001Good evening. Welcome to the Springford Area School District. Today is Monday, June 16th. 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 the meeting, members
002from 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. Thank you for attending. Miss Schmidt, could we do a roll call? Tonight in person we have Mrs. Weine Garden, Dr. Chararma, Mrs. Westwood, Mrs. Deerdorf, Mrs. Herman's, Mr. Lackey, Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Goldsmith and sorry, Dr. Wright are not in PR, not here and if for whatever reason they are not on Zoom, but we'll just keep an
003eye out for that. Okay, thank you very much. As far as announcements go, the board did meet in executive session twice. Uh once on June 10th to discuss personnel and once prior to this meeting to discuss personnel. Mr. Roso, do you have anything? Nothing at this time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Then we'll be moving on to public to be heard on agenda items only. If there's anyone that wishes to speak, please approach the podium with their name, township of residence, as well as the agenda item for which you are referencing. There we go. Good evening, members of the board and staff. Uh, my name is Mike Hayes. I'm from the Pottstown area. I'm here tonight on behalf of State Representative Joe Sesi. I'm here I'm sorry. I I apologize. Can we pause the clock?
004I I couldn't catch what area you from. Oh, so I live in the Pottstown area, but I'm here tonight for agenda item number 12. Um, on on behalf of State Representative Joe Saresi. He works. Okay. You work for Joe Sharesi. Okay. Yes, indeed. Mr. Fitzgerald, I'm going to look at you. I believe we have an exception for communitybased organizations that So, we'll let you continue. We can start the clock. My Thank you. I'll be brief. Just wanted to thank you uh for for your consideration of the renaming of the ninth grade center um arboritum in in honor of Gail Wellington. Uh, I did get to know Gail over the course of many years and unfortunately um, like for a lot of people in life, you don't really learn the best parts about them until after
005they pass away. And that was one of the things that I noted about Gail um, as I read the obituary. You know, just an incredible life of service. She was a um, she acted as a volunteer project coordinator um, at the Springford 9th grade center as they were building the arboritum. previously served on the board of directors for the Gallery School and also served on the boards of the Springford Chamber of Commerce and the Western Montgomery United Way as well as the Occupational Advisory Council for the Western Center. Um she was involved with the arts goes to school program and I think it would be a great uh just a great act in her honor to rename the arburetum and just wanted to thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much. Is there anyone
006else that wishes to speak? Okay. All right. With that said, we'll move on to our first presentation of the night and uh Mr. Rizzo will be taking the podium to uh discuss the overall budget process and analysis for uh well, I guess at this point the 26 27 school year. Well, good evening. Uh thank you for the opportunity to talk a little bit about the 2026 20227 budget prep season. Uh and just by way of reminder um we are talking about the 2627 season, not the 2526 school year that's coming up. Uh before we get into that though, I do want to do just a very basic uh recap on where we were. As the board knows, last month you did approve uh the 2526 budget with a 5.14% increase. And uh just to remind
007the board and the community that's listening tonight, the two primary contributors to needing to address that gap was uh first the health care benefits increasing um the costs increasing and then decreasing tax revenues from commercial assessments. Those two things really helped drive uh drive up our our costs. Um the solution that the board um approved last month was using the available referendum exceptions of $1.6 million use using about $300,000 from our debt service cliff. Uh which does as Mr. Frink presented last month leave us $5.2 million of left available of the debt service cash remaining. And again for the for the board and for the community just a reminder you can go back and watch that May budget presentation for more information on those three scenarios that Mr. Frink presented. So moving on, uh just
008again for the benefit of the community, we are required as a school district to follow a very strict process of budget approval called the act one of 2006 budget process. So the timeline is up there, but just to talk very briefly through it. In September, PTE releases the act one index for the upcoming fiscal year. October and November, our team does begin developing the preliminary budget for the next fiscal year. A proposed preliminary budget presentation is required by law and that normally happens around November. In January, the board approves uh the approves the uh proposed preliminary budget uh and to keep our options open any qualifying exceptions. And spring forward generally, even though there are four options, spring for generally only qualifies for uh special education as one of the exceptions. And I'll cover those
009a little bit later. In April, our goal is to have a proposed final budget presentation and for the present or for the budget to be posted on our website for public for public review. And then we target May as our final budget approval so the business office can start doing what they do prior to July 1. I do want to make sure that the board is aware of course and the community is aware that we have until June 30th to have it approved but May is usually our goal. So that's the process for the business office for the school board. Yours is a little bit different. Uh in November we do a presentation where we have seen in this past year we've seen an astronomical gap and the question is why does that gap exist?
