School Board Meeting - 10/17/24

001e e e pledge the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy Justice for All We Have a roll call yes Elizabeth Doberman here Mary Lee Hall Samantha Hall here William Hall here Jeremy hash here Jennifer hle here Nathan hle here James Holly here Joseph Wilson here thank you all right um I'll go ahead and announce uh we had an executive session to interview Architects on October 8th do I do I remember that right um and then uh another executive session uh for a legal matter at uh 5:30 today and a buildings of grounds meeting at 6: today all right moving on to item 2.01 uh approval of the board agenda I'll entertain a motion to

002approve the October 17th 2024 agenda as presented Ed so moved second motion and a second any discussion any n or abstentions hearing none that motion carries uh item 3.01 I'll entertain a motion to approve the September 19th 2024 minutes as presented so moved second Motion in a second any discussion any n or abstentions hearing none motion carries bringing us to item 4.01 student representative report thank Caleb take it away start off with some dates here we have sces picture day on the 22nd on the 25th is early dismissal and a teacher in service which means end of marking period one it's been very fast so far and on the 30th there will be October fun night which is a great event organized by student council for for kids in the area to play games and

003trick- or treat in a controlled environment and helps students and clubs volunteer to either gain like volunteer hours or just to have fun and then November 1st is when report cards are available the 8th of November is ASVAB testing and November 15th winter sports begin very excited for that haven't watched basketball in a while and the fall play will be from the 15th to the 17th and November 18th to the 22nd is American Education week and then just some other notes from the past about month um homecoming everyone really enjoyed the dance from what I heard the decorations were amazing um and just a thank you to all the teachers and staff who who volunteered their time and really made the event great and then amazing performances from fall Sports not surprised there's been a

004lot of shutouts from soccer and field hockey I know both soccer teams are playing tonight and another note is cross country was ranked first in double A in the county so job and marching band also finished first on their competition on Saturday scoring a total of 83 points and an award for percussion which is amazing their show is just crazy I can never and there will also be a ribbon cutting ceremony November 10th and that's about it thank you thank you moving on to item 5.01 educational updates by Dr Lenard rert take away thank you president hankle School Board Fall's definitely in the air been outside temper temperature is quickly dropped but as Caleb said a lot of our Sports and extracurriculars are running hot uh fin Out The Fall season uh just to continue

005in my my monthly theme uh regarding safe supportive and collaborative culture uh we looked at September 27th which was a half day our district participated in multiple safety uh trainings uh huge thank you out to all the individuals that provided uh the support in the training for all of our District staff uh I wanted to send a quick thank you out to the community parents students uh for your continued support uh through our extracurriculars especially with the new procedures how that we put into place as we're finishing Out The Fall season just as a reminder those will continue to be in place for our winter and spring uh just as a reminder students k28 must be accompanied by an adult 21 years or older book bags equipment as not brought facility tobacco vaping illegal substances

006alcohol weapons are strictly prohibited on student grounds uh next week is school bus safety week so I wanted to take a moment thank all our bus drivers for what they do each and every day getting our students to and from school safely and for the parents and students out there let's be sure to thank your bus driver for all they do uh bus drivers s County School District we appreciate you um under the supportive uh just want to let the school board know the district will be uh sending out uh communication to parents regarding participation in the fall uh pte CL climate survey uh the survey will be sent out to parents at the end of the month of October uh we'll utilize this data to identify how the district uh is doing as well

007as identify areas of focus uh just as a note our students and staff will also participate in the fall climate survey and just kind of fast forward to the spring we will then utilize the same survey for parents students as well as staff so we can look at any changes from the beginning to the end of the school year so we're comparing the same data uh questions and results from the fall to the spring um under collaborative culture big congratulation goes out to second grader uh Jacob good who was selected as Lincoln edges student of the month uh so for the board Lincoln Edge is the online uh learning platform that our students in our district participate through uh the Lincoln Intermediate Unit uh some notes about Jacob he's consistently working Adder of his class

008and just as note Jacob is the First Southern York County student enrolled in the Lincoln Edge to receive student of the month honor a way to go Jacob um and during my school visits since the September board meeting I had an awesome opportunity to visit many classrooms uh so I want to note uh the evidence of high level student engagement within the classrooms our students are just absolutely amazing uh but before I go on I want to let everyone know that this did not not happen by accident so a big shout out to our teachers for the amazing job they're doing in collaboration regarding lesson development it's evident that the Student Success is in part because of our teachers Specialists as well as our par professionals that are supported in the classroom but I could

009not uh leave out or forget our administrators uh because their Direction and Leadership have put our teachers in the place where they are today so keep up the great work um under reminders I absolutely have nothing because Caleb took all eight of them so let's make it a great evening or not choice is yours thank you all right moving on to item 6.01 uh public comments um I'll just remind everyone uh when you come up please state your name and Municipality of residents uh you will have 5 minutes to make your comments um please refrain from um any boisterous behavior during uh during comments um and uh please make sure your comments are are maintained decorum uh no foul language uh no slander um and we'll go ahead and head in um first one I

010have is Ashley Morrison Ashley Morrison Shrewsberry um Township before before I get into the main part of my public comment tonight I want to address the response that was directed to me at last month's board meeting it's great that it was mentioned that no sitting board member wrote the syc conservatives August August newsletter but I never actually said or asked that in my comment I inquired how the pack received the information since it was not provided to the public if board members don't know who writes the newsletter then how can they be certain that this info was not somehow related to the author it's interesting to note that the reason that the pack provided in the newsletter for the board retaining the ilc was not addressed during the response moving on I'd like to talk

011about the two policies drafted by the ilc unfortunately we are unable to see the policies that we paid the solicitor draft since they were not released I first want to talk about the policy 23.3 entitled sex based distinctions in athletics under the definitions section of the policy sex is defined as quote the biological distinction between male and female based on reproductive and biology and genetic makeup this seems pretty straightforward right but what about various genetic conditions that may make make this so simple for example XX male syndrome in which an individual's genetic makeup is XX female but they present phenotypically as male so they are typically assigned male at Birth due to low testosterone levels these individuals may be at higher safety risk playing with biological males people may be thinking that with rare conditions

012like this we can just handle it on a case- toase basis and I agree 100% now social media would have you think transgender girls playing in sports is so problem that schools have to start drafting policies to protect girls but let's look at the actual chances based on statistics I found two comprehensive reports from 2022 the Williams Institute report and the HRC youth report that provide in-depth statistics on Adolescence in the LGBT community according to the Williams Institute about 1.3 Adolescence in Pennsylvania identify as trans if we further break that down by those who identify as trans women and then the number who play sports and apply to our current middle and high school population it's estimated that 1.2 students would fall into this category of being a transgender girl this board one it seems

013like the board is spending a lot of time working on policies of something that has low occurrence of happening and can be handled on a case- toase basis like the XX male syndrome example it seems that this time would be better spent creating plans for teacher and staff retention since teachers and staff leaving our schools is something that is actually happening if this is something you are working on I hope the board can share those plans with the community but back to the policies at hands the reason that we need these policies in plac is about the safety of our girls and not just to follow the same path that all the other school districts involved with the ISC have taken right going with that assumption let's dig deeper into the policy at hand under

014provision section e1b girls can try out for a designated mail team if the principal or athletic director believ that the female skills are such that the participation on the girls team would not provide meaningful competition of the girl end quote this is great for girls who are at the top of their game but what about safety what would be a greater risk for a safety of a girl playing with say 10 biologic iCal males on a boy team or a girl playing with nine biological females and one transgender girl while everyone thinks about that I'd like to move on to the second policy drafted by the ilc policy number 26.2 students records name sex gender identity this is the policy that falls under the GU of parental rights if parents are supportive of their child

015using their preferred name and gender they can just put it in writing that their child has the permission to do so and that should be it right after all this is about parental rights not quite according to to the policy under guidelines section c.2 the request should also State quote how the student has consistently persistently and insistently Express the named identity end quote how is this even Quantified and is a request going to be denied based on this information if this is strictly about parental rights If the parents gives permissions then why do you need this more of additional information another item I want to highlight is under the parental involvement section while I agree that parents should be notified if there are changes to the child's mental or emotional health I do have concerns

016that students can be outed under this policy in an ideal situation a student lives in a supportive household where they can be their authentic self but that is not always the case even though it is 2024 there are still parents that will kick their kids out or dis own them if they come out and even if they don't go to that extreme there are parents who will disengage or belittle their children which can severely impact their child's mental and emotional well-being instead of listening to political rhetoric that would have you believe that schools are doing something nefarious for letting kids use their preferred pronouns maybe we should see it as a positive that we have created such a welcoming group of teachers and staff that students feel safe to be their authentic self at school

017and if students feel safe at school they are more likely to be able to learn and succeed and I hope that is something we could all support thanks thank you uh Megan Gilbert I'm Megan Gilbert and I live in in New Freedom I am here to talk about the proposed changes to certain policies because you've not discussed publicly your reasons behind these changes I'm left to go on my own interpretation of what you appear to be doing and what this looks like uh to me so when it comes to the changes on instructional materials and presenter selection here are some of the concerns that I have you want to delete the line that says principles should go over personal opinion and reason above Prejudice you also want to delete the reference to a pluralistic society

018which is what the United States is cut out the reference to representation of all major religions and to the reference to the fact that the district should not make an effort to sway opinions this reads to me that you want to narrow the scope of what our children are exposed to in their education the purpose of an education is to teach our children how to think not what to think in order to do that they need to read they need to hear from a variety of perspectives Traditions viewpoints ideas they need to learn about our history the good and the bad they need to learn about controversial things they need to hear about the difficult they need to hear about the complex topics that we all face in this world it is okay for our

019children to be uncomfortable with some of the things that they are learning but they should be learning how to process these facts these uncomfortable things these ideas these opinions with the support of a trained educational Prof professional that professional the teachers in our classrooms are not there to advocate for any of those positions they are here to help our children process and decipher and analyze all of those different viewpoints that are out there I am not afraid of my children learning about things that I disagree with they should be exposed to those things and I also believe it should be those educational professionals that are choosing that material because they know best what certain grades what certain grade levels can handle those certain information my biggest concern is the change in the material challenge portion

020of course it's acceptable to have a policy on challenging material in the classroom but you want to remove the part of the policy that states a decision to sustain a challenge shall not be interpreted as a judgment of irresponsibility on the part of the professionals involved in the original selection or use of material by eliminating that line it appears to me that you want to be able to punish teachers if mat material is successfully challenged this also again to me my interpretation is what leads to book bands you might not call it that but if a teacher believes they will be punished because they have chosen material that could be C challenged they're not going to pick anything even remotely controversial so topics on Race on gender the lgbtq plus Community that's going to be

021off limits whether you like it or not our children will have to Grapple with those issues after they graduate we should be preparing them now exposing to those issues in an educational appropriate way before they leave I also want to point out that AP courses have to follow AP curriculum because that is what the AP test will be on what if someone successfully challenges some of the material that's in an AP class what are you going to do then I will note that the current policy doesn't address that either so I would like to know what you will do to protect that AP uh curriculum all right moving on to another policy that um I I just have questions about and that is the one on the use of school buildings like you want to

022take out the prohibition of alcohol on school property um and other parts of the policy that in my mind appear to be protecting the schools for legal reasons again there may be perfectly good reasons for that I I just have no idea what they are so I would appreciate if you could elaborate on some of the reasoning behind all of these changes that you are proposing um in these policies and finally I did not choose to speak on all of my thoughts on the Athletics or pronoun policy because I need a lot more than five minutes I think many people have very legitimate questions concerns I also think there's a lot of misinformation a lot of misunderstanding and we are really missing an opportunity to have an honest conversation about what we can do to

023make all students feel safe and supported in the classroom and on the athletic field we are missing an opportunity to demonstrate to our children how you have these conversations on controversial topics in an honest respectful way and that frankly is really disappointing instead of us as a community having that conversation we hired an outside legal council that clearly has a political and religious agenda so I'd appreciate hearing your reasons behind all of these changes to all of these policies and I would also ask that you table your votes on these so we can hear your reasoning Crystal Pinto good evening Crystal Pinto New Freedom burrow I'm not here to talk about policy and or anything on the agenda I'm here to make awareness trying to do this as a parent that has a student with

024uh that is going through this my son Caleb was diagnosed with coat's disease last year and it's thankfully our school nurse in um shrewbury was able to um let me know and then from there we went on from looking at nine different doctors for finally getting a answer because it was one thing after another and no real answers so coat dis these if you're not uh obviously you're not going to know it because is it's that rare um it has to do with the leakage of abnormal blood vessels in the eye um so this means Vision vision loss and possible loss of my um possible loss of the eye last year in December 19th he had his first surgery and I'm so he had his first surgery in in December um of last year everything

025went fine coming into this new school year it hit hard I'm trying not to get upset Caleb ah Hadad and developed a macular hole in the process of over the course of last year to this new school year he ended up having surgery the day before his birthday missing school of course he then returned to school on um the 24th the 24th of September the 1st of October I get a call Cale and Caleb was struck in struck in the head which I took him to the Urgent Care and the Ed finding out that he going then making sure he didn't have a concussion or anything then he ended up having we go into the surgeon and then him finding out that he had a retinal detachment a retinal detachment guys is very very scary

026especially for a 12-year-old this is the part of the eye that holds the retinas part of the eye that holds to the back of the wall this also is where vision is is can be compromised fast forward Caleb had his second um surgery on the 8th of October from there um he had developed cataracts um they removed the lens they he had laser um and he is trying to recover from that he has another surgery coming up on the 29th and that is to remove the heavy liquid to in place of oil this is all this information that I'm regurgitating you is what I've been told and what I've been found on the internet but I need support my pride and my ego hurts because I need help and I don't know where else to

027get it he's missing so far he will be missing about just roughly about 3 months of school CU he won't return until the week before Thanksgiving break I have had a meeting with his teachers but again I'm I'm just waiting on answers or a theory or something to help us but again I'm coming to you as a mother and concern that I'm just bringing this aware that this is going on to one of your students here in the community and it's not easy it's very difficult someone that loves School can't even go to school he tells me every time after we leave the doctors well do I have enough time to go back to school that's the kid that you want in class so he's made comments to make mommy this feels like cancer but

028I know it's not cancer he's at asked the surgeon just to take his eye cuz he's tired of seeing us suffer thank you thank you Sharon leech uh Sharon leech um and I'm from shrewbury burrow I just want to say my condolences that was a very tough story to hear and all the best for the upcoming trials okay but I I'm speaking tonight to address to express concern before the board votes on the substantial policy change that will impact our students and staff but first why is there so much hesitation to allow the public to compare the policies drafted by the ilc and those by our own solicitor funded by our taxpayer dollars I appreciate the two board members raising this point at the last board meeting the remaining the remaining members of the board

029have promised transparency and are now suddenly against it this is the exact hypocrisy this policy this is the exact hypocracy adopting this policy while touting we are not Banning books exemp amplifies after reading the policy 109.2 titled instructional materials and presenter selection I have become concerned that this revision paves the way for the board to censor a broad range of educational materials including both books and speakers students don't all find the same meaning in every book or have the same takeaway from every guest speaker that is a given I hope you agree we are not trying to raise a generation of clones but rather successful members of society we value or at least we should value different experiences different loves different interests and different growth trajectories for every student but this policy seems to allow

