No. But I think it's very important that we say that. So I I definitely completely understand and agree with the fact that we need a policy, but as as we've discussed and deliberated here, it's become even more apparent that the teachers really are already at the point of the sword of this. I mean, they're already at the point

128of the sword. They're already using it. They're already have pieces and parts that are out there that they're working with. And I have to go back that it it feels uh presumptuous to move forward without that next phase of this AI committee and that being getting good input back from them about what they're already using, how it's working, how it isn't working, the positives, the negatives, you know, the things that, you know, they're learning from it and maybe the things that they're seeing that are bad. Um, and I don't I don't know that that prevents us from having this policy in the uh hands of our administrators going into next school year, giving them the opportunity to to speak more into it. Um, especially with all of the examples of that they're already using it.

129They're they're already in the trenches with it. um and they have to have a far better understanding of it than I could dream to have. It's not my world. So having that from them or or at least some components of of their perspective in this AI committee seems very valuable in making these decisions. And I and I agree with that. I think the policy specifically says that we are to develop the framework for how it will be used. M and I think that is not a firm policy that means we have to wait three you know three board meetings to implement any changes but the framework is kind of like administrative regulation where that can be updated and modified in real time based on those conversations with the teachers because the policy itself doesn't say

130this person can use this person can't because that's too too restrictive for a policy to do. It's the framework that I think that the a committee with teachers with any other stakeholders, parents or whoever the the framework that's that's kind of the next thing that's got to come out of this we put the policy in place then we can really start heavy work on that framework so that we have a framework that everybody can live with. So, in the 20 or so people that we had in this, did we have teacher representation from elementary, middle, and high? Like in the classroom teachers. And I want to reiterate something that you said, uh, Miss Hall. I think that you're absolutely right that it's the orientation that at least I'm taking towards it is a philosophical one.

131I think you're spot on with that. And I think that my own understanding of how do you develop a framework really was kind of pairing the two things that Dr. Hughes and Miss Hall said, the philos the philosophical overview of it and then using it as a tool. How did the two of them marry together? And that's the best way I can think about it myself. It's not a policy that we're doing right now that would be open and guidelines and flexible. I can't possibly say use it this way and only this way doing these things with these apps because those apps are going to change two days from now. It's more the end result is to have this thing. Don't use it unless you want that thing. Does that make sense? Like an overarching

132view. It's it's an aid. It's not to do your homework. I think we're just I think in my mind guidelines have to come before a policy. And I I think just to like be fair about it, you know, in the research that I've done, you've got half of the states that have guidelines. You have half that have no guidelines. Pennsylvania is in the place where we have no guidelines. This would be much easier if we had that, but we don't. So, you know, it's just the conversation of, you know, putting a policy together, which is a governing document, but not really knowing what we're governing or like how we're doing. I mean, the age piece of it is a huge huge concern for me. And so like we don't really have that identified yet. And

133so um so anyway, all that to say, I don't I don't I think this was a committee update. So thank you for that. This we'll make the policy piece of it go really quick because we covered a lot of that here. Um I would just say, you know, to anybody that's watching, I mean, you know, let us know what people are thinking. It would be great to be able to get some of that feedback. So absolutely. Does anybody have any other questions for Dr. Hughes? Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Hughes. And thank you, Miss Hall, too, for your thoughts on that. It's I I I am very happy to see the trepidation because that is the the attitude I think we need to have with this. Um, all righty. That brings

134me to 8.11. Other items of business? I have none. Does anybody else have any for education? World's longest education report is over. Back to you, Vice President Hall. Okay. Um, the item number nine, finance and budget. That goes to Mr. Wilson. Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. Madame President, I guess madame vice president. All right. Uh 9.01 financial reports. These are here for review. We've got the treasures report, tax collection report, budget status, and the cafeteria report. Um I'm going to do my usual uh reading of the numbers. So our concentration account, we started the month with 5,143,22265. We ended the month at $6,413,76183. The investment accounts, we started the month at $32,420,91616 and ended the month with 29,67,2859. Uh, you may peruse those at your leisure. 9.02. Um, I'm going to make a motion to

135approve the bills for payment as presented. May I have a second? Second. Uh, any discussion or questions? We should pay the bills. Okay. Uh, any nays or abstensions? Motion passes. We'll pay the bills. 9.03 exonerations and refunds. Jump to this. I'm going to make a motion to approve the exonerations and refunds as presented. May I have a second? Second. Okay. Uh, this represents $3,322.97 for miscellaneous um exonerations refunds. Any questions or discussion on this? Hearing none. Uh, any ns or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. 9.04 budget transfers. I'm going to make a motion to approve the budget transfers as presented. May I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Any ns or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. 9.05. The big one. I'm going to make a motion to adopt the general fund budget for the 2025

1362026 fiscal year per resolution. May I have a second? Second. Okay. Uh the total for the budget for this year is $68,438 $43,834. Um we've been talking about this a lot. Uh is there anything that we want to add as a special update, Mrs. Green? Nothing in particular unless you want me to go over anything. No, I I was going to touch on the farmstead homestead farmstead, but we can do that on its item, I guess, here. Yep. Okay. Um the only things of note here obviously this is going back to precoid levels of federal funding now that ESR funding is completely done. Um any other questions or discussion on this? Any nays or abstensions? Hearing none budget passes 9.06. I'm going to make a motion to adopt a tax levy resolution for the 2025

1372026 fiscal year. This resolution does not include a tax increase. May I have a second? Second. Second. Any discussion, questions? Any nays or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. No tax increase. 9.07 I'm going to make a motion to approve the Homestead Farmstead resolution for the 2025 2026 fiscal year. May I have a second? Second. Second. Okay. Um Mrs. Green, do you want to speak to this one? Um absolutely can speak to it. Um so the Homestead Farmstead um process, we get money from the state. So basically it's a revenue neutral um we take the the money that comes from the state um we distribute it to all of the qualifying properties they're approved by the county to be either a homestead or a farmstead or both. Um some properties are actually both. Um we did

138get a significant increase in our amount. Um so if you if you've been around for a long time um at the beginning we basically got the same amount of money each year. So if we had more homesteads, uh the actual amount per property went down. Um the last couple years we have gotten increases. So um for us, our properties will get over a $40 decrease in their taxes. Um so it's not based upon your total assessment. It's based upon um each property that's approved gets the same amount as long as they pay that amount of taxes. Um, so for our property taxpayers, um, because we have a tax um, if we don't have a tax increase this year, there'll actually be a decrease for homestead farmstead properties as we get through that. Anything else you

139want me to comment on? Um, no. Thank you, Mrs. Green. Um, one thing I do want to note just for the public, um, this represents our district share of gambling funds by the state. So they are used to uh reduce property taxes as this has been discussed. Um so now yeah and can I just I'm sorry can I just add one more thing? So with that additional um amount for this year we now have what I consider more of an actual reduction in property tax. So we're up to $31641 for each property that qualifies. So that's an act that's now getting to an amount that's actually starting to really reduce their their tax burden. Okay. And the total amount we get from the state for this was 1.8 million. Is that right? Okay. All right.

140Um any further discussion or questions? Any navs or abstensions? That motion passes. 9.08. I'm going to make a motion to approve revisions to the tax collector and policy manual, including the approval of senior citizen property tax rebate resolution for 2025 2026. Yeah, I have you second. Second. Um, is there anything to say on this, Mrs. Green? No. So, really there's there's nothing of substance. It's really dates in the millillage for 25 cities. Okay. Any questions, comments? Any nays or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. 9.09. I'm going to make a motion to approve a tax collector resolution to appoint Rachel Wetszel as tax collector for the 2025 2026 fiscal year for railroad burough taxes. May I have a second? Second. Okay. Any questions or comments? She's amazing. Sure. She'll do a great job. Okay. Any navs

141or extensions? Hear none. Motion passes. 9.10. I'm going to make a motion to approve a tax collector resolution to appoint Yale Prego as tax collector for the 2025 2026 fiscal year for New Freedomber. May I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Any naysay or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. 9.11. I'm going to make a motion to award the student Chromebook bid to Riverside Technologies, Inc. for the purchase of 460 Chromebooks at a cost of $199,640. May I have a second? Second. Any discussion on this? Yes. So, there was some information that um Chromebook prices had had increased because of demand. Is that still the case? The this the per machine price this year is up 34% over last year's price. Um, one of the things that I actually asked uh Sue and the team to