010first because we've not collected enough data from the current fiscal year to accurately project the next school year, the 2627 school year. And Mr. Frink has a tendency to budget conservatively. He'd rather start um very conservatively with the numbers and then pull back rather than us be surprised later on in the budgetary process. We then spend the next several months from December through April shaving down that budget. We collect more trend data. We collect more information. we see how the numbers are coming in and that allows us to be a little bit more accurate with our uh with our with our budget projections and again go our goal is in May to do a final uh presentation and approval and then regular updates are of course provided at the finance committee meetings throughout the entire
011budget planning process. So let's talk a little bit about as we prepare for the 2627 school year what some of those uh future budget concerns are. First, it has been mentioned before that there are items that are within our control and then there are items that are not within our control. Within our control are options for increasing revenue and options for reducing expenses. What is not within our control is what I had already mentioned earlier, significant commercial tax assessment appeals as well as significant health care cost increases. We have no control, but we do have to plan for those. Excuse me. So when we find ourselves in a situation when the um when the budget increases or exceeds the act one index, we have to do some planning, we have to have some conversations. Historically,
012uh the proposed final budget is not balanced in March and April whenever we go before the board for that presentation and for public display. When this is the case, the districts have several options to increase revenues. There are obviously pros and cons to each option. The first option is to increase taxes to the identified index. For this upcoming budget, the 2526, our index was 4%. That of course requires board approval. The second option is to take advantage of the approved referendum exceptions and again for the 2526 budget season that was 1.14%. We can raise taxes beyond the index without a referendum vote because of special education costs. As I mentioned there are four uh debt obligation is one of them. Retirement contributions is one. Other financial emergencies would be a third. But the fourth is
013what we qualify for which is special education costs. The next option is to draw funds from the unassigned fund balance. And to kind of simplify this a little bit, that's our savings account more or less. Um and the problem with using the unassigned fund balance is those are one-time funds, one-time contribution. And that does not mitigate ongoing expenses. It it if it does anything uh it kicks the proverbial can down the road or creates a compounding problem in the next school year without some other interventions. And then the last option um is use the upcoming debt service drop off to cover the gap. Um the debt service by way of reminder is the annual amount paid towards existing debt existing debt. So when the annual debt payment gets lower, recurring funds then become available. Spending
014this drop off on regular operating expenses. However, I should caution the board does limit the ability to borrow for future projects for facilities, upgrades, renovations, etc. So we should do so sparingly. Mr. Frink back in May did speak on that and did um mention at least in one finance committee what the um what the capacity was for using some of that to for the short-term solution. In addition to considering revenue increasing measures, we also have to examine expenditures, which requires a deeper analysis of how we conduct business, which is the property, programs, and personnel, affectionately referred to as the three Ps. If we're going to be addressing the three Ps, there are basically there's a two-phase solution that we have to consider. Short-term, we need to have a short-term plan to get to a long-term
015solution, uh, which the board approved last month. the board uh did a fantastic job of buying us some time to really start planning for those long-term solutions. The short-term plan gets us through until we can get a long-term plan drafted and implemented. We utilize some cash from the debt cliff drop off in 2526 and we do have some available to us as we plan for 2627. But again, that's a short-term solution. The long-term phase is the second part and those require long-term solutions and those are simply put review all of our existing programs and plans and make adjustments. Um we implement our goal would be to implement the operational plan changes over time beginning with the 2026 2027 school year. Efficiency analysis. So let's talk about how we're going to get there. Efficiency analysis is
016one of the steps that is is something that we do uh but we may want to be looking at revising or modifying our process. Uh that's an annual review of how we conduct our business uh and identify ways to be more efficient and cost effective. We can review building schedules to maximize our efficiency. Reviewing duty schedules. Is there a more cost-effective way uh to have duties be covered? And then of course the three Ps and property. Are we effectively managing and maintaining our facilities? As you know, we are looking already at a reduction of one building in in our discussions right now. Programs, we would review anything from our ongoing refresh plans that have been discussed uh to existing educational programs. As far as personnel is concerned, we would talk about how we use our
017staff with feedback from our building administrative. We'd have those important conversations. Ultimately, the board does need to decide which way uh they would like to proceed as we get there. So then my recommendation is that we follow a timeline of analysis. The goal is to have all this work done for the budget to be approved once again in May of 20126 for the 2627 school year. And to get there, we would observe the following timeline. In July or August, um our business office will generate a list of options and associated pros and cons that the board can consider in future meetings. Early in the fall, the district office staff would meet with the entire administrative team and establish where we are currently, I'm sorry, excuse me, where we are currently and what potential gaps exist.
