001test one two a few brief announcements this evening mrs fazzini is joining us via zoom mrs melton's not able to be here tonight there's also an additional motion um to go on the agenda i'd like to read that now before we do public to be heard on agenda items and the emotion and the motion reads administration recommends approval of resolution 2021-25 commending aj ronaglia for being selected for the pennsylvania music educators association 2021 district 11 band and the 2021 all-state wind ensemble the other quick announcement this evening as that masks will be optional this evening for anyone vaccinated after the student presentations so whatever your comfort level is at that point and if you are vaccinated it will be your option at that point if you choose to remove your mask uh do we have
002anything from our student reps from ashika or i believe allison is also on the zoom this evening we have one announcement this evening the springfield art department is proud to present the springford virtual art exhibit for a gate for grades 7 through 12 the community can enjoy this high quality 3d art exhibition from home featuring over 900 works of art and 13 senior ap spotlights visit springford.net to start the online tour okay thank you for that information and then moving on through our agenda there is public to be heard on agenda items only mr dennard please state your name and address for the record bartender remember township there's two things that caught my eye on the agenda one was uh i saw that mrs ferner is going to retire i just had one question for
003the board is how many people are going to hire to replace her because she does so many things and does it so well and i wish her well in her retirement and the second thing is i saw that mr rizzo is on the agenda for his contract approval when i was on the board i was someone that voted noah often but this would not be one of the times to vote no i want to thank the board for uh quickly and swiftly moving to hire him so that we have a good superintendent going forward thank you thank you mr dennard are there any other comments from anyone in the room are there anyone on zoom yes okay go ahead tina please state your full name and address and your public comment to be heard please
004unmute yourself hi um tina murray 12 bridal lane collegeville i'm commenting on section six of finance um letter d number three on carlos wiley to be the consultation for services to springford's equity diversity and inclusion initiatives um i i don't know how much you've guys looked into this man but what i've seen on the website um he's a penn state uh he works for penn state paul robeson cultural center and his primary focus is based in accordance with his philosophical practice rooted in critical race theory i just wanted to know if this is the route that springford's going um i can comment at the end but i didn't know if he's been vetted to be someone that is going to be someone that is going to implement and create our inclusion excellence plan that's it
005i just want to know if you guys have vetted him uh yeah i can respond to that um carlos wiley um was vetted through our equity diversity and inclusion committee where there was a process of application submission uh the credentials were reviewed as well as interviews held and carlos wiley came forward as the um as the primary candidate recommendation from that crew and at this point he's going to be working with us on equity diversity and inclusion not specific to anything related to critical race theory we are just talking about how we can start moving forward with our district in those three areas thank you no other comments on zoom so with that we will move on to our presentations and i believe we have mr tom kelly from ces with music here to recognize
006springford once again for a recent accomplishment good evening and uh thank you for allowing me to to be here this evening mr rizzo members of the board members of the faculty and and students i come to you this evening uh as a representative from zeswitz music i'm an education representative and i uh i work very closely with the music department here at springford but zeswitz is also a member of the namm foundation and that's the national association of music merchants a little bit of background on on this particular accolade uh it is not uh easily begotten uh i will say that this is the fifth year running that spring ford uh is is getting this particular award the best communities for music education nearly 5 000 school districts across the state of pennsylvania applied excuse
007me across the nation applied for this particular accolade it's a 30 plus page document that goes into detail in terms of the performance opportunities the rehearsal spaces the funding that's provided to the music program here at springford i don't have the actual count of of this year's uh nominees if you will but only 686 schools across the country were awarded this accolade again it's it's due in part by the support for the administration the marvelous teachers that are teaching the students here in springford the parents that are willing to support and get their kids back and forth with those musical instruments or to a performance or to a rehearsal and lest we not forget the general music teachers in the spring ford school district those are the ones that that actually start the musical career
008if you will of the youngsters starting in kindergarten i i'd be remiss if i didn't actually mention those uh folks as well because let's face it if they don't have a positive experience in that classroom they're never going to make it into band course or orchestra so i commend the spring forward school district once again for being voted one of the best communities for music education so congratulations uh on behalf of of zeswitz music i do have a a placard here i i know that that aaron crew may have gotten the the complete pr package uh but again i've seen these uh placed throughout the district on many different walls so if if we could can we get a photo op with the music department here thank you for doing that and thank you mr
009kelly for your service from says wits to all of us here at springford we now have a number of other resolutions this evening that are here for presentation and i believe mr jones is going to come up to the mic for those hi good evening everyone um my name is mr jones i'm the high school band director and i'm really kind of speaking on behalf of myself and mrs o'day and mrs mcgranahan and we are here to represent students that were representing springford at pmea pennsylvania music educators events this year before i do that i just to the board want to say thank you for your support as always and also um the best communities of music education award that we were awarded a big person that had a huge role in that for us
010this year was aaron crew who really put together that that whole application so i would personally just want to thank her because without you i don't know if we could get that thing together it's a big application um so uh this year uh pennsylvania music educators association held all of their events virtually and what happens is as pmea members myself mrs o'day and mrs mcgranahan can um support uh students auditioning for these honor ensembles uh we are part of pma district 11 which is the actually the equivalent of pia district one if you want to think about it that way and uh our students virtually back in december and november had to audition for spots and district honors band honors orchestra and honors choir and this year those festivals were largely kind of in name
011only but a few of our students then also successfully auditioned on and represented uh spring ford this year at the allstate level so i'm going to recognize um the students that were in band in orchestra and what i'm going to do is i'm going to call them each up so we can recognize them and not to interrupt but before you do that i'd like to take care of that motion that was read earlier so that that student could come up also with the rest of yeah absolutely i don't want that person to be excluded so the motion earlier as i read it um approval of resolution commending aj ranaglia are there any questions or comments on that is there a motion for that so moved and i said any questions or comments all in favor
012say aye aye any opposed okay that motion carry so go ahead and please include that person thank you uh so uh the students uh if they're here uh all as they come up as if you're here come on up when i call your name um our first student that represented uh springford in district 11 band was jessica pan who is a senior um our second student he was placed at the top of his section so he represented this year spring fort in both district 11 band and district 11 orchestra and then successfully auditioned for a spot in pmea allstate orchestra and that is a senior ryan henkels who i know is here come on down ryan yeah congratulations i think you can go front and center or do we want all of them together okay
013just stay right there ryan um our second student uh also placed uh high enough this year that he represented spring forward both in district pma district 11 band and pm agent 11 orchestra and then also successfully auditioned for a spot into pmea all-state orchestra and that is aiden rizzo a junior our next student uh uh also uh represented springford in both pme district 11 band and pmua district 11 orchestra and successfully auditioned for a spot into a pmea all-state concert band this is a sophomore samuel brown our next student represented uh springford in both pmea district 11 band and pma district 11 orchestra and also represented uh springford and pma um all-state concert band as a junior and rizzo yeah our final student uh represented springford uh in pma district 11 band if saxophone was
014an orchestra instrument i'm sure he would have represented us in the orchestra as well but he also successfully uh represented springford at the pma um all-state win ensemble and that is aj ronalio aj is a senior i forgot to mention that aj congratulations thank you and uh the the rest of our students are choir students so i'm going to turn it over to mrs o'day so i don't mispronounce their names good evening i have three students who um successfully made it to the district choir level this year um i think it's just an amazing feat um that they were able to do this virtually and on their own essentially i mean i think i heard them they learned all the music and um on their own and pretty much you know i heard them we
015fin you know did final touches but i mean they really did the work on their own so um amazing student senior uh he's in orchestra he's in choir he's in band he had the most stickers on his senior plaque than anybody has ever had and that's owen wright and then we have a sophomore representing um i'm proud to uh give this to suniti srinivas i'm sure suniti will be will be an allstate participant next year and now i'm going to pull someone who's already on the floor if you can believe so um next year she's going to have to choose which one she's going to go to because i'm pretty sure she's going to make allstate choir too and that's annie rizzo thanks again for all your support our administration and we really do appreciate
016it um yeah thank you so much well normally we'd shake your hands right now but we're not doing that these days but i do want to say congratulations to all of you and thank you for the honor that you bring the spring forward with your very great talents thank you all right and then we have jeanette walker a learning support teacher here at springford and unified track coach to recognize springford's unified track and field team is she here okay first of all i just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here tonight my name is jeanette walker i'm one of the learning support teachers in the 1012 grade center i'm also the coach for springford special olympics unified track and field team on a unified track and field team students with
017and without disabilities compete alongside each other each member of the team competes in one field event the mini jab long jump or shot put one track event the 100 meter 400 meter or 800 meter and has the option to participate in a relay the 4x100 or the 4x400 the team participates in two practices per week two track meets and an end of season championship meet springford hosts one home meet where the volunteers are administrators who dedicate their time to this meet and for the first time this year we had the honor of hosting the championship meet where administrators once again bothered here valentine excuse me volunteered their time in addition to teachers and instructional assistants in january 2017 springford was presented with the opportunity to be part of the special olympics unified track and field
018program beginning their first official season in may 2017. over the past five years the team has grown from nine students to 28 students i feel truly blessed to be part of such an amazing program i accepted this position as a coach to bring a program so full of new opportunities to the student body however i feel as though i am the one who reaps the benefits of the program to see those students interacting during their practices and meets brings tears to my eyes but to see the students creating and sustaining friendships long after the season has ended leaves me breathless the program provides students with opportunities to create relationships and engage with students that may not have had the opportunity to do so in the typical academic setting so here i am to say thank
019you to all of the former and current team members who have been part of growing the unified track program into a program full of lifelong friendships and memories sue boring one of the assistant coaches will now share her experience with the program good evening when i was given the opportunity to join the unified track team as an assistant coach three years ago i was excited i told jeanette that i didn't know anything about track but i could run a little but i do love working with our kids when our kids come into the high school they are not really given the opportunity to be on our regular sports teams they also do not get the opportunity to socialize or interact with their peers as they were able to do when they were in kindergarten through
020the ninth grade so when i heard about the unified track team and what it had to offer i was excited to be a part of it at the beginning of the season students with and without special needs are nervous but they're eager to get started it is not uncommon to hear a student say i can't do it i can't run that fast i can't run that far but it is not it is also not uncommon to hear a peer say yes you can you can do it i'll run with you seeing the compassion in this kids without special needs towards our kids is really a wonderful thing to see to watch grow and to be a part of in the beginning of the season we see shy timid and little to no confidence in some
021of our kids but after a few practices you begin to see the bonds of teammates and friendships begin to form and confidence emerge the boost of that alone gives our kids is so amazing to see and it's beautiful i love to see and to hear the kids yell and to cheer for each other during the track events to see the parents staff members and some of the other sports teams show up for our unified check events and cheer for our kids the energy and the excitement that that gives to our kids is amazing they get so excited to see their teachers in the stands cheering for them they are so proud to be part of springford's athletes the unified track team is so important to have here at springford and i look forward to seeing
022the program grow and watching our kids become more confident in their abilities as students and as at the athlete thank you hi my name is anna valerio this was my first year doing the unified track team i actually found out about the program last minute when a friend told me about it i'm a swimmer not a runner so this was new to me as well it was it exceeded my expectations and was lost and was lots of fun i always look forward to practices and meets what i enjoyed most was making connections with other teammates our team was very enthusiastic and encouraging i plan to do this again next year i hope the unified track program becomes more well known and grows over the next few years people don't realize how rewarding it truly is
023my name is andrew denunzio i'm a super senior here at the springford school district i'm on the unified track team and it means a lot to me because i i take my friendships very seriously and i get to make a lot of friends on it and i take my friendships seriously and i always have somebody to talk to when i'm on this team and i get to get all my energy out and i also get to talk and even get to talk to a friend if i'm having a bad day as well thank you wow hey mr rizzo so this is some way about you mostly so i just want to say thank you to my team because this is what meant a lot to me and for the sport you guys really took it
024to heart for me and it really meant a lot to me so i thank you and it's been a hard year and i really thank you guys for being behind me so keep it up keep pushing me and keep telling me that you're gonna keep supporting me i really appreciate all the hard work that you guys do for me okay um my name is caitlin barth unified track is an amazing opportunity that i've been able to be a part of for the past three years i've been able to meet so many new people here and make new friends that i usually don't get to see just in like normal classes um this is an opportunity that i get to like have fun with all these different people that i've really never met before um i
025think i really enjoy this because even though we're like competing in the track events and everything it really isn't just about winning i mean winning's nice but um it's not the main goal the main goal is just like have fun and make new friends and just enjoy each other and i really hope i can cherish these memories all my life hello my name is cameron elsner when i joined the unified track team i knew very well how much i did not like running however i was excited to run with a special education student only two days a week little did i know that is not the case and every student runs individually nevertheless we all had so much fun this year despite the fact that i'm awful at running every practice i meet was filled
026with fun laughs and good memories every teammate is so fun to talk to and everyone is so kind every day between classes we have we wave to each other smile and say hi i'm so glad i joined the team this year i just wish that i had known about this program from the beginning of my high school career it's a great opportunity to make new friends because all of the students are so fun and kind and i will definitely participate in this awesome program next year but at this time i would like to introduce to you the bronze medal winners of the uh so at this time i would like to introduce to you the bronze medal winners of the special olympics unified track and field championship springford area school district's unified track and field
