001e e e good evening welcome to the spring forward Area School District board meeting today is Monday March 17th please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please rise for the pledge of Allegiance IED Al 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
002start of the 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 thank you good evening everyone it's nice to see some familiar and some new faces in the audience today Miss crew could we please have a roll call sure this evening we have in person Dr Sharma Mr Ley uh Mrs weard is not here lacky sorry uh Mrs Warden is not here Mrs Westwood Mrs hermans
003M M deardorf Mr Jackson Dr Wright is not here and Mrs gold smith thank you very much and we also have Dr Murray on Zoom today with us and so let's go into announcements Mr Rizo do you have any announcements I do thank you uh first I want to inform the community that we did have a uh a situation today at Warriors for Elementary School uh two underage individuals broken and vandalized War for at elementary school Sunday night uh the event happened somewhere in the ballpark of 7:00 to 9:30ish p.m. um we discovered at 5:30 5:45 this morning um and we did not have enough time to respond get things cleaned up and have the police do their investigation so we had to call a day off of school for Royers for Elementary School uh
004that qualifies as an emergency day so that is not a day that will need to be made up I petitioned pte today to have that taken care of I am very thankful um for Mr Mike Walters the custodian who very quickly uh notified the correct people called 911 Dr Carboy led her team uh through a very challenging day uh Mr pelgrin Mr Ryan Miss Whitmore thank you to them for how quickly they got our building back up and running um we thankful to the Royers Ford PD uh Chief Boyer and Spring Ford PD um by the time I got on site at 6:30 a.m. there were already six police cars outside and they were clearing the building to ensure that it was safe and of course our Royers for Elementary staff we met with them
005virtually this morning and then in person this afternoon to help them um for them to help us get prepared uh in the end we had two underage individuals um that for whatever reason um entered the school um illegally and vandalized a lot of our areas um and we are dealing with that both from a a legal standpoint but also um considering it from a discipline standpoint in the school system as well so at this point it's all I can really share it's a sad time for our community but I can say that the RO Ford Community is safe and students can go back to a clean school tomorrow and knowing that we're putting every system in place that we can to ensure their safety thank you Mr Rizo and yes um I Echo exactly what
006you mentioned in terms of the many things that need to go around um including you know our chief of police the Royers police um I know officer coropolis had done a lot of work today to look at security camera footage so there are so many folks and um I want to give them my heartfelt thanks and again just communicate to our broad Springford community that um you know clearly it's a challenging time and it's it's an emotional time and so you know we um thank you for your patience as the Administration has been on site all day today to really work through the situation so thank you actually can I just say one more comment just to make sure that we're clear because there was a there was an article that came out and if
007you look at the police report it says burglary um it was a case of vandalism but I do want to encourage our our our community um burglary um is I'll just read it so vandalism versus burglary there isn't a specific charge of vandalism it falls under criminal mischief criminal mischief is more the ACT burglary is the all-encompassing event burglary is entering a structure without authorization with the intent to commit a crime so the entering and then committing criminal mischief or vandalism is the crime in its entirety so burglary is the correct term even though it really wasn't about theft it was more about vandalism which I articulated earlier thank you thank you and uh my only announcement for today is that the board did meet in ex de session prior to the start of the
008meeting to talk about some Personnel matters okay with that said we will move on to public to be heard and this is on agenda items only so if there's anyone that wishes to speak please approach the podium with your name Township of residence and the agenda item for which you are referencing okay seeing as though no one is approaching the podium we'll move on to our presentation for the night and that is to welcome Dr Collier to the microphone as he is going to be presenting the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship competition recognition good evening our pleasure to be here tonight thank you for a few moments of your time Springford area high school is pleased to announce that four of our senior students have been proclaimed finalists in The 2025 National Merit Scholarship program
009the following students are being honored tonight for advancing to this level Yash sioban Maha nikela shakar poaka and Gina Singh tonight we have Maha and Gina these young people were recognized by the school board in October for having achieved the semi-finalist status in the preliminary SAT National mer Merit uh Scholarship qualifying test a group which represents less than 1% of the entrance the highest scoring in each state as semi-finalist they had to fulfill several requirements before advancing to the finalist stage such as MIT a detailed scholarship application which included a self-descriptive essay and information about their participation and leadership in school and community activities as well as maintain their High academic performance these students each now have the potential of receiving a monetary award approximately 7,500 finalists will be selected as monetary winners and are
010typically notified toward the end of March merit scholarship winners are the academic Champions who will be the leaders of Tomorrow Springford is very proud of these students and would like to recognize them and their families who are here with them this evening and present them with certificates of Merit from the National Merit Scholarship program so again we have uh Maha congratulations and Gina congratulations so sh your hand and we can thank the board congratulations walk around thank you have a good evening thank you Dr klier I'm C ious um I know you mentioned that there'll be uh there'll be about 7,500 folks that are awarded this at the end of March but just to make it to the finalist round is such an accomplishment and so ladies and those that aren't here with us today
011should be extremely proud of the effort and the families because we know that you know your support of them in helping to get them to where they are today is absolutely critical as well but I'm curious how many do you have an idea and if you don't know the number how many are in the final because I think it's like one in 16,000 was like the number I kind of heard last year around this time if that resonates with you it does but I don't want to quote that I'm familiar with the the script that we get and that number does ring a bell to me but I can't uh state it with certainty yes but among very small competition so again very uh please be very proud of your accomplishments thank you all right
012so with that said that was our only presentation of night we're going to move on to the action item we do have one action item on the agenda section 4A um the action item and I'll read it before we get our motions Administration recommends approval of First Student Inc to provide transportation services until June 30th 2025 at a cost not to exceed $27,000 and is to be paid from the Transportation budget do I have a motion a second any questions or discussion all those in favor say I I I any opposed no excuse me motion carries 61 could you uh let me know who seconded that motion Mr Lackey oh thank you okay moving on to our standing board and committee reports and we will start with Miss Dy and Miss Gupta for our student