018In January, the district office staff will meet with each building and department to discuss where we are to discuss the needs and possible areas of flexibility. We would be asking very important questions. What do we need to be legally in compliance? How can we optimize our existing staff? Uh do we need to replace retirements and resignations? How does that impact programming for our students? Can we reassign and or move forward without positions? Are we allowed? Are we in a position where we can not bring some things back to generate some savings? Those are the types of questions that we would ask. That would be the analysis and a series of meetings that we'd go through with our team. In February, we would compile all that data and we would share it with the board. In
019the February March time frame, our goal would be to work with the school board to make some final decisions and communicate with the administrative team what those would be. And I think it's important to mention that there really is not going to be one solution. It's going to be a couple of different solutions. We're going to pick from a few different things and that's going to take a few years to get where we need to get. So, it's going to be multiple solutions over multiple years uh to get us where we need to be. Um we are ready to do the work. I know the board is ready to do the work and um I feel like this is the best way to proceed at this point. Um at this point, any questions from the
020board? Thank you, Mr. Rizzo. So, before I defer to the board, I just want to thank you because we are on the heels of just approving the 2526 budget and then for you, Mr. I think to be able to turn around what is the will of the board to be able to start to have this conversation so that we can bring the community along with us because this is something that is different from years past right in that the board typically we don't start having these budget presentations publicly until November but as you mentioned that there there are some um very um significant ex external factors that has impact our budget and you know it is the desire of this board to be more proactive and more um more forward thinking in terms of how
021to address it for the long term. So, thank you to Mr. Frank and and you for coming forward and starting to have this conversation um because I think it's important for the community to be brought along in this. Um but but as I go there, let me defer to the board to see if there are questions and or comments. So, it doesn't look like there is, but I I just want to um ask one clarifying question. I I you know mostly for the purposes of you know um all of our constituents our parents our staff when we talk about you know going through this process which I don't know if you want to put it back on the board looking at the timeline um you know as you said there isn't necessarily one magic item
022that the administration may come forward with that will you know address all of our budget needs. So, you know, as we think about, you know, potential options in the people um I'm sorry, I can't I can never do the three Ps right. People, pro property, projects, program. Yes, all of them. as we start to look at the three Ps. Um my point being is, you know, while we're going to be talking about this and talking about this between now and when we approve the budget in May, we are not looking to make any changes to the way we operate internally until the 2627 season. So, I just want to make that very clear for the community and if there's anything that you because I want to make sure that um you know we do this
023in a way that is not blindsiding to anybody. That is absolutely correct and I also think it's fair to say that nothing is off the table at this point. Everything needs to be considered as we work through this and then we'll go through a process of of whittling down till we get to those solutions. Great. Anything else? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Rizz. Thank you. Okay. So, as we wait for Mr. Rizzo to come back to the table, we are going to turn it over to Miss Gupta and welcome officially Mr. Drover to the board table as our student reps. So, we'll go into the stu June student rep report. All right. Good evening, everyone. This is our June student rep report. Um, I just want to take a quick moment and welcome Jason, our new
024junior rep. Can everybody have a round of applause for him? Um, so this is a really big role to fill in after Stella, but um, I'm sure you'll do an amazing job. I'm really excited to work with you. So, moving into our past events, um, there's a long list. We had Keystone exams administered. Um, there was an inservice day on May 20th. There was the 16th annual Springboard Film Festival on May 21st. I was unfortunately not able to be there, but I'm sure the event went amazing and everybody had a great time. Um, the Western Tech Center had their awards ceremony on May 21st. The middle and high school chamber orchestra performance was on May 22nd, as well as the senior commencement awards and scholarship night on May 22nd. Um, we had Memorial Day weekend
025on May 26th. Happy Memorial Day to everybody. I hope um anyone that was traveling had a safe journey and everybody was just able to relax that weekend. And then following after that, we had our seniors having their last day on May 27th. Um, and then their final exams were administered from May 28th to May 30th. And then the Western Montgomery Career and Technology Center had their new student orientation on May 28th, as well as the Senior Athletic Banquet on that same night, May 28th. The music banquet ran on May 30th. The underassman had final exams from June 2nd to June 5th. Um, the class of 2025 graduated on June 4th. I'm so happy that I was able to be there. It was really such an honor seeing everybody have their really big moment. Um, and