027team [Music] now i would like to take a few minutes to share some photos of the athletes from the last five years goodbye um thank you to the numerous staff members administrators and parents who have volunteered their time to support the unified team this has been done through assisting with meets and practices cheering the students on as they cross the finish line and congratulating them in the hallways for a job well done over the years i received numerous compliments on how efficiently and seamlessly the springboard track meets our ram by competing schools and the special olympics organization to this i respond it is a spring for community who works tirelessly and effortlessly to provide the best opportunities to each and every one of the students in the district so to spring forward i say thank
028you for making the unified track and field team a reality well not only was that a recognition tonight but thank you for sharing all of their accomplishments and the relationships that you're building with one another because that is what you're going to take with you so thank you so much for sharing your team with us tonight and for helping us to learn about all of the great things that are happening in and among you guys thank you keep it keep coming back thank you that's a hard act to follow dr mary and dr rocklin and you are up next oh no you're not i'm so sorry dr collier um if you could [Laughter] we're going to go with the um farewell to ishika our student rep and the introduced introduction of adidi our new student
029rep to the school board absolutely thank you and again to uh jeanette walker all the coaches and the students we've had a lot of successes and things to celebrate this year and the unified track meets are the highlights of the spring they are outstanding events and we're very thankful to have that program here so congratulations again to the unified track program it is that time of the year that we bid farewell to our student school board rep that is a senior and also introduce and welcome our new school board rep so tonight we take a few minutes to recognize eshekah on behalf of her two years of faithful service to the school board as the school board rep um jeshika we thank you for your dedication and service to the school board and the community
030and and district in general uh with regards to serving as a student school board rep as school board members know and perhaps some school community members the time that it takes and the volunteer and the level of service that you provide on behalf of the district and the school board we thank you and wish you nothing but the best moving forward ashka thank you and we also take a moment tonight to introduce i'd like to introduce and welcome our our next school board representative adidi mangal aditi will officially start in her position in june but she would like to share a few words with everybody tonight so again everybody welcome aditi good evening everyone my name is adity mungle and i'm currently a sophomore i'm excited to be here and meet you all tonight thank
031you so much for this valuable opportunity for me to honor this role i would also like to say a special thanks to all my teachers the school board the senior school principal dr collier house principal dr rupert my counselor mrs chambers 9th grade principal dr wyden bell and gifted mentor mrs hafer for always supporting me as you have seen i have been working as a student ambassador for the past two years in school activities so i would like to continue to help make springford a better place and flourish i look forward to working with you and putting my best effort as a student school board representative for the next two years thank you once again thank you adidi and welcome to the school board i hope that it will be a memorable and positive experience
032for you uh and then we also would like to say thank you to ushka for your um time and service here certainly have appreciated that along with your thorough updates and powerpoints and and all of those presentations and i have something i'll bring around for you now if anybody else would like to see a word session thank you for welcoming me when i came onto the board for being a strong role model for your female students and male students in our district i am so glad that you i got the opportunity to meet you and you brought i brought a great service you've done a great service for our board so good luck i'm going to miss you thank you for all and tell us again where are you going on tourism what are your
033plans uh i'm going to be studying a double major of international business and international relations at uc san diego congratulations enjoy your experience there and hopefully you'll take some positive memories from here as well okay thank you dr collier for that and now dr mary and dr rocklin to present the future of springford learning for us thank you and i'd also like to extend my appreciation as well for her service to the board and best of luck as well this evening we are happy to present the plan for the future of springford learning over the last year the board has been incredibly supportive to our efforts to grow and expand spring forward cyber learning which we are incredibly grateful for we've seen a lot of success and other districts are beginning to reach out and
034ask about our program as a district we have the opportunity not only to be ahead of the curve but to set the curve with cyber instruction many districts are offering cyber classes but our vision is to push past checking the box of offering cyber courses to fully embrace the educational evolution from this past year during the pandemic a few curriculum meetings ago the members of the curriculum and technology committee charged me my department to reflect on this year to ensure that we are not losing the educational momentum gained from this year as we look back they're absolutely correct as difficult as many aspects of this year has been there have been many silver linings that we can and should learn from so let's take a step back if you recall the month before covid hit
035everything was turned upside down but we presented a proposal to the curriculum and technology committee to create a rams virtual academy in this presentation we presented this idea as a means for it increasing flexibility voice and choice for students as well as addressing concerns regarding adolescent sleep and school start times and expand our potential offerings we propose cyber instruction as a means of expanding our current course offerings and emphasize the idea that all students should learn how to be successful in an online learning environment one month later our five-year plan that we proposed was thrust into action and a few months later we were proposing our initial proposal for springford cyber learning plan during this presentation we emphasized and shared that our intent was to eventually move away from the reliance on edge annuity as
036a third party vendor for springboard cyber and build our internal capacity so that we could have a fully operational cyber program with spring forward quality run by spring for teachers we're now here 15 months later sharing that not only have we made tremendous progress towards this five-year vision but now we have the opportunity to set the bar to really expand into something quite exceptional as i shared earlier we have reflected on what has been effective and ineffective over the course of the last year and we have many successes to recognize but most importantly to build off of coming out of this year we have a fully integrated learning management system canvas with the adoption of canvas never again will our district be in the position where we cannot quickly respond and seamlessly move to a
037virtual environment should we need to do so in addition canvas has and will continue to be a tool that we will use to support instruction and communication while students are in the building the adoption also allows for flexible instruction days with the board approving devices for k-6 last month we're further ahead with regard to technology access than we could have hoped for pre-pandemic but we all know that the device is just the vehicle it is not the plan several years ago when the board approved devices they emphasized the importance of how those devices were to be used from those conversations modernizing learning emerged with emphasis on the importance of professional development on how to integrate technology within instruction as more than just a tool while our secondary teachers have immersed been immersed in this training
038for several years our elementary teachers are now only at the beginning we will continue to support the highly effective model of modernizing learning as we expand the access to technology with our youngest learners i would be remiss if i didn't also mention and recognize our nationally recognized hybrid programs at both spring city and royersford elementary schools these two programs have been focusing on how technology can purposefully be used to individualize and personalize instruction for our students finally with the board moving um the board proving to return to as traditional of the reopening as possible in 2021 we'll be looking at ways that we can continue to support our families with high quality springport expectations through our cyber offering all of this is to say is that we can't stop moving forward now we must recognize
039and harness the educational momentum that has been built over the last year and continue to set the trend what we're presenting tonight is how to take that next step we want to continue to focus on how this plan can impact all students not just the families who choose to pursue cyber we have a unique opportunity right now that we won't have five years later and that is to use esser funding to support this plan as i shared earlier when springford cyber learning was presented last summer we recommended the partnership with seneca valley using edge annuity to support our cyber program we also shared that our intention was to progressively move away to a self-sustaining model where we didn't have to rely on a third party the plan you'll see tonight is the start to making
040that happen quite simply we have incredible staff as a highly ranked district we have the ability to set the trend by using our staff to produce spring ford quality products for our students thereby reducing the reliance on an outside partnership to make this happen our proposal is that we begin building k-12 digital content and courses via canvas this will result in a product that is owned and operated locally an important note to make that again this is not just to benefit our springford cyber students but it can be used to support all of our students in our current model the only students who can benefit from our partnership with edge annuity are the students who are enrolled in spring force cyber we feel that by empowering our teachers to create and develop content this opens
041the door to all teachers and all students utilizing the content as needed within canvas so what does this look like what we will be doing is making the digital content created by spring for teachers available all to all teachers students could pull teachers could pull modules into their instruction as needed to serve either whole group instruction small group instruction or individual instruction as needed the ability to differentiate in the classroom is exceptionally challenging moreover the time to create this personalized instruction is extremely time consuming by investing in this plan we can create the content and make it available to all of our teachers to be able to use and support all students this is how we can change the face of education currently for our students while creating the content for spring for cyber certainly
042leads to robust robust course offerings for springford cyber it brings us away from that reliance on the third party vendor i can't stress enough the instructional impact for all of our students in all of our grade levels this helps us to continue to fulfill the vision of modernizing learning by placing the focus on the instruction not the device to make this plan even more appealing as i mentioned we're able to use esser funding to build the foundation of a sustainable program for years to come in the next few slides dr heidi rocklin will walk us through the proposal of systematically creating courses and digital content with the goal of having all courses k-12 eventually created good evening i'd like to take a step back for a moment and reflect not only on what we have
043accomplished this year in sfcl but the exciting things that lie ahead not only for springford cyber but for springford as a whole our long-range planning which has been shared with our curriculum and technology committee previously includes a look back to 2012 when virtual learning at springford was in its infancy looking back we only had about 15 students enrolled at any given time and those students had very specific reasons for being in the virtual rams academy as it was formerly known dr murray has just taken us through the planning process that began in 2019 and i'd like to pick it up again in february of 2020 the global pandemic hit education hard but instead of letting this be an obstacle for education in springford our dedicated teachers staff administration and school board allowed it to be
044an opportunity for growth growth in educational practices growth in how we do business as a school district and most importantly growth in how we deliver educational content and curriculum to our students now here we are in may of 2021 standing tall on the successes of our sfcl program standing strong on the bedrock of the solid program we as a district were able to build in a matter of months not years here we are strongly positioned as the educational bellwether for public schools offering cyber options to students and we can't let that momentum die it's time to look ahead to what the future of sfcl fscl and the springford school district as a whole can be as we moved into the 2021-2022 school year we are ready and able to begin moving our sfcl platform to
045canvas to be utilized not only by our cyber students but all 8 000 springford students we are grateful for our partnership with seneca valley and the content we were able to use from edgenuity but it is time to begin moving towards a more self-sustaining all-inclusive model we want springford quality content offered by springford quality teachers and we are there we are ready to begin the process of moving sfcl to canvas and recreating our entire springford course catalog will take the better part of five years to complete then looking beyond 2026 and towards 2030 it is our vision to not only have the ability to continue to support a fully functioning cyber school but also have the ability to offer all of our courses in a blended or hybrid format in which our students will be
046able to explore their passions through extended offerings and multiple modes of instruction the first steps to moving towards our 2030 goals are to engage teachers in professional development and support them with course building up through 2026 we plan to build all of our springford courses in the canvas platform as well as professionally develop and train all teachers who would like to build and or facilitate a course for the 2122 school year as courses are being built the curriculum team with the help of additional members of the administrative team will vet the courses being built to assure quality of content beyond 2026 we plan to support teachers and the courses they create with ongoing pd and revision as necessary this slide outlines the course build timeline shown here are the approximate number of courses to be
047built in a given year as well as the associated investment the investment to build a full-year course is seven thousand eight hundred and eight dollars this investment which has been mutually agreed upon by the sfea and garners their support includes payment for 160 hours of course building please note that this is the investment for a full year course courses that are not offered as full year courses will be prorated for payment according to their length as you can see esser funding which expires in september of 2024 will cover the first three years of our course build initiative if at all possible the course build timeline will be accelerated in order to maximize our use of esser funding the year one total investment to build is approximately four hundred two thousand dollars what do we need
048from you to make this plan a reality tonight we are bringing two motions to the board the first is for professional development in the amount of 115 000 which is to be paid through title 2a and esser funding we plan to offer two courses for teachers this summer in order to train them on course building and best practices in cyber instruction the first offering is the professional development institute which will be required of any teacher who wishes to build an asynchronous course in canvas the training will include the how to's of course building in canvas as well as modules focused on best practices in online teaching netiquette plagiarism etc the course will offer up to 24 hours of training per teacher for up to 66 teachers the second offering is required for any teacher who
049would like to facilitate the course in sfcl using the edgenuity platform this course will give the necessary training for teachers to effectively navigate the ingenuity platform the course will offer up to six hours of training per teacher for up to 60 teachers please note that this pd offering is for the short term to support teachers while we still engage with the edgenuity platform both of these offerings will be facilitated by our springford instructional coaching team as well as our cyber core team the second motion for approval is for approval of the year one course build investment the total cost is approximately 400 2 000 to be paid through esser funding the breakdown of the projected 60 courses to be built is shown here with 46 full-year courses four half-year courses and ten courses that are
050considered point four the rate for course building has been developed negotiated and agreed upon by the sfea any questions yeah before i get started any other board members have questions i have a lot of them so if anyone wants to go first i try to be nice when i can um thank you dr rocklin i guess where i'll start from the teachers metrics are we using to determine the right teacher to build a class i mean is it five years experience ten years experience a certain certification what are we using to select those teachers they have to be certified in the area that they want to build their course in and right now we are i took a survey to see who was interested in building courses and as long as the teacher certification area
