001Good evening. Welcome to the Springford Area School District board meeting. Today is Monday, August 18th. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge alce 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. The Springford Board of School Directors believes the community has the right to bring before the board issues and concerns they may have about items on the agenda or about items in general which affect the district or their children. Because of this belief and philosophy, the board will schedule a time at the beginning and conclusion of every meeting to have an opportunity for community members to share their concerns with the board. At the start of
002the meeting, members from the public may comment on agenda items only. The school board will move through the meeting agenda. Then at the end, when prompted, there will be a time for public comment. This meeting is being filmed to be broadcast on community cable channels and online. Individuals intending to make public comments should be aware that they are being filmed. Speakers will be asked to state their name in the area in which you reside before your comment. >> Good evening, everyone. Welcome back to the 2526 school year. Miss Schmidt, can we have a roll call? Tonight in attendance we have Mrs. Goldsmith, Dr. Chararma, Mrs. Deerdorf, Mrs. Herman's, Mr. Lackey, Dr. Wright, Mrs. Weine Garden, Mr. Jackson, and Mrs. Westwood. >> Thank you. All board members are in attendance. So, as far as announcements go,
003let me first uh point out the obvious, which is welcome Dr. Scanland to your first board meeting. Uh second announcement is that the board did meet in executive session prior to the start of today's meeting. I do want to make a quick correction. I believe on the agenda it says for a personnel matter. It actually was for a legal matter. So Dr. Scanland, anything you would like to say? >> Uh yeah, just uh thank you. Got a one full week under my belt and uh it has been a whirlwind of uh getting to know people and um everybody's been very welcoming here in Springport. So, I appreciate uh the opportunity and I look forward to working with the school board as we we tackle some uh some some very challenging issues, but we also tackle
004some great things for students in the district. So, thank you. >> Okay, thank you very much. So, with that said, we're going to move on to public to be heard. This is on agenda items only. If anyone wishes to speak, please approach a podium with your name, township, or residence in the agenda item for which you're referencing. Seeing as though no one is approaching the podium, we will move on to an action item. And this is for the approval of resolution 20 2025-07 e signature for Dr. James Scandan. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any questions or discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 81. We are starting the school year off great. Alrighty, so let's move on.
005Motion carries 81. We're gonna go on to board and committee reports and we will start with our student reps. So again, welcome back Miss Gupta, Mr. Drover. Welcome to your official, although you did have one in in earlier in the summer. This is your official start of the school year board meeting. Welcome. Who's going to kick us off? >> Yeah, thank you so much, Miss Hermans. Good evening, everyone. We're so excited to start off the school year. um bright and early August 18th at 7 p.m. Um but here's our August rep report. So starting off with our past events, um the district the district was closed on two different days for two different holidays. So we were closed on June 19th in honor of Junth and then the district was also closed on July 4th
006um for Independence Day. And then first day verification was opened on August 1st for parents to fill out through Skyward. And in order to for students to view their schedules, this had to be completed prior to um the schedule release. And then additionally, the spring forward had their educational foundation scholarship golf outing on August 4th to raise money for student scholarships at spring forward. And then we had schedules released from August 12th to August 14th. August 12th, I believe, was um K to 4th grade. And then um the 13th was for fifth to 8th grade. And then the 14th was for all high school students. And then we had self-guided tours for 7th through 12th grade on August 14th and August 15th. And then we had a kindergarten meet and greet yesterday on August 17th.