026I'm excited to see everything that the class of 2025 is able to achieve in their future. Um, and then following that, um, all students had their last day of school on June 5th and then the final day for teachers was on June 6th and then we had the SAT administer here at Spring Forward on June 7th. And now I'm going to pass it on to Jason for our future events. Um, thank you everybody. Uh, the f for the future events, we have the summer ELD camps starting on June 17th. That is invitation only. Uh, for the final schedule requests for high school students, those are due tomorrow, June 18th or sorry, uh, two days from now, June 18th. Uh, the district is closed on June 19th for Junth. Um, summer orchestra camp starts on June
02730th. Summer ELD starts on July 1st, uh, invitation only as well. The, uh, district is closed on July 4th for Independence Day. Summer band camp starts on July 7th, and, um, first day verification opens on August 1st. Springford Educational Foundation scholarship golf outing is on August 4th. Thank you. All right. And then just a few reminders. Continue to read the weekly update for districtwide news. um keep up with your summer assignments, especially for high school students. You can find that on the spring forward website for any courses that you're taking this following year. Um all the assignments are posted and they're organized by subject. And then there's no work session meeting or board meeting um throughout the month of July. So we'll see you again in August. And then just have everybody have an amazing
028summer. Um I'm excited to see what everything that happens this next year. Great. Thank you both. And so what's going to keep you both busy this summer? Um, I can start. I'm actually going to Boston tomorrow, so I'm going to be staying with my sister for a week. Um, I'm going to be working uh as a lifeguard for most of the summer, so hopefully that'll keep me busy. Great. Well, we look forward to seeing you back in August and make sure you enjoy your time off. Hey, great. Thank you both. Moving on to community relations, Mrs. Wearten. Thank you very much. The community relations committee met on June 11th. Um, this was the first time we met since April, so there was quite a bit of information to cover. Miss Crew provided an end of
029the year update and metrics from RCTV, reviewing the increase in viewership this year and discussing goals for the upcoming school year. Mr. Rothl plans to explore new streaming platforms like Roku and Amazon TV. So, that's exciting. Miss Crew went into an extensive first year review about Parent Square. And if you are a user of Parent Square, I hope you love it as much as I do. Although I'm getting the tail end of it with only one more student left uh in the district. She pulled parents um and shared those updates, both the pros and the cons, and plans to use the feedback to make improvements over the summer. She also reviewed the past events that the communications department planned, organized, and covered. And it was, as you could see by our student update, that list
030was tremendous. And with that, we owe Miss Crew and her team a tremendous, tremendous thanks. I mean, just to name a few, the athletic awards, academic recognition, uh, coral performances, the spring for 5K, Special Olympics, Honor Society, Impact Awards, Film Festival, and of course, graduation. I believe it might have been a record. Um, there were about 650 students that walked at graduation in less than 90 minutes. So, I mean that in itself was inc incredibly um impresses and as a parent and a board member, I'm really incredibly grateful for all of the work that went into making those events so fantastic and incredibly memorable for the students. So, the summer projects, we moved on to summer projects, and the summer projects led to an item that you will see on the agenda this evening for
031the Upper Providence Elementary School AV upgrade. This planned project is part of Mr. Rothl's multi-year elementary school upgrade project. This summer, he will address the needs at Upper Providence and Oaks Elementary Schools. The Oaks project will be covered by EITC funds and the Upper Providence project will be covered by capital funds. The Upper Providence project includes projector installation and and wiring, new speakers and installation, new wireless microphones, new amplifier for system, controllers on the gym side and cafe side for room audio designation. So you'll see that on the agenda. And finally, we were pleased to learn that the communications team was again recognized by the National School Public Relations Associations for three projects this year. Those projects are an award of merit for the spring forward Ramcast journey through our ELD program. An honorable mention,
032Sun, Moon, and Mr. Landis April 8th eclipse discussion. I think all of you have seen that. It's so great. and an honorable mention for the last week in spring forward. So, congratulations to this team and the creativity and everyone who worked on those projects. We're incredibly proud of you. Our next meeting is October 7th in the district office. Any questions? Thank you very much. Oh, nope. No questions. I was just going to echo what you said, which was fabulous job to our RCTV crew. mighty group of less than five that covers all that at the end of the year for our community. So, job well done as always. Um, moving on to uh I just want to make one comment because I'm noticing here for our public facing agenda that it does state um extracurricular