142look at this week because of the tariff changes that just happened this week was would there be any benefit to discussing any changes in delivery timing or something like that with our vendors to see if that would affect the cost of this bid. And unfortunately, the answer is no. Sue, would you like to fill in? Yeah. So, I can expand on that a little bit. Um, so one of the things as we looked at it is these actually don't Chromebooks and um computers actually didn't have tariffs. Now, that's not to say the market and market uncertainty didn't raise the prices. I'm not saying that. But, um, if you look at what was actually to be tariffed, that wasn't in the list. Um so as we work through it um we also did want to check

143um because some of the tariffs are off now would the vendors feel more comfortable um could we get lower pricing? We reached out to several um basically they said that there's not rebates or they've already factored them in. Um and actually subsequently to talking to Mr. Wilson, we had another vendor in the bid, one of the higher ones, reach out to say, "Well, I can now offer you lower pricing, but it's still higher than our lowest bid." So, um, we do believe this is the pricing out in the market based upon all of these factors. There's just not a lot of rebates right now. The other thing is last year, so some of it I believe is increase in price and some of it is we got a really good price last year. So, that

144that is part of the equation, too. um the machines that we had last year, they were the last year of those machines. Um this is the first year of the new model. We can't get the old machines anymore. They don't make them. So, so there's a lot of factors involved with this. Um but you know, and as you look at this, the other thing that's complicated, your first blush is, oh, we could throw out the bids and start again. That's always a very difficult decision to make because a the prices are out on the street now and to upset the vendors is not a good place to be. So, we do believe they're fair. We've kind of looked at it upside down, backwards, talked to a whole bunch of people. Um, we believe they're fair

145prices. Um, we believe this is the price right now. Uh, I did speak with Mr. Wilson. A couple things we're going to look at for next year is um it's been conducive to bid the last couple years. Prior to that, we did state contract. So, we may go back to just looking at state contract, which means you basically ask people to give their lowest bid based upon a state contract. Um, but you're not going through the bidding process and and so there's pros and cons to both. The other thing is timing. Um, it's obviously better for our folks to be able to do it during the summer, but everybody wants to do it during the summer. That's not been a problem the last couple years, but that may start to be where maybe October through

146December is a better time frame. So, we will we will keep our ears and eyes open on that. Maybe we'll look at maybe doing it at a different time of the year. But, um, in conclusion with all that, I do think they're fair. I think it's fair pricing and I think the bid did give us good results even though they're significantly higher than last year's results. I'm assuming that this 460 number includes the decrease that we did because of the changes to the K through four. Four, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Um, thank you, Sue. Thank uh Trevor and Greg for their part in trying to see what we could do with this. Um, any other questions, comments? Any nays or extensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. 9.12. I'm going to make a motion to approve

147two agreements relating to the lease of a single replacement copier at a cost of $99.20 per month for 60 months. One, a lease agreement with lease capital funding LLC for the lease of a cop of the copier. and two of maintenance and supplies agreements with Dosio office solutions for the ongoing maintenance of the copy. May I have a second? Second. Okay. Um this is decent savings this year, right, Mrs. Green? Yes, it's lower than our previous um release. Any other questions, discussion? What is the price of a new copier of that caliber? When you say what do you mean actually buying the copier? Yeah. So I can say we did that years ago. Um that I would not recommend buying a copier. A lot of the the the um issues surrounding copiers is the maintenance

148piece of it. So when you buy it then you have to have somebody have to pay somebody to come in service. This includes service supplies everything um with the whole copier. So, uh, the other thing is if it doesn't perform, if it's that we have a performance issue with it, then, um, we're able to they have to bring us the different one. Um, we we did buy when I first came to the district, we had bought copers and, um, it was miserable. Yeah. They they caught like I think we had a small fire like we we had issues. Um, so I would I would not recommend purchasing a copier just because of all the surrounding issues behind the maintenance. And I'm not a copier expert, nor is anyone on our staff an actual copier expert.

149So, um, we really have the folks come in and service for us. Yeah. Yeah. Leasing these is the right way to go. Just get you get the maintenance to support. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Uh, you said this includes supplies. often that's more than the cost of buying the printer itself over five years. No, I Yeah, I said I don't know what the cost of paying for a buying the machine would be, but the cost of $99 per month actually includes both the the lease and um the supplies and the um the maintenance. Yeah. And often supplies are the bigger share of the cost over a 5-year period. Yeah. So, we're talking toner, paper includes all paper, not paper, tone, toner, toner, drums, right? Those things. Okay. If something, you know, if something breaks on it,

150they they come and fix it. And And I'm going to presume that this is a printer/copier, not just a copier. No, it's it's Well, when you say printer, we don't have printer. We don't do printers. You don't do printers. We have copiers. Okay. Like like individual people. Even Bob doesn't have Zoom printer. We Trevor Trevor took those away years ago. Yeah, we we have copiers and you all have to go with your badge and get your copies off the cop. Okay. Any other discussion? Just real quick, how many of these do we have throughout the district at 99 per month? Well, they're not all 99 per month because this is a smaller one. So, I can get you that information. We have a larger copy release. This is just for one for one machine, right?

151Um I can say we have significantly less than we did years before, but I can't off the top of my head tell you how many we have. Um but again, one of the one of the pieces of it is we don't we used to have literally everyone had their own printer and the cost of supplies and maintenance and um you talk to our tech folks and the the staff time to fix all of those if there's an issue. Um, so we're now down to to copers. We have maybe less than a handful, less than one one hand. Um, printers in particular areas, but for the most part, we have copiers throughout the district. Okay. Just curious. Didn't know that. So, a couple in each building off the top of my head. And there's nothing more

152infuriating than maintaining your own printer because they always don't want to work for Mine never ever works when I need to. Yes. So, our folks So, I I will give a shout out to to Greg and Trevor again. they have done an excellent job of of streamlining this um from where we were before. Um and you know each year our copy counts go down our building principles and we're using less and less copy counts throughout the district. Okay. Okay. Uh any nays or abstensions there? None. Motion passes. 9.13. I'm going to make a motion to approve updates to the athletic sponsorship program to standardize pricing and banner sizes. May I have you second? Second. Uh any discussion on this? Yeah, I have uh one question. Um it states that the sponsorship secured by the district

153will benefit the general fund and thus the athletic fund. Um, is there a world where that can benefit only the athletic fund and not the general fund? We're not talking about a significant amount of money and yet it could have a great impact on on some of our teams. So, so we can structure however you want. Um historically what we have done is because the general fund pays a large portion for the athletic fund um compared to ticket you know intake or or game receipts. Um so we can structure however you want. We can we can have 100% of the proceeds go to the athletic fund but my recommendation if we do that is that we still bring it back um for approval of what we're purchasing with that. Okay. Sure. Those funds. I mean

154it it states a little bit later or it says that student uh athletic teams or clubs will have a preset process to follow and how to secure new to the district banners and sponsorship. So I'm assuming that there's a a level of um ownership that these sports teams are taking in in trying to secure the you know some of this sponsorship. at least they have a portion in it, you know, that and um you know, I just think it would be great to see that benefit the sports teams. So, some of this is in response to um feedback that we got last year, if you remember, that sports teams wanted to go out and be able to to sell sponsorships. So, one of the things is we look at the structure. um we're 100% for

155that, but we need to have a pre-approval process because if they're purchasing something, first of all, let's say it's something facility related, we need to make sure that it's something we want to have and continue to upkeep. Certainly. Plus, we also, and I'll let Brad uh Mr. Keeny speak if he wants to also, but we also need to make sure that um from an equity standpoint and a title n standpoint that we are um not having some teams have different levels of support than other teams. Yeah, I understand that completely. Yeah. So, I mean for like there's there's a big equity piece. If we go make the baseball field better in some areas, we're going to need to make sure the softball feels as well. The other piece is um you want to make sure

156that you know whatever the goal of that sponsorship is is something that's going to benefit a large number of kids, right? Or or specific. So, you know, specific sports have specific equipment that might be an absolute dream to get that sponsorship to be able to have that piece of equipment, but it's even better when it impacts a larger group of kids. And we also want to make sure it's like the best stuff, right? It's not we're just grabbing It's a quality quality versus quality piece there. Um, but my biggest concern with it really is to make sure we're make sure that we're making we're hitting all groups of kids. So, that's that's what I want to make sure. Yeah, I'm not necessarily suggesting that we we make it necessarily specific to the team. Um, more

157that we make the finances specific to the athletic program. rather than the general fund is the only thing I was trying to to because you know it's not an enormous dollar figure by comparison to what we already support with. Um but uh I do think that it could be a good incentive for for the students, you know, the student athletes and and clubs to have incentive of working to see this, you know, progress so that it then, you know, helps their their individual sports. Would it also be possible to include inind contributions? because I know that there are one company I can think of off the top of my head that would just like to have sponsorship representation via banner or sign or whatever, but then helping us with certain areas like um vending and