007And now I'm going to pass it over to Jason for our future events. >> Hello everybody. Um for our future events, we have at every school the BTS night. Um you can check spring forward area school district calendar for the dates. Uh there's a special board meeting on 8:20 which is Wednesday. Um building walkthroughs for four first through fourth grade on 8:21. Uh the first day of school is 8:25. Um class of 2026 parent FPC presentation is on 9-3. Uh picture day for grades 9 through 12 is on 9-5 which is also uh 12th grade ID day. and ACT testing is on 96 and SAT testing on 9:13. >> Yeah. And then going into our reminders, please continue to read the weekly update for district-wise wide news. And then for all students, please keep up
008with and finish all your summer assignments. Do not procrastinate. And we're so excited to see all students back in school on August 25th for the first day. >> Yes. Thank you. Very excited. So, you have your schedules now, right? You might have I don't know for Miss Scope or Mr. Dro, but have you done your building walkthroughs since you're already familiar with the buildings, but what has you excited for the start of the school year? >> I mean, I'm just I'm really excited. It's going to be a really bittersweet school year. Um, I'm excited to wrap things up, experience my senior year activities and everything, but I'm also really sad to see this district go. I've been here since kindergarten, so it's definitely a sad sad time, but I'm also really excited for what the
009future holds. >> Um, I just did my walkthrough this morning, actually. Um the this next school year is definitely going to be difficult, but I'm looking forward to it. >> Good. Always up for a challenge. Nice. Thank you. All right, moving on. Uh as the community may or may not know, we do not hold committee meetings in the month of August. So they are on the agenda. Uh our next community relations meeting will be on I'm sorry on extracurricular meeting will be on Tuesday, September 2nd. Community relations because they swap uh every other month will be on October 7th, Tuesday, October 7th, and those start at 6 PM in the district office. Policy is on the docket for Monday, September 8th at 6 p.m. in the district office. Curriculum and technology will follow that on
010September 8th at 7 p.m. We do have a change. This is not typical, but finance and property, which typically are held on Tuesdays, will be moved and advertised for the uh Wednesday. So, it will actually be held on Wednesday, September 10th for only the month of September um at 6:00 and 7 p.m. Okay. And that takes us to the MCIU. Dr. Wright, is there an update for this month? >> Hi, thank you. Um actually, our first meeting will be um Wednesday the 27th for the the year. I did um get the privilege today to attend the convocation for their um all of the staff for the IU. Um it was held at Solderton High School. So it was a real privilege to be there and I was there in the role as their newly appointed
011president for their executive board. So I was really privileged for that honor. So thank you. >> Yes. Congratulations. I know how passionate you are about the MCIU. I feel like this I can't even remember the last person that was in this position. It was quite a while ago. I feel like when I think about the MCIU, you are who comes to mind. So, >> I took over for Mr. Dello. >> Oh, there you go. There you go. >> Okay. Well, let's move on then. Uh, we have our assistant superintendent report, Dr. G and Dr. Murray. >> Good evening. This evening, Dr. Jatista and I are doing a combined report. As the summer break comes to a close, we're energized and prepared to welcome all staff back into our buildings tomorrow. The past few months have
012been productive, filled with essential training, preparation, and onboarding to ensure a successful start to the new academic year. Last year, last week rather, we successfully held a 3day comprehensive orientation for our new staff members. This event was a great opportunity to welcome our newest educators and professional staff to the district, immersing them in our district protocols, curriculum, and strategic goals. I'd like to extend my appreciation to Katie Gardy and the entire curriculum department for their exceptional leadership and dedication in planning and executing a supportive and informative informative program for our newest team members. Additionally, in preparation for the new school year, laptop distribution re recently occurred. This initiative ensures that our students have all of the necessary tools for learning the day on day one. This process was smooth and efficient thanks to the planning
013of Jason Hilt, our director of technology, and the entire technology staff. This summer, we've placed a strong emphasis on professional growth and data informed instruction for both administrators and teachers. Our administrative team has been engaged in a robust data series training. We want to express our sincere gratitude to our district data team for their meticulous planning, organization, and reflection in developing this schedule. Many of the team members also led sessions sharing their expertise with their colleagues. And finally, I'd like to also thank our HR department for their tireless work over the summer with the hiring practices and to our facilities department for their hard work making our buildings look immaculate. And we are certainly counting down the hours until Spring City is reopened for our students. There there have been several other teams that have
014been working hard over the summer to ensure that we are ready to welcome back students. And thank you to all of our 12 month staff for all of their efforts over the past few months. We are confident that these preparations have set the stage for a successful and impactful school year. We're looking forward to seeing our buildings full of staff tomorrow and soon after our students. And that's my report. >> Thank you. And yes, so we have a, as you can tell, a very concise committee uh reports this this month, but I I will just echo what you said, which is, you know, I think sometimes there's the perception that the summer months are the slow months, but it is it is absolutely not the case. And so again, kudos and and thank you to