033committee committee members um but for the committee the committee members uh residing on the community relations is uh Mrs. wine gardens chair and Dr. Chararma and myself. So just a quick update. All right, moving on to policy. Uh Mr. Rizzo, we'll be taking that. Yes, thank you. Uh the policy committee met on Wednesday, June 11th at 6:00 and the results of that meeting were policies 107, 112, 96.1, and 910 were discussed and will be sent to the solicitor for review uh and hopefully will be on the August board agenda for a first reading. Policies 113 and 113.3 have been sent to the solicitor and will be brought back to the committee in September for further consideration. And then policies 109 and 122 were reviewed and there were no recommended changes. So the review date will
034be updated to reflect the date of the committee meeting. Uh the next meeting for policy will be Monday, September 8th, 20125. That's the end of my report. Thank you, Mr. Rizzo. Any questions on policy? Okay, moving on. Mr. Lackey, thank you. Curriculum and technology met on Wednesday, June 11th. Uh there were a number of items discussed for curriculum. Dr. Gardy provided information about the 2526 district assessment calendar. Dr. Gardy also provided information about a new Ramquest resource called PENDA that will bring digital science resources for grades three and four, providing interactive activities and assessments that are aligned to the PA Steel standards. Uh that's in part to our own uh Mr. Ari who won this subscription while attending a steals expo. Dr. Reinhimr and Mrs. Angeluchcci provided curriculum department highlights for science, EL, English, and
035math. Dr. Gardy provided information related to professional development. Dr. Gardi also provided information about future curriculum reviews for personal finance, computer science, American sign language, technology educa education, honors biology, AP macro and uh minor uh macro and microeconomics and AP psychology. For technology, Dr. Hill provided information about a title change from software specialist to education system specialists. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 8th at 7 p.m. in the district office. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lackey. Any questions or comments? Mrs. Westwood, Finance. Good evening. The finance committee met on um I'm missing the date. June 10th um in the district office. Um we discussed ongoing business. So, our executive monthly reports and these numbers are all through May 31st, 2025. For liquidity, we have 85.5 million cash on hand. Um, for revenues, assessments
036are down affecting real estate interim tax revenue. Interest earnings remain strong. For expenditures, everything is in accordance with the plan with the exception of health benefits, which we've discussed on many occasions um if you've attended some of our meetings. For assessments, we gained approximately 500K since our meeting in May. Real estate and transfer taxes are slowing. Um we are likely to be approximately 300k short of our annual target. Um also if you attend our meetings, Mr. Frink has been talking about this. So this um was expected. Earned income tax still strong. We're approximately 250k increase from prior year. Um we're pacing at 14.8 million for year end. Uh self-funded health insurance. Um I know Mr. Rizzo also just brought this up, but we're pacing around 1.5 million over budget projection. food service. We closed the
037year out at well we not closed the year out yet sorry these are through May. Um 843k meals served year to date. Reimburseable meal still sales are strong but alakart sales continue to weaken. We went into new business. We discussed assessment appeals. Um we have two settlements. Um one is for 1122 Longford Road. One is for the Arola Road campus. Um these are on the agenda um that we'll talk about in a bit. Um, food service worker hours increase one hour for two employees due to increased volume at the 10 through 12 center. Also on the agenda tonight, um, as are the software some of these software applications. So we have clear, arbiter pay and H2 pass. Um, clear helps determine if enrolled students are spring for residents. So if you think about if we
038have folks in the district potentially attending that aren't residents, the software will help us find um, those students and ensure that they are in the correct district. Um, Arbiter Pay is a P is as a payment software for officials and then H2 pass is an online ticketing platform to replace ticket spot which we currently use. Uh, we discussed the business office restructuring which is also on the agenda. Mr. Frink referenced the board memo which hopefully everyone had a chance to read. Um, this the memo and some of the insights evaluated last 10 years of the department. Um, at high level we're phasing out or proposing to phase out a clerical position and introducing an accounting manager position. The job description is um on our agenda for this evening. Um this was also discussed as helping
