001e e e good evening I'd like to call the Springford Area School District board meeting to order today is Tuesday February 18th please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance IED alance 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
002board at the start 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 being filmed speakers will be asked to State their name in the area in which you reside before your comment good evening everyone thank you for being here Mrs bicker could we please have a roll call yes in person this evening we have Mrs Goldsmith Mr Lackey Mrs Wine Garden Mrs Westwood Dr Wright Mrs deardorf and Mrs hermans Mr Jackson and Dr Sharma are both absent thank you very much um
003as far as announcements go the board did meet in executive session prior to the start of the meeting to discuss a legal matter as well as a Personnel issue um and as an additional announcement which I typically don't have is I just want to give a quick shout out and thank you to miss Stanton who oversees the black student union who uh got a last minute order from Miss deardorf and myself over the weekend making these um black student union shirts so in honor of Black History Month we know that it is black student union is hosting a a spirit week so it's all about recognizing the strength Brilliance and impact of black figures um who have shaped you know our communities so thank you very much Miss Stanton and the students of our black
004student union okay Mr Rizo anything that you would like to add I do not but thank you all right well moving on we're going to go to public to be heard and this is on agenda item so if there's anyone that wishes to speak please approach the podium with your name and Township of residents as well as the agenda agenda item for which you are referencing seeing as though no one is approaching the podium we will move on to our presentation for the evening we have Dr Kelly Murray assistant superintendent of teaching learning and Innovation to present the 202528 district comprehensive plan good evening tonight I'm pleased to present to you the proposed comprehensive plan for the 2025 to 2028 school year we are going to be doing a brief overview of the process talking
005about how we got here and ending with our goals and action plans the comprehensive plan is a school Improvement document that all districts have to develop every 3 years and submit through the Future Ready comprehensive planning portal the development of the comprehensive plan follows a structured process to ensure Contin School Improvement and alignment with State education goals this process follows six cyclical steps to guide instruction and guide districts in developing and refining their strategic initiatives first districts set the direction by establishing a vision and priorities based on student needs next they assess the needs through data collection and stakeholder feedback and engagement to identify strengths and areas of growth using this information districts create a plan outlin specific goals action steps and resources needed for implementation once finalized they implement the plan by executing strategies
006and initiatives across all schools to ensure progress we'll monitor the plan tracking outcomes and evaluating the effectiveness finally we adjust the course as needed and make sure that we are making datadriven decisions and modifications as needed the components of the comprehensive plan there are five there are five components to complete the district comprehensive plan this includes the district mission and vision and educational values District profile needs assessment goal setting and action planning and professional development in addition to the comprehensive plan there are five additional state required reports that also must be reviewed and completed these include the chapter 4 academic standards and assessments gifted education assurances student service assurances induction plan and professional development plan for the purposes of the presentation today I will be focusing on the comprehensive plan but if you wanted additional
007information those those plans are also posted on the district website the first step in the comprehensive planning process is it's quite an extensive process in some regards it's a bit challenging because we are still in um implementation of our current plan yet we are in our third and final year and we're developing our next um comprehensive plan while our first plan isn't even completed yet but our first step includes um establishing a committee of various stakeholders and ensuring that we review our current plan see what worked and evaluate the effectiveness reflect on the Mission Vision and educational values conduct A needs assessment prioritize that result those results and then begin to plan for improvement our committees were selected to participate this year we started in the fall of 2024 with interested stakeholders we were invited
008to complete an interest form we posted this on the spring Ford website as well as weekly update emails and we had 99 responses to the survey everyone who expressed interest whether that be staff or community members were invited to participate we broke into three committees the first being the steering committee where we had 26 members and they were directly responsible for developing the plan additionally we had a feedback and Review Committee the feedback and Review Committee were responsible for reviewing those Draft plans excuse me and providing input for consideration and finally we had the professional development task force which has been in place for several years they typically meet three times a year and they're responsible for developing professional development vision for the district and we have 25 members there and that is led by
009our curriculum Department specifically Katie gardy our comprehensive plan timeline started in nove or in September 30th when we established our committee um we had several meetings throughout the year which brought us to November 15th where we started to share our Draft plans um we share that both with the school board via board memo and requested input the input from um the Schoolboard as well as building Administration was due on December 1st which brought us to our one of our final steering committee meetings in on December 16th by December 20th we shared our Draft plans with that second review and evaluation committee for feedback and then we had our final steering committee meeting January 13th where we added the final touches on January 28th the proposed plans were posted to the district website for the required
01028-day review there are um the comprehensive plan the gifted education plan professional development plan and induction plan are all posted to the district website as required by pte this evening we are presenting the results of the the comprehensive plan and seeking board approval next week when the comprehensive plan's final submission date is due on March 31st as I mentioned we went through several meetings I'm not going to go into all the details of each of those meetings but you'll see here a summary of what each meeting entailed including starting with re reviewing our needs assessment reviewing the current plan and identifying which areas we wanted to continue as well as um several data points which I'll talk about in just a second our review and feedback team provided those the feedback on the Draft plans
011and we were revised all the way through until we got to our final review meeting so we reviewed a number of data sets um as part of the the process here's a number of data sets we did focus on some more than others um but there's a number of data sets that are contributing um toward the needs assessment one of the data sets includes a condition for leadership teaching and learning um this is a a process that's identified through the comprehensive plan we did ask for the community feedback on all of the specific statements within the conditions for leadership and that the results of that were reflected through the 99 responses and that was also used as part of the comprehensive plan during the last comprehensive plan if you recall there was extensive discussion pertaining
012to the mission and vision at that time that discussion led to updated mission and vision statement that you see before you during this process this time the committee did review the updated mission and vision that was created last comprehensive plan and have determined that it's still relevant and there are no recommendations for changes based on our current mission and vision additionally there were expectations for stakeholders and educational values that were also re reviewed as part of this process um we're not going to dive into the specifics of those because it was also determined that there were no further changes needed and that those are also they continue to be relevant we ended on four main target areas um to really focus on the first is targeted practices to improve math and Ela growth and achievement