013rep report thank you so this is our March student rep report so as far as past events goes we had our sophomore FBC presentation on February 19th that was a rescheduled date to February 19th junior prom tickets went on sale on February 21st through school pay that is now closed so you cannot buy junior prom tickets anymore because prom is next Saturday the 29th the Western Montgomery career and Technology Center skills over stereotypes event was on February 26th we had our Gold Card spring musical preview on February 27th the spring musical night showing was on February 28th and then the German exchange program for sophmores the signups closed on February 28th as well then we had the spring Musical matina and night showing on March March 1st excuse me and I wanted to congratulate all
014of the amazing students who participated in that play or the musical sorry from what I saw at our last uh meeting I thought it was amazing to see what our students in the spring for Community are working to do through this musical so congratulations to the whole crew the singers the cast the people behind the scenes everyone did such an amazing job spring Sports began on March 3rd and then we had the SAT administered here on Saturday March 8th and now I'm going to turn on uh turn off to anuka for our future events yeah thank you Stella um so looking into our future events we have the March band concert on February or sorry March 18th which is actually tomorrow and then this Wednesday we have the College and Career Fair um from 6:00
015to 8:00 p.m. for juniors and sophomores that are interested in looking at colleges in the area there's a pretty extensive list and I'm pretty sure that came out on um parents Square for you to look at the colleges to see if you're interested in any of them um then we have indoor guard and percussion senor night on March 24th and then we're marking the end of the third quarter on March 27th as well as later that night we'll have the spring Jam the string jamere um and then that Saturday as Stella mentioned we have junior prom on March 29th and then following that we have an act 80-day on March 31st for eal fitter and then we have the NHS induction ceremony for all Juniors that were accepted into NHS on April 3rd then we
016we have the ACT test being administered on April 5th the indoor percussion competition is also on April 5th and then we have the spring art show on April 4th and then the spring Ford 5K walk and run is on April 11th and then we have ASVAB on April 11th and then we have the district jazz concert on April 15th and then a little happy note to end our future events is spring break for students from April 17th to April 21st and I just want to wish everybody Happ happy Easter and have a wonderful spring break and as always students make sure to read the weekly update for districtwide news and make sure to keep up your week with your weekly assignments and I just wanted to go back to our future events to reiterate the
017College and Career Fair this is through the FPC and I just want to emphasize how significant the FPC is for our students this type of group these women that we have working at the FPC have done so much for me and for other students throughout the district and I think that what they're doing is incredibly significant and so if you have the chance to go to the College and Career Fair this Wednesday please take the opportunity it is such an amazing way to put your foot out there meet new people find where you want to find where you want your future to go and also just as a way to meet the people who work in the FPC because you will certainly want to take advantage of all the resources that they have because I
018know for me that they have certainly helped me with where I am right now as a senior so thank you to the FPC and yeah I just want to make sure that students please take advantage of this College and Career Fair and everything that the FPC has to offer so I believe that is the end of our March student rep report do you have anything else to say ANUK no all right that's everything thank you thank you ladies and I will make two comments number one is you know we're heading to your end when your font size goes down that small so that's number one and I'm very excited for a lot of those upcoming events but number two I'll just Echo what you said about the FPC and if Miss Mrs wiard and I
019I believe at our last meeting or maybe two meetings ago made a comment about um the staff which is a mighty team of three um that they are worth or weight in gold in terms of the services and the guidance that they provide our students leading up to graduation so I'm glad that you highlighted them thank you okay any other comments or questions okay thank you moving on we have extracurricular Mrs deardorf the extracurricular committee met on Tuesday March 4th uh we had a sports update presentation from Mr miscavage uh the spring Sports season started on March 3rd so that's very exciting um and then Mr Jones had a presentation regarding um an update on some of our clubs and activities uh some of the items that I was going to read were part of
020the presentation that our student rep's already presented um about our Irish Exchange students leaving they have left on the 3D our German exchange students are coming April 3rd um and then the proms are coming up but the most exciting part of our meeting was a presentation from the interact Club um where three students including our student rep anuka came to present to us about all the things that the interact Club does um this club has grown to be one of the largest service clubs in the school each year members of the the interact Club hold fundraising events and participate in numerous activities uh they currently have over 200 members participating in their club and they just presented to us kind of the structure um as well as the different ways in which they're dedicating themselves
021to helping the community so it was an informative and fun presentation um and our next meeting is on May 6th any questions thank you Mrs deor com yes um one quick question Finance related are are you aware of any ass that's coming to the board regarding prom or is prom in a solid foundation right now there's been no Finance asked from um from snap if that's what you're referencing this year no thank you okay seeing as there's no more questions and or comments we'll move on to policy Mrs Goldsmith thank you the policy committee met on March 10th 2025 and at the first part of it policies 218 and 826 were briefly discussed there were some recommendations from the committee and those policies will come back to the committee in April for further consideration policies
022814 93.1 were sent to the solicitor for review and barring any significant changes they will be on the April board agenda for a first reading policies 804 94.1 9 10.1 were discussed with no recommended changes or need for Action from the solicitor and our review date is going to be updated so basically they all policies we reviewed and we're just updating the review date just to make sure they were still in line policy 9:15 was reviewed there were no recommendations it is being sent to the solicitor it'll come back to the committee for final approval uh before potentially hopefully coming before the board in either April or May the next board meeting will be uh or the next policy committee meeting will be 4:14 2025 and that's the end of my report thank you Mrs
023Goldsmith questions or comments okay I will just make one comment being a member of policy with Mrs Goldsmith um a l large part of our discussion at policy um dealt with as she mentioned policy 218 student discipline but more so the administrative regulations which um you know we want to make sure that you know for especially for new board members that may be coming on and really just a reinforce with uh existing board members you know some of the um best practices with regards to how to handle a code of conduct appeals hearing so really not as much policy as much as just guidance for administrators as well as board members on what are some best practices that you know we should consider when going into those meetings so thank you if I could just
