001yeah i'm not starting the meeting you're good to keep talking good evening i'd like to call to order the springford area school district's board meeting for monday june 27 2022 at 7 30 pm please rise for the pledge of of the allegiance states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation honor god indivisible with jesus [Music] the springford board of school directors believes the community has the right to bring before the board issues and concerns they may have about items on the agenda or about items in general which affect the district or their children because of this belief and philosophy the board will schedule a time at the beginning and conclusion of every meeting to have an opportunity for community members to share their concerns with the board at the start
002of 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 attending to make public comments should be aware that they are being videotaped speakers will be asked to state their name in the area in which you reside before your comment all right good evening thank you very much for being here mrs bickard would you please call um the role or give us the attendance today yes uh mr schaefer is absent and all other board members are present thank you very much so a couple of announcements tonight uh prior to this meeting the board had an
003exec session at 6 30 to discuss on school safety matters and personnel matters just a moment all right thank you um at this time i would like to make a motion to amend the agenda do i have a second second all right is there any discussion on amending the agenda i think you have to include what the amendment is going to be at this time okay thank you very much so the motion to move to amend the agenda is for personnel you thank you personnel you would like to amend the agenda the number of 225 to be amended to 221 thousand four hundred fifty now do i have a second for that second any board discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed then the motion pass passes um set seven zero thank
004you okay additional announcement we have from the rr2 student reps today so if you would like to make your announcement thank you um thank you uh we do not have any announcements today but we do have a student rep report thank you and i'm sorry if did we have the opportunity to introduce our newest student rep or is that part of yours why don't you introduce them yup so today we will be having arhan joining us as our new student rep so i'm looking forward to that and making the journey uh so good evening everyone we have our june student rep report here today so as far as some recent events we would like to congratulate our girls softball team for becoming state champions additionally springford's 67th commencement ceremony was held on june 8th as
005well as the class of 1972 reception we also had final exams from june 6th to the 10th and the last day of school for students was on the 10th as well report cards were released on june 17th and some highlights as the end of the school year approached were oaks elementary school reunion and the roseford elementary olympic day now i'll hand it over to our han for some upcoming events and as for some upcoming events we have the springford blue and gold scholarship golf outing on july 30th the first day of verification opens up her parents on august 1st and scheduled releases for the 2022-2023 school year uh will be announced as follow will be announced as followed for grades k-4 august 16th uh grades 5 through 8 august 17th and grades 9 through 12
006august 18th all of those will happen at 3 pm additionally we do have a summer segment just some reminders for students and parents as we approach the new school year there are some school summer assignments posted on the springford website so make sure that students complete that additionally we do have some requirements mandatory health forms and immunizations based on the grade level and that is also available on the springford district website um in the recent weekly update we also had some information about student food programs for families who might be in need of that and as always we do have work permits available based on age eligibility as we have students seeking jobs thank you very much thank you mr risa yeah very quickly and i typically don't have announcements this is a little bit
007of a special meeting we have a lot of students that are going to be recognized this evening but i want to start by saying congratulations and thank you to mickey mcdaniel this is his last board meeting a familiar face to board meetings and promoting students and athletics coach mickey guided the girls basketball program as an assistant coach for 18 years before he took over as head coach in 2013 coach mcdaniel a 73 spring ford graduate helped lead the team to 10 pack championships three state final appearances in one state championship as a.d coach mcdaniel started nine new athletic programs and has helped direct 82 pac championships and 75 sportsmanships award we wish we wish mickey the best as he moves on to that next endeavor we're going to enjoy every every moment of his last
008meeting with us so thank you mickey oh thank you thank you very much all right so if there's any other no other comment at this moment then we would go on to public to be heard on agenda items only we can start with those in the room um if you would like to comment on agenda items only please approach the podium and give us your name the area in which you reside and what you would be what agenda item you would be discussing okay since there is no one in the room is there anyone on zoom at this time there's no real comments on zoom i'm sorry we just had one raise um steve f you may now make a public comment please unmute yourself and then state your first and last name as well
009as your township steve fry royce ford pa i'd like to talk about agenda item 11a there are a lot of things i'd like to cover in regards to the edi policy but obviously can only cover a few things but i think the basic problem is still the lack of clarity we see language like historically underserved used in the policy but no definition of it so we don't know at what point in history are what point of history is relevant for the policy are we talking 2020 2004 1985 1905 i mean where in the timeline of history is the point where we try to make decisions on something that's historically underserved also how do you determine the status of someone or something that's underserved we don't know i've attempted to show the board and emails that
010this type of vague language opens the door to further marginalization's marginalization of groups who are currently marginalized and that's not the type of language you would expect in a project that wants to communicate clear intent and objectives in organization where the well-being of children is involved i don't think this type of ambiguous language is appropriate for a project that impacts so many aspects of the school in addition edi policy gives itself a position of supremacy over other policies it states that virtually everything needs to be evaluated in relation to edi policy it says quote they need to well they need to quote review existing policies programs professional development and procedures to ensure the promotion of promotion of inclusivity and equity unquote so essentially everything needs to be reviewed for edi policy which would go into
011what it's taught how it's taught who gets to teach discipline grading practices school culture etc so given the palace the power of edi policy and those enforcing it will have i don't think the vague language is appropriate thank you anyone else on zoom you may now make a public comment please mute yourself state your first and last name as well as your township katie you please unmute yourself at this time there's no further hands raised okay thank you very much so moving forward then on the agenda we move on to action items so is there a motion some of the second any board discussion on our action item for those that don't have the agenda this is the presentation of resolution 5 8 commending the spring forward head softball coach tim hughes and the assistant
012coaches and volunteer coach for winning the piaa state softball championship just as a comment a huge congratulations to them and i think we go ahead with the vote all right all those in favor say aye aye any opposed then the vote passes seven two all right then we would move on to our presentations thank you so the first presentation thank you mr daniels thank you mr rizzo thank you for the kind words but you know how i feel about those things it's nothing's accomplished without a team and the team just in his isn't your players uh your uh your colleagues in the sense of the athletic office or just the coaches it's the community it's the school board it's every student in this building and every coach that we have had at springford who have
013brought pride and achievement to this school district and tonight we are going to recognize a few of those unfortunately the time of the year a number of them are not available so but we will recognize we will we will recognize them um so first what i'd like to do is recognize and honor our eighth grade baseball team who went undefeated so gentlemen would you please come up and stand right in front of the u now we are going to have them when they are when i'm done they're going to circle around the table come up more to the front gentlemen because you're going to circle around this way and give a fist bump and say thank you the eighth grade baseball team our coaches mike heffernan jr and his father mike heffernan senior a few
014things i do want to mention about this team the last three years they are thirty and one and they're being honored tonight for going 11-0 this season and a few things really stand out of their statistics they scored 118 runs on 114 hits no home runs three triples 17 doubles 94 singles they did it what they call baseball small ball by bunting by stealing and by hitting singles then on the defense and pitching side they only allowed 13 earned runs in those 11 games on 40 hits they they had only 10 errors and 248 chances which is a percentage about 96 and they have done a fantastic job and looking forward to you gentlemen coming through the program and bringing pride to springford in the future so congratulations gentlemen now our state championship softball team
015that's good you're in the center just be the center now if you've been to their games they don't look like this at the games they're dirty they're sweating but they're winning so our uh springford head softball coach mr tim hughes been at it for 25 years his assistants sean croppily's mallory green and volunteer coach rebecca faust they won the state championship this year with an overall record of 24 wins and three losses and they won the pia state softball team championship in the first in school history in softball by defeating seneca valley five to nothing up at penn state their state run they started off the first round against saint hubert's shut them out 11-0 in the second round they beat penn manor 11-4 the only four runs that were scored against them in the
016state championship run then they beat north penn two to nothing in the state semis and then traveled to penn state where they played flawless defense one thing that was a surprising stat jules schonier pitcher had not one strikeout and that's unusual 21 outs all batted balls which tells you how well they defended they had zero errors in that game that's a great tribute to them their their celebration will culminate tomorrow was supposed to be today but move till tomorrow when we all travel up to the state capitol and they will be recognized on the senate floor so i want to congratulate our softball team for a tremendous season and state champs congratulations ladies me now members of our track team and coach stauffer a few resolutions for the track team i will go through them
017all but these are the few athletes we have here tonight along with coach stauffer first up esther mcconchu a member of the high school girls track team our track team is coached by miss danielle stauffer assisted by mr jeff kaler mr steve entenmann mr nick demino mr david kane mr matt varade and miss bella marchini esther is a member of that girls track team and she won the pioneer athletic conference shot foot championship with a throw of 39 feet one-half inches and with that throw in the championship she qualified for the piaa district one meet esther will be attending to the college of holy cross in the fall where she will continue her education and continue her track career congratulations esther next is her sister nae nae is also a member of the girls track