013second is to improve math and Ela achievement and growth for students are historically underperforming the third is to the implementation of a multi-tier system of support with Fidelity and finally student- centered support ensuring that students are receiving interventions and demonstrating positive growth in the next part I'm going to break it up into the priority priority areas I'm going to talk about two priority areas and then I'm going to go into how we're going to address those and then I'm going to do the other remaining two areas so our first priority area is targeting the practices to improve math and Ela growth and achievement this is an area that um underwent a lot of changes and adaptations as we went through the comprehensive planning process originally we started looking at just improving math and Ela and
014as the discussions um developed we really started to shift our thinking from approaching data as achievement and growth to instead being the solution to being the symptom of the problem so what we determined is we would focus rather on targeting those practices instead of targeting the result of those practices so our goal is to increase overall m math and Ela achievement and we're going to do that by focusing on highly effective instruction practices and assessments for learning the main areas of this Focus will be targeting the the spring forward framework for instruction which includes curriculum alignment assessment driven instruction responsive instruction and a dynamic classroom you'll see we've identified um three benchmarks the format of the future planning um portal requires us to have year three reflect the current goal so that's why you'll see
015that repeated there priority two will focus on math and Ela achievement and growth for students who are historically underperforming this is really focusing on Rising the tide for all students as it pertains to instruction and assessment practices priority two focuses on honing in on the students who are underperforming and struggling to meet Benchmark standards this is what we refer to as a performance Gap the intent of this priority is to really narrow our focus on students needing additional supports and being very purposeful and intentional with our invent interventions and then tracking the progress pte does have a definition of historically underperforming and we're going to use that as our basis however our intent is to really look closely at the students who are struggling and who may not be getting the intents of supports already
016through other means the next step would be to plan for how to support them by understanding the data and understanding the root cause of the data that is the intent to ensure greater success for those who are struggling so let's focus on how these goals will be achieved for our first two areas we're going to really ensure that there is curriculum alignment strong curricular alignment as you you're aware we have updated our math curriculum our Ela curriculum and we're still within the early stages of implementing that so we're really going to make sure that there is support and that we're focusing on the curriculum alignment additionally we're looking at instructional practices that have the highest impact um the highest impact for instructional strategies so making sure we're using those high impact instructional strategies for instruction
017we're going to look at conducting collaborative walkthroughs and look fors with our administrative team and use that for feedback supporting this through ongoing professional development by designing and analyzing high quality assessments and working with the the building Administration to build strong targeted datadriven annual building level plans as well and finally the part I mentioned earlier was conducting that root analysis on each student who's defined as historically underperforming making sure that we know the reason behind why students might be struggling and ensuring that we have intervention plans that will Target those reasons priority three is going to focus on the multi-tiered system of support this is a goal that is carrying on from our previous um comprehensive plan the goal from our previous comprehensive plan was to document and memorialize clear procedures for mtss in short
018mtss refers to a three- tiered system that describes how we can help students who are struggling I'm going to get into that a little bit in a couple minutes those struggles can be academic social emotional or behavioral currently we're implementing our mtss plan but we're not ready to call this initiative complete as I explained in the beginning of the presentation the cycle of continuous Improvement relies on implementing re-evaluating and adjusting accordingly priority four is focusing on the implementation of interventions so that 80% of students receiving interventions are developing are demonstrating that positive growth so priority two here focuses on honing in on those students who are underperforming and meeting The Benchmark standards so let's talk a little bit about how we're going to meet the last uh priority 3 and four I'd like to take
019a minute to explain a little bit more about the structure of mtss there are three tiers in an mtss model tier one is referred to as the universal tier this means that all students get access to highquality curriculum and instruction this includes not only academic but also social emotional and behavioral once a student begins to show signs of struggling again whether that's academic behavioral social emotionally they begin to receive tier 2 and tier three interventions interventions will increase in intensity and frequency as students move from Tier 1 to tier 2 tier two to tier three but truthfully that tier one never goes away within the comprehensive plan there's significant focus on measuring the fality of implementation of mtss this includes Shing that first and foremost tier one is strong for all students academically behaviorally and
020social emotionally as Stu students demonstrate needs these are documented and progress of monit monitored through intervention plans that are developed by our mtss coordinators and building level teams and including parent input included in our comprehensive plans are the development of schoolwide positive behavior plans that support student Behavior social emotional learning and restorative practices positive social emotional Behavior includes three levels of support again the same thing that we see as the academic support Universal targeted and intensive positive behavior intervention support plans otherwise known as PBIS is a framework for enhancing the adoption and implementation of a Continuum of evidence-based interventions to achieve academic and behavioral outcomes for all students interventions may include Student Center practices but also include explicit instruction in the areas of Behavioral regulation emotional regulation executive functioning Andor social skills an important part
021of the mtss process is using data to identify needs many times we have data but sometimes we don't for this reason we're using Universal screeners as a benchmark to help determine which students may be at risk um and in need of of interventions this may occur in reading math but may also include social emotional behaviors these screeners don't diagnose students but rather they provide insights to challenges that children may be experiencing and are not always visible so so the question we always go back to is do we have the resources to implement this plan currently we have an effective curriculum cycle we are using linkit to as a data warehouse to ensure that we have data that's accessible and that is tracking our interventions we also have instructional coaches to support the professional development what
022we'll need to create as part of this plan are clear walkthrough Pro protocols to look for evidence of high impact instructional strategies we'll need to develop that process for root cause analysis for students identified as historically underperforming and also focus on creating a rubric to measure the mtss Fidelity in the future potential needs may include professional development Consultants additional math or reading interventions as determined and curricular resources to support social emotional learning I do want to make a note that these are not unbudgeted costs either um the needs within the assistant superintendent budget and also the curriculum budget are identified to be able to support um comprehensive planning initiatives so these are budgeted costs and we would work within the budgeted amount so in summary our four comprehensive planning areas are to focus on targeted
