School Board Meeting - 2/15/24

001for for than you it's all right call to order this February 15th regular board meeting of the sou County School District Board of Education uh please rise for the pledge to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and we have roll call Elizabeth Doberman here Lee Hall here Samantha H here williiam H here Jeremy hereen here Nathan nich here James Holly here Joseph Wilson here uh Dr Bryson I believe you have a few words you'd like to say thank you president Hinkle uh dear Southern Community uh I wanted to take a moment here to start this evening's meeting just to share communication that I had sent out on Monday

002as a result of an incident that occurred over the weekend as well as some additional St statements to adjoin to that over the weekend the southern York County School District learned that a cesco antic high school student posted a highly inappropriate racial comment on social media this incident is in direct opposition to the values and principles that guide our district mission and vision while a social media post was not made during school hours we want to make it unequivocally clear that the district takes this issue seriously at the southern York County School District the safety of each student including physically socially and emotionally is a priority the district is working with our school resource officer and as well as Southern Regional Police Department to actively investigate the incident our priority is to provide support to

003the victim and access with measures and and assess what measures will be taken to address the situation we are committed to working collaboratively with all parties involved to achieve a resolution and determine how to prevent such occurrences in the future the southern York County School District is dedicated to fostering a safe environment where diversity and inclusion are celebrated and where all students feel safe and valued on our campuses discrimination and bullying will not be tolerated in any form and will result in disciplinary action while our primary focus is the well-being of our students during the school day we are also committed to helping students develop character as individuals and understand that kindness and respect are important beyond our school walls we encourage our parents to partner with us in this effort and to talk to

004their children about social media use treating others with dignity and showing respect and kindness for others we're grateful to those who step forward to bring this incident to the community and to our attention and if you have any questions or concerns please reach out to your child's counselor or principal it is is through our Collective efforts that we can uphold the principles of respect empathy and inclusivity in both our district and the Greater Community to follow up on this statement uh want to offer my deepest sympathy and empathy and more empathy than anything towards the victim and all the family and friends and community members that this is impacted the incident has impacted many and the high school administration immediately reached out and was reached out to uh by both families involved actually before the

005end of the weekend um in that attempt uh our attempt was to understand the situation and both offer supportive measures as well as investigate the incident and its impact on our school community in addition we were made aware of other students who were being impacted by the incident and we've had discussions with those students and parents to make available our supports and Services I want to implore any students and door parents uh of the students who experienced harassment bullying Andor discrimination to please share your concerns with a school principal counselor or social worker in order for us to offer support as well as issue discipline as indicated by by our student code of conduct and policies students can also utilize safe to say to share concerns with our staff our administrators can and will address

006concerns if they know about those concerns and often times it's been my experience that we're not made aware of the concerns to be able to address them with that being said we want to implore that we are in the the loop and we are partnering with you to address those concerns together while we oversee and supervise your beloved children each and every day they do leave our doors um they're not with us 247 365 days a year and while we want to support we have to partner because we share responsibility for the supervision and safety of of all of our children we will continue to follow board policy 103 related to Title 9 and discrimination and policy 249 which is relative to bullying and cyber bullying these board policies govern the practices and processes utilized

007to address dis discrimination harassment as well as bullying our administrative team will continue to work day and night to address all forms of discrimination they will continue to issue discipline and follow the processes set forth in board policies 103 and 249 while also showing compassion and support for those victims we do not have tolerance for racial discrimination but unfortunately Zero Tolerance does not necessarily equate to zero incidents thank you Dr oh sorry and my apology I'm over my five minutes sure I'm a firm believer that we do not end racism or racist acts with punishment alone rather there are many proactive measures that we utilize to help address this un unacceptable Behavior as examples the district over the years has implemented Second Step programming from K through 8 which is a curriculum utilized to teach

008kindness respect fors resiliency awareness and emotional control we also have included web and Link crew where under CL upper classmen participate in leadership training in order to transition students from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school the programs have been extremely successful at creating a sense of belonging for new students that are entering our buildings we've done trainings for biased and cultural responsiveness for a large majority of our staff we also have available Multicultural Club of Edom clubs and have that have a primary focus of helping all students feel a sense of belonging to our schools while also providing a safe space for our students to talk these are just to name a few with that being said the recent incident is a reminder that there is still much work to be

009done our work must include student voice and the support of the student body to move forward in fact for this work to continue it will require the support of the entire School Community we all agree that these types of racial incidents are unacceptable and need to stop what we may not agree upon is how to make this happen we must be committed to working together in determining Solutions and finally I just want to remind everyone that we have many uh school and Community resources that are available to us here in the southern York County School District maybe more so than than any other District I've been [Music] around and please do not hesitate to reach out to us if at any time our counselors our social workers and even our contracted Services can be here

010to be a support to be available uh for for any of our children thank you yeah thank you um um few additional comments um I wanted to personally thank uh I I had a conversation with uh with Dr Bryson and Dr Mullen uh during the week and uh can't go into all the details because it deals with private conversations that they had which I don't even know all the details um but I can say that they they went beyond the the requirements of policy they they they did they did go above and beyond to address the situation that doesn't mean they fixed every problem that that can occur in the district but as far as as far as my awareness of the situation goes and what I've what I understand that they did it was

011it was above and beyond uh above their obligations under policy and I wanted to thank both of them for that um and then I just wanted to make make a comment about some some some things that I've heard when it comes to this you know I I hear parents say well they didn't learn that home they they must have learned it in the school and the school might say I don't know where they learned it in the school they must have learned it at home one of the problems is children today there are a lot of a lot of other vectors that these things can come in uh when I was a kid you know it was you had TV movies books uh all these things were pretty pretty well curated uh you know most

012of the time it was something my parents knew about um you know and then they get out school and the home with with the internet and and with social media in particular there are just so many other vectors and I would I would implore parents be limit what your children have access to put limits on on what they can on what what kind of messages they are receiving it's going to be uncomfortable but we've got got to we've got to do that and then once once we control that once we control those broader influences then yeah maybe we can be successful controlling the the school environment what what kind of messages they're getting here and what kind of messages they're getting at home uh maybe we can control those things uh but we've got to

013we've got to control those messages that they're receiving um so please parents it's a it's something we can't do uh and it's going to be a difficult a difficult task but it's it's got to happen um and and this blew up on social media but it's also it's a it's a vector where things go and it's a vector where things come and and a lot of it is not not healthy stuff so please um all right thank you um all right so on to I have to announce a couple of uh meetings that we had um so uh we had an executive session following the last buildings and grounds meeting uh covering student discipline and safety uh and we had an additional executive session earlier this evening uh covering safety and a contract negotiation um

014and then we had a personnel and policy meeting uh just before just before this meeting uh all right moving on to item 2.01 approval of the February 15th agenda uh I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved I have a motion is there a second second oh okay uh I have a motion in a second is there any discussion any maor extensions that motion carries uh moving on to item 3.01 approval of the January 18th 2024 minutes I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes as presented moved I have a motion second Motion in a second uh any discussion any n or extensions that motion carries I'll entertain a motion to approve the January 30th buildings and grounds committee meeting minutes so move have a motion second a motion in a

015second uh any discussion any a or extensions that motion carries and moving on to the student representative report okay so I have quite a few things to talk about I know that the winter time usually gets slow dreary so I tried to um find some more fun things to talk about um the first is that we've had seven students um be selected to enter the final round um for exhibition in the York Community Art Scholars exhibition so each of these excuse me each of these students um created some sort of art um and they submitted it and they were selected like by a panel of Judges um so those following students were senior Bailey Ables freshman Abby abgar senior Alyssa Fowler who had two Works um make it to the finals senior Michael Fox senior

016Wyatt gutridge senior Mara Johnson and Senior Audrey Reeves who also had two pieces um make it into the finals so the there will be an award ceremony on February 22nd at 600 p.m. at the Apple Center Capital Theater um and prior to that at 5:00 p.m. there'll be an ex exhibition preview so if you're interested definitely go check that out and then um all of these students are eligible to win a 20 ,000 scholarship um to yourart college if they attend the college for an art rated degree and hopefully next board meeting I'll be able to bring in some pictures of the artwork if you can't make it to the exhibition um I'll touch on Sports just a little bit um we are in the winter postseason and we're gearing up for um spring Sports

017now um we've had the girls basketball team uh boys and girls swimming and Diving and then members of the boys boys wrestling team all uh qualify for postseason events that Miss Liz will talk about later um speaking of the girls basketball team I did want to mention that they were selected as this year's grth grin Schwartz sportsmanship award um so this is voted on by basketball official chapter um by the basketball officials chapter um and then for winning the awards um they all qualified to earn a one-time scholarship last year both of our girls and boys team were awarded $135,000 um and just a little bit about this award so it's named for a former York County basketball official who officiated games from 1981 to 1995 um her name was Gretchen wolf Schwarz and she

018died from leukemia in 1997 and the award has been handed out in her honor every year since 2001 and our girls have won the award nine times now so that's pretty cool uh today we had an assembly at the high school it was hosted by alumni Cara voic um she is uh currently a certified counsel in the area and there were several vignettes performed by students displaying different scenarios about struggling with mental health um and car was kind of there to discuss different healthy coping mechanisms um and ways that you can deal with the various scenarios when it comes to struggling with mental health um and some of these examples included like encouraging students to eat more healthy encouraging them to get a lot of sleep to exercise and then we also talked about um

019the different resources that are available at the school such as reaching out to counselors teachers things like that um the scheduling for the 2024 2025 school year is underway I don't have to do that this year so I'm excited um but counselors are meeting with um individual students to discuss their courses for next year um the shs band is currently on a trip in Orlando Florida so right now well as of a couple hours ago they were running around Universal Studios but during this trip they get to participate in Universal Studios music and the Art of folly workshop and they get to learn how to represent VAR ious events story lines visuals and different things um in movies through music just as a lot of modern day musicians to it's a really cool opportunity and

020they actually had to like apply to get to do it so um and then the marching band members also get to participate and perform in a parade at Universal Studios um this one is probably my favorite thing um Battle of the buildings is back it's going to be um in two weeks on February 28th um I'm sure Dr rert we'll talk about it a little bit but I specifically want to talk about um that um our high school's Warrior Council in conjunction with Coates of friendship um we're hosting a raffle so some of the raffle baskets are going to be Stanley it's like a raffle basket with like Stanley in them there's a Lego raffle basket there's one with like gift cards from local businesses um but this isn't a normal raffle in order to

021get tickets you have to bring in used coats hats other winter apparels um and then all those items are going to be donated to coats of friend friendship who is a which is an organization that was started by a junior sophomore at our high school um and they give those coats out to people of need so if you come to battle of the buildings bring the extra coat you got s it in your closet um and lastly on Friday March 1st the shs jazz band is going to be hosting um their swing dance again this year it's going to be at Southern Elementary School it's from 6:00 to 9 p.m. so if you don't have anything to do it is a really it's a really nice night um and that's all I have thank you

022Miss Dum um I just wanted to uh I'll ask you first um uh I uh last month was board uh board member or board director appreciation month and um I thought it would be appropriate uh after the meeting to to give give you some recognition so I I sent you an email uh thanking you for your service to date would it embarrass you if I read that email no okay um I just I didn't want to do it here in the board meeting without asking you just in case it might embarrass you um so uh Miss Dum I wanted to personally thank you for your service these past two months I can only imagine how intimidating it could be to sit at that table with over a dozen adults many of whom have strong personalities

023that are certainly on full display you've expressed your views with courage and professionalism these are qualities that are difficult for school schools to test or demonstrate quantitatively but they are traits that will serve you very well so thank you I appreciate it all right moving on to item 5.03 the uh susco anic High School building project video 5.01 oh wait did I skip one whoops oh so sorry sorry Len um 5.02 uh educational updates by uh our own Dr Len refer no I well wow wow I just had the wrong thing s okay let's go with uh update on Elementary and secondary school emergency relief funding uh presented by District administration I got the right one now right you are correct there president ankle um at this time uh we're going to have uh Dr

024Hughes and Mr Trevor Carrington uh give the uh board to community an update on the elementary and secondary emergency relief or eers fund uh kind of update where we were where we are because those funds uh we're in the process of having them have them completed to be spent by September 2024 so all right thank you Dr reer so all right it works um so Dr Hughes and I will just walk through our Esser plan kind of to date and our plan moving forward so um the final part of this plan is on this board's uh agenda so at the end we will have some questions or some time for question answering so just to kind of walk through the original process this as we know but just to remind everybody started as a result

025of the pandemic so there were three main waves of Esser funding there was Esser one Esser 2 and Esser 3 um they all kind of had their own little acronyms but essentially the main priorities with the plan with the funding and then with the district's plan were to assist students impacted by the pandemic um ad programs that could be made maintained into the future comply with any Grant set aside funds so we'll talk about that in a minute and then using the funds in a fiscally responsible manner so we really wanted to make sure we understood and presented this is one-time funding it is a lot of one-time funding um so we some of our plan involved the phasing in of Staffing and um there were some other recurring expenditures but we'll talk through that

026process and then really not really shown here and it hasn't been something we've had to do much in the latter couple years but at first it was really to help with the immediate response of the pandemic because a lot of things were thrown at us so we'll kind of show that in some of our future slides so um one of the things I mentioned were the reserves and set asdes part of that is to explain some of the rationale to the programming we had so you can see in in the future we'll talk about it we had after school programming summer school program programming so those were two required programs we needed to do and they all have their kind of dollar amounts to go with it um next up we had learning programming so

027there was a side set aside Grant um that was given to us and there are a lot of different set aside requirements and reservations we had to meet um they're shown up there I won't go through them all and then the last one was a big one through theer 3 or ARP Esser and it was to combat the loss of instructional time or learning loss that was a really big um proponent through the Esser funding so the numbers are tiny I believe you guys have a pronounce but really what this is slid is to show is just our budget um our first budget which is that original budget column um the budget we presented last year as a revised budget and then our proposed budget this year so really again I won't go into every

028category but I'll uh get some of the big ones so Staffing um what we planned on doing with Staffing when we presented this plan initially was to look at those positions that we had budgeted before the pandemic we ended up not funding them at that time because we didn't have a tax increase we were very unsure with how things would go so when we did get this large amount of funding one of our priorities was restoring the positions that actually came out of that budget um the next one and this is where we'll talk a lot about uh Chromebooks is primarily a big big number on there and you can see that number has grown and that number growing has kind of been our plan all along so we knew there could be the potential

029that we had things that didn't really take off or we didn't spend as much as we thought we would so our backup plan and really a big part of the plan was to um continue funding Chromebooks because that was one of those things we would be funding anyway um curriculum purchasing so Dr Hughes will talk about that a little bit later um operations in PPE so the beginning phase of this was PPE we had a lot of needs to make our building safe um for students and then that has shifted more to an operations keeping our buildings clean um filters are in that Digital Academy so that really took off at the beginning stage we had I think 700 some students in digital academy that first main year of the pandemic and as you can