030for the opinion of a few board members to outweigh any educational value of a broad swath of literature this is a really slippery slope to book bands where we have seen time and time again that books written by or for lgbtq Plus or minorities have been taken off the shelf despite providing value to a majority or even a minority of students it shouldn't matter the number of students reading a broad range of literature allows students to grow find their Curiosities become critical thinkers no one should be punished for giving a child access to books no one should be punished for reading and no one should be punished for suggesting a book period by updating the philosophy section to remove the statement principles must be placed above personal opinion and reason above Prejudice in the selection

031of materials and presenters of the highest quality of appropriateness you effectively open the door so that the board could reject a book or a speaker simply because a majority of the board may not like and or agree with the message written educational materials and speakers would no longer be objectively evaluated based on Merit or educational value but could be rejected because of a handful of unqualified folks subjective interpretations a plausible example could be rejected as a book as simple as the lore act by Dr Seuss where the message is about pollution for more and more industrialization yet it could be banned because the board may not believe that greenhouse gases are directly related to climate change later in the policy another key item is removed from the request for reconsideration section by removing item 10

032which states a decision to sustain a challenge shall not be interpreted as a judge of irresponsibility on the part of professionals involved in the original selection or use of material the policy now makes fertile ground for there to be retaliation against Educators for even suggesting a book or a speaker or for the board uh for the board for which the board may have a differing opinion this seems like it could open the door to Extreme Measures such as disciplining or even firing an educator for merely suggesting a book or speaker or topic that the the board may find objectionable the policy crafted in this way discourages new literature from being added to the acceptable list out of fear of retaliation for any educator who may wish to submit something new congratulations you have found yet

033another way to drive away qualified staff and you have found a way to ban books without Banning books I believe that's called censorship thank you for your time uh Brad renahan good evening Brad renahan sh very Township just I mean I watched last month's meeting and I remember president hankle and think even Mr Hall open up the floor to the rest of the board members to ReRe whatever policy they wanted to whether it was written by the solicitor or the ilc that's so check it was not read the ones you prais did nothing all right back to what I was going to go talk about today um this is a good Community you know you guys were all of you there's a method myth that only like you represent 15% of the district or even

034less than that for some of you youall were certified by your County elections to be in the positions that you're in right now just a reminder of what kind of community we are and who represent it's facts that if you look at the 2020 election if you go by the voting districts Trump won his winning percentage in each one I'll right read through them New Freedom he won by 20 truberry burrow 30 Glenrock 25 sherbury Township 38 sherbury Township 2 26 the cador townships 49 50 32 railroad 35 that's all eight precinct if you want the raw numbers that's 8588 to 4,534 I guessing I'm at least looking at seven maybe even eight or nine Trump voters on the board right now so again I asked who's representing the majority again now to the issue

035that we're on the the agenda tonight about the sports policy um Sports policy needs um something when one of our girls teams plays a team with a biological mail um it's not in the draft thing but we just need to somehow address something like that I know local area but sometimes you play in a tournament teams from other states other parts of the state you might run into that situation but a fact is you you do mention about puberty I mean pre-puberty there's no difference between boys and girls after that men develop heavier bones they develop nearly twice as much muscle skeleton across their across their skull upper body some of the bone growth example shoulder width and jaw is just disproportionately greater resulting in noticeably different male and female skeletal shapes the average adult

036male has about 150% of the lean body mass of an average female and about 50% of the body fat facts Men's 100 meter record is 9.58 seconds women's is 10.49 weight lifting there is a common weight class 81 kilogram men and women compete at that's 178 PBS men their snatched clean a jerk combined is 833 lbs women it's 626 that's over a 200 lb difference are we getting it men are different than women physically in sports did you know the girls basketball is smaller than the boys basketball there's a reason for that one I want to bring up is there was an incident of a volleyball player player by her name was her name is pton mcnet she plays in North Carolina or did play volleyball in North Carolina until an incident two years ago

037she came her team played a male a transgender a male who spiked the ball and hit her in the face where she was knocked unconscious for 30 seconds this is facts she had a brain she went to the doctor and later found out she had severe concussion brain ble bleed and permanent Whiplash she has partial Paralysis on half of her body she can no longer play volleyball and actually she wanted to play softball in college and has diminished ability due to Paralysis on the right side of her body she has memory issues and she needs special accommodations to take tests you know how the video got out was on that other players recruitment video for college that's absolutely disgusting thank you for the time thank you Steph muser good evening Steph muser cador Township in

038preparation for public comment this evening I reviewed last month's meeting it was you what it was what you did not say that struck me the most after introducing several new policies they weren't publicly deliberated at all even the specific purpose or goal of each policy wasn't stated and the public had no access to the policy until after the meeting I'm trying to understand why you wouldn't want to explain these policies in detail several of you ran proudly on a platform that championed parents rights which these policies touch on I expected challenges when I outlined how these policies could violate the PA human relations act when I called out that the last time the independence Law Center took on lgbtq students rights in court they lost but then I stumbled upon some comments from the ic's

039Randall Wanger while serving as Council for the alliance defending freedom in 2005 do creationism case he stepped back from the case and in October 2005 meeting at the Lebanon County Evangelical School of Theology he suggested that the case was l once the board mentioned their religious motivations for the policy and declared we need to do a better job at being clever as serpents When developing policies aligned with Christian beliefs at the end of the day you can't speak freely about these policies because you can't jeopardize this case for the ilc the fundamental question is who are you accountable to I would argue that you're accountable to the taxpayers of southern New York County School District not the ilc not to the alliance defending Freedom not to the family research Council the PA economic growth pack

040or any of the organizations you're aligned with these decisions must be deliberated and made locally with input from everyone in the community draft policy related to sex-based distinctions in athletics and the policy related to Student Records name sex and gender identity will need to stand up to considerable legal scrutiny regardless of your personally held beliefs it's the law that matters here these po policies are purposely designed to violate the law and every taxpayer deserves to hear how the ilc plans to defend this in the courts especially given that the last time they took this to court they lost furthermore our tax dollars paid for a draft of these policies from Mr litz our solicitor at the very least we deserve to see it and if the board is truly dedicated to an open and transparent

041approach they would also have a group like the education Law Center come speak about how these policies could expose our district to Legal liability you're on Rec criticizing prior boards for the failure to present both sides of the mascot argument you have an opportunity here to do better whenever transparency is mentioned the board's response is were more transparent than our predecessors when your predecessors considered transitioning away from the Native American mascot they formed a committee they looked at Cost implications conducted a survey etc for over a year before making that decision and that decision didn't have the legal implications that this one does please table these two policies until they have been appropriately investigated and vetted these aren't the only two policies on the agenda for tonight in less than a month more than 20

042one new or revised policies were proposed at the same time this doesn't allow adequate time for deliberation and public review is there a particular urgency to the passage of all this policy at once could items be tabled prioritized and deliberate separately several of these policies raise questions but I'll just pull out one in particular a few months ago sensitive to the needs of the community the board decided not to raise event ticket prices this year but now we have an amendment to policy 904 public attendance at school events you're using our tax dollars to gift yourself free tickets to all school events with no dollar limit mentioned I took some time to compare our proposed policy to other York County School Districts we are the only District that is not only gifting free tickets to

043our board directors we're also gifting a ticket to the guests of their choice at every school event frankly I'd like to see a dollar limit placed on the free tickets and instead of gifting free tickets to your guests on my dime offering to provide some tickets to our senior citizens living on a fixed income in this District in closing I urge you to please table policy 123.3mi immediately due to changes in the law while offering more time for public review of the balance of policies thank you uh Christen McGovern Christen MCG and I live in sherbury burough and both of my kids go to shwb elementary when I started reading the proposed policies that are up for approval tonight I was angry particularly regarding proposed policies number 26.2 Student Records name sex and gender identity

044under the section about addressing students it says quote a student wishing to change his or her means of address will be treated with respect in the classroom and school environment then and end quote then it goes on to say quote again this policy forbids forcing School Personnel or students from speaking names or pronouns in violation of their conscience end quote interesting that this section is titled Mutual respect because this doesn't show the effect of students respect they are asking you to respect them because of how they feel about themselves and you are making it okay to say no you don't deserve that respect because I don't agree with how you see yourself your role is to make school a safe and supportive place for all students without discrimination on the basis of race color age

045Creed religion sex sexual orientation quoted from the policy manual for the district sorry how is school a safe and supportive environment when a student cannot be called by the name they identify with this policy would make it okay to be disrespectful to certain students because you don't agree with how they project themselves what if a student doesn't have supported home and they are coming to school hoping for support and a safe space this policy gives a reason for any teacher or Personnel to not acknowledge that student as they tell you they are which could be detrimental to the students's mental health it could put them into crisis or worse this student is asking to be accepted for who they are and respected as any other student but this policy says they don't deserve that you

046can talk all you want but actions speak louder and this is your action trying to put a policy in place that is disrespectful for certain students and laying the groundwork for a mental health crisis for these students I urge you to vote down this policy it is disrespectful mentally harmful and discriminatory as it only affects a Min minority of students students all students deserve the same level of respect and support in our schools thank you samanal hey Samantha Cole Glenrock I'll try to speak quick uh this month a highly emotional newsletter was published by a pack which the majority of the school board belongs or has belonged to which still prominently features photos of five board directors on the homepage it stated names professions and accusations towards certain community members and implied that this pack

047and therefore the board as implied served only those who are not on the hysterical left it closes by quoting Joseph melli in an attempt to paint our school board's opposition as Nazis the push to protect girls and women in sports is as you all know a thinly veiled dog whistle meant to make the push to ostracize those in the lgbtq community seem more palatable to the public I can speak to that because I'm actually a woman and was once a girl in sports myself unlike the majority of the boort your first move was access to our kids now the focus is on strategically placed hurdles to make their lives more difficult such as parental permission requirements to go by a nickname as someone with a hyper feminine first name that shortens to a unisex nickname

048I'm curious if there would be a policy issue for any girls named Samantha Who wish to be called Sam or would additional scrutiny somehow start to apply just in case Sam the female started to dress a little too androgynous for this board's liking if Robert decides to be called Bobby instead of Bob would that require permission as well since Bobby can be a girl's name what if calling him a name that he doesn't like is distressing enough to him that he would rather sit at his desk and cry instead of focus on his worksheets do we prioritize his education in this instance and just start calling him Bobby or does he lose several days of educ ation and distress because a conference needs to be arranged to determine if he's being socially transitioned against his

049parents wishes by his liberal teacher next if we have seen it could be windows installed in the gender neutral bathroom so anyone choosing to use them knows they specifically are being observed as the problem or something different this comes with hysterical and emotional language to make the possible existence of a transgender person seem like a much larger threat to our students than it actually is as a woman who has used a public restroom I have never once been threatened by a trans person or a man in a skirt claiming to be trans just so he could get access to me I have however been followed and harassed by many SZ and seemingly heterosexual men throughout my life just trying to do something as simple as find a stairwell I can tell you that any hesitation

050I have in speaking at this meeting is not in any part due to a possible runin with a trans person in the parking lot later it is Men Behaving Badly that make women and girls whether in sports or elsewhere unsafe and you know it when discussing the observation windows in back boms a fellow Community member mentioned they would remove their child from this District if it happened here but that's the intention right to remove everyone that your movement does not understand or agree with from the schools the district and Beyond it's the trans kids today but under the guise of safety rights or the need to scapegoat anyone else the very history referen in that newsletter has shown us it won't stop with them and to be clear even if it did stop with the

051Trans kids they are worth speaking up for women and girls in sports don't need protection from a possible trans person but all of our students need protection from small-minded bigoted men in power and the women who think they will somehow be exempt from the policies put in place if they smugly smile and play along we saw this in May when the female student representative Caroline Dum could not get an answer from the board president as she asked about their intention for Trans students in sports if the goal is to protect students like her why avoid the question don't the suffering girls and women's of York County deserve to know that they should be thrilled by your chivalrous commitment to saving them and if we need protection so badly why are women specifically being Nam shamed

052and targeted in your official pack newsletter is it because you're using us as pawns to push your agenda of hate and you know that we see right through it don't you hate that we're educated enough to know what you're doing in 1933 the Nazis sought to reduce the visibility of the lgbtq community by closing their safe spaces such as bars and meeting spots and increasing police surveillance this quickly moved over that first year to dismantling their means of communication such as the Press along with book burnings and other typically fastest Behavior just one year later any suspected gay individual ual were on a centralized list maintained by the Nazis not that much unlike an official record of students who have parental permission to use a nickname over the next several years this same Community was

053falsely painted as a threat to be managed to protect the rest of society meaning arrest torture and of course death our Nazis are in an uproar about Pride Flags in a classroom they overreact to someone wanting to try a different name or safely use a restroom they increase surveillance loosening restrictions for board members or drilling holes into bathrooms to observe because our board is focused on the moral crisis of being gay rather than the real issues facing our kids next will it all become too complicated to manage and thus the board decides that being gay is just too much trouble for the rest of the district and bands it all together yes the Nazi Playbook is being followed so letter writer and Schoolboard you can rest peacefully knowing that the good guys are doing something

054about you however so thank you to those board members who deal with the sneers and comments for doing what is right against the majority of your group because that's hard thank you to everyone who stands up to speak knowing what it risks but caring more about what we all Risk by not speaking up this board is not our district and we are not fooled by you Thomas rer Tom Thomas rer yeah care if I here uh we we we have a role you have to make your statements from the podium unless unless you need need an accommodation I I do oh is is there a physical reason yes okay all right that's fine then um are we going to be able to hear him just hold on he's going to get your mic there um

055I got to tell you I'm already I'm sorry I got to tell you I feel kind of like uh Jackson holiday in his first game um being called up into the big leagues uh I was not anywhere prepared um to be yelled at uh but I will say that it's still an honor um to speak to you guys um I was asked kind of through a um through a side Channel I I I offer it up to someone um the uh feeling that I needed to contribute um that I'm at a place in my life where it's really my the only bullet in my gun and um the person asked me to come and speak about uh uh girl Sports women's sports and without any kind of knowledge to mind what what my background was

056and uh that is that uh you know I'm a I'm a 58 year-old guy that has uh two adult daughters who who uh were four-year Varsity a athletes here at saski um my oldest daughter Riley uh you know I had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to try to validate my opinion um I'm not sure that I would have been able to get through it before just because I'm not professional at this type of thing I know I can't now but it's nice to say that uh Riley's team uh was the first uh lacrosse championship girls or boys District three championship in school history okay um they lost um in the final state finals um that year 2017 she was a junior um to kale um the team that they had beat to secure

057the district our our our tribal Warriors our tribal and a lot of sports but girls lacrosse particularly um they uh they went to the State final and it was at Central High School a neutral site and they were still underdogs just because that was the first time in the districts that they had ever beat them um really evenly matched teams uh so they all lined up in the center for the national anthem and uh the girls would normally get in whatever they did our particular girls held hands in a line and they're waiting for the the audio to start and they uh it didn't come so spontaneously the two girls started singing the the two teams started singing the National Anthem in the middle of the field and it was the most powerful thing in

058sports that I've ever seen um and it gave me great pride they lost that game and kale went in to the finals and lost that year um the following year the senior Year my daughter Riley's team W Beat cdale on the field right over there um for the first time in the regular season ever in over time um she got an assist from her for her uh um from her classmate dear friend and the walkoff you know win all this is to say that you know those are the kind of things that are um what really matter you know the woman back there you really grounded me in this presentation because that's the real stuff I you know I didn't come prepared with policy sightings and and all that stuff it just there's there's right