024clarify that for the community just to kind of because I was actually that was a new thing that kind of I was not aware of so just for the community and it is something that is publicly available the the law that is drafted basically the policies by the school board actually have implementing regulations that the admin drafts each one of those admin Rec recommendations or regulations are contained as clicks on those policies so the community has full access to not only the complete policies but all the administrative regulations attach to those policies so it is always important if you are looking as a community member at these policies also review the administrative regulations because they may provide anwers to further explain what that policy is thank you Mrs Goldsmith okay moving on to curriculum and
025Technology Mr Lackey thank you uh curriculum and Technology met on March 10th um a number of items were discussed uh Dr gardy provided information regarding the ELD tutoring proposal for summer 2025 instruction in this program will focus on social and economic language Focus areas will be on vocabulary development listening speaking and writing skills uh Dr gardy also provided information regarding an additional Award of $33,135 from the structured literacy Grant from the Senate District 44 the grant will be utilized for additional training for Wilson Advanced strategies sips Plus for grade three and four University of Florida literacy Institute Foundation resources for grades K to2 and decodable readers for elementary libraries uh there are action items for the grant fund acceptance subgrant uh agreement for implementation and reimbursement and materials uh Dr Murray provided information about a
026pilot program that will occur at the fifth and sixth grades during the fourth quarter this program is a comprehensive app that will be used to track student behaviors as part of a positive behavioral interventions and supports program uh for technology Dr Hill provided updates related to the e- rate build e- rate bidding currently he is working on reviewing bid documents for equipment and services that include structured cabling and network Hardware the purpose of this work is to update internal connections and strengthen infrastructure Dr Hill also provided updates related to the February action items One tech membership renewal has been completed marai switch and access point licenses have been applied and equipment is working normally Google workspace for Education Plus licenses for student staff are active and professional development is scheduled for March 17th and March
02724th uh lastly Professional Services for infrastructure analysis and support has begun and will be reviewed within the next week the next meeting is scheduled for Monday April 14th at 700 p.m. in the district office conference room that concludes my report thank you Mr lacky and I would like to um elaborate on one thing that you mentioned which is a Senate District 44 structured literacy Grant so if the commune remembers um although all the years bleed together it wasn't last year was it two years ago or was last year last March uh Dr Gard is correcting me um we implemented um a structured literacy program at our early element at in our elementary levels and part of that um implementation was some money from Senate District 44 to help with professional development and other resources so
028again I want to thank Senator Katie MTH and Senate District 44 for allowing us um some additional monies here to again support Early Childhood literacy um through resources and other um other uh uh resources and other items thank you okay moving on to finance Mrs Westwood yes good evening the finance committee met on sorry find my date March 11th at 6m in the district office um discussed we started with ongoing business um with our executive monthly reports through month end in February for liquidity where at 130 million cash on hand for revenues we're generally on par per our plan for expenditures all in accordance with our plan with the exception of health benefits so as a reminder in case you haven't been at these meetings um health benefits have been something that have been above
029budget um for at least the last two years um so something to keep an eye on as we work through our budget the rest of this year assessments um increase 750k since the last meeting our appeals are still coming on the commercial side um also for the public something to continue to pay attention to um lastly the discussion was held on longer term impact of commercial real estate taxes and assessment appeal so very high level what we're seeing is for commercial real estate um less Revenue than expected for example for this year and we're seeing more peels which that means in very simple terms um companies coming back and asking you know to lower the amount of money that they give to the school district which is a key source of our Revenue um real
030estate transfer tax say flat growth expected to come on budget um earn income tax we on on Pace to exceed our budget we have an estimate of 14.2 to 14.5 million by the end of this fiscal year um self-funded health insurance um we did budget an additional $1 million this year we are still expected by the end of June to be at 1 million or $1.2 million over budget um Rini our vendor is coming in to do our second look um on March 24th that will be important for us as we finalize our budget ahead of um voting by June um for 2025 budget increase for health insurance we are now upping that by $2 million to try to account for the rising healthare costs that we continue to see um we had some discussion
031on longer term impacts of the budget lots of discussion so if you're interested in this come to our finance meeting um we have them every month Food Service continues to be strong we are at almost 550k meals served as of the end of February um breakfast and lunch Sals are doing well we are seeing some tightening in alart which was an area of strength for us last year and sales so think all the snacks that your kids buy or at least my son buys on a regular basis I'm always refilling his lunch account I don't know about you guys um potential to increase hours of two employees due to increased sales volume is something we're looking at um budget update status reports so Mr fin discussed budget changes made since a preliminary budget to date
032so just a very quick recap um taking us back to the million to the beginning of this process we were at about 11.1 million gap which is a 7.9 9% potential tax increase that we were looking at we have now gotten that down to 2.7 million um we have more work to do ahead of June so stay tuned but a lot of good work to come down pretty significantly um and we will continue to do that over the coming months ahead of voting on the final budget um real quick Rising Healthcare insur health insurance costs we talked about and the commercial real estate assessment appeals Trend these are part of the reasons why um we still have a bit of an upper that we have to work through to get to where we want to
033be um new business um and I believe some of this is on the memo or on the agenda for this evening assessment appeal settlement for board approval that will be on for to uh next week to vote on uh the Food Service piece with increasing the hours for two employees and then there is an item here uh the taxpayer victim of check washing fraud with regard to the real estate tax payment that has been investigated and there is a recommendation that you'll see here for the board to refund the difference of the penalty um totaling approximately $1,300 our next meeting will be April 8th at 6 pm. in the district office any questions thank you Mrs Westwood um two things and I said this at Finance um number one is I just want to thank
034Mr Frink our CFO specifically is regards to that um check washing situation for one of our constituents um you know it was uh he did a lot of Investigation to understand that fraud you know the fraud did in fact occur and um so I hope that while it's not typical right this is not a situation of oh I forgot to pay like clearly like the paper trail shows that fraud did occur on this this um taxpayers behalf I you know I hope that we uh as a board feel comfortable next week voting and improving that refund for her which I think you said amounted to $1,300 um so that's number one and then number two going to the budget and just where we stand as we know we know in April we will have our