023practices focus on instruction to improve that math and Ela focus on students who are struggling Implement mtss with Fidelity and progress monitor students who are receiving interventions question thank you Dr Murray for the presentation I do have a comment and a question but maybe first I'll turn over to the board to see if uh there are any I'll refer to you Mrs gold smith I had a question specifically about priority four and the growth factor that we're looking at so are we going to be defining what that is because are we looking because if we just say growth is it meaningful is it you know one you know how are we going to be defining that will that be part of what process that's a great question that is going to be part of the
024process early on in the the development of the plans we were targeting very specific data points for example pasas posos tells us whether or not students are meeting adequate growth or exceeding there's a saying that says if you're one and two you have to be blue and peas which essentially means that our students who are struggling most we need to make sure that they have at least a Year's worth of growth if not more that's one example of a data point that we're going to be using but the team decided we we don't want to just focus on that one single data point we want to look at the holistic data that's available for the student and determine there in a very naturalistic way are they making growth are we seeing the growth that we
025need and are we able to monitor that along the way so will that be defined a little bit later kind of what that those prams are because I mean I'm assuming it would be to grade level expectations so the level great question that is always the goal to get to grade level expectations but for some that Gap is larger than others so ultimately what we would like to see are our most struggling students making at least one years of growth the challenge with that though is if a student is making one years worth of growth even though they grew within that year they're still behind so our goal will be to close that Gap and try and reduce that so it's not just making one year one year worth of growth that's the minimum it's
026one year plus sum so that we can overtime close the gap that's going to be individualized by students um a student who has a wider Gap might take a few years to get there a student who has a lower Gap is going to take hopefully less time and then just a couple more questions in terms of the Fidelity of the implementation of mtss how was that judgment kind of made to start off with the expectation of only 50% Fidelity um for the first year just because again it taking us to three years to get to 80% sure so we have a um I believe it's about a 133-page document that outlines our mtss procedures as well as several other ancillary documents as well um we have this past year really been focusing on the math
027and Ela interventions our mtss coordinators have been working on establishing um intervention plans doing tier one checklists and we're in really good shape with regards to that but we know mtss is much larger than our math and our reading interventions so what we're going to be doing is establishing a rubric that really looks at what is the most effective approach to mtss and using that to then do walkthroughs and F checks determining a baseline for each one of our buildings we don't have a baseline yet because we're just implementing it for the first time this year so create a baseline from there um and then moving moving the the dial forward there so it might be possible that that those your creating The Benchmark this year those those numbers might I can tell you that
028our buildings are in different places with the implementation some are definitely um a little bit more uh farther along some of them are not as much um but what I can say is um working with some of the um Consultants that we've worked with with mtss I'm really proud of where we are with our year one implementation I think we're doing a fantastic job our staff are doing a fantastic job we have interventions in place we have um you know staff doing tier one checklists it's really a great place for year one but I think we have some room to grow over time I do think it's really unrealistic to expect an mtss plan of this size to be implemented fully within a year right no I agree I'm just trying to figure out what
029the thought process was the one last question I had is just more of a and I'm assuming this has been a discussion point between you and Dr G which is obviously I'm a bigger huge support of mtss and I think it's really great to have these Target interventions and really fill those gaps because you know a lot of times with skill sets it's kind of kids become like swiss cheese and those holes get bigger and bigger and that that Foundation collapses um one of the things that is there a safety net in place for the child find find obligations because obviously it can by no means be of an intentional negative or or purposeful act but sometimes some kids could be caught in an mtss system who may need the referral for an evaluation and
030is there like safety nets in place that we're ensuring that the kids who need that referral process are still moving through that process and not in you know kept in the mtss system 100 100% um one of the things that we want to make sure is that mtss is not being a barrier to special education that it's not slowing down so we do have a process that's documented but within that process there has to be some flexibility for students we we have guidelines but they're guidelines it doesn't mean that there can't be any exceptions to that and we've been really purposeful about making sure that we're following you know that approach to it um Dr G and I worked very closely together as well because we want to make sure that this is a Continuum
031of Education that it's not just once you um have an IEP or once to your in intervention that it's you're separated that it's a Continuum um and ensuring that that tier one is for all students and the nice thing about mtss is it's not that you get nothing and then you get special education this is a nice middle ground that kids can start to receive support intervention to kind of hopefully eliminate the need for referrals where we can plug those holes but I just want to make sure and and you've confirmed it which is there are guidelines in place so that kids don't in incorrectly get caught absolutely thank you thank you Mrs gold smth other questions or comments okay so I do have a comment and then a question so I loved I don't
032know if you heard me when you're talking about priority number one and talking about Shifting the focus and evolving the thinking from scores and d and and data to practices right there are drivers in their outcomes and I think sometimes organizations get um a little bogged down on focusing on the outcomes and not enough on the drivers so I'm very pleased to hear you talk about that um second ly I wanted to ask a question about mtss along the lines of Mrs gold smith so I saw a bullet in there around um K to6 social emotional learning curriculum and again I'll just speak for myself I think social emotional learning um delivers a strong return on investment right the research is pretty clear it's out there it talks about improved academic performance improved um like
033less behavior issues we talk about improved attendance we talk about promoting a greater sense of self and with peers and with your school so um I love this I I'm thinking when I look at that bullet that it is a more concerted and deliberate effort to integrate it um at at our younger levels which I think is the right move so can you elaborate on what are we thinking with that bullet so absolutely I think this is the the slide that you're referring to um I I wanted to spend some time talking about the mtss process because that is so important to the foundation again whether or not it is academic or social emotional behavioral the idea is that that tier one goes throughout and when students are struggling it doesn't mean that you remove
034that it means that you get that in addition so with that what makes mtss different than an RTI process or previous um iterations is that it includes the social emotional and behavioral piece you're looking at all of the students needs to be able to ensure that you're supporting them in all way ways sometimes it may not be an academic need that is impacting students performance it could be a behavioral it could be a social emotional we are um so we're looking at that twofold number one is making sure that we have data points to be able to understand what students needs are even if they're not visible so we do have AAL Universal screener that students can take that will help us determine whether or not students may be at risk for um additional needs