059and there's wrong and what I my girl's experience my Addison was 4-year two Sport Bar unity all County all four years she decided she didn't want to play anymore her experience here at Susan was enough um I don't know why we would be promoting any deterioration of that in any form you just do what's right the girls work hard and they train because the girl on the other side she's training just as hard and that's all I got to say thank you Captain jock Smith thank you good evening my name is uh Jack Smith I'm the commander of the BFW of New Freedom I'd like to start off by saying that uh I'm kind of a little disappointed um I had brought up to in August I believe it was in August the voice of

060democracy and Patriots pen contest which the Veterans of Foreign Wars sponsors there are several awards that we give out for it then there's a possibility of going on to National um we haven't received any um any essays or or um anything for it yet so I I just wanted to go just bring that forward and I talked to the assistant superintend here and he's going to reiterate to the schools possibly of going on um I was really shocked and to find out that uh there's quite a bit of uh animosity about policies of the school board and everything else um by the way I'll reiterate something I said back in August I didn't vote for any of you people people so just just to let you know that but somebody did vote for you somebody

061did put you on office and I wear a shirt that many people might have seen here um because I'm a clock operator for most of the sports here and on the back of that shirt says I may not believe in what you say but I have defended with my life you're right to say and one of the most precious things we have in this nation is to the ability to get out and vote I am also uh a worker at the polls at Grace Church for shrewbury Township and uh we never we don't seem to fill up everything and uh the last election we had we did have quite a bit of Confrontation about one of the elections that was going on um I really would like to see the animosity go out the window

062and if you're a firm believer in it you know get yourself to theose I believe here in Pennsylvania now we have uh um early voting um get out and vote people um get out and if you don't like what's going on at the school board vote somebody in that's going to do it correctly um I it just bothers me uh I I know right now I am trying to build a new VFW and New Freedom and it's it's it's been been very very difficult due to the fact that things that have been passed by previous administrations and regulations that are really hurting us in building this and supporting the the community of New Freedom Shrewsberry Glenrock gador Shrewsberry Township and all the rest of them but please um you know you may not like what's

063going on here and and I think you deserve the right to come to this meeting and say that but remember the art to compromise and the art to compromise on the people of this board should be something that we all should sit down and think about um and if you have a problem uh I believe when I went on the um when I went on the website today every one of you have a um email address correct everyone has an email address start sending emails um get your groups together that are like that and get your opinion put in we're only what 30 people here this evening that uh are voicing their opinions um please get out there and email these people on the board and let them know how you feel um I I

064I I don't I my children are long grown and my grandchildren don't even live in the area and matter of fact one of them doesn't even go to public schools so but um just make it known make it known and I'd like to say one more thing ma'am if there's anything I can do for your job I'd be happy to help you thank you already uh Brian rbur I am Brian raffensberger I live in Shrewsberry um I just had simple things to say my daughter wanted to come and speak but she couldn't she's sick um well when it comes to like school districts and she with the kids that are they make their own choices about what sexual orientation or whatever they have she's very confused on how to address these problems she doesn't feel

065comfortable in the bathroom she doesn't feel comfortable in the locker rooms I I just think we just need to keep things keep it simple stupid like sports it's a child that thinks they're this or that or they're a girl they're a boy let them play the sport they with the gender that they feel that they are you know I mean this constant confusion confuses my child she asked me questions on how to deal with it I don't know how to answer these questions sometimes I mean I I work at your your public jail I've been there 19 years it's changed from being very simple of male and female to now I don't know the difference sometimes and it's hard to address these people on what gender you make or may not be you may get

066offended by something I have to say to you I don't understand that I don't know how to make it better for her and I don't know how to make it better for me either but I just if the board could find a way to see understanding and people that are here find some understanding these children are confused especially mine they don't understand how to deal with these kind of situations maybe we can find a way to make it better for everybody I'm not trying to single anybody out or make anybody feel any certain type of way thank you Bob Betts good evening Bob bet Shrewsberry Township um we all have roles in our children's lives and as much as we may not like it sometimes there are many times where where we can't be that

067leading force in their lives uh I wish that at all points of the day I could lead guide and direct my children however there's many times I'm forced to rely on other people uh to fill in the Gap while they're in their care uh you know when when other people are friends or family I know where I stand uh most of us our friends emulate the same thought patterns we do we choose our friends usually because they remind us of us families a little different you know you don't get to pick your family um but when it comes to putting them in an environment under the uh care of professionals things are a little different uh and it's a different set of standards that apply you know when they come to these buildings the role

068of admin is traditionally to support the teachers and staff and to help them do what they need to do and the role of the teachers is to educate our children and that's it um it's not to share opinion it's not to share sto it's to speak on what is true in an educational setting truth holds value over opinion in education truth and fact are the guidelines that should steer everything our children learn in the educational system that's put in place they're going to learn about life and the problems that come along with it while they're on that Journey we do not need to add to that plight they're going to do it on their own truth is objective it's not opinion it's fact it's not subjective it does not alter to match your personal belief

069system your systems must alter to align with what is true this is a situation where the nonpartisan approach doesn't work you know to be nonpartisan another way to say that would be to say that you have no position this is not one of those times where having no position is going to save us uh to have no position is to be quiet and to be quiet is not to have no position when we are silent we are speaking volumes we're saying that we don't care enough to speak about what's good right and true or we are saying that we agree with what's going on and we are not brave enough to speak out and agree with it we cannot take a silent stance anymore on the education of our children and on the environments they're

070put in many of us were here years ago when we were arguing against mandates for masking mandates for certain behaviors in the buildings we also here and screamed for parental rights parental rights still matter today I as a parent have the same rights that any other parent has those parental rights are at home where we take the opportunities to speak to our children when they come here we are giving our kids to professionals who we expect to operate in a certain way in a school system we teach children what's true we may not like the truth but the truth is always true here's what's true boys are boys girls are girls they are different no matter how they think feel or look they are different there are always exceptions to the rule and those usually

071come in a very minor faction boys and girls need to have their own spaces they need to have their own sports their own restrooms their own locker rooms we do not let the children run the buildings with how they feel we are the adults we set the standard they follow the standard they need to hear the truth and they need to hear it from us the truth is simple they are loved they are valued they are valuable and they have a purpose in this life and that purpose is to be the best thing that they can be they cannot be that if we affirm poor decision-making and choices we have to assert truth over our children we can't foresee how every person will be impacted by every policy there is always variation but we are

072a nation of laws and rules that are made based on generalized statistics not the abnormality we need to stop affirming these harmful ideas and assert truth to our children the ilc has been attacked as being a religious organization and there has been said that these policies are in place or these policies going in place would be an attack on the freedom of religion that the constitution spells out the Constitution says simply that freedom of religion is the right to practice your religion it does not say that everybody has to like it we have the right to do what's right for our children and I hope that you guys do the right thing thank [Applause] you Mary nce Mary a um Shrewsberry uh burrow I believe um I hate going after Bob because I I just

073want to M or say I am right there with what he has had said tonight um and some of the things that I had picked out I wrote a whole thing but I'm going to go a whole different direction um one of the things uh girls in sports um as as I've said many times before uh my daughter plays lacrosse um so I feel for this gentleman and what he was saying as well um and I don't feel that anyone appear should be screamed at or feel that they can't say what they need to but my daughter practices um on two lacrosse teams she plays for our Warriors team I'm not yet for the high school but we'll be heading there um and also for the York Invaders team which is a club team um

074and again these kids these girls um practice way more than my son even does for baseball she is out at night in 30° weather on the parking ride practicing she is up at 6 o00 up in Lancaster practicing um she puts a lot of effort into her Sport and to have um it said that a a male can come into her Sport and take it over to take a scholarship that she's worked so hard for is just heartbreaking to me as a mom it's heartbreaking that there are uh mothers up here fathers up here um that have daughters that are not fighting for their own daughters um CU I see it every day I have a son and a daughter so I know what the practice schedules look like I'm not just sitting at home

075uh you know doing nothing I'm running kids around I know that there are board members that had children you know in sports um and so I would hope that tonight we see a vote um that will um accept this policy um and I really do hope it's a nine to nothing vote um in favor of these policies because our girls really deserve that we have 90 girls in Fall Sports alone now I'm kind of upset because none of those parents well one man came um are here to speak on that tonight but I've gotten several you know people text me they don't want to come out cuz they don't want to be yelled at her they don't want their daughter you know something said to them and trust me I've been yelled at my kids

076have lost friends for the things I say so I get it why parents don't but these parents people are sitting up here saying you are here for your community your constituents you are and those 90 girls just in for for false Sports Alone um deserve to be protected they deserve to be protected and they deserve to have a chance to get their scholarships they deserve not to get hurt and they deserve all this stuffff you know you you were um elected into this position for these children and that is for those children um none of this draft says that that certain people or individuals cannot try out for a sport anyone in this District can try out for a sport um it just needs to be their gender based sport um also actually the draft

077itself is not really I think the best draft ever because there's a lot of things in here that still concern me but I'm going to assume that it was even though it was the ilc and everybody's against the ilc that it was within the law of what um what needs to be done so hopefully eventually some of our laws will change and uh some of this can even change even more um so you know I I want to um just say that I know that girls really deserve this opportunity um they work hard um and you know if if there needs to be mixed Sports so be it that's fine um I don't have an issue with that girls at least them will know what they're kind of coming up with so I do hope

078you vote for both of these policies I didn't get to speak on the other one um but I do hope you vote for both of these policies and in favor of them tonight um because we need to also um have um parents be able to know what's going on in our schools um and these po this policy will help that happen thank you thank [Applause] you all right um moving on to 6.02 board discussion of public comment I would encourage everyone to if the public comment was about anything that will be on the agenda later save your comments to that time so we can just have them as part of our deliberation is there any comment on anything that was not uh an agenda item here yeah so I wanted to just go ahead and

079say we had two public commenters that were specifically talking about 10 n.1 and I do intend to follow up with those so if you want to stay for that or watch the feed later I will get to those um to Mrs Pinto my heart is breaking for you I am just so sorry and I would like to get in touch with you later on um I'm sure that there are things that our district absolutely can do when it comes to the special challenges that your son is dealing with right now when it pertains to educational needs absolutely I I'll be in contact with you um Mr Captain Jack Smith I he popped his head popped up I have to say that I look forward to you telling us saw that you did not vote for

080us every single time and this is not going to be a requirement but if I could mandate maybe that you do it every time forward you are a breath of fresh air and I don't think I've ever met anyone that can say anything like that with such genuiness and honesty I adore it thank you sir and I think that's unless you want to vote for us in the next election won't be anym but I will I will accept no I'll allow it uh anyone else yeah yes I have several things I'd like to talk about about um one I would like to genuinely thank everyone who came out to speak about these policies um I would also like to say that this is the first opportunity that that would happen here at Southern New York

081County School District because prior to this board our last policy meeting lasted less than 7 minutes no policies were released to the public they were then consequently voted on by the board passed and then released to the community whereas we have taken a higher road because we do want people in the community to be able to come out and speak to policy before it it happens um so I do think that we have made a genuine effort to put the policies forward for you to be able to see what they are we did not put forward policies that did not come to the table to be voted on because they never made it to that level but we did put forward all of the policies that came to the level of being voted on I

082would also like to say that our policy of vetting books is not new from any of you who have been paying attention for a long time Miss Weber Watts did that for us prior to miss hankle doing that and in no way does that represent book bands if it does then the implication would be that Miss Weber was is also a book Banner which I know many of you in the room know that's not true and lastly I would like to say that I have a nice little card right here and uh I paid for it and this is how I get into soccer games and football games and I have never ever gotten into a game here for free because I'm a Schoolboard member I pay my way so I just want to put

083that out there thank you president hle anyone else any comment on anything that won't be Revisited later all right moving on to uh item seven the consent agenda I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved second any discussion any n or abstentions hearing none that motion carries which brings us to to item 8 which this evening will be our transportation health and safety report uh we moved that up so that we could um address some concerns uh that our bus drivers had um and do it a little bit earlier in the meeting uh out of respect for those concerns so Mr hash um just a brief overview of what happened during the month of September during the month of September there were 24 driver observed and reported stop arm violations

084the biggest majority of these are when a vehicle proceeds through the blink ining red lights head on with the buses we also had an accident where a car had a collision with a bus the main entrance there were no injuries uh during the month of September first student and the district Su successfully completed the following planned and executed seven bus splits to support afternoon Transportation needs due to driver shortages they planned and organize buses for September field trips for each School partnered with Athletics to plan bus coverage for 54 sports events partnered with private schools to adjust uh the routes for new students conducted onsite assessment and follow-ups for reported bus stop concerns from the community this is an ongoing thing that we are dealing with additionally they continued the after school activity bus routes

085as a coordinated effort Transportation first student the Liu and sycsd special education worked together to create and maintain roots for students attending out of District um for students any out of district schools and that is all I have for 801 good to move to 802 what's that good to move to 802 y okay um 802 um little background on this before we talk about it the district and first student approved a 5-year contract in October 2019 with two optional extension years uh 2024 is the final year of the five-year contract with 2025 2026 and 2026 2027 as the optional years we have a good relationship with first student and while we are sometimes short on drivers the partnership is strong and the drivers are dedicated to students first student with um Susan leading the way

086on that and heading up that um they have um agreed to exercise the two um available option years they asked the district to consider the following Amendment to the contract however in the event the district has in-person operations of less than 180 days inperson Days first student shall be compensated 50% of the daily rate for any days less than the 180 days threshold this is for any bus minivan everything um since the contract was agreed to in October 2018 we now do not always have 181 in person instruction days um due to Virtual and things of that nature so any questions about that so far um Mr Green you uh you explained that before what the reason for this I think that might be useful sure so um one of the things as Mr hash

087pointed out um we we typically in the past um prior to probably the 2018 2019 year um we would have 181 days and if we had a snow day we'd make that up because we really didn't have the technology um and things in place to do virtual days um now that we have that we don't always make those days up um we may have a virtual day on a snow day um instead of making that up in another time um added to that we also have um through the department of Ed there was a change in regulations that it's now based upon hours instead of days um so those all things all kind of add together um when you look at first student one of the things that they do they um they divide their

088costs out by the 181 days and a lot of their costs are fixed costs for their buses for their Depot um and for um their management staff um although drivers don't get paid on days they don't drive um a bulk of their expenses are still there um because of the cost of the vehicles so I know a lot of people don't understand but we don't own those Vehicles we don't own the depot um that's all owned by first student so as we were looking at it um this is a compromise we made during the pandemic when we didn't necessarily drive on Wednesdays um so I think it's very fair on the 50% because the alternative to this would be um we would negotiate they we would need to negotiate something that they would have to

089build in the fact that they would assume which days we may not drive and and that would have to be built in um now we can do it based upon what actually happens and I think that's more favorable to everyone and we have a great partner I do want to add we have a great partnership with them our drivers are wonderful um we want to make sure it's a it's been a very long partnership we want to keep it going that way thank you so I would like to to uh put forward a motion to approve the two extension years to the first student contract with the following amendment in the event the district has inperson operations of less than 180 days first student shall be compensated 50% of the daily rate for any days