015all of our technology, our facilities, our data teams, our teachers going through professional development, our administrators who are delivering that. I mean, it's it is fast and furious and it makes the summer go by a lot very fast. So, thank you for all the efforts. All right, any questions or comments? I >> I actually did have a quick question. Um, could you please update with the Spring City? Did we get our occupancy permit? Our staff started to move in. >> I know our staff has been moving in. Um, I did get a chance to walk through there this morning. It looks beautiful. I've gotten the chance to talk to several staff members as they were moving boxes in and um nothing but excitement and there's definitely an energy to it. So, it looks beautiful. There's
016still some some last minute pieces that they're working on. Dan, do you want to speak to any of the specifics? >> Yes. So, this morning I did go over to the township building. We will have a temporary certificate of occupancy either tomorrow morning or late afternoon. She was working on it all day today. So, they promised us we would have it. There's no issues. As uh Dr. Murray stated, the school looks great. You know, there's few few items, you know, small items that we need to get ready uh last minute things, but all in all, the school looks great and we will be starting our day. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Peligrin. Any other questions or comments? >> Oh, Dr. G, go ahead. >> Good evening. Just an add-on. I did want
017to uh recognize our own Anukica here at the table. In early June, she got to travel to Georgia to participate in the In Novaquest at the National Future Board Summit. She's happy to she was happy to inform us that her she and her classmates received the award for company of the year and placed first out of all the companies in the nation. She and her colleagues will be advancing to compete at the global level representing all of JA USA. So, congratulations, Anukica. >> Thank you so much. We honestly could not have done it without the support of this district and all the administrators here. So, um I just want to extend a grateful thank you and we're really excited to complete compete at Globals with the support of the spring for community. So, thank you
018so much. >> Amazing. Thank you, Miss and thank you for bringing that up, Dr. G. Appreciate it because I know that you would be humble and you would not bring that up in your own student rep report. So, let's make sure that we recognize and celebrate you. Great job, Anukica. All right. Uh, let's see. So, we have one more report. I'm already getting ahead of myself, which is our solicitor's report. >> Hello, everybody. Hope everybody had a a wonderful summer. Um, just a quick update on my end. Uh, couple things. a our our office has been con continuing to to monitor a couple of things. Both guidance from from the federal government on on directions that they may be going with regard to various policy and executive order issues. I I generally like to say
019we're generally in the same place we were in June. We see sometimes some direction, but nothing that really carries with it any significant immediate changes to to what we're doing in spring for. Um, we're also monitoring uh the lack of of a budget, thus a lack of a of of a a school code bill. Uh, we continue to see that there are potential changes coming, especially in the area of of of of cyber charters and the and the charter school law. Uh, believe it when I see it, but we're without it. And then it will hit at some point very quickly. And then we'll have new law new law to uh to consider. Um two two or three weeks ago, myself and and Shannon Pierce, who many of you know, um met with um the
020entirety of the administration to discuss a couple of things. We we spent a good amount of time first on a lot of the uh factual falling out of what occurred in Central Bucks um and what we could learn from that in terms of best practices in Springford. And in particular, we we identified the child this the child protective services law, how and what the obligations are for anybody who may be a paraprofessional all the way up to central office as it relates to to reporting concerns that may be occurring in a classroom. looking at what our best practices for how buildings are to share information or concerns that may be be may be coming forward and really just having a general discussion about about how to ensure that things that that may have occurred there
021don't ever occur in our classroom. So that that was a very uh very productive discussion. And then we also had uh the second half of our of our presentation on special education law updates. There have been a number of cases that while it's it's it's very much in the weeds and something that Heidi probably knows very well, um these are cases that do impact how we develop IEPs and and and implement services on a on a year-to-year basis. So, that was again a good discussion for the special ed supervisors with the group. So, a productive session we had. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald. Any questions or comments? Thank you. And I apologize for the incessant coughing. I I I promise I will kick this at some point uh but not in this meeting. So
022we'll continue on and uh bear with me. So we are going to go through questions and uh any questions or comments for our voting portion of the meeting that will occur next Monday. So we'll start with section five minutes A through C. Any questions? Section six, personnel, letters A through K. And uh there are quite a few sub bullets under those. As the community may know, the board gives authority to the administration to hire during the summer months uh given that we do not have a formal voting meeting in July. So what you're seeing here are a lot of those retroactive uh hiring action items. Okay, if there's no questions with personnel, I will move on to finance letters A through V. [Music] We're going to take one pause for a little tech break here.