158concessions and things like that and just updating us in that way. Is that a possibility maybe too? I think we're open to all possibilities. I think we just want to be we want to be careful that so for instance your example of an inind donation we want to make sure it's something that we want to accept okay um and something that we need so I I'll just just give an example like if for for instance they want to give us you know sauerkraut I'm not sure what I'm doing with I know I know it's outlandish but believe me I've seen everything at the end of the I think we're open to all of those and those will be things that we could individually bring like they may not be 100% noted in the sponsorship program

159but if someone were to come forward and say I want to bring you this, you know, want to do an ink kind then I could bring that back to the board and you could vote individually on that. So I I think we're open to all of those things. Um so you would be the guy send them to you, right? Yeah. Send them send them to me and we can kind of talk through it. Um, and but that's where, you know, we can't put every scenario that could possibly happen in there, but we also want to protect that you can't do whatever you want. Is really um because just because you raised the money doesn't mean we're going to do X, Y, and Z. We have to approve that first, right? Before you don't come with

160us and say, "We raised $5,000. Here's what we want to do." You need to ask us first, then go raise the money because I just want to be very cautious about that. I'm assuming there's a vetting behind all that, correct? Of what companies we're allowing in and all that, right? Okay. And by no means am I suggesting that we don't have proper oversight. We should absolutely have proper oversight, just that I'd like to see the funds really benefiting that program specifically. Mhm. I'm not trying to muddy the waters too much with the specifics, but when a team raises funds on their own and say they want to go out and they want to buy their own uniforms, maybe they're not happy with them, but it's not their cycle. Is that allowed? Is there rules against

161that? So, if they're going through the booster club, they absolutely can. We just have to approve the design. But if it's not going through the booster club, if you aren't there things that you do fundraising with different fund raise out of the athletic department, out of our athletic club, right? So that's the whole point of the booster club, right? Um so any fundraisers that are done are done through the booster club. All of them even if they're money that money is not like the $50 that you would contribute for your child so that they would get the benefit of the free what have you. That's all for everything that is fundraising. So even the outside fundraising that you would do sandwiches or what have you that the booster club isn't necessarily doing that all has

162to run through them first. That is Yeah, that's the booster club. That's not the athletic department. They're just holding the money. I mean, they're just like the holders of the money and then you have to get your stuff approved. Like you can't just go buy any uniform. Yeah. We've had some pretty interest and the reason for the oversight, we've had some pretty interesting u attempts to buy some interesting stuff. I guess um but there has to be some, you know, first of all, we need to make sure if they're buying apparel that it's within our current order system, whatever we have. If it's equipment, we need to make sure it's safe. If it's, you know what I'm saying? Uh so there's an approval process. Um there's an approval process from uh from me and as

163well as the rep, the head coach and and the B club official. And then once all that's done, then move forward with that. Now, how it's spelled out within the bylaws is what's going to happen at the beginning of each season. The coaches are going to come up with the budget, right? There might be some things that they need that year, right? That not they're more wants than needs, right? My budget is carrying a lot of the needs, right? and theirs is caring what they want. So some piece of training equipment that's not necessary but could be helpful to the kid, right? They're going to put that in their budget. Then they're going to figure out, okay, well, what kind of fundraisers do I need to to get the money to buy this or the

164items that are on the budget and then they go and fund raise. So it's a very regimented process and there needs to be approval throughout the whole thing. All right, but that's not run through the athletic department. That's all through the all sports booster department. And then I'm assuming that if there were funds generated from this um each team may get a portion of those funds which would then help those individual coaches in achieving some of those goals. Absolutely. Yeah, it's it's helpful and is written when we say the other thing I don't know necessarily that it's incorrect the way it's written because it says general fund but the athletic department and athletic fund is part of the general fund like it's not a separate fund. So saying general funds still covers what you're talking

165about. Sure. Yeah. Just to see that it exclusively benefits the athletic department. And not to get into the weeds, but I do think it's important to note. So, we talk about the district versus the booster club, but we do have to file reports with the state that shows by club or by sport how much we spend and how much the booster club spends in total per sport. So, we we can't circumvent any of not that we ever wanted to. I don't want to mean it that way, but the whole equity piece umbrella is both what we spend and what others spend on our sports. So, just wanted to be clear with that too because it's even though the booster club is a separate organization with a separate employee identification number and everything we still are

166there's still part of us for the equity piece of everything for sports. Yes, creating quality access to quality I guess. How does it work when say the football team raises $20,000 but the field hockey team raises $5,000 on their own? What does that look like in a world of equity? So the equitable piece let's just let you all right so the equ the reason Dr. Bryson, we started the whole thing. All right. But uh so blame me. The people within the booster club and why it's a good idea to have them all sports booster club um is because when we do those mandatory fundraisers in each half the is equal, right? So there's equity from a standpoint of the the club as a whole is providing the same amount of funding per student athlete no

167matter what sport you're in. Right. Mhm. The golf team may have 12 kids on it. Whereas the track team has 120. The funding is not going to look the same. Right. Right. On top of that, they wanted, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my interpretation of it, you're still allowed to fundraisers per sport. You can pick what you want that to be. So, field hockey could raise 20,000 if they put the fundraiser together to raise that money. Um, typically a bigger team's going to have an easier time hitting a higher number because you have more kids, more families and um, but you still have that opportunity to have fundraisers where that money goes to their account for the coaches and the reps and stuff. Okay. So, that's okay because it's equity within the team.

168So, what's because it's equity within the team, right? Yeah. It it's that is from a standpoint of they're putting the work in to raise that money for their individual team, right? But the booster club is saying, "Hey, you know what? If golf camp fundraiser off this year, they're still getting an athlete a lotment for student athletes. Every kid's still getting something, right? They're still walking out with a shirt. They're still walking out with something." Um, but they also provide, it's like the best of both worlds, right? Uh the other piece of that is from a auditing standpoint and from a tech standpoint and all the things that the booster club has to do with the money uh it's putting it in a central location instead of having 15 different booster clubs to track. Mhm. All

169right. That's where things can slip under the rug and catch. Gotcha. Um so really is it's a best of both worlds situation. So that you are getting equitable funding from the athlet side, but you're also getting access to, hey, we got a big ticket item we want to try to get here. We can learn from. So Mr. Keaney, when um the group wants to buy something special for their team, would they go to their coach and their coach comes to you or would they come to you directly? So it it varies. Uh some of the reps are really on top of things and I hear from them before I hear from the coach. Some of the times it's heard from the coach. Um, but it's it's the same approval process. So, they're going to email,

170show, you know, if it's if it's apparel, we're going to get a mockup. If it's a piece of equipment, I'm going to see what the equipment is, and we're going to investigate, make sure it's something, first of all, it's safe and appropriate. Um, and if it checks off, which there's not a lot of times the coaches come out, we say no, right? unless it's clearly against something, you know, it's not our current rule or it's not um it's not something that we would deem safe for kids to use, right? That's really the only time when they stand in front of it if it's benefiting kids. I think that's very helpful. Yeah. For parents listening to I think there's a lot of question about what can we use? Why do we why can't we why do

171they get to do this but we don't, you know, and to be able to go to the right person. And I can kind of the big piece is is being proactive. Create a budget. You know, if you want to fund raise, get that information into, you know, myself or, you know, the reps know this. We talk about this all the time at the club and the reps are wonderful. They're giving enough time. Yeah. For the best kids. Um, they work hard. Super appreciate the boosters. Yeah. And I don't know anybody within the athletic department that won't help make sure they get in, but uh we just have to make sure the fundraisers appropriate too, right? You don't want to send them somewhere where there's a legal substances or something like that, which can happen. Okay.