018team obviously and she was able to qualify for the pioneer athletic conference championship the piaa district one championship and the piaa state championship meet she won the pac championship with a jump of five feet eight inches tying a school record and then won the p-i-a district one championship with a jump of five feet seven inches and then was the first pi double-a state championship in girls high jump at springford when she set a new school record with a height of 5 feet 10 inches to be crowned to state champion she will be attending brown university in the fall to continue her education and track careers she's a two-time state champ as you remember we celebrated her state championship in the winter and she was also voted at the end of the year all head coaches
019have a have a nomination and then a vote for the most outstanding male and female athlete and nene was voted by our head coaches as the female most outstanding athlete at springford congratulations nae then we have our one of our relay teams with jordan littlejohn elizabeth nguyen clara lanzera and kaylee hudson um they won the pioneer athletic conference four by 100 mi ray meter relay championship when they ran a time of 49.36 seconds and qualify for the piaa district one meet and the pia state meet unfortunately they are not able to be with us here tonight but congratulations to those four ladies jordan lutz addison pritz mackenzie thomas and nene won the pioneer athletic conference championship 4 by 400 meter relay championship with a time of four minutes 5.31 seconds and qualify for the district
020one uh championship meet congratulations to those four ladies justin russell a member of our boys track team won the pioneer athletic conference uh boys championship in the 300 mer uh 300 meter hurdles with a time of 40.02 seconds and also qualify for the piaa district one meet congratulations to justin alex tuple member of our boys track team won the pioneer athletic conference boys pole vault championship with a height of 14 feet and qualified for the piaa district one meet congratulations to alex leo aguilar mason scott chris brittingham and travell wellins earned the sixth place medal at the pia state spring championships when they ran the 4 by 100 meter relay with a time of 43 seconds congratulations to those four gentlemen you are excused i will read a few resolutions for members of our boys
021tennis team the boys tennis team is coached by john brennan assisted by ryan rendick and todd reagan and they won the pioneer athletic conference with a perfect record of 11 wins and zero losses this was the boy's fourth pac-10 championship or pac championship in school history so congratulations to our boys tennis team cameron moore a member of the boys tennis team won the pioneer athletic conference boys tennis single championship for the second year in a row by the score of in the championship match of 6-3-6-1 he also qualified for the pia district one boys tennis tournament so congratulations to cameron cameron and his teammate naveen suresh won the pioneer athletic conference boys tennis doubles championship when they won by a scorer 6-2-6-1 in the championship match naveen and cameron then qualified for the pia district
022one boys tennis tournament cameron also won last year's double with his partner uh josh purgine so two years in a row for uh cameron congratulations to those two gentlemen now for our last presentation our boys lacrosse team springford boys lacrosse team is coached by mr kevin donnelly and assisted by mr kevin zaper and by mr chuck baker they won the pioneer athletic conference championship by going undefeated with 11 wins and zero losses in the pack final four semi-finals they defeated me fact in 10 to four and then in the final four championship they defeated o and j roberts by a score of eight to two with that win the boys lacrosse team captured their 11th pac championship in school history congratulations gentlemen so congratulations to all of our athletes and once again we want to
023thank the board for your support our community for their support our staff all of our administration and teachers and i will just finish with this it's been my honor and my privilege to be the athletic director of my alma mater for 27 years and i will be back to see you once in a while but thank you so much for your support over the years thank you thank you mr mcdaniels so moving on to our last presentation tonight we have marissa sussman from the college career court who's a college career coordinator to provide a year-end update on the future planning center and the accomplishments of the class of 2022. welcome hello thank you so much for having us today i'm marissa sussman i'm one of the college and career advisors in the future planning center
024this is maggie crouch he is our newest college and career advisor she's just handing out matriculations and acceptances for our class of 2022. so to get started we're going to talk about what has happened this year it was a great year with the class of 2022 what the result was where they all ended up and what was new this year so starting with our events not much has changed if anything we actually brought back some events this year especially our college and career fair which we hadn't had in two years and we were so thrilled to have not one but two of them and they were incredibly well attended especially our spring fair we had so many schools they were out in the hallway we had people walking in there was about 110 that were
025in attendance and it was a really great turnout i know a few of you were there so thank you so much for attending um we brought back our financial aid night in person we brought back pretty much everything including going to kutztown for an instant decision day so what we actually do is we have about 30 to 35 students who sign up they apply beforehand we go on a tour of kutztown all at their dime they just bring us on a nice coach bus the kids get a tour they eat in a college cafeteria which is what they're all looking for and then they get a decision at the end of it it's an instant decision for them so they know as soon as they're leaving they have a decision in hand of whether or
026not they've been accepted to a college we also brought back our highly selective admissions program along with our fafsa completion night so it was really well attended with those as well a lot of parents do need help filling out the fafsa and we were happy to provide that for them moving into later in the year as i had mentioned we had our college and career fair back we had decision day outside again which i will talk about in a little bit we brought back our monco orientation so getting those students who are attending manco we got them set up with all of their classes make sure that they had a pathway for them meeting with advisors before they walked across that stage in june and then this summer and we sent out an email to
027all of our juniors rising seniors at this point for all of our summer workshops that are coming out in august which we do every single year and we have very good attendance so we will be doing interview workshops college essays we work on the uh the common app with them naviance and a few others not to mention our rising senior meetings which we have been doing uh since the end of the summer and we do throughout the rest of the summer and along with our coffee and college questions which is pretty well attended for parents who'd like to know more about the application process so decision day i know a few of you also attended so thank you for attending um it's only gotten bigger since last year about last year we had about a
028thousand um people who attended um on one of those asynchronous days we had it during the school day this year and i would say almost every single senior and it seems like everybody brought like five people with them to make this a much larger event and it was a great day a little cold for me but it was really delightful and everybody was just happy to be there um so thank you for all that attended we look forward to what 2023 decision day is going to look like as well so testing we run pretty much all of the testing that goes out of our room besides keystones uh so sat testing has been pretty steady we haven't had to cancel all of them if anything we're trying to add more seats for the next year
029because we know how in demand these tests have become sats more than acts which have kind of gone down over the last year or so especially with a lot of schools being test optional but psats back up to what they were now that everything is in session we had about almost 800 students who tested for the psats we expect something similar in the fall as well our asvabs back up around 58 and then pretty steady with aps about uh 1250 tests were given this past may processing applications it was a busy fall especially if you're familiar with my room so we had 370 375 different colleges we sent out over 3 600 official transcripts to these colleges through our naviance platform 347 unofficial transcripts what that means is schools are looking for students to actually
030self-report so schools like penn state pitt we hand out all of these unofficial transcripts for students to actually put in all of their grades to submit to these schools so that's how many that have been handed out and then yes that very large number 4 300 letters of recommendation were sent out this year um big shout out to those teachers who are up on there and many more teachers and our counselors who submitted a lot of letters of recommendation this year but they have really grinded away especially with some of these schools that our students have applied to and you can kind of notice it when we get to the next slide what types of schools we're looking for a lot of ladders recommendation at that point but great to see that this number is
031continuing to grow for them so let's talk about class 2022 i was a little biased i really liked that class a lot worked very closely with a lot of them and i'm really happy about what their next steps are going to be so pretty steady at where we've been for the last few years in terms of a four-year college i know last year we were about 74 so we're 73 in terms of students who are attending a four-year college our two-year college is about the same as it was last year at about 13 along with our employed and trade apprenticeships uh it's only off by one person actually and this is all based on our our senior survey this is how we have to collect our data and we we make sure to follow up
032with every single senior we have nine students entering the military and yet two more students are doing a gap year consistent with last year as well who are truly looking to take a break after the last 12 years of school post-secondary majors overall stem is still always our most popular but you will notice that it's a little bit down from last year i think we were about 43 44 but they have been kind of dispersed amongst business and the social science has really grown as half the trades so it was almost less than one percent for us last year but it's at four percent this year with the class of 2022 and we're happy to see that number grow so i'm going to leave this slide up there for a minute because it's a lot
033of small print and i do know that so the top five this past year um top four doesn't change too much penn state westchester pitt and temple but number five is south carolina those kids all want to go south if you have kids who are in high school are thinking about looking at college they're looking south lately but we have 16 kids who are going to school there that's a big jump from the seven last year um going the distance we have a lot more students who are getting out within past six hours of us we have kids who are even going international this year we have students who are going to rome students were sitting in the philippines studying in mexico to name a few and then along there with our highly selective acceptances
034a lot of those students are actually attending those schools too um so it was a very competitive year we're very proud of all the accomplishments of our students and we know that it was a tough year in terms of uh admissions but they all did a great job overall also if you would like copies of this i'm happy to share this this presentation with all of you so the big number everybody likes to see too 4.5 million dollars worth of scholarships were awarded to these students and i'm talking merit scholarships so all of their hard work does pay off and we do talk to them about that during the process but that number has grown a little bit since last year so and we're we had a few students who did get full rides so
