School Board Meeting - 6/4/2024

001e you there Tris yes I'm here okay good evening everybody I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order this is this is a non voting meeting this is our committee meeting uh we did have an executive session tonight to discuss a personnality you so I will apologize for a little bit of a delay here um I would like to have make sure that all individuals that are sitting out there please make sure you sign the the signin sheet and then any of you that are making comments tonight uh if you could either let a copy of your comments with us or email them in so we have them for the minutes uh we greatly appreciate I would also like to remind everybody of policy 903 uh I I'm not going to read

002the whole policy to you but I'm just going to remind everyone since we do have a large crowd um all individuals wishing to participate in an open board meeting shall register their intent with the board secretary one business day in advance of the meeting and shall include the name and address of the participants in the topic of which to be addressed parti participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface their comments by any any announcement of their name and group affiliation each statement made by participant shall be limited to 5 minutes so I know we have a fairly large crowd here so let's give everybody their time to speak and uh you know and if you're not on the agenda I would ask that you try not to speak in essence of

003time so um so with that that will move us right to public comment and uh Mr Ebert uh is first one up thank you Mr President upper Adam school district is a public school district and consequently is made of a wide variety of students and their parents who come from all walks of life there are Jewish Catholic Protestant and non-believers different cultures and traditions different political parties they are gay and straight all those students and their parents have fundamental and legal rights as a board your job is to create a school environment in which each of these students can grow and Thrive as a board you need to ensure that their legal rights are protected and not violated a fundamental ten tenant of educational law is in Loco parenes in place of the parent parents

004trust us to care for their students during school hours then take them back at the end of the day parents can choose from Public School home homeschooling private and parochial schools and more recently Charter and Cyber Charter Schools we are thankful that a majority of parents still choose a public education the board and the community need to provide a nurturing acceptive environment for them to learn without unnecessary rules and restrictions that infringe upon their individual rights no one wants books in our library that are inappropriate but who better to determine what books are appropriate for their child than the respective individual parent I attended the April 4th 2024 policy meeting held in this Auditorium to caution the board on several issues related to policy 1091 I think on earlier version I had 139 so that

005is corrected I recommended the board keep the scope of the policy narrow and not allow just anyone nor everyone to weigh in with complaints about specific library books I also urg the board to treat books in classroom libraries as if they were not to treat books in classroom libraries as if they were the books found in our school library these two libraries are completely different Collections and completely different purposes and managed in a totally different manner our teachers are teachers not Librarians I hope you are still considering those recommendations at this time I also cautioned against taking the free advice of religious oriented law firms that have swn controversy and T turmoil in neighboring districts and resulted in expensive lawsuits how is that free at the policy meeting in April High School librarian or our

006high school librarian Nicole Starner explained in detail by a video how USD upam school district has developed the practice of Permitting parents to notify the library staff which books they do not want their children to check out of the library The District Library circulation software then alerts the staff that the book is deemed unacceptable for the particular student if you do not want your student students to read Tom Sawyer simply notify the librarian the child is protected and the parents wishes are satisfied there is no Banning book Banning required there is no infringement of student rights involved if however your goal is to impose your religious political and personal values on every other student in the district then a strong oppressive book Banning policy would be necessary however if your goal is to provide uh

007means for Parental input and allow the parents to monitor the child's checking out books and a a new totally revised policy would not be needed the old policy provides for the parental input and challenges tonight we are to hear about the independence Law Center and their free religious based advice at least I hope we are we the public hear about their services at a recent presentation at the West Shore School District ilc presented the information in a closed executive session there's no provision in the law that such a Clos secret meeting is permissible you need to wrap it up Mr okay I'm heading down the final stretch Mr President is that the type of free legal advice we can expect I hope IC tells how the neighboring school districts such as Dover and others have

008spent time uh spent millions of dollars for their free one more sentence okay I recommend hiring attorneys that work towards a solution to keep us out of legal Jeopardy not determined to advance in particular religious agenda I would urge the board to reject the engagement of ilc and their free legal advice thank thank you uh next we will have Ellie Halal ver jany I know I can never say your husband's name either so that's fine thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Ellie branch and as a graduate from the upper Adam school district and a parent of two children currently attending school here I'm here today to express extreme concern and adamant to opposition to the retention of the independence Law Center or to making any changes to policy 1091