051matched up with what they wanted to build then we're going to give them a shot at building the course after they engage in the training so right now we have a minimal of 60 teachers prepared to move forward correct um what is the long term what's the end game here and let me clarify that we have this going over i think the 2030. 20 20 26. so we're looking to develop x amount of classes per year based on what i mean when you say 42 why is it 42 versus 52 versus 32. so what i did was i took the number of volunteer teachers that i had for the first year and then i extrapolated that over the next five years based on the certification areas that i had their willingness to build courses and
052then i basically just had to take my best guess about which courses would come next in the sequence to be built assuming the teachers would still be interested assuming i got a little bit more interest from other teachers that might hear about it oh i want to try that um and then i did my best to make it manageable over the next five years and will this require any new tech devices five years out no you sure it's a trick question well then no aside from regular refresh the regular refresh cycle um we would not anticipate any additional devices additional staffing no we don't anticipate that so after essers which would take care of how much will esser take care of out of this million one million two million three whatever we can get done
053by september of that didn't answer my question but i thank you on a serious note it's a lot of money so and you guys know how i felt about that so i just want to make sure that so basically whatever is listed in those first three years so for 700 to about 860 000. so so then after that that becomes a part of the running budget for the district every year well it wouldn't be every year because after all the courses are built okay okay that's all i have right now i'm sure i'll have something else thank you thank you for the this is great i mean um i hate to classify what's happened to everyone through this cove experience here as you know something of benefit but there's there's there's a bit of that
054here so just out of curiosity given that we're sort of in a timeline to have access to these funds is there any logic to possibly um maneuvering so that we might be able to front load some of the staffing so that we could get it done within the period of time versus carrying it into where it might be something that will hit our general budget so you mean accelerate the course building with yeah absolutely i mean if i get more teachers that are interested and we can get them trained and have them start building then absolutely our goal is to get it finished as quickly as possible um i wanted to just chime in uh you guys hear me this is linda um i just i don't think it's any secret i'm very excited about
055this long-range plan i was personally a big fan of this idea even before the pandemic um i think it gives springford a very creative and flexible model to meet the needs of students and families i also think it's a very good use of s or funding to meet modern education needs over the future which i think we should always be looking towards doing um and so i strongly recommend approval of the plan and the course building um i think we should we were thinking we were talking about moving forward with this over a much longer period of time and it was going to come out of our own budget so this you know greatly accelerates what we were interested in planning to do over a long period of time and we were going to pay
056for ourselves so i i'm a big fan also i think it also will hopefully bring back some of the students who have gone to other cyber schools that are low performing so i know we've we've hashed this out a number of times too and asked questions upon questions upon questions in curriculum and technology and i do feel that a lot of this presentation pulls a lot of that and a lot of the questions that we had in there all together i think one thing that's sticking in my mind a little bit and it could be off but we keep talking about estr funds for this and this are funds for that and there is a ceiling on the esser funds so can someone chime in maybe it's mr fink or dr mary or somebody chime
057in about where we are in using those because i wouldn't want to see us start this and then not be able to get there hi yes so we keep a running tally on where we are with extra fun so we have uh with sr2 and s3 we have about six and a half million dollars available to us including the components that uh uh dr rocklin dr murray were just speaking about will be at about a five million dollar range so we still have about a million and a half and that includes the technology that we approved last meeting and so on so we are keeping that running tally there's still window there there was also some staffing questions that had come up i think that mr jackson had asked about so if we go ahead
058and do this we're just going to have to keep that in mind to be cognizant that we i i would never want to vote to go over what that money is and put us in a bad spot exactly and as as i think the program moves forward and we get an idea of uh more of what the enrollment will be in those programs which will likely not be in the 400 uh enrollment where like we've had the last this current year and likely you know somewhere near that next year at least in the beginning when that settles down then we can uh get to get the labor in line with uh with the enrollment so it wouldn't be nearly as high as it has been this past year so what would what do we have
059do we have an anticipated number or a guesstimate anything a projection along those lines of of who's going to be participating or what the number might be the percentage might be not obviously for for what for those that might go into the to the springford cyber learning do we have any kind of idea on that so i would say this um we're going to see probably a large number of students be involved when i say a large number several hundred but you'll see a lot of those numbers shift instead of full-time students you'll see students taking one course two courses and then you'll see a smaller number of full-time students to project that we've already started enrollment for next year um we don't know exactly what that number is going to look like right now
060we are dr robin probably has an idea where we are i think we're under 100 so yes yeah i think the last time i checked with about 85 full-time students and then another almost 200 kids who are taking classes here and there and that will likely increase over time with the growth and development of this program also because the offerings will be available and this is i think what dr murray referenced in the beginning of what we had talked about in 2019 that this would increase our offering so there may be some crossovers to students brick and mortar in person and taking some of these other classes online yes absolutely yeah students are going to i mean there's a lot of prongs for this but one of them to your point is students are going
061to figure out how to use springboard cyber learning to customize their high school experience they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna be able to use it to create courses combination of create a pathway that gives them time to do the different things they want to do they might not have had time to do before if they want to focus on well my kids are here tonight if they want to focus on music then they could take some courses online above and beyond what their normal day would look like to free up their schedule their junior and senior year or throughout their career to take more courses that really mean something uh really special to them so as they get older and they take these online courses it gives them a lot more flexibility and i know
062too that one of the school districts that maybe not that this is modeled after that but that you had gained some insight from was downingtown is that right are are they they're further along in this process so are they doing that as well what mr rizzo just described yes um in fact they have a highly customizable program for their students and starting this next year all high school students are required to take at least one line online course through their cyber program to prepare them for college is i want to phrase this is any of this based on growth of the demographics is is it of this based on growth within our district the numbers that that we have based these calculations on is it based on us stand with 8 000 kids or is
063it based on growth of 50 kids a year to the point where we have 80 300 kids i mean what do we use as a metric to determine because my concern here is i think this is good i think it's aggressive um and my concern is always the plan b if we don't get the students based on the numbers that we have here then what i agree with you it is aggressive um and we wanted to seize the opportunity with the esser funding to be able to move as quickly as we can and as dr rocklin mentioned too trying to accelerate as we get more comfortable with those courses what i think is really important about this is that it's not necessarily dependent on students taking a cyber course while that certainly is a benefit
064one of the other benefits that we can see is that our teachers who are teaching students in the classroom can start to pull some of that content into their classroom as needed as well so for example suppose we have a second grade student who might be struggling with a particular skill a teacher can then go find that module pull it into that class and assign it just to that student to really individualize them based on the student's needs so we can see the content used in a variety of different ways not only necessarily a cyber course which we certainly are hoping will expand over time but that need as well as just infused and using canvas within the classroom a traditional classroom as well okay thank you a couple questions from your projected numbers i
065know clinton asked about technology and i think you're a little too quick to say no so i would back off that uh because and i would possibly increase our budget somewhere along the line to include additional technology do we look is there necessary book changes do we know if there's going to be any additional books access to curriculum that we're going to have to purchase licenses for because i didn't see any of that worked in there so one of the things we're trying to do we we did create an outline of of what each course should look like what are some of the key components within the course so there's a standardized format to that we are trying to create the courses using open resources or using using the digital subscriptions that we already have
066so that it's not necessarily tied to a specific resource we certainly will tie it to standards so that students in a second grade class in springford would get the same standards in our class first in the cyber course but we're trying not to tie it to specific resources and use the digital content that we already have certainly as we build it if we find that there are gaps or holes we would evaluate that as part of the curriculum evaluation cycle anyway and i don't want to say we will never come back to you with a recommendation if we find a need or a gap that we can't fulfill then we might be looking for additional resources that way but we're going to first start with what we have right so then there's a possibility that
067there will be additional dollars beyond what you're projecting at this point if it was instructional resources i think it would be worked within the curriculum budget and within the cyber budget as needed just as we would with a curriculum review and one of the things i asked when we talked about i didn't make the last curriculum but the one before that i talked about an roi from a cyber school perspective and i still haven't seen has that been performed as far as what an roi would be yeah we did a uh we did a rough sketch on one it's difficult to go through the whole roi because we're talking about this not just for you know a few hundred cyber students but really across the entire district the resources being built within uh you know
068not just the cyber police but also within the within the classroom um but what we do know um if uh you know if we bring back simply the 50 students that we lost this past year it's actually 60 you know there's you're adding on one to 1.2 million dollars worth of you know payout that we have to charter schools that we could keep in house and that alone was going to uh pay off uh a good part of the build and the operating cost for the instruction which is of course the biggest piece of the labor right and then what happens if it goes the other way and we don't bring the students back uh likely i would think what would happen is number one we will probably see a lot of those come back
069because we've seen some of them start to already um but i also think that um it's a feed program too so we may not bring back a lot of the students that were there but for not feeding them from the bottom and keeping them here offering an alternative to an outside steiber with um with springford quality we'll likely be able to put folks who might go into a cyber school into our own will it happen tom hard to say right we don't know what the marketing plan is going to return on that right and that's why i asked this before because we're talking about a million dollars and a portion that's going to be paid by the endless bucket of esser um and i would say that's a big part of your course build and
070so that at the end of the day i would say that you know if we're using federal dollars that we likely wouldn't be able to spend elsewhere no no i understand that but we're [Music] we're most likely going to get about a half a million that's going to be paid for through the esser but then we still have to come up with the additional funds within our own budget my calculation show is going to be between eight and nine hundred thousand from the bill that we'll probably put towards ourselves so we'll still have a few hundred thousand left unless we're successful at pulling that piece forward right and that's why it's important uh so as to look at where we could offs not offset but we understand that the investment that we're going to make
071and what the end result is going to pay off as as you know over that period of time and that's that's why i kept was raising that question because this is great that we're going to make that investment and you know you're saying 800 000 900 000 i would put a plus or minus 15 probably 20 on that because we don't know what we don't know in five years from now you're not wrong so i there's a strong possibility that this is going to cost more than what we're projecting at this point in time um which that's not necessarily a bad thing but we also have to be prepared for that and then we also need to know you know how that will impact you know the budget and everything else and that's why it's
072important that if we know that we could start to see that we're pulling students back and what the impacts are what this the you know the savings would be for the district or redirecting of funds that would be for the district it was how you would support making that million dollar investment and that's what i'm trying to get to and i think even based on the platform that we're on right now we're already seeing some students come back to our even though it's an ingenuity platform that we're already seeing some of those folks come back so we're already starting to pull those back i would hope we will be doing annual assessments evaluations as we're moving forward we'll be doing more than annual yes oh the annual's a good start my other question here is
073of the kids we have in the queue right now what's the breakdown is is it 59th graders eight 10th graders five seniors what's the breakdown so k through six right now we have 18 students enrolled full time and then all of the rest of the students are above sixth grade i don't know the exact breakdown right now so one of the other questions i have is is that i unless i missed it somewhere but where does you know students with special education special needs iep how does that all work into this model because that wasn't touched upon anywhere that i that i remember seeing and that's another whole aspect that i'm not sure if it's included in this model i'm not sure how that yeah so this year in springford cyber we were able to
074support students with all different kinds of needs we had students with ieps 504s we had students in residential placements that also accessed our curriculum and we plan to still support those students moving forward it's built into our plan we're hoping to have a full-time special education teacher for k-12 to help support those um students and along with our regular ed teachers so is that coming out of yes or two presser three or s or four or i mean where's that money coming from i mean see you see how we start to have this conversation now we're now we're talking about additional resources and i don't know not additional those those are part of the four that we already have in the plan that are being approved for this budget right here so there's already a
075special ed factor in there for that for one i'm sorry there's already a special ed uh teacher factored into that um into the into the budget we have right now before we have for this coming year what which budget the one for the coming year oh the overall budget yes and that would be either sr2 or so3 by the way until we get to the the cusp again and then we're so we're left with roughly 1 million and 1.5 million in the esser money one of the things that we we did talk about is contracted services for the next two to three years for potentially bringing in additional counselors to help with the transition of bringing students back into full time and dealing with all the social emotional issues that were related to covet and
076i'm assuming that we're anticipating that that 1 million or 1.5 million will be enough to get us through the next two to three years i think mr rizzo and i are currently looking at and mrs lease are currently looking at making sure we can keep that number within there within that that leftover piece so so just to be clear this was already happening to an extent the planning the thought process was was in place and it was accelerated and we have the benefit of the esser funding to help get us over the initial steps of it but we could have been in the situation where we would have had to absorb the total cost and now with the ester bucket we won't have to necessarily do that is that an accurate or a fair description