035preliminary final presentation that Mr Fink often uh is required to come to the table um and even then in April when he presents on that there is still more work to be done right so oftentimes what you see in that proposed final presentation is not necessarily what we vote on come May um and so you know just to highlight a couple of things that you mentioned you know I also want to thank a few people at this table in particular because you mentioned the two external factors that are really impacting the budget are those Rising health care costs which we have seen trending um year after year and you know Mr Frink we talked in finance there are some things that we're keeping an eye on that we may be able to initiate to mitigate
036some of that in the future but the more um the the bigger piece right now I think is as you mentioned this commercial real estate um assessments um or reassessments and I want to thank Mrs deardorf I know that you had reached out to Senator MTH to make her aware of the situation I know that Mr thinkink and the administration team had met with Mr sesi about the situation Mrs Westwood I know you had reached out to representative Webster about the situation so advocacy is a big part of what we do on this board and um I hope to see that we're able to make some impact um at a higher level right because ultimately the board can't control that what's going on with the commercial real estate market but if we can get our
037legislators more aware of the situation hopefully that can help to minimize some of the impact down the road okay thank you all right moving on to property Mrs deardorf the property committee met on March 11th um we had a present an update on the Spring City Elementary School construction uh which as of right now everything is on point and on time um we also had um some informational update from Mr pelan regarding the High School tennis court which has a surface crack um our contractor will install Expansion Joints to allow for the court surface to expand this will be scheduled after the current team season is finished uh we also had a school police and safety update uh Chief Boer discussed that our school police and administrators investigated 22 safe to say something tips the
0382425 PC pccd Grant for bidirectional amplifiers the camera system workstation uh to update the two end phones for hearing impaired visitors was discussed there will be two board motions to approve purchases on our next um meeting our voting meeting next week um we are in phase four of the camera project Brook Elementary Upper Providence Elementary in the district office will occur next summer and springf area school district is hosting a drug investigation training for education professionals at the high school in March for administration and selected staff this is funded by a grant and the mciu um for new business that we discussed was our 2526 proposed Capital project review uh regarding access control districtwide and the Royers for generator installation we also discussed our facility Master Plan update um our new architect gko toward Oaks
039and the Eighth Grade Center um and is finishing have they finished yet or in the next two weeks is going to be um finished the remainder of our school tours Mr pelan are they still touring they are still touring they'll be finished in two more weeks okay great um our next meeting is April 8th any questions thank you Mrs deardorf I'd like to thank Miss deor for um chairing the meeting and with my recent crazy travel work schedule so thank you very much and a very good report you're welcome thank you Mr Jackson for recognizing her and also just a quick reminder March 24th for the board we have our uh Spring City walkthr so looking forward to seeing the progress since last fall okay all right moving on Mr Fitzgerald solicitors report uh good
040evening you know my apologies I missed one here it's assistant um mciu is not happening because Dr Wright is not here today uh but we will move on to assistant superintendent report and we'll put a pin in Mr fitgerald right now good evening I have one short announcement to make um we're excited to announce that springf will be hosting the Special Olympics for the third consecutive year this year we are thrilled to welcome 12 schools who will join us in this incredible celebration of athletes and inclusion the athletes will participate in a variety of events showcasing their talents determination and sportsmanship throughout the day they will be supported and cheered on by fellow student volunteers who will be there to offer their encouragement assistance and High Spirits we encourage everyone to come out and show
041your support as we celebrate the athletes and the true Spirit of community together we will make this event an unforgettable experience for all involved so it is it it is on May 8th which is a Thursday and the rain date is May 9th thank you that is the end of my report thank you and yes and Dr Murray I know you are on Zoom is there anything else you would like to add for your report thank you I do have a a brief report um the comprehensive plan was submitted as planned and we look forward to taking the next steps of implementation with regards to that um I also want to share that education technology magazine published an article that reviewed the use of parent square and PBIS in a case study the article was
042written by eron crew and it highlights the exceptional Partnerships between families and schools that with that exist within spring for we're very excited about that I'd like to take a minute to acknowledge the exceptional team at the 56 Center who are implementing their PBIS plan as you know that's one of the focus areas in our comp plan um moving to toward all of our buildings implementing a PBIS plan within their buildings so it's really nice that we have a leader within the district that is embracing and moving this forward in an exceptional way recently we had house principes Kathy cotch Jason Tom and and Jason Thompson share their practices with the entire leadership team so thank you to Aaron crew for writing the article but also Heather Nill Kathy cotch Jason Thompson and the whole
043team at 56 for their exceptional work on implementing PBIS and that is my report thank you Dr Murray and again I want to Echo what you just said as a five6 parent I know we have a couple other five six parents at the table Mrs Westwood uh Mrs Goldsmith um Mrs deardorf actually we have a lot of 56 I'm just like we have a lot of 56 par at this table um I I would absolutely want to Echo what you mentioned about PBIS at the middle school level um and the efforts by Dr cotch Dr Tom uh M Dr cotch Mr Thompson and Mrs niller so thank you okay solici report Yes again good evening um last time we were here we had a US Department of Education tonight we don't or at least you
044know any semblance of one um and I I think it's important to note that for for for the board and generally next steps in terms of what that impact will look like for us um and it really had our office ruminating on on scenarios of how um the federal government will Watchdog a number of of of federal regulations and a perfect example would be that of of furpa and Title 9 and furpa in particular furpa has has very little um rights to to to force compliance and certainly this district will as as all my clients will but the Watchdog for S such things as Student Records was the US Department of Education and no longer now will that be occurring so it'll be very interesting to see how certain federal laws will be regulated moving