023>> Test. Test. One, two. Okay, I don't hear the buzzing, so hopefully we're good. >> All right. Okay. So, are there any questions >> or discussion with finance? Miss Goldmith, >> I had one on V, the Friendship Ambulance. Um, last year there was some discussion about the a an ambulance being present at every football game. Does this contract provide for an ambulance to be present at the football game in its entirety or is it the same contract as it was last year? >> I believe that, this is Jim, I believe that it's uh for all games. Uh, but we will certainly consult with Mr. Mscavage to make sure. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Goldsmith. Any other questions? >> Move moving on to section 8 programming and curriculum letters A through C. I
024did just want to note on that on B that that is the acceptance of the title funds and um we didn't speak specifically to that but that was um the release of the funds from the federal government that we need to provide many of our services to students and so it's a great relief that we are that money is coming through. So, >> y thank you. >> Okay, if there are no other questions with programming curriculum, we'll move on to other business policies. We have some that are up for first read and then um approval. Nope, there's nothing for approval this month. So probably don't know that we'll need to have that on the voting meeting next week. Um so looks like we'll just have first read unless something changes. And so we'll move on
025toformational items. The community will see that there is uh a list of individuals with regards to tenure. And that takes us to board comment. So I'll defer to the table. >> I have a comment so mine's quick. I just wanted to kind of reiterate um what was mentioned about the Springboard Education Foundation's golf outing. I did did golf. I represented the board. Next year, I'm going to drag a few more people to see if they will come. We did have other board members that attended last year, but it was the first time that I have actually golfed on a course, gotten off of the driving range, and I had a wonderful time. And we will have a report. I think we're going to continue to give you more information about that, about the Spring Forward
026Education Foundation. And I think it's important that we talk about it at this table, especially the use of EITC money coming in for our district, but that um the funds for the golfing, though there were people at this table who golfed there that might did much better than I did. Yes, Dr. Mary. >> You didn't even want to turn on your mic to say that. That's okay. Okay. So, she she's being humble with her golfing skills. >> Yeah. Uh but it was a wonderful event at the Bellwood Golf Course and um the money all goes towards our student scholarships specifically for that. So thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. Any other comments? >> Two. As I always say at every start of the year, there will be parents who have comments about the transportation system
027and the timeliness of the transportation that the district provides. I will continue to encourage you to go to Upper Province Township Planning Commission meetings and talk about traffic because by the time it gets to the school board, as I always say, you're out of gas. this this township and I'm in the building industry so I support it. Um there is an alarming amount of development that's going on which is great. However, the infrastructure is not being attacked. So we are increasing um developments throughout the the district but the roads are not getting any wider there. There is no infrastructure changes throughout this district. So, we're simply putting more cars, more people on the same roads that we are trying to get a tight time frame on our bus travels. So, please go to the township
028planning commission meetings and voice your concern before the developments are signed off. Thank you. >> Spoken like a true engineer and a former zoning planning member. So, all right. Thank you. Uh any comments from you, Dr. Scandan? >> Sure. I I'll mention I know Wednesday's meeting uh is about capital planning and the board has had some discussion about um things like full day kindergarten, reducing transitions, uh just preventative maintenance that that needs to take place in the schools. Um had a chance to to review that that presentation today. We'll get we'll get copies of that to the board before the meeting. Uh that will be presented uh publicly uh this this Wednesday at 7 o'clock. I unfortunately have a longtime scheduled family commitment that evening and won't won't be there. Um but I would say