009regarding the selection of materials for libraries and media centers this district has a policy in place that has proven for years that it works I fully trust our Educators to vet the titles introduced into the school system the responsibility of selecting or excluding books for all children should never fall on an outside citizen as a parent it is my responsibility to be involved in and aware of the subject matter and materials being used to educate my children and ultimately decide if a piece of literature is appropriate I would never expect that if I chose to remove a piece of literature from my child's perview that it should be removed from all children in the district public education should not be forced to conform to the rather opinions of a few my children deserve to see

010this world all of it books of all genres and the stories within them will allow them to experience many parts of the world that they will likely never get to see firsthand not every book can explore the world without also exploring sensitive subject matter but should we stifle our children's creativity emotional exposure and potential for learning to say that we protected them from some controversial topics bad words or horrible realities we pray they'll never have to experience firsthand unless I want to put them in a sealed room for the rest of their lives the best and most helpful thing I can do for them as their parent is to expose them of the realities of the world in which we live my son enjoys reading and recently read several of Katherine Applegates books including the

011one and only Ivan which won the John Newberry medal for the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for children he excitedly came to me after he finished it and said Mom this book was so good you have to read it so of course I did he wasn't wrong the particular copy we had included coule Gate's acceptance speech for the Newberry award from which I'd like to read you a portion after the one and only Ivan was published a bookstore contacted me about a pending Elementary School visit one of the parents was worried about using Ivan she hadn't read it they never have as Librarians know better than anybody but she gathered that it was sad and might make some of the Children Cry the bookstore to its credit reassured her thusly absolutely it would make

012them cry and know by the way that's a good thing we live in a world where children are bu lead into Despair and even suicide where armed guards in a school hallway are considered desirable where libraries are padlocked because of budget cups where breakfasts and pack packs for too many children are unaffordable luxuries children know all about sadness we can't hide it from them we can only teach them how to cope with its inevitability and to harness their imaginations in the search for joy and wonder nothing nothing in this world can do that better than a book when my husband and I made the educ a decision to send our children to public school we did so knowing that we were sending them to a place with certified professionals who are there not just because

013they possess the appropriate background and education to be there but who are there because they want and care to be there they accept the responsibility given to them with the knowledge and understanding that they too are playing a role in nurturing the students they serve to follow our District's Mantra to make every student College and Career ready as a Schoolboard official you too do hold an incredible responsibility to the children in our district if you care at all then you should be seeing and hearing that these changes are not supported by the people they will affect are you listening I'm not here to change anyone person's belief system I am here to remind you that your duty as you accepted when you were sworn into office is to abide by the US Constitution and to

014represent 100% of the children you're making decisions for you don't have to agree with it personally but you should not be sitting around that table if you were not prepared to abide by federal law when you took your seat you tout fiscal responsibility and yet you knowingly want to enlist the services of a pro bono firm known to cost districts millions of dollars in settlements related to lawsuits that resulted from discriminatory policies put into place as a result of their advice let it cost you say who will pay that price the Schoolboard table is not the place for radical changes it is the place for thoughtful administration of policies and procedures that make running an Inc incredibly complex system work the best it can for the people hired and trusted to do the work of

015the district more than anything today's children my children need a safe place free from judgment or punishment from exploring this world I implore you to allow our Educators to continue to give them that freedom I trust them and you should too thank you next we'll have uh Dr Jennifer Kane good evening ladies and gentlemen for those of you who I may not have had the pleasure of meeting before my name is Dr Jennifer Kane I have my Doctorate in Education and and literacy I have my master's degree in Reading education my bachelor's degree is in elementary education with a minor in Reading I have taught in a neighboring district for 26 years my main experiences in the third grade classroom and Elementary Title One Reading intervention for all intents and purposes I have been a

016resident of the Upper Adams School District Community my whole life I am the daughter of a Canon I attended School in these hallowed halls and therefore I am proud to say I graduated as a caner all three of my children canners just last week my daughter graduated from BHS and will be attending St Vincent College in the fall I have two sons who will be a freshman and a sophomore here at EHS next year in fact my two boys went to the preschool here with Mrs Laura britz your recent uner stock award recipient since it was discussed at the last board meeting I'm a moderately Conservative Christian it really shouldn't matter though but I willing you give you my background experience and credentials per se to show you I am invest in this community and