035that also is included in there our community scholarships which we have scholarship night every may a few of you have been in attendance the last few years that number has also grown to about 125 000 and then our athletic money stays about the same above you know 250 every single year but that number i hope it continues to grow and grow because that is a beautiful thing to see each year when we add it up so march is career month in the future planning center and we have career speakers from all different walks of life so these are just a few of the businesses that came in to speak to our students about what their career path could be so we had a former graduate from springford who works for roku in their marketing department
036up in new york city and everybody wants to do marketing now they got to hear about it firsthand from somebody who lives this day today they got to talk to somebody who works for the minnesota vikings and the athletic training program they got to talk to a nurse through penn medicine somebody who works in computer science and data science through mark we have all this available in our room and we're looking to continue to grow it so if you know anybody who'd love to talk to any of our students next march we'd love to have them talk about what their career path is so maybe our students could make that connection later down the line as well and new this year as i had mentioned we have two new staff members we are a office
037of three so you um the fall like i said was a little bit busy for me um as tricia after six years of being with us six great years we had maggie join us um and she is a college and career advisor for the first half of the alphabet and then connie i and nana um retired in december and we have uh we plucked tasty from the class of 2024's office and she now is our fpc secretary and we're so happy to have both of them in our office that are doing great things that is all that i do have for you guys do you have any questions about anything first of all thank you very much for that and thank you for all your hard work and i really appreciate hearing this but i
038know that i don't have any questions right here now but i know that the person sitting to my right wants to speak so i'm going to let her speak well this is my favorite presentation of the year and i've made i've not hidden that at all every year it's the same thing i very anxious for you to do your thing i'm thrilled to hear about the dollars of course and yeah i had heard about south carolina really coming forward as a prominent well a choice a top choice for our students so we'll see if that continues um i'm wondering if there wasn't some impact of that if you maybe think so with being stuck at home for covid and they just want it to spread their wings a little bit and and go further i
039mean that's a high number of students to be going to one school local or beyond wouldn't you agree with that i would 100 agree with that i would say because you know they were about 15 kind of when the whole shutdown began that um and i'd be interested to see how next year kind of goes i would say majority of the students who are going to south carolina were in their honors college so they did get substantial scholarship money uh to the equivalent of almost in-state tuition to attend there so it would have been cheaper for them to attend that school than almost any other school but i would say yes we have a lot more students who are just trying to get out because they were cooped up and it's always different every year
040what the the canvas for them is going to be so i you know last year we did have a lot of students go away and then obviously in 2020 not so much a lot more stayed locally so i feel like now that more word is getting out about some of these schools outside the state of pennsylvania and it's only going to continue to grow i do see that number growing in the next few years and do you also think um because i've talked about this at the western center um there was uh less than one percent of you said that of people that had gone in students that had gone into the trades last year or previous years and it climbed to almost four percent this year is that right do you also think that
041covet played a role in that because i did hear um at western their numbers are are up and part of that reason was because um when they were when people were incovit you could you could look around and maybe you wanted to hire contractors to do things and they weren't always available but they were making a solid living during that time and i think maybe some parents this is a discussion we've had there that some parents started to say to their kids hey if that is the direction you want to go it's a solid path you're not going to accumulate debt you're going to have a trade for life and it may be a choice that more of our students are considering than they might have in the past do you think that that played
042a role in that increase also i do because most of the students who are actually going to trade school have never been to the western center either isn't that interesting yes um i would say most of them actually have never been to the western center now i'm going through it um they just knew that college wasn't for them or they wanted to work with their hands and they you know would read about it or they have an uncle who who did it or their parents did it and they were just interested in more being out in the workforce but they knew they didn't want a desk job they wanted to kind of do something different that not a lot of students do and so i'm i'm happy to see that number grow and hopefully it
043continues okay next time and and i guess my my final thing is congratulations welcome to your new staff congratulations on another great year and i'll really be paying attention to what you're doing next year so thank you so much i'm sending them your way thank you mrs hermans yes hi good evening i don't have any questions but i just want to make a comment similar to what mrs askey just mentioned thank you for highlighting all the diverse accomplishments you know i think it's really interesting to see the trends in terms of where people are going kind of expanding beyond the state borders and even internationally um but specifically we love the pie chart where you do call out um not only the two-year colleges the four-year colleges but you're calling out the military experience you're
044calling out the gap years you're calling out trade schools and you know it i just find it fascinating that those that are going to trade school actually are not attending the career and technology center at the western center no they're not at this time and and number or not that's what mrs sussman has said right but even the numbers at western have been way up and we were having discussions that maybe there was something during covet that could have accounted for that and then i think maybe it was a ripple effect you know that it happened over here too but um first of all just a small of mine team great job and i love the enthusiasm that's exactly what i want from those that are advising me on my next step in my career
045in my life thank you thank you any other board yes i just want to say a big thank you to all of the teachers who wrote would you say 4 300 recommendation letters and some of them in the hundreds yes that's really impressive i mean i really appreciate everything you've done this is all fantastic but i have to say thank you to the time and effort and organization that went into getting all those letters out it's pretty impressive thank you and thank you to our teachers for that absolutely um i also wanted to add a quick note first of all thank you for your presentation i always find it exciting to see like i guess now where many of my peers have went and the amazing thing that our springboard students are doing and um
046also just excited for what happens next year and similarly i would also like to thank all the teachers that have made this year possible it's been really hard i know for the fbc too transitioning from a virtual environment to more in person there are so many great opportunities and i know you guys had a lot of events that you had managed really well so that's it's always amazing and incredible from a student perspective so thank you again thank you and i know both you and our han have taken full advantage of everything that we do offer best presentation thank you you're very welcome have a wonderful night and congratulations to your students who did graduate this year all right thank you very much so moving on to the agenda then we are at the discussion
047portion here this part for the school board appointment process was put on there so that we could continue as a board the discussion as to how we would like to proceed um as to just as a reminder of where we are with this we are talking about replacing the board member who resigned to finish out that term the applications for that position would be due to the district office on the 6th of july either at the end of the workday which is 4 30 at in person or through the mail or electronically to mrs bickard up through until 11 59 pm information regarding that is also available on the website you certainly can call the district office for additional information so this is to replace the candidate from be a candidate from region three so
048once the applications have been received then they would be forwarded to the board for us to review and then we have a special meeting scheduled for the 11th at 7 30 pm and at that meeting we would um be we would expect the applicants to be present we would go through that uh the application or the the process of how we're going to interview or how we're going to question them that's what we want to talk about tonight with the hopes to be able to vote that night and make a selection for that position so i know that we have received some information from mr fitzgerald and organized from also from mr rizzo from some ways in which we can handle the actual interviews um that night of the 11th and the voting part of
049it we also have at least one board member if not two who have gone through this process so they may have some input into this to make it as timely as possible so any dis void discussion at this point you did receive information mr fitzgerald did you have something you wanted to add i i guess just clarifying question so um thank you for what was completed in the board memo in terms of the process and i know that you had done some research with other school districts in the area that have recently gone through this process uh my question is what is it that we're discussing because i thought that was a pretty clear board memo i'm i'm fine if we're good to go it's really just to make sure everybody's on the same page
050for when the 11th comes um more of a confirmation yeah yeah because you know you'll be in it that night there'll be candidates in front of you and just make sure that everybody's on the same page for that if everybody's good then then i think we're we're okay for the 11th i mean i think we just need to live by three simple rules when we have um candidates who are going to be voted on you need five votes to get on the board um anybody can nominate anybody to be considered um and what i see from all the different methodologies that different districts have utilized and they're really all just slight deviations of the same thing is when you have multiple candidates who are up for consideration during a round of balloting my suggestion would
051be the low person then is you know is discontinued in the process and you move forward whoever the high vote getters are if you can live by those criteria then it'll work out are there specific rules around the q a the with them like would they be consistent for everyone or do you have that opportunity to ask questions based on their letter of intent or resume i i think the the rule of thumb that i would just suggest is we'd be consistent with the questions as we would in hr related matters when we're looking to hire i wouldn't deviate for one particular type of candidate for another i think we try to be consistent will we receive these some applications as they come in i mean after they bought after the six that deadline then