039with succession planning as we think about the future and some of our senior roles in that department. Um for transportation, we're working on supplemental agreement to fill some of our gaps. Um I talked about some of the things that we're going to discuss today and vote on. Um our next meeting will be held September 9th at 6 PM in the district office. Any questions? Yes. Uh Mr. Rizzo, go ahead. Yeah. And just uh for the benefit of the board, when you get to the finance section, the S2 ticketing uh software, there was a technology snafu within the 24 hours of the agenda. So, we we discovered it within the 24 hours. So, we did not get that added in. We'll have that in for the voting meeting next week. Thank you. Any questions or comments
040for Mrs. Westwood? Okay. Section F is property. And I'm sorry, Mr. Fin, do you have a comment? look like you're raising. Okay. So, moving on to section F property. Uh, Mr. Jackson's not here. However, he informed me that he will give his update next week. So, we'll move on to not the MCIU as M. Dr. Wright is not here. So, we can also put that on the agenda for next week. So, we'll move on to Dr. Murray and Dr. G for the assistant superintendent report. Good evening. I only have one item for my report tonight. Extended school year. The purpose of extended school year services for special education students is to prevent significant regression of skills during school breaks, particularly over the summer. ESY is designed for students who are at risk of losing critical
041academic, social, and behavioral skills without continued instruction. This year's extended school year starts on July 1st and runs through July 31st from 9 to 1 at the 56 flex building. Currently, we have approximately 240 students in district who will participate in our program. These services help maintain progress towards IEP goals and support long-term educational success. So, we're looking forward to another year. That is the end of my report. Good evening. Although the summer has begun, the administrative team has already been busy at work preparing for the start of the next school year. Last week, our administrative team met at three times once to participate in an MTSS administrator training where the focus was on preparing and supporting systems within the building and promoting a datadriven culture. Another session was a work session to begin developing
042a common walkthrough form as part of our comprehensive plan. And our third session was one of 15 data sessions being held throughout the summer and school year. I'd like to take a minute to thank our district data team for prepare for their preparation of the series. Throughout the year, I've met with the DIS uh team of administrators roughly every two weeks to discuss data and more importantly how to transpose that data into actionable steps. The professional development sessions that we refer to as the administrative data series was a product of that team's work. The focus is on providing timely professional development as the various data points are being released. Each building administrator is currently building um working on building datadriven building goals to support the overall comprehensive plan. I just wanted to wrap up by
043wishing our staff, students, and families a wonderful summer and a well-deserved break. And that's my report. Thank you both. Any questions or comments? Okay, Mr. Fitzgerald, solicitor's report. Uh yes, and good evening. Just briefly, if we both had the presentation tonight of of Mr. Rizzo and and Mrs. Westwood noted two assessment uh appeal settlements that are on the agenda. Um about a week and a half ago, I met with my colleague uh Dave Comr in my office who works with Mr. Fin surrounding many of the uh taxpayer initi initiated assessment appeals and I had suggested that he might want to interface with you the board at some time in the early fall seeing that come August 1st you get another round of of assessment appeals on a yearly basis just to provide what is a
044trend not just here in spring for but generally throughout the region in terms of these um more aggressive initiated appeals at this point with regard to commercial properties. I think it would be helpful as the budgeting process does start earlier that you have that information. So that might be something we think about in September or October. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um and I'll let Mrs. Westwood kind of own that in terms of if that's something we want to do in finance or um I mean it's a privileged discussion with with us. So that can probably be on done in exact an in executive. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Fitzgerald. Okay, moving on. We'll go through the voting portion of our meeting for next week and see if there are any
045questions or comments. Section six, minutes. Section seven, personnel. I will make um one comment and I'm looking for which letter it is because I'm working on paper here. Maybe I should look in terms of my online version. Um but I do want to bring to the community's awareness that um next week we will have an action item on our agenda. Um as the community is aware, you know, Mr. Rizzo is retiring and um as we've communicated and has been communicated through updates by the district, the board has undergone a search for an interim superintendent and again this is an interim superintendent to play the role of superintendent um upwards of the you know uh entire 2526 school year as we search for a permanent successor. um the board has taken steps to um start looking