090less than the 180 day threshold this is for any bus minivan or van route moved second any discussion n or extensions that passes moving on to 803 we have a bus safety week in recognition recognition of bus safety week the district would like to recognize um our first student bus drivers the highlighted features of the safety week this year were tips for adult and student drivers and safety tips for school bus riders focusing on uh I do my part for school bus safety did you want to address any concerns no well concerns or talk about this huh did you want me to talk about this particular item or what we uh we can do we can do anything else in other items business I think so any any on this item no no I mean

091we just again I I think this is a great opportunity to do a shout out for our drivers and what a wonderful job they do for our students okay um 804 other items of business I I think we probably several of us have have some um so um did you want to start anything off or do am I good okay um so uh just want to mention this before I forget it during the buildings and grounds meeting we talked about signage out on for the uh two drives um I also heard that uh one of the concerns of the bus drivers is that the back Drive where they have to enter and exit is is there's a turn pretty close to there that makes that very difficult I I think I heard a sixc window

092to make that decision about whether to go or not uh or or actually make the turn um and I know we can't have flashers um is there any possibility of having mirrors um there uh like uh like on a post at at especially for the curve so that they can see maybe oncoming cars coming around the curve I'd have to check um I I don't know the answer to that we'd have to check but the one thing I will add is it is highly regul regulated by pendot so I know we talked about that in the last meeting I can kind of reiterate that um we'll continue to work through that I am hoping with the new signage that we hope to get in um as quickly as we can um that that will help

093too with the signs because right now there is no sign like announcing that school you know there's a school entrance coming up so I'm hoping that'll help but we can check on mirrors and we can continue to have those conversations um as we work through through it I mean we we've talked about um if you know sometimes you'll see on the road it says School Ahead I mean we're we're we're trying to um look at all the options we can but we have to get approval it's not of course yeah yeah and I know you know that I'm just making sure know like you know I'm hearing often like why can't we just go out there and do that um and we just can't because it's not it's it's you know it's a pen DOT

094road and we have to follow their regulations so understood yeah so I definitely know at the board because we've talked about it extensively but from a public standpoint and even working with our drivers to understand like we're we're really trying to to listen but um our hands are tight on some of these things but we'll keep working on it okay um and then I I had with um the other issue uh or another issue is uh is uh some student discipline incidents on the bus um that are for some drivers it seems to not be as big a deal but for others it's it's it's really uh it's really challenging for them um so I wanted to uh ask a few questions just about our current policies and procedures I know some of these have

095been frustrated by the lack of a Depot manager and so in some cases uh you know practice may not match you know Theory may not match what what we're actually prescribing um but I'd like to I'd like to understand because I heard from a couple of different people about the full chain of reporting for discipline in incidents um so I'd like and and as part of that I'd like to understand when a driver uh needs to report an incident what options they have available to them um I know that they can file a form after the run um I know that there are issues with privacy with radioing in incidents but I wonder if if if there is any ability to maybe radio something in and then F get a followup later uh cuz I

096if I were driving a bus and and had like three or four incidents i' I'd have forgotten the last one uh by the time I was done I don't know I don't know how they do it but um yeah I I can definitely speak to that yeah thank you so we do have radio communication and I'll also throw it over to Dr rert to to add into that um so we do ask that our drivers fill out an incident report for the students um even if they have um worked with the student and handled the incident we like to know um what's going on in case we have future incidents um but as far as radio in they can definitely radio in um there's a couple things they can do if they're having um you

097know more serious thing or or maybe multiple children they can pull the bus over and we we ask them to let us know that they're pulling the bus over for student management because of course we want them to be concentrating on driving so if they're not able to do that they need to pull the bus over um we ask that they let us know when the the bus is moving again um be so that we know everything's okay um if it's been a couple minutes and we don't hear we radio out to them to just make sure everything's okay because we may need to send someone else out to help them um if there's you know maybe we have to send an administrator or someone um to the bus we usually don't have to do

098that but again we like to have communication with the drivers um if they're driving along and they have a situation we ask them to um not name the student because it's going out over the Airways um but they can say that I have a little one that's having a challenging day um it just happened so we now know it's 304 we can write bus X and the time and then we know we can pull that video um that helps then we can we can then identify and help when they get back to know when we need to pull the video for those behaviors to try to help the child um so those things are all things that we can do and we hear you know on the radio we can hear on the radio that

099um you know I'm having some some challenges today okay what can we do for you and and we work through that but there's a way we can do it with it and and help to kind of um figure out where it is on the run without identifying children over the radio and as far as the the uh chain of reporting um that of course begins with the driver uh where does it go from there uh both in terms of going up the chain and back down the chain or and and what what is the what is the protocol uh I know that maybe what happens is sometimes different from that especially with a with the Depot manager position um being being kind of unfilled at the moment right so we'll tag team on this so

100it comes over to the district um it comes to our transport ation Department um we keep records by school of the violation we have a little binder um by school of um the uh incident reports uh then they go over to the buildings um where the building administrator um takes care of what's going on with um speaking to the child speaking to the parents depending on the level of severity issuing consequences um working through those things um and then they do get an email return back um that's one thing we're going to work a little bit more on making sure that that email um comes back and then it gets to the driver um so go back to the depot currently it well we're going to have it go back to the depot and back

101to us um so that we in transportation um can make sure that it's coming back and then we can make sure that first student is getting it to the driver so we'll work in conjunction we have um a follow-up meeting uh Dr rard and I early next week um that we're going to work through that make sure that um with our new Depot manager so welcome to Tristan who was new yesterday um our new manager um we're going to work to make sure that we're we're closing that Loop so no yeah and I'll Echo what Mr Green said I think closing that Loop is very important because the the feedback we receive from the bus drivers is we don't know what happens um so by closing that Loop and from the district sending back to

102the depot you know here's what some of the action steps what we we've addressed we'll close that Loop uh I do want to make note though that if there are uh specific Cons with a seat change or something that's administered from the building level that's communicated with that bus driver so that bus driver knows whether it's the next morning or for the afternoon that you know uh Little Jeremy uh is now going to be sitting in bus seat one um so it just that communication does happen but in order to close that loop as Mrs Green was saying and looking at a change with the procedure or an improvement of procedure is after it's acknowledged and received at the building level and it's processed then an email will go back to the district as well

103as the Depot manager indicating that this bus referral was completed and then they can then communicate the bus driver thank you I have a few things um I was I was very impressed uh there were several a handful of bus drivers some whom I've never even met or spoken to before reached out to me um this past week and some of some of our bus drivers are really struggling right now this is this is kind of a rough patch it's the beginning of school it can happen some of the the roots are a little bit more challenging right now we're we're kind of working out some of the Kinks and things and um student Behavior definitely is is the Highlight right now that that some some of them are struggling with it's not every bus

104driver it's not every route um there are some unique challenges that are happening and uh we we had at the Depot meeting the other day uh three board members actually were there for it Mr Wilson um Mr hash myself and uh Mrs Green and Dr Bryson and Dr repert and that's atypical so I think that that was a good showing of you know we're serious about this when our bus drivers reach out to us we about them they they are a resource and asset to our community we certainly don't want to be in the kind of uh shape that some other districts have found themselves in the past being short with bus drivers not having the the appropriate means that and and one one District not that long ago had to go virtual for two

105weeks I remember and you know in addition to the fact that I don't like hearing that buff drivers are struggling with student Behavior I I would say that it's important for parents to understand that you know it these kids at the end of the day they they're tired they've all day long had to deal with good behavior and struggles and academic challenges and so then they get on that bus and it's it's hard for them so if we can have parents remind your children that there there is a living human breathing being behind the wheel that is responsible for not only their safety but the safety of every other student on that bus that you know we we need to start sh showing some some good behavior so if every parent in our district could

106have that that talk whether you think it's your kid or not we we need to be a team with us and I I was just really encouraged that our admin made a point to show up to that meeting that told those bus drivers that they care that told those bus drivers that they're willing to work on things whether it's a breakdown in communication what have you and and that gave the bus drivers an opportunity some of them just to vent because you know we've all had that day right and it was productive it was professional it was you never want you you wonder sometimes going into that kind of environment how it's going to be and and everybody was was fantastic one of the things that I would like to say that my takea away

107from it and I don't know that it necessarily has to be a policy change but if we could perhaps request that the district share with the um the board at least the incidents the numbers not individual incidents not what you know what occasion they rise to or anything like that so that we can see the reality of okay it seems like this route is having more problems than that one I don't know if that burdens you really just the feedback of numbers so that we can be tracking those like we do the stop arm violations yeah so we've already put together um a summary document that basically um the way I kind of looked at it was okay take all of the incidents by month um by school and if a bus only had one

108incident we we didn't even list the bus number we just knew okay for instance at building X there were 20 instance instances for the month um and and these two buses had more than one incident and the rest of them were one one what I call oneoff um so we really kind of need to Center in on in my opinion which buses are having more instances and so yes we can definitely that would be fantastic and then also if I could just speak to the bus drivers um please if you're feeling uncomfortable if there's Behavior that's on the bus that that you feel is above and beyond do do follow up with the writeups we are all listening admins listening we don't want you to be thinking about how to handle things we're here to

109help so please write up those incidents so that we can have data points so that we can solve the problem because we really do want to we care that's it and uh just to follow up on that the three board members three admin we all went out all I did was introduced us then I walked away and left you two up on the firing line so uh congratulations to you two for taking all that heat for I think it was over an hour and like she said most people just want to vent and just talk and just make their voice heard some people don't have issues and they they handle their buses differently than other drivers do but some do and that's what we need to support and some have different buses to handle some

110have very different buses to handle and um admin is you know making changes ride buses and do those kind of things so thank you for that so just want to follow up with that that's all I got good all righty I will take it over for the education um 9.01 is quick data for high reliability schools this is informational and Dr rert I'm sure you would like to speak with that thank M ankle uh board directors this month uh you've received a uh a packet regarding information in as an update from 1.2 which is student and parents and Community per receiving the uh School environment as uh safe and orderly so you receive that information uh as we indicated at the beginning of the this school year in August each month you'll receive a different

111component of what each of the schools are doing focusing on uh different components of level one from Aron okay thank you for that 9.02 are the revisions that we have to the agreement for participation in extracurricular activities Dr rert did you want to lead with that um yes La last month we had the u a discussion regarding the extracurricular contract uh which is really provides our students a a higher level of expectations of of behaviors there were some recommended changes from the administration uh that really honed in and focused on the the use of tobacco where the the the change was recommended uh for first time off fence uh for tobacco nicotine nicotine delivery products for 14 days and then the second or subsequent offenses up in the same will be 30 days all controlled

112substances that would remain the same uh of 60 calendar days from the uh the original contract all righty I move to approve the revisions to the agreement for participation in extracurricular activities may I have a second please second all right and then I'm going to go ahead and recommend a um an amendment to this I in uh several of the feedback items that I have gotten from uh board members it seems like we want to keep perhaps the um any student on school grounds at a school sponsored activity so that it'll be what we we call the 24hour policy and so that means that we would also then strike out the last so we're going to include what the the strike out was um and then we're going to go ahead and strike out where

113what we were defining as on school grounds since that wouldn't be necessary uh does anybody have any questions about that before I move and that was number seven yes thank you the extracurricular contract all right so I I'll go ahead and motion an amendment for those changes Miss green do you need help with that I said that horrifically for what the language needs to be included no I think we're okay thank you it's it was all there anyway so so I just wrote put number seven back in yeah well that is so much easier seven actually has a couple of different pieces to it so I think more specifically we would currently it strikes students every day of the school calendar year for behaviors in school and not in school uh we would unstrip that

114and then we would now it would no longer be needed to explain what in school means so we could strike any student on school school grounds at a school sponsored activity utilizing School District transportation or in any setting in which schools are uh students are responsible to school Authority or supervision um is that if if if you look at that is I I believe that's the amendment that you're wishing to make correct yeah so I move to amend given the language stated may I have a second please second all right does anybody have any discussion about that I hope I was accurately assessing the field of the board um any Nays or abstentions okay that Amendment carries do we then have to yes okay thank you so much for that so then do I just

115I move to approve well it's already on the table so now well the amended so now you move as amended to approve as amended okay I move to approve the revision the agreement for the participation in extracurricular activities as amended may I have a second second any conversation any questions anybody has about this all right any Nays or extensions that motion carries all right can we just ask real quick I'm sorry um Mrs hle you made the first M hash you made the second okay okay sorry we just couldn't hear thank you it's all right a motion all right that brings us to 9.03 and that is quote for the edge of Planet 21 for additional licenses for curriculum mapping online courses Dr refer thank you Mr hle uh from school board uh for the

116edge you planed that is the format that we're utilizing for creating our curriculum apps uh each month uh Mrs ankle shares the uh Curriculum maps that we're going to bring up for approval this will provide uh site licenses for our social workers and school counselors uh who will be working on uh some of the character lessons that we'll be uh implementing within our district curriculum uh so this is just adding them licenses so they can access and work with our teachers and our administrators to greet that part of the curriculum thank you Dr rer I move to approve a quote from Ed Planet 21 for additional licenses for curriculum mapping online courses at the cost of $1,500 for the 2024 2025 school year may I have a second please second all righty um are are

117there any conversation points discussion any Nays or abstentions that motion carries 9.04 we have additional field trips for southern middle school and cesan high school for the 2024 2025 school year um Dr rert did you want to talk about that one uh yes Mrs ankle uh just for the school board uh just as a reminder we went to a new format for our field trips for this school year are breaking it down by building and quarter uh of the school year these nine uh were not included because they were generalized in the previous format uh so working with our uh directors of the music department and the administration we wanted to make sure that those were specifically included within the field trip list so as I mentioned in August there may come time throughout this

118year that there are some field trips that we do have to add back to the list um as we're looking at revising this new format that was created thank you so much for that and I really particularly the way that you group this is just so much easier to see thank you so much for your cooperation with that I really do appreciate it so I move to approve nine additional field trips for Southern Middle School and Susan High School for the 2024 2025 school year may I have a second second any discussion any Nays or exstension that motion carries 9.05 costs associated with speakers approved through the vetting process um Dr reer go ahead and talk about that one for me if you will absolutely Mrs hankle we're on a rooll today uh we're looking

119at this this speaker and speaking with Dr Sterner who's here this evening and and Dr Bell uh the speaker John hallagan is sharing the story of his son um who was bullied in in school and and ultimately led to a tragic death his tragic death but his message really focuses on fostering empathy raising awareness about the consequen of the bullying being more supportive and inclusive in the school environment uh so this would be a powerful message not only for our high school but middle school students uh therefore when we're looking at the the cost it would be split between both of the schools but each of the schools would have the opportunity uh to be uh to receive or be part of the assembly all right I go ahead and move to approve the costs

120associated with the following speaker that has been approved through the vetting process John hallagan to conduct a schoolwide mental health and bullying presentation to Sanic high school and Southern Middle School students on Tuesday November 12th 2024 at a cost of $3,000 to the district may I have a second please second do we have any discussion here yeah real quick so is he going to be presenting to the high school and then going over to the middle school or are we combining all the kids no it will be it will be separate that's a good question great question thank you um I will say that this is one of those items that I would certainly classify as heartbreaking but necessary and it is also our commitment I think that although there are controversial things we we