172Um so we we do approve the fundraisers as well. But like I said, what you'll find in what I've noticed is they're trying to figure out ways to help you. You're not standing your way. M um and sometimes I feel like the information that comes in is just lack of experience within the club and once you get there and you see it and you see how it operates, it really is the kids and those ladies do an amazing job. Oh, for sure. Yeah. A lot of hours spent helping all the athletes. Absolutely. Super appreciative. Okay. Uh any further comment discussion? So, I'm not I'm not sure about the board's perspective on the allocation of funds or if there would even need to be an amendment made in that respect. I don't believe there is because

173the the motion itself does not dictate what the structure is. I think if if there is a conversation, you know, with Sue, you know, as far as the allocation, how it's being allocated, that can be I think that's outside of this meeting, isn't it, Jeff? Yeah, it's outside of the scope of the motion. So, um, if there's something significantly changes that has come back before the board, then we can do that next month. But if there's if there's a conversation, I think that can probably just be handled offline. I don't think does I mean I'm I'm only one board member with a suggestion. So I'm just trying to follow that through. Um so your suggestion I guess it doesn't actually matter materially to the motion itself. So how we allocate it. Um, does anybody have

174a strong feeling one way or the other on the allocation of these funds? Well, do we want to pass this and then we just add it to other uh items of business and then come back to it? We'll have to do the recommend. Yeah, I we can't add it as a new item of business. No, for for next meeting. You're proposing for the next meeting. Yes. To discuss it in the next meeting. Yes. I mean, Susan, is that necessary? I'm okay either way. Um, one thought I had while um, people were discussing was we could wait and once we get the sponsorships coming in, I could bring back the amount of money from the sponsorships and we could make you could make the decision at that time. That's acceptable to me. I don't want to

175hold up a sponsor coming in though. You're not. You're not waiting where the money's going. That's We need to get something out there to show that, you know, hey, we're open to this. That's what we're approved. Well, we're well I think this is effectively it would be the same. I mean it would be exactly the same if if when the money come in comes in we have a discussion about it and and then allocate it to athletics is the same result in the end. What our motion here is is to approve updates to the sponsorship program to standardize pricing banner sizes not has nothing to do with where the money is allocated or stored. So okay, I mean and the verbiage of it benefiting the general fund and thus the athletic fund would not need

176to change in order for that to take place. It can remain the same. Yes. Okay. Um any ns or abstensions on this? Okay. Hear none. Motion passes. 9.14. Take a deep breath. All right. I'm going to make a motion to approve two agreements relating to the district's extending existing Mel phone system service plan. One, a release agreement with Ronco Technology Solutions LLC, which includes a refund of $6,896.89 paid to the district, and two, an agreement with Visual Sound, Inc. for the Mel phone system service plan effective immediately through October 31st, 2028 at an annual cost of $8,91720 and a prorated year 1 cost of $6,896.89. May I have a second? Second. Uh this is basically to change who are who's going to be managing our phone service plan. Yes. And and there was a motion

177about this on last month's um board meeting. Originally they said they could just transfer it. Um now they need all these other things signed. So that's why we're bringing it back in this form. Any questions or discussion? Any nays or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion passes. 9.15. Other items of business. I have none. Back to you, President Hall. Thank you. Um item 10, the personnel and policy. I will pass that to myself. Um 10.01, the first reading of the board policies. So, as per our board policy process, at the April school board meeting, the board distributed the policies that were presented and discussed at the May 6th personnel and policy committee meeting. Tonight constitutes the first reading of these policies. The policies will be published for public review no later than Monday, May 19th, and then

178would move to a second read in June with a board vote. Upon passage of the vote, the policies are final approved and effective. And again, I just want to encourage anybody who may still be watching or watching later, um, that if you have any questions about any of the board discussion, there was some discussion at that meeting on May 6, and to please, um, review that video. As far as the new policies, we have two. Um, the first one is 253, sexbased distinctions and multi-user privacy facilities. This policy was requested by members of the board. On May 6, I introduced a policy that puts into writing a long-standing practice in our district regarding the use of restrooms, locker rooms, changing facilities, and overnight accommodations. This policy is grounded in both respect for individual dignity, privacy,

179and in the importance of ensuring females are safe and comfortable in the knowledge that males are not permitted in female only intimate spaces and vice versa. Under this policy, all students will continue to have access to multi-user locker rooms and restrooms that correspond to their sex. In addition, single-user facilities will be available to anyone who wishes to use them, regardless of sex, offering an additional option for privacy. This policy follows federal and Pennsylvania statutory law requiring that privacy facilities be used separately by the sexes. So in addition to this policy being common sense, protecting intimate spaces for males and females is necessary to comply with both federal and state law. Um any discussion on this particular policy? Okay. Then moving on to 815.1 use of generative artificial intelligence in education. This policy was requested by

180the AI committee as part of PSBA's recommendation for legal liability purposes to ensure data privacy protections. This policy outlines the district's approach to integrating generative artificial intelligence into the educational environment. The policy recognizes the potential of generative AI to enhance education, streamline operations, and prepare students for the future while also addressing the responsible and appropriate use of this technology. The school district's policy aims to harness AI's potential while ensuring responsible use. Policy number 815.1, use of generative artificial intelligence in education, was developed in collaboration with the district's AI committee. We had a lot of discussion on that. Is there any other discussion on it? All right. Moving forward to our updated revised policies. We had nine. Um just briefly the scope of it. We had membership which was adding the student representative guidelines to this

181policy. We had 005 organization which was updated with um the specific administrative committees that we had. We had policy 204 on attendance. This was updated to include our compulsory attendance law for students. We had policy 351, drugfree workplace. That was a PSP update for legal purposes. 805, the emergency preparedness and response. Again, that was a PSB PSBA update. 805.2 school security personnel. That was also uh a PSBA update. 806 on child abuse was is it's a mandated policy and there was a PSP update to that. Um item 8, sorry my printer went out just speaking to the whole printer thing. 8007 um the opening exercises moment of silence flag displays. This was updated per act 25 from 2024 and policy 823 opioid antagonist. This was a PSBA update. any conversation on any of that. All

182right. Um, as we finish up with our retired policy, it was 004.1. This was the student board representative policy. It's being deleted because it is being embedded into 004 under membership. And that completes all of the policies. Any other questions on anything? All right. Um, item 10.02, 02, the Southern New York County School District Foundation Board of Directors Appointments. So, I'd like to make a motion to appoint the following to the Southern New York County School District Foundation Board of Directors for three-year terms effective July 1st, 2025. Susan Green, school board appointment. Jay Good, school board appointment. Wayne McCulla, school board appointment. David Tamastic, school board appointment. And Jenny Nugabberger, school board school board appointment. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none. Any nays or abstensions? No. All right. Hearing

183none, this motion carries. Excellent. Congratulations. And then for items 10.03 and 10.04, I would like to pass that to Mr. Holly as our chair of our nominating committee. First item of business was uh board treasurer and I contacted Mr. Wilson. He's agreed to continue on. So at this point in time, I'd submit his name for nomination as board treasurer. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Are there any other nominations from the floor? There being none, I'll make a motion that we appoint Joe Wilson as our board treasurer for the next year. Do I have a second? Second. Are there any nays or exceptions? Motion carried. Thank you. That concludes the treasure. Want to go right to the secretary? Just do it. I contacted Susan Green. She has agreed to continue on as board secretary. Are there any

184other nominations from the floor? Being none, I'll make a mo. Is there really any other option? I'm just following the rules. [Laughter] There being none, I'll make a motion we appoint Susan Green as secretary of the board. Second. Are there any nays or abstensions? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you, Mrs. Green. I don't know what we'd do without you. We would be lost. Look how excited she is. That concludes excited. Look at all the work I'm asking. Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Holly, for doing that. 10.05, the 2025 2026 compensation and benefit program. I'd like to make a motion to adopt a 2025 2026 compensation and benefit program. Um, number one, for non-union support staff. Number two, for non-act salary staff, number three for act 93 administrators and cabinet administrators. And number four,

185other positions and substitutes. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Any or abstensions? Hearing none. Motion carries. And item 10.06. Other items of business? I have none. And before I carry on, I just wanted to see Caleb, we're approaching that for a few times. Four minutes, but I think I might duck out. Four minutes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your long suffering. Yes. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you guys. Have a great evening. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item 11, building and grounds. I will um pass that over to Mr. Hall. Enjoy your summer. Thank you. Hi. Thank you, Vice President Hall. Um moving to 11.01, buildings and grounds report for April of 2025. Mr. Bucking the reports included for your reference included in that report in the environmental report as

186well just for [Applause] your okay moving on to 11.02 water test report for April of 2025. that is there for our information. Moving on to 11.03, information from uh Mr. Buffington, our director of operations concerning water testing for lead. Yeah. Um, so our main campus and Friendship have um private wells on them serving the domestic water um which is regulated by Pennsylvania DP. between June and September of 2025, we're going to be taking samples at their guidance. Um so for this campus, the main campus and Friendship, we will also as part of our plan follow similar um protocols for uh Shrewsbury Elementary as well. Um so we are looking to schedule um most likely the beginning of June. Um but we do have a window there uh from June to September to complete those tests.