077of what we're discussing here that's accurate from my perspective well it would have been put forth but who knows what would happen yeah can someone talk about i mean i see a note in here regarding uh the overall intent is at some point to offer a hybrid version of this can you talk to that yeah so that's our ultimate goal uh we've seen it work successfully in downingtown when we met with them they have programs or or courses where students could be in the building for maybe two days a cycle and then the rest of the days of the cycle they engage in asynchronous work um either in the building or from home they have some really creative ideas about how we can educate students so that we can be flexible with their schedules and
078they can experience different learning environments any other questions from anybody all right thank you so much for your presentation this evening we will now move on to boarding committee reports ashika and alison if you're here with us um at this point do you have a student rep report this evening okay great uh this is our may student report so what happened we had ap exams where sorry ap exams were administered from may 3rd to may 15th the impact awards ceremony was held on may 5th the spring play was performed on may 7th and 8th the senior event was held on may 15th senior decision day was april 28th makeup ap exams were held from may 17 to may 21st there was an in-service day for election day on may 18th sat boot camp was held
079virtually on may 19th the senior academic awards ceremony was held on may 20th and the music department spring concert spectacular was held this saturday on or last saturday on may 22nd we have some pictures for all the events that occurred what is coming up keystone exams for 10th through 12th graders are being held from may 20th to june 2nd um the senior commencement awards and scholarship night will be held on may 27th there will be no school for students on may 31st from memorial day the senior athletic banquet will be held on june 1st the western montgomery center for career and technology senior recognition night will be held on june 2nd the sat will be administered at springfield high school on june 5th graduation will be held on june 15th rain dates are june 16th
080and 17th biology keystone exam will be held on june 2nd and june 9th the last day of school for seniors is june 9th the last day of school for all students is june 17th and the last day of school for teachers is june 18th and then i just have um two more items that i'd like to add on to the end of that the first is just um to ishika it has been a pleasure to work with you this year your drive and passion for advocating for your peers is something that i've personally admired a lot and i'm sure you'll have a great impact in all of your future endeavors i wish you the best of luck and then the second thing i have is just a welcome to aditi and a huge congratulations i
081am so excited to begin working with you and serving on the board is an incredible and memorable experience and one that i'm sure you'll find a lot of value in so welcome to the student rep position and i look forward to getting to know you better thank you very nice thank you both okay that was a nice recap of our events taking place at this very busy time of year and mr devel do you have a finance committee report for us this evening finance met may 11th meeting was started off as our normal meeting we went through the executive level reports uh uh you know going through this quickly uh we're basically 79 million in the bank uh that's kind of where we expect to be at this point in time year to date the
082revenues the state sources continue to come slower than prior years there is an increase in state sources due to covert grants and the federal resources are also up to date for the federal covert grants as well expenditures salaries are up to two due to internal spring for cyber costs property services continue to be under budget due not to having a full interstate cleaning staff on site at the beginning of the fiscal year other services are ups transportation savings year-to-date approximately 450 but it's offset by external cyber school costs which are up over 650 supply costs are up due to the cove expenditures approximately 500 000 property expenses are up about 225 000. i'm sorry 925 000 of the increases related to culver expenditures um and then also there are charges for the seventh eighth grade
083chromebooks received in march as well which will be which is part of next year's budget assessments the gain we're at 4.2 million additional for april uh we're about 15 million dollars short of goal uh i know that the interims are running uh behind at the county so uh if we fall slightly short of our our cap our assessment gains we'll most likely make those up in august as well real estate transfer tax were up from prior years we are still on target uh to be pacing around 1.9 million typically we've been seeing real estate transfer taxes coming in around 2 2 2.1 2.2 million um [Music] but i think a lot of that's due to that spring for it is the hottest selling real estate uh in the county and there is seems to be
084a very low low inventory uh at this point in time uh our earned income taxes um we're ahead of schedule we're still pacing to come in somewhere around 11.3 11.5 million uh which will be about a million dollars over budget and that as the board remembers we increased that uh with the upcoming budget to 11 million our self-funded insurance ran a little bit higher over april uh puts us about 250 000 over budget but it is self-funded so it'll come out of its uh the funds that we have in place uh to deal with the the self-funded insurance sorry my ipad jumped on me food services we are operating in the black uh year-to-date meals 515 000 breakfast and lunch meals you know we're going to move right into the seamless summer option program has
085been extended through next school year and it's fully subsidized uh a la carte sales are about half of what it should be for the month due to low population limited menu for quick grabbing we did discuss for the next school year about increasing our our a la carte and [Music] meals and we anticipate that uh that will happen as we hopefully have some free less restrictions on students going into next year and also if the board remembers we talked about having breakfast carts uh available for when the buses are coming in in the morning having these carts that the students could grab a quick breakfast sandwich or whatever it may be so we are going to be possibly getting additional one to two carts that will be used over here at the high school or
086the ninth grade center as well high school expansion project the project is closed all obligations are satisfied um we basically have 963 000 uh remaining from that project we remember that number because i have an idea and you know right now we're going to you know just move that into reserves um committee agreed to basically uh to move that money into into cap reserves that's what we're going to present this evening but i have an option that i want to present to the board that i was thinking about um also chromebooks have as we said chromebooks have finally arrived and i guess they're going to be rolled out for next school year moving on to other business the we we want to remove renew the tax rebate for our seniors um the committee recommended uh
087to this board that instead of doing 30 we increase it to 50 for next year um which uh will hopefully get more involvement as well as this uh as the boy remembers we're going to have some type of mail stuffed into the tax bills letting our seniors know that this rebate program is available for their use um uh as part of our procedures we uh working with aramark we have to even though we have a five-year agreement per pde each year we have to re uh re-agree or approve the the the agreement uh as part of the initial rfp so it's more or less procedural that we would uh agree to continue moving forward with aramark on our five-year agreement um we also have talked about the western center budget which is gonna be about
088two point three million dollars it's it's a little bit over 160 thousand dollars from the previous year that number is calculated through a formula of the rolling enrollment at the western center um over a five-year period so that number could go up and down slightly based on our student enrollment although springford uh through a lot of planning and and uh advertising and promoting we do have many many students in our district taking advantage of all the great programs at the western center so i think that that's uh definitely something um even though it's additional 160 000 i think that's something that is very beneficial to our students mr fink re reviewed this bus patrol agreement with the with the committee uh basically it's putting cameras on buses um so that if cars pass a bus
089when they're stopped and they're picking up students the cameras will capture them there's an interaction point with the local police departments the people will then receive tickets in the mail from the basically the police because we just passed this on it's a fully integrated system the good news is that this is agreement that and i believe mr fitzgerald you have reviewed this agreement we're in the process the um resolution tonight would be contingent upon final review of the agreement okay thank you there is no cost to the district this is fully paid for and and installed and taken care of by this company um and we thought that it would be you know great addition to our buses because it is a i hate to use the word pandemic but it is a pandemic across
090the country where cars for some bizarre reason today do not stop when the school buses are stopped with the red lights and picking up students and you know kids have been injured by cars not adhering to the law so this is something that we felt was definitely necessary and and be a great addition to uh to the business and again there is no cost to the district and we do will receive uh after all their money and their costs are uh realized through tickets um we would start to see a 60 40 split but we don't anticipate seeing any money or revenue generated from this this is more about you know enhancing student safety um we have one of our senior accounts is going senior accountants is going out on leave so we want to
091bring in mr fink would like to bring a consultant for that period of time figuring about 10 to 15 hours per week that's on the agenda as well for approval um and basically that 10 to 15 hours would be about 45 an hour um so i believe um that's something that we need to move forward with as well we did talk about the esser money as we talked this evening as well there's no additional information other than we will be monitoring it very closely because when we get to this point it kind of gets a little nerve nerve to get we get a little nervous because everything that we start to say esther will cover it uh so i'm glad that mr fink is watching that number and and doing a burn down on it
092but we still got to be extremely careful um and the last thing is we did talk about um the next the next meeting we will be looking at uh or adding additional information to the agenda and discussing what our end of year uh projections we'll be looking looking at what looking like between expenditures and revenue so basically surplus in some areas and deficits in other areas so we want to see how we start to get projections of how we're going to end the year out from this crazy crazy 2020-21 covet uh year so with that i i do want to just take real quick um when i when we talked about this at finance it didn't actually click in my mind until recently that when i looked at um i was actually thinking about this
093over the last uh day or two we have 963 000 that was left over from the construction project we as a board through minimal conversation agreed that we're going to have uh accept a three percent tax increase for me not everyone well as a board i said all right so i start looking at that and i'm like it just wasn't sitting well with me and i'm like you know then then a light bulb went off it happens every now and then and i said we could actually take the 963 thousand dollars because basically part of this budget this year and i know mr fink's probably sitting there saying oh my god hang with me mr frank you know you know i know this right so um we could actually take the 963 thousand dollars that
094we're going to park in reserve in this budget this year we have monies that we are put back into the budget to recoup what we cut last year and that monies was about a million dollars part of that was in uh in cap projects and and curriculum in the curriculum we were going to spread over two years of 250 000 per year so what i'm thinking what i came up with is like wait a minute we could take of that 963 000 we could take 500 000 of that move that the cap reserve and take 463 000 and move that the curriculum what that does with from a budgeting standpoint is that we're recouping the money that we have actually have in the budget of that of that million dollars that i'm talking about the
095recoup from last year which if we do that it actually lowers our back our tax increase down to uh and i don't have i'm just this was rough math from my perspective but that would get us roughly down to somewhere around uh 2.1 2.2 percent um i also know that there was monies that we put in a budget that was uh available through salary changes and all that that weren't all used um which i was somewhere a little over mr fink who could correct me on these numbers but it was somewhere a little over a hundred thousand dollars on those uh salary changes that um that didn't come to fruition which puts us up over if you take the 963 and add a hundred thousand dollars or over a hundred thousand dollars onto that puts
096us over a million dollars and then i was sitting there thinking i said well when i looked at the meeting minutes and i'm like well we've been averaging two point we've been averaging two to two point one million dollars a year in real estate transfer tax um i keep saying this right the 2.1 to 2.2 million dollars on real estate transfer tax and we've been keeping that at basically 1.7 million for the last five years but on average we've been seeing about 2.1 million dollars or 2 million dollars in real estate transfer tax and what i'm thinking is that i could we could bump that up by a hundred thousand dollars to 1.8 million dollars and with all those numbers if you put all that into play that would actually bring the budget down to
097somewhere around uh 1.9 and change uh percent from the three percent that the that the board was uh looking at uh previously and i don't know mr fink if you want to check my numbers but i'm probably pretty close hold on hold on all right so we're basically i'm trying to write this down as you're speaking with the bellow yeah and and do my math um i i i get it in principle but mr fink could you check this i just so tommy you're saying we we only send back part of the capital reserve how much are you saying go back to capital reserve we could put would move 500 000 the cap reserve and 463 000 the curriculum to make up the money that that we basically took out last year so basically i
098could reduce the budget by 963 thousand dollars gotcha thank you and the other things i talked about or we can keep that money in capital but i i get it now i get it all right um as i always say the math defines everything okay i don't think it's 2.2 but it's going to be it would be in that ballpark give or take it's going to be it's going to be below 2. it would be somewhere around 1.9 if i if i did my math right now is mr fink calculating front of numbers now no this is this is good this is very good i said a lot of things on my way over here um i want to check just with you to make sure that i understand exactly what you're talking about and
099it's going to take we have the model i have of course have the model on my laptop but it's going to take a few minutes to calculate all that through to see we're impacting i think i understand what you're saying i think you're you're talking about we we pulled 500 from what would have gone to cap reserve for facilities last year in this budget we put that back in plus got us up to par where we're supposed to be every year but you're saying take uh 500 000 from the construction fund to replace that money correct okay and then the second piece was we also reduced um what would have gone into the curriculum reserve in in this current year's budget um by around it was around 480 or something like that but you're saying
100take the balance of 463 000 from the construction fund to move that into curriculum reserve instead of adding it into the 2122 budget am i correct okay then you were talking about um bumping up the transfer taxes from 1.7 i think you said to 1.8 million dollars considering that we have been we've been north of that over the past couple of years so that's probably the past five or six years actually since i've been here so you're talking about that piece and the last piece i'm going to come over and talk with you about because i'm not sure what that is yeah that was exact session so we could talk okay all right so then all i'm going to ask is there are some motions on the board regarding this those numbers and those motions
101if you guys decide to do this are going to change um so we'll have to end some resolutions right mark that'll also have to change yeah oh yes if if we're going to modify the the millage we need to make sure it all aligns so we can do a couple things here we i don't know how much time you'll need with this but presumably well i can i can tell you i know i could i could likely get it done while they're doing some of their other committed reports i know mr clinton's report seems that mr jackson's report seems to go on for a while so well i can i can probably need to make sure that the homestead farm said and that's yeah i'll have uh i've already asked mary to call that up
102on her machine so she can start doing that so it would be that resolution along obviously with with the yeah and you can do those and run those numbers over okay could just before we um send you to your fund so what could you find out what the with the average over the past five years has been of the transfer tax um and because maybe it's a little bit higher than what he's looking at a hundred thousand maybe if we covered i think i i understand because this year this year dipped quite a bit because of um it was just a slow move there's no inventory and that's the problem so i do know over the past yeah over the past few years mr shaffer it's been uh it's been in the 2.1 to 2.1
103range 2.1 to 2.2 range so yeah we've been averaging about 2.1 for the last five years and but we've always kept up to 1.7 because real estate's kind of uh as you know you know and then so we didn't change it again this year but i we you know we could get crazy and go to 1.9 but i won't go any higher than that i would not recommend that i would not i would not either and i've been an advocate of increasing that last few years but not in the dip that we're in this year um and i do think i just want to go back to when you were talking about your finance report and you mentioned about the western and the increase that we're going to pay this year i had asked about