121have a commitment to transparency this is one of those items that we're we're serious about it's it's a serious topic it is controversial I in my opinion believe that it's absolutely 100% NE necessary and it's something that is appropriate for our students to to hear and contend with so does anybody else any other discussion points any Nays or abstentions that motion carries 9.06 this is information it's the speakers approved through the vetting process it's Junior Achievement basically is what that is with our new lumping that we've done now that that goes as part of our vetting process so that's the explanation for that 9.07 novel adoption I'm going to go ahead and move to approve the following novel almost super by Mario Jensen Harper Collins copyright 2015 may I have a second please second discussion

122for anybody this is a super fun book it's going to be the one book that our district is going to be doing for was it the uh middle is it the middle school or the elementary Dr rert Elementary okay Elementary uh if you like The Incredibles you'll like the this book um are are there anybody else that have any discussion points any nams or extensions motion carries and then we get to 9.08 stage one Curriculum maps say districtwide master Maps Dr reer thank you Mr hankle we do have eight Maps uh that our teachers have done just a phenomenal job of updating that will be uploaded into our uh system on our website uh French one two three and four AP Psychology map creative writing um Ela for grade four but a new a new

123map which is a flight and space map which I'm going to have Mr Hunt pull up there uh the great thing about this flight in space this is a course that was created and written between it was multi-disciplinary um we have math math teachers science teachers at the middle school along with our science facilitator from the high school and really giving our students the opportunity to go beyond uh what is generally in the the 8th grade science curricul or in the Middle School curriculum but also focusing on some of the you know the flight space aerodynamic uh Concepts which will then help them be more prepared for some of the courses that they may be taking at at at the high at the high school uh so we're really excited about the opportunities that our

124students now going to be having within the the science curriculum so not only do the maps when we look at the standards you know focus on math standards but also the skills the science standards um which is really a uni unque way of cross-curricular instruction but also that we know science you need yeah there's a math background or math Focus so this they've really spent a lot of time of creating this new course providing better more opportunities for our students as they're addressing the academic standards I'm very sad that you weren't going to go through the uh French four one I was looking forward to that one I'm good there I'm going French four all right I'm going to move to approve the following stage one curriculum C Curriculum maps as districtwide ma Master Maps

125my goodness uh as noted on the agenda because clearly I can't speak have a second uh any discussion all righty any Nays or exensions that motion carries um that brings me to 9.09 I don't have any other items of business for education does anybody else all right back to you Mr President all right I will turn it over to our treasurer for our finance and budget section thank you president ankle uh 10.01 Financial reports these this is our bundled up Treasures report tax collection report budget status report and cafeteria report um I do want to just go over the fund balances here real quick for the general fund fund we started the month of September with 9,169 8681 and we ended the month with a balance of $20 million1 191,0 7730 the investment account started

126the month at 32,8 61,2 54.71 and end of the month slightly up at 33,976 $710 um you will note board members that there is a an additional attachment the happy or not results this is um data for the month of September provided by the kiosks that are outside of all of our cafeterias for student feedback on the Food Service um according to Chartwells you know they serve 54,000 meals for the month of September and so far we've had 1750 responses to uh to the kiosk right 10.02 review of bills for payment Board of can sorry I would like to make a motion to approve the bills for payment we have a second second uh the bills are list listed there is there any questions on any of these no uh any Nays or abstentions hearing

127none motion passes 10.03 exonerations and refunds I'd like to make a motion to approve the exonerations and refunds as presented here may I have a second second any comments on this Mrs Green um the um exoneration is for refund is for the um the church that appealed so we had that at a previous board meeting any Nays or [Music] extensions and none motion passes 10.04 budget transfers like to make a motion to approve the budget transfers as presented I have a second second any questions any Nays or abstentions have none motion passes 10.05 results of the 2023 2024 fiscal year and the 2025 2026 budget development timeline uh this is I'm going to hand over to Mrs Spring thank you Mr Wilson this is the third in our series of getting ready to start the

1282526 budget presentation so a couple things we're going to go over briefly this evening our objective objectives for this evening is to give a summary a summary of preliminary results for 23 24 so we're almost through the audit at this point um provide an overview of District enrollment and provide information on the 2526 budget timeline and Act One index so we'll start with preliminary results for 23 24 as you can see on the screen we have revenues expenditures and surplus um our budget uh projection and actual U so basically um we're going to take a look at each of these individually so first we'll start with revenues budget versus projection versus actual um for local revenues the big change there um where in several areas really we're looking at real estate taxes um to a

129small degree um to a larger degree is earned income taxes so we talked extensively last year about that being a timing difference um so that's a good portion of but the big change um for the 23 24 year shouldn't be a surprise to anyone it was about $900,000 in interest earnings um with the interest rates going from basically nothing to over 5 a half% um we were able to to um have additional almost a million dollars um in interest earnings so that's the big change there um from the state standpoint um it is really basic education um subsidy sorry I forgot the word u basic education subsidy about $500 and some thousand um offset a little bit by a reduction in um retirement and Social Security we'll talk on the expense side about not um

130hitting our salary numbers um there's a direct Cor for Revenue um because we get revenues for um some of those items and then Federal we're pretty much we're spoton both on budget and production uh and overall um it's what we're looking at it's basically coming from that local Revenue Source area looking at expenditures um basically what we were talking about all last year we had um vacancies that we were filling um I am very pleasantly um happy to announce um we are almost fully staffed um we weren't necessarily we were pretty close at the beginning of the school year um we're almost almost 100% there so um doing much better than we were um last year at this time um in all areas so um thinking we will not see um that drastic change um

131between U budget and projection and actual that we see in salaries and benefits and remember our our benefit um because of peers in some of those areas um if our salaries are down our benefits are down um and of course if we have vacancies we don't have health insurance and all those things so there's a a huge correlation between whether salaries are down and then benefits so that's really the big changes there um and then the only other huge change that you'll see um budget for other fund transfers um because uh we were looking at doing a feasibility study and maybe slowing down the long-term um building projects we did not make that transfer over to The Debt Service fund so I know we talked about that in the spring of last year so that's

132the difference between um budget and actual there not making that transfer so we will talk more about the 23 24 results this is just a summary um when we get to um budget preparation also wanted to talk briefly about enrollment um so for 23 24 so the year that just ended um we do several snapshots throughout the year so the first thing on the screen is our October 1 snapshot in 2023 um we had 20 , 795 students on October 1st last year and um we kind of refer to those as bottoms and seats here in the district um and the next item is a snapshot of children that um both the children that are within our district here but also that are out of District placements where they don't report separately so a lot

133of places like York School of Technology um report separately Liu reports separately but if they don't report separately then they're in that PD snapshot so if you get to the last category I consider this all those students that we pay to educate um so includes the first two categories but it also includes um children that go to York School of Technology Charter School students and other placements so our total um students that we educated are just under 3,000 students for 23 24 and you'll see on here um that you have um fractions of students because this is average daily membership so the one thing if I were a board member I'd take a look at this screen and I'd say well all year we're looking at Charter School numbers and they're like 73 or 81

134and you know we go month to month but when we end the year our actual average daily membership for Charter Schools is 61.5 one5 and that's because we have students that enter and leave throughout the year so these are actually this is the average number of students um sitting at a charter school throughout the year and that's really how that fluct it's difficult to tell when you're budgeting where you're actually going to end up but um when we do all the data and get all the information from um the sending or with the sending school from the receiving schools um then we can see what the average daily membership is and then other placements would be um as we approve the agreements to maybe have a student um go to Southwestern or Spring Grove in

135a class um those would be those placements and then like Liu placements so enrollment for 2425 I don't have the average daily membership obviously because we're sitting in October but what we can tell you is uh if we look at our snapshot so those children um that are here sitting in the district um we have 2715 students um if we look at those that um both that are here and in uh placements that don't report uh we have 2731 and then if we look at um the other pieces that we just talked about and average those um we're looking at about 2896 it'll probably end up being a little bit lower than that because as I said before our charter school students are sitting at 73 but they they kind of come and go sometimes

136so it might not hit exactly that number so this shows an enrollment comparison um from 2324 to 2425 in our actual schools here um so you can take a look at that and that shows um kind of where we are Elementary School uh middle school and high school and we'll move on to the ACT one index um so pte has an act one index there's a base index which is the average of the percentage increase in the Statewide average weekly wage and the employment cost index it's been in place since about 2001 the base index for 2526 is 4% if you have a market value income Aid ratio of 04 or higher um your index is higher than that um so there's some math involved in that our index is 0503 so we're pretty much

137smack dab in the middle um so that puts our index for next year at 5% so budget timeline uh there's attached to your agenda were two different timelines one for potential use of exceptions and one for adopting a resolution to stay within the index remember we've talked the last couple meetings if we accept if the district accepts the adequacy funding um we do need to stay with in the index um we are recommending that we stay within the index because that's over $500,000 um but as I said our index is 5% I'm not sure that we would raise above 5% anyways because that's a significant Index this point I do want to put um that clause in there we have no idea what the tax increase would be we're still working on the budget it

138is very early days um but we do believe we can stay within that so we will be recommending um in November that we approve that because we don't want to forgo that funding budget timeline highlights um so we have the November finance and budget meeting on T Tuesday November 19th that'll be um the first preliminary V budget um it'll be basically just to show overall that we believe we can stay within that index uh then we'll do updates throughout the winter and spring have a March finance and budget meeting approval of the proposed budget in April final budget in May um with the idea then we can get our tax bills out and have cash flow um and capitalize on that interest earnings um to try to of course keep taxes as low as possible

139so stay tuned thank you Mrs um I do want to point out that I am noticing the each each one of these the updates that we've received is there a little bit more design applied to them it's is actually helps uh helps it be more readable on screen okay okay moving right along um 10.06 [Applause] this is a request for proposal for district shredding i' like to make a motion to approve conducting a request for proposal for district shredding services may I have a second second any questions sounds fun any names or extensions none motion passes 10.07 I'm just going to go ahead and make the motion here I'd like to make a motion to approve an agreement with instructure to develop an automated grades integration between the canvas Learning System learning management system and

140Sapphire student information system at a onetime cost of $3,000 now the second second okay uh real quick this is to streamline the entering of grades from one system to another um is there anything else you wanted to say on that Mrs Green no I think that covers it okay uh any questions any Nays or extensions hearing on motion passes 10.08 this is where we get to unload stuff all right like to make a motion to approve listing the old band trailer and the old red maintenance van on municibid for resale may I have a second second any questions any NS or extensions none motion passes get listed 10.09 I just go ahead and make the motion here I'd like to make the motion to approve the plan to sell retired Chromebooks to the school Community

141for $20 each second may I have sorry may I have a second second okay um basically we got rid of a lot of Chromebooks in the spring that were unserviceable um but as we have our rotation cycle there are a lot of good Chromebooks that could still be beneficial for a family um this plan that we're approving here would be to offer them one per family for a cost of $20 um can I just make a claric it's one per family one per family member oh at a cost yeah one per family member we just what we don't want is we don't want someone to come in and and buy all of them and then resell them it's really about having them being in our community yeah and the target for this sale would start

142in December late November oh December yes on my school books right sorry on my school books right so we'll we'll put a communication out then with for families for all the details on how they can but with the idea I think the idea we came up was is trying to get it out there if people wanted to do it for a holiday that's a good idea okay uh any other questions any Nays or exensions hear none motion passes 10.10 going to make a motion to approve the revised plgit I'm not going to say the acronym program application and investment advisory agreement may I have a second second okay uh Mrs Green do you have do you have anything you want to say all this the only this is just um they merged with another company

143so we just need a new agreement so it is our is the company we um fire CVS through okay any other questions any Nays or extensions hear none motion passes 10.11 I make a motion to approve the plan for a Girl Scout Gold Award project and the subsequent donation May I have a second second okay um obviously we have an overview of the project here attached as executive content um is there any questions from board okay any NES or extensions hear none motion passes 10.2 make a motion to approve submitting the fiscal year 2024 2025 ready to learn Block Grant application which includes both foundation and adequacy funding totaling 96,6 I have a second second okay and this funding will support full I believe as it states in the uh the briefing is to help

144support full day kindergarten and York Tech education any questions on this any NS or extensions none motion passes 10.13 other items of business I do not have any so passing it back to you president hle all right thank you uh we'll move on to our uh personnel and policy and I'll turn it over to our personnel and policy chair thank you president hle item 11.01 we have the second reading and approval of board policies for our current policy cycle as per our board policy process at the September school board meeting the board conducted a first read of the 18 policies listed on the agenda that include so they're in three batches um the first batch there are nine policies they new or updated policies so policies that were in existence and either um brought in

145a new one or one was updated and the second batch were updated policies that were also merged um we had an organizational um way that we did this with the way that we did our employees so um we're merging that into one section just to make it easier because there was a lot of duplication so the second section really has to do with just some changes to those policies but also being merged and there were two in there and then the third grouping was policies that were merged to this organizational system that I just shared um but there were no changes made to any of those so of those policies um there were uh 11 that were actually new or updated and then the last piece that we had was the removal of administrative regulations

146from board docs um administrative regulations are not board part of board policy so we're taking those out because they should not be in board ducks so with that um I would like to make a motion to approve the new and updated policies do I have a second second um any discussion I have a point that I would like to um highlight uh public comment was particularly interested in instructional materials and presenter selection one 9.1 so if board members would like to pull that policy up to see what we're dealing with I did note that there were many misconceptions that were attributed to malice um that that personally makes me feel very sad I will say that if if you have policy questions or concerns and if you're interested in my personal rationale and reasoning for

147the wise in the house I I make a point to respond to every email that I get I talk to everyone I'll give you my personal cell phone I do that with everyone you can Google it and look it up too so there's no hiding it but um I put a lot of time in attention into these things which I don't mean that as a flex at all what I mean to say about that is that if I wrote it if it's something that I'm responsible for I had reasons we might not agree on what my reasons are but I will tell you I will talk to you I will communicate with you and maybe we could find some common ground maybe in those kinds of conversations you could give me feedback you're absolutely welcome

148to participate in public comments absolutely but if you gave me days ahead weeks ahead maybe there were suggestions that I could have implemented and so I want to extend that to everybody if you have changes that you would like to make please talk to me email me text me call me I'll have conversations so one of the misconceptions that I I don't know that it'll be to your satisfaction but I would like to kind of let you know the one that was of particular concern would be I think it's 10 and that's in the section of uh request for reconsideration so if you go to item number 10 I'm going to go ahead and read it as such this is something that I took out and so it's quote a decision to sustain a challenge

149shall not be interpreted as a judgment of irresponsibility on the part of the professionals involved in the original selection to use of the use of material and while I can definitely see the concern there are two ways to interpret how that sentence unfolds I can see that people believed that this offered protection but let me make apparent to you how I felt and how this translated to me when I was reading first through this policy and by the way I take full responsibility this is my idea I'm the one that took it out here are my reasons why it was on behalf of our wonderful teachers and staff that I initially struck this line from the policy I was thinking of them and the message that this language communicated about them the implication it assumes

150that teachers in our district would be making recommendations that could be perceived as irresponsible i reject that framework and the Assumption and the false narrative that it supports I believe a policy like this should be written within the framework that teachers and staff are operating in the arena of supplemental enrichment as they do in class curriculum and lesson plans why wouldn't they why would we include language that preemptively presumes they wouldn't be for me this seems unnecessary and damaging to the reputations of our teachers good intentions superflous language like this I believe calls into question bad motives more than it steel mans against them and that's why I wanted it taken out I didn't think it reflective I didn't think it properly reflected what our teachers are doing in our district so that's my reasoning