035and I don't know that at risk is the right terminology I want to take that back um more so of need of need um of of needing interventions I didn't say that very eloquently um but along that as well we want to make sure that tier one is really solid both academically and social emotionally when we say tier one we talking about General audience a we're talking about everybody just clarify for the community absolutely um General audience all students are receiving instruction in in some of these skills as well so that's we're going to be looking at here where we're ensuring curriculum alignment for anal curriculum now when I say curriculum I don't necessarily mean a product I mean are we identifying how we're teaching a skill such as emotional regulation what does that look
036like for a kindergartner what does that look like for a fifth grader and high schooler um so it doesn't necessarily mean a program it means making sure that we're documenting how instruction is occurring and then what supports are happening in place um we also have within our intervention plan PL the ability to identify an intervention plan for a student who might be struggling behavioral social emotionally as well and that includes two parts are we providing tools for the student to be successful but are we also providing instruction to help those lagging skills so that's part of the intervention plans that's already occurring and that we're really looking at ramping that up over the next several years thank you um yeah I guess I'll just end with uh you know much like what I started with
037I think that there are some fantastic teachers and classrooms in this District that do a good job of implementing those interpersonal skills into their day-to-day but I would love to see a considered effort to be uh to have this be systemic especially at our younger levels when I think the impact uh the return on investment is is much greater so thank you okay any other questions or comments all right thank you Dr Murray moving on to our standing board and committee reports we will turn it over to miss Gupta and uh or who's kicking off okay sorry turn your mic so this is our February student rep report so as far as past events go we students finished their midterms on January 22nd and on that same day the second quarter ended then course selection
038began for students in grades 9 to 11 on January 23rd and then we had our winter Indoor Winter Guard show on January 25th the skills USA competition at the tech center was from February 4th to February 5th and then we had our spring forward Vex robotics home event on February 8th and now I'm going to to turn over to anuka for our future events yeah so looking into um the future events we have a sophomore FPC par presentation um on February TW uh 19th it was rescheduled from um last Wednesday which was February 12th then we have an ASVAB testing administered here at Spring Ford on February 20th and then the next day junior prom tickets are starting to become on sale that next day on February 21st through school school pay and these sales
039will be open 247 up until March 10th and then we have the Western Montgomery career and Technology Center skills over stereotypes event being hosted on February 26th the gold card spring musical preview is on February 27th and then that following night we have the spring musical night showing and then after that we have the German exchange program uh for sophomores to sign up that will close on February 28th I believe the signups are open as of right now um so make sure you get your forms in if that is something that you are interested in and then we have our spring musical man mattini night and showing on March 1st and then spring Sports begin on March 3rd and then the SAT is being administered here at Spring Forward on March 8th and then as
040always we have some reminders make sure students to continue to read the weekly update for districtwide news and make sure to keep up with your weekly assignments and I would also like to say good luck to all of the student athletes competing in districts right now I know basketball wrestling we have winter track and field and we have what sport am I missing swimming that's right um all of these student athletes are competing in districts right now right now and I just want to wish a good luck to all of them and I also wanted to go back to the German exchange program for sophomores I know a good handful of people that went on this program that went through this program and that went on this trip and I just know that it was
041such an amazing experience for these students I know that I actually have one friend that is going to Germany over the summer to hang out with her friend that she met on this program because it was such a great experience so if you're a sophomore and you're thinking about taking on this um taking on this challenge I guess you could say because obviously you're going to be in another country you're going to be meeting new people I would definitely go for it because I know from what my friends have told me that it is a once in a lifetime experience that you should not miss so definitely try to go for something like that because we have all these experiences that we offer and I think it would be such an amazing experience if you're
042thinking about doing that so that is our February student rep report thank you thank you thank you Miss G thank you Miss Stein and I love the color commentary there in the plug for uh our programs I was going to say I feel like it's been a little bit since we've just caught up I mean Miss stey it's graduation coming up how are we feeling what's going on in your world um it's very hectic right now I have only her back from one college which is a little bit stressful because I that means that I only have a little bit of time to decide where I want to go but good things are happening and I'm feeling very optimistic so fingers crossed for everything in the future good I'm sure you'll land exactly where you
043need to be and they will be very lucky to have you yeah good any questions or comments for student rips I can second your commentary on the German student exchange we hosted two students from Germany and U two my two oldest went over there and it was remarkable for the whole family really loved it so great sale great and if I may just weigh in that Miss Stein's being very um humble she was just a word of full scholarship to one of the colleges she was accepted to so she has been highly accomplished I've never seen her turn that red all right wonderful all right community relations Mrs wein Garten thank you this was my first time chering community relations um this month so Mr Rell provided an rctv coverage update from the winter sports
044season and in addition to the games rctv covered winter concerts the crew provided full cover coverage for 11 games this winter and a reminder that full coverage means the event is filmed with multiple cameras and commentators and it typically takes six to eight students to run a full event so I thought while my son is involved with some of that I found that pretty impressive I really did not know the depth or scope of it so it was pretty cool to learn he also provided a panel project update his team is working on a 5-year refresh and is planning for the upcoming 2025 and 2026 ordering cycle so we this led to the bigger discussion related to ordering items districtwide which will be further discussed at an upcoming Finance meeting he also shared the environmental
045impact reports for the past three years of Technology device Recycling and as you know in accordance to the legendary Colleen recycling program uh we we either recycle or sell those items through auctions when they were are replaced so we're not just tossing things out we're getting some money back for that so it's a great initiative um Miss crew provided an in-depth parent Square update uh since moving to the platform she's focused on growing both parent and student use which the comp the she showcased to the whole committee and we discussed that she shared examples of how teachers are using parent Square to communicate about what is happening in their classrooms and she was very um proud to share that parent Square met with Miss crew Dr cotch and Mr Thompson Fifth and six sixth grade
046house principles to learn how they've incorporate Incorporated this app into their regular communication focusing on sharing updates with parents so we'll look forward to hearing more about how that's going in the uh coming months it was super impressive to see the uptake just continuing um based on the number of families and parents in um using it more and more so we also received an update on our partnership with be a part of the conversation we've already held two of these three events scheduled for this year with a third coming up on April 9th Miss Cruz going to review the attendance for the past two events to identify the areas that our parents have indicated they'd like to learn more about it will make changes to the schedule for next year she also so that was