052we would receive they would be forwarded to us the board members okay but mr fitzgerald that in my humble opinion i could ask um two candidates the same question and get and get different responses that may lead to another question so i think you know we need to have a little flexible i agree with that don't get me wrong i do agree that there should be some some leeway if if a response results in another question so the questions there were a number of questions listed there was one that was actually repeated in the in the board memo but those quite like when is it going to be decided which of those questions are going to be asked and are we um are we going to be really choosing the the candidate that answers the
053specific questions that we ask we i think we do have to have some flexibility but i think there has to be a general framework that is established that that we are asking the same thing it's not fair to ask one person something and not have that content you know shared by somebody else that that might that also needs to be asked that question so one of the choosing i know mr rizzo you put in the board memo that list of questions when are the questions from that list going to be chosen who was asking those at the meeting how is that going to look that's that's going to be difficult that we are creating a very restrictive approach and i don't think that's fair to the candidates but i know what you're asking if we've
054got questions 1 through 20 is the board going to determine that we're going to ask 2 4 6 8 and 10 i just think that that's not fair to all the candidates i think if you start with a barrier of specific questions once we get the group of applicants look them over come up with here's the five main questions and then give you a chance to follow up with specific questions about their experience is what i would think you'd have to have some element to go hey if you said you volunteered here can you tell us a little bit about your experience or something i don't know if that's allowed but something that you may feel is critical i mean not right but that's why i'm saying there has to be maybe some specific parameters
055where we agree we look through the applicants say you know these six questions seem like the most consistent that would be valuable across all of them and then let us have um a little bit of freedom i don't know that we did that last time i mean that was yeah i do not remember i believe that that was more freelancing if you would it wasn't that structure because we're creating a very restrictive approach could we um we all have the list of questions could be possible that we each uh check off you know six or seven or whatever number we decide on you know that we would like to see ass and maybe we can come to some agreement on what we all feel is important yeah i think there's a balance between restrictive and
056structured right so you mean just you can't evaluate a person if you're not having some baseline consistency with regards to what you are asking them um but to mr jackson's point you know there are times where you do want just them to double click into what they just said or that's you know add some clarity but what we don't want it to become is a free-for-all interrogation right because we all have questions so i think from that standpoint we we do need at least some baseline structure yeah no i think that that's fair i mean listen the the one thing that that i would caution that and when when i say this you think that's crazy but things happen is if you had a candidate up there from a protected class and you ask questions
057say that they are a female candidate and they have young children at home and a question is asked do you think you can balance you know having you know having children at home and be a board member that's an absurd question but that's something that's you know we want to make sure we avoid asking so is there going to be a time structure on how long we interview each person i think it's 10 minutes i think i've read 10 minutes that's not going to be a lot of questions really it could be all i do was provide you with kind of a summary of the research that i found based on how you can do it however you want to do it i did outline 10 minutes in here that seems reasonable if you have
05810 or so candidates i don't know what we're going to have but you're talking about an hour and 40 minutes issue of interviews at that point so it's up to you maybe it depends on how many candidates we have mr rizzo are you asking the questions it can be whatever you need it to be um other school districts have had board members take turns asking questions uh some have used the same person uh it could be whatever my role that evening is to help support and facilitate the process it's really a board process so i will be here if we decide to have the board members that are waiting to be interviewed in another room i would assure the candidates in and out i would just kind of help facilitate from behind the scenes but
059if you want me to ask the questions i'm happy to do that as well i think it would be good to have some kind of a moderator whether it's mr rizzo or somebody else so that we don't that none of us appear um biased in any way i i agree colleen i think that i also think you know while there are benefits in doing panel interviews a panel of nine i think like for the interviewee to remain focused and how they respond and truly want to hear their answers sometimes you know you kind of get distracted so i like i want to hear their responses and truly evaluate them so if we can get that clearly from them by having a moderator like mr rizzo i would be a proponent of that i'd agree with
060that as well because everybody has a little bit different tone and delivery and uh maybe i'd ask the same question that somebody else would ask but it would sound easier or more pleasant coming from one or the other or harsh do you know what i mean it's kind of like your your attitude that you displace of the same person asking the same questions i think that would be the fairest thing for the candidates so are we all in an agreement as a board that we would have mr rizzo moderate and ask the questions i'm comfortable with that no but just one vote no we want i think this is something we should be able to come to consensus on did you have another suggestion mr jackson i think the solicitor should do it so that
061that way it's totally unbiased all right all right there you go i'm fine with that i'm fine with that too okay so are you all right you're all right with them sure absolutely okay thank you all right that's one thing down i think my understanding was when people are notified um the like the invitation is sent out or the notification to come they are given the list of potential questions and then from there knowing that they would be asked certain ones that was no no no not really i really think that my suggestion would be there's a there's a whole um we have a whole bank of questions now that we've gathered from other districts and in fact i believe they haven't done or they'll do it before the 11th i believe o j roberts
062is filling a vacancy as well so there we can get more questions if we need to um what i think we could do is we could send the questions out to the board and then maybe i'd suggest that they individually submit back to you dr wright and to mr rizzo kind of the preferred questions and then we can from there figure out what those questions are and those will be the questions that we build from well i think we should probably get whatever additional questions we have i think you have most of them bob and we've shared a lot of those questions we can probably if we can get the responses back from the board to dr wright and to mr rizzo i would say within the next week so there's nothing to stop us
063from doing it now we have the information yeah you can do yeah i'm just giving you you know just to give them those questions public as it would not be fair to anyone who would yeah no just just within the i just mean within the board send them to writer again just asking because when we notify the candidates of them coming for an interview what i was proposing was having the bank of questions in the email if you'd prefer me not do that that's fine i just i do think we should have though i just said the doctor right i think we should have a deadline for the board responding with those questions so that they can be shared with whatever we're going to narrow them down to so that mr rizzo can share them
064with the candidates i'm kind of in favor of the idea of sending out to the candidates the bank of questions that the ch the the questions you would be asked would come from this this list is because i mean i think that's that's a fair way and then from there if every board member were to give us approximately three questions or four questions then you're asking for a rehearsed answer yeah that's why the bank is large enough but you'll still if i have a bank of questions i'm going to ask them i'm still going to prepare responses to each of them and we know that in this job we are oftentimes asked questions and we don't have the luxury of you have to think on your feet right you have to come up with a
065response and i would love to be able to evaluate someone's ability to think honestly and can they give a deliberate and articulate response um you know under these circumstances i agree with that erica to an extent but i like to see people prepare and do their homework too so i think it could go either way yeah i mean there's a there's a if there's so many questions in that bank that you know even if you had some bullet points for each one as to what you wanted to cover okay that's a little bit of homework but also a little bit of putting it together and being able to present it i guess i was looking at the resume and the application or the interview um i'm sorry the interest statement as that preparation piece but
066i mean we could come to some consensus here i could be swayed so if we're going to have the board give to me or to and or mr rizzo their top like three four questions um i want to have a date as to when they would do that for so could that also be by the end of the day on the sixth just so we can kind of remember to do that there's a total of 17 questions it's my only concern mr fitzgerald as i process my statement again is some flexibility if a question is asked a board member should have latitude to do a follow-up i don't disagree with that i mean i do think certainly seven years ago it there was a lot of that flexibility i think there still needs to be
067a little bit of that in this process as well certainly if a response piqued somebody's interest there should be the ability to do a follow-up i could i can agree with that if it pertains to the question it was just asking isn't introducing a whole new topic so we want these due to you by the seventh by the end of the day and sixth study if the applications are due by 11 59 on the six should we expect them on the seventh like business hours yes for clarification the board will receive a copy of every application that's submitted okay yes all right um so we have here that mr fitzgerald will moderate and ask the questions that um the board will submit three to four questions from the bank of questions to dr wright and
068mr rizzo by the the end of the day the sixth and that board members will have the latitude to provide follow-up questions as they pertain to the question basically that have been asked because every every board member might not ask a question we all say that now but as the night gets here certain questions may be asked that was one of their questions and there's the answer is sufficient so we may go quicker than we anticipate also all the all applicants will be um applications will be forwarded to all the board members on the seventh um the time limit till we were talking about limiting the amount of time there had been a suggestion of 10 minutes did the board want to discuss limiting the time or do we want to base that on the
069number of applicants i think it needs to be a minimum of 10 minutes but i think if we don't have you know 30 candidates we could go for a little more time what can we wait until we see how many applicants we get i think there could be flexibility with how long if we have two candidates you know maybe we can be you know more open-ended with those two candidates if there's 20 then we may want to be more restrictive that's something that you guys can can address on the 11th at the start of the meeting i don't think i'm going to have 20 uh mr fitzgerald i don't either but i i think it's just i'd be surprised if we have five it's a matter of fairness is what we're talking about also whatever