187Okay. Thank you. Moving on to 11.04 Susana High School project financial report. Yeah, the financial report um hasn't changed a lot since um last month. Um you know certainly u still looks good. the remaining budget of um nearly $875,000 um as well as K if you can you can see the contingency there um as well um in the report. But uh certainly if there's any questions, we are still, you know, working with the contractors to get the project closed out and things. Um certainly a project of this size does take um many many months to to get it completely closed out, but we are pleased where we are and um hopefully within a few months be closed out. Are you seeing anything's anything that's adding to the knockout list as far as on the new

188side of the high school leaking things or I'm sorry. Are you seeing any damages leaking? Anything that's going on on the new side of the school that's adding to the contingency or is that all just managed on a daily basis without adding? We do have a couple leaks that we're working with the contractors um you know that that's under warranty uh that they need to to repair. Uh they were out this week to to look at and they're going to continue to do some testing or tests. Um and yes, they do need to do some corrections. Thank you. There's testing coming tomorrow. Sorry, I said there's testing coming tomorrow. More more rain. Oh, yeah. No, we work around those. I'm just kidding. How much longer on this punch list, do you think? Probably a few

189more months, hopefully. you know, um, typically a project this size may take up to like a year to to to complete everything, I believe. Um, within a few months of of being completed. That'd be great. So, by the beginning of next year, we should be able hopefully, you know, um, a lot of things to to close out and things, but yeah, we're working cautiously optimistic. Yep. And I'll keep you updated. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to 11.05, the greatest needs project. Yeah. With me tonight, Mr. Scott Shunk. Um, we just wanted to give the board some information um and follow up from the buildings and grounds meeting that we had on on May 6th. Uh I first want to apologize for um during we had some questions about the scope of work within um within

190the project and um as a team dug in afterwards you know discovered that um there was an error within within that scope. Um you know included in in dollars. Uh so the team kind of dug in and made sure uh of that scope and then uh looked at the dollars to to assign those. Um and included on the briefing is that update. Um and what you would notice if you compare from the buildings and grounds um meeting and those numbers to these the new numbers are actually slightly less. uh there was some um pieces of equipment that was included in the number that we actually took out, you know. So, as a team we looked at, you know, certainly recognizing that error, you know, fixing that error, but um also um bigger than that is

191moving forward looking, you know, how we can um make sure that the scope is included, you know, um that it's clear, you know. So there's certainly mechanisms that we're putting in place to minimize or eliminate that type of error in the future. Uh but certainly as we look at um these items, you know, um we'll come back to you in in June um with a recommendation for three boiler room projects which include Shrewsbury Elementary, Southern Elementary, and Southern Middle School. a rooftop equipment project uh or scope uh at Shrewsbury Elementary as well as um the roof. And um it's going to be our recommendation actually to put this all as one project uh and bid it out with multiple primes. And the estimated cost of these this project uh is in the range between six

192and $7.3 million uh to be paid using the uh fund balance um assigned for capital projects. Any questions with that part of it? I I don't really have any questions. I'd just like to reiterate that the 627.3 million um is essentially replacing our primary heat plants in three of our of our buildings and is also replacing all of the rooftop units and and makeup air units um associated with the roof replacement on uh Shrewsbury Elementary and it also does include that roof replacement itself. So, um great great wisdom in bundling those things together because you're definitely going to get um some some scope of work savings, you know, putting all of those together. also great to have, you know, the same company and they're, you know, doing the work in in all of the different

193locations, boiler rooms or roofs, whatever the case may be. Um, just want to just make it abundantly clear to the to the public that that's what that uh six to 7.3 million is paying for and that this is not money borrowed. This is um money that is in our assigned fund balance for these types of projects. So just want to make that abundantly clear. So did you have more to proceed because I did have some questions but you might answer them in your process uh in that in that portion. No. Um I'm ready to go on to the architect. Um but yeah, if you had Yeah. How about continue and and and bring it to conclusion and then if you haven't answered my questions I'll I'll re I'll ask them. All right. And point in

194your discussion there since public there the air handling units there are really no major units on the roof at Shreberry. They are different locations. They're not on the roof. That's one of the items that we saw as a credit because we because we thought they were on the roof and again we got done these bigger numbers pulled them apart. We got the teams together and multiple times. So there are no major air and units don't shoot very Okay. Thank you. Just since we're being precise, I wanted to make sure we dug into it very deeply. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And before we move on, can I just also as we were working through thing, I think the other thing to point out as we look, this is a pretty big range of 6 million to

1957.3 million. And some of that is because we we're at the estimate phase. So we'll move into a couple more phases. Um, and as we design it, there's things like, okay, well, what type of hot water heater do you want? Because there's the this level hot water heater and then there's this level hot water heater. So, as we're working through things, those are the pieces that we still have to work through those kinds of details and that's why we have that range um, as we move forward and make those additional decisions. So that'll be once we would get approval by the board, then we'll start into actually the design piece of of designing exactly what it looks like before we go out to bid, right? And hone that number down to to uh So we're

196not in a budget number yet. Yeah, we're in a more specific. We're in an estimate before we go out to bid. We'll have an actual budget for you, which we want to stay within budget. Just a real quick question. I know it wasn't here for the meeting, but I did watch it later. um with the Southern Middle School. Is that the one that we approved the roof for already? We did. Correct. And was that the grant money that you secured for that? It was the Southern Middle School roof. Yes. That that's not in here. But that's not what this is Shrewsbury, right? And was it the So the Southern Elementary roof is a different project, correct? Right. Southern Elementary School, Southern Middle School's different project that we're doing this summer, right? So, we're not combining

197them together with this. No, but the boilers, we're doing boilers in Southern Middle School, Southern Elementary School in Shrewsbury as part of this. Yeah. So for architectural services um following the uh feasibility study selection process um we'll come back with the recommendation um to uh hire beers and Huffman architects um for a fee of 6% of the percentage of the cost of work um which is built in to the um already the contract structure that was already um in place for construction management services. Um c certainly we looked at that and we don't want to discount the importance of construction management um both from a preconstruction services. So things estimating and um you know scheduling the the project and things are often pre-construction services which are very important as well as um construction management services.

198So once the project starts uh actually helping to manage that project. Um, so what we looked at at doing, um, instead of hiring a construction management firm, uh, we're looking for the operations and maintenance, uh, department along with Beers and Hoffman, uh, to collaborate on the on these services. um we're looking that that potentially um could avoid uh spending $150,000. Again, we're not minimizing the importance of that that work, but um between operations and maintenance team and Beers Huffman, we would uh we're going to recommend to accomplish that work um by that team. Yeah. So, um so we can move beyond this. Um this is this is going to be brought forward um at the June meeting for approval. So, uh um you know, a lot of this is information you can still digest if

199if it's not um if you don't have a full handle on it. Um, but I would like to potentially ask some questions in in response to some of the things from our buildings and grounds meeting. And that is were we able to make any headway on the potential um fresh air units on the roofs that we are already currently replacing. as to whether those curbs need to be replaced or or or they can stay behind. Were we able to find any out information out? Yeah, thanks. Scott, do you want to Yeah, as far as the bid we have for the roofing project right now in the middle school, it's very similar to the other roofing projects we've done in the district. They are doing a warranty that they flash up to the units as required.

200Uh they're not pulling units apart. The only reason we're talking about units, as you know, for Shrewsbury is those are worn out. it's also time to replace them. Maybe they have to change size of holes and openings. So, like a standard roofing project, the roofer is flashing up and getting their warranty into all those items. So, there's no need to be touching any of the other rooftop items on the middle school at this point. But on the middle school roof, I want to stretch my mind because I didn't bring the report with me. I believe it was the middle school roof and on southern L there were fresh air units that are recommended at level one to be changed um that I'm just I understand they're going to they're going to seal up to the

201existing curb but in the event that those curbs would need to be changed because those units have reached the end of their life, which according to the report they have reached the end of their life. Um, I would really want to see if those curbs have to be changed to be changed before we put a brand new roof on rather than after we put a brand new roof on. So I I wasn't sure if we were able to make any headway as to whether or not those units that are at at level one recommendation for changing have we've established whether or not we are able to get that done before we put a brand new or in conjunction with putting a brand new roof on. I'm going to just beside that honest where outside the

202contractor is under underway. Uh if those roof the roof is going to be finished for this summer. Um that that that's turns into a change order. It turns into another bidding process. The mechanical it's a roofer, not a mechanical guy. So the timing of that is is we're so far out in front of this roof. We have materials approved. Um you know it it's moving along. uh we can ask for change order costs and see what it's going to do. Can we still hit the schedule? Um but it the fact that we're going into a change order mode for this is not going to offset the difference of coming back and doing it correctly later. I guess maybe the best way to put it. I know we're trying to do the right thing all the