047the was it the teen bedroom and The Vaping no online the yes looking at what your kids are doing on their phones I did not write that down um she also reviewed with the committee other districtwide upcoming events that will take place now and between the next um meeting we talked about our trademarking update uh she's working Miss crew is working with our solicitors office to trademark five of the unique Springford Area School District logos the goal is to protect the spring for brand from outside organizations not associated with the school district from making a profit on our logo our parent organizations would still have access to use these logos and our community organizations Who currently use the logo would still be granted as well this is just more around when you go into um
048like CVS or Walgreens and you see that little rack with our stuff on it it's not coming back to us even though it says it is so this would nip that and make sure we have a little more control knowing where our logo shows up and finally I need a little drum roll for this one it's a w season in the communications world uh the Communications Department submitted 13 projects for the pens for recognition which I believe we always get a big handful of those each year uh we'll hear more about that in March and a very special congratulations to Andrew rothal who received the I'll pronounce this wrong pada yeah I got it um distinguished service award this is the second time that a member of our Communications team has been recognized by pada
049for their work supporting inter Scholastic Athletics at the state district and local level this year Andrew joins Mickey McDaniel as one of our pada award recipients so congratulations [Music] Andrew and our next meeting will be April 1st any questions good thank you thank you Mrs weine Garten Mrs Goldsmith policy so the policy committee met on February 10th to go over a bunch of policies that we had previously looked at uh when the those policies initially came to policy it was in line with the uh new regulations coming out 2024 however the policy committee also made additional changes Beyond those 2024 RS after the court case came out uh vacating the 2024 regul ations in regards to Title 9 these policies came back we made the Judgment call to then realign those to 2020 and not
050necessarily just revert back to the other policies since it was made the decision that we had done a lot of good work in these policies in other formats and we didn't want to lose that so policies 103 with attachments 2 and three 104 with attachments 2 and three 234 247 249 252 37.1 in 824 were reviewed by the solicitor to ensure that they are in line with the 2020 regs um and when they were discussed and they will actually be on first read this month which you'll see later in the agenda uh policies 115 and 8007 were sent to the solicitor for reviewing and then barring any substantive changes they'll be on the March board agenda for first reading policies 103.2 was briefly discussed um and will be on the board agenda there was no
051changes to that policy that's just a continuation but will be updated um with new dates uh policy 103.1 336 and 339 were discussed with no recommended action for the solicitor and again those dates will be updated to reflect the current February 10th 2025 and that is the policy committee update thank you any questions or comments um I think I'll reserve my comment for when we get to policy we'll keep going with with our updates so more to come um Dave curriculum excuse me Mr Lackey curriculum and Technology thank you um curriculum and Technology met on Monday February 10th uh for curriculum Dr gardy provided information regarding a replacement text for family consumer science sewing and textiles as the previous approved taxt is no longer available Dr reinheimer provided information around the curriculum review process and
052recommended resources for grades 9- 12 math grades 9- 12 science sence and grade 10 social studies Dr gardy also provided information around the curriculum review process and recommended resources for grades 56 7 8 and 11 Health um for technology Dr Hilt and Dr Murray provide information regarding the renewal of the 1ed tech membership um Dr Hill also provided information on a number of items which included the American Hardware uh licensing renewals um expanding the Google work workspace fundamentals to Google workspace Plus for education and as well as uh information around a professional service and training agreement related to the existing infrastructure um the next meeting is scheduled for Monday March 10th uh and that concludes my update thank you very much Mr Lackey questions or comments okay moving on to finance do we have uh
053someone who is filling in for Mr Jackson I'm the chair oh I'm sorry old habits are hard to die so Mrs Westwood chair of Finance go ahead sorry it's not Clinton but maybe he can do it next month um so finance committee met on um February 11th at 6 PM in the district office um couple of items of note so from alloing business we went through our monthly reports including liquidity 134 million cash in hand for revenues we're generally on par with plan but there are some timing differences um expenditures all in accordance with plan with the exception of health benefits which we've discussed at length I think um throughout the year assessments have gone up 3.3 million since our meeting in January and our real estate transfer tax is at about 54% of budget
054year-to date and we are likely to meet goal for earned income tax are on Pace to exceed the budget um an estimate about 14 to 14.5 million by the end of the year and for self-funded health insurance we're on Pace to be about a million over budget year-to date um January January we had lower claims but there's also one less week um we're doing our second look with um our vendor Rini on March 24th um Food Service continues to be strong so we've had 450k meals served year to date and we're operating um in the black so not red which is good and then we spend some time on the budget update and the status report so February 19th which is just around the corner here budget books um are due um we at a
055high level talked about Governor Shapiro's preliminary budget proposal I'll actually share a little bit more information on that next week because we have a legislative committee meeting and I'm giving an update on that um but the high level is there's minimal new money proposed for Springford compared to this current Year's budget um we also went through the independent Auditors report which is on the district website um also was in board memo some selective pieces of that a couple of weeks ago um financial statements were presented fair in all material respects internal controls did not identify any deficiencies and our federal programs compi complied in all material respects um per compliance requirements um we reviewed our 2324 fiscal results net surplus of 445k which is about 23% to budget so our planning was pretty close to
056exact not quite but really close uh there was no new business um and I think that was most of it unless I missed anything Mr Frink no okay our next meeting will be March 11th in the district office at 6m any questions thank you Mrs Westwood uh Mrs dorf who is filling in for Mr Jackson Property the property committee met on Tuesday February 11th uh we received a update on the Spring City Elementary School construction and we are very excited for March 24th uh the board and other designes will be getting a tour um to be able to see the construction so far so that was a a big exciting piece for us because um everything is moving as planned and on time um we also spoke about a recent fire alarm at the high
057school which was due to a fluctuation of water pressure at our supply line which has been um addressed thank you to everyone for their flexibility and response to that we had a school police and safety update um 18 safe to say tips were investigated and chief Boyer and his team have completed physical security policies practices and procedure assessments uh they met last week as well to start their communication plan with Largo Consulting and Cardinal Point uh we also discussed um some capital projects for the next school year at Brook Elementary there'll be boiler burner and pump upgrades um that will be recommended for approval as well as a limmer Elementary parking lot Paving um that's recommend on the agenda for recommendation for approval as well um and then our facility master plan was discussed uh