104that and that is looked at on a five-year basis also an average over five years you did say that but we also have the biggest presence over there and it's something that we've been talking about at this table for a long time that the trades are so worthwhile and that we need to have that piece there for our students that are going to pursue that so um yeah i just i just wanted to add that piece on to what mr de bello said and then i think we should let mr fink get crunching mr debell i just had one question on your report although it really seems nominal at the moment um the you mentioned that supply expenses were up 500 000 due to covid we don't we can't get that back or is that
105coming back with some of that some of that money coming from messers [Laughter] oh yeah it's that one's coming from the other one the what's called the pc yeah so we're anticipating that might balance itself out before the end of the year but but the reason i have to report it that way is because it's coming out of the current budget but then we'll see it right um any other questions for mr debello before we move on to mr jackson okay mr jackson property no no report yeah i wasn't there i could do it one second just i just you startled me why don't i you want me to do extracurricular time give me something go ahead yeah i'll bring up property in a second thank you this evening i will speak very slowly that's
106good move on extracurricular uh we met this past monday um and uh i'm gonna recap some of the uh the updates that i think are relevant our student reps have done an incredible job at uh decreasing my report so thank you because we do receive an update from mr rigner on activities and they they include some of the same events which are things that were coming up and things that have um taken place so um summarizing mr mcdaniel's update for high school sports so it is notable that for the first time in um in springford history uh the high school recorded nine nine league championships uh so that's an incredible feat um and the spring saw its share of champions as well so the boys track won the league baseball won the league softball won
107the league um in tennis we had an individual champion cameron moore and we also had a doubles champions um with cameron moore and jasper jean so very exciting and uh um you know we've we've honored some of our student athletes throughout this crazy past um year and a half it's just really exciting that spring ford's been able to put together nine league championships it's crazy um in uh district competition again this is still on the high school sports report the girls lacrosse and the boys lacrosse um competed in in uh in district competition the girls were seated 17th boys were 12. baseball is the number one seed and softball's the number four congratulations to lucy olson on being selected miss pennsylvania basketball 2021 this announcement was made during the zoom ceremony on may 23rd from
108harrisburg uh the voting for this honor is broken down to a third of the uh from fans a third from high school coaches and a third from media so congratulations to lucy olsen it's an incredible honor congratulations also to the following members of the track team and their coaches as they qualified for the piaa state meet which is this coming saturday at shippensburg university mara baker for the shot put kaylee hudson for the 200 meter naenae makunchu for the hijab and the 700 alex uh toefl for the pole vault and josh hallower for the high jump and triple jump how we doing on time tom again just to reiterate uh the commencement will be tuesday evening on the 15th of june and unless something has happened since then the ticket allotments are returning to pre-covered
109conditions is that correct we have five we're allocating five per person okay okay got it five then all right uh one other two other pieces and then i'll open it up for questions uh dr moyer and mr laurie from brook elementary presented on a request for a new coding and robotics club at brook elementary so this is an innovative modern uh new club edition this would be reflected in adding two new extracurricular contracts which would be ten weeks of this club in the in the spring and ten weeks in the fall and uh i'll include the full present full presentation um in the notes i will say that they came prepared with um their these little devices that i couldn't even power up uh so i could certainly uh i think all of us could
110stand to learn a little bit in in that area dr moyer also presented that 17 uh reading olympics teams in grades four through eight participated in the mciu's virtual competition this year we adjourned at 8 24 and that is the last meeting scheduled for the school year thank you mr shafer and yes you'll be meeting again i guess in september correct okay any questions from mr schaefer i have a question but i was going to actually make it a i'm going to hold it till the solicitor's report i'll come back to that i'll work you guys in together okay then we'll move on to mr develop for property and then jump over to mrs earl for policy okay well i did have the opportunity to share a property and as mr jackson has re constantly
111reported it's the would you say the best committee best committee in the entire district so i got to chair the best committee right after the ultimate best committee of finance in the district but anyway um so we we did have a full agenda that evening we did meet right after finance on may 11th one of the first things we talked about was the ever-growing mcnally stadium occupancy update we originally didn't like the numbers that we're at as far as doing the changes at the stadium was decided to go to go out to bid to see what kind of numbers that we got back and unfortunately numbers actually came in higher than where we were at originally from mr hunnify if i'm reading this the right way right because i want to make sure um and
112the number the number came at 636 000 now uh so um which was much higher than the keystone purchasing network contractor estimate which is why the project as i said went the public bid originally so the next steps for this project will have to be on the agenda for the june property meeting to figure out how we can proceed forward uh keep in mind that this is not this is something that we have to do we just got to figure out the best we could do the best way we could do it then we rolled into the facilities master plan update uh ics who we as a consulting company that we've been working with for the last two to three years or four years i can't remember three years i kind of remember when we
113bought them and um there was uh approved for them uh to work at the may 20th to 2020 board meeting to develop the facilities master plan but that of course was put on hold on hold for covet but we did start talking about moving forward with uh completing that facility's master plan which would be a third component of the long-range planning process that ties together facilities condition assessment and a demographic enrollment study that has already been completed so the focus areas of the project have been cost neutral projects funding through the guaranteed energy savings act continued capital reserve projects identified and planning through to spring forward operations and then renovation expansion options based on student growth and building needs we discussed that we are currently we discussed that currently uh there's conversations with jim fink
114to look at what the 10-year budget model would look like to be able to handle all three types of those projects what we did talk about and and linda you you'll remember this as well because we've had numerous conversations over the probably last year and a half to two years but we are coming on um you know basically we on average put about 1.5 million dollars in the budget per year for capital projects and we've also been offsetting that with monies that we have what we call a debt service fund that goes towards the budget as well for the last i forget how many years which is coming to an end which lines up to and we've talked about this many times at the board table a budget drop-off that's coming in the 22-23 school
115year which our debt service is going to go down by roughly five million dollars a year of that five million dollars per year two plus million dollars that needs to go back to the budget to offset the debt service funds that we've been using over the last several years that's coming to zero and a little over three million or roughly three million dollars of that uh needs to go back into cap projects because we know that our annual cost per uh for our building master plan is going to go uh increase out over the next several years because we have our buildings are at an older state um you know we have a lot of equipment that's come in the end of life there's equipment that needs to be changed out there's upgrades this just
116continues that's why we put all these plans in place so we've laid this strategy out for the last several years knowing that this is where we're going and what was going to happen and it was imperative that that strategy is implemented and continued forward no matter what over the next 10 years because if we don't follow that strategy then we will ultimately see we all mr jackson has said this numerous times we all love our buildings we all think our buildings are amazing the conditions that they're in well to be able to continue that this is the spending that's going to be required and that's why we when we developed this plan uh i think it was probably the first year when mr fink joined us when we started laying out this strategy knowing that
117we were doing these projections and laying out the rolling seven year budgets what we're going to be looking at so we did spend some time talking about this and it's imperative that we stay on that strategy because that's how we'll be able to keep these buildings at the state that they're in we moved on to a new business the pumping station easement that's behind the ninth grade center roars for borough is actually selling their sewage pumping station the pennsylvania american water company and the sales requires an agreement of semen an easement of that pumping station which is located at the back of the ninth grade center the plan was presented it's roughly 20 feet and around or so i don't remember exact measurements mr hunter if you want i don't know if it matters but
118huh 50 by 50. that was close 20 by 20 50 by 50. um and this is just memorializing a relationship that has been in place for we think about 50 years um we think that the the actual easement documents were destroyed in a flood in royersford in the 70s so that's why there's no recollection but this is this is not changing anything in terms of the relationship only who's going to be overseeing and it's going to be pa american water now instead of the borough right i mean uh we've already exactly we've always had this relationship with royals for borough we always provided an easement i hope those records weren't stored at the pumping station um little joke sorry so then we also we also discussed um i believe that there's at the rorschford elementary
119school there's a right-of-way or easement where water line or sewer line that goes through there uh along the side of the gym behind rochester elementary and out alongside the playground um and we we also again we just need to we just have to formalize that agreement and provide an easement to uh pennsylvania american water just in case that there's an issue with uh water line as well but like mr fitzgerald said this is nothing out of the ordinary of what the relation same relationship we have worse for uh borough for for many many years um and then the other last thing is uh there was discussion of the walking path that's on black rock road um a tree a part of the bridge fell into the creek i guess there's a cult conversation [Music] between
120us and upper providence somehow another all of a sudden up a profit and says oh no you own the property um a couple years ago they owned the property but now we own the property because they just said that well nobody's done anything for years so you get the inheritance so i guess there's going to be ongoing conversation but no matter what there's a large concrete wall that was part of that bridge actually fell toppled into the creek that needs to be removed out which is going to be somewhat costly because a crane is going to have some type of large crane or large piece of equipment's going to have to come in lift this concrete and reset the wall on a bridge um we got a we got a great report from chief boyer
121as far as everything that's going on with uh with the with the emergency management and the school police i'm not going to hit everything but the one thing is is that um spring for police is providing the rapid antigen testing every monday uh and that's continuing to go on um and you know we're happy to provide that service to our our staff um you know they're constantly helping with traffic uh they're continually doing their school uh safety patrols from 6 30 till events conclude at night there's were several several safe to say tips we're up to like i believe it's 99. miss wright did ask it was that increase from last year in relationship to the pandemic shutdowns uh and she also asks about the nature of the tips which i don't believe we could
122get into that but i don't remember miss chief boyer that 99 was that up or down from last year at this point in time i i don't remember what was said there it's up from last year thank you they are working on restocking a ppe at each of the schools the district-wide signage project has been completed uh chief warrior the amazing amazing grant writer will continue to search out grants and and try to to to bring on additional money just in case we overspend on our esser funds um there was a brief conversation about the back driveway at the high school we gave about some history about that and then we moved on uh there was the pac-1 pennsylvania act 180 required training officers will be going through and uh prior to june 2021 this
123is mandatory by the state uh so that's that's great that they continue to keep all the certs up and other than that uh of the new business uh chief warrior will be presenting uh it's presenting the district-wide camera replacement upgrade plan on 514 the plan will include the replacement upgrade budget schedule for mr rizzo so he's oh that's an internal presentation before it comes to property and action items was the the easements that i talked about at both the ninth grade center pumps and uh the sewer line that's at elementary uh roseford elementary school wow that's a full meeting that ends my report yeah i just had one quick comment there also we do not conduct uh as efficient meetings as uh clinton does ours are longer when you're gone but oh sure as you
124all know love me a long term plan as tom said uh i think i just want to really agree with him that it's crucial we stay the course and use this upcoming debt cliff to strategically uh fund the facilities the long-term facilities plan um i want the public to realize that this saves the entire district money over the long run and it's so important um it's the most fiscally responsible way to proceed um so i just wanted to add my um support of that thanks i think you're right linda you know love me a long-term plan is a great way to put it because if this is an opportunity to really keep the planning in place for our district for years to come and and it does save our taxpayers there won't be the major
125emergency surprises or expenses as long as we have a plan i mean anything can happen but we should be well equipped to be able to handle those as they come along so yeah i think that's that's good planning i'd like to thank mr bello for taking the property i promise not to miss any more meetings but to reinforce what uh miss fazzini stated and also mr bella miss kurt zwarzowski this planning is essential um to any operations of this size you know we we have a budget roughly plus or minus 180 million dollars we got a thousand employees here these buildings are crucial to everything we do here so i know you guys hear me make fun of it but i'm very serious when i say this this this 10 year plan is something we
126will do we've talked about it it is um a necessary item that has to be addressed um many districts get hurt because they don't plan in their buildings you know our own this building is 89 years old think about that 89 years old that's our oldest building and as i always say you look at the outsides of the buildings they look wonderful the machine that keeps it going is where we have to address the internals of the building so i will continue to stay on this 10-year plan we will develop this to detail to where the district can properly plan over the next 10 years under the leadership and guidance of mr hunter so again um thank you mr debello for standing in and i promise not to allow you to do that anymore so
127thank you he gave me a full agenda the meeting was like twice as long without you it was twice as long as chief boy went on and on about all his team all right well we're gonna move from there over to let's go over to mrs earl and then we'll discuss what mr fink provided us for information but mrs earl um i think we jumped around i don't want you to feel that we skipped at any point because i know schaefer jumped in so could you give us the policy report yeah i'm not that sensitive um policy met last monday the 17th and you'll see on tonight's agenda i think 13 policies for final board approval uh four more that were uh reviewed by mr fink and mrs david heiser uh those four and seven
128others will go or have gone on to the solicitor's office for uh their approval if there aren't any major changes it'll be to the june board meeting for first read um two other policies will come up for the board to dispose of basically because they've been included in newer existing policies uh one is an anti-discrimination harassment which is goes on to our policy 103 which is discrimination in title ix and the safe to say procedures is is uh also included in uh 805 emergency preparedness so two policies um trauma-informed approach we had approximately 11 of our professional peers joined via zoom there were principals school nurses psychologists counselors special ed supervisors educational support teachers behavior specialists social workers a couple of principals and it's going to be a very involved thing i think we're going