070whatever you do it'll be it'll be equal for the candidates but the length can be determined at that point and if we only have one do we have to go through the process i'm just saying i'm just asking well i mean this this goes back to i think what mr jackson said um at the at the previous meeting this is a very open-ended process ultimately for the board you can pick anybody you want that qualifies within region three to the extent you want to obviously you're going through a process with candidates if you don't have any candidates no you know you have to figure out ways but um if you have one candidate and there's five votes for that candidate then you have your new board member we have none do we have a meeting
071that night no i would say no we can we've done with eight before we've had meetings with eight board members if we have no candidates that'd be a far more interesting meeting without any candidates but i mean you theoretically could if you could then think up of a person you'd want to appoint and that person's willing to accept the appointment if there is one candidate and that candidate doesn't get five votes same kind of thing you just find somebody else to nominate correct what what you what we don't want to happen and this is just information um we want to try to complete this in-house we don't want this going outside a house and taking the legal route comes to come it becomes a whole different set of dynamics um and it just becomes problematic
072because then it's it's protracted it's extended and at the same time we're trying to do the business of the district and that becomes the focal point and my last question is assuming that we have more than one candidate here um i um how do you feel about having the candidates in here individually not all at the same time um and that any other candidate who was not in front of us being questioned would be kept separate in another room without basically without technology i think they definitely have to be separated because you're just going to have somebody competing with someone else if they if first someone speaks and someone else is next then there can be a one-ups and chip kind of thing going on i would love to take that at all yeah i
073think last time miss firm was the the keeper they sat in the rooms closed the doors no phones were allowed so just trying to be fair about about the process all right well um i don't know that mr rizzo would be the one i think we can leave it to mr rizzo and his team to kind of determine who would handle that or how so okay all right so we have mr fitzgerald will moderate and ask questions um the school board members will provide three to four questions to me and to mr rizzo by the end of the day on the sixth that the school board members will have latitude to follow up uh questions as they pertain to a question being asked and that all applications are to be forwarded to all school members
074on the seventh uh that the length of the time for each candidate will be determined at the start of our meeting on july 11th and that the candidates that will be here present will wait um in a separate room without technology while each is individually being interviewed anything else that we can think of at this time are we comfortable with the faculty lunch room being the holding room can't is there no internet connection or technology available in that room because i don't really want somebody watching the meeting you know kind of defeats the purpose well you can check the sound proof with the system we'll give you that we'll we'll do a test and we'll see if there's any sound bleed or we'll find a place if not there somewhere else one final question um
075how i just want to make sure since mr schaefer is not here today um his responsibility is it to fill him in with regards to what we've all agreed upon is it going to be documented and sent out i'd like that yeah yeah i'll follow women's shaffer don't do that i'll still i'll update the process based on the notes dr wright and i took and and we'll get it out to the board all right we'll send it send an email out all right you know mr mcdaniels is probably not doing anything that night he could probably stand and watch somewhere all right if there is no more discussion on that then we are going moving on to board and committee reports the extracurricular activities with mr shaffer is not here so then that would move
076us on to the legislative committee and that would be ms mrs deardorff so no pressure to do the legislative update while our uh state representative cerisi is here so i hope i do you proud let me know if i miss anything um on the federal level um there's about a week to go for this or for the state level i should say there's about a week to go for the state budget deadline um the governor and the majority are working through differences to agree on approximately a 42 billion dollar budget they do anticipate substantial aid for public schools and environmental cleanup while cutting corporate taxes on the federal level on the 23rd house republicans and democrats reached a final agreement and passed the bipartisan keep kids fed act of 2020 which provides funding and flexibility
077for communities to provide children with summer meals as well as support schools and day cares to respond to supply chain challenges and high food costs this is something that we have talked about at the table before and this federal act went through which allows program food waivers increased reimbursement um from 15 up 15 cents for breakfast 40 cents for lunch as we continue to recover from the pandemic so that is good news on the federal level locally there's some bills passed this week i'm getting there so unanimously una unanimously uh adult education and workforce recovery fund grant program was approved as well as a personal financial literacy for high school students um and then there were three partisan bills uh parental control over curriculum and books uh that was passed seven to three i wanna
078say or seven to four um which requires districts to identify and form uh parents of sexually explicit material with no clear method or criteria on how to do that um bill 1278 parent authority and curriculum decisions it prohibits prohibits classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation for pre-k through fifth grade students consistent with the timeline for when the existing academic standards on general sex education begins in the sixth grade requires adherence to existing state standards of age-appropriate content for any discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation that occur in grades six through twelve it prohibits the school from withholding information from parents in according with existing state and federal laws it increases transparency by requiring public schools to develop a policy for notifying parents when there is a change to a student's services for
079monitoring protect students in the lgbtq community by providing critical exemptions if it can be reasonably demonstrated that parental notification would result in abuse or abandonment of a reminder minor um and that's all i have lots of changes going on but those are the ones um specifically highlighted that affect us thank you very much so that takes us to the montgomery county intermediate unit report and to me the minutes have not been produced yet for that but a lot of our meeting had to do with the legislation that mrs dierdorf already covered they also did their safety report and then an exact session and then there was a presentation on the montgomery county virtual program which i have the information on that to share with our administrators here also but um in case there's any resources
080there that we want to use or just make sure that they are aware of them so um then moving on then to the psba which again mr schaefer is not present so that would move us to then the superintendent's report mr rizzo ah thank you my report is actually relatively short this evening uh i do want to just talk a little bit about the shift from the resolution process to what will be our proclamation process i believe erin cruz is going to be projecting a sample of what the proclamation is going to look like prop foundations would be awarded by the border school directors for students and staff accomplishments which are school related and exceed the routine performances beyond the school school district community and or pioneer athletic conference administrators and other staff members will
081be encouraged to nominate qualified students for spring ford proud recognition three times a year through the director of communications marketing and media examples of deserving accomplishments might include national merit scholarship recognition semifinalist finalists and committed students regional state national publications of poems articles short stories art or photograph regional district state uh banned orchestra course piaa district playoff regional and or state championships pac athletic team or individual championships selection through audition or competition to perform at major educational conferences seminars conventions etc regional state or national awards for school-sponsored publications student awards for district regional state competitions and curriculum areas spring forward crowd recognition which we might recognize three times a year that will be nominated by our by our administrators so those are the types of things we would be looking for issuing proclamations for which
082will again would not be requiring a board action but would be acknowledged at the board level um lastly i want to once again congratulate the retirees we have two that we just just came across our desk first carol herringslake library assistant and instructional assistant at royersford elementary school for 22 years and parker loomis at the 9th grade center social studies teacher for 14 years to combine those two gave 36 years of spring forward we wish them both the best in their next phase so thank you congratulations to them and that's the end of my report i i just want to say thank you miss crew uh for your efforts with creating that proclamation i just think that's a nice way to recognize the students and it looks really good thank you any other comments about
083the proclamations mr jackson okay so this would take place on our school board agendas that normally have the resolutions that is correct here's one thing one question and i know we've done this in the past and maybe mr service remembers this we used to have a dinner once a year for our retirees and i don't know if that's something that you stopped doing i mean we say you know thank you for what you've done but we used to do one one dinner a year which allowed everyone to get back together before you know they went their separate ways sorry we do have a reception annually for those that are able to attend this past year we had a reception on our media center where we brought back um we brought back those not brought back
084those that have already retired they came back or those are retiring to have an opportunity to recognize photos we have some gifts for them it's a nice evening we do do that annually yes thank you okay any other board comment then we'll move on to the agenda oh i beg your pardon mr fitzgerald he did i actually did have something to report i mean i did i i just wanted to report to the board uh as as you as you know the supreme court has been quite busy the last uh several days today a a big decision came out impacting public schools um it was a case kennedy versus the bremerton school district which is out in the western part of the country um and it's centered on a a coach i'm sure you've read
085read the facts about this a coach who was saying prayers at the center of the field um whether individually or with other students he was um not retained as coach when he was directed by the school district to refrain from that activity um the district argued generally that this was an individual who was still acting in the scope of their employment as the coach during that time period the individual argued otherwise the court today found that the regulations by the school district were a violation of the individual's free exercise clause in the first amendment as well as the free speech clause of the first amendment um admittedly i need to look into the free exercise side of it but i will tell you from the free speech side of it it's interesting that is definitely
086going to be a case that changes how the law has been addressing public employees government employees and speech within you know a governmental setting or a school setting in this instance there had been a a case garcetti from for many years which had essentially established the analysis of of how you look at it and how districts were able to regulate speech um in in any more uh well had certainly had more power um this looks to take back some of that so it will be interesting how this now plays out moving forward with with the balancing of government employees and speech in our instance the classroom so um we'll see how that plays out but this was a this is a big case that was decided today just one report on that thank you all