058two firms were selected for interviews which were held last week on Thursday or Friday Mr pelgrin do you have any update on that or is that coming in the future so yes um so basically we we started out the process we we did the RFP uh on December 18th 2024 uh it's been approximately two months um we've been going through the interview process with the firms um each firm uh was asked to do a facilities master plan and facility condition assessment so there are two actually uh things that are being performed we evaluated their statement of qualifications of each to the firms that submitted the uh RFB proposals were evaluated and scored by administrative team for services de to develop a facility's master plan and facility condition assessment the eval the evaluation criteria was used
059that was used was as follows qualifications of each of of each of them past performance experience of key individuals design philosophy references and a port portfolio of similar projects our recommendation is on this agenda this evening and more information will be coming through the board memo this week great thank you so much you're welcome um and that was it for our meeting um the meeting adjourned at 7:24 our next meeting is on March 11th at 7 p.m. any questions thank you Mrs deardorf moving on to the mciu Dr Wright thank you we met on January 22nd the mciu in Norristown um the program highlight for the evening was the office of Technology Services who presented information on the vital role that the information technology department plays in F at the IU in strengthening its foundation
060and providing Consortium bundles and pricing to the school districts of Montgomery County we approved multiple policies um and also a number of contracted services and agreements to support school districts and the 2425 school year additionally service agreements to provide trainings programs and services we approved the 2526 District membership services budget which impacts um how much districts pay to toward the IU um also in uh news that um Brad Landis who was the assist who is the assistant executive director announced that he's retiring um the current business manager Sandy edling has been approved as the mciu deputy executive director I'm not sure if we've U approved that or if that is in the The Works um so um and then also on um March let's see the next meeting is February 26th and on March 3rd
061the um Montgomery County annual education recruitment Fair will occur thank you Dr wght questions comments okay Dr Murray Dr G assistant superintendent report thank you I have three items one for special education and two for p Services special education cycal monitoring is a critical process that occurs every six years in Pennsylvania to ensure that school districts are adhering to state and federal regulations regarding the education of students with disabilities our district will undergo the review from March 10th through 12th which involves a thorough evaluation of special education programs services and procedures this process includes reviewing Student Records conducting interviews and assessing the overall effectiveness of special education services the entire monitoring process will take place over two weeks and um will which will feedback will be provided to the district to support ongoing Improvement and
062compliance soon thereafter in the area of of pupil Services I wanted to recognize our nurse coordinators Laura Murphy and Trish Smith who led their first CPR training session at spring for during the President's Day in service there were 13 instructional assistants who participated in the adult and pediatric first aid CPR and AED skills training earning a 2-year certification so thank you to uh both Laura and Trish for that and finally spring will be using Grant funds to provide free period products in bathrooms in the flex building Eighth Grade Center Ninth Grade Center and the 10th 10th through 12th grade Center through this initiative menstrual products will be available in the designated restrooms and nurses office to ensure students have access to period products when they need them without barriers this effort supports student well-being and
063ensures that no one has to misclass during this lack during excuse me class due to the lack of access to essential products we expect dispensers signs and products to be installed in the next few weeks and if you would direct your attention to the screen it shows you the products that we bought and that is the end of my report thank you any questions Dr J no I I know that there's some happy people on this board I know know Dr right if you want to say anything as you've been champion this a little bit yes thank you very much and and thank you for your efforts to get this um in place and also I know that the finance committee is considering the um for the next budget having this sustained going further beyond
064the um grant that was awarded through the state this year so um you know thank you to the finance committee also for that great great yeah and I actually think that decision has uh Mr Rizzo in terms of just including in the budget for next year I think that's that's already kind of been decided has it not uh I would say yes more or less it has correct so that's a wonderful win thank you Dr G for the good news Dr Murray thank you March's career month in the future Planning Center the FPC will be bringing speakers from a broad range of careers who will share about their particular career paths this is a great opportunity for students to explore post High School options as we heard earlier the spring Ford schools Tech High School's
065Tech Team and the spring for ram ram Bots robotic team hosted their annual Vex robotics competition last weekend at the Ninth Grade Center the Club hosted over 60 area teams taking home a few wins for themselves on February 4th Mr Rizzo Dr GM Batista and I had the opportunity to participate as guest judges for the skills USA competition at the Western Montgomery career and Technology Center and if I'm not mistaken I believe board member Maggie Wright also participated as a guest judge um the skills USA framework is grounded in personal skills workplace skills and technical skills through these competitions students are developing college readiness skills such as teamwork communication professionalism and Leadership congratulations to all of the students who participated while speaking of student accomplishments I need to give a shout out to Mr Elli's
066AP Computer Science class today I was fortunate enough to sit in on presentations that students were delivering including one of our very own um students were asked to work in groups to code a prototype and present the Prototype live with a live demo that was designed to simulate a product demo for their software students were highlighting coding skills such as threading looping random number logic switch statements and more did I get that right okay good Not only was I incredibly impressed with the quality of their products but more so impressed with the depth of their discussions and incredible amount of planning and communication that went into their final products well done to the students and to Mr Elli for leading our future computer scientists and finally I'd like to acknowledge and thank our HR department
067for organizing the fourth annual job fair our job fair is scheduled for Wednesday March 5th at the high school inperson attendees can stop in at any point during their half hour time slots and after checking in they'll be able to meet with representatives from each of our seven elementary schools our Intermediate School Middle Schools and high schools for those who cannot attend there is limited uh limited number of Zoom meetings also available and that's my report thank you Dr Murray um I will also give a shout out to Mr ianelli and Mr evand um as this was the first year that I got to attend the Vex robotics competition and actually uh ref or ump I don't know which one I was no I was not a judge I was a scorekeeper um and I
068have to tell you that that was probably the most uh intimidating thing I have done as a board member um when you see the Brilliance on display by our students and so um to all the kids in the Vex robotics club and again to Mr Ain and Mr Elli for their guidance and helping uh shape them and uh drive that outcome cheers to you because it was impressive so good all right um and also you mentioned the Western Center to just to plug I think we have um Mr living good coming next week correct so we'll hear more about uh what's going on in the Western Center for our uh upcoming presentation all right Mr Fitzgerald solicitor's report sure good evening everybody um and just briefly kind of the update of As the World Turns