030see we didn't really know how that would shake out and that number has gone down um summer school after school those were the set of sides we talked about um professional development Dr Hughes will talk through that more um check and connect that's more a um program that we kind of tried out especially with learning loss um de with the students there and then at the beginning we had to share some of our funds with the nonpublic so really what this is is just shown what our original budget is the proposed budget um just how we plan on spending the rest of our money so I will talk about a couple of these um so summer school and after school programming those are coming below budget in our revised budget so yeah we've initially thought

031we'd spend 380,000 revised it down to 316 and it continues to go down to 244,000 and what that is and the reason for the revisions um we are going a different path this year for summer school programming so it won't really continue the way it has in the past few years that was we weren't sure how that would go last year so that's kind of the big reason and then after school programming it didn't really take off as much in the fall as it did last spring so that number revised down just to kind of mirror um what we know we will have to spend um HVAC filters so we uh when we initially bid that it was came in at a certain number I think it was 30 something thousand the first time we

032had it then when we did it again it was much lower which is great to see prices coming down um so we were able to revise that budget and add an additional round um still within that budget and then custodial equipment we did our second round this I believe it was last board meeting or recently and those numbers um came in a little bit lower we initially mirrored them after the first round um and they just didn't come in quite as high so so as we looked at the professional development we were very pleased last year we had a lot of professional development that happened over the summer and like life happens we had teachers that were unable to attend because of last modifications or a child got sick or there were no reasons why

033they couldn't come so that had us coming in a little bit under what our professional development budget budget was but we also um fated for having more money spent toward our um High reliability schools that we were able to really focus in and identify just the main pieces that we needed so we were able to save some money there um and then when you look at our science programming we are so excited Marine as you were talking about the on Stanley thermoses our science program I just heard today kids are learning about thermal energy with drink bottles so we were like we got to bring in those Stanley CS but as we go through we were very happy to be able to get our science program that actually came in under our budget so we

034had budgeted so that if we got a program um for our K through 8 programming it actually came in way under where we thought it was going to be so we were very happy with that so we started really doing some needs assessments and that's what we'll talk about where we kind of saw what we could be using some of this money to help continue to meet the needs of our kids and then so those were the bigger um much below categories that we spent um there are just to talk and highlight some other categories they may have gone over their initial budget um some technology that was or didn't go over but we're closer so other Tech not including Crow books that was pretty close to its budget um intervention supports those were a

035various amount of um purchas we had to do that one went a little bit over um Staffing was a little bit under just and I mean kind of projecting out that far in advance was pretty shocking like we didn't have a bigger difference um and then check and connect that was just a program and it didn't start the time we expected it would um but after revising that budget is coming in a lot closer than we thought so one of the things that we talked about is the idea that some of our budget came in under what we thought were going to happen one of the things throughout this year friendship Elementary School had the opportunity this year to put in place a program called 95% cor phonics program we've been really looking at that

036throughout the year and collecting lots of information as we go through I have to give a lot of credit to our reading Specialists who have been doing a huge amount of work looking at our foundations program with the 95% program what we started identifying is that the 95% program is filling holes that we were identifying in our foundations program so we're able to kind of marry those two together and as soon as we saw that we had some extra funding we started talking about we need to come to our board to talk about this program this 95% it has a very specific scope and sequence on phonological awareness and phonics so it really helps identify and there's reasons why you do each one of these pieces throughout each grade level so we are looking to

037see um we were able to get that core reading program for 3 through eight our hooton Mifflin but we didn't get anything for our K through to so that's where we were really looking we do have some decodable text and science of reading materials that we purchased but we didn't get a Core program because we really wanted to see what was out there that would really need needs and see where we were with this so that's where we're looking at coming to the board that ask for permission to be able to purchase for our other two buildings and for friendship to have continued materials to move forward with our reading really focusing in on what our K through 3 students need to ensure that they're getting each one of the pieces that become strong readers

038we know that is a core area K through three the reading impacts everything that they do it impacts math it impacts science so we really wanted to take and make sure that we've done a very thorough analysis of where they are I will tell you I went in and I've talked to some of the teachers that have been implementing this at friendship they sold me they said Kim I feel like I have a better understanding of where my kids are with their reading and that for me hearing our teachers talk through that we also will be having then with permission of the board um doing a very good job this summer of using one of our Flex states to allow our teachers to have in-depth training on what this program will help them to accomplish

039so we want to give them their professional development to help make sure that they're implementing and able to move forward and really help our kids starting day one right so the second um really big budget change we have and first was um Dr Hughes the Reading part and then the second is our Chromebook plan so For Better or Worse we do have to go back in time to explain why this is a a plan and where we were before March of 2020 um so in 20156 the high school went one to one with Chromebooks um the next year in 1617 the middle school went one to one and then in 19 20 um so the beginning of that year we began a plan to um kind of transition Elementary into a one: oneish model um

040so one to one for a handful of grade levels two to one and then 3 to one so kindergarteners they don't really need a Chromebook every day um and you can share them between the classes because it's just really getting to learn them ver as a sixth grader you might be using it daily um then we in March of 2020 really had this unfortunate scenario where everybody went home and they ended up being home for a very long period of time um so we uh ended up in a really fortunate um situation so that 1516 that was the end of a lease so for the 201920 school year we actually had all of the leas lease devices that ended um we made we presented it to the board back then and it was uh we

041got a very good rate on purchasing all 900 Chromebooks so we really kind of locked out and had 900 Chromebooks on the shelf that we could distribute in March of 2020 um at that time many districts were driving to every Best Buy Walmart everywhere they could to find devices and we fortunately had them for all of our students so we got into this onetoone situation um that we had been trying to understand how we could transition to that something that um Mr Hunt the uh technology coordinator and myself had been working on was a way to get ourselves out of Leasing because by getting away from leasing you are saving on some interest costs and just trying to understand how we could move the district one to one with kind of how we could get

042there um we locked into it by having to transition all students to remote in that March 2020 um and then was about two years ago at this point when we had our first Esser presentation um doc not Dr Greg and I um Greg hun we presented our Chromebook purchase plan so what that did was put in this implementation model where we had one big infusion of devices um which actually was this year 23 24 and it got to the point where all students would have their device for four years so first graders fifth graders and ninth graders all get a device every year they have it for four years because a lot of research was done and there is an ownership when you have your device for four years that the amount of repairs aren't

043near as great because you're taking care of your device you're not giving it back you're not getting the luck of the draw on getting a good Chromebook or one that was beat up because you have it for those four years and then that fifth year so when you have a graduating senior it goes to kinder gardeners because they have much less use of a 5-year-old Chromebook um so that was a way we could really get every student getting a brand new Chromebook at some point in their career um and we could really do it without having too much of a budget impact because we had a big infusion with Chromebooks so um to explain kind of the side of this our initial purchase was made in July of this year in total $651,000 was spent

044we got about 1,600 Chromebooks the very round number is somewhere around $400 a device um we applied $400,000 of the grant funding to that purchase um we have round two purchase coming July of this year so our proposed plan um because we did have additional funding and it was always our plan because it was that purchase we intended to make um so is to apply the remainder of the July 2023 purchase to the eser grant so that would be 251,000 and then because this purchase will take place in July we'll have a very good idea of what spending took place and where we're at um to make to apply all unspent funds from our Esser funding to this Chromebook purchase that occurs in July right now we're thinking that'll be about $113,000 the amount applied

045um the rough estimate is the the Chromebook purchase could come in somewhere around $250,000 just using a $400 per device estimate so um it was a pretty brief summary but um our next steps and then just questions so um the approval of the revised budget and the changes are on this board agenda for approval or recommended for approval um then the next part will revise the Grant application as necessary we'll proceed with our spending plan with the goal of getting everything spent by June 30th with the exception of Chromebooks and then summer PR programming that could go into July um and that's pretty much it so we're happy to answer any questions you might have I suppose a a question a person might have is of course this is all this is all s funding

046which is use it or lose it um so it certainly makes sense to use it um but of course uh these systems of purchasing Chromebooks on a on an ongoing basis every every several years um and and I guess there are purchases every year um what what is the expected ongoing annual expense associated with that so a rough estimate is about $250,000 um and I say rough because as we are all aware prices fluctuate constantly um but great sides fluctuate as well so one of the big shifts we've made with our Chromebook plan and it's still available to watch on the website so it's if you go back it's the March or February 2022 presentation it's like right in the middle um I had to watch it to remember a plan um or just remember

047all all the things but one of the things how we got there is in the past we would buy Chromebooks by building and by um so we'd kind of come in and say all right there's probably going to be 750 Elementary schoolers so we need to buy this um or 250 for this class we're now able the way we're purchasing to look at actual class sizes and say okay in March 2024 what do we think first Fifth and 9th grade will be next year and we can purchase those devices so we're purchasing a much more specific amount we don't have to worry about class size changes so roughly about $250,000 a year to answer your question but can go up or down if we have a bubble or if we have a lower class size

048thank you y add to that too one of the things when we first were going through this is is laner machine so Trevor talked briefly about going from leasing to purchasing um what we found is that we have to have so many looners because something may happen with the device and we need to make sure that we have um devices to give back so that's why we thought purchasing was a much better option because it allows us to then have those loaner devices as we know some devices May um only last for three years others are good for six um so as we were working through that we thought it made sense to to move to purchasing thank you great anyone else questions all right all right thank you all right item 5.02 uh Dr

049ort educational updates you sure yeah yeah Che I got it I got it in the place all right you're back on track all right thank you president hankle School Board uh just just a couple uh overall comments you know I know many of us did pay attention to punk Stony Phil uh said that Springs right around the corner uh we did had snow earlier this week and I hear there snow coming in tomorrow night uh so hopefully the next few weeks uh Mother Nature gets that snow out of the way so Spring weather is going to be here happy lated Valentine's Day to everybody um going into my typical uh going through the safe support of collaborative uh Dr Bryce and I had the opportunity uh to attend several tabletop drills facilitated by Officer Hansen

050tabletop drills is where officer Hansen leads a scenario and all that attend kind of work through how to you know handle and respond to those situations a lot of them are uh clearly realistic to what are going on currently in schools but even more specifically to what's going on here and and if offic offic Hansen is here can he's can he please come down to the podium I'm just taking a guess that he might be here he's coming oh ironic you are here put me on the spot you knew that was happening didn't you no I know um I I just wanted to share with with the public today is National SRO day uh we are very appreciative of everything that officer Hansen does and though he's not an SRO Cano Mendes please come down

051here if he might be hanging out up top here he comes but it Chuckles I think he might be up there oh how you doing Dio okay I won't call you down um but you know I I really do think there's there's a lot of thanks and appreciation for these two gentlemen for everything that they do uh not only assisting with the uh security and you know providing safety within the district but a lot of the other unknown things that you don't see serving the lunches um you know going to the events going to games talking with students talking to parents uh they go Way Beyond what they do for security so I just want to thank you both for all you do and uh lunch on me next Tuesday okay thank you both [Music]

052do uh so Carolyn did steal a lot of my thunder so I'll keep it short uh but we did have uh former grad Carolyn voy check in awesome message students did an outstanding job uh with the vignettes um and then she followed up with a lot of different strategies that the students can use practical strategies um under the supportive want to thank all the parents uh that came out to conferences last night and this evening uh Carolyn did mention about the Y case uh the students uh that had their art on display I had the opportunity uh to go there two weeks ago on February 2nd uh when everything first went on display and not only our students but students throughout York County uh just did an amazing job with with their artwork um congratulations

053to middle school student Jaden gross uh for being a winner for the 20203 I love my country because artwork artwork will be featured in the 2024 wall calendar it will be on display at the National Association of counties in Washington DC so congratulations go without to uh Jaden uh under collaborative uh you know each year staff have the opportunity to apply for the southern York County School District's Innovation grant for supplemental resources in the classroom following student uh students staff members were awarded grants uh that were announced on January 23rd so congratulations goes out to the Mrs Jordan Mrs Taylor and Mrs Foster from Shrewsberry uh for being awarded to Grant entitled community building and also congratulations goes out to Mrs Duca from cesano high school uh for being awarded a grant for her project

054titled boundless bookworms uh so we're looking forward to seeing how they're going to utilize uh you know those resources in the classroom uh and and a big thank you to the Middle School Dr Bell and her staff uh this evening prior to uh the board meeting they had the sixth grade transition night uh took advantage of all the staff being here I had the opportunity to be in the major presentation before uh students went around and it was a packed house so we do apologize for anybody that could not get parking um I did have an opportunity today uh to observe uh one School Board member who has presented a book last month and uh you know viewed him reading his book entitled reading reading reading um so for this board member I'm not going

055to say your name but can you please complete this uh following poem that you read today fire trucks are red blueberries are blue you may be cute it's a it's something about you being older than you I'm still older than you yeah uh Mr Wilson did fantastic job today at uh Shrewsbury Elementary second grade um I can't the smiles on the faces of the students uh but more importantly uh the the way you interacted with the students was absolutely awesome so thank you for taking advantage of that and I do know several other board members are scheduled to go into the other elementary schools so for the ones that have not scheduled yet please reach out to those administrators uh because uh Dr Bryce and I would love to see see you reading your books

056um I do have a a bunch of reminders school's going to be closed uh tomorrow and Monday um we do have uh several music uh events going on with the uh pmea Regional band Festival uh starts next Thursday through next uh Saturday you know when they get back from their trip uh Southern Elementary's Multicultural night is next Thursday starting at 5:00 p.m. uh District orchestra concert this is districtwide uh 3 through 12 will be Tuesday February 27th starting at 7 p.m. um as Carolyn talked about the battle in the buildings is back on the 28th uh so if you do want to see some awesome guest referees myself Dr Bryce and come cheer us on uh because referees usually get booed um but please come out cheer us on as we uh watch all the

057schools participate uh as well as the students so come out and cheer on your favorite staff members and referees um High School Musical will be uh March 5th through the 7th and the title is again Caroline I think it's later in the month but it is Once Upon a mattress it's Once Upon a mattress okay and then spring Sports start on March 5th and end of the market period March 13th believe it or not that's right around the corner I can't believe we're almost through uh three marking periods and shrewsbury's Multicultural night will be Tuesday March 19th so that's all I have this evening so have a great month of February more not choice is yours all right uh moving on to item 5.03 at the uh Sanic High School building project video [Music] at

058sanik high school as construction continues it's the district's goal to continue providing frequent updates and transparency the district established an online form to facilitate Community questions and we're excited to have the construction team answer those questions can you explain the demolition process demolition process of the building will be a ly process proba a month long to get the debris on the ground with going through recycle truck the material out 60 640 loads roughly 40 a day and then once that's out this CR pile will be brought over and put into place to build the new parking lot can we watch the demolition both demolition of this building is going to take 1 to two months over the summer uh we will not have a place to safely stage or watch this happen we will take

059lots of photos and videos what will the conditions of the campus be like a graduation will construction be complete campus this year is going to look very similar uh for graduation as it does now which will not impact graduation we've had outdoor graduation the last several years during construction new features will be able to be inside this year for graduation as we'll have the main gym parking should be more than planful for our class and we're looking forward to hosting uh the class 2024 either in the stadium hopefully or in the gym for graduation with all their families and friends which is something that past graduates have always said was important to them that they graduate here on campus in the building that they got started with when they were ninth graders when will the