087right moving on then to the next part of the agenda which is the minutes do we have a motion to approve motion second all those in favor any opposed motion passes 7-0 moving on to personnel a through w do i have a motion we want to can we separate a few here sure what would you like to separate c2 e2 e5 and oh you're gonna have to slow down a little bit you said c2 yes c2 c2 e2 e5 and oh i don't know if anybody has anything else i just want to i know that we did this at the beginning the meeting but i would just like to separate you since there was a change in the number and i want to just be clear on what that that number what we are voting
088on in that number okay so so far we are separating c two e two e five o and u anything else all right anything else the name would like to have separated all right do i have a motion on all of personnel with the exception of c2 e2 e5 m o and u so we moved business second second okay for discussion my position regarding the 10 months that was separated so we're not just looking at the ones that are not separated there are no board questions then all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay the motion passes seven zero now we would be looking at c c2 questions about c2 let's see if there's a motion or second for that i beg your pardon is there a motion for c2 second okay emotion
089in a second board discussion i don't want to call too much out here we've had discussion about this um previously in executive session and um i just want to remind everybody of that discussion and of um i'll leave it at that well it goes back to policy nepotism that's how this this is how far this goes back um i'm not going to beat this dead horse but um i don't support it that's my comment any other board comment i mean i think it's worth clarifying for the community watching those statements are we even able to is my question because what was the question um she was saying i think it's worth clarifying and i'm sitting here saying i would love to make a board comment but i don't even know that it's appropriate are we
090able to give it the skills of personnel we have we have a policy on it right and we also have feedback from the administration we can't we can't address specific names though at the table here yeah i mean generally i'd like that to ideally to occur an exact session on those issues then i'll refrain from my comment thank you i guess i'll comment that it is administration's belief that this is not a violation of any policy correct that is correct thank you and they're entitled to that position as you member i just think it's important for the community to hear that as well i support that but that street goes both ways okay if there's no other board comment on voting on c two all those in favor say aye aye opposed no no so
091the motion passes five two mrs zazowski and mr jackson all right looking at the next one um at e two and e five that have to do with our 10 month principal positions system principal position so is there a motion a second second board question comment do not support um this internal change um and i'll leave it at that this has been discussed previously um because miss herman's i don't want to get into to specifics we're being asked to whatever oh i'm sorry anything oh to to vote on um a recommendation and we have the opportunity to say yes we're saying that i fully support you and your entitlement to vote i was not making any comments i apologize thank you similar to the last case that we had we didn't want to call any
092specific names we had a couple of us have expressed just not really sure what that need is for the 10 to 12 movement so just calling it out all right and those um i know were explained to us and were the recommendations of administration that those positions um needed could be best served going from 10 to 12 months if there's no other board i have a comment yes what percentage of our principles are 10 to 12 months i know we talked about this before i just these are the remaining two okay yes you just wanted to clarify thank you all right if there is no more no more board discussion then um all those in favor say aye aye opposed no no okay so the motion passes five two all right so that takes us
093to personnel m so do i have a motion and a second okay any [Music] um discussion i first would like to discuss that i'm very happy that we have the administration has made a decision and is bringing forth this recommendation for this candidate and i look forward with board approval for them joining our team any other board discussion don't support the recommendation i made reference to this at the last week's meeting thank you another board comment i'd like to make a comment um neither with regards to my support or lack of support for this but um i know that we have talked about the hiring process in the past and um i know that board members are invited when we come to make the hiring decisions with regards to director level positions or cabinet level
094positions um but you know frankly i i would be in support of revisiting that process i do think that when you're hiring a building administrator i think that is equally important given the size of our district and if there is a possibility to entertain what that would look like would the board members be invited to like a final interview like we are for the directors um i i would welcome that so is the board interested in having tasking the administration with looking into what perhaps what other districts do or um what that would look like if we were to include a school board members into one of the rounds with the decision making it's my understanding mr fitzgerald you can correct this that a board member has the right to attend any interview and i
095think it's been put out there over the years that that's my understanding please correct me if i'm wrong there well i i think my my view would be that a board member has the right to attend an interview if they are so authorized by the board to allow the board member to attend um so you know i i so that would be my answer to your question in terms of how you um have the board involved in the hiring process is certainly going to be at the discretion of the board at what level too see that becomes the challenge of this and i've been on this board for a while and as a voting board member we're presented with a black and white sheet of paper with a dollar value and a name i think
096the board member should have the right to be in that process if you're asking me to cast a vote of a monetary value as it impacts the district and their students and we've done that before so i have done some research on this i did reach out to the other superintendents in montgomery county to find out what their practices are and it's a mixed bag as far as what level of involvement many of them do involve board members to provide input but not to be part of the decision-making process we very purposely here at springford in june of 2019 made a decision to not involve board in anything below director level positions if the board wants to revisit that you know as per mr fitzgerald's statement we can certainly do that and incorporate them in
097some part of the process i have no issue with that [Music] i don't see where anybody on this board except for one is qualified to be to have an opinion on the qualifications of people at this position why are we being asked to vote on it then okay that that becomes a slippery slope you don't want you just use me to be involved but you want me to cast a vote on that person that dollar value and the duties that they would commit to for the district right yeah the idea is that we have hired administrators and tasked them with this so that's that is the thinking behind that um i i would like to think we need to continue this discussion i don't know that right now is i'd like to kind of redirect
098this toward we could do it at the end of this meeting or do it at the next meeting or you know definitely before there were any other administrative positions being hired there are several different ways that it can be done and there are some districts which really invite the um potential candidates in to be to meet other staff members things like that there are certain different different ways to be looked at so if it's okay with the board members at this time i'd like to move on but i would like to task the administration to continue to look at this and that we would address this um at a later date and definitely prior to any other administrative interviews i would like to make it make a comment though too that i acknowledge dr wright
099your doctorate in education but there are others on this board that also have experience and background in education so i don't feel that in any way one of us and and any other talents or skills or expertise that we bring to this table and contribute i don't feel that any one member is more qualified than another to participate in a process an interview process that being said i'm fine with the uh administration continuing on to explore what direction we want to go with that all right i agree with you for the records again all right i wasn't suggesting that that only dr wright should be in on any of these interviews what i was saying is with her background none of us really has all the right questions to ask that's why we're paying our
100administrators to do this that's that's not that's what i'm saying that is i completely disagree with that well okay we disagree the irony of this is the board is tasked with hiring a superintendent and we do that and most of us don't have that experience but we're still tasked with that requirement okay everybody lowering your expectations you bring a skill set to the table you have experience and areas that you contribute i'm not sure everybody's expressing that's their opinion and everyone's entitled to their opinion and so having expressed that i'd like to move on and vote on this so at this time all those in favor say aye hi hi those opposed m so the motion passes six one i'd like to congratulate dr edwards and dr edwards is in the board in the room
101so congratulations and welcome to the team i don't know why you wouldn't thank you all right moving on then to personnel oh is there a motion and a second um board discussion i just can't get on with it get on board with this because this is the one that i said that i not that i didn't want mrs lise to have this but i just at this time wanted to pull that back um so i just i that's where that's any other board discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed no no that the vote passes 5-2 next would be you do i have a motion second and a second thank you for discussion i separated this just because i want to be clear since we did made the amendment the dollar amount the
102new dollar amount i would make sure i have it correct 221 450. it's changed from the what's stated there that is correct thank you any other board discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no i'm sorry i was you're with me thank you okay so the motion passes 6-1 all right we've moved through personnel moving on now to finance a through j separate d 11 13 g and j you've got to slow down on these d 11 separate the 11 d13 what else g and j g and j right actually you can you can take j off because we discuss them okay so can you repeat that dr wright i will thank you so we are voting on finance a through j but separated from that are d 11 d and g
103do i have a motion a second second okay for discussion on everything but d 11 d 13 and g there's no board discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed the motion passes seven zero let's move then to d d11 is there a motion and a second for discussion on d11 i'm just wondering what that change was from the 41 140 250 to 56 578. mr fink is that can you weigh in on that the number changed from last week it was 41 140 250 and it's 56 578 this week dr g can digress that oh okay yes i can address that it's okay uh they did reach out they made a mistake in their original fee for the three students for esy and this is the correct adjustment i missed that in