045forward and and and how how the office for civil rights was kind of broken out there was a Philadelphia regional office um our office was receiving texts from their lawyers on on Tuesday last week essentially saying we received our our reduction in force notice so who those individuals will be moving forward is anyone's guess um so stay tuned on that one there have been a ton of lawsuits uh some of which may have future impact on the district um uh one that I think will certainly H have a potential immediate impact on on on districts throughout the Commonwealth is a lawsuit that was filed um by a couple of school districts and some parents um against um Governor Shapiro as well as the Pennsylvania human relations Commission uh specifically with regard to its act um
046so stay tuned on that one that one's in the Commonwealth Court and we'll work its way up through the state court so it's not a federal court matter but there could be um some impact down the road in that regard so there's a lot of again ton of moving Parts uh but I wanted to update you at this point Thank you Mr Fitzgerald questions yes Mrs Jor um you know as you said there's a lot of moving Parts with that so until any of those lawsuit suits are settled do you have a reminder of what in the state of Pennsylvania you know the laws that we have to uphold uh the laws of of the state have been what we've discussed over the last several meetings so for instance there's a challenge the human relations
047act that is still the law of the state um there have been executive orders um challenging um um transgender participation in sports and other um um accommodations uh the law of of of the uh the circuit is still the the Boer toown federal court case that has not changed either um so and and and this should be reminded until it has to be changed in terms of course nothing legally has has changed in fact there was a a recent restraining order matter down in in the colonial School District where judge beetlestone who is a a federal judge um who was hearing a matter involving some athletic participation issues in in colonial um um interpreted the executive orders and and and she indicated that they do not have really any legal uh force and she cited
048actually to specific Provisions within those orders and that was just within the last 10 days that judge beestone indicated that so it's helpful to hear from federal judges one way or the other in terms of guidance at a at a minimum right now uh you know having kind of this this flu fluidity of of orders and dear colleague letters and regulations it's important to get this Clarity and that's a little bit towards Clarity yes go ahead Mrs derar you have any followup thank you yeah I mean clearly school districts Across the Nation are in Uncharted Territory right now and it's important to remind the public not to overreact to what you may be hearing on the news right there is um you know whether it be executive orders and again we're in very volatile times
049where executive are being put out they're being potentially pulled back they're being challenged in court so it's important not to overreact um to any one particular sound bite or news bite but you know for us just a reminder to rely on our solicor to help us navigate you know the information that is out there and in particular when you see a conflict because we have seen conflicts over the last few months where local and state law differ from federal law right that's even more important for us to remain Vigilant and you know be taking in data and information from our solicitor and other interested parties so thank you um and I think too just to do a Shameless plug for the board table talk and other resources available um through the Springford School District be
050it parents square and emails many many of these topics are discussed every month at our meetings and so I'm excited to see new faces um that can hear it straight from us but if you ever have any questions about things that you may see from your neighbors talking about what the district has decided you can find it straight from us straight from the district um in that board table talk in our minutes um and on RAM Country TV shout out to the rctv team which we will give another big shout out to them at board Comon at the end of today so I'll put a little pause uh a little preview of that okay so with that said any other questions for Mr Fitzgerald he's good no okay so we're GNA move on to the
051voting portion of our meeting for next week we're going to go through um minutes section six to see if there are any questions okay section seven personnel and I know Mr Rizo when we were putting the agenda together you talked about a lot of the Personnel the um in particular uh listed for y purposes this year or at this time of you that is correct this is the time year we'll start to see a lot of names be added to that list throughout the next couple of months to be um geared up and ready to go for esy during the summer moving on to section eight find question oh I'm sorry my apologies Mrs gold go ahead um I had a question specifically to letter o is that for a new matter or a past
052matter matter it is a past matter okay now you see why I missed over the assistant superintendent report because you got the title on one page and then you have the action item on the other so okay any other questions with Personnel moving on to Finance I do have one quick question about um e is this a shift because if correct me if I'm wrong previously we were using the YMCA are we still using the YMCA and we're also using our sinus or we're just using our sinus we are using both we're using both yeah this has been a challenging agreement to get to get pulled together Mr mavage has been working on that for a while but yes we're using both and what the reason for both space I'll have to get back to
053you I think scheduling availability I'll have to get back to you on that okay to help Mr Rizzo out it's always been an issue for us um as he mentioned availability because other schools other schools use both facilities and they're also um you know they have their own teams also so it's always a availability issue for us until we build a new swim atorium okay thank you and I think a lot of these were discussed in finance so we will move on to section nine property just a few action items that again were discussed in committee but any follow-up questions section 10 programming and curriculum as mentioned in Mr L's report many of these items um are specific if not is it all of these items Dr gardy I'm looking at it no the the
054majority of these items are tied to the structured literacy grant funding correct that is correct um just H and I or not thank you all right moving on to section 11 other business we have some items that will be up for first read but you can see under Section B policies for [Music] approval and some other action items related to trips and mciu the only the only question I have is about e in um section 11 so just confirming we have four staff going but we need no subs there's no additional cost at all Dr Murray may need to speak to this a little bit more but this is a student funded trip uh the staff members that are going are the music staff that will be attending as far as if there's any transportation
055cost or anything I do not believe so uh but Dr Murray would you be able to speak to that at all sure um you're absolutely right is funded by students um there is no cost of the distri I would say with the exception of sub coverage we don't typically write when it's just sub coverage there though really I thought usually we did have a line when there was sub coverage required with a dollar amount like a not to exceed maybe I'm mistaken I will definitely take a look and I can adjust it for next next week thank you madam president I do have one question yes sir regarding the trip and the past we've had nurses attend these trips dependent on the quantity of kids so am I to assume there would be no nurses
056on this trip so it's it's a little bit too early to determine that now because as you mentioned it is based on the needs of the students at the time so since this is a year out that would be determined when it gets a little bit closer once the needs are determined as well thank you so maybe a rhetorical question but if there's additional cost related to the trip Dr Murray I imagine that'll come in front of the board at a later date then yes that's correct okay thank you thank you good questions yes did we move to discussion we did not move to discussion yet but let's move to discussion so we do have one item on the agenda for discussion and that specifically is um the decision that needs to be made today