151that's my rationale if anybody would like to make an amend to take that out it's not a hill I'd like to die on I do feel strongly that it makes our teachers look like they're preemptively being irresponsible but that's my opinion yeah I mean I'd say I also like policies that are focused um and and don't include extraneous language and this isn't a a policy that that addresses staff conduct I mean there are policies that address that right that would address uh irresponsible behavior from a staff uh staff member and this just isn't that policy so we don't need to we don't need to second guess every line of every policy we have to say but if you do you have the option to do this and if you do if you exercise that option

152or you you you will participate in this and if you participate in it it won't be attributed as your responsibility we don't need to have that in everything and and you're it does create the this this idea that there would be does anybody else yeah um so it was it was raised that it it there could be a potential for for Retribution but there there's no mechanism in it with it or without it no mechanism of of Retribution right um and there wouldn't need to be you know a mechanism for for Retribution uh and and it also it's very ambiguous that it's going to be interpreted differently uh it it it allows for the interpretation of the reader to to have input in so I I don't see that um bringing it back in is

153really beneficial in in in any way way because it is it's very subject to the opinion of the individual uh which you know we can't we can't delve that deep in that we're taking you know every single person's opinion uh of of that in it it's just it's really almost impossible to really Implement you bring up an interesting point the other thing that I didn't like about the the nature of the language it it called into it said interpreted as a judgment of irresponsibility so it's not even how could lit I can't control what people think how how can I control that somebody would have a judgment I mean whether they're right or they're wrong I can't I can't control that so it just seems I don't I don't understand why it's there I personally

154don't like it but I'll do whatever the board wants to do and I don't see how it is our job as board members to be relinquishing some form of judgment over it that's that's that's not really it is not our job to make a judgment of an individual who has brought something forward that that's that's we're we're to take on Merit what's been brought forward not not judging the individual who brought that forward just what's been brought forward and and judge that on its merits not on the individual that brought it Forward at all so I I'm not sure why you would want verbage saying that we would have even the ability to have that judgment so does anyone want to pull that policy out for separate consideration we we would need to do that

155in order to amend does Jeff have any comments regarding the change I wasn't asked to look at that policy in particular but but hearing the comments I'm not concerned with the deletion of the language um the bottom line is you know the board doesn't have the unilateral light to discipline teachers anyway there's 10e Provisions they collective bargaining Provisions uh so I I'm not I'm not concerned with the deletion all right so I'm taking it no one wants to remove that um we're still on the item for the overall policies um are we now can we do some additional discussion of those if you have any other discuss yeah a little bit um there was a question raised why so many policies um I I have to speak up to defend our personnel and policy chair

156the number that was submitted to us from Administration was twice this number and we cared about dealing with them in a manageable way and so we we worked um to reduce the number of policies under consideration for this cycle by approximately they have and um and then we've discussed having a an additional policy cycle and the reason there were so many policies is there was a backlog of recommended policies that came from organizations like psba and and similar there's a backlog that had just been building up and so we thought okay we don't want to deal with so many all at once it's just too many so we said well you know what we can do we can we can deal with half of them now and then we can introduce a policy cycle in

157the winter when we wouldn't normally have one and deal with the rest so um we've really already addressed that concern and that was actually spearheaded by our personnel and policy chair to do that uh that thinning um one other item um is uh the the free tickets were up for board members and it it said guests but I I looked at the policy and it's a guest um I don't really care about that like Mr Hall said he so if the board wants to go a different direction on that I mean I'd hate to if if a material change would uh but I I also look at that and think I know that the people on this board volunteer so much of their time that it's like okay all right you know you you you

158we don't we don't get you know if we get free tickets well is that going to incentivize people to run for the board so they can get the free tickets it's it's so negligible that I I really would love to see it struck I just removed yeah I just think it's it's attributing malice it is attributing malice and it it really does I don't mind striking it but I'm I'm kind of I'm I'm kind of I'm I'm surprised at the the pettiness well I I I get that um but honestly when I even first heard it I thought um we didn't put that in there right I'm any board member who when we were discussing it in I don't know where it came from the policy meeting I was just I I don't I don't

159think it's necessary and and I personally would love to see it removed are any of us taking advantage of it I didn't know even existed only well we can't be because it's not policy plays and the um musicals we were always invited with the guests that was the only time that we ever got in anything free and that was just every year we got an email that said would you like to come to the musical so it just makes it consistent with what we do for other yeah events but I mean I've paid every sport event thank you for that Mrs Doberman I didn't realize that thank you what you say thank you for that I didn't I didn't realize that thank you good to know and you know for our family we bought the

160season tickets we wanted to take advantage of that and we want to support So for us it's a choice you know and we even went to a game and we were asked by the attendant board members you get it for free right you can just go ahead and and take our tab you know because it's we're we want to support so so I think it's been existing for as long as I've been around and I think you've always the role you play on the board has always been considered um similar to employees that get a ticket in unless it's a playoff game or something of that nature and then we all pay um so I think it was just a courtesy so do with that as you wish I appreciate that even though I don't

161use any of them I would say Don't just because somebody don't like it I mean you can still choose the support if you can buy the season tickets either way I don't I would say not remove it just a cowtail to someone's not liking it I think one benefit of it to Mrs auber's Point um is it did I mean first of all it was very nice for um to be invited to something right it's very it's just a show of hospitality to be invited and to cover that cost um I do not have any children that are in the play so it wasn't really something that was on my radar to do but when I got an invitation for it uh Mary Lee and I went one year so I see the value behind

162it is that it is sometimes hard to keep track of all the things that are going on especially if it doesn't really cycle within what your daily you know daily habits are what your kids are doing or whatever um um so I I I don't know that I think many board members have taken advantage of it but I just think it is a nice way for for members to be invited to things so if we want if if we wanted to deal with that we'd have to pull it out um would this I mean I don't know that this policy is one that we desperately need to to get done this today but would that be a material change if we did pull that out well you have a motion to second now so you

163would need some Amendment to the existing motion if you want I'm saying this this is a second reading and generally if we make a material change to a policy at second read we just list it next month I'm not worried about that we just list it again next month and vote on it then yeah but whatever changes you want that we could also propose an amendment and if it passes or fails then you know what you have to do good right but but but with policy if we amend it in a material way but if it fails you're not amending he's saying you don't worry about it if it doesn't pass that's true um okay so uh I think we're first wanting to pull this out of the the overall motion so I'll make a

164motion to pull item 904 out from the uh or policy 904 out from the um 11.01 second any discussion on pulling it out probably not any um well you should be doing this no you do it okay um any any n or exensions to pulling that out all right so that'll become item we'll make that 11.06 now push it to the end of the list of individual policies we have correct okay um and we need a motion to approve the amended motion for the other right so um I'll move to approve the amended um uh item 11.01 do I have a second second any discussion any n or abstentions this is making a motion to take it out uh well we already did that we yeah we passed that so now we're we're approving the

165rest of the policies in 11.01 so need discussion on anything to pull out uh anything further to pull out or we okay so we're good to to move forward on passing the rest of that um all right so we have a motion in a second uh any further discussion on any of these policies any Nays or exensions hearing none that motion carries I'll give it back to you president um item 11.02 um this this is the second reading of policy 23.3 sex based distinction and Athletics this policy acknowledges the real and demonstrable physical and competitive differences between similarly aged and trained males and females in athletic performance this policy separates athletic teams based on sex for the same reason this district has always done so to preserve fairness safety and to provide increased opportunities for

166females and Athletics the policy also provides well thought out exceptions for when any female may try out for male teams and for when any male can try out for a female team such exceptions exceptions are based on Decades of existing practice in Pennsylvania the exceptions are more permissive when a female desires to try out for a male team than in the reverse situation the policy also restates that bullying and harassment are prohibited so I would like to make a motion that we would approve policy 23.3 sex based distinctions and Athletics do I have a second second okay any discussion um I wanted to introduce our uh legal um Mr samic I did actually have a question that I wanted to direct to you if that would be okay um we know that our district is

167covered under the injunction but if we weren't under the injunction any longer would these policies have to be changed or updated uh no so the the the uh Biden Administration didn't put forward Athletics new regulations they put forward drafts um they were not finalized in the round of title n changes uh that were done in April at the end of April um but based on those drafts uh this policy was was written specifically to be consistent with that so even if those went into effect uh this policy would still comply with Title 9 both prior and after that were to go into effect if it ever does okay thank you and and part of that is because there was certain there was a certain amount of flexibility in how individual entities could interpret the uh

168Athletics regulations within Title 9 well even more than that uh during the responses that the administration uh wrote out in response to the other Title 9 they actually addressed the sports issue um and one of the things that they uh clearly explained is that because the statute permits sex separation in this context based on uh the distinctions between male and female um that it would still be permissible to do so right yeah so it maintain that flexibility the yeah the permission to be able to do that right and so uh the PIAA has had um for years and years uh exceptions in place and so this policy adopts wholesale those exceptions the way that PIAA has done it for a long long time um and even add some additional ones where where it could work

169without under undermining the reason for sex separation for the safety and fairness of the female athletes um and then I didn't I didn't hear a lot of uh criticisms of specific policy items for this policy um but um there was one question about if girls are playing up what about safety now one thing that occurs to me then is that absolutely the the girl who would be playing up and her parents know they have full knowledge of what they're doing um and so if if the if the game is football and they're talking about a linebacker that's very different from like the track team uh the safety concerns are very different um uh for but I think the policy still would allow us to take those safety concerns into consideration in making those determinations yeah

170uh the particular comment was talking about the the the girl who would who would want to play up um because her skill level um permits that and so that is taken directly from the PIAA and so that's something that's existed in the state of Pennsylvania for a long long time um I don't know how much that is used but I I believe that it's a consent um to people know what they're getting into when they're playing up um so MH our policy language there we we correct me if I'm wrong isn't it where meaningful competition is that is that what we what we said in the policy it's they can play up where there is no meaningful competition um I remember that I I have it here um the principal or athletic uh the school

171will provide reasonable accommodations so the word reasonable right there already makes me think we have the ability if if it's just obviously un safe um but reasonable accommodations for females to try out for teams designated for males including but not limited to when a there's no girls team for that sport during the school year or be the Principal or athletic director believes that the female skill level is such that participation on the girls team would not provide meaningful competition for the girls correct [Applause] right any other discussion um I wanted to make one other comment about this um this does not have to do with the legality of it some of the things that I heard tonight were that you know there is some fear for coming out and speaking out on this because it's

172such a controversial issue and I think that's valid I definitely have experience that um and we want to protect our kids and I think another way that we can protect our kids is by taking this decision out of their hands and making the decision for them so that there is a clear policy in place we don't have to worry about our girls feeling like they're pressured to make us you know a decision on that um all it really does when we don't make that decision is it pits our kids against each other and it creates division where it doesn't need to be there um so really my take on all this is that like it or not there's a straightforward policy it's very well outlined it is something that as a parent you can hold

173the school district and the board accountable for and if in such a period of time that something needs to change with that a new board comes in that can always be done but right now there is no gray area and I think that's really important um that's all I wanted to say so any other discussion okay so I'd actually like to pull this out can we do a roll call vote on this one okay Bill Hall yes Mary Lee Hall yes Samantha Hall yes Jeremy hash yes Jen hle yes Nathan hle yes James Holly no and Joe Wilson yes y yes that is8 to okay moving on to item 11.03 um the second reading of policy 26.2 Student Records name sex and gender identity this policy ensures the district keeps accurate records and establishes protocols

174for legal changes as well as unofficial changes it also promotes an environment of mutual respect by providing consistent standards for addressing students provides a process for accommodations from those standards and accounts for the likelihood that one accommodation may result in the need for accommodation of others as such it prevents bullying or harassing someone by repeatedly calling them names or pronouns they do not wish to be called on one end of the spectrum and it commits to protect the conscience and First Amendment rights of others by preventing compelled speech on the other end of the spectrum this policy also recognizes the parental authority to make Health decisions for their minor children it protects protects student health and parental rights by ensuring that material health information about a minor child including gender identity transitions is not concealed

175from a parents this policy also restates that mandatory reporting laws must be followed regarding child abuse I would like to make a motion to appr approve policy number 26.2 Student Records name sex and gender identity do I have a second second any discussion oh yeah do any discussion um again I have a question for you Mr samic um would a policy like this one help protect our school district in the event of a lawsuit like what do area school district is facing uh yes yeah I think there are lawsuits around the country um dealing with the question and so without commenting anything about facts of any specific case on on whether particular information uh about your own child can be concealed from you and so it would protect you from those sorts of situations um

176there are also uh instances around the country and we've talked about some of these but there are some more recent ones um one of them is in six Circuit Court of Appeals when it comes to compelled speech so you had mentioned in your introduction uh the on the one hand this policy ensures that people aren't going to be bullied and harassed misgendered called something they don't want to be called on the other hand you need to balance people's Free Speech rights and so uh there was a six circuit case where a university Professor was fired um because the University was attempting to compel his speech and that was was under the the in the federal courts there was also a recent case so he ended up winning his case um I think they settled for

177around $400,000 there was a recent case out of the state of Virginia under state law through the state constitution Free Speech rights um where similar thing happened to school tried to compel a teacher speech um and so that resulted in litigation uh had some success at the the Virginia Supreme Court and I believe that that case just settled for about $575,000 and so these things are balancing act because um they're they're an attempt to try to uh protect everybody um and to find solutions that are going to respect everybody uh protect kids protect parental rights protect teachers rights to free speech uh make sure that people aren't being mistreated and so like many things in our society we have to balance those things and so this policy I believe will protect your school from liability

178thank you so so would this policy then protect our teachers um in the way that the the teacher was not protected in Virginia uh yes um on this um there were a number of comments made um I'll try to maybe dispel a couple of misconceptions I mean one that I heard was um concerned about uh the use of of nicknames such as Sam or Bob um I would note that of the people at this table it's an overwhelming majority that actually use derivations of their of of their of their um legal names like you you've got us way outnumbered all you all you you go by some commonly go by some uh derivation of your legal name but the policy the policy covers that um and um so it it it says uh the district

179standard is for school personality refer to each student using the St student's legal first middle or last name a derivative of the name or a nickname commonly associated with the students's legal name so Robert could be Bob Samantha could be Sam as could Samuel Samuel could be Sam Samantha could be Sam um so uh th those don't even require any action on the part of parents for for Samuel to go by Sam correct um and then um I think a number of other uh concerns um really really take pieces of policy that are actually more more narrowly applicable and and broaden them out um so I think that a careful reading the policy I I understand of the objections I've I've heard uh some of them I had the same questions and objections when I

180first saw this but after speaking uh with with Mr sech um and uh I I understand the legal and practical reasoning behind most most of them uh the one that I've seen that I I think it's it's not it's not a flaw and it's actually it would be a change that would necessarily be di Minimus um but the the phrase the request uh should state so this is in in requests for accommodation um under C2 so I'll give you a chance to get there but there's a paragraph and paragraph uh discusses how to make requests for accommodation um and the final sentence says the request should State how the student is consistently persistently and insistently Express the named identity and include any other information if relevant to accommodation request so the concern I had was

181well why should the parent If the parents made this decision why do they have to provide that and the answer is well they don't because it does say if relevant to an accommodation request and that that determination of relevancy is uh is at the parent discretion um but I think we could we could move if relevant to an accommodation request to the beginning of that sentence and then have the rest of the sentence reads logically it's the same but it emphasizes if relevant to the accommodation request the the the request should State uh how the student has consistently persistently and insistently expressed the named identity and include any other information if Rel and then it would end there um so um I don't want to make I I don't want to make a change that