060project be finished in January 2024 the science hallway was open 6 months ahead of schedule in March 2024 we were planning to have more second floor classrooms ready early the entire construction process project is scheduled to be completed in late fall of 2024 for more information about the renovation and construction project in tsan high school and to submit questions about the project please visit the district's website at www. sycsd.org [Music] construction thank you all right moving on to uh public comment um just as a reminder uh when you come up please state your name and Municipality of residents uh and please observe proper decorum uh and everybody uh gets gets five minutes all right um first one I have is Val Dennis good evening my name is Val Dennis and I live in shuberry Township

061my husband and Sons are alumni of the district our younger son is studying to work in mental health field this spring our older son will be a captain in the US Army and will also become a father to our first grandchild I'd like to acknowledge Dr Bryson and president H and empathize with the idea that it is challenging to know the extent of student Behavior whether it's happening in school or whether it's happening online off school hours there are many reasons for this um what I have observed is that it's important for students and families to know that they'll be heard and believed and also that consequences that happen will impact not only the behavior of individuals but also of the climate and the culture um for our individual schools on many occasions I've heard

062the southern York County School District referred to as a family there is a deep sense of community there are many instances of support for each other and like any family that there are challenges families and communities have joy and connection and love families and communities can also have conflict harassment conflict avoidance distractions diversions mental health struggles addictions and abuse families have economic struggles my father can remember to the penny how much he saved for his first bicycle for his first car neither of my parents grew up with indoor plumbing we can sweep family and Community challenges under the rug or ignore them or pretend they don't exist we can also choose to go through challenges listening facing the realities of our community understanding looking at similarities and differences finding common ground options and solutions what

063do we talk about what do we avoid talking about in our community are we talking with each other or talking over each other we each have different experiences in life and different viewpoints I chose to attend a coalition meeting one year ago with many of you here this evening because I want to understand because just like you I care about our children and our teenagers I care about their adult lives I care about their education after we watched whose children are they together we had a productive conversation about school discipline we cleared up some misconceptions and we learned from each other and we are at a time when education politics social issues religion and economics are so intertwin that it appears impossible to talk about each of these separately or together we seem to have

064come to an impass there are divisions we are here at a school board meeting a surprisingly and sadly tense place of underlying potential conflict in a school cafeteria where during the day ra reasons might just fly across the room and the school staff just hopes that children will clean up their own place at the table there's arguing and yelling and drama on social media that affects teaching and learning every day people attempt to degrade each other on social media and in person the drama on phones is 247 impacting teaching learning Administration the rest of Life often wasting enormous amounts of time what if we put down our phones and make eye contact what if we listen to each other even when opinions seem far apart we are examples to our children and teens we show

065them how to lead healthy adult lives we are capable of having civil discussions about education and about life in general for many years I have worked with students School staff and Community groups on how to have conversations about topics that might be difficult call what I'm about to say is 100% not affiliated with the southern York County School District and the idea is 100% about education in our community I would like to meet with anyone who is willing on Tuesdays at 700 p.m. at the Mason Dixon Diner starting this Tuesday the purpose is a face-to-face time to discuss education and all that is connected to education we will choose topics together what do we want for our children and teens what do we hope for how do we focus our time on their learning and

066safety and health I spoke with the manager of the Mason Dixon diners he is okay with this idea of a group of people from all sides meeting to talk about the importance of our schools I realized in a weekly meeting at a diner to talk about education during a time of powerful division may seem naive I may be having a slice of pie and coffee by myself this Tuesday at 7:00 and that's okay coffee and Pie are always a good thing am I naive perhaps and giv the extent and underlying tensions in our community what other options do we have beside genuine conversation at this point in order to move forward as a community the purpose of meeting together is to truly listen to and begin to understand each other's views as we work together

067to support the education of the Next Generation I hope to see you on Tuesday evening at 7 at the Mason Dixon Diner thank you thank you Mings Dennis um uh Natalie Bor Natalie bore New Freedom my speech tonight is beyond the scope of a political Viewpoint so I want all political views to be set aside while I speak for a moment sorry I'm nervous um I nor my kids want your pity we want change uh we're talking about the mental health of young minds why are victims being victimized why are my children like many others being victimized Twice first they are bullied and criticized due to their race culture and or family diversity they become victims from the school administration which I don't think is intentional but I want to assume it's because the school

068administration doesn't know how to handle it properly which requires a policy change you may be asking yourself what does she mean these horrific behaviors occur in our school system and the school wants to remove the victim the child that's the victim and uproot that child and change their class and or Transportation why does my child have to change buses or transportation to be inconvenienced why isn't the bully inconvenienced and made to make these changes so I ask why our children why are my children and other black and brown students being victimized twice I want to take you back a minute for our experiences here one of my children dealt with a lot of racist remarks at Shrewsberry I ended up homeschooling him later on due to you know protecting his mental health ended up pulling

069him due to a racial bully who told him he was black cancer and should die and literally should go home and kill himself mind you this was witnessed by his TSS on several occasions again Shrewsberry failed to protect my son by allowing this student still around my kid once my youngest started school he and my daughter rode the same bus comments from the white kids you must be bastards or foster kids you look different a sixth grader asked my son had he taken a bath today and he said yeah innocently my daughter said why would you ask him that he said his Skin's dark it looks dirty he needs to scrub harder she said he's mixed he's black he said yeah that's gross he needs to scrub it off now mind you this is his

070first week on the bus in kindergarten in this school district and we've been dealing with this for 12 years imagine how he felt at 5 she's been called an N lover he's been called the nword too many times to count and much worse if you can even fathom that southern stated they were talking to the parents and the children and using it as a teachable moment how many teachable moments do they get and when does it stop so rather than the administrators making the bullies ride a different bus or not allow them not allowed to ride at all my kids had to sit up front of the bus to try and stop the targeting but it didn't stop it continued so in order to protect their mental health they became off and pick up kids

071till this day um once my kids weren't on that bus anymore the bullies unfortunately were in the neighborhood and started to attack them in the neighborhood um so I had to involve Southern PDS finest in order to have them legally banned from the property into which we live so now they don't feel home safe at home they don't feel safe at school how many times do they need to be victimized last year when my kids returned to school once Co calmed down i' had spoken with the school administrator about the history of the racial harassment on the bus and would prefer my kids not to be on that bus and make sure my oldest didn't have any classes for her senior year with one of the children and what did our school do they wanted

072to make my children's bus stop several blocks away and change her classes which would have affected her senior schedule so I had made the school change her classes back she dealt with it she stayed separate and she maintained it um the school did put a safety plan into place which created another issue uh the teachers instead of addressing the principal to put the safety plan in place addressed my children instead which brought it out in class in the hallway one minute remaining I will say that a mother raising one young woman and two amazing young biracial black men in this Society we live in you know it's hard and maybe I'm nobody to you but maybe with what I have to say will help you make the needed policy changes to hold these hateful bullies

073accountable the comments are never a joke and we are no longer accepting one and two days suspensions or teachable moments but I'm going to end this with one last question why are my kids and so many other black and brown kids victimized twice when are the bullies going to be held accountable and input in an inconvenience thank you thank you Miss [Applause] Bor Lanna fuser Lanna feaser Shrewsbury Township last month I stood here and said that you members of the school board are not listening several of you claimed you are then proceeded to read lengthy prepared statements showing that truly you are not several weeks ago school board members received a statement from the small but proud Koga susqu hanic tribe stating their opinions about the use of the warrior head logo a tribal Elder

074also expressed interest in speaking with the board I don't see her listed on tonight's agenda fortunately she was able to speak with a local newspaper so we know some of what she would likely say if she were here to quote from the official statement retiring a mascot is not eradication eradication is the term we associate with the historical atrocities our ancestors face almost leading to Extinction our modern tribe still grapples daily with the dominant Narrative of our eradication the mascot rather than preserving our survival replaces our living tribe with a historical Relic the Sanic Indian mascot today holds more institutional power and recognition than our own tribe in the very County we have called home since time immemorial challenging that reality is not eradication and preservation of that reality is not educational I'll interrupt the

075official statement to quote Naga the board's favorite source to back up their claims a group who operates under the phrase educate not eradicate they say no leader tribe academic or political organization speaks for Rank and file native opinions no one except for Naga of course when shown the statement from the conastoga Sanic tribe they said tribal leaders don't represent tribal members the Susan tribe is currently listed as extinct Native American tribe while there are a significant number of indigenous people alive today of Sanic ancestry the Sanic as a distinct cultural entity are considered extinct what did the Sanic just say about grappling daily with the dominant Narrative of their eradication this is naged doing some eradication right here they should probably spend more time on education and less time on lawsuits but I digress the

076conastoga Susan said the warrior head logo holds more institutional power and recognition than our own tribe in the words of tribal El Andrea Leone they don't know who we are yet they have a representation of what they want without any regard or thought towards us so what we have is an overwhelming majority white group of people demanding ownership of a symbol representing an extreme minority and a school board that enthusiastically supports that position despite being told to their faces by native and other minority voices how things like the logo perpetuate ignorance and enable racist behaviors and we wonder how things like the social media incident over the weekend happened look at the might makes right example being set last meeting K KD eisenach told you that use of the warrior head logo is the equivalent

077of identity theft the district does not have permission to use the Susan culture and religion in the way it has and indeed the statement from the susqu hanic says York County's indigenous people do not need a mascot to represent them and the tribe stands by the decision to remove the Native American mascot aligning with the principles of respect understanding and cooperation and they encourage the syc school board to prioritize these values in shaping the educational environment for all students unlike board members we don't each get 15 minutes to monologue so for anyone who actually cares to learn more about why the tribe is against the warrior head logo the full statement can be found multiple places on Facebook suffice to say if your argument in favor of the logo is based on respecting the history

078of the Sanic in our area your position is objectively wrong it is time for you to learn more and do better I Call On The Board now as I did via email on January 23rd to hold an emergency vote to Halt all efforts to reinstate the warrior head logo and to place on next month's agenda a vote to permanently retire said logo it is time to listen to the voices you continue to hurt thank you thank you m fer um Katie Weber Poe I'm ktie Weber Poe and I am from Glenn Rock um I've been reviewing uh the the curriculum draft it's probably not what it's actually called but it's what I'm how I'm remembering it um and I I keep running across this commitment to Safe supportive and collaborative School environments to prioritize well-being

079and security of every student to foster a supportive Community for both Educators and learners so that every or for every individual to feel valued respect respected and empowered to thrive I paraphrased what I'm hearing from the community and what I heard last meeting is there there's a disconnect there people here are not feeling safe um the foundations of safety and I speak on this professionally I'm a I'm a mental health therapist I specialize in adolescent mental health and Trauma treatment I've been um been doing this for 16 years the last four have been particularly hard what we need for safety is trust students need to trust that they will be kept safe from harm both physical or physical emotional and educational they need to feel a sense of belonging to be valued as a whole

080person and to have their efforts acknowledged and respected they need to be validated to have their experience acknowledged accepted and honored what what I saw in the outline that did concern me is that uh there was a couple of things um but one I really wanted to focus on tonight um was the blip about suicide awareness I'm a little concerned that it that that verbiage isn't quite meeting the level of crisis that we're experiencing so what I would like to do is take a few minutes to just kind of make sure that parents and the board really understands the problem at hand there has been a 62% increase in adolescent suicide between the years of 2007 and 2021 50% of young women and girls and 29% of young men and boys report persistent feelings of

081hopelessness and sadness this is nationally so what does that mean here in Pennsylvania in 2021 there was a PR Pennsylvania youth survey it's a happens every two years um 10.9% of 6th 8th 10th and 12th graders have attempted suicide Statewide here in New York County that number is 12.5 41.5 students report feeling depressed for two or more weeks this is clinically significant for a diagnos nois of depression and a number of other mental conditions they they have reported that life wasn't worth living that they are not feeling good enough and that they're feeling like failures the youngest person last year to commit suicide or complete suicide was 11 years old we have a serious issue here and I my fear is that the action steps don't quite go enough like suicide awareness is important but

082we also need to include Suicide Prevention we need to include trauma informed training for for all staff we can't like it sounds like there was some action to bring more awareness to students and have students have helping coping skills helpful coping skills and that's really important but these are adolescents their brains are not really in the position to always be making good choices and they need adults around them who are trained in how in in trauma responsive care one minute remaining the risk factors that we see that I think are significant here are previous attempts family history lack of acceptance by family community and peers around sexual orientation identity and disability there's stigma around accessing help there's barriers to help I know every single counselor I know nobody has room on their dock we have

083been overworked for a number of years we have to address discrimination and racism it's here whether we want to acknowledge it or not and I think it's actually pretty important to point out that racism very much was a part of bringing that logo back if you think that it's okay to take someone's appearance and make it your logo when they're asking you not to that that is racism and it might be hard to sit with that and acknow that and it might bring up some uncomfortable feelings and believe me I get that I've had to deal with some of this stuff in my own life but it is important to be brave enough to do that to break down these barriers and say enough is enough these kids lives are more important than maybe my

084political identity thank you thank you Peggy cop I'm Peggy cop New Freedom bur um so as we are very much aware an incident occurred over the weekend um where a student within our school Community posted a racial slur social media it's directed towards a black classmate and while I know this incident did not occur uh on school grounds or during school hours uh we do know that our minority students have not been safe from similar remarks during the school day as we have heard tonight uh We've read in articles and as many of these students have courageously come forward at board meetings even as recently as last month to tell their stories about being targets of derogatory and discriminatory remarks during the school day um I know the testimony of these students is really hard

085to hear most of us don't want to believe that that is actually happening here that yes it does happen at sou school hanock high school at the middle school at the elementary schools but this latest incident is yet another reminder of how important it is that we actually hear these students that we believe these students and that we act to reaffirm our District's commitment to fostering a learning environment that is inclusive Equitable respectful of all individuals regardless of race ethnicity gender sexual orientation or socioeconomic background and I think that this most recent incident reminds us of many of our obligations as a school Community uh for example I think that this most recent incident wants it improves why we need to continue advocating for better and more effective diversity equity and inclusion in our school

086community Community this cannot be an Initiative for which we just check a box and ring our wash our hands with the responsibility I me this incident once again demonstrates why we need to continue the work of equipping our students with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate complex social relationships manage conflict cultivate healthy relationships with your peers by increasing our support for social and emotional learning at all grade levels this incident once again reminds us that we must actively recruit teachers Administration staff members and board directors from diverse backgrounds to better reflect the growing diversity of our student body and our community diverse representation not only enhances the educational experience for students but it also serves as a powerful symbol of inclusivity and belonging this incident once again emphasizes the need for school libraries at

087all levels that prioritize diverse authors and voices in their collections ensuring that students have access to literature that reflects their own identities and experiences as well as those of their peers and I think that this incident once again illustrates the value of bringing speakers from diverse backgrounds and experiences to our schools providing students with opportunities to learn from and engage with individuals who represent a variety of viewpoints and identities and this incident once again reminds us just how important it is to support a wide variety of extracurricular clubs including groups such as Alliance the Multicultural Club Unified sports a vum web link so that all students can find a safe space to belong and to learn from the experiences of others that they might never otherwise have had an opportunity to interact with I think