129to be probably until september till we um lay this one to rest uh we asked them the participants to come back to us with emails with their suggestions on ways we're going to handle this policy and it'll come back to committee in in the june meeting so we'll report updates on that also remaining on that zoom call was one of the school nurses to discuss the diabetes management policy and again that's something that we need further discussion and i'll come back to the june uh committee meeting um i think that's about all we have that anybody on the committee have anything to add or mr rizzo mr earl how could a pen can a parent a parent ask me a question i'll put it up how can a parent go about joining the policy um
130i'm assuming it's the same as property or finance anyone can just show up and attend the meeting or zoom christina melton is not here today but i wanted to make you aware that the legislative committee did not meet it was canceled this week all right thank you we were going to go there next so that's great okay um do we want to move over mr develop back to the numbers that mr fink shared at this point well he just he gave me a sheet he summarized and i was i was actually i was pretty close um i was figuring out 1.9 and it's actually 1.96 so it's it's doing 100 000 at a real the transfer real estate transfer tax increasing from 1.7 to 1.8 million moving to 500 000 into construction [Music] reserve 463
131000 into curriculum reserve the salary uh unused portions uh was about 118 thousand dollars in uh salary and benefits um which brings the tax impact from about three brings it from three percent to 1.96 millage goes from 29.31 down to 28.73 um seven nine or just say 28.74 uh that actually our average tax increase over the last i believe close to 10 years has been around 1.8 to 1.9 so it actually keeps us at what our average tax increase has been as well uh i don't have the actual budget numbers i'm sure mr fink will will if we if we want to do this then mr fink will finalize the actual numbers uh within the budget but basically it's reducing the budget by from 179 million and change down to 178 million in change and
132it's the reason that this makes the reason why i thought about this is because this is a one-time expenditure movement so it's not something that i would typically support because of one you know passing one time or reducing one expenses by one-time funds but then not figuring out how you're going to cover it the following year this is a one-time movement to reduce a one-time uh makeup from last year's budget if that makes sense so it's it's a perfect it's a perfect way of of utilizing the money reducing the budget reducing the tax impact um trying to get as low as we can um with with money we sort of intended to spend on the construction anyway exactly nicely because of mr hunter's and work we did not so correct you're exactly right so it's
133just basically utilizing those funds and and putting them towards the budget itself so truth be told we should give all of thanks to mr hunter because on a serious note if he didn't do his due diligence and manage this project the way it was managed we wouldn't have the savings that's point blank period and my math was also i apologize but um it was awful a lot so thank you christian for supporting me on that um mr dabello thank you i don't know how you missed this but um and and the residents of upper providence and lerman should say thank you because this is uh this is a home run i mean it's it's a flat out home run so thank you sir thank you mr fink well i didn't i don't want to say
134i missed it yeah because i was i was basically following the direction of the board and this just basically when we met last week or last two weeks ago we uh we talked about you know we're at three percent um and then we talked about that money that was coming from the construction project and then i started thinking about it and i said wait a minute i could come up with a strategy that would reduce uh utilizing that money we could actually reduce i could reduce that budget down to you know less than two percent um and i'll kind of just like click you know i'm sorry it didn't click faster but it you know i start thinking about it and like wait a minute i can i could actually make this happen i thank
135you all right so i believe that mr fitzgerald and uh mr um fink are working on a modification or revision excuse me to the motion while that's happening can we move over to mr rizzo to keep things moving for um acting superintendent report thank you a lot it's been happening hi everybody i just want to restate something that's on very near and dear to all of us springford area school district strives to be educationally relevant focused on achievement and growth and have a priority on people so that students are fully prepared to positively contribute to their society that is our mission statement over the last 14 months our community and district has been challenged like many across the country educating our students through a pandemic has caused us to rethink everything we know about education
136and focus on divisive topics such as physical health versus mental health in person versus virtual instruction six feet distancing versus three feet in person events versus virtual events masks on versus masks off close contact quarantining with little evidence to support the need building closures and a whole litany of other things the divisive nature of these discussions has caused a lot of community angst and in some cases mistrust of our district our community has been pitted against each other with very impassioned debates on either side of a plethora of issues we are now finally coming to a place where we are again pulling together to close out our school year and plan for springford for spring forward future part of our next steps planning part of our next steps planning is to continue the work the
137equity diversity and inclusion committee have been engaged in for the last two years springford is in a process of learning and understanding more about what the terms equity diversity and inclusion mean and how to support children all children we have a fantastic staff that is dedicated to helping and growing children we have a plan involving the use of a consultant to support our staff's growth staff's growth and we have a community that cares for the well-being of our children while difficult conversations may be in our future working together as an entire school community to foster safe spaces unity and respecting and celebrating differences will most benefit each and every one of our students so that they are best supported too as our mission statement illustrates be fully prepared to positively contribute to their society we
138look forward to the work lastly and i'm very excited and sad we have two retirees that i want to announce tonight dylan camelin elementary teacher at upper providence elementary school she has been with springford for 16 years and then diane fern executive secretary of the superintendent secretary to the board she's been with springford for 20 years we know her as she who knows all and keeps us all straightened in line dan you are i'm going to be sorely missed i'm going to kind of stop before i get too far just to say thank you for all you've done for me helping me throughout these last two years it's been a great time and i'm going to miss you thank you that's what i got oh hi well trish you if you want to do your
139report while colleen comes back we can keep rolling sure hi everyone um i'm very happy to report low numbers in the past two weeks since the last board meeting we have had only six positive cases reported to us that we've had to process in springford um just three of them were potentially infectious in the schools and those three resulted in us having to quarantine 33 students as close contacts and that's it we've gone back to um almost to pre-pandemic nursing i'm pleased to say you look very happy when you say that so as long as you're happy we're happy we hope the trend continues and it has been a great relief well thank you for that and i'm glad that that's happening now in may and i hope that you'll come back and join us
140in june for that meeting and we'll have an even better report then and that next year we'll we'll get away from every week or every um board meeting i should say and hopefully go to once a month if the board is in agreement at that time to move forward with that as an option but i thank you for all that you've done on a daily basis and coming to these meetings and talking to us about what's happening because we we definitely wanted to hear it right from you and we value your input as a medical professional so very much so thank you for all of that well we thank you for the support thank you always anybody else on the board have any questions for nurse smith before she there's questions comments anything good okay
141thank you okay and i think we're moving on then to mr fitzgerald for your report i have no report this evening right so thank you i so you know over the last i don't know two weeks three weeks there's been a lot of changes that have been occurring in the state in the county at the cdc i mean it's it's just kind of like you know you know rule of the day or mandate of the day or recommendation of the day and it just seems like it's ever-changing and i don't know if you could the problem that what i see happening is that their school districts now across the state are starting to do things uh related to masks right there's there's states there's school districts that are uh making uh stay in a course
142like we are at springford in most instances except for what we recently said outside you know if activities are outside recess outside gym whatever it may be then mask is optional it's the student's choice there's other school districts in a state that are have have have voted to make mask across the board optional um not so much in montgomery county but i'm just talking about across the state and what that does is that it it then creates you know parents confusion on what if this school district's doing this and this school district's doing that and then why is springford doing whatever springford's doing for instance i've heard from several parents that have grown increasingly upset because the state has come out and said outside activities you don't have to wear a mask right but then
143we send an email out and say our graduation we're requiring masks for our parents for adults and and i have parents call contacting me and they're extremely don't understand and i don't have an answer for them um so there's just a lot of confusion there's a lot of things going on across this i don't know what the right answer is i'm not i'm not professing i'm trying to get beat up on facebook i'm not professing anything i want to put that right out there right now i'm not taking a position one way or the other all i'm trying to do is i got people people are asking questions and we don't have answers because there are many things that are going on across the state um and i don't even know if there's a right
144answer anymore i don't even know if there's consistency i don't even know i mean the cdc has changed her recommendation it seemed like daily for almost like four days straight huh five times in three days they they keep i mean it's it's whatever the winds are shifting i i don't know i i can't i don't know i i i but we you know and we've said all along we're going to follow the science we're going to take we're going to follow the recommendations we're going to follow the mandates then the recommendations mandates change but then we continue to do what we're doing and then people are questioning why is that happening and i don't have an answer and i want you know and then you have and here's a good example you go to costco
145you don't have to wear match go to wawa for a coffee you have to wear a mask i mean so it's completely all over the place and and parents want to understand why is springford making decisions that we're making when what's happening does not support those decisions and because right now pretty much at the state level everything's been watered down to from pde basically watered down to a recommendation if we want to blame fowler koosh that's fine too that would be considered a leading question i think in in the first year of law school but we'll we'll put that aside um it's arbitrary at this point uh i i can tell you i have clients that are not or that are permitting uh no masks during the regular school day um there are clients who
146are maintaining kind of the status quo as if it was you know middle of the winter this year um and then everything in between uh in part because there's no what i'll consider binding mandates out there except for um kind of a backtracking shall we say on what to do about instructional time because even that was a mess so at this point there isn't a legally binding approach other than what is reasonable for the particular organization and what the board administration chooses to do but there is not there's nothing binding it's arbitrary at this stage it's completely it's completely arbitrary at this point and there's no there's no consistency anywhere so you can't type and say well we're following this because the biggest issue i got over the last week and a half was okay
147mark if we're going to allow 11th and 12th graders to you know attend school without masks you know can we prove vaccination or how about staff can we prove you know prove vaccination and there are candidly there are arguments on both ends of that um and there's there's no set requirement one way or the other but it has created this this vacuum of okay all of a sudden we get this guidance how are we to regulate it one way or the other or should we even regulate it i mean frankly i'm of the view i don't necessarily want to know if this person has or or doesn't have the vaccine because then we're on notice of certain things one way or the other so it's you know we are crawling to the end of the
148school year with really a a myriad of of arbitrariness well i i understand that and that and that's why i said i'm not i'm not i'm just trying to get clarity because that was going to be my next question is that you know under the guidelines if students are vaccinated they're not and per the cdc they're not they don't have max masks are optional and we're still sitting here saying that our students and like you said 11th 12th grade have to wear are required to wear masks so we're kind of like we're if we've said all along we're going to follow and which makes it frustrating as you said that it's all arbitrary at this point because there is no there's no mandates there's no nothing we're all kind of left hanging to make decisions
149whatever those decisions are and the problem that i that i'm i have is that i don't have answers to why are we doing things when other districts aren't um can i ask does anyone know right now what the montgomery county department of health and what the what pde recommendations are within schools i know that we have followed um the guidelines of the cdc but the cdc isn't the governing body it's we've really been following along with what the montgomery county department of health and pde recommendations have been so so at the last time i i checked the score on on how this worked with pde pd put out guidance in march that really nobody listened to when i didn't listen to but it was it was kind of a below the fold notice that they
150were going to follow anything the cdc said and then the cdc came out i think it was now 10 10 days ago two weeks ago and said you know anybody who's vaccinated can go without a mask indoors outdoors kind of a blanket press release which then at that point with pde's order that's what would be reflective of what school districts could do and frankly school districts at that point rolled out a response to that in many parts of the state that said okay here's what the cdc said here's what that order from mark i think was march 21st said and they then proceeded to revise their health and safety plans any other documentation um accordingly based on that cdc then comes out about 72 hours later maybe you know a few days after that and
151says we are backtracking specifically as it relates to schools but by that point districts had already modified their plans and said we're not going back at this point we've done we've responded to what the cdc put out we had board meetings that addressed it we had authorization by by governing bodies you know we have nine days left in the school year we're not going to be then calling an emergency meeting to to to adjust our health and safety plan that is really the long and short of i think where we are today this is exactly the problem that we've had pretty much all along is that whether it's the cdc filtering down to pde or filtering down to mco ph or what have you what happens is the goal posts keep getting moved and how
152many times have we heard over and over again well you set you set the parameters here and then you change the rules we changed the rules not because we wanted to sit here as a board and change any rules we changed rules and we made modifications because of what was passed on down to us and now it really is happening again on how we decide to go forward frankly we have what 17 days left 17. let's just make a decision and and stick to it i think that i'd like to ask mr rizzo to share with us what your conversations with the other superintendents in neighboring districts what their intention is what those districts and what their intention is i believe i have an understanding but if you could maybe share that to go as
153an option to go forward as a consideration to maybe go forward before before you speak i i do want to say in response to what what you're saying with the goal post moving i i'd like to think that we have been reflective and we've been reacting or responding as things have changed i mean this year has been a year full of transitions and so i would hope that as a board we've looked at what the government governing bodies have said we've looked at what's in the best interest of our community and we've been reacting and responding to them so in in a positive that's a positive i like the positive spin and i'll say that you know i'll add to that that we've been flexible with the information that's been shared with us and in
154terms of responding to that that information as it came to us we were flexible i i just also want to add that i think we've also been successful i know it's been difficult and there's been a lot of toxic background but we have been successful in not transmitting in the school and we've been successful in in-person education and we've done a great job doing that um i mean we know this is an inside we know a lot of things that we didn't know before we've learned a lot and i realize i think that i would just ask the public to be patient i know it's very difficult and they get very frustrated and very angry um but we are not public health care workers you know we and we have to make public community health