182doesn't actually change the substance if it would result in additional reading but um I would would such a change change the substance would you say I don't know what the change is well so the the if do you have the can you copy of the policy okay so looking at uh paragraph C2 or yeah item C2 under maintenance of Student Records gender identity uh looking at looking at the second item taking the sentence it to the you want to just take the whole last sentence out well so the last sentence no um the the the last sentence all we would do is move if relevant to an accommodation request to the front of the sentence and then keep the rest then the I mean logically it's the same I I don't think that changes the

183substance of it right it I think it just it makes it clearer in terms of emphasis that we do have a Motion in a second so it would have to be a motion to amend right so G given that we we have an understanding this is not a material change to the policy and so there's this would not prevent uh moving forward on it tonight I will move to amend the policy to move if relevant to AC an accommodation request um to be the beginning of the final sentence of C2 and then the rest of the sentence would read the request should State how the student has consistently persistently and insistently expressed the named identity and include any other information period second okay motion second motion second okay um any discussion of the motion to

184amend any a or extensions all right that motion to amend carries um now we'll go back to the I move to um approve the policy as amended uh policy 26.2 uh bring it back to the table do I have a second second all right so do we have any more discussion on this particular policy I'd like to repeat the comments that I said previously this is one of those distinctions where I don't I don't like that public comment mentors were stressed out about things that could have so easily been solved by an email by a text by a phone call I certainly understand and it's your right to do so to get up and have public comment if that's the form that you want your comments to take then that's fine with me but for

185for some of these can I go by Sam can I go by Tom if I'm or Tommy that was in our policy and that's not a criticism of you should have read the policy it's I don't want you to carry the weight of stressing out about that when I can alleviate that that is covered by the policy so next time maybe you'll Avail yourself of that opportunity I truly do want to make sure that that's that additional stress isn't happening when it when a conversation could have just happened so please text me other discussion okay um can we do a roll call vote on this one as well Mary Lee Hall yes Samantha Hall yes Jeremy hash yes Jen hankle yes Nathan hankle yes James Holly no Joe Wilson yes Elizabeth Doberman got you this

186time um I I am going to vote Yes but I do wish we would have used our solicitors policies just going to state that Bill Hall yes okay that was each one um moving on to item 11.04 policy number 903 public comment in board meetings I would like to make a motion to approve policy number 903 public comment in board meetings um and the name has been updated to match the psba version that we are adopting do I have a second did I make the motion okay by okay second second okay okay um any discussion um yes I do have one thing that will that's a bit of a change uh in the original psba policy it does have employees being allowed to be part of public comment um that was originally stricken from the

187policy that we read as first read I'd like to put that back in remember I would like to do we want to discuss that at all or should I make go and put an amendment on the table and then we can discuss it yeah I would like to amend 903 policy to put back in the employees as far as participating in public comment second any discussion on that I like the idea um I thought I had something go ahead so I I you know there's there's two things here that um are have to be balanced first if if you're an employee that that lives in the district you can comment because you live in the district if you're an employee that does not live in the district um the way it stands now you you

188cannot comment um and I obviously it's inconsistent you know be because you know where're if you don't live in the district you can however I do think that there needs to be respect given to the chain of command um and that um that may not be the best platform for a district employee to to come forward and and you know talk about grievances um however um the individuals that that work for the district that live in in the district already have the ability we we can't change that um so I don't I don't see it something that I I I've in all of my time of attending meetings I've never never seen it happen I've never seen a district employee come out and and and speak about a grievance that they're upset about I mean

189not that I've been coming forever but at least the last four or five years um so I'm not necessarily against the amendment um if the amendment stood alone um not including um being a a resident of the district it would be it would I would I would be in the camp of let's stick with the chain of command but being that Pennsylvania State Law uh allows residents to speak regardless of their employment um I do see validity in allowing that to be granted to you know all District employees um so I'm I I am I'm torn between following you know proper te and of command versus what Pennsylvania state law says um suppose one thing is that it it certainly doesn't change the recommendation for chain of command for concerns and grievances it's still recommended

190that you go to the person who's most able to to address the concern so if you have a if if you're a teacher and you have an issue with the way things are being handled in your building you could come here and talk about it and if it's gotten to a point where you feel like you need to do that well like like you said residents the district have that option um but um it's still recommended go go to your princip for it first and see what see what they can do for you and then if that doesn't work out you know check in with the with the the assistant superintendent and and see what he can do for you additionally they would still be under the same restrictions for public comment that anybody else

191would so they wouldn't be able to talk about individual kids they wouldn't be able to talk about uh name District employees they could only speak on behalf of their own opinions like I mean that's the appropriateness of the subject would be monitored just like it would be any other public commenter right so so we're you're proposing making a cutout that if you're not in the district but you are an employee you do get to speak correct so do we consider making other cutouts for other people well I don't I don't know that's not the amendment that I made I right I mean psba had this came across with um residents taxpayers employees and students being able to speak at board meetings um we took that policy we removed employees out of that so that's that

192was an option wasn't yeah psba recommended as an option not as yeah right yeah yeah um so it's not it's not out of the realm of we're not reaching out somewhere it is what psba an option at PS recommends yeah Dr Bryson what are your thoughts please my thoughts are we have a grievance process and the reason historically employees were not included even though it was a psba option to select from is um and and I think we to be quite transparent we see it here at times where if someone is disgruntled we don't have to call them by name we can just say the principal well we know who that is Mr sterer he's sitting right there sorry um and while I know there's little that we can do about that from a public

193perspective I think it has the potential culturally where this becomes the new first step in getting my solution and my solution may not be the solution for all 220 staff members by also of which most are which a part of a unionized organization um where they have support both from an employee standpoint as well as an administrative standpoint on top of that from a board perspective but at the end of the day it administratively we're the ones that are going to work through whatever that challenge is it is not going to be the board for the reasons that you go back to if there is a questionable book it you know at times it's us administratively that are dealing with that um I think we have found I don't want to say creative but we

194found ways where if staff want to talk about something and 99% of the time there are positive things and we include them in presentations we include them the opportunity and put it right in board agenda outside of public comment but inside the actual agenda um I think we've also at times not as often had the association speak whether it be the officers or whatnot if there were concerns that we were working on and they wanted to provide an update or something to consider or something strong so we've had that opportunity as well so I think there are mechanisms in place outside of a public forum that um we're able to to to address a grievance but also celebrate the positive that that are going on and and you know the awesome things that are going

195on with our staff um so I tend to look at some of the what's the the negative that comes from that and I look at districts that are currently doing it there are also some of the same districts that find themselves in um strikes and other forms of you know where they're banging heads it becomes more difficult to find Equitable Solutions when um a public forum is used to go back and forth or the newspapers are used to go back and forth um and so I think that's my perspective on it you certainly have the option to include or not include I do believe there are unintended consequences that can come about of that um and also there's a look that employees aren't allowed to speak so we're not being transparent we're silencing the employees

196we've got all kinds of ways to to get feedback from the employees and we're doing it as another example uh rhrs data collections which the teachers are collecting themselves on themselves it's not even administrative climate and culture surveys we're getting a ton of feedback it's not a public forum but there's data that that we can utilize um so that's that would be my perspective on I think we need to be we need to be cautious and careful um but yet still give them voice it just might not look like this so to speak so you're not discouraging that from being able to talk to board members they can there's other Pathways to talk to board members is just in a public forum and again I think there's a chain of command I think like I

197it's not a good feeling and and certainly if uh my colleagues Dr repert Mrs Green want to speak to this as well if they don't first come through their similar to what we would tell a parent that's upset at something in school if you talk to the teacher if you talk like that's what I want to occur before it's direct communication between a a governing body and those that are actually doing the administration in the building like it's removed um it puts you in an awkward position at times and it certainly puts us in an awkward position and and then to try to solve that problem we're spending a lot more time trying to have have the discussion with the board member and then research it and then get back to the board member and

198then get back whereas wouldn't we like to just deal with the challenge that exists um and see if there are things we can do about that so I I so that's what I would say to that I would say yeah if all else is extinguished so be it um but I think at times we jump the chain of command too and that's it's not real functional that way I mean I I don't see it as jumping the I mean obviously this wouldn't be in place of a chain of command we would if somebody had something they needed to discuss it would be have you you know the first question should be have you run this through the chain of command know we don't expect our students who are on here as um speakers to go

199through the chain of command for them to speak so um couple thoughts on that um students are are an interesting one because they're not taxpayers but they are residents um and so if the PA Law is residents and taxpayers uh then students generally I mean a few exceptions I suppose but we don't um and we've never prevented them either right um but but I don't think we could legally um so so students have to be in there it's interesting they they have that as an option in PSP but if they're residents and the law is residents and taxpayers then um I I I'll I'll say a couple things one I'm I'm I'm definitely I have a hesitance to expand the num the the people who can make public comment as a general rule um uh

200because it's we need to hear but we need to hear from our constituents we ought to hear from our constituents the people who who vote the people who pay taxes the people who live and and and basically support the the the product that we're that we're producing here which is quality education and and so they they pay for it um One Way or Another and so um I think we we need we we must legally hear from them and we need to hear from them um I'm I'm cautious about expanding it beyond that myself um additionally when you said um the the the response would always be will have you gone through the chain of command with public comment we don't necessarily have the opportunity to intervene and and and ask that question because the

201sign up just happens and then they're here whereas if someone emailed the board if a teacher emailed the board um and with a concern and they said look I went and we said okay have you gone to all these and they're like yes I went to each of these people in turn and we talked to them and we like yeah they they uh they talked to each person they were supposed to talk to and they are coming to us as as last resort and we actually thought their comments should be public we could invite them to speak as a board um we have that ability um we we can invite anyone to come and speak uh to matters of concern and so that would allow us to First validate have you gone through have you

202talked to have you talked to and then if they have we do we do have the ability to put them on the agenda um so just just to put that out there I would say that a lot of what you just said makes a lot of sense I would push back on one thing we don't make distinctions with students we have students who go here who don't live in our district and we don't make that distinction it's a rare occur it's a rare thing happens yeah so I mean we have a motion to amend with a second to add back in the word employees okay I think we need to vote yeah let's do a vote see where it land I have I have one more question do we have any rough idea of how

203many of our employees are actually outside of the district I was just curious be spe okay I'd say it's a pretty high percentage it's most oh really yeah right it's it's the majority that's out of our district a lot of I know a lot of teachers are we we have potentially around 400 employees um I I don't know that it's more than 5050 maybe yeah I I'd say it's probably not 5050 but it it's it's more than a couple let me say that I'm just going through like the admin building because I know those people well we want now so yeah um you know we have more than a couple mhm um but I'd say it's probably not 50/50 and it currently pretty much doesn't happen despite roughly half of them Tech having that option

204if it's if it's close to 5050 then roughly half of our employees currently do have the option and are not availing themselves of it so it may not matter either way because the the the culture may already exist that they are going through they're not the channels so we have a motion to amend a second sorry one more thing I'd like to know if there are teachers who want to Avail themselves of this option so I'll just say right now my plan right now I think is to vote no on this amendment however if there are teachers out there who would Avail themselves of this and you want to make the case then we can revisit this at a later time and and add it back so please email the board because you do have

205that ability and make that case um I I'm I'm happy to defer to my default position as well as as Dr Bryson on this for now but if someone wants to make the case the thing is I haven't heard any I haven't heard a teacher make the case we need this um so sorry okay I think I'm done so we have a motion to amend we have a second um I guess let me do an all in favor all against okay return to you so now we'll move can we understand who voted no so we can record you just do a roll call yeah I think it was everybody no I mean I saw it was no but did anyone not want to vote no to the amendment I see no I see raise your

206hand if you didn't want to vote no to the amendment are you changing I'm saying no you saying no okay we're all saying no okay so unanimous I convinced him I voted against myself to the original motion second yes all right so we're back to the original motion for um policy 903 public comment so we did our we had our discussion yeah the amendment failed so now we're back to the original motion right any other discussion okay any Nays or abstentions okay motion carries all right um 11.05 is policy 830 it's just on um the agenda for public information it is a policy that's required to be reviewed annually and the Administration has no recommended changes to the policy policy at this time um so 11.06 now would become policy 904 and I don't remember

207what we said we were going to do with that it was the so I need to make a motion to amend to remove that the board receives free ticket oh plus a companion and then I guess we'll see how the board feels about that you can just make a motion of 9004 with that language in it since we we don't have on the agenda oh yeah we have to bring it to we got to bring it to the table but yes so you can make a motion uh to make a motion to bring it to the table oh yes okay I'm making a motion to bring uh policy4 104 99 no 904 to the table second okay and then I would like to make a motion to amend the policy to strike the option for

208board members to have uh free tickets to extracurricular activities with a companion do I have a second second so probably easiest just to do a roll call on that so it's not we can do a discussion is there any further disc discussion yeah any discussion yeah I don't like it cuz I like cting cuz one person complained about it I'm not I think that's against principle of what I believe in anyway it's cuz one person don't like something they say they don't like it now oh I got to change it there was nothing wrong with it to begin with and board members are free to pay if they wish they are they are I still would love to get the the board's opinion and if it fails it fails mhm ready I I'm inclined to

209leave it as as as it is here I don't want to change it I don't think it's fair to future board members that want to come in we don't know the economic hardship or not of others and you don't want to discourage anyone from going and supporting the kids at any time I think it should stay I think it's it's good to encourage board members to participate in events see how things going any more comment so uh all in favor roll call vote H hang hang on hang on I just got back we're voting for yours to support what to remove to remove to remove got thank you I apprciate do a roll call vote these all in favor haven't been working sounds good all right Jeremy hash to voting for this is on the

210amendment to strike not no okay Jen hle no Nathan hle no James Holly no Joe Wilson no Elizabeth Doberman no Bill Hall yes Mary Lee Hall no Samantha Hall no all right that was against myself want P Joe I'm I'm just not as convincing with Bill as I am with so it stands uh well then we have to vote on the overall policy so I'll make a motion to approve the amendment made a motion was amend it wasn't amended just motion approve oh it wasn't amended that's right right so uh all in favor of passing the motion as it stands uh the policy the policy the policy I'm sorry the policy as it stands I for uh need a second second oh second okay now you got a motion thought we already had a motion

211okay um all in favor any Naser extensions any n or abstentions passes I see passes I could have voted against it again probably should have you um 11.07 would be new items of business I have none does anybody else have any new items okay then I can turn it back over to president hle all right I will turn it over to Mr Hall for buildings and grounds okay can I jump in before um I do have to leave it is past 10 I have school oh absolutely yeah just feel free to either interrupt and let us know or slip out whenever you need to yeah I appreciate it good night Caleb good thank you drive safe thank you be safe you got youred all right so uh moving on to 12.01 Mr Buffington for the

212board's information uh the September 2024 water tests have been uh submitted and you can see that the color form tests were safe on the campus and friendship and moving on to 12.02 buildings and grounds report for September 2024 buildings and grounds report uh submitted for um information uh put out a few things uh in the buildings and grounds meeting we did um review uh many of the existing Capital Improvement projects uh which are listed in the report as well as um I'd like to um note that the custodial staff is full staffed uh which is a great thing uh but I guess I'll take this moment to um put out there that the um custodial staff can always use some substitutes so anybody out there that's hearing this and uh have a desire to um