088that we can continue to listen to our students and our parents tell us that change is needed and yet enact policies at the district or School level that either do not support tolerance and acceptance of diversity or even actively discourage it I think we must be mindful of the fact that every decision made in this room and at the school level sends a message about what we stand for or do not stand for as a school Community a climate of inclusivity and acceptance does not just happen because we wish it would or hope that it will it has to be fostered it has to be nurtured and it has to be prioritized every day because every student in our district deserves to feel safe deserves to feel valued and empowered to thrive I think that

089hate has to have no tolerance here at Southern York County and ignor has to have no tolerance here in southern York County thank [Applause] you Rod Doberman Brad Doberman Shrewsbury burough representing the shrewbury fire company and I have Kurt Holloway with me from Rose New Freedom Fire Company um just saw that the tax credit approval is on the agenda tonight so just wanted to take a couple minutes and say thank you to Rachel Sue and Trevor for their extraordinary patience with working with the fire departments to get these papers in it's probably more difficult than working with students um but one of one of our neighboring school districts just passed this I think we were the first one in the county a neighboring School District just passed it and one of the uh requirements they

090placed in the fire department was to come back within one year and explain how it helped and I think one year is probably a pretty difficult Benchmark to hit but we did this about a year and a half ago and we just now submitted um our second year for this tax credit so if my math is correct um last year we would have submitted about 55 for the four fire departments and two ambulances this year I believe it's 70 members um so math is correct it is 70 yes um what's significant about that is this program started at the end of the year in 2022 and one of the rules in the program that we have is you have to be on board with that department for a full year before you're eligible so people

091that joined during 2023 they're not eligible for this so that 15 number Improvement was people that were already existing members of these four fire departments so this program and Junction with the other programs we're working on is bringing up that participation level and where that's important is we're turning that corner from losing volunteers losing activity from our volunteers to starting to bring that up and the program that we have in place with Southern York County the criteria it's one of the hardest ones I've seen and I've dealt with seven municipalities um with where our members live ours this is one of the hardest ones so getting these m members more active is going to prolong that period that we have to pay people for emergency services and globally in our school district that helps all

092the taxpayers so thank you and we'll loiter around in case there's any questions thank you uh Brian cop good evening Dr Bryson uh Dr reer Dr Mullen and all the other educational professionals professionals that are here appreciate your work you've done a lot of great work uh to the seven of nine um holy mackerel look at the environment and the culture that is going on here guys we have four armed police officers here that could be doing other things but they're here in a school cafeteria my wife just spoke and I'm afraid you're not listening I saw some board members not listening you should listen to your community um I have a newspaper article to read to you um concerning our school environment we've talked about this tonight we're going to talk about it more

093on a recent Saturday two susah hanic High School teens one black and one white were watching a movie one of the boys posted an innocent message about their afternoon on Snapchat later that day a white female student allegedly responded via Snapchat with a selfie and a racial slur oo H one of the boys responded asking why Snapchat logs show that she responded that her comments were for gits and shiggles funny she added it's not that deep Bro the exchange's draw drew attention AC across several social media platforms and resulted in a police investigation but members of the Southern York school district Community say that this kind of incident is common place here the exchanges Drew I'm sorry we are not surprised said another mother said one mother who has three students in our district four

094mothers who spoke to the York Dispatch asked to remain anonymous out of concern for retaliation from the school the school board and the wider Community a parent feels that they say Southern York school officials allowed a culture of intolerance to take hold alleging alleging that administrators ignored repeated complaints about racism and bullying in the schools that was before the elected School Board voted last month to reinstate the stereotyped image of an indigenous man at the as the district's logo we paying attention the stories of four mothers all who have black or multi-racial students enrolled in the school distri district were echoed by a Native American mother during the most recent mascot controversy she noted that her son hides his bra ated hair at school due to the bullying he receives over his Heritage school officials

095including every elected School Board member did not respond to the district's to the dispatch's request for comment the district did provide a letter that was sent to parents and Guardians Monday discussing its policies related to discrimination and cyber bullying according to Dr Bryson's letter the southern York Regional Police Department is investigating the allegations related to the Snapchat messages one minute remaining he noted that the prior I'm not going to get through this in a written statement the naacp's York County Branch said that such incidents not only impact students academic performance but also their mental health and overall quality of life these are our kids pay attention the mother of the black teen who was in uh the subject of the Snapchat messages said her older son was himself the subject of racial animus inside Southern

096York schools she said that this Behavior shouldn't be taking place in 24 in 2024 and she's right why why is this going on here why are you making decisions that allow this to continue and perpetuate this culture thank you the family complained to the school sorry that was time mother excuse me that was time sir I didn't get a one minute warning yeah she gave you one she gave you one yeah and this is printed you can read it thank you can tell me to shut up but you used to do this you can sit down this is the you need to pay attention all right you need to pay attention sir your time up Sir your 's up if you don't sit down and have to have you removed thanks for paying attention Nathan

097all right B bets good evening Bob bet Shrewsberry Township man let's keep the tension going H so I you know like all of us got an email earlier this week that U Dr Bryson right I think all of it earlier but there's a couple paragraphs I wanted to read tonight uh the first one I'm going to paraphrase but it was over the weekend the district learned about the inappropriate comments that students have posted online uh it goes on to say this incident is a direct is indirect opposite to the values and principles that guide our District's mission and vision paragraph two the district is working with our school resource officer and Southern Regional Police Department to actively investigate the incident our priority is to provide support to the victim and assess what measures will be

098taken to address the situation so I am grateful that the district had the conviction to put this information out to the public to show some transparency we've been asked asking for this for a long time randomly we get it sometimes we don't but I'm grateful that this event was shared with all of us so that we can all effectively speak to our kids about it I'm grateful that the district is offering support and services to families involved in these matters and I hope any other matters brought to their attention that arise in the district uh but the email when as I read it creates some questions for me when there was a teacher accused of sexually assaulting a student in the building just a few months ago the district remained silent and once the community

099found out about the incidents the district stated that they remained quiet on the issue as it was an ongoing AC of investigation and the possibility existed that sharing the info prematurely could hurt the investigation that statement was made months after the alleged investigation if I reference back to the letter it sounds like this incident is under active investigation so I don't quite understand why the two don't correlate however just a few weeks ago our children had an FID day due to inclement weather and on that first FID day it was reported to this District that an unknown user logged into a class on Google meets and displayed pornography for the other children in the class to hear I'm curious if the district was happy to have this information brought to their attention as they have

100not shared it yet to date when the district was asked why they haven't shared the information similar statements were made that there was an active investigation ongoing and I would assume we don't want to jeopardize that investigation what's the difference between all of these items all of these items are heinous things that are happening in and around our district yet we seem to be only choosing to bring to light issues that maybe we don't feel we have any culpable liability in when they don't happen in the building we seemingly are okay talking about it but when things happen in the building we're keeping it quiet and all while appearing to suppress blatant sexual misconduct that's occurring in our buildings and now on our children's CH books these culprits are being given access to our homes

101to my home to my children in my home but still nothing's been shared about it do we as a district not feel this incident is in direct opposition to the values and principles that guide our District's mission and vision as we've referenced above can anyone tell me how any of this makes sense why do we share some and not all if we're going to share none share none if we're going to share at all let's share all I have an idea on why these things are happening John 3: 19- 21 this is the verdict light has come into the world but people loved Darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil everyone who evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed but whoever

102lives by the truth thank you comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of their creator we need to decide as a district if we are going to live in the light or continue to operate under the darkness of night the days of suppression need to end I spoke last month about policy being loose for lack of a better term I would implore us as a district to revise policy to implement policy that creates a system where these types of things cannot go unspoken of thank you uh sier w evening my name is Sierra why I'm a I live in shb Pennsylvania and I have three children unfortunately in this District um I'm going to cut my speech a little short

103because I want to finish the article that the other gentleman tried to share um but I want to bring up the two topics that my children are um have been expressing to expressing to me even before this incident on Saturday the race want on Saturday um my children the books the kill mckin bird of Mya men and fences has the word that well the nword throughout the entire book this brings multiple opportunities for um racial comments racial jokes in the classroom in the in southern York County School District walls during instruction time my children have directly indirectly been called in the classroom have been th objects thrown at them in the classroom um I hear oh this is just an isolated incident Saturday was not an isolated incident and I and I and I'm going

104to say and I I'm going to I know I shouldn't but I was one of the four in the article and that's why I want to read it cuz these are things that happen to my children and I did remain anonymous in article but no I want y'all to hear my voice see who I am a lot of y'all know who I am and my children um and it needs to stop if and I'm going to let you know if one of my children get a snapshat of any racial things it's going to go viral again and I'm not taking it down I don't care who askes whoever I'm not taking it down okay I don't care if the the person say they suicidal or not I'm not taking it down it's going to keep

105going cuz this community needs light shed on it it needs awareness it needs accountability it needs change and I'm tired of it my children emotional psychological physical y'all don't know what y'all doing to my my children and like I told Dr Mullen last year I'm building a lawsuit on this community so y'all need to stop do what you need to do okay it's been lawsuits around the the country I've been talking to people y'all need to stop not only are my children being affected I'm being affected look at me I'm distressed my children are distressed they have to go through these walls 5 days a week every day if they if they're not directly or indirectly being called a a monkey a watermelon head a mut a Oreo they hearing their PE their peers so

106whoever's listening to this I'm glad it's on camera it's going on it's not an insulat incident and it needs to stop or some of those tax dollars that I'm paying and everybody else in this room is paying is going to be paying for that lawsuit this is your warning and one other thing Black History Month it's February Black History Month is a nationally recognized month around the world except for this District that's a problem I have black and brown kids in the school district along with other parents it is imperative that black American Achievers inventors are taught to my children and others that's what the problem is y'all keeping it hush that CRT is or whatever it's called is it CRT I don't even know what is called it's one minute remaining a third mother

107of a b biracial is up am I at the right part y okay a third mother of a biracial child recounted an incident in kindergarten in which in kindergarten and which your older student ask her son if oh we already did the bath wi although she she spoke on that she already spoke on that let me get to my part let me get to my part well I'll just tell you in the sixth grade last year cuz it's in an article too my son was called two title well first of all was called in one week and in streetbar did not offer my son to do a Title Nine I had to call the boy and ask what the racial and discrimination policy was and a and someone from the office made sure two weeks

108later the tons was filed for my child this year two tal have been filed for this my same son he's in the seventh grade now and the cafeteria this actual cafeteria we stand in right now he please let me finish and I'll just this is one last story this actual cafeteria that we standing in right now he was sitting at his table table two little boys I'm sorry they came to him and said in 1960 1962 61 62 um America they took the fun out of America Abraham Lincoln took a fun out of America and they started saying racial jokes and slurs and he asked them to stop they continue so he moved his seat like I told him to to another table so they got louder so all the other kids can hear them

109and started saying racial jokes racial jokes and racial slayes please talk to y'all children like they said please this is a cry at hope y'all damaging our children it needs to stop it's 20124 it needs to stop please thank you miss [Applause] one all right um does anyone have any any comment burning comments that they uh any responses to anything that was said um I know there's there's a lot there um we can bring it up later if uh after we've got a chance to digest follow comment if we need to um I do I do want to say a couple of things so I'm absolutely touched um by a lot of things that are said in this room every month and um Mrs y's testimony is very difficult you know I know in in

110my personal family we're Christian people you know we don't we never needed to teach our children about race because God tells us that we're all his people all one and you're to respect and value all of us and every gift and talent that we have to bring to the table and the people that are in your life you love them because of their heart and their character and who they are and I know and have learned in these two years that I've served certainly not as many as Mr Holly but I've learned that the administration and the superintendence love these children with every bit of their being and I'm sure it hurts them just as much to hear it as it touches me but I also know that we receive Communications we do and we

111get disciplinary reports and we see what is reported and I surely understand the pain that is being relayed I can feel it um but I can also see that our Administration is doing as much as they can to talk about these things and bring light and and follow the policies that are written that are very strict about these infractions and do not want uh our any student to feel unsafe um so as much as it pains me to hear about these situations and that they're they're they're being reported and that there's a feeling that nothing is being done um I I do Wonder from the administration how much more they can do they are the incidents are definitely not welcome but they are also the reports that we see do not align with the amount

112of public comment that we receive stating that these are happening it seems like from the pulpit with all of the communications I don't want to I want honesty I don't want any inflammatory verbage but at the same time how can we quantify what's going on if we're not seeing it in the reports and we want to make sure that if something is going on folks are saying something we've got safe to say we've got all of our Administration open and willing all of the staff to hear what these students are going through I I don't want them to go through none of us do I can't imagine there's one person on this board that wants any student to go through what we're hearing from that and I'm sorry the time for public comment is finished

113but I'm happy if you want to stay I'm happy to talk we we'll we'll get when it comes to my children and I have reported it to Daner I talked to when he was assistant superintendent talked to him when he wasp at the middle school here noever spoke to me about talk about you talk about excuse me I've never been to one of these meetings before because this and it's finally an open platform to discuss but I'm going to tell you when you say you don't know what else to do stop victimizing my black children twice stop removing them and uprooting them from their classro making them change Transportation hold the other kid accountable make them change their classes make them change their transportation yeah those are things consider no I I I I understand

114is the first time I've showed my face here and for me to show my face here I'm I'm done I am done my one son is a triathlete for the school and he gives Blood Sweat and Tears to it she gave her Blood Sweat and Tears to it and I've got another one giv his Blood Sweat and Tears into the chemistry and history department at the high school I've got two more coming out of here and I'm I'm done I'm done Dr um M Bor I just wanted to mention that um for those who said I'm not listening I wanted to personally thank you for giving me information that I can actually follow up on some of the things you you mentioned are I I I have to I have to get the information I

115have to find out what's going on but but this it's actionable so thank you um because act actionable information I can do something with and and I I that's I've got notes um and if I if my notes aren't adequate I will be reaching out to to get more details from you um I wanted to also thank uh Miss Dennis uh for her comments that were not presumptuous uh oh is okay sorry I thought you were over there before I thought you were behind the podium but um I wanted to thank Miss Dennis uh for your comments uh I think this is this is the way that we need finding common ground um recognize that we do care about our children uh you know the accusations that the people up here don't care about these

116issues it's it's simply not true um we we know people who are affected by this who are are good friends and we absolutely care about it um and we are trying to get into it I will say be well before this incident well before this meeting before this incident occurred uh I've been talking uh to Dr Bryson about getting Mr Rogers into our elementary schools because I think that that approach to to how kids interact with each other is is highly effective I think a lot a lot of kids who grew up on Mr Rogers um they they they just have a a better attitude toward these things the better better a better way of dealing with these things uh and he was a real real Pioneer um uh I also just wanted to mention