155decisions um with the whole community in mind not a small minority and i think that you know we're not as much as i would love to be like every business and just make a decision we're not a costco we have a lot of kids who will be under 12 and not vaccinated and they'll be together all day in close contact so we have to not everybody's in the available boat you know so i thank you linda but i'm not i'm not being naked i must make sure i'm not being negative i'm not oh okay because i'm not i just want to make sure that oh okay okay thank you because i'm i'm trying to stay i'm just trying to like say this is this is what i just have questions i'm not i'm not questioning
156decisions that were made we made the decision based on the information that we have i think everything it's a very good discussion but i don't want to just base it on what our next door neighbor school districts are doing that can be part of it but i think there should be more to it that i agree i agree that there should be more to it i would like to hear that as one piece of it but there should be more to it and you know it that that's that's let's just hear what mr rizzo has to say at this point i'm not going to put this on mr resolution i don't want to say i don't want to do that i guess we've sort of gone we've sort of gone around the hamster wheel now
157so can we just sort of come back and decide what we want to do i mean well i would disagree that we're not there at all well may i finish please we heard our solicitor um and at some point we have to make a decision we can't sit here all night and go back and forth i think we have to make a decision one way or the other that is going to be mass on or not can i just ask a quick question because we just heard a great report from trish uh smith if we do decide i mean i think outdoor i don't think it's transmitted outdoors so i think you know masks outdoors now are not needed and um but if we decide to go no mask and do we are we still
158responsible for contact tracing and if the levels go up i mean do we have to are we potentially shutting down because i do not want to risk especially the end of this year but i don't want to risk shutting down in-person learning again that's my one worry what if we just focused on you know commencement and start there so could we have commencement where masks are completely optional i mean it's entirely outside we're done for the year then and can we give these kids and their families one normal day of a normal graduation i think it's completely reasonable i agree with that or that masks are optional because there are those even at commencement parent family where they will still want to wear a mask that's what he said i did say masks optional oh
159i'm sorry that's okay well i just the question i have was i'm trying to get to [Music] when you when you look across everything that's happening in our neighboring school districts and like mr fitzgerald said across the state across the country as well i mean i i don't want to get into studies and stuff i'm not going to go down that road because for every study saying one thing there's another study saying something else so i'm not i'm just trying to because parents are asking these questions and i i my original original point all along was this is what parents are asking and i don't have a good answer i i wasn't i mean if it was up to me at this point in time i would make mask optional across the board because it's
160been we already know that the transmissions don't occur with students in school it's the lowest rates i mean we know all that we don't no that's not true while they're wearing masks shows but there's evidence that shows that the again i'm not i'm not i'm not getting into studies please chime in on that i'm just i need the nurse to chime in on that one tom i'm not sure even i'm not what i'm just trying here for a minute we're missing my point we're not missing your point your question is what do you tell these parents that are calling and saying here are the rules the rules have changed what are you doing about the masks we don't want our kids to wear them perhaps that's what you're hearing for as many parents that are
161saying that there is a whole other group of parents that are saying we just want to get through the year can we finish out the year my point of asking mr rizzo and if he's comfortable i would like him to say a few brief words about what our neighboring districts are doing they are our neighbors there are many times we want to hear from them when we want to know what their educational platform is this is one i think that i would like to know are you comfortable sharing that mr rizzo uh sure first clarified question mr fitzgerald is the governor's masking order still in a pl still in effect from my understanding the answer is no it is it has been deference has now been given to districts to make local decisions at this
162point it is not what it was under the universal masking order and the the attestation process okay thanks so other districts we have the same conversations formally every tuesday thursday now just every thursday and everybody is in a state of i don't know because they've got parents on both sides that have very very significant arguments and they back up their their decisions they back up their opinions with with with their science and with their research so it's a challenge for sure um what i'm hearing a lot of and what other districts are hearing a lot of is that we committed to coming to school with these guidelines in place and with the last couple weeks of school we're not terribly comfortable with changing those so superintendents across across the whole county are are feeling similarly
163um most of them the decision that we made to take masks off if they're in if they're physically exerting themselves during phys ed or during recess whether you're six feet apart or not that is consistent with most with most school districts across montgomery county some are not doing that most are to my knowledge most schools and we will talk again on thursday most school districts are not changing their matching requirements during the school day um they're kind of keeping that consistent as well as far as graduation concerned they're still kind of up in the air i think generally they want to mandate that the students wear masks but what they do with spectators is a whole other issue altogether because as our capacity requirements increase to 100 uh the spacing between people gets a lot
164smaller and then you take masks away from that even though it will be optional um does cause some concern for some superintendents so we're in the same place that a lot of other districts are in terms of not knowing what the best next steps are moving forward so that's kind of where we are that's fine and i i suspect that between now and june 15th there will be additional changes guidelines recommendations what have you regarding masking so do you does the does the administration does the board need to do anything to allow that to take place for graduation as mr schaefer said we're not meeting again until june 14th if it's the desire of the board to um authorize the administration to to take action between now and june 15th reflective of the potential relaxation
165in in mask wearing at such events as as the uh graduation then i i think we would want to direct them to do it and then those changes would be reflective in what is a very antiquated health and safety plan because it was drawn up a year ago so i would i would i would tweak that to the plan for this particular purpose and then frankly i think at a meeting in june we need to sunset the health and safety plan okay so with that can we just give board direction if everyone is in there you can do that you yes is everyone in agreement to go with that as board direct for and to give that board directive may i ask that you restate that before we say each one of us what this
166would be to authorize the administration um to to modify the current health and safety plan reflective of uh the direction here tonight to relax any and all masking requirements for an outside non-instructional event such as graduation is there any other events coming up outside other graduation i think that's the last one right we have the music banquet coming up that's another big one that's happening that's outside right dr call you the banquet next week is inside june 4th [Music] okay all right that was the last outside event thank you that'll be graduation so is the board good with sharing that directive i i think can we when when it's phrased or when it's put out there can we also state that it's the optional not to wear masks so the people who still may choose
167to wear masks those that feel that they they have health risks or something are comfortable actually still wearing a mask too i don't think we're telling them prohibited i don't think we ever can or will right never again you know so i just would you know i'm envisioning not having a security guard asking me to place a mask on and outside when the numbers are so low and we're having we're seeing around the country full stadiums packed i mean let's just i'm just trying to apply some common sense and this is again one commencement for these families you may know a family that will be enjoying a commencement and um way beyond where this is reasonable and i appreciate everybody's support to make this happen and i thank you for bringing that up okay clarity
168please i want to make sure that i move forward appropriately so you're saying either a that you are authorizing us to make a decision to make mass optional for commencement or are you saying that you are authorizing mass being optional at commencement the first option is updating the hsp so we can make the decision without board action the second one is board action and we are making masking optional for spectators of commencement i just want to make sure i understand which way we're going with this [Music] yeah i mean i i think it might be both and i can talk to you afterwards about what the okay but i i certainly know the direction of the board and and you wouldn't be doing something outside of that direction so yeah i feel like i have
169it i just want to make sure that i don't get an email that's not what we said bob so i want to make sure we got it okay well you might get that anyway but that's i think his question is legitimate so i'm glad that you'll talk my question was are you authorizing basically are we authorizing an update to the hsp so the administration can make a decision about spectators or are we just saying that spectators is optional we're just making the decision okay that's what i needed thank you okay we're going to move on through the rest of the agenda now it's already 10 15. um we have the minutes a and b is there a motion to approve and a second questions or comments all in favor say aye aye any oppo any
170opposed motion carries personnel a through n is there a motion to approve and a second second questions or comments all in favor say aye any opposed that motion carries finance i i i am going to separate out e f and we're going to take e f and n first and mr fitzgerald will refer to you for e f and n sure we separate d3 as well we will we're going to come back to that we're going to do e f and n first okay so e f and n are connected to the budget issue so you have you do have you do have a budget action item on the agenda to the extent that there's going to be a change there needs to be a motion to amend the current action item motion to abandon
171current action item e f and n all three i would do it all i would do all three of those e f and n is there is there a second and let's just clarify this would be reflective of the discussions mr debello had in finance earlier this evening questions or comments all in favor say okay we'll take public comments do we have to take public comment to close to end this now we have to take public comment for the next motion we will act we can vote on the amendment and we'll take comment on the on the if the amendment on this revised okay so questions or comments from the board on ending ef and n all in favor say aye bye any opposed okay that motion carries to end those now we're going to
172go ahead okay and or amend here is what now the new items will read new e will read as follows administration recommends approval of resolution 21-18 for adoption of the 2021-2022 general fund budget in the amount of 178 million 577 thousand 436 dollars which represents a tax increase of 1.96 and um you want to do that first as a standalone that's fine let me finish reading it though no no no with a millage of 28.7379 um all previously drafted resolutions shall be null and void and it will be reflective of these new numbers second okay questions or comments from the board and now we need to do public comment correct mr fitzgerald let's do public comment yes do we want to do public comment though before we make the amendments to f m not going
173to take public comment three times i'd rather do f m my my gut tells me if we're gonna have public comment it's right now and i suspect we won't have it for the other ones okay so all right then we'll take public comment at this time is there anyone in the room with a public comment is there anyone on the zoom okay go ahead i'm sorry at this time they dropped out okay and then all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries mark you could do the next two together f and n you can write together great all right let's do f and n together new f will read administration recommends approval of resolution 21-19 for the 20 2021 2022 homestead farmstead exclusion and then all previously drafted resolutions shall be modified
174to reflect the changes at the may 24th 2021 board meeting so that is f and then n will now read as follows administration recommends closing out the fund for the high school expansion project as all commitments related to the project have been completed and satisfied the remaining funds in the construction account in the amount of 963 224.70 cents shall be dispersed as follows 500 000 to budget reserve and 463 224 to curriculum yeah susan capital reserve yeah okay is there a motion to approve those two move second questions or comments from the board i'd just like to again thank you tom for you know this is years of experience and knowledge and understanding the complexities of our financial situation and thank you for bringing this up it's quite significant appreciate it okay and we'll take
175any public comment no okay then all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay that motion carries surpass both of those okay now we're going to go back and we're going to also we're going to separate out d3 and r also and then we'll take the remaining so d3 is there a motion to approve d3 is there a second for d3 second is there any questions or comments on d3 the only the only comment i have is you know i did look at this person's background as well and i'm very supportive of the the initiative to bring in a consultant uh the work through the equity diversity and inclusion initiatives i'm just want to make sure that this person stays within their lanes of what we're bringing them into i'll be very concerned if we
176go outside of the learn and start bringing in other non-related theories or initiatives that are possibly their opinion not necessarily everyone else's or others so i just want to ensure that this person stays within the lanes of what we're bringing them into which you know again i'm not really sure what the deliverables are and how we're going to measure success for spending ten thousand dollars but i just want to make sure that we're staying he's he stays within the lanes of what we want well i would assume based on contract 101 we've defined the scope right so he would stay he or she or them they would stay within that scope of the contract actually dr mary i know that you um had shared some information with us in the board memo about um this
177individual and what the funding could be for the title ii funding could you just clarify a little bit about this process and and how you came to this um individual just want to make sure that it's it's the right fit so i'm going to defer information about the individual to bethlehem worked with the equity diversity inclusion committee i did reach out to the state um federal programming coordinator because i know there's a question about whether or not this was an allowable use of title two funds and we did get confirmation which i included in the board memo about that good evening a subcommittee of the edi committee had started interviewing consultants a while ago when we saw that it was going to be evident that we would need guidance to move forward as mrs fazzini
178had stated when we did our presentation a few months ago the edi committee is being very calculated in how we're moving forward and we know we cannot trip up so we need a little bit of guidance dr patchke dr whitaker dr koch myself and mr rizzo met with various consultants given the scope of mr riley's networking we felt he would be the best for the dollars he was certainly came in the lowest price as well he and he's really i mean according to the i guess the three stipulations that i saw here about the title too his focus is really going to be on professional development correct professional development um and giving the edi community capacity then to promote professional development on our own without additional services in the future all right thank you okay
179any other question any other questions or comments on d3 all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries and then r i just had a question about r and i guess this is probably mr fink sorry about that but the uh because i know you've been up a few times here he comes um just the very last line of that the potential for revenue share on the installation and operation of these stop arm cameras what what are the implications of that no it says revenue share potential for revenue share some must have missed that can you clarify that for me because i i'm getting my steps in tonight mrs askey um yeah there's a there's a potential of a 60 40 split on the ticket share um the numbers that yes on the
180numbers that i ran said likely not going to see a lot there but again as mr dibelo said earlier we're more concerned about the safety of our kids at the bus stops than than the dollar potential on any of that i apologize for that because all their expenses are subtracted off the revenue before there's a revenue share right so we didn't believe me i asked that question of uh finance too so what kind of revenue opportunities are there and we quickly came to the conclusion that we're not going to get excited about not going to take us down another point on our um okay i just wanted to double just wanted to check no i would just like to comment on that i'm i'm familiar with these uh cameras on and they the potential is