017have reason to care about what happens at this school just as much maybe even more than possibly others when I see the BHS receives the ranking for Best in something school again that means something to me that tells me that the people who have worked here worked hard to earn that honor accolades like that do not just happen overnight high ratings on pssa scores and keystones take not only data studying and curriculum development but they take relationship building and studying between uh curriculum development and teachers Administration staff to make that happen with students students come to school with diverse backgrounds and needs these needs require unique skill sets with the teachers have learned and cultivated as professionals to bring out the best educational outcomes from their students this is professionalism knowledge trust and relationship building

018at its final here at BHS which leads me to my main point for coming here tonight stock and leader have been the council for us a or uasd for many many years from my understanding and I believe that Gareth from their firm has been here for close to possibly a decade they have worked hard to build a strong reputation not in just this District but the local area for excellent reputation in Council like the excellent ratings and reputation our school has nationally stock and leader and and Gareth did not just gain that reputation overnight but earned it with high levels of leadership and knowledge know excuse me knowledgeable legal council I can personally attest to the relationship building the firm has done from a teacher P perspective sitting on the opposite side of the negotiation

019table there is a level of respect and trust that Gareth brings to a school board when assisting in negotiations that you cannot Place monetary value on this respect leads to a mutual understand standing and better results for all parties since St and leaders trust has been earned and is well known in our area I suppose I just don't understand why the district wish to take on risky outside Council please help me understand why the district would seek out outside Council whose very name is surrounded in controversy research quickly finds controversial issues surrounding the iso's name I asked the board why they did not seek outsa and leader for their Council to see your way forward and clear of any policy questions on the board what they are our Council of record and hire they would

020have been able to help you personally I do not want to bring controversy drama slander shame and any other kind of negative attention to our district and our students the ilc has a direct history attached to their name with this kind of controversy if anyone on this board has a Personal Agenda to try and change the the culture War they feel going on in this world do not bring it to the feet of my children our children you did not run on that platform so that to me was a hidden agenda and frankly I did not vote for that take that concered the state legislature if you feel you must try to make any changes on your own please we just graduated an excellent class of students last Thursday who are college military and career

021we have been given National accolades we have created count or we have trusted Council we do not need a media circus brought to our doorstep direct disrupting the lives of our students and school this would incur a great monetary and social cost that frankly doesn't need to be paid we have trusted Council use them thank you for the opportunity to stand before you tonight the public state my thoughts and opinions on current board issues and we did have a correspondence sent in by Jenny Knox and uh that will be available to be read if anyone wishes uh you can contact come into the school to read that that will be attached to the minutes and uh next we have Jonathan pno I'm I'm sorry Mrs Mendes I skipped over you so we we'll go with

022Jonathan first it's okay all right thank you for the opportunity to speak as you stated my name is Jonathan patrono I have three daughters in this district and my wife is a teacher in this District um I'm a licensed attorney and my questions and comments tonight revolve around the legal risk and um involved in these perceived changes to policies at the guidance of a radical religious and politically motivated group that does not care about the damage they lead in their wake um who do these policy revisions benefit and who do they harm can the board explain how they benefit the curriculum why are they necessary Why Can't We Trust our current policy administrators and teachers by changing these policies do we not discriminate against other groups and are we not violating the freedom of speech

023and opening ourselves up to a First Amendment challenge why should the board not trust its current solicitor from a well respected Law Firm that is not politically and religiously affiliate what absolute legal Authority both state and federal can you site that these changes will not bring on First Amendment challenge especially given the fact that the ilc is being watched by other nonprofits such as Southern Poverty group that are fighting to defend the Constitution and free speech and if you can show wellestablished Law for your potential actions what is the risk reward in enacting these policies and how do you defend the district when the district gets sued who pays the bill what stain does it leave on the district other school districts have had significant legal feeds in similar situations and the free promise hasn't

024worked out are board members prepared for lawsuit are you prepared for all your emails all your Communications coming out depositions lengthy legal process are school board members protected under your directors insurance if you knowingly and negligently cause the school district Financial harm can school board members be Sue personally for causing the district Financial harm especially if there's no shown correlation to these policies changes for educational reasons and you acted purely on ideology voting the entire District at risk for personal beliefs in those instances did you breach your duties to the community and the district I'll end by just stating one thing I'm particularly concerned by the financial impact this decision could have on the district and its ability to continue to provide high level education without being hamstrung by ongoing legal battles which in turn