117uh for uh Miss feeser's comments uh with this uh Koga Sanic Tri uh tribe um they are not on tonight's agenda they did not in fact ask me to be on tonight's agenda I reached out to them uh on uh January 24th which was immediately after seeing the letter that they posted um and we have had it back and forth it's been difficult to get uh everybody together that they want to have for a conversation um but uh I don't know if everybody's responded we may have something this Monday I think maybe we're waiting on one person to respond but I am looking to have that conversation and I have I I reached out um many multiple times I reached out didn't hear back I used their contact form when I didn't hear back heard

118back shortly after receiving their contact form I emailed within minutes of receiving that um didn't hear back for several days when I hadn't heard back for several days checked in again to see you know can we still do this so um I've made a very good faith effort and it will probably it looks like it's going to yield fruit uh this next week if everybody can get get together but I am certainly uh looking to talk to them and get their perspective um that's I believe all I had um anybody else yeah a couple of things um was also very touched by a mother's love for her children mothers love for their children and definitely desire to see us have a more focused approach um on these things I know that discipline has been something

119that when I stood at that Podium for years was something that was always very important to me um and at the same time the years that I I stood at that Podium um I may have also felt like I was not being listened to um but I would say I amen listening I may not always agree or we may not always agree but that does not mean I'm not listening I also like to to thank Val for her um opportunity to have some open conversation I think we'll have to be careful not to have five of us there but I I I I do appreciate that very much for for putting that opportunity out there and have had um many civil conversations with you on tough issues in the past um I don't I I

120would also like to say um that I agree we need to have a better process of having open communication when difficult things happen in our school I'd like to agree with Mr Betts that um we don't have a very good approach to that and it is something that I have been advocating for a better approach to that and I'd also like to thank um Mr Doberman um I I'm excited that he's seeing by my numbers about a 28% increase in Volunteers in our uh in our EMS and fire service that is uh from my perspective uh tax deductions uh well well well well used uh to see those individuals uh being able to to volunteer their time thank you Mr yeah I have a few things um I wanted to extend my thanks to Mrs

121Dennis um I I think that what she said um in the humble way that she said it I would I would like to actually recognize what it cost you when we were private citizens to to come to a meeting that we were holding and to be the only one to come to a meeting like that it's intimidating it takes a whole heck of a lot of courage and thank you for doing that that was huge and and we had really really productive conversations and we realized that we agreed on a lot of things and there wasn't the difference of opinion that maybe we thought there might be so thank you for that um and I for my part will absolutely be there on so thank you um for Mrs Natalie Bor I don't want to

122put words in your mouth but what I'm hearing is that you want policy changes and that the the line that you said that stuck with me was why should your children be the ones to have to be removed from situations when the bullying goes unnoticed and continues and they're not the ones that're being inconvenienced but your children are that sticks with me that that does not seem right it's it's the opposite of right um I will personally be looking at policy and see from that end what it is that I can do so thank you for letting us know and Mrs wayi I believe that yours was very similar with that um it concerns me that title 9 was not offered and that's a conversation that I would like to have um it's it's it's

123reprehensible that any student any child should have to go through the struggles that you were documenting and I I'm personally sorry for that and I'm sure someone else not from the school from the board okay so you're making a distinction between the administration and okay thank you but it it took a while to get there and to our Administration I want you to know that for my part I am simply reflecting what I am hearing it is no judgment I'm just trying to take in what it is that is being said so that we can have accurate conversations was if I may Nathan yeah um reaching out to the two mothers that spoke tonight um um that's unacceptable what's happened to you all um I was bullied as a kid and it sucks really does

124um so I would also like to work with Jen and look into this and see what we can do differently so my apologies M just one quick thing to the mothers I I do want to relate that how I show up at my first school board meeting was because my son was being bullied and there was nothing being done about it um so I feel your pain and I understand it um that's one of the reasons why we've been working with and finally working with Dr reer to get some disciplinary data that we can release to the public so the board has more information um obviously we are not as board members in the schools every day like the administration the principles and the teachers are so getting more of that level information to us

125is critical we don't know that that information you know there's only there's only so much information that goes from our 400 employees you know staff and teachers up through the assistant superintendent the superintendent to us so please we do want to work with you we do want to correct these things and we're doing everything our you know everything as quickly as we can to get the information we need to put policy in place to correct these things so thank you all for coming here tonight thank you anyone else all right uh moving on to the consent agenda um I'll entertain a motion to uh approve the consent of agenda as as presented so moved second motion and a second uh is there any discussion any Nas or exensions hearing none that motion passes moving on

126to uh item 8 committee report education and I will turn it over to Mrs hle all right so we've got 8.01 the proposed District comprehensive plan 2024 2027 um it's informational and I will hand that over to Dr rert for anybody who has any questions send them his way thank you Mrs hankle um just uh for everyone to be aware as well as the community that uh we did post through 28 days um the survey that was sent out there was a reminder survey uh that was set out today um any Community feedback uh please complete that form and submit that so we're able to utilize that feedback in order to make any revisions potential Revis revisions to the comprehensive plan so that we can have that to the board for final approval in March

127to submit the pte by the end of March does anybody have any conversations or questions yeah I just wanted to mention um I know we talked about this uh outside of the outside of the board meeting but I just wanted to uh mention that so so it doesn't come a surprise to anyone that one of the enhancements that I I think would be would be useful is is uh to formalize uh retrospectives as part of the comprehensive plan so that um minimally every year we're taking a moment to ask questions is this working because the comprehensive plan it's a plan it's not binding we can change things if they're not working and I think we should actively be asking those questions at least annually um at least uh if you if you think it can

128be done more frequently that's great um but I don't want to spend all of our time doing retrospective so whatever what are the uh most efficient and effective cadences uh we can we can discuss that okay Mr Heel I'll work with Dr Hughes and we'll look on how to add those retrospectives into it so that we at least have at least annual update uh with thata the IND how the current plan is going what you know what's going well what are some of the uh challenges with it what may be some of the changes we may want to recommend as a result yeah maybe get get some feedback from teachers about whether annually would work well for them or if they would like semiannually uh get get some perspectives on that if everybody if everybody

129wants annually then that that's good enough for me thank you anybody else right moving on to 8.02 we have the revised District health and safety plan for 2023 2024 I move to approve the revised District health and safety plan 2023 2024 may I have a second a second opening up to discussion I would like to highlight for my part that this is a much more practical health and safety plan it uh takes out all the things that we don't do any anyway which is important because if our district has it on a health and safety plan we need to be doing it and it gets rid of all the contentious items that uh I believe that our our district found themselves in does anybody else have any discussion just appreciate uh your work with uh

130Dr reford on that pretty awesome all righty do I have any ma or extensions none carries that brings us to 8.03 quote for the educate edu Planet 21 um I'm going to send that over to Dr reer thank you Mrs hankle uh when we're looking at edu Planet uh we we're currently utilizing this for our curriculum mapping uh where our teachers are being trained in utilizing that so as we are converting our old Curriculum maps into the new format um it will be a ADA Compliant uh which will help us in our transition into the new uh website uh that we'll be anxiously waiting to go live this summer so um I look Christina because she's the uh the brains behind that's so Christina Well Done uh so that's kind of where we are with

131with the edgey plan is approving that uh so that we can have the uh licenses so we continue to have individuals trained right I move to approve a quote with edu plan 21 for additional licenses for curriculum mapping online courses at a cost of $990 for the 2023 2024 school year may I have a second second any n or abstentions hearing none the motion passes 8.04 costs associated with speakers approved through the vetting process um I move to approve the costs associated with the following speaker that has been approved through the vetting process Victoria Co to virtually present her writing process for Fenway and Hattie to all friendship Elementary School students at a cost of $1,000 to be paid using Title One funds may I have a second second any discussion I I I can't

132get into I think you have a better handle on the details I thought the um the the the Confluence of things uh of different programs associated with this was really really well put together yeah uh so this is one of the speakers that was approved that we have to pay a contract for but you'll see it comes up in um 8.60 uh 8.06 there are three of them that tie together and it has to do with um The One book that the uh Elementary School chose and so they have the author of this book present to students and then they have a retired teacher from our district come and talk about the um the pets that she trains and then we also have a not a student from our district but a a student a

13313-year-old actually who has developed her own business and makes recycled dog toys and so she's going to help the um the elementary school children to do that and just ties in together so it was fantastic job guys very well done anybody else any other other items of discussion with this one any Nays or abstentions hearing none the motion carries I do just want to say something quick thank you so much for all of your work and letting the board know what the vetting process includes and what these speakers are and how it ties into something special that the school is doing so thank you it's very helpful thank you 8.05 we have contract with standing o marching and I want to hand this over to Dr repert because it's a really cool way that our

134district handles these things thank you Mrs hle uh with the contract for standing o marching uh we know that the uh marching band as uh Carolyn indicated you know they got they're down in Disney right now or Orlando and they're getting ready to prepare for next year already so this gives them the opportunity to receive the music ahead of time um as opposed to waiting until next school year and it's just a uh delayed billing contract uh you know for you know to the standing o uh that the band would be able to utilize and see that music ahead of time in preparation for next school year all righty I move to approve a delayed billing contract with standing o Marching for the purchase of the Fall 2024 marching ban music package at a cost

135of $3,000 may I have a second second second all right any discussion right any Nays or abstentions hearing none the motion carries that brings us to 8.06 speakers approved through the vetting process this is informational only you can see on your screens all of the lovely speakers that we have come to our district um is there any discussion or questions you guys have I can answer some Dr rert will make himself available as well anything for anybody all righty that takes us to 8.07 the academic achievement data um this is a public for your information it's not an actional item the Board of Education to be informed that the academic achievement data presented at the January board meeting will be discussed at the March education committee meeting on March 19th 2024 this is just our

136way of letting everybody know that we didn't forget about it we are going to carry this over in March so it's a healthy discussion that we'll be able to have them 8.08 revisions to the elementary and secondary school emergency relief funding plan I'm going to hand that over to Dr rert but that was the presentation that we heard in 5 point whatever it was but you guys had covered that and so that this yeah thank you Mr ankle so at this point uh we there was a presentation earlier just about the uh reallocation of the funds into the different buck so to speak uh so that we can continue in the planning and preparation us utilizing that Easter funding all right I move to approve the revisions to the elementary and secondary school emergency fund

137re Relief Fund plan U may I have a second second right any discussion any Nays or extensions hearing none that motion carries that brings us to 8.09 the 2023 2024 understanding by Design leadership training supplemental agreements I'm going to hand that over to Dr Robert thank you Mrs hankle uh as I as we talked about edgy plan Planet earlier uh which is which is the program the under understanding by Design is actually the the format that we utilize for developing our curricular Maps where we start with the end in mind you know where we want our students to be when we start that design process and then we they call back mapping in developing that um those curriculum many years ago uh when Dr Bryce and I worked together at the high school there was

138a training uh for that so now that we're uh in the process of updating all of our Maps we do need more of our teachers to be trained uh so this would include our uh facilitators some of our teachers uh 54 total throughout the district in order to provide provide that knowledge uh for completing those Curriculum maps thank you so much I move and real quick that 20 hours uh Dr Hughes correct me I'm wrong they that's online that's at their Pace it's not a 20 hour sitdown session training uh so this gives them the opportunity from now until uh the end of May for them to complete that training so that we can continue that process with curriculum mapping all righty thank you Dr rer you're welcome I move to approve 54 additional professional

139staff members for understanding by Design leadership training for grades K through 12 across the district not to exceed 20 hours per staff member at $34 an hour for a total of $36,250 that motion carries that brings us lastly to 8.10 other items of business I have none anybody else all right that completes the education report all right Mr Wilson okay um so 901 Treasures report for January 2024 uh we started the month out the concentration account with 23,5 72,8 24 we ended the month with 22,4 198,50 67 for the investment accounts uh we started the month with 32,42 54041 and at the end of the month we had 29,8 5,860 And1 now those of you with calculators might have known noticed that our balances between the two are down about 3.6 million for the month

140um but this is expected it's seasonal because of the tax Seasons um this is why we budget so um that is is there anything that you want to add to that this screen no okay good all right so moving on to 9.02 re reviewing the bills for payment um they are attached to board docks um I would like to motion to approve the bills for payment as presented second okay any discussion any in nay or abstentions hearing none motion passes 9.03 exoneration refunds this one's even easier because there are none uh 9.04 the tax collection report this is for your information is attached um is there anything we want to touch on with this Mrs Green uh the only thing we're um right on par um compared to last year on percentage of collections um

141doing well okay thank you 9.05 budget status report um these are attached for your information um I mean we seem to be right in line with where we should be with our budget for the year um anything you want to add Mrs Green U the only thing I I'll Pig you back on to something Mrs hle said U we will be having a finance and bu budget um committee meeting in March um so we'll talk more in depth about the budget that okay uh 9.06 budget transfers even easier none uh 9.07 the cafeteria report that is attached for your review okay 9.08 York County School of Technology 2024 2025 budget um flip ahead and go between screens here so uh the budget for York County uh for the York County School of Technology is attached

142there our share based on the expected number of students were expected to have around 73 students this year that's what they've projected for us and our share of the operating budget would be about $1,455 so that's just so everybody knows what you know what the value of this is to us um i' would like to make a motion to approve the York County School of Technology 2024 2025 budget do I have second second roll Sue that's a roll call for c for the York Tech we usually just um ask we actually have to record the um but we just asked people to the motion so right we get knows we say see who it is I mean if you want me to do we can do roll call we don't normally because if if you

143if you all say yay we we list it as a roll call so as long as everyone answers we're good okay so I should ask for all those in favor say y okay is there any discussion on this no okay um uh if you are in favor of approving the budget please say hi hi hi is there any nay hearing none good thank you all right make John Boyer happy all right moving on to 9.09 this is the Liu Lincoln Intermediate Unit unit 2024 225 budget um just a quick thing this is for the operating expenses for the Liu our portion of this is $5,400 and4 $5,400 15005 $ 4246 let's be exact um I'd like to make a motion to approve the Liu 2024 2025 budget second all right um any conversation on this

144one questions no do I need to handle this the same way the eyes okay all right um all those in favor of the approving the Liu budget say I I any Nays hearing none motion passes okay 9.10 this is advertising for bids for the student Chromebooks this ties into the SR funding presentation we had earlier this evening um this is to put out for bids so I'd like to make a motion to consider advertising for bids for student Chromebooks per the Chromebook replacement plan using Sr funds have a second second any discussion any Nays or abstentions hearing none motion passes 9.11 the budget update and state budget information I'm going to turn this over to Mrs Green okay so I'll have a brief update this evening um so we're continuing to work through the process

145of P prioritizing our budget items um the building and area retail budgets uh we're due today so we always do that the day after Valentine's Day each year for our administrators um the Easter plan um was a big piece of that this evening um making sure we understand where we're going um with the rest of the funds there uh the other piece um later on the agenda this evening the school safety grants uh that were um announced at the end of December and we um just recently um got information on they are 24mon grants so again under understanding where we're going with those um and we have recommendation um in transportation health and safety this evening so those are are big pieces um and as I mentioned um briefly a couple minutes ago we will