046into that process of you know what um approach you know we may want to take as we look to do that. Um but I do want to make the community aware that um over the last few weeks the board has met to do interviews with a handful of qualified candidates that um has been screened by our solicitor and our director of HR and we um have made the decision and I'm looking at Mr. Riso to make sure this is on the agenda. No, it it's on the agenda. So, it it seems like it's in a strange place because it's a personalish thing. It's not a personal, but it's an independent contract and tend to put those in the finance section. I'm still going to mention it now even though since I'm already halfway through this
047whole that um the board is looking to approve John Sanville who is the current superintendent of the Unionville Chaz board school district who is currently uh who is currently in that position but set to retire at the end of the school year. Um he uh is looking to accept the position of interim superintendent. So on the agenda the committee will see that name for next week. Mr. Fitzgerald, anything you want to add? nothing more than, and I think you mentioned it, it will be an independent contract arrangement. So, it's for at most a one-year period, but is flexible to to whatever is the the needs of the district during this time period of transition. Thank you. Sorry, I jumped the gun with any other questions with personnel. Hopefully, what is personnel related items? I think
048I Okay, Mrs. Okay, I'll I'll pause and see if Mrs. Dearorf can find it. uh for letter G regarding um the change with the crossing guards. Is that pretty much a seamless transition as far as um with the new company that will be managing that as far as salary or or a payment for the crossing guards? I believe so. However, Chief Boyer has been the one handling this transition with the new company. Um, he has assured me that it'll be a seamless transition. Thank you, Mrs. Dearorf. Any other questions or comments on personnel? Okay, moving on to section 8 finance. I'll give it a minute. Yes, double I is where uh the contract for John Sandville is. So that is where that resides. Just just a question for um I think this is for you,
049Dr. G. The reason there's so many of these is because we're starting the new year. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure because it seemed like a lot, but I thought that's what it was last year. I was just checking. Many of them are for ESY this summer as well as school year. Thank you. Moving on to property. Again, we did not have Mr. Jackson's update, but I think many of us were in attendance at the property meeting. And if there are additional questions, uh, we have Mr. Pelgrren in the back. Programming and curriculum, conferences and workshops. Section 12 business. Do we not have any for first read this month? Uh, no, we do not. We only That's amazing. Last month. Okay, you're right. We only talked about the one policy, so that's it. Okay,
050so we only Go ahead. Um, for letter B, the renaming of the memorial arboritum, I wanted to thank uh, Mr. Hayes for coming um, to thank us and and speak so highly of Miss Wellington and I believe her family is here as well. Um, Representative Sesi had, you know, reached out a couple times and I know it's kind of a a funny story probably he's been wanting to do this for a long time and from what I understand is that Gail said, "No, that's what you do." after somebody passes away and she didn't want it done. I don't and um but she had kind of started coming terms to to allowing that towards the end and I'm sorry that we weren't able to um get the process moving you know while she was still with
051us but I think I only met her once um in my tenure as a schoolboard director and community member but anytime her name is brought up such wonderful things about the impact that all of you have had on the district have been brought up. So, I just want to, you know, um, extend my condolences and, um, you know, thank you for everything that your family has done for the district. That's a lovely sentiment, Mrs. Derdorf. Thank you for making that comment. Okay. All right. Items. We talked about the PSA PSBA delegate assembly. And remind me, we have Mrs. Westwood that is showing interest. Has anyone else Okay. So, me and Mrs. Westwood for now and we'll keep it at that. Um, is it and that will be is that being voted on this month? Does
052that need to be voted on? I I think we do. Last year we didn't we just appointed as if there was not more than three then we didn't have to vote. We're allotted three spots. Mr. Fitzgerald. Okay. No, I I I believe that's that's that's correct. Okay. Great. Then no need to take any action. All right. And then that takes us to board comment. Any board comment? I would just say that also informational is the code of conducts for elementary I think elementary, middle school, high school. Um those are uh links were provided in the board memo. So if you wanted to access those to review, you could certainly do that. Thank you. And uh I will just uh take a moment to thank Mrs. Deardorf in advance as next week I will not be
053in attendance at least in person. I'm hoping to maybe be able to get access on a plane to be able to vote. I don't know. We'll see. I'm not making any promises. I I will be over the Arctic, so I don't know that uh internet access will be will be reliable, but we'll see. And um so I want to thank you in advance for leading the meeting next week. Okay. All right. No, I will hand that to Mrs. Deerorf. All right. So, with that said, we will go on to public to be heard. If there's anyone that wishes to speak, please approach a podium with your name and township of residence. Seeing as no one's approaching the podium. Motion to adjurnn.