203right time. I I very I fear right now that we open up to a change order that's going to cost more than actually coming back at the time and doing those units when it's completely thought through with the system. It just feels a little unimaginable. A little unimaginable to me to to leave something that we know needs to be replaced on a roof and then put a brand new roof on. I mean I if that's what we have to do, we have to do it. But that is that's a real miss on our part. That is definitely a miss on our part too to h to know that we have things that need to be replaced and not replace them before we we put on a new basically have to cut a new roof uh

204to replace them. Um that's that's discouraging that we can't do anything about that time. I'm not sure you have to cut for these new units. I we can have the engineers team design and and look into more on this, but again the offset that we're trying to save here. I I I think we're running up and costing more time and money than the report just came out after we did the bid. I mean, we had the bids for the roof and you get that going. You know, it if we needed to hold that project up before we did it and we're just so far into this piece. I I understand your question. Nobody wants to cut a hole in new roof, but it is done all the time and it's done well if necessary. I

205don't know that these units that we change out need different size holes there. More than likely, we can put parameters and try and re reuse what we can. I mean, we want to work we don't want to cut more holes than necessary. So, if we can work through and minimize any changes down the road, I just don't know how to stop if we're literally told to stop this current process. I'm not I'm not suggesting stopping it at all. I'm I'm potentially suggesting, you know, if the curbs are if the curbs can be the exact same size, then maybe we can you're going to have to pull the unit off anyway. So then if if changing the curb and leaving it at the exact same size as a new the old unit sits on it, but

206then eventually the new unit sits on that curb, at least we have a new curb in our roof that we don't essentially have to change. We don't have to we don't have to do anything to it to put a new unit on it. Um I was just hoping that we could at least address whether that's a possibility. um rather than, you know, I I don't know how old these are. Uh it it didn't really denote it in the greatest needs um paperwork, but I mean, if these curbs are are 20 years old um and and we're basically going to put a brand new roof up them when the roof is off, you know, changing that curb is really not that complicated of a process, especially if it's exact same size. and then we're we're putting

207a brand new roof on a brand new curb. Okay, maybe we're setting an old fan on it, but when the new fan comes along, it'll sit on the new curb. Uh, and that's just my my concerns that, you know, if we can avoid cutting into a brand new roof, we avoid the potential of future leaks. Understood. I'm just trying to put all parameters into effect here. And right now a grouper that's going to meet your flashing year warranty that's there for 20 years. Once we start touching those curves and open up to change orders and I can't guarantee you what savings we're going to have in the end. We're going to replace with a curve that if you want properly designed now we got to make sure we're designing that entire system to understand what

208size the dam has to be. And I apologize because that's not going to happen overnight. So I think you have a project in place that's moving. You're going to have your warranty. We're going to try and work around the curbs that are there. If the curb needs to be replaced, replace it, find the new fan. Um, you know, that that right now, but they're not going to they're not going to warranty something that had to be cut. I mean, maybe the next company that comes along will warranty it, but the the warranty of the the the original roof, the warranty you're referencing is anyway is going to be void once we cut a hole in it. to to to to change a curb or or whatever the case may be. Yeah, we work with these

209roofing companies all the time as far as coming back in and making changes later to match the warranty that's in place. That that's done constantly, but it would void the original warranty, right? If you have to change, if it's not the exact same fit, you're voiding that original warranty. Correct. No. that the you'll have the roofer the roofer will be working with let's say it's the carile roof they will be in discussions with the carile rep the manufacturer how do we do this new detail to maintain that warranty we bring you we just had a a carile rep out another roof under another district for that exact same purpose there going to be changes to things on the roof you want to maintain the warranty that you have in place similar to a repair of

210the of a roof if if it needs repaired you bring in a warranted um roofer to to make that repair. And your your warranty um continues. Well, I'm certainly not willing to go backwards on a a roofing project that truly needs to be done. And I just would have liked to have be able to see that we could have accommodated that or at least Okay, moving on. Moving to 11.06 sound system for the track at Sysquanak High School. Uh, a motion to one revoke the approval given in October 2024 in the amount of $18,500 with Sage Technology Solutions, now Ronco Technology Solutions LLC of Mount Joy to PA to install a sound system for the track at Sysanak High School and two approved the quote the quote in the amount of $18,500 utilizing the co-stars

211contract with the Lum Illuminated Integration LLC of Middletown, PA to install a sound system for the track at Suscoanak High School. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Why is this? They don't have They need it. Oh, they don't have one. Okay. It's a good reason. Yep. Any naser abstensions? Hearing none, the motion passes. They didn't have it this year. Moving on to 11.07. I have a motion to approve selling the 2009 Ford F250 truck using the municipa bid auction. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion, which I can not necessarily against selling it, but isn't it dangerous? I mean, if we can't drive it because it's dangerous, aren't we selling a lemon? Well, it it does have um as you can see in the all the time. I'm not trying to be

212offensive, Mr. Holly. I'm just kind of wondering, is it safe? Well, let me let me say this. We will disclose, right, what we know to be an ill repair. I mean, we're not going to just we're not going to sell it and say there's nothing wrong with it. So, right. Um, no, I I get your point. I I just want to make sure that we're clear. We will say, you know, the items that we know that are there's need repair. Yeah. Yeah. Who wants to buy it for parts? Uh, there's a lot of demand for the F250 parts, right? Makes sense. And there is uh a listing there um showing an estimate from uh Sattorius showing about an $11,000 estimate to 11 to 13 to to get it to pass inspection. Um so clearly that's

213not money that we would want to spend on it. However, someone out there may. So that's surely up to them. Recaping some cost is good to us. Yeah. if if I mean and you know someone who can do it themselves probably can do it significantly cheaper than than that number but um any other discussion any or abstensions hearing none motion passes moving on to 11.08 08. I have a motion to approve continuing participation in the Lancaster Lebanon intermediate unit 13 electricity procurement program beginning July 1st, 2026 through June 30th of 2029, which would be the sixth amendment to the power supply coordination service agreement Pennsylvania with Direct Energy Business LLC. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Question on the on the pickup truck, the new one. Are we still able to buy the

214new one at the price from the state? Sort of right in the middle of Can we discuss that at new business? Sort of right in the middle of this motion. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we were at the other items of business. So, I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, okay. With 11.08, is there any other discussion? Any ns or abstensions? Hearing none. The motion passes. Moving on to 11.09, use of facilities. That is there for our information. Moving on to 11.10. Other items of miss of business. Mr. Holly, are we able to replace the Ford pickup truck that pulls the van trailer? You gave us a price at the meeting through the state. Yeah. Purchasing. There were several trucks that we were proposing. Uh some of those sold. We we we were in communication

215with the dealer and and some of those sold. Certainly, we we could come back to the board with um a truck for consideration um if the board would like that. Um, one of the things that we're looking at doing with the fleet that we have, um, with one less truck, um, you know, we're looking because of the importance of pulling a van trailer and other trailers, um, we're looking at potentially putting, um, some extendable mirrors on some of the other vehicles that don't have them. Um, we're looking at transferring a salt spreader uh to make sure that we have three for one for each campus. Um, because this that truck had the 2009 had that on. So, um, we're looking at how how can we um get back close to what what we had as

216far as um, uh, capability. Uh we're also looking at potential um trailer break um for for that um because when you look at the fleet um the two vehicles that I would point out um you have the van which is typically used for courier services. Um and then the uh international uh we refer to it as big red in the maintenance department. Um basically it's used for large bulk moves and things like that. um you know so uh we'd actually be down to three vehicles that um you know is reasonable to respond to maintenance needs and things um you know so how we can adapt some of those the vehicles in the fleet to serving different purposes we we'd be looking to do do some of that what's the age of the three vehicles of

217the three vehicles are roughly is one one of them is a 2010 because we just recently had that. Yeah. So, the international truck is a 1984. That's big red the the large um state body truck. The 2009, which we're just talking about with with those um 2010, which uh we recently took to um have it inspected. Um, you I'm going to be honest with the board. I was concerned that it may not pass for inspection or how much the cost would be. Um, luckily that cost wasn't wasn't too bad. But what I do see is within perhaps next year or soon coming it's going to be similar to the 2009. It's only a year newer. Um, and then the other three vehicles that we have are 2015, 2017, and 2022 is the is the van.