104the board memo because i didn't see that thought it was in there if we could just have that going forward because i i and if it was there i apologize but i did not see it i will double check if it's not i will okay thank you any other board discussion on d11 all those in favor say aye aye opposed the motion passes seven zero moving on to d13 is there a motion a second board discussion why are we doing um central monaco technical high school and not the western center is that dr jean dr g again am i putting you on the spot i'm sorry d13 this student who receives special ed is going to central monco instead of western because the program in central monaco is offered there and not at western correct
105any other board discussion all those in favor say aye opposed the motion passes seven zero moving on to g off i brought that under personnel is there a motion and a second yes for discussion i think you clarified that in our executive session so just i had it in my notes but yes any other board discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion passes seven zero moving on to property we did we did j we had started to pull it but then we did not so j passes so moving on to property a through c separate b separate i'm sorry b separating b so we're on property a and c is there a motion and a second for discussion on a and c if there's a board discussion all those in
106favor say aye any opposed motion passes 7-0 is there a motion for property b and a second or discussion on property b i think we've spent our extra money on the landscaper company we hired so i would be opposed to purchasing a zero turn mower at this time well unfortunately mr zwowski we perform long cutting services also so um it's more cost effective if we do it um and i thought we went through this and draining the detail before but we do cut a lot of our property here and they do a fantastic job and they also have a great leader at the facilities department oversees this and also fantastic chairman of the property committee so i'm well aware of the roles that the people play here what i'm saying is that we spent extra
107money earlier this year um which if we had not spent that perhaps i would not have been opposed to spending it on a mower but because we've already spent it i think we could look at that once we get out of that contract i i saw one of our mowers that it was a zero turn mower over by the ball field and it looked like it was duct taped together i mean i'm sure we have more than one but it looked like we needed it you probably saw the one they want you to see i do appreciate no they know it was me i'm sure do you know them miss um mr zawski mr jackson or maybe mr hunter could you just clarify because you said exactly what i was thinking uh mr jackson in
108terms of we don't we we don't uh contract out all of the lowing for all of the buildings can you remind me which buildings is it the elementary schools where we're cutting the grass or is it the upper grades this is mr hunter i can answer that question it is the elementary schools um our in-house staff cuts the main campus uh upper providence the district office the flex building we also cut to ninth grade eighth grade in the high school uh the other schools are done by our contractor thank you any other board discussion all those in favor say aye any opposed no the motion passes 6-1 moving on to programming and curriculum a through l is there a motion a second any board discussion i i i struggle with this when the board is
109asked to never mind come on any other board discussion if not all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes 7-0 moving on to other business a through p so is there a motion for a 1 through 12 minus a2 oh it's just a first read you're right i'm sorry about that thank you for that mrs vicker so a is just a first read so this is not voted on so where are we okay so we're looking at other business b through m because we are separating n o and p so and q we throw that in is that a that's okay so we are uh is there a motion for b through m um mr fitzgerald i know we've talked about this before when we are approving our students taking trips but could
110you remind me why we have to approve this i thought for some reason that it deals with the organization carrying the supreme court name even though we're not providing any financial support on this mr jackson which item are you speaking to just take any any overnight you know the girls basketball team going down to florida um the cost isn't coming from the district the district isn't being impacted but we have to approve this and we talked about this before and i just can't remember why well one of the reasons and this did come up whether it be here or another another district um my understanding is your your broker from an insurance perspective wants that if this was a trip that was a spring forward-sponsored trip generally everything emanates from the board so they would
111want to see that there was an approval of this trip under those circumstances any other discussion no more board discussion then we are voting on other business b through m plus q all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes 7-0 moving on to n is there a motion a second or discussion where do we stand with um reactivating this program i'm sorry i didn't hear you where do we stand we're reactivating um the exchange program for our students so at this point with the germany trip obviously limerick to limerick trip has been around for quite some time the germany trip were trying to get off the ground clover really had an impact um on germany's side they have many many participants on our side were kind of at about five so i
112think it's one of those things where we need to get it off the ground before we can get more participation which is why dr collier and his team is asking for a little bit of financial support to help get this moving um so that hopefully as we plan for future endeavors uh we'll be able to increase our participation all right thank you so that's where i i have a question about and can i can i just ask about n and and o together master fistral the reason being is is o did i read somewhere in the board memo was o somehow impacting n so yeah um so what i added in the board memo last week was that the total cost of helping to support our german students when they come to us is 3
113500 because we participate in the monco works now program which is outlined in a board memo we have three thousand dollars to use as we design as we so as we see fit um so they would like to apply to this program but in addition to that we're asking for spring ford's 500 contribution so they are kind of linked together okay so my only concern was this monco works now program did i understand that to be a different resource not necessarily for students in the german program or did i misunderstand that that is not specifically for students in the german program it's our participation working with um um i have to go back to the member for to refresh myself on it but it's our participation in a program were they i think had to
114do with some trainings and things that we were able to participate in we provided some site support and because of that we were able to get an allocation of money so i just wanted to make sure that we're not commingling funds that that 3000 doesn't have to stay in the monco works now program that we're able to use that for the german program um that is correct in this in dr collier's research he said that that money is allocated for us to use however we see fit and not specifically for a particular program okay thank you and we carry that in our budget the 3000 is from the monco works now program we don't have five i guarantee it 500. well we just bought a miller any other board discussion on n okay all those
115in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes 7-0 moving on to oh is there a motion and a second second void discussion any other board discussion on it okay you have no other discussion then um all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion passes seven zero moving on to p is there emotion so moved and a second board discussion do we have three board members appointed i don't remember us discussing this in detail last week so correct um you need the board members too i think actually mrs baker could probably explain it um we have the ability to send three delegates so we would need volunteers to go and then they would be appointed so just to double check as a second class school district as dictated by psba we're able to
116send up to three it does not need to be three correct all right right now i believe this went out in the board memo there was information about it um and that anyone who was interested was to reply i did reply thank you all right any other board discussion on p all right um since there's no other board discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed the motion passes seven zero okay so i believe that is all that we are voting on tonight so we are moving on to um we haven't noted there informational about the irs mileage rate we we did vote q was included in the other personnel all right that's okay can i actually just go back to what we were just talking about with p so i know that
117we passed it but does this board need to uh certify the appointment of whomever wants to go okay oh you will do that so that's not a board vote okay but for the person if we had more than one interest okay with you all right thank you so then we are at the point of board comment so at this time is there any board comment i have two things actually i'll start with the easier one it's more of a question than a comment regarding a health and safety plan for next school year is that something that we will be discussing on august 15th correct i will be spending the summer and i'll be giving the board some um some an opportunity to provide input throughout the summer for those who want it yes we're required
118to update our plan every six months uh the last time we approved an update was in february so august is when it comes up again um so that will come forward and i believe that pd is going to be releasing another version of the template for us to follow so we're waiting here for that as well as montgomery county's most recent guidance just double checking you said august 15th i just want to confirm that we're still sticking to the last two uh mondays of the month in which case the work session will be the 22nd and then the board vote would be 29. it's actually the third and fourth monday okay so we're sticking with that okay thank you so did i have it right you did addie i live by this thing i have
119to have it new template that's fun um so my comment is about the diversity equity and inclusion policy um because i i guess i'm seeking clarity from any community member regarding what their specific concern is of how our students will be affected by having this policy often we are provided with emails with links to articles or tick tock videos i would like to hear specifically from the community personally what your fear is what your concern is what you think is going to be abused by ensuring that our students have an inclusive equitable and diverse experience here you know i know some of the community members have expressed concern about not being able to have a back and forth or you know a conversation about things so um you know specifically the community member that called
120in tonight i've reached out to you numerous times inviting you to have a conversation with me so that we can discuss your concerns and you don't respond to me um so i take issue with being criticized about being um transparent or clear i i have extended this to try to understand and this doesn't go just for that person it goes for anybody um i can't wrap my head around it i really can't and so if you could specifically explain to me how you think that our children are going to lose or be harmed or abused by ensuring that they have this experience i need to understand that because this policy has been in place for two years the board prior unanimously voted the original policy in august of 2020. there was no conversation about it
121there was no community outrage about it so i need to understand that so that i can respond because i know there's frustration with response i would like to respond but i need something concrete um you know i get veiled emails from um names that i can't even identify as being within the district or in our community i don't know who i'm communicating with um so i would like to challenge or propose that if you want to have a conversation with me about equity diversity and inclusion and your concerns about that please be specific and clear with me so that i can be clear purposeful definitive and objective transparently to you um you know i i don't mean to keep going on and on about this but you know i very well got involved with school