146have the detailed budget presentation um at the March 19th finance and budget committee meeting which is open to the public and live streamed uh couple things from Governor Shapiro's second budget um address on February 6th uh there were a lot of things so I'm going to to Briefly summarize this because as We Know um this is this is what we have now and not necessarily what we're going to end it with so there is um in the budget a 12% increase in the general fund budget um with no tax increases but using $3 billion in reserves to balance the budget so that is a big number um of reserves the main priority one of the main priorities of of his budget continues to be investing in uh children students and Educators so there are quite

147a few things um related to Public Schools um which is is good to see um additional 200 million in proposed increase for the basic education funding formula 871 million in new adequacy investment formulas um driven into the base um this really surrounds the um lawsuit um for equity and education across the Commonwealth um so um that's one of the the steps forward in trying to um meet adequacy across all districts um the other the pie is 50 million for for special education um while 50 million is a lot um there is a large way way to go for special education but um we were happy to see the large increases in basic education um because you can use that bucket for pretty much any needs that you have in the district uh many of the

148other items um we'll continue to look into but I wanted to point out a couple um they he's advocating for a Cyber Charter School base rate um what's a little disappointing there is not necessarily the concept but um he's actually asking for um $8,000 per cyber school child um where a couple years ago 9,000 and something didn't pass so does make me a little nervous how how low that number is um the other piece is and this one's a little I want to look into it further but this one's a little disappointing in um while we're putting a lot of money more money into basic education um and into subsid one of the things that they're advocating for is resetting the base again so if you remember a couple years ago um a funding formula

149new formula for Education was put out with the idea that you would have a base of a certain year um and then new money would go to um bringing all the districts into line on what they actually needed um but this resets the base again uh so basically you end up with no losers um you know at some point in time we're going to have to get to a point where um those that are have a more money than they need to educate don't continue to get more State funding and we we spread it out to the districts that need it so um again as we're looking into it I think that's something we definitely want to want to keep an eye on because resetting the base just kind of starts us back and there's

150you know when you have no losers it's hard to really get those that are underfunded up to where they need to be um even though they're losing students so uh the formula was and and the base idea was if if you were losing students you wouldn't continue to just keep keep getting more money um and the last piece is and this is good news uh having continuing to house School Safety and Security grants uh in the budget for next year so some of those programs that we were able to put in and we can continue um with the second round hopefully we'll continue to see that and we can but it's brief up update and we'll stay tuned um to Harrisburg to see what's going on great thank you Mrs Green moving on to 9.12

151it's a contract with e+ technology this is related to getting um updated Wi-Fi into our middle and elementary schools excuse me uh I'd like to make a motion to approve a contract with e+ technology Inc for the purchase of 196 extreme Network wireless access points at a cost of 57,4 18484 this company was the winning bidder through the e- rate pep PE PPM mini bit uh do I have a second second um one quick thing of of note um this quote does not include installation that is going to be handled by our internal it team so that's one thing that that we confirmed earlier today um any other questions about this no any Nays or extensions hearing none motion passes 9.13 hydroponic stations um this is for the hydroponic stations for how many different buildings

152Mrs Green for all of the buildings all the buildings okay I was talk I was talking to them when we were over at Shrewsberry today about that they already have they already have a spot planned for it so um this is going to make a motion to approve a quote from corbette Inc for the purchase of seven Fork Farm Flex Farm hydroponic stations at a cost of $31,000 74920 on the co-stars contract these hydroponic stations are being purchased as part of the farm to school Grant and with EIT funding I have a second second okay um any questions or commentary on this yes I'm totally good with this as long as I get some lettuce okay you stop by for a salad yeah they're hoping by the end of the year they'll have them in

153the schools sorry you can visit zucchini grows pretty fast I think and just just so everybody on the board knows this is this is entirely Grant funded this is budget neutral so I would recommend say going along with it if I can if you um yes if we can give a shout out to um Mr carington Dr Hughes um basically just because you know they worked um extensively on the farm to school Grant and then on getting a new program approved through our eitc program for the foundation enable us enabling us to be able to use that funding um for Hydroponics so just wanted to give a shout out to both of them that was a lot of work to get the approvals for both of those um and be able to do this really

154great Project without using taxpayer dollars great and I second that I was talking to Dr Hughes and Dr reer and uh I believe it was Dr Hughes that was uh discussing how she was talking to a student who was currently studying Hydroponics here and he had just learned about the grant that we had applied and it was accepted and he was really tickled that he was going to be able to see it in real time I believe it was an elementary school student Elementary so that was really neat to hear and I'll third it and also say I'm probably to blame for all of that work because uh my interest went through the roof in visiting an innovation lab outside of Philly um and and it wasn't even part of the Innovation lab tour it

155was off in the corner and I started asking questions uh and then I was contacting Michigan and all kind came back and said make this happen this is good for kids well done it's wonderful I'm glad you did um any other discussion no um so I have a motion a second uh any Nays or exensions from this hearing none motion passes all right 9.14 this is a volunteer firefighter and Emergency Services tax credit program um there's a lot of information that's attached here including the eligibility lists um I'm going to make a motion to approve to approve of a list of qualifying applications for the volunteer firefighter and Emergency Services tax credit program totaling $35,000 do I have a second second any discussion I me I do I do want to Second what or um

156just bring up what um Mr Doberman had mentioned earlier 15 a 15 participant increase in the first year is is really great think this is a really valuable thing shows effect effess shows Effectiveness shows Effectiveness yes um any other questions discussion no he none um any Nays or abstentions from I'm going to abstain from the vote okay all right so we have one abstain uh any other Nays or abstentions hearing none motion passes okay um any other I have no other items of business so back to you president all right um next we have uh tedan uh committee report on personnel and policy Mrs Hall president hle um item 10.01 um this is um for Action the Board of Education to consider approval of the job description for secondary Librarians uh I make make a

157motion to approve the job description for secondary librarian do I have a second second any discussion any Nays or abstention I did have one question the the job description under license and clearance is it only lists the driver's license not the standard sort of clearances we would have for staff is that I didn't see it qualifications yeah I don't see it uh Library librarian teaching certificate yeah doesn't have that's but that's a security clearance is kind of what I'm so board policy requires all of our employees to to have security clearan okay yeah that's that's a clarification since we haven't done this before right no no you're fine I was just trying to understand question is that something that standard is on that and or is it just because it's covered underboard policy it's not

158on any of our job descriptions it's not okay I just wanted to make sure it wasn't missed because that that's a requirement for all School Employees regardless of position okay thank you thank you Mr Wilson any other discussion hearing none any Nays or abstentions okay the motion passes item 10.02 um this is also a board action um the Board of Education to consider approving a sabatical for restoration of Health for a teacher from Southern Elementary School um I would make a motion to approve a soole for restoration of Health for Monica mitchek Southern Elementary School grade 5 teacher beginning February 27th 2024 through the end of the 1 semester of the school year 2024 2025 do I have a second second any discussion I just wanted to add that on um this particular one I

159know that the Administration has um looking for a long-term substitute and I believe that there is a somebody immediately to come in um to that position so I know that that is covered in case anybody was wondering um any other discussion all right hearing none any Nays or abstentions all right that motion carries um item 10.03 is board policies it's public information we did have a pol personnel and policy meeting prior to this board meeting where we went through um the different policies that were up for our policy review there were a couple revisions noted those will be made in the next um version that we have in March which will be our second reading and at that time we would be um looking to approve those policies so just for the purpose of transparency

160I just wanted to list out for you that there were three different categories of um reasons why these board policies were up um on the first set of categories they were um updated or new policies then there were another chunk of policies um that had to do with merging policies together so that um with the employees we had three different distinctions and so this is to put them all under one category just to reduce redu dependencies so that was a second chunk and then the third chunk of it was um removal of administrative regulations um that are not actually part of board policy but they're put in there as an attachment for reference um so again there's no action on this one tonight it'll be at the next board meeting but I did want to

161disclose what was in that uh last meeting item 10.04 retention of board videos um again this is a um action the Board of Education to consider approval of a 60-day extension of the action item instructing the superintendent to ensure the retention of all existing and all future videos of public board meetings until the board has a chance to vote on a policy concerning the retention of these videos in the previous section one of the policies under there was about being able to retain those videos so it's in here just to be able to give that 60-day extension but then we will vote on that next month so I would like to make a motion to consider approval of a 60-day extension of the action an item instructing the superintendent to ensure the retention of all

162existing and all future videos of public board meetings until the board has a chance to vote on a policy concerning the retention of these videos do I have a sec do I have a second second thank you any discussion all right any hearing none any NS or abstentions hearing none this motion carries and 10.05 other items of business all right um and that concludes my report thank you Mr all as a buildings and grounds report uh start with 11.01 um we have there were documents attached for the board um in regards to Future um projects and their status um you can see those in your board docks um at 11.02 we have uh also information for our water test report which we passed 11.03 we have uh committee report buildings and grounds for the sus

163hanok high school project Mr Buffington good evening uh the sanok high school project report is for your information Project's going well you saw the video earlier um we're down to 8 to n months till we're we complete this endeavor um looking forward to that um certainly any questions on that we can I could take those um the timeline uh no changes from last month on on that so that was included for for your information the um financial report I'd like to point out the um contingency as of January 31st uh was approximately $400,000 slightly under under that uh includes the change orders that are listed uh this evening that we'll talk about um in just a minute any questions with the construction managers report the timeline or the financial report okay moving on to 11.04

164uh change orders that I approved on site are listed there I do want to point out we included a summary of cost to the district as well as um cost that is picked up by the designer uh and the total total cost there that you can see approximately 50,000 for the district uh 7500 for the designer share any questions with with change orders okay moving on to 11.0 possibly if you could just highlight um our costs for change orders and then the percentage that's being picked up by the architect please I'm sorry oh or or I could do it it's it's fine I have the information in front of me so this this month um our change orders uh total to $4 43,800 um many of them as you can see here uh had the

16550 15% reimbursement um from the architect that V value came to $ 46,4 uh bringing the reduction in our conting con contingency funds to 397,000 $54 uh and then there's some others that are in there that that they they picked up at 100% we'll discuss those a little bit further on thank you sure uh so 11.05 change order um asked the board to consider this so let me explain that a little bit so over in the new kitchen um there's a uh Island prep area that has some Plumbing in it as the Food Service uh staff looked at uh at that and worked with with that uh became apparent that it would be a better um if that Island actually went up to the wall or be was taken to the wall there would need

166to be some Plumbing uh redone there uh we' talked to the architect uh not a code issue not not a design issue per se but the architect agreed that they would um reimburse the district 100% of that cost but we want to bring that to the board to for for your consideration so I would ask you to consider PCC and Co is change order request we will give it a number if we do approve it yes so uh I'd like to make a motion to approve change order pc- at the cost of $1,084 which will be reimbursed 100% by the architect for the ssan high school project do I have second second second any discussion n or just NS or abstentions motion carries thank you okay 11.06 um we have the need for golf carts

167for our graduation cere ceremony and this is not something that is exclusive because of the um construction project this is something that has been going on I'm not sure how many years but many years before many I have 19 and it's I think all of those so um mhm so I would like to make a motion to approve the rental agreement with golf cart Services Incorporated for the rental of six six passenger shuttles for the 2024 graduation at a cost of $1,100 do I have a second second any discussion any nay or extensions motion passes thank you moving on 11.07 I'd like to make make a motion to approve the quote with Heritage Lawn and Landscape care for $16,800 to add top soil air rate and Seed the old baseball field to be completed in

168the spring of 2024 do I have a second second do we have any discussion on this the which was the old baseball field so old baseball field be field three field three the one next to the U the con stand the closest to here closest to the middle is is is the old baseball field uh we did have an opportunity where many of us on the board uh went and looked at the needs on the field uh and although this may not be the sum total of what the field will need long term uh our plan is to rest the field that's correct we will so we're going to be resting the field and uh this work will allow the grass to grow back in over top of fixing depressions and issues that are in

169the field um it's not going to address the fact that the field has uh a major elevation change from left to right of about 13 ft um but it will address smoothing the the field out so that it is at least a a consistent uh taper from one side to the other um any other any questions I just wanted to mention that I I thought the the field visit was a really great collaboration between uh board members coaches admin um I it actually had impacts on tonight's agenda uh where we we were talking about uh Solutions and and trying to plan plan this out the best that we could uh and I was really really happy with the collaboration and there are still some I think some additional ideas that we're still going to explore

170all based on that that field visit uh so just that on the ground uh you know discussion that we had standing out there in the fields where we could see the the actual layout uh I think really resulted in a very uh very productive collaboration and it that incorporated both fields which yeah we'll get to that in a minute oh yeah yes any other questions comments any nay or extensions hearing none motion passes moving on to 11.08 quote number two with Heritage Lawn and Landscape care this motion is to approve a quote with Heritage Lawn and Landscape care for $781 to add tops top soil in Outfield depressions and Seed spring of 2024 and 9,614 to aate top dress and Seed fall of 2024 for the new baseball field which is field 8 do I

171have a second second so any questions or discussions so as Nathan had alluded to while we were there um this is just a a piece of this is dealing with the grass and on the physical field um we are going to use this field as our primary field in the season which kicks off soon um uh so that's why some of the work is delayed um this is not all-encompassing of what this field needs um this is only dealing with the grass okay okay any uh Nays or abstentions hearing none motion passes moving on to 11.09 supplies for Field improvements this also is dealing with field number eight um this motion is to approve the purchase of supplies not to exceed $6,000 to make improvements to the baseball and softball fields in the areas of

172selected pitching mounds and select flooring for batting cages work on these projects will be performed internally and with the help of volunteers do I have a second second thank you any discussion was this part of what resulted from the the visit that you had this is an additional thing that came up okay correct I would sorry I would add that uh we're also doing some work at U field 10 the soft softball field um which is in front of Southern Elementary yes I do have one question how will the volunteer information be shared to advertise for volunteer yet but I I think that this is a good opportunity to put it out there that we we want volunteers and I was going to bring that up here remember earily that we we do need volunteers

173to come out um and and help us with that I know that we're going to be doing some things in house uh and we'll have um staff here your school staff here through that process yeah we we'll try to get a sign up and um much like I think with the moving process that we did with the high school um I will put it out there that as Mr Hall had mentioned baseball season softball season spring sports are right around the corner so this this work is going to happen very quickly some of the material would be uh ordered tomorrow morning and and the time frame for volunteers do we have an approximate time time frame for when they'll be needed over the next few weeks over the next few weeks so just get get

174you our information if we want to come inun we start to prioritize and and uh get that info out so uh one of the things we're very fortunate uh we have um one of our M maintenance mechanics is an expert um in the area field so he will be leading this charge um and um one of as we work with volunteers we're going to want to make sure that he's there to to supervise the project and and make sure it's the way so um as we're putting it together uh we'll we'll get that out there um and hopefully we can get some folks to help him and and get that done um less expensively than than having outside folks do it well there's you know also a sense of of urgency we don't have a