218Um, so I do believe we'll have, you know, years with with those um those three newer vehicles. So I think to answer your question, Dr. racing. The three that we would have salt spreaders on, Randy, correct me if I'm wrong, will be the 2010, 2019, and 2022. The 22 is is the van. So, once the 2009 is gone, the salt spreaders would be on the 10 15 and we'd have to look um most likely to add to the 17. Okay. Um, but yeah, we're when you look at that chart, the capabilities that we're losing in the 2009 are the trailer brake and and the spread assault spreader. So, we we need to try to incorporate that into the other vehicles, right? I I I just bring that up because I know we're dropping one of

219the pickup trucks, the 2009, and my concern was what are the ages? Certainly, the conditions can be different, but I would assume the 10 is going to be similar to a 2009 versus a 2017. So, it's just for awareness. So, I appreciate it. Um, I had a chance to kind of think and I'm uh, a I'm glad you brought up the questions in our original facility meeting, Bill, about the boiler rooms because I think it caused some good discussion amongst the group uh, to truly identify what is there and what might be missing. So, I appreciate the question. Um, as I thought about the roof question, um, since for those who know me well, I came from that background too, but not on the commercial side. So, some of the curbing and whatnot is foreign

220to me. Uh, but I started thinking about, okay, why wouldn't we do that? Similar question to yours. But then I thought about originally our plan, and this is where I need Sue's help because my memory is not the best at times. Our initial plan was a total um renovation of of potentially Shrewsbury Elementary. Uh and that process of planning happened years ago, but for those that were planning, that's where their headspace was at the time. We then got the opportunity for a roof grant at which point I believe and I'm assum making making an assumption which might be incorrect that Southern Middle School would be after any type of major renovation potentially. Therefore, the middle school roof is selected knowing that's years down the road, but it's also the roof that's in the worst condition.

221So, we take the grant, we make the plans. this is months now. Um, and put the ball in motion, so to speak, to replace the roof at the middle school. Then the board, as you have a right to do, and we're not in disagreement, I think, decides, we're not doing a major building renovation. Can we look at projects of greatest needs? So, now we shift gears. We go down that path. And I think at that point it's determined the projects of greatest needs. One of which is the units on the middle school. You you get the idea. So now that ball's already in motion to replace the roof because we got the grant. However, the game changed with when we're replacing what's on the roof. Um and we find ourselves in this. It would have

222been ideal to do both at the same time. And I think again it was mitigating what we had at our fingertips and how far down the road were we in different planning and then shifting gears. I don't know if that makes sense, but it took me a couple minutes to process why are we here. I think it's because we're changing. I understand it that that the timing didn't um the timing was not conducive to um the greatest needs report came out after the roof project was slated and I I I get that completely. It was just my hopes to be able to potentially get to a place where those units can be replaced without disturbing the roof that we're currently paying to put on. And I think we're all in agreement with that, but it's

223sounding like that we've kind of missed that that opportunity. But appreciate it. I just had to get it right in my head and speak to it and make sure what I'm thinking is is what and I'm sure there were others that maybe weren't on that same had it pieced together as good as you had it pieced together or Scott had it pieced together. Okay. Any any other items of business we want to discuss? Just real quick with the truck thing. Uh you were saying the trailer brake is on the 2009, not on the 2015. It's just it's an aftermarket or is that a um OEM? Yeah, we'll we'll evaluate which to put on, you know? Um No, I'm saying what's what's on the 2009 now? as an aftermarket or an OEM. I'd have to look

224whether we could have it transferred over perhaps, you know. And the salt spreaders, are they standoff ones where you can just kind of drive under them and lower them in? Two of them are um and unfortunately the 2009 is not one of those. two of them we can transfer fairly easily from from the vehicles, but the one on the 2009 we were looking how can we transfer it over and we would have to construct you it's cumbersome. So it it actually may be more um advantageous to us to to buy a more universal spreader and and put it on the other truck. And when we're looking to haul the band trailer, we were talking about the um one of the newer ones that spare can come off of the 2015 and stand alone and then

225we could use it to haul the band trailer. Is that possibility? We're looking um yeah, potentially the 2015 we want to look at extendable mirrors. Um, but we're also looking at the to the the express van. Um, you know, uh, potentially if we put a trailer brake on that and extended mirrors, uh, we potentially could convert that to help haul the trailer as well. Really, um, the difficult part is just the number of pieces, you know. Um certainly um it's a challenge, you know, that the going down a a piece, but we'll we'll work through it. Well, I mean then just thinking out loud, which certainly this is all in your purview to to take care of, but putting it on to the the 17 um you wouldn't want to put a salt spreader on

226what becomes eventually our 2025 truck or whatever the case is. Um, so that that would not be money poorly spent to to put that under the 17 if if that's if that's what you decide and what you recommend, you know, certainly not not not money poorly spent to to do that. So, um, okay, we good this time. Are we good? Okay, Vice President Hall. Thank you. So, moving on to item 12, transportation, health, and safety. and I turn that over to Mr. Hash. Thank you, President Hall. Uh 12.01 student transportation report for April. Um the report is there, but I just want to pull out two things. Um the we have six drivers that have completed some training or they're in the process of completing some training. Uh CDL training, van driver training, and currently

227um it appears that all routes are adequ adequately covered at this time. That's an awesome improvement. Uh the other thing was we had during the month of April the first student covered and planned and organized buses for 88 athletic field trips and athletic events which is quite an accomplishment. That's pretty impressive to do. So thank you to them and thank you to our transportation um department for coordinating with them and um well done. and my yeah 12 where we 12.02 other items of business. I have none. Okay, back to you. Thank you. Um item 13, athletics and extracurricular. Turning that over to Mrs. Doberman. All right. Thank you. Item number 1301, the athletic report. Um the Warriors had another strong spring season and I'm going to read through the highlights. So, girls, the Warrior girls

228lacrosse team finished regular season ya division 1 runner up with a current record of 16 to2. The Warriors played Dallas Town for the YIAA County Championship. They came in second. Um, the Warriors are currently ranked third in the PIAA District 3 and will begin the district champions championships on May 20th, 7:00 and it's held here. So, come out and support them. Um, Warriors softball finished their regular season YIAA Division 2 runnerup with a current record of 13-6. The Warriors qualified for the YIAA championships and reached the semifinals. They have also qualified for the PIAA District 3 Championships to begin on May 19th and that one will be held in Lamp Peter Strasburg at 4:30. Uh, boys tennis. The team finished the regular season as YIAA division 2 runnerups. Um, going five to two in division

229play. Dominic Dion finished fourth in the Y AIA singles championship while Dominic and Jacob Awanowitz placed fourth in the doubles tournament. We also congratulate Dominic and Jacob for qualifying and competing in the PIAA District 3 doubles championship. Track and field. The Warrior track and field team had another strong season. Congratulations to Warrior Track athletics athletes boy um Patrick O'Brien and Maddie Marks for setting new school records this season. Patrick reached 14 ft 6 in in pole vault while Maddie threw 120 ft and 8 in in discus. And on a side note, we are going to be getting a record board up there eventually, so they're going to have to update it already. That's awesome. Um, on May 8th, the Warriors competed at the Herb Schmidt Y AIA Track and Field Championships. And these are the

230medal winners from this event. Bear with me with names. Um the girls 4x800 relays, they placed sixth. Um Emma Jordan, Anna Hanbach, Madison Wartz, and Ava Lun. Ian Buckalo a placed eighth in the 1600 meter run. Jackson Elliott placed seventh in the 800 meter run. The girls 4x400 relay placed fifth. Addison Victor Vickers. Um Ava Lun, Leah Roar, and Emily Walker. Sarah Bhos placed fourth in Javelin. Jaden Buck Holtz placed seventh in Javelin. Patrick O'Brien was the champion at Pvault. Maddie Marks placed fifth in dis discus. On May 16th and 17th, Cole Caparelli, Patrick O'Brien, Maddie Marx, and Sarah Brahos will compete at Shippensburg University for the PIAA District 3 Championships. Unified Track and Field. Congratulations to Warrior Unified Track and Field Team for finishing their regular season Special Olympics PA York League Championships. This

231program continues to have tremendous impact on the culture of the school as a whole and we would could not be more proud of their outstanding accomplishment. All right. Item number 13 02 um is for the board of education to consider approval of the girls wrestling team. I would like to make a motion for the board of education to consider the approval of the girls wrestling team. Do I have a second? Second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Keaney is here for any answers. Mr. bikini, do you have a lot of interest? Yeah. Well, we we have had girls wrestling on the boys team for most of my time the um with the with the inception of the sport as a as a sport. Now, um my biggest concern and why we want to move forward is