122board because of coven right so i don't have the history behind other policies that some of our esteemed board members and community members here um have but maybe you can educate me is there has there ever been a policy that has been so concerning to others because if you want to talk about language and you know further marginalizations and and what we are doing detrimentally to the students by ensuring that they have an experience that flows with our mission and vision for the district like i looked at you know the edi policy is in our um programming policies the 100s so then you have policy 101 which is the philosophy of education there's a lot of fluffy words in there but i don't see community outrage about that development of planned programming of learning which
123meets the needs of the students what students all the students specific students marginalized underserved students which students are we referring to in the district responsibility to provide a broad educational program what you know we can do that with all these policies so i just am challenging those of you out there that continuously bring this up and feel unheard because we're not making changes based upon your feedback tell me specifically what it is don't give me a link to the libs of tiktok like i want to talk to you personally and i would appreciate a response thank you abby just to um kind of comment on that there have been policies over the years that have um sparked an outcry or a response maybe different in a sense but when i came on i think transportation
124was a huge battle that took place oh why are you coming into my development but you don't come into my development and on and on and on for that and um use of facilities was a big one um that was somewhat delayed by the onset of covid but nevertheless it had attracted a lot of um public comment so to speak so i hear what you're saying and i do think it would be helpful it was one of the reasons i i quickly read that and missed the first reading part of it but um it would be helpful to know exactly where where the concerns are so that they could be addressed very specifically instead of in a broader context and it sounds like you could address a transportation issue because you can visualize that it's
125concrete we don't have not not so much well i mean from you know like abby said we're getting email or mr door we're um getting emails with links to articles that are pages and pages long without knowing what the concern is without knowing what kind of response you want without really understanding where this is coming from so there hasn't been any tangible examples that we can respond to or even examples of what they would like it to say if this is not making sense to you and it's vague what are the exact words you think would make it precise i don't find any suggestions it's just criticism if i can go back to transportation mr dorf that that was a much bigger issue and being a dumb engineer and someone who sat on the upper
126providence zoning committee board the transportation was horrible we had people line up back to the door because some wanted the bus to come into their development in front of their house we had other members who did not want to bus in front of their house so it just depends on what the issue is and what's the hot button item of the day my comment about transparency unfortunately it's two items one we talked about where we stood with long-term syrup subs and it was a very broad discussion at the table however it was addressed in the friday memo and i've brought this up before if items are discussed at the table they should be discussed at the table um not the friday or the wednesday memo which i will respond to and also regarding the the
127it presentation again it was discussed in detail at the table but the response was put in the friday or the wednesday memo and i would just like for transparency and for the the public to hear both sides of the table um with that being said mr the edi where i get where i'm struggling with the edit we hired a consultant and this this might help our current position um we had a consultant there was a scope of work that was developed um the word deliverable was used many times it's my understanding that the consultant has completed the services and i would just like to know what was delivered was it just meetings and conversations what did he present back to the school district and maybe by us having that we can share some of the
128information with the board which may quell some of the fever that you're making reference to along the same lines mr jackson um [Music] you know because i think you're talking about like the execution right so there's the policy the strategy the vision and then there's the execution i know that we've talked about getting an update from the edi committee but um in addition to understanding where these work streams are in in what they're trying to accomplish um i also want to know like what impediments are there if they're already and just kind of really kind of get a state of the union with where we are with that because i think without understanding um the progress made in execution it could feel like we're spinning our wheels a bit with the strategy and i don't
129necessarily have an issue with the vision the strategy the policy but i would like to have a better understanding of where we are with the execution um in addition just one no that's okay one additional point is um you know we have committees right and the board members serve on various committees um you know dr murray had solicited board members earlier in the year for a volunteer on the district wellness committee and i had stepped up to do that and i just i'm starting to question why we don't have board representation or why you know not to say that we can't but why we don't have board representation from an edi committee standpoint um because it does feel like a bit we're asking a lot of questions and if we had somewhat of a liaison
130maybe we could just be more clear with our responses and our comments well i i think the the administration and this goes back to 2019 when many of these current board members were not on the board and i think part of it is it's been a long road conversation and i think if we can put some real information together the what what was presented from the consultant i think that would help it's just been a long conversation and it's it's something that uh people can latch on to and ask questions it is it's questions that we really can't answer because we haven't formulated our overall structure for what we want to present for the district and as far as um the committee i think the intent of the liaison from the administration was to work
131with the internal committees the staff um some administrators and at some point in time i know they have gone and brought in parents and i know at some point there was discussions of having board members so i think it's something it's a valid point i would love to be on that committee but i have finance and property so my hands are full uh mr rizzo or miss elise i think there is an update to what they're saying for a conversation that we had about it did do either of you want to speak to that just about rev you know possibly revamping the current structure of the committee um or is that not for well i mean i could i could talk about because it's really been miss lisa and i talking about the last year
132the last couple of years um but it's not official so i i wouldn't want to say this is definitely we feel like i just want to give you credit for already you know addressing some of these things that we're talking about i appreciate that thanks um but i can't take any credit for that so um correct we've had a committee for the last couple of years and and we have shared numerous times what the purpose of that committee was the first couple of years uh this past year we did um on the recommendation of our consultant we did start a parent group that he wanted to keep small and kind of get information so we did we capped it i think 10 or 11 people um we have found a throughout this year we did
133have a debrief with with our consultant a few weeks ago miss lisa and i had a debrief about the debrief last week and we're pulling together a plan out of that conversation was sort of a restructuring we feel might be a little bit more um more proactive in terms of providing the deliverables that the board is asking for and that is a smaller district committee that does involve some some board members that does involve some parents that also does involve one or two people from buildings and then having building level teams that would kind of report out and share out so a smaller hub district wide hub that does involve the stakeholders you're talking about and then sharing out to the other buildings to their building level teams as well it's not really formulated yet
134it's just a thought that she and i had in share bs we are actively considering other options and there will be a report provided by um our consultant we just haven't received it yet yeah that report is going to be part of the um update that we talked about last week are we going to wait till that long or we had when we had met and where we discussed this after the presentation that was done by the edi committee then it was at that time that was determined that the schools would wait until the school year started to see how they had implemented it so we're still uh that that expectation and mr isa i have spoken of that is still in place so that would be on the agenda as a presentation for um
135after the school year has started so if you're talking also about having something from the um the consultant i know mr rizzo can we work that into that also sure i could share earlier in the board memo as well well i think that mr jackson would like it to be shared at the table right not necessarily before i just did the land this plane it's been flying for a long time and i know you guys are doing everything you can do it is not a simple task but we just got to land this plane so we can put a bow on it and move on to something else okay i just don't know if i want to wait until we have that update that we talked about last week and i think you're referencing to
136take place after school has started again i don't know if i want to wait to then to see what the outcome of the consultant was so well right that's why i was kind of suggesting we put something in a board memo and we make a part of that so you're not waiting for that piece yep that's perfect any other board discussion if not then we will move on to public to be heard let's start with um zoom is there anyone out in zoom at this time there are no public comments to be heard on zoom right so let's move to um in the room if there's anyone any public that would like to be heard please approach the podium and state your name and the location in which you live except for jose good evening
137i'm joe ceresi live in limerick township i'm here tonight um to honor someone who is leaving the district uh mickey mcdaniel mickey and i got to know each other i guess i don't even know what year it was 2002 i guess almost 20 years ago and mickey's commitment to this district not only as an educator as the head of athletics but as a resident of springford goes above and beyond any other commitment i think i've seen in this district the whole time i was here and the whole time i've lived here you know we had the honor a couple weeks ago to honor a family in pottstown the um and mickey will definitely know them the armadas and we named a street after them in post town called the armada way and mr ramado had
138been involved with schools and his wife was a teacher here at spring forward for many years but mr mcdaniel just like the armadas has given to this community has given to this district and i can't be prouder to say i know him and to thank him for 27 years of service to this district as an employee and as a resident of springford so mickey i waited through a whole board meeting um which you know i haven't been at one of these for 12 years i think whatever it is five years this long but um to congratulate you and wish you luck in your retirement you and becky i hope you get to travel and see the kids and the grandkids and your commitment to this district should be an example for everyone who works here
139uh and in the future and you will be extremely difficult to replace you used to be able to go mickey anywhere in the district and he would appear from behind a wall at any function so thank you for your service thank you all very much thank you mr ceresi is there any other comment from the room all right then is there a motion to adjourn adjourned you