175lot of time so keeping it inhouse allows us to to have more flexibility in that time frame and and work with that but you know I'll be there so anyone else wants to come and volunteer we have a son too he'll be volunteered or volunt Vol told volun told okay any other uh questions comments I just want to say it was uh awesome to walk the field with all you and um Administration I I started as just I just want to see the fields I hav seen them in 20 years and Dr Bryson made into a golf cart full of people people walking and a truckload of people and that was it was cool to see the collaboration and the discussion we had yeah thank you for putting that together Dr B welcome okay any

176n or abstentions hearing none motion passes then 11.01 or 11.10 getting a little blurry over here use of facilities uh this is a um for for our information but I would like to note um in our discussion in the past there are no uses of any of the grass fields at the high school in this particular uh list some some of the the turfield but uh not not of the high not at the uh at the high school so moving on okay 11.11 are there any other items of business for buildings and grounds hearing none Mr President all right uh next we have uh Transportation health and safety uh you may notice that the uh name here uh changed to include safety it was getting to be a bit much uh to include some of

177the the uh actually sorry it's health health uh nope nope it's safety that's added right what was this one it was Transportation Transportation safety we had to Health down here that's right um it was getting to be a bit much to have some of the that information in education report so we moved that um I'll turn it over to Mr hash um just a quick uh Transportation report from first student um they're trying to H they hired three new drivers licensed them um one of the open management positions is now open one of um the gentlemen he moved his family to Portugal and he will be pursuing a different passion um for now two of the other people in the office will be taking over his duties uh red light camera violations we had six

178of them uh in the month of January and they were all um head on vehicle passing the bus um driver observed all them and reported them that is all I have for that 1202 is um second quarter discipline data and I will hand that over to Dr Rob thank you Mr hash as we uh take a look board directors um there's a green sheet on your desk uh Miss cat's going to pull up the discipline for the public we're going to start with the 20 uh 2324 second marking period sycsd District quarterly dis uh discipline report uh Within These uh columns you will see the infraction codes um as well as a total of those infractions uh for marking period one marking period two as well as what the total is uh to date um

179so as as we go through and we look specifically at uh the discipline data uh we do see that you know from the first to the second uh you do see some similarities in the datas based on the frequency um we do have a you know indication that you know as things are being reported as items are being shared with uh the administration they are being addressed as uh we had some comments earlier uh when we look down at the action codes at the bottom uh you're going to see the totals for the first and the second marking period and in a discussion that I had with Mr hash and Mr Wilson just something I want to point out to the public is you generally see somebody may say well why do you see less

180numbers in your first marking period and and they increase in the second marking period well one of the components with that is when students start off the school year there's that honeymoon period where they're getting acclimated to school uh they're learning the routines Etc and yes you still have students that have uh conduct violations that occur during that first marking period but they're generally fewer uh but what we'll see as we look at the trends throughout the entire school year in comparison to last school year um as you go to the second marking period you know students start to feel maybe a little more comfortable uh maybe testing uh some other areas you know uh based on what they feel they may be able to get away with but then not get away with and

181and they're being held accountable for uh so we do see uh an increase when you're looking at the action codes also uh the one that really sticks out uh as you're looking at detentions and one thing I do want to note with that uh we have two styles of detention we have an after school detention uh which we did under the consent approve the detention monitor for the high school we also have Saturday school detention uh that happens every other Saturday that is hosted by our assistant principls from secondary level with staff members where the students come in uh there is time that they're doing work but there's also uh some service work that they're doing within our buildings uh so it's a a great opportunity for our students as opposed to just serving that

182consequence but learning something from uh as to why uh they were in that situation so that's where we are for the first and second marking period for uh this school year are there any questions from the board before we take a flip over and look at comparative to last school year I have a question yes um so when I was looking through this it kind of pequ my interest because I was talking about it in some of my dual enrollment classes that I was taking um the infractions under like um controlled substance use alcohol use tobac tobacco vaping use um there's a total of 19 but then um as in terms of like actions being taken only two of those infractions resulted in like drug and alcohol counseling um and I was just curious um

183like what is like the typical procedure that is taken like for drug and like alcohol use in school Carolyn that's an excellent question and thank thanks for bringing that up when we have uh students that are in violation of drugs alcohol um either in possession um under the influence of or uh distribution uh we do have a process that our board uh has dealt with in in recent months where students may receive a a consequence that goes beyond a suspension so there are some additional components that uh we do require students to participate in and complete during a 45 day or a 60-day time period uh which would include a requirement that they go through our Student Assistance team and if it's for a drug or alcohol related it's specific to that component um and

184then there's also other components that are involved uh service hours community service hours that need to complete and the other thing I wanted to share to the public is in these uh situations Southern Regional Police is also involved and for first time offenses for students that are referred to Southern Regional Police uh they have a diversionary program called the youth Aid panel where the individual can work with members from the community on a project specific to their conduct and then once they complete that then their uh potential charges that they may have received would be expunged uh but students only have one opportunity to be part of that diversionary program when it comes to uh drug or alcohol and the one thing for the school board uh when we do our safe schools report that

185you'll receive in August uh there will be a component there where anytime our Lea local law enforcement or Southern Regional or state police are contacted for incidents our records have to match their records um so there is that checks and balances as we look at how many times you know officer Hansen some from Southern Regional Police had to respond to a situation uh so that really covers you know some of the you know with the drug and alcohol counseling there may be other sanctions Student Assistance uh program is is the diversionary program considered drug and alcohol counseling or no that that's separate because that comes from the criminal side when Southern Regional Police are are involved with with with that component there so I guess I if if I can just I I think your

186question is why if unless drug and Al Alcohol counseling is counseling is considered a consequence um I guess the question would be why is it not occurring more frequently well um yeah we there's a program that was implemented several years ago so just historically real quick those type defenses is going back a number of years were brought before the board for expulsion so students with alcohol or drugs and things were expelled for school for one calend year the board changed the board at that time said we we don't want simp punitive measures we want to empower students and parents to select from an opportunity and if they agree to participate in drug and alcohol counseling and other components there'll be a lesser period of time out of school for for the school violation so right

187now we have a tiered system uh for first defenses for possession or use there's a separate consequences for distribution and depending on what the student and family elect uh they they will voluntarily commit to some of these things that are listed in an exchange for that the board and District agree to keep a lesser period of time out of school they don't want to do it they don't have to it's all voluntary but then they're probably going to be expelled so that's why you probably see some of those Divergence is that depending on what they did and if it's a first offense or a second offense the and the student get to select an option if they wish and that's why some kids were doing drug and alcohol counseling others aren't so the other piece

188they're pretty close in actuality so A Student Assistance referral where you have a total of eight that's going to result in an assessment which goes to counseling um which could be drug and alcohol or could be Mental Health depending on the chat so thank you there another would any of them fall under the remedial other as well potentially but I I'm not going to try to define remedi the only reason I bring it up is just because you know we're looking at like policy changes and like editing certain policies and it just you know from what I understand a lot of students who come to school and you know choose to use drugs and alcohol while they're in school don't really do it because they think it's cool or you know like it's more so

189you know a lot of these kids are just addicted to the substances and they just they can't stop because even no matter how hard they try like they can't so I was just curious if like you know counseling was is that like our first option or you know usually it's a part of it's a part of a conse yeah you'd have you would have the counseling piece but you'd also have some level of consequence that goes along with that so it it would be nice to tease out how many of these are uh how many students who are committing these offenses are electing counseling because if if it's slow and if the counseling is helpful then we may want to figure out if there are ways we can incentivize that better thank you if flip

190over to the flip side um on the back side where you have the 2023 first semester uh 2022 23 and 23 24 for the board just as a reminder last year was the first year we had this data and when we put it together it was actually the first semester because I believe Joe I think we started talking in November maybe um so we waited till the end of the first semester so just just to show some comp some comparative data between first semester last year first semester this year um four areas when I take a look at the infraction codes where there has been um an increase uh uh the racial and ethic intimidation uh from one report last year uh to 11 so far this year uh minor altercations from 6 to 11

191uh threat ing School official or students um that would involve our threat assessments as we talked about earlier in the uh with the policies uh that you know we went from 4 to 17 and then The Possession use of controlled substance uh between went from 3 to six so there has been an increase in those areas so I do do want to kind of Point those out um as a way for us to continue to draw comparisons from year to year as we're looking at data and what I plan to bring to the board um after that we have third marking period is you'll see a similar chart as you see here uh for first second uh first semester but then we'll have a comparison of third marking period last year the third marking period

192this year so we're going to start to see how our totals are kind of going through the year and please keep in mind that we do have new students that move in students that move out um so these are district totals as we're looking at the uh total discipline at this point um Dr rer one thing I did want to point out on here the 53 vaping is actually gone down over our previous year which is positive I believe well and and and some and something I want to share about that uh Mr Wilson is we see you know vaping where we had you know 10 to this point now that's 10 individuals that through a detection and the administration notified are able to identify the student and then during their uh discussion with the

193student are obtaining that that VAP back uh so I do know that you know our administration at the at the high school where they have the detectors they're doing a diligent job you know regarding that and I know they're trying to stay on top of that as much as possible but as we were talking about earlier the administration is also you know inundated not only they have to do their instructional piece of observations and getting in the classrooms taking uh Dr Bry and I around they're also dealing with a lot of the disciplinary other disciplinary things that's taking up a lot of their time uh including threat assessments uh sharing with Dr Bryson I've sat in six threat assessments this week please keep in mind we didn't have school on Tuesday all right and that's

194about an hour to an hour and a half time of the administration so when these opportunities where there's are these detections are coming up our Administration is trying to get there as quick as possible you you know uh to make sure those are being addressed so um I do appreciate you noting that I think what you're saying is there the numers lower not necessarily vaping is gone down potentially are there any other questions regarding the data so in in regards to the significant increase in racial and ethnic intimidation um maybe a look at our policies on that is is a good start but I I would say that those numbers really need um our attention to um to bring that down uh I I I understand that um it's about half of the either harassment

195or intimidation totals um but nevertheless I I think that that is a significant increase that that really needs our attention I think it's important to consider that maybe that number increasing is not necessarily a bad thing because students are recognizing that they can now go and Report inces certainly so maybe it's not that it's happening more frequently maybe it's just that like I said the students just know what they can do now about it certainly right and I I I do want to jump you know tie into that like yes having having this report and knowing that things are being reported makes people who are in bad situations more comfortable to speak up yeah I mean honestly the these numbers could go up and it it could be a good thing because if it if

196if the numbers go up because people are reporting it we do want that then we want those numbers to come down because the actual incidents are decreasing I would say that the 11 and versus the one last year's total was 12 so that one was was low for that particular uh uh semester um compared to the year the general trend is that the numbers for R really intimidation generally uh racial and otherwise are have been climbing since about the 2021 year uh uh through through now uh kind of every year they they've been I mean they don't go they don't exactly go up every year but they've been growing and if they if they go down a little it's only a little bit that the general trend has been increasing for the past three years

197and and now even the first marking period of of this year so um I I I would hope that that's because of increased reporting um and that may still that effect may still happen um and uh I would encourage everyone please please do report incidents um because that's the only way we can know how are we doing is is if they're reported so the these can these numbers can go up um and if it represents increased reporting that's okay and Mr hankle one one thing uh I do want to add going back to Dr Bryson's statement earlier you know we do have some venues you know where students can report you know the safe to say uh Mrs Green and I we do get notifications if there's anything racial or any other concerns uh so

198students can utilize that uh school counselors teachers uh administrators it could be sending an email you know that hey there's a concern going on because as Dr Bryon said if we know about it we can do something about it and um you know my heart goes out to the families that spoke this evening but uh it's not just you know those you know I know that's our concern because that's what's current but there's a lot of other areas of discrimination and harassment that are that are occurring and I think the more our students know they have a voice and to let the administration let people know I know our administrators will do something about it and um and going back to where where Carolyn was speaking earlier I think more students are feeling like their

199voice can be heard and they are doing something about it and and they are uh sharing it so that's why we're seeing more more of these things being addressed um obviously we can't have data to compare to the the data because the data we have is the data we have right so we can't use another data set to know is this an increase in reports or is this an increase in incidents um have you discussed especially for that that period 2020 onward have you discussed with maybe some of the building administrators their perception of whether this represents an increase in the number of of reports and documented incidents or whether it actually increases it represents an increase in the incidents is that a conversation that that has been had or that could be had um

200I would have to go I would have to pull that go ahead Bob I'm jumping in yeah um just because I was in his position at that time till now so there's a historical perspective that I can yeah Jeff when did Title 9 documentation change dramatically into what we're reporting now I think it was right around that time so Ju Just to be clear um hate to be pricity when people say title n because I had this discussion Dr rer people are using it incorrectly Title 9 is a sex discrimination statute so when you're talking about Title 9 properly we're talking about complaints of sexual discrimination and sexual harassment it was under the Trump Administration towards the end of the administration that there was new regulations that came out that required a far more robust

201uh formal complaint procedure uh which required a lot more paperwork and and Reporting and tracking um and a much more formalized process before discipline uh could be opposed against someone who's who's accused so when these folks tonight were talking about Title 9 that's technically not correct it's covered by policy 103 it's actually a title six issue uh but as as an aside the important thing is the parents know that there is a complaint process to report this and then it goes to the appropriate people we have a Title Nine process that's different than that but to Bob's Point yes uh the the law was significantly changed um and as a result of that we had to track things differently and and handle those complaints differently than what we had done in the past so I

202don't I am my intent is not to call out Mrs bore I think we all have the same interest in mind and that is to create a safe environment for every child and it's an incredibly difficult Challenge on any given day that being said some of where this reporting or I didn't get a report well if it was beyond a certain time you would not have gotten uh uh that same what we're referencing as Title 9 but is actually racial ethnic intimidation wouldn't have been available um Beyond a certain time point and that does impact what the numbers look like yeah I as as our teams had to learn what are the new definitions based upon one Administration to the next Administration so what I would say is the 11 is the most accurate number

203you're going to find um and I would say last year should have been fairly close to that pre that we were still training in the area of how to do this new level of Investigation the new level of a Complaint Form what are supportive measures what are our obligations in that area um so so there's a lot to keep in mind with that that number that pops up or there's an increase and and you guys have hit on it even just by looking at it and saying well it could be this it could be that so yes I think we can go back and take a look at a a deeper dive with um our team of Administrators and for the number that we're referencing we can look you know at the exact cases with

204the exact forms and documents um yeah and that actually that makes a certain amount of sense of the numbers for bullying in 17 18 18 19 were 11 and 20 and they've gone down to 1 and two each year and that I was wondering if that was a categorization change rather than an actual like what we were calling bullying now we're calling this form of harassment or that form of harassment maybe definitional but the fact that the har harassment categories existed back then means the categories existed but I guess we're still the definitions are still maybe changing even though this something weal I talk to Dr BR I talked to the Dr refer about like how Pennsylvania defines these categories has changed which means you know at a certain point going backwards through time you