057so you can see here the board will discuss current spring forward Rams youth football agreement which is due to expire June 30th 2025 um the decision the decision that needs to be made today right we're not necessarily talking about the the terms of the contract or anything like that but we need to give Administration guidance on how we want to negotiate that contract with spring for youth football when it comes to terms Mr Fitzgerald correct me if I'm wrong because it's a contract that would be something that ultimately would be discussed in exec session and of course would come to the full board for vote and be um in the public eye generally yes uh I mean not all contracts are necessarily exact session topics um if it's a if it's a a lease of
058our property that that could be covered but generally contracts are are dealt with by somebody who's who's representing the district to negotiate and then bring it back ultimately for for vote so we can burn that bridge when we come to it but I think the first decision that we need to make here tonight is how do we want the administration to negotiate um there are options Mr uh Mr Rizo I know you and I talked about some of those options so it come down a few different ways we can have an ad hoc committee negotiate with uh with the Rams um football in cheer leading or in the past we've used Mr uh Mr Fink to do that as long as we give him some sort of like some terms to work with and he
059would be um happy to enter into those discussions I believe that's what he did back in 2023 um with the American Legion if I'm not mistaken um that has been extended out to 2036 so I think if that's the will of the board I I would recommend that would be probably the smoothest process which we can get that started right away if that's how you feel if not we have other committee options as well so are the terms have the terms changed that drastic from the prior contract I mean it was pretty cut and dry before we're talking about this one we haven't had those discussions yet discuss but yeah I mean it's a it's really a a standard lease agree or actually licensing agreement um and it was modeled after the one that we
060have with uh with the legion um now there are going to be substantive terms that would have to be negotiated but for the most part I'd say most of the the document will stay status quo it's going to be some of the usage components that that I think would be negotiated um so what I would suggest whomever the the makeup is of the of the group probably will have to have a discussion with my office just about legal implications of the document itself so the question is you know we can take the approach of the Personnel committee being involved in negotiations either way I think you know the question is do we want the Personnel committee which is Mr Jackson myself Dr Wright and Mrs deardorf to be um at the table with nego and
061whether of course in partnership with Mr thinkink or is it something where you know like we've done past negotiations we're comfortable with Mr thinkink you know given that we provide the Personnel committee provides some guard rails comfortable with him negotiating and then him coming back and you know reporting to the board just my two cents I think if you keep it with as few individuals as possible it'll be helpful and I think Mr Frink certainly can take marching orders um and that's probably the I think the most efficient way to do it so maybe a a meeting to collaborate on goals and then leave it to him to negotiate does the board does a will of the board feel comfortable with that I support that I do I think there needs to be clarification cuz
062you've talked about three different things so there's an ad hoc committee which wouldn't necessarily be the Personnel committee or would that ad hoc committee the Personnel committee would be what you're talking about is ad hoc well we have the Personnel committee an ad hoc committee is defined in board policy um as the senior most member of each of the three regions that are pulled together for a specific purpose for a period of time which is still the personel committee folks it's still Mr Jackson you and me and Dr right yeah so it would still be the same committee and so the two options would be a committee be IT personnel or the ad hoc which is the same meeting with Mr meet doing all of it or that committee meeting with Mr fin to give
063him guidelines of how we would like him to negotiate on our behalf that's correct correct in the past for that 2023 or whatever was the last agreement that you referenced um was that how it was done as well I I don't remember uh I I know that I had I had involvement in I was I was the the drafter of the document and I probably had some role in in in collaborating with I think I think Jim was the business manager at the point it could have been Tim onbo I don't recall no it was Jim and it was during that period of time when I was on leave um so okay I was I thinking back that I was thinking back3 when it was approved I was thinking back to the original okay okay
064then I don't recall my involvement in that one yes that was during Co there was a lot going on at that point in time but to your point I do believe that is how he proceeded so I'll go back to my question I heard Mr Jackson and Mrs Westwood and myself being comfortable with giving Mr F direction are there at least two other board members that are comfortable with moving it forward in that direction knowing that ultimately it will be reported to us and ultimately we will have the information to be able to make an informed vote and have input in the process I want to vote for which option allows us to review the contract and talk to Mr fank prior to him negotiating with the team so however you want to whatever that
065is I think I think that's what yeah Mrs serman was saying so yeah that would definitely be the issue I I think it would be giving you a a copy of the the current agreement input in fact frankly I think the entire board can see it should see it and then provide input to maybe to to to either me or to to to Mr thinkink so there's input from everybody collectively and we do have it so um it you know was sent to us last year I think um just to make sure it hits the top of our inbox maybe we can make sure it gets put in board memo again or sent out to the board again um but so I just need Clarity was that a yes Mrs deardorf yes okay that's a
066yes for me too yes yes okay Mrs gold smith I don't want to disregard you it's a yes as long as that there is a it's sent on to the entire board entire board is able to give comment in advance um and just to clarify I don't want it to seem as though spring forward youth football and chairs being targeted by this process I think there's multiple contracts uh maybe not multiple but there's a few handful of contracts that are existing that the existing board was not part of them being put in place and some of them have just um renewed over and over because we have such great relationships with those um organizations but um there is a taste from the board uh to have a little bit more access to those I guess
067um in future negotiations and you know like I said it's not just youth football and cheer there's other sports organizations and some other properties that we have as well that um have these long-standing uh contracts that just we weren't part of you're the senior member and I'll just Echo uh just I saw some social media posts from spring for you football and cheer and I know they have like a girls flag football Clinic lately so again um kudos to all the volunteers there for helping to promote the culture and you know offer our students the experiences that really helped to make spring forward I the district that it is so thank you okay with that said if there's no other questions I think you have the direction you need Mr Rizzo or Mr think needs