213apply for that we would encourage okay and before we move on just for the board's information the uh Capital Improvement project status report that Mr Buffington uh alluded to in the buildings and grounds meeting is listed here uh so if there were some things in there you weren't exactly sure what what uh we were discussing that this is where that that came from thank you um 12.03 Squan high school project progress report all right progress report um coming down to a few weeks left in the project um the construction crews are working on the main lobby entrance uh canopy team rooms uh main parking area uh just to put the more information out there we are planning um an open house November 10th 2: p.m. to 400 p.m. at the high school um so encourage

214people to to attend that um as I go through um so progress is of the project is going well financially um refer to the slide uh just point out um as we've been reviewing um you know you can see the um remaining budget there um over $900,000 as as we're working through through through the project um and Greg if you can and that's second second slide there shows um you know the total allowances um yet and as we'll mention here coming up we're seeing some of those allowances coming back um that were unused and and so we're seeing those come back as as credits um so good news financially as we're um looking to wrap up the project and also thank the good Lord above that we had great weather for the black top being

215laid that was a nice um 40 weekend um there um yes very very good we had rain previous to that and we were concerned but U very good weather for that you never know what you're going to get in October but we we we were very fortunate to have good weather for that okay change orders approved on site for the susic high school project certainly submitted for your information um certainly willing to um dive into any of those um as the board may may ask but uh I'll just summarize that uh the total total is a credit for $46,000 over $46,000 um again what we're seeing are allowances coming back um we'll have another one there's there's at least one more coming back next month so um we're going to see some more trends like

216this um with with the allowances coming back again if we can speak to um GC 064 a little bit that would be uh be good sure GC 64 um for 8,830 46 um was to to modify um the pocket that goes into a door to allow uh 18 in of clearance um with that uh the architect um is uh taking full responsibility with that and and uh paying 100% of of that change order and by contract you would really only have to assume 15% is that correct that one yeah it's probably arguable but um uh yeah with a great relationship U they certainly are uh Taken full responsibility for it thank you okay moving forward update on road signs at the entrance yeah certainly talked about it in the buildings and grounds meeting so uh

217was discussed uh further at um in the Transportation safety um just kind of quickly you know we're working through um replacing one sign uh adding three others certainly working with pendot um on their requirements certainly considering um things that bus drivers and other um vehicle traffic are are are seeing so uh certainly something we're we're focused on um continue to to uh make improvements as we go thank you keep you updated moving on to 12.06 I would like to make a motion to approve continuing construction Management Services with site Logic for the close out of the susqu high school project at a maximum daily rate of $1,365 for a full day 68 $2 for a half day and reduced in office support if not used and a maximum of $ 27,300 per month do I

218have a second second um so this is not a um an oversight on the um timing of the of the job because we are on on track as far as uh finishing the job this was was um actually planned from the beginning so the rate is the same rate that we've been paying throughout the entire project um the idea was to not pay for more than we needed to pay for to give us the option to really hone down into the actual amount of time they're here not uh overshooting it you know U by you know 15 days or what whatever the case may be but allowing us to zoom right down in on the amount of time needed not uh not more or less and it is at the the same Financial rate that

219we've been paying all along from the beginning of the project so uh any uh discussion any n or abstentions motion passes a motion to consider I'm sorry 12.07 a motion to consider the re the recommendation of the committee to award performing a feasibility study to beers and Hoffman architects of Lancaster PA in the amount of $17,500 do I have a second second So Randy could you just walk us through the process of how we uh came to this conclusion usion yeah I mean it's been several months as we walked through this process and um began with um sending out rfps to um nine architectural firms of those nine architectural firms uh six came through and did a walk through we spent you know a couple hours with them walking through our buildings um at that

220point um proposals came back in from um for AR ARS um of those four uh we did two rounds of interviews um first round had three of those Architects second round had two of those uh as we narrowed down um and made a final selection um our uh committee included Mrs Green Mr hash and Mr Hall and myself uh on that committee um certainly spent many many hours over over several months to to get to that conclusion and then in that uh second phase of interviews where we had two um we did that in executive session so that the entire board could uh understand uh what we what we were looking at so uh any uh comments discussion questions I appreciate the the second round of talking with you know receiving the presentation from both

221the finalists I really helped clarify it for those of us who weren't involved in the committee process up to that point I appreciate that very much thanks to them for being out here I also appr appreciate the presentation I I also appreciate the the work The Upfront work the committee put in it took a little bit longer um but I I do feel like it was valuable uh what I was seeing in terms of the how the committee was was directing um the conversation that ended up happening uh with with those Architects um so I thank thank you all all all of you who are on that committee um it was a lot of work I can tell okay uh no further discussion any needs or abstentions hearing none the motion passes moving on to

22212.08 a motion to authorize the administration to move the baseball scoreboard from field number three to field number eight and to play pay the cost associated with engineering and engineering design supplies and other work not to exceed $10,000 I have a second second um so I would really like to to thank Randy for for taking the bull by the horns on this one because he has uh elected to do a lot of it in house and uh you know I I know it's uh a little bit of an undertaking for them but it really ensures us that we'll be able to have that done for the baseball team in the spring so I want to give a shout out to to you and your people uh for coming together and making that happen I appreciate

223that yeah certainly the team you know as we as we the maintenance team discussed and certainly you know in the briefing we we sought proposals from companies and didn't like those costs and continued to to to look how how can we get this done in an expeditious Manner and um it came back to we have the skill in in the house to to do it we're we're going to do it yeah I really I really appreciate that because yeah those quotes just seemed ridiculous but moving it to me seemed like the right decision but but it's got to be at a reasonable price so really thank you so much for for working that working just continuing on that not giving up when you got bad quotes and finding a way yep I'll pass that on

224to our team and please do plan is to uh for that first ball game it'll be up that's exciting MH yeah that too the ability to have it there when it's needed as as well I'll have to be sure to attend that and I'll pay to get in but you don't have to we let we'll let you operate the scoreboard that night any other discussion any NS or extensions hearing none motion passes 12.09 a motion to approve authorizing the administration to sign documentation necessary for the sewer project such as the highway occupancy permit and other related documents or other required documents related to permitting do I have a second second any discussion any Nays or abstentions hearing none motion passes moving on to 12.10 a motion to approve the quote in the amount of $188,500

225utilizing the co-star's contract with sage Technology Solutions of Mount Joy PA to install a sound system for the track at Susan High School this project is part of the capital Improvement plan we'll have a second second any discussion it is so needed up there it's good good to see it it yeah coming together I mean to see them have to carry that sound system up there every time and the sound system nobody can hear it unless it's directly facing you so honestly I think this is a great thing I wish I could have experienced it we'll let you come out and operate I'll have to come out and operate I'm not announcing get announced more guest announcers any other discussion any n or abstentions hearing none motion passes moving on to 12.11 this is uh

226use of facilities is for our information moving on to 12.12 other items of business which I have none Mr President all right thank you thank you Randy thank you Randy all right uh moving on to item 13 our athletic report uh Miss Doberman all right item 1301 athletic report so I forgot to print this out so I'm working off of the computer my phone and what formerly was known as Twitter um so I have girls tennis Warriors girls tennis ended the regular season Y a IOU a division 2 Champs Champions um summer oh I don't know and say and to Vicky Chen McKenzie Hajj and India Lester qualified and competed in the Y AI dable a singles tournament while Natalia Ramirez Snell Vicky Chen summer andak McKenzie hodj Eli she's men see you guys are

227a good help and Jaylen van nice all competed in the doubles tournament okay so field hockey Warrior field hockey ended the regular season ya AI dable a division 2 champs for the fourth consecutive year the Warriors won 4 to Z over kardale in the first round of yai daa championships and will play again on Wednesday which they did and they won oh he already he wrote K Dale again uh they defeated Biggersville last evening 3 to Zer in the semi-finals they will play again in the yai daa championship game against Spring Grove at 12: noon at Shephard Meyers field on Saturday I don't know where that is uh cross country Warrior cross country had a successful regular season as well the warrior boys team finished y AI a division 2 runner up while the girls

228team finished in third the warrior will Warriors will compete next at the ya AI double championships which I have results um and then after wait that happened on the 15th okay so for the boys the boys team ended up as y as double a y a IOU a Champs while the girls team was runner up double a runner up okay so the boys Ian guallo um got third Ian Lily got fourth Logan Trimble got sixth Jackson Elliot got seventh Logan lease came in eighth Kay aboss came in ninth and Gavin Gavin Coggins came in 14th for the girls Madison wartz came in fourth Emma Jordan came in seventh Abie redl came in ninth Ava Lun came in 14th Kristen Miller 15th Tracy slim 20th and Amelia Leon 21st so girls volleyball see if I have

229an update or okay Warrior girls volleyball also finished the regular season yai daa division 2 runnerup and qualified for the Yai a championships the Warriors will play in the quarterfinal round on Wednesday the 16th I don't have an update for that one and Central York school against Southwestern at 5:00 p.m. the Warriors also qualified for the PIAA District three championships that will begin on the 22nd okay so boy soccer Warrior boy soccer also ended the regular season ya AI ablea division 2 Champs they will play on Tuesday the 15th at Dallas Town high school at 5:30 against Red Lion in the ya so I have an update on that they won 3-0 they won 3-0 over Red Lion in the ya the quarterfinals on Tuesday they will play tonight which I think they lost 3-1

2303 to one against Central York so I did have that all right so girls soccer games next Monday I don't have that or I did the 21st yes I did say okay girls soccer Warrior girls soccer finished the regular season y a ible a division 2 runner up they will also play on Tuesday the 15th which they won over York Catholic 3 to zero and then they are playing tonight they are tie in double overtime going to a shootout one one right now as we speak and let me see if I can if there is an up the ugly that double shootout or that shootout was 18 minutes ago so they might still be there um football Warrior football is currently sitting in fourth place in the ya AI daa division 2 and is currently

231in position to qualify for the PIAA District three championships bless you thank you go congratulations to Warrior golfers Brody lamb and Jack enin sorry my ey my contacts are so blurry right now for qualifying and competing in the PIAA District 3 golf championships this past weekend and I still don't have an update for girl soccer but when I do I'll tell you but that is everything for sports he's interrupt to tell us I will if we want on the can never get to not h i can I don't have any new business I'm sorry okay no no problem um we move on to item 14 other business anybody have any other business um all right moving on to item 15 legislative Council Miss Hall okay short report today housefield 2383 establishes an older adult Mentor

232volunteer program PA Department of Education will develop a central registry of older adult volunteers to work with students according to academic interests professional mentorship skills and hobbies adults and students would meet before during or after school in school facilities or on school grounds participating in schools would identify an interested student and then after parental consent and of course the mentor has gone through all of the criminal check process uh they will connect with the student and mentorship will begin recommitted to the House Appropriations Committee House Bill 2599 requiring the Pennsylvania Department of Education to develop a course called what is your Pennsylvania story this course will be incorporated into social studies and general interactions with students and it will introduce pupils to various cultures unique heritages experiences and connections to Pennsyvania and the United States

233and the bill was introduced in anticipation of the United States 20 50th anniversary celebration in 2026 there's also School grant opportunities for student Anglers and boting lovers I thought that'd be interesting to note the Pennsylvania Fish Fish and Boat Commission is seeking applicants for grants that support education programs promoting new and renewed interest in fishing and boating the grants will reimburse qualifying school districts up to $25,000 for eligible expenses for projects between July 1st 2025 and June 30th 2026 the deadline to submit applications is coming up though in December 6th also Pennsylvania high school students are invited to participate in the 8th Annual pen do Innovations challenge this encourages students in grades 9 through 12 to present their solutions to Real World Transportation challenges in the Statewide competition this year's challenge will be to develop

234a cost effective Innovative solution that can help pend do more effectively increase awareness of C belt safety each year Pennsylvania loses more than 350 lives to accidents involving passengers not using their seat bels and the submission submission deadline is January 31st and the Statewide winner could receive a reward as high as $6,000 so from the foundation perspective that I have here I think that's great College money for any student out there that's interested in saving lives across our state it's a good opportunity now both the house and the Senate are recessed and they'll reconvene next Monday and that concludes my report thank you anything El all right uh York County School uh York County School of Technology Mr duberman um they are starting talks of budget talking so I get that twice um it's all

235good um that's all I have really for them right now alu2 nothing to report nothing to report there is a report there attached for your information uh York Adams tax Bureau no report no report Southern York County School District Foundation all right back to me uh so the thank you card contest submissions were due last Monday for the thank yous that go out to all of our donors who we appreciate so very much the car contest committee will meet on the 24th to enjoy all of the wonderful artwork submitted by grades of all ages stay tuned for the winners they will be announced and truly all entries are very much much appreciated and enjoyed huge thank you to each participant and the best of luck to them also of course I can't help but P

236you back on the open house don't forget to mark your calendars for the tquan High School open house to celebrate the Milestone of completing the renovations project and of course everyone is welcome to join November 10th from 2: to 4: in addition to enjoying the new surroundings we'll be treated to music played by the students a VI of the aquaponics project and a few other interactive educational goodies uh the next Foundation meeting will be November 12th thank you 15.06 other items of business I have none for this section um all right uh secretary's report 16.01 the Student Activities report for September 2024 is attached for your information um 16.02 resignations and retirements we have two uh listed there for you um 16.03 other items of business I have none moving on to 17.01 uh take

237it away Dr reer thank you president hankle we're still looking at our enrollment numbers I know some of those numbers Mr Green shared earlier today uh any of for our current home school 215 outside cyber at 73 we're still maintaining those two students in our Digital Academy remainer this school year and our linkoln Edge uh currently have 13 including our one Jacob who was student in mon all right thank you 17.02 announcements by board president superintendent uh so uh there there will be a finance and budget committee meeting on Tuesday November 19th 2024 at 6:30 p.m. uh in the district office's multi-purpose room and then the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Education will be held on Thursday November 21st 2024 in the district offices multi-purpose room beginning at p.m. Dr Bryson thank

238you president hle real quick uh you guys get better and better each each month because I get less and less off of my TP um but that means you're doing well good good to pick up on the positives going around couple real quick things just a shout out to uh night of Broadway last week was fantastic last night was uh fall orchestra concert also outstanding free candy at the end you missed it if you weren't there and we'll have band concert coming up in like two weeks is the championship I think come on Bob cumland Valley high school and um so we know they will do well uh but last opportunity here in the fall probably for some type of musical event to get out to as well as the plays coming up but that

239was already mentioned thank you to all the parents who have been out in person or virtually parent teacher but conferences um it it really is impressive I feel for our elementary teachers cuz they're packed from beginning to end um but it's really good communication back and forth between parent and teacher so thank you so much for your continued partnership in that area and lastly uh we also had fund runs here recently in two of our elementary schools with I think friendship still left in the spring great fundraiser and a way to get volunteers into our buildings and see the Kids In Action so lastly I was going to tie that into to Caleb um who had to go home and study I'm sure had the opportunity to see him run on Tuesday or Monday I

240went to the county cross country meet and he's as positive and happy coming off a thre mile run as he is when he present material here which I I don't understand that at all but that's it so keep living a dream thank you need thank you all right hang on I got to okay uh I think we get to keep those right the safety briefings yes okay okay keep them and dear um item 18 new business anyone have any all right item 19 I will entertain a motion to adjourn so move second are adjourned