232simply because uh thea by laws adjusted. So if uh if we send a boys team to a tournament, the girls lose a tournament, right? So they have to share their schedule points and it's just inequable. Um and I think now if we do approve eventually approve uh I think we'll be the 16th team out of 20 teams in the YA to approve it. But it is creating more. Have you heard anything from parents in the area what they're thinking about this from parents? Uh I have I haven't received one negative. Uh it it's a great opportunity. The sport is literally shooting up like a bomb rocket. Um just within last year at the district 3 level there's 71 teams within district 3 that were represented at the girls championships. It is fantastic that the the

233sport is ensuring the um still take the state championships this year. We actually had to adjust the schedule because before the girls miss a lot of pins in the past. The quality of wrestling is getting up there. Uh there's more NCAA programs approved. So there's more college opportunities for our kids and we currently have a girl wrestling college right now that wrestle but so that the need is there. Um, and not just for athletes, but for opportunities for our kids. So, I think I have to say coming from a wrestling family, I'm all for it. I'm excited for it and I think it'll be a great opportunity for the girls. Anybody else? Any nays or abstensions? All right, that motion carries. And I have no other items of business. Does anybody else All right, back

234to you. Um, item 14. Any other business from anybody on the board? All right. Moving forward to item 15 with our uh, representative appointment reports. Uh, 1501, legislative council. Mrs. Hall. Yes, ma'am. All right. So, the House and the Senate reconvened on Monday this week and many educational bills have been managed for the month. So, starting with Senate Bill 10. This legislation was just voted out of the Senate Education Committee and it will create the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success or better known as the PASS program. So, it will help families with students performing at the bottom 15% of their class and those families will be eligible for scholarship opportunities for alternative education expenses or tutoring outside of their public school like a Silven Learning Center or something like that. support that you wouldn't have

235to pay for on your own, which can be very expensive. It's just another tool to foster success for students who've moved forward who can move forward more confidently in their educational journey. Senate Bill 700 will require schools to adopt evidence-based reading instruction programs uh and curriculum, approve a professional development training program that prepares educators to use structured literacy in the classroom and implement screenings to identify struggling readers and develop intervention plans. The bill also comes with grant program assistance for startup. House Bill 17 will require instruction in cursive writing to be taught in appropriate grade levels. The bill is a bipartisan push to require schools to teach cursive and maintain literacy not only at the manuscript or print handwriting level, but also enhancing fine motor skills, retention of information, increasing writing speed and easier reading

236of historical documents while at the same time helping develop a unique sign signature style and literacy success. House Bill 1326 seeks to update and streamline administrative requirements to modernize student transportation laws. This legislation permits electronic tracking software or GPS systems for reporting mileage and would require schools to report data of services provided to all students. The aim for the bill is to demonstrate a greater need for state transportation reimbursements for schools moving forward. And House Bill 681 will create an optin or opt out option for BMI, body mass index screenings in schools. And this bill was passed by the House Health Committee to require parental notification of school height and weight notifications or screenings and allow parents to decide if they would like to have their child participate and limit some reporting that is given

237to the state uh and student data. So, it ensures measurement information is only collected also by the school nurse or another trained health care professional. And then just a little piece of information, I know it's late, but I can't help but throw that in there. Today, May 15th, is Peace Officers Memorial Day. So, that was first established by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. The day is designed to pay tribute to our brave local, state, and federal peace officers who have died or been disabled in the line of duty. This day falls during National Police Week as Dr. Repert was acknowledging all of our safety officers. This is just another way to recognize them, all that have taken an oath to serve and protect and particularly by those who have sacrificed their lives to protect

238us. So, of course, if you rub shoulders with anyone that is a peace officer this week, be sure to encourage them with your support and care. And that is the end of my legislative report. Thank you. Um, moving on to 15.02, York County School of Technology, Mrs. Doberman. Um, we had a student of the month, which I missed the art show. I left the community leaders annual partnership meeting um just to go support him and be there for him. But Jacob Combmes in 11th grade um he is there for precision machining technology. Um he was selected as student of the month which for their students of the month they show a video of each kid and what they're tra like what they're learning and it's pretty neat to see and they usually have another student

239talk about them and like kind of hype them up and it's just really neat to see and then they get like a little plaque and it's really neat and I was glad to be there for him. Um, they have graduation at York Fairgrounds at 5:00 p.m. on May 22nd. And I think that incl concludes everything I have. All right. Thank you. That's awesome. I'm sad that we don't have that to view. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of our own getting recognized. That's wonderful. Yeah. Um, item 15.03, the LU number 12. Mr. Hash. Uh, we have nothing at this time. Okay. Item 15.04, York Adams Tax Bureau. Mrs. Green. No. All right. Um, item 15.05, the foundation, Mrs. Hall. Okay. Yes, ma'am. So, the Southern York County School District Foundation participated in a silent auction celebrating Give

240Local York that earned around $3,100 benefiting student scholarships. Thank you to donors for supporting our students and congratulating those to winning all of those wonderful prizes. It's fun to bid. Last night, the SYCSD Foundation welcomed students and their families to the scholarship awards ceremony at the high school. It was an amazing evening. I think everyone would agree. So, each foundation member very much enjoyed giving away over $174,000 in scholarships as Mr. Caleb mentioned. And it's all possible because of the community, all of their generosity, fundraisers, volunteering, sponsorship, you know, of scholarships. It's just beautiful. So, thank you so very much to the community for the dedication to continue to support our graduates. And now we look toward the class of 2026 with our next meeting in September and uh keeping scholarship opportunities coming for our

241seniors. Huge thanks to Susan Green, Trevor Carrington, Tia Walker for their hard work throughout the year for the foundation behind the scenes working late evenings. Your dedication to the important partnership of foundation and the school district is just incredible. And thank you to the wonderful team of foundation directors that I get to work with for their dedication to all the graduating seniors as well. It's it's definitely a fun team to work with. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Um item 15.06. Any other items of business? All right. Moving to 16.01, the student activities report for April is attached for your information. 16.02 um the donation from Giant Company. There was um a $7,17456 donation from the Giant Company through the Feeding School Kids Initiative. Amazing. That was very amazing. Um item 16.03 3 resignations

242and retirements. We have four resignations. Item 16.04. Any other items of business? I have none. And so moving to item 17.01 on home education. Dr. Robert. Thank you, Mrs. Hall. Um, as we're getting near the end of the school year, home education, we're at 222 students, outside cyber at 85. Sunork digital academy education two. But as we noted previously and earlier in the school year, uh we will have a zero for that moving forward. Um and then any other students that uh would like to participate in the online program uh would would have the opportunity to join that Lincoln Edge cyber program which currently have 28 students. Is that it? That's it. All righty. Okay. So moving on to 17.02 02 announcements. I wanted to announce that the next regularly scheduled board meeting is Thursday,

243June 19th. And I also wanted to share that on behalf of the board, we wish to offer our congratulations to the class of 2025. to all the teachers and support staff that have supported their educational pathway through the years here in Southern New York County School District and to all the operations staff that have ensured the excellence in daily operations and to our administrators for their leadership of the entire district and also to wish all and any employee who has a graduating student that may not be in our district congratulations. So, um thank you. Uh, real quick, we've we've hit all the congratulations, but I'll highlight a couple and I think I have at least one new one. Um, over the last couple weeks, we've had special recognition for bus driver appreciation, support staff, administrative

244personnel appreciation, nurses appreciation, teachers appreciation. Um it it's a huge village to uh help our students grow and uh we'll be there to support you to our maintenance staff and custodial staff over the next couple weeks cuz given the rain there's lots of uh yard work to do for graduation prep. So hopefully we get a a couple dry days to get ahead of the game. Um, again, uh, foundation's been thanked, but they can't be thanked enough. Uh, in all honesty, they're probably the best, uh, operating foundation anywhere in the state of the PA. And certainly that's recognizable by 174,000 plus dollars handed out uh, to like 80 kids and we only and we have 223 graduates. So, that's just unbelievable. So, big kudos to them. and and their ability to partnership with us to make

245that happen. Um, and lastly, a special congratulations to school resource officer Sergeant Daryl Smuk in recognition of his 25 years of service with the Southern Regional Police Department. This represents uh quite an achievement and one for which we are certainly grateful and especially as Sergeant Smug has joined the Southern family and begun uh the next 25 years of his service. So, thank you everyone and uh keep living your dream. Thank you. Um item 18, any new business? All right, none. Um, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. Moved. Do I have a second? Any nays or abstensions? All right. Hearing none, that motion carries. Do we still have Mr. Hankle? Did he fall asleep on us?