068yes we do thank you okay so we'll move on to the informational item which again is a donation acceptance from the Evans Elementary School uh to the Evans Elementary School ramquest of the administration gratefully acknowledged acceptance of donation from Mr John Johnson approximate donation of 1,500 $ for the following items uh to evans's school Ram request so you'll see the um 3D printer and anti vibration fee and everything that goes along with that so again thank you Mr Johnston for your donation to Evans and that takes us to board comments so is there comment from any of our board members tonight of course I would like to start with something I've talked about for years the community being involved with the growth of our community I get emails um from various parents talking about transportation
069and I say this all the time and I will say this again the growth of this community involves you you need to be at the front of the line when these planning discussions are going on when you come to the district and voice your concerns about pickups once it's approved by the Township game over we have to educate the kids right now there is a new development with tow Brothers great company I'm in the vertical building industry great company they're putting um if you're familiar with toe Brothers luxury homes between Township Line and Klein no this is another one yeah this is over by me um right near Spring Valley so homes are going to go there they're probably four or 5,000 foot homes but you can put up in nine months we can't put
070up new schools in nine months so you will have these developments that are created which will impact traffic the infrastructure of the silver work simply means the roads are not being widen so now we're putting more roads we're putting more cars on the same roads that we're having challenges with now so if you want to be a part of this process you got to get in the middle over on hes Road there are 54 million doll homes being built those are not homes without kids those are two and three kids probably hes Road cannot be widened because there's a protected area by Upper Providence on the opposite side so again we're putting homes up which we support um however when I see the divorces concerns from the parents I encourage you go to the townships
071um there is a quarterly report that comes out every year it talks about the status of every commercial building from design from conceptual design development to construction so everybody knows to process you have 55 and over communities that will start out that way if if they can make the sales they rezone them how do I know that I sat on the upper Prov zoning here in board for five years so I encourage you please go to your townships everything is laid out where these developments are going to be and and if you wait till the homes are built we have to pick the kids up we have to educ at them we have nowhere to go at that point so again please go to your townships en voice your concerns if you have one regarding
072all of the new developments I support it because it pays property taxes but at the same time there's an impact um to the current roads and there's also discussions about going in developments we're on a type time line to pick kids up circulate the various roadways and get them here in a timely fashion so all of that plays into it so again please attend your Township meetings being Upper Providence limmer um that information is circulated by the townships thank you thank you Mr Jackson love having that deep specialization in zoning on our board so thank you any other board comment maybe just one more since we're in budget season so similarly this is the time of of the year we usually get start getting more emails about um tax um taxes and potential tax increases
073I think also to Echo Mr Jackson's concern the a reminder that the majority our funding comes from property taxes so as we continue to go through some of these discussions from a budgetary perspective remember from a federal perspective we get 1% or less in funding not a lot from State and a lot more from property taxes locally so we talk about things like commercial real estate like I mentioned earlier um and healthc care costs going up um know that this board is doing a lot to try to continue to work to bring that number down because all of us are taxpayers too um but again you know some of these things like are positive um with new homes that potentially means more property tax for us but there are additional constraints um that come with
074some of that there is a per capita cost to educating students that will end up residing in those homes thank you Mrs deardorf uh excuse me Mrs Westwood and um since you mentioned mened uh the um large majority of our budget about 80% of our budget being funded through local sources I will put another reminder in that uh psba advocacy day I'm looking at Mrs Goldsmith I know you mentioned this in your update last time um is in April so if uh the board I have attended in the past I know if you others of you have the opportunity to meet with your state legislators to be able to talk about these issues directly with um alongside other surrounding Schoolboard directors um in the area so um please take the opportunity to sign up for
075that and please um one more thing you can do related to advocacy day is um write your elected officials about Cyber Charter reform that is another very large multi-million dollar expense for this district with continued reform could help us keep more dollars here for our students any other board comment so I will end our board comment with a comment recognizing our amazing rctv and communication staff so M crew I know that um typically Mrs wein Garten who's chair of community relations would likely make this update at her next Community Relations Committee report which will be in April but I think that um we should recognize it sooner than that so miss crew had the opportunity to inform the community relations team uh of some exciting news that earlier this year they submitted 14 projects for
076the 2025 pensar excellence and education Communications contest and award winners were just announced this week and please to share that uh the work of our Communications team received recognition for 13 of those 14 submissions so amazing job um that in and I will read some of these there's uh so there are different levels and you know we received the award for excellence in the social media campaign for the F uh spring for Instagram back to school Q&A Award of merits for photography uh particularly with the pep rally video on welcome to spring for 2024 a video on bring your child to workday a video on Monster Meetup a video on the sun moon and Mr Landis uh the April 8th Eclipse discussion and honorable mentions for uh some photography around Spring City the Halloween um
077mummer Kelsey picture as well as a spring Ford ramcast leape birthday Spring City groundbreaking ceremony Polar Plunge 2024 and uh last week in Spring Ford video series so as I replied in my email to the communications team um you know such tremendous work and I am always so impressed with how this team with the size of the district that we have with the number of buildings and how many people now miss screw on your team uh I say five but really it's four we Loop in the broadcast teacher at the high school okay four or five people covering 13 buildings 8,000 students and many community events um I just I I can't speak highly enough of how they go about highlighting the best of our community so thank you for all your efforts team have
078one more thing Madam president I forgot about one other factor I wanted to talk about for you folk that live in Upper Providence I'm sure you've heard of Parkhouse I will encourage you to attend those meetings it is not over yet you're looking at probably 6 to 700 homes and you can Define that number of kids as any way you want to that process is still going on and this is the time you can get there and voice your concerns about transportation and the impact to the district so I implore you please attend the these meetings at the township and it's publicized thank you I am not ending on that very important and relevant comment but I was trying to end on a very light-hearted positive note so I'm going to throw one more in