181great for what they can do they but they offer the police the opportunity and um to track um people who uh consistently will cross you know when our buses are stopped and the the camera arm is out there they really are are i'm really very happy to see this for the safety of our students so i'm just it's good so just for clarity and my own sleep at night so the the penalties would not include mr fitzgerald the penalties that will be assessed by a local lord for law enforcement would not involve the school district under any circumstances that's correct it's just it's just the evidence that that we we would be partnerships on in terms of enforcement of the traffic code would be separate from from us and would likely be the municipality where
182it occurred all right thank you okay so is there a um do we have a motion in a second on that okay so all in favor say aye aye any opposed mrs zazowski i missed who made the motion in the second i didn't hear i didn't hear anybody make a motion or a second okay is there is there a motion for r so moved and and the second so maggie and tom we went through our questions and comments all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed no opposed so emotion carries okay all right then we're gonna take the remainder of finance a through s less e f n d three and r and i'm not gonna figure it out otherwise at 10 30 at night is there a second okay just say it again
183so i can oh my a through s less e f n d three and r e f n d three and r this is like bingo bingo okay all right is there a motion to approve those you did it in a second questions or comments all in favor say aye aye any opposed no those motions carry okay moving on then to new property a is there a motion for a so moved and a second second questions or comments all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed that motion carries programming and curriculum a through p so moved second questions or comments that's including o and p they were new this they were new this week questions or comments none okay all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries and then we'll move
184on to conferences and workshops a through d is our emotion so moved on a second second questions or comments all in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion carries other business a which is 13 policies through d so move second questions or comments uh b is there a reason that we keep saying this it's a it's a standard policy so why is it i keep seeing it i think it had to come before us before didn't it and then it was one at the work session and now it's on tonight for approval uh yeah the last band trip it was on and then we brought it forward two weeks ago because this is a new this was a new parent uh wanting to take their child with them after the end of the band
185trip so this has this has to come before the board every time there's a new parent even though it's a standard standing policy i'm just asking well i i don't know if it's a standard uh or standing policy what we could do is the sen is have this as a standing policy that these types of waivers can be dealt with at the administrative level if they're going to be on a case-by-case basis they would have to come to you so okay i mean i think it's easier if you if you give the authorization to the admin to to have this release in the future can you give that as a directive yes okay is that everybody okay with that yes yes i'm good at that so a through d um we have a motion we
186have a second any other questions or comments all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay that motion carries and we have a discussion item here for the charter school funding reform if we just make a motion does anyone have any questions about any of that or mr shaffer would you like to give us a very quick highlight from your opportunity on wednesday i attended i think we should be making this motion very strongly and swiftly this evening you attend it say it so uh the governor visited along with other representatives of both the senate and the house to uh publicly announce support for house bill 272 which is the charter school ref uh funding reform this legislation is long overdue and i support it i think every member of this board should be supporting
187it because of its um financial implications to our district it might very well be significant tax reductions or for sure more resources to apply for educating our children here and um that's about as concise as i can be on the matter that's great thank you so there is a motion under new business a board approval is needed so moved thank you and a second do we have a second second questions or comments all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay that motion carries and then we also have one here um we need some board approval for the high school boys track team for resolutions for them and tennis doubles and tennis singles [Music] questions or comments all in favor say aye wait a minute wait are you doing b through e let's take b
188through e right questions or comments or there's is there a motion for b through e let's do it again is there a motion b through e so move second questions or comments all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed those motions carry word comment i know dr wright you wanted to say a few words do you want to start us off on board comment is there any other board comment this evening i had a board comment if i could quickly um i just want to say a quick thank you to the whole school board for this experience and opportunity as this is my last meeting as well as a huge thank you to the student body for being so supportive and being a wonderful student body to represent and a huge thank you to
189springfield community this was an amazing opportunity and experience and i'll truly miss it thank you okay dr wright sorry i needed a minute to look at my notes here i just wanted to take the opportunity to welcome mr rizzo with his new position here um it was with great confidence and pleasure that you know we've witnessed um you mr rizzo uh take the helm of the district and i've known and worked with several superintendents and leaders over the many years and i believe that you are an exceptional leader so i look very forward to working with you over the next four years so thank you we're all very excited [Applause] i just want to i i'm sorry i was just going to say that i also was going to thank you miss wright i was
190going to congratulate mr rizzo on hit oh sorry i'm sorry dr wright um it's a huge accomplishment i think that you've demonstrated as i said a few weeks ago or it seems like forever but when i made the original motion to proceed forward with you i think that uh you know deep down side i don't i felt it was the right thing to do at the time based on everything that was going on it's the right thing for spring ford um and i think that you are going to do an amazing job here as well uh i think that you've done an amazing job since coming to springford you've came in here you know and the next thing you know we're hit with covet and the next thing you know dr gooden through his long-term
191plan uh moved back home uh probably happened a little bit sooner than he anticipated or you know things worked out for him but once again you were able to step in and uh take the ship and start keeping moving in the right direction and the first big decision that you were confronted with was us getting the kids back to school so um talk about you know getting hit with the fire hose uh from pretty much almost from day one when you came into the district i've heard nothing but positive comments i think you might personally think you're doing an amazing job i think that your contributions during committee meetings is is excellent um and i i believe is your wife here this evening as well no she she was she's mostly because i thought you
192saw earlier i can't see everyone back there she left hours ago but uh i think that um i think everyone is going to be very very happy with your leadership in springford so thank you and welcome and congratulations i like to go in a different direction doc i mean mr rizzo will cost us money but i would like to talk about the money that we're saving tonight you witness the board being able to pivot pivot from from a potential three percent tax increase to now we're looking at 1.96 that is good workmanship within the board that is a board that's willing to listen you don't have to agree with everyone all the time we don't and there's nothing wrong with that but i i really appreciate the board listening to mr bellow tonight because when
193he brought it up i really wasn't seeing the mathematics on it or the latitude for us to do that but i'm glad everyone kept an open mind and now we have saved our taxpayers who we serve money so that i would like to say thank you mr bello now back more importantly back to mr rizzo hey i'm happy you're here i'll leave it at that and we'll just move on right i'll say too that i think it was a very good maybe a follow-up to what you're saying mr jackson a very good demonstration of the board coming together and working as a cohesive unit to benefit our community with a you know i'm very happy to say and i i certainly didn't hide my pleasure that uh mr rizzo was going to be considered and
194moved along into that position so i'm thrilled as you as you know um i do have one question though that i just want to get some clarity on before we do take any public comment or or leave at this hour but that is graduation is the 15th for us but the closing ceremony for tech for um western is june 2nd i believe also in our stadium so with that consideration and discussion we had about masks apply to that event as well and where do you want to go with that well we're just hosting that right i mean that would be a joc decision working with mr moritzen so that certainly which our next meeting is the night before perfect okay that's a great timing that's a that's a great question this is asking that that's
195i think so because it's on our it's on our property it's here i i listen we can we no no no it's it's fine it's a leg it's a very legitimate issue we're hosting somebody i think what we would have to do is reach out discuss with mr moritzen the possibility of this flexibility and then he's going to have to decide and whether the joc supports it um the same approach for their for their ceremony all right thank you for that any other board comment this evening can i hop in real quick well first i want to thank the board for the confidence in me to move forward and move this and move the district into the next step and the next phase whatever the future looks like for us i also want to make
196sure that i acknowledge we also have somebody else here this evening who was just hired and we're very excited uh bob hunter and his team work to uh to bring to us sean ryan who will now be the new supervisor of operations so i and i know we had a lot of heavy hitting topics tonight but i want to take a moment just to pause and say welcome sean he's here tonight sean i'm gonna stand up and wave to everybody bob's sitting next to him right now tell him all the things he has to do as soon as he gets here so uh we're excited to have him on board and we look forward to what he's going to bring to the district thank you again and uh all right cool i think that um
197mr hunter introduced sean to a couple of us before the meeting got it started and he is full of enthusiasm he brings that in his experience so we welcome you to the district and hope you'll be good for us and that will be you'll find a home here with us it's spring four um okay that and are we ready to take public comment anybody in the room anybody on the zoom sorry i'm so sorry i missed that's okay hi um my name is elizabeth brady i'm going to take my mask off for a second um limerick township a couple of you may know me already because i was a student school board representative for two years from 2011 to 2013 and one of you was my math teacher back in sixth grade so hi um
198as a former student school board representative i gave two years of my time attending board meetings and during those meetings gave my full attention to the school board and the community and at least i have somewhat of an understanding of the demands of your position and the time consuming aspect of it so i appreciate you listening to me tonight i've kept my statement brief so i would appreciate it if you could hold all comments and questions until the end during my time here at springboard as a few of you already know to say that i was involved the district would be an understatement as a leader of community service clubs the house advisory council student council school board just to name a few um i loved my time here at springford i was very involved
199when i moved on to college i was truly upset to leave my experience was overall a really excellent one and i've been a really proud alumna for nearly a decade now i'm currently 26 years old i have a bachelor's and a master's degree i'm an hr manager by day and recently was offered admission to multiple law schools to which i deferred admission to in order to take a teaching opportunity to be a professor at a local philadelphia university i mention all of this because i have attended multiple schools at this point in my life and honestly believe the teachers i had at springboard for some of the best ones that i've ever had one of them just happens to be sitting in the audience so that was pretty cool to see her here tonight and
200i wouldn't be where i am today without them and their encouragement the environment that i was taught in at springford felt like it was made for me and that i was being taught without limitations that cannot be said for all of my classmates over the past few months i've had the opportunity to connect with a few of my classmates of color and i have to say that their experiences here in the district were not as rosy as mine were they do not look back on their time here with the same level of joy and nostalgia that i do i'm not going to get into specifics because those are not my stories to tell and i believe that they should be given an opportunity to tell their stories and be heard by the school district when
201i hear accounts from other students of color who've attended springford more recently it's discouraging to say that not much has changed since i've left one of the reasons that i was so involved in the school was because i firmly believe that everyone is entitled to world-class education and that is the experience i know springford strives for all of its students to have when i heard some of the comments from the board meeting during the may 10th meeting i was disappointed to say the least the comments made by the school board members regarding black lives matter sticker found in the school were discouraging and triggering for many students and community members three minutes i can stop if you'd like for me to very near the end i would like to hear some more we'll do we'll
202do another 30 seconds and then i think it's only fair at that point perfect thank you from my experience you are here and you have the opportunity to prevent students in the past present and future from experiencing as well as contributing to systems of oppression they exist whether or not the school board chooses to acknowledge them i definitely see the diversity and inclusion community is a really good effort going forward and i hope to see some positive impacts from that i have a lot of alumni that i've been speaking to and i'm sure many current students who are more than willing to speak with you about their experiences at springford and changes they would like to see thank you for the additional 30 seconds abby deardorff704 column court and royersford so two weeks ago at
203this meeting i asked um the board to educate myself and the community if a black lives matter sticker being posted in the school is inappropriate and i was hoping to get a response i appreciate your comments mr rizzo tonight that spring forward you know elevates the importance of all students but regarding that specific circumstance i think that the community would like to know as well as myself how this board and this district feels okay um so to switch your point abby um the question is it is currently at the edi committee to discuss we're flushing that out right now um so we have and we had a meeting last week two weeks ago no the thursday after the board meeting and then we have another meeting coming up wednesday morning so we're continuing to discuss
204that okay any other comments from anybody in the room all right go ahead i'm the board member that made the comment um and i think it's been taken kodak completely out of context and maybe i should have given more context to it but if anyone wants to speak to me regarding that that my comment this wasn't the board that made the comment i made the comment um i am walk i welcome in any any conversation regarding that it wasn't a comparison or parallel it was a comment that i made not the board made i made the comment we're done here we're done there are there any other comments from anybody in the room anybody on zoom okay rich let's go to the zoo tina please state your full name and address in your public comment
205to be heard please unmute yourself tina unmute yourself please did i have mia can you hear me yes sir tina murray 12 bridal live again i am speaking against the carlos wiley being the man that is going to direct and curriculate the curriculum for our schools when he is a person that is for critical race theory i looked into him and you can look into him on penn state university you can see what he says you can see what he says on facebook he says this is for all white folks that need a visual aid to understand why you're complacent in racism i i'm very scared that our school would spring for it the greatest school ever would start doing curricular race theory and i hope you look into that and i hope you do
206i hope before you give this man his ten thousand dollars that you're going to give him from title one you would go into what you have said would be that you would look into critical and everything i'm sorry i it's just bothering me the end sorry bye lucy i think i think we just got to be clear he's not coming to develop curriculum he's coming to help the diversity committee huh edi to to build out a model related to diversity inclusion and equity so it's not they're not doing curriculum development at this point that's why i stress staying within the lanes of what he's being hired to do and actually the motion was clarified uh even in the board memo and on the agenda for us specifically relating to not developing curriculum but helping to
207maybe just help us professionally at our professionals to think outside the box a little bit so we'll see where that goes um okay any other comments go ahead rich lucy rupert please state your full name and address and your public comment to be heard please unmute yourself lucy please don't mute yourself i'm sorry we won't be able to hear from that individual are there any other comments any other answers no other hand trace at this time is there a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn is there a second you