205end up losing the thread because yeah this used to be called this but now it's called these three other things the right and one last Point uh president hankle to bring up uh to my knowledge this is year four um since Title 9 since since we initiated with Title 9 discriminating harassment which is policy 103 um and only reason I know that is I'm in my second year here okay and I was trained in uh two years prior to taking taking this position so for so from a standpoint where Dr Bryson was talking there has been that that time not only the training but as uh Mr Wilson had talked about the understanding of what that language is how it's broken down uh but I also think our administrators have a better understanding as well

206as our um you know our administrators as they're sharing that complaint process with the parents when there are concerns that are related to anything with discrimination harassment T line sexual harassment I have a question actually um as I'm trying to digest and process this data um I understand that like for instance 17 fighting you know there's four instances of that in the first semester um but as we're unraveling and unpacking this as a board member it it would be and I don't want to overburden the administration in um my request for for more data but um is that I mean am I reading it correctly that often times it's reported because it's instances it could be two students fighting and so that's that's one fight but two people together and then a second instance of

207fighting that's another two people fighting so that's two fighting incidents or is that two infractions each do do you understand my question when you're looking at fighting if let's just say Dr Bry said a Dr reper gotten into a physical altercation um it would both be listed in the infraction code fighting and fighting so it could be one incident but you're looking at two yes and then to follow up on that because because that's how we're digesting this information um with public comment specifically one of the the moms was talking about repeat offenders now I don't know it's if it's appropriate for me to ask this and maybe this would be private information that the board could have but it I digest it differently when I see a number but I know that the instances

208are the same kid the same student obviously some of these infractions it's a one-time thing you're out if you do these things but it would help me to understand are our policies working not just from a prohibitive standpoint helping to alert the student population that appropriate behavior is expected of them but also if you see the same student participating in infraction after infraction and and they he or she is the reason that the number total is what it is that's completely different than just having a total number and I I just I don't know if it's you inappropriate for me to ask for that information but is that something that could could be given to the board at the very least I I'll start with the F uh just just to speak to those students

209that might have some recidivism where that the repeat offenses at the building level they know who those students that are having repeat offenses and it may not be specific with any of these but that are the quote unquote frequent flyers and those situations there's a lot that's put into place you know for those students whether it is um you know supportive measures whether we're looking at specific consequences it could be you know taking a look at okay do we need to look at a counseling uh Student Assistance referral or is it a student special ed or Not Special Ed and are demonstrating certain behaviors uh does the team need to get together to determine whether or not an evaluation is necessary uh to better support because they're acting out as a result of May maybe

210an undiagnosed disability um so that's a way like at the building level they're able to determine those students that have those multi multiple offenses um now as for the board are you requesting individual students not I'm I don't need to know names for my purposes um and I'm I'm glad that the buildings know I mean it's I I I take comfort in that but it it is different to me to see you know 22 threatening School official or students 17 instances is that 17 instances with 17 different children or is it 14 instances with one child don't need to know the name and then three others that that is different rates would be a useful yeah so what I would say on these particular categories very few of these are repeats because the categories are

211such that if you're getting to the point of repeating you're getting to the point thats you're probably looking at placement um and that it that's why we're looking at the big the big Behavior items are there acceptions to that uh threatening a student or or an official potentially you may have one that's in there more than or in there twice because an example may be I have a student that has special needs and this is the behavior that you see now and then we still do a threat assessment but in that we're also doing Special Ed assessing and it's coming back this is his this is his typical Behavior we're getting better we're seeing less but we're not there yet um so that that individual might categorize in that area but you know the the

212point it's your second fight we're going to have a really really long discussion about is this working out are there exceptions yes um but not very many same thing I mean the drug and alcohol that's years back as Jeff shared we've moved to um we'll do counseling we'll do multiple week suspension uh but like second offense at that point we've got we've got a bigger bigger issue or not I I guess one thing that could happen you're saying a lot of these are are they're approaching having a placement so there's probably not going to be a lot of additional OPP opportunities for recidivism I suppose we could extend it down in the student code of conduct violations where you know it turns out that the one who okay they keep they maybe they they're maybe

213they're escalating and they they they did this and then they got detention and that wasn't detention wasn't severe enough to to deter them from T taking it to the next level the ne you know with the next thing they did [Applause] all right um let's see oh back to you yeah uh move to 123 any other items of business any could I think we had an I don't know how it happened but I think we had an issue with board docs somehow um the pccd Grant applications flew down into Athletics and extracurricular out of Transportation Heth Wonder wasn't like that last Friday um so if you could also handle that one which should be under transportation health and safety please or throw up my Liz you want to take this no all U motion to

214approve authorizing the administration to file the following 2023 202 2 4 pccd Grant applications all of these are 24mth grants uh School District motorious Grant at 40,000 School mental health Grant at 1, 13692 to and competitive school safety Grant select projects um second you say do you have a second thank you uh any uh discussion any conversation no good all right any Nays or abstentions motion passes and I think now we're concluding trans Transportation health and safety now Liz um item number 132 the athletic report um The Warriors continue to have another strong winter season all the teams are finishing up the regular season and some are preparing for postseason here are some of the current highlights girls basketball congratulations to the warrior girls basketball team for qualifying for the P District 3 championships to

215begin on 220 times and locations have not been determined at this point and as Caroline had said earlier the warrior girls basketball team was selected as recipients of the Gretchen wolf Schwartz sportsmanship award this award is selected by the Y aoua basketball officials and presented to one one boys and one girls team each year throughout the ya a IA in May the members of the Gretchen wolf Schwartz Scholarship Foundation will recognize senior members from the team and will award scholarships last year the scholarships awarded between the boys and girls totaled over $100,000 we could not be more proud of the players and coaches for earning this tremendous Honor on to wrestling Warrior wrestling finished third in the yaaa division 2 The Warriors will wrestle next in the PIAA District 3 section 4 Tournament on February

21617th at um Southwestern High School and swimming congratulations to the warrior boys and girls swim team on another strong season the boys team finished ya AI daa division 2 runner up while the girls finished third on February 9th and 10th the Warriors competed at the Y AI daa swimming championships at Central York High School below are the medal winners from each event for the boys team the 200 medal relay they got fourth place that was um Tyler Burgess Tyler Wright Jack Hammond and Jackson Hollinger the 200 medal relay um the other one um got eighth place that was Tommy manasse Caleb Keener Isaiah Voss and Owen chilcoat Goble um the 200 freestyle relay they placed seventh that was Isaiah Voss Ben Hollow um Tommy M manasse and Jackson Elliot the 400 freestyle relay got six

217placees um Tyler Burgess Ben H uh Jackson Hollinger and Tyler Wright Jackson Hollinger also placed fifth in the 200 freestyle and sixth place in the 500 freestyle Tyler Burgess placed seventh place in the 200 freestyle and Seventh Place in the 500 freestyle Tyler Wright placed second place in the the 100 butterfly and third place in the 100 brushstroke and Jack cammon placed fifth in the hund brushstroke all right on to the girls team the 200 medley relay plays seventh um with Kate and Lauren cal cal I knew I would mess it up um calam andov calovic I've been saying it the whole meeting um Sarah weisdorfer and Caitlyn kman the 400 free style relay they got second place was Caitlyn Kerman Sarah weisdorfer and Lauren and Kate um the 400 freestyle relay got eighth place

218that was haly W Wilmer Audrey Umstead meline zahor and Gracie Burton um Caitlyn kman placed fifth place in the 50 freestyle Kate placed um she got the championship um in the 100 butterfly so she placed first place and fifth place in the 500 freestyle Lauren played sixth place in the 100 backstroke the Warriors will swim next at the PIAA District 3 championships at Cumberland Valley High School on March 1st and second and I have no new business so that concludes my report this is wonderful a lot of success there absolutely great job thank you Mr also won York Daily records after of the week nice thank you sounds like you've got some inside information and you said her last name so [Laughter] nicely uh item 14 other items of business um I don't have any

219does anyone else have other items of business all right moving on to legislative Council this H all right so a lot of my fund was stolen tonight from Dr reer thank you and our student rep Caroline Dum but I'm just going to go ahead and repeat it and put another plug in so got a couple of things uh and Mrs Green outlining so well for us last week's announcement from Governor Shapiro delivering his uh address for the budget uh so I will start with that and so I don't know if a lot of you have listened to it but Governor Shapiro did give his address yesterday for the or last week for the state budget and just to outline a few things um that he's going to be investing or asking to invest 1.8 billion

220in public education so the budget also includes 50 million increases for special education and 300 million in sustainable funding for environmental repair projects in school buildings which is nice for us if we can qualify for some of that Additionally the proposal would establish a Statewide cyber tuition rate of 8,000 per student per year to better align with the actual cost of providing online education um Mrs Green touched on that earlier today as well uh this alone will save Pennsylvania public schools an estimated 262 million annually as that's a lot of our budget going to cyber school reimbursement also the budget provides three billion to cover the state's share of school employment retirement pension costs and this budget seems to cover all the bases in relation to revamping basic education fund fing special education costs cyber

221Education costs and much needed building repairs but there's more to come as the Appropriations Committee of the Senate and the House Representatives conduct conduct separate hearings to discuss the proposal so the Senate will hold their hearing on with the Pennsylvania Department of Education on February 28th I'm sure it's going to be televised if anybody wants to watch and the house on March 5th so there's a lot to chew on yet not sure what's going to get through what's not going to get through but that concludes my part of the report Mrs hle do you have anything to add I do so House Bill 1507 passed the House and Senate and was signed into law by Governor Shapiro on December 14th of last year the prior law dictated schools provide 180 days of instruction per school

222year however a school board was permitted to request a school week be comprised of 27.5 hours as the equivalent for five school days additionally the Secretary of Education could always upon request um have have the 990 secondary or 900 Elementary hours of instruction as the equivalent of 180 school days House Bill 157 removed the approval process and automatically set the standard at 180 days you've got the hours the bill sponsor of Republican representative Jesse topper said the following though it may seem like a minor adjustment in accounting for instructional time this change will give teachers and administrators the opportunity to better meet the needs of the students he went on to say as I have told Bo school districts across the Commonwealth I've heard the request for increased individualized education student support and more focused

223Workforce Development this bill now signed into law will help in all of those areas and that completes my report all right moving on to uh York School of Technology uh Miss Doberman um I only have one short thing to update and it's exciting um one of our students was selected as student of the month senior Audrey AR arter arter um she is going there for dental assisting but it's very exciting that one of our students was student of the month that's all I got that's great all right um uh there are some reports uh related to liu2 uh attached for your information uh were there any comments or discussion on that all right moving on uh York Adams tax Bureau uh Miss green do you have any no report no no report all right Southern

224York County School District Foundation m home all right certainly so I'm going to have to put another plugin for Battle of buildings so I hope before we get started with that that all of the seniors have put in their applications for Dollars for Scholars that closed uh not too long ago so I hope that I hear almost everyone's name when we're out there in May um watching the scholarship happen it's going to be great when they're awarded anyway uh moving through Foundation news uh we haven't had our updated meeting yet that happens next month and we'll have more but in the meantime the 2024 Battle of the buildings fundraiser is just two short weeks away as Dr rer and our student council Miss Dum said as well on Wednesday February 28th is when it will

225be in the susco hanak high school gym tickets will be available for $5 at the door and new this year doors will open at 5:30 30 and fun basketball games will be offered for a dollar tickets for pregame basketball activities also will be sold at the door Warrior Council as Caroline also said uh will be offering their basket raffle fundraiser which it sounds like there's going to be a whole lot of good stuff up for raffle uh those are for the codes of friendship and they're certainly accepting winter outerwear donations as she indicated uh so don't forget to bring your uh gently used coats gloves and hats to donate go for a good cause that's for sure um and if you're a student that is a senior at the event I will certainly be there

226so come find me and say show me the money and I'll have a little something extra for you while supplies last and uh the southern York County School District foundation and the sanak Alumni Association appreciate the support of the community to help raise money for the student scholarships and alumni programs a tremendous thank you for all who plan to attend and that concludes my report thank you uh other items of business hearing none uh on to the secretary's report uh Student Activities report for January 2024 is attached for your information does anyone have any comments on those um resignations and retirements uh we only have four that's than I've seen sometimes uh so that's probably a good thing um although you know retirement can be nice for people but uh uh only got one of

227those three resignations that's I believe those have been tapering off somewhat um attached for your information other items of business anyone uh 1701 for your information there's the uh home education outside cyber cyber Charter and Sou York Digital Academy education report uh and then on to announcements by the board president and superintendent um an education committee meeting immediately followed by a finance and budget committee meeting will be held on Tuesday March 19th 2024 in the Southern Middle School cafeteria beginning at 6:30 p.m. and the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Education will be held on Thursday March 21st 2024 in the Southern Middle School cafeteria beginning at 7:00 p.m. uh Dr Bryson thank you Mr President uh I'm going to go a different style here tonight only because my my friends Caroline and

228Dr rer and Mrs D all gave a ton of recognition throughout so I try to stick I think to staff kudos to Middle School teacher Trisha hum for being selected as Browns Browns Orchard and farm markets teacher of the month for January to make this even more special Mrs huum received the ultimate recognition in being nominated by two of her students uh from her classroom so they came in and honored her with a basket of apples and and got some photo ops with the class so awesome uh to capitalize on the talents and interests of our staff members and to enhance a pool of teacher applicants the district is partnering with the Li U and various colleges and universities to explore creative methods establishing Pathways towards pursuing additional educational opportunities for our par professionals to

229earn a teaching certificate so general gist of it is um if you're a par professional and you work with us there's a good chance we can get you connected with the university to take College CR credits uh do a cohort and eventually get your teaching certificate CU as we all all know there's an extreme shortage just to give you a quick example of that uh we are participating uh multiple administrators are participating in Shippensburg virtual uh mock interviews so all their teaching candidates at Shippensburg will'll do mock interviews with administrators from around the state to give them uh some experience great experience it's also a way for us to recruit um for many universities that we can do that we also do it with York College anyway general gist of it um total Math certified

230candidates coming from Shippensburg in the spring one total chemistry one total Biology one I'm telling you this is extremely scary for the future uh of this profession and for the benefit of our kids that are with us um that number is unbelievable total number of candidates I believe was between five and eight total candidates for grades 4 through 8 certification one District could fill those MH and there are 500 districts across the state so uh I implore everyone we we we need to make this a great profession again if you will um it always was a great profession but we've got to dust off and and shine it again because we are not getting our people leaving our high schools and going in education to be teachers so um I thought I would highlight that

231as I think it's something unique we are trying to do to promote the profession and get people their certification and last but not least mentioned so many times tonight Battle of buildings thank you to all the staff teachers principals uh folks around this table that help out with battle the buildings otherwise it would never happen I am going to miss making fun of and harassing um the officials but now it sounds like I'm going to be striped up myself and it's payback absolutely fair enough still chance to form a team Dr Bryson before I can turn I just have to ask you if you if you perform a mock interview but secretly you're actually interviewing the uh is that a mock mock interview I think so you just can't say that out loud the mock

232interview all right um actually before I ad also any new business all right uh moving on to adjournment I will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved do I have a second second uh any n or exensions this meeting is adjourned