079there one more just to counter do you want do you want to say something when you were giving your shout out to the communications team I was just going to share that I was shocked to see that there was not an award for the kindergarten um event um because that I was shocked as well I mean shocked um so we're doubling down and we did submit it to enpr the national school public relations Association and we hope to bring home some gold for that over the summer because kindergarten registration is open and um once you get registered for kindergarten you get invited to an amazing event um prior to our seniors graduating where your kindergartener gets to walk the field um and have a little special capping gown um event and it is something that
080I will always hold dear to my heart it was such an amazing event last year so looking forward to seeing the new kindergarteners this year Double Down Miss crew double down because that is I have had folks from other District you know imitation is best form of flattery I have had folks from other districts wanting to inquire about how spring for does that so I'm glad that you're submitting that thank you okay all right any other board comments good all right how about happy St Patrick's Day sorry I'm Irish anybody else now okay all right happy St patri happy note yeah all right moving on to public to be heard this can be on any topic so if there's anyone that wishes to speak please approach the podium with your name Township of residents and
081uh just to be clear we uh I didn't mention it uh three minutes and you'll see the clock up there all right good evening John Maza Royersford um I'm going to be speaking on behalf of the Rees uh burglary so there's always the word transparency that comes from the district anytime something happens uh social media posts most of the time but there's rarely actually transparency in the minds of an of a Springford parent um or there's usually no followup or official followup to give information to us after something big happens um not saying that a burglary is humongous but maybe it's not we don't we don't know Mr Rizzo started the meeting with almost exactly what we needed earlier today that has not been released on internet we checked right before we came to the
082meeting that was almost exactly what we needed um I'm going to add some other things that we would have wanted to know um and I'm not sure who makes the determination of what's released and when but I know that's not Dr Carboy I know it's not anybody at RS because it's probably way higher than them she's great in my book she does an outstanding job um but there's a little more information that probably needs to come out to make us feel like our kids are safe um the person that releases the information I'm not sure if they're a Springford parent I imagine they are um but I charge them in the future to think like a Springford parent so here's some transparency what's going through the minds of R families uh to reflect on when
083you decide that this time there's going to be a proper followup after the incident how did the actors get in did they break in or was a window or door unlocked was that a vulnerability or what was the vulnerability that they took advantage of how often is a physical security inspection completed on Ras is the risk mitigated when our children go back to school tomorrow um did an alarm go off if not why did it have to be discovered by Mr Mike this morning um what is in place what went wrong all that kind of information and does the security system even work um there's rumors that there was also a burglar with vandalism earlier this school year that didn't get released I'm not sure how true that is um if so I'd like that
084elaborated on was there any student personal information compromise this is the big thing that we wanted to know all day long that did not come out did any of our students information get compromise you said there was a lot of vandalism where was it the office was it the hallways that stuff that that we feel is a do out to us um crazy day and age did a k9 search to the building or was it just officers looking for unwanted actors did an explosive Kine check to make sure our kids are safe tomorrow stuff can get hidden all over the place and I see this coming from 18 years in law enforcement military that's where my head's at Force protection so I know a lot of parents are also thinking that and if they're not
085uh they WR that information um are our children really safe at school and is there anything else that we need to know that you guys didn't tell us that's it so I appreciate your time and looking forward to more information thank you very much and can you could I have your name again I'm sorry Mr maslo is it Ma Maza thank you um please after the meeting while we don't go back and forth Mr Rizzo uh will be available F thanks hi my name is Daniel Chris I live in Royersford burough and I am the mother of two young children who currently attend Royersford Elementary School um like many families my day didn't start out quite as I expected when when I read the words Breakin I was picturing broken glass at the front doors
086computer and tablet Towers emptied and rooms rans sacked I later found out that this was not the case and instead these minors accessed the school through an unlocked door while the vandalism of our school is a serious matter the fact that a door was left unlocked is even more concerning I trust the staff of rsford Elementary to keep my children safe every day because of the protocols they themselves claim to have in place walking into any building in this District I have to buzzed through two separate doors an unlocked door is a serious breach of this safety if it hadn't been caught because of the vandalism I wonder when it would have been discovered and how long our students would have been in the building with this unlocked door the correspondence parents have received is
087vague at best and the lack of transparency has been extremely concerning beyond the vandalism there are several other concerns that could be alleviated with more communication some of the items I can think of were students personal and private information like addresses Social Security numbers and health information access since the kitchen was vandalized was the food food contaminated and what has been done to ensure that none of this food will be consumed by our students and staff were any personal items left by staff and students in the building missing or damaged parents in the school have a right to know what the incident was and what measures were being put into place to make sure that it doesn't happen again names don't need to be disclosed but the simple facts of what happened are something that
088every parent that has a child at the school has a right to know just telling them everyone is okay is not sufficient and there's no reason that we should just blindly trust that our that everything is going to be okay open communication is extremely important when involves the Safety and Security of our children if I were to keep my child out I have to notify the school and tell them why the shame the same should be reciprocated for parents I think it's important that the district should not be holding any details about what happened at all especially in light of the current political climate and all the issues surrounding immigration and the Department of Education in conclusion I would like to know what policies are being put into place to ensure this doesn't happen again
089clearly there was a breakdown somewhere in the safety protocols and I'd like to know what is being done to prevent this in the future thank you for your time thank you very much and um typically again public comment is not a Q&A it's not back and forth um but to the extent that there potentially is um some misinformation normally is the job of the board president to correct that um in this case with regards to the door I would just ask that you reach out to Mr Rizzo after this meeting to get clarification on that thank you any other comments okay motion to adjourn [Music]