029that um we will we will bring a timeline back to the board at the property and finance committee. Uh the purpose of Wednesday's meeting is really to provide the information several different areas that that meets what some of the asks have been uh with our architect. There are also uh and including full day that going to cost actual construction piece doesn't include the cost of full day kindergarten. So that'll be a piece to work at internally as well and uh cost if you do nothing just for preventive maintenance. So there is a cost if if board does nothing to maintain the buildings particularly that eighth grade center which uh which is the oldest building that that going to need some uh some significant improvements over the next four or five years. And also there will
030be some scenarios, whatifs, because someone's ultimately going to ask, "Did you consider? Did you consider?" And there are some ideas in there that were considered that are not feasible because they're either cost prohibitive or they're just not going to work with transportation or whatever. So, you're going to hear lots of different scenarios, but our it all in. It's going to be a lot to absorb, but it it begins to put a a blueprint and a footprint uh out in front of the school board and the community. and we'll work on a timeline to tease that out. Uh and ultimately see if we can we can zone in on a decision for a for a capital plan for the next uh >> great and thank you. Uh and I know that uh some board directors have
031asked me if we'll be getting the presentation ahead of time and so I understand that by tomorrow morning they'll make some tweaks to it and you should see it before the uh Wednesday meeting. Okay. >> I have one other quick thing. It's just um to piggyback on Mr. Jackson's um comment. I brought this up a little while ago and I don't know where we stand, but we haven't had a a burrow board township meeting in a while. And I think like some of the things that you're talking about, Mr. Jackson, would be helpful. I know some of the meetings, depending on the township that you happen to live in, are the same date and time as our board meeting, so it can be tough to attend, but I went to the Upper Providence meeting earlier
032this month, and they were talking about open space. There's also they're going to be talking about budget. So, there's a lot of interesting things coming up. So certainly attend if you can, but that meeting I know I found very helpful when we had it in I guess it was 23 or 24. >> We just didn't do it this year. Yes. So >> 24 we did it in 24. Yes, correct. And typically we do that meeting in March. So um as I not sure if it was in a committee meeting or if it was at a board meeting, uh we had a transition of our board secretary and there were a lot of things on her plate and so that did fall by the wayside. But if it is the will of this board to push
033that up, if you don't want to wait until February, and we want to try to get to together with the uh burrows and the municipalities sooner than that, maybe in the fall, I'm happy to work with Mrs. Schmidt on that. So, if that is of interest, I see some head shaking. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Well, Dr. >> Nothing prevents board members from speaking now. >> Oh, correct. We're talking about the meeting that we generally have annually with the boro. Yes. But you know the same things you we will probably want to talk about at that meeting. I strongly encourage me and Madame President have gone a couple of times. You're a resident of the community. So you you're there to speak as a taxpayering individual and also a representative of the board to voice
034your concerns as an as an individual board member. >> So a supplemental to that we can uh Miss Schmidt we can talk about identifying a date in the fall. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other board comment? Okay. So then we'll move on to public public to be heard. This can be on any topic not related to the agenda. Anyone wishes to speak, please approach the podium their name and township of residence. Seeing as there no one is approaching the podium to make a comment. Motion to adjurnn.