069Federal Government Federal Law and admittedly a case that we haven't I haven't brought to this table yet um but it it came to the Forefront last week um surrounding Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act um for those who who haven't been following a case that was down in um federal courts in Texas this past fall uh a number of states sued the federal government essentially saying we talked about this under the the title 9 regime that there was essentially illegal Regulatory rulemaking and that certain certain regulations were illegal by Health and Human Services which actually regulates Section 504 um if that was the sole issue the matter would have died and no big deal because we had a new Administration come in three weeks ago but these states are now arguing and it's a novel
070argument but it's an argument that has picked up a lot of steam that section 504 is unconstitutional in and of itself um and as you know 504 is is our anti-discrimination statute for students with disabilities um claiming in part and again it's a kind of in the weeds argument that there's actually no funding that comes along with Section 504 so the federal government imposes these regulations and responsibilities on the state and local governments but do not actually come with say a cash incentive as it would would say idea so that case is out there um and in in this current uh environment both uh at the at the federal especially at the federal court level uh who knows where this goes but this is something definitely to keep an eye on over the next several
071months thank you Mr Fitzgerald um maybe this is a time uh maybe I'll offer a comment and then if if you have a desire to refute or to add any color commentary feel free but you know our board has received a handful of communications from families uh questioning the impact of regulations and executive orders on their children and um I know that there was some information in board memo this past week but I just want to clarify for the community because you know as a mother of a daughter with an IEP is well like I stand with you in terms of like there's a lot of uncertainty right now and the situation is very fluid but I want to clarify a couple of things about executive orders for the community and again this was all
072shared in board memo in terms of executive orders do not create new laws they do not change laws they do not provide legally binding rules for schools what they do is they Direct Federal Agencies um in a way that they want to see the law enforced right so you know we talk about um you know for example like you have these agencies um that that are being directed on how to enforce a law but there still are current statutes there is state law there is other constraints that you know need to be taken into consideration and that's why I think it's very important for the district to remain Vigilant in partnering with you and partnering with other entities to understand like what is really the implication because just because an executive quarter comes out doesn't
073mean we jump correct I would I would view an executive order as a precursor potentially to what could be coming down the pike as a as a regulation or something that has a little bit more uh force of law for for the district um we're starting to see um dear colleague letters starting to come out I've seen it with the US Department of Education I've seen it with the EEOC just to name a few they they're out there for various other agencies and now we're getting into some of the what I'll call the areas of what we as a as an institution who receives federal funds need to be more mindful of I mean I I grew up in an era where dear colleague letters did mean something um and we have to um be
074mindful that if we start getting dear colleague letters from agencies that we report to that we need to at least be considering what's in that back to the executive orders though um I I would think those are indications of where these agencies may be going over the next year or so and I think of the guidance I know that there's been a lot of like webinars and and such that um I'm looking at Mr Rizzo that have kind of come out on um this situation is like understand like school districts need to start we potentially um having an eye on weighing like funding versus policy and and how we want to go and you know and I just want to reiterate like we just had this conversation and finance uh this past month right when
075we looked at the overall budget um I think it was 1.4 million Mr fin correct me if I'm wrong last year 1.4 million of our $200 million plus budget that came from the federal government so I think you know it's not to we don't want to downplay any situation but I think it's something that we really need to consider what is the impact from a um cost perspective but what is the impact from a cultural perspective as well I I think one thing that we certainly we've we've worked we're trying to work through on our end and working through with our clients is um your federal streams of dollars most of which are are block grants most of which are contracts between the federal government and the state and then the St the state helps
076divvy out what you you receive some of it is from the US Department of Agriculture for for uh free and reduced lunches uh and and breakfasts um these are things that we are viewing as almost non-negotiable um because they're coming through the state but I think it is important and we've said this to districts that rely a lot more on federal funding than say spring for does correct that's the sad part that they need to be mindful of of of not just those block grant subsidies but also when they're getting some of these contracts on an individual basis which I think are more at Jeopardy uh initiatives that have been in place for the last several years which may not necessarily be in place moving forward yeah and and I don't know if I could
077just say Mrs gold smith I'm going to maybe Channel you I mean I I just have a really hard time and I think I just want my community to know that um whatever may be happening in the courts right now with regards to um 504s I don't think this fundamentally changes our responsibility to students um in making sure that they have the support state I mean we just went through a comprehensive plan how can I sit here and say that you know that all this pending litigation and whatever you want to call it you know I'll use and speaking for Erica Herman's what I see is a gross overreach of the executive branch and misuse of power that's Erica Herman's that's not the spring for school district um it fundamentally changes our our duties to
078our students I you don't need to comment on that I'll just let that sit so thank you all right moving on so section five minutes we're going to go through the voting portion of our meeting and um see if there's any questions or comments from the board so section five okay section six personnel section seven Finance um Mr Rizzo maybe you would want just clarify I know that we do this every year so it may be a repeated story for some of our um more tenard board members but just clarifying mciu membership services versus what we're going to I know it's on the board membo but just make sure we're all clear uh yeah and for more information feel free to reference the memo but I would say this that we have two essentially two
079things that we um get approved annually in February or March we approve the member services which is when we pay our fee to mciu there are services that come along with that th that's what we're approving those uh to be able to pay for and utilize those services in June May or June we'll then be approving the shared services which are the services that are provided directly to our students uh through the IU so hope that is that enough need more okay good sounds good to me property and now we'll come to the one that typically is a little longer this time of year which is programming and curriculum and for the community um who may not have attended our curriculum meeting um all of these items were discussed at length via presentation um so
080I don't know if any there are any other questions from the board members okay we'll move on to conferences and workshops okay other business I I have something you have something Mrs deardorf that's good thank you I don't want to be the one to go I'll wait I'll wait um I just wanted to thank uh Mr rzo and uh Miss hermans for uh their collaborative effort with me and other districts and as well as Administration on um the resolution uh for welcoming schools that we're looking to adopt next week um the link is provided in the agenda um if anybody in the community is interested in reading through that prior to its adoption um you know I think it's a declaration and a reaffirmation of what this district is committed to as far as providing
081education to our students in our community um it's a declaration um and a reminder but I think the true work in making sure that our schools are welcoming um remains in the dayto day so um it it feels good and and it shows that commitment but the everyday work that we're doing to um protect our students education will continue um and it may be quietly but I think that this board and this Administration and this district has been very clear in our commitment to our community and to our students um and how we will navigate that through everything we we will doing that together uh with our students and their families at with at the Forefront of our minds thank you Mrs deardorf um maybe I'll take a different approach to so you're welcome my
082pleasure uh uh but no thanks needed because I think this is the right thing for students so you know I'll maybe just share a little bit of a a story um um that a few families have reached out I've heard from children firsthand in this District while it may not be a reality maybe it is maybe it isn't I don't know I don't um I'm not that close to it there definitely is a perception and I feel like I am not one I was not elected to pop off on National politics but to the extent that national news impacts what we do here at springf and impacts our children I think um it does need to be said and a resolution like this does need to be passed um specifically you know students have expressed
083to me fear that their friends um you know are might be taken away and I just don't like disruptions and what should be a safe haven for students um and I think that um while I would love to see this vote pass unanimously next week the truth is it only takes five of us to stand up and make a clear statement that our schools are safe havens for students that our commitment to protecting every student's safety privacy and dignity is non-negotiable so thank you any other questions comments CU I got one more I have one more and it goes back to policy um and I just want to reiterate uh thank you Mrs Goldsmith for your context on because I think it is confusing for the community as to why you would see so many
084title n um policies come up for first read when we just approved Title 9 policies in November and so I think you did a very good job explaining that a federal judge had struck down the previously um the previous regulations 2024 regulations and as such the department US Department of Education followed suit and now effectively we're rolling back to 2020 regulations and that's why you're seeing everything on the agenda that you're seeing um but I guess I will speak again only on behalf of me not spring forward or the board you know I do find this pretty disheartening um I think think that the 2024 regulations there were a lot of good things in there to protect students it brought in the definition of sexual harassment it brought in investigation procedures it reaffirmed the rights
085of pregnant students it reaffirmed the rights of parenting students it clarified and affirm protections for lgbtq plus students so there is um a lot that effectively is now um you know no longer void in the uh the eyes of the federal government but what I would say is and I'm going to go back to what I said before you know I don't know how I can sit here and say in one breath that this fundamentally changes the culture at Springford or this fundamentally changes our responsibility to students because we heard it in Dr Murray's presentation our mission was reviewed it did not change two parts of that mission are Embrace inclusivity and Foster Wellness so again as Erica Herman speaking for myself I really have a hard time aligning to an executive order that I
086believe fundamentally discriminates against our students and I want the community to know that this does not change my me my commitment because I don't speak for the board of protecting rights for all students and supporting those who frankly are even more marginalized than they were 2 months ago um I think again I will say that in my opinion I believe it's a gross overreach and misuse of Power by the executive branch and I would like to remind the community that's still in the state of Pensylvania gender identity and gender expression are protected classes and we are beholden to the Pennsylvania human relations act so there are still um Protections in place and I want to make sure that the commune knows that while there might be some procedural differences that we're putting forth and required
087to put forth it does not mean that as a district we are rolling back our anti-discrimination policies that's just frankly not true thank you I just want to say that there are a lot of policies on here um and the Title Nine that we spent a lot of work on the beginning of the year and we just redid I need to thank uh Fox Rothchild for all the help guiding us through that through the changes and mislead for all the her work and what she has done to kind of navigate the changes and help us get these policies so they're all on here but a lot of work went behind it so thank you to Fox and Beth for the work yes thank you moving on we have board comment no I'm sorry we do
088have an informational item tenure take note of that but then board comment I say something brief um I think we're in a very interesting time there's a lot of ambiguity I appreciate all the things that Mrs hermans and others said but um also just speaking as one person um on the board remain committed to our community to our mission as a district and um hopefully helping our staff and students continue to feel safe cared for and to provide guidance to them during a very interesting and uh incredibly ambiguous time so I think we're in for a bit of a ride over the next couple years but but thankful for the board and our Administration to help us navigate that I I just had a quick comment if you if I might as long as you're
089done Miss Westwood um so obviously I'm not the solicitor to this board right I'm not the solicitor for the board Mr Fitzgerald is um just preface that so I I'm not the solicitor however I am an education attorney and so I I do think I need to be transparent as part of some of the ways that I am going to be assessing things in terms of policy because obviously it's one of the areas that I chair it's also something I feel very you know it feels very important you know one of the things that wasn't mentioned and there was a really great discussion I think kind of where the status of things are and it it kind of goes back to what Mr fer said was there was a time where there you know were
090dear colleagues that met something the whole point of the executive branch is not to create law that is Congress the point of the executive branch is to execute the laws up until June of this 2024 the difference that was given to the executive branch and interpreting those laws by courts were great it was almost as if Congress itself was speaking that has changed and as a result of that change as much as we sit here and and I too am disappointed that the protections of the 2024 RS are gone but that's what the court relied on the court said all although this is what has been interpreted by our executive branch they are not valid this is not the intent to Congress BEC and I no longer have to give it that difference so when
091I'm going to be looking at these executive orders which are guidance and regulations they no longer carry bluntly in my opinion not that of the school districts or that of the solicor of the school district but the same weight that those regulations and those you know policy orders and those letters of guidance that were we all look to for the guidance those to me and right now where we sit in the legal system do not carry the same weight and that's what the Supreme Court said so when we're looking to these things that people I think are are interpreting as if binding legal orders as if law has been written that is not what these are and I am mindful of that as part of our decision-making process going forward that we have to be
092good stewards of our finance we have to be good stewards for our community but these are times where we're looking to we are required to follow the law this is guidance on how to do it but ultimately that guidance could be said to be wrong and then if we had followed it we are still liable for it so at the end of the day we have to be making these judgments weighing all these factors knowing that our Reliance on that guidance is no longer seen by courts as kind of a get out of jail free card well we did what the federal government said in terms of regulations we are now bound to ensure that we are carrying out the policies and the laws of this United States in line with what that law says
093and that's what I continue to be committed to following thank you Mrs Goldsmith okay moving on to public comment if there's anyone that wishes to speak please approach the podium with your name and Township of residents seeing as so no one is approaching the podium do I have a motion to adjourn