025lead to academic and programming Cuts thank you okay now miss Janet Mendes hello everyone my name is Janet Mendes thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I attended my first school board meeting two weeks ago I left tired as the hour was late but mostly confused we'll come back to why I was confused later but for now I'd like to share a story with you in a recent in inter action I was asked if racism was still a problem at Biglerville High School this couple had deemed the district racist and that alone cemented their decision to not move here my response was not anymore I detailed the diversity and inclusion practices in place I retold them the story of my son returning home to tell me the school band had learned one of his

026favorite songs and played it at Fiesta Friday the pride I felt as a BHS graduate and now parent with children in the district detailing to these strangers the events that bring the students together to celebrate differences and highlight similarities events I strongly encourage the board members to attend with open minds of course I told you earlier I was confused confused as to why a district that found itself in headlines for accusations of racism only a few years ago would even consider retaining the independence Law Center a law firm that finds itself in headlines for their controversial rewriting of school policies that seem to Target those students who don't fit the ic's mold 2021 legal invoices after the racism accusations totaled over $125,000 are we prepared to let it cost another 125,000 these accusations drew a

027lot of attention and stemmed from an anonymous social media account are we prepared to let a lawsuit cost more aligning with this Law Firm feels like a step backward instead of moving in the right direction I hope that my comments serve as a reminder of our missteps a reminder not to let history repeat itself My Hope tonight is not to spark division but instead remind everyone of our similarities the similar love and concern for our families I urge those on the board and those listening to me today to choose their words carefully so as not to create Division I ask that you not spread false information regarding conservative families being bullied out of the district false information like this Praise on the fear of those who believe minorities are here to take everything away but

028mostly I encourage you to remember that you are here to protect the right of all children children who don't look like you who don't share your views who don't worship the same God you do and even those children that Shout with pride Love Is Love finally I'd like to end with this do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility value others above yourselves not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others Philippians 23 thank you thank you all speakers uh there's nothing under Athletics or activity Student Activities so that'll take us right to curriculum uh Mrs Jalal so we have a spring comprehensive plan goals update from Mr hin good evening everyone I am thrilled this evening because this is the largest crowd I've ever

029had for a comprehensive plan overview and I know all of you are here to see and hear about this this evening so thank you for attending this is amazing usually I get the first two syllables out of the comprehensive plan phrase and someone comes up with an appointment or runs the other way so it won't be that B I'm here this evening to uh share with the board uh a spring update of our comprehensive plan and I'm going to start by giving a little background of the comprehensive plan process and then go into just a brief overview of of why we do this presentation in the fall and the spring and what our goals are as a review for our former board members and for our new board members so you can understand uh our

030goals I would ask that all of you pull it up on agenda manager so you don't have to uh strain your neck it is the same presentation or you're welcome to to sit in the front row here but uh we'll go through it it's not very lengthy so the Pennsylvania Department of Education has a comprehensive plan process it is a framework for continuous Improvement in the state of Pennsylvania for all the school districts and it is a three-year process we're currently in year two of three uh that means this coming school year your administrative team will be working hard on developing and revising and enhancing a new comprehensive plan to present to you probably January or February of next year and getting your approval in March where when it has to be uh submitted and

031the part of that process uh because it is 3 years you might think well we have to start over every 3 years uh yes and no part of this process is about re revising and enhancing what you're already doing it's not that you know throw the baby out the bath water dump the apple cart type of thing uh some districts can do that I mean the option is there uh but most districts that do that option typically start a new comprehensive plan almost right after they approve one because it takes multiple years to get to that point because you're looking at changing vision mission and and those types of overarching uh statements in the district uh for 95 98% of the districts in Pennsylvania uh when we come around to the comprehensive plan process we

032simply revise and enhance what we currently have look at our current goals uh and there's a three uh step process uh with that we take inventory of what we're currently doing so what we'll be doing next year the first process we'll be looking at test scores attendance rates graduation graduation uh rates uh folks that go to the career and tech center any job placements job shadowing those types of things all that data comes in that's our inventory and then out of that inventory we that designate strengths and challenges and come up with two to three goals Pennsylvania Department of Education doesn't recommend a whole lot of goal you know a list of goals they want you to really Target and focus on your goals so you'll see tonight we have three goals in our current

033comprehensive plan after we determine our goals then we look at action steps and we get those action steps how are we going to meet those goals what are we going to do so our action steps for these three goals have been last year we took again an inventory and and met with our folks in our buildings to for each goal to see what we currently are doing what is currently working and what we would like to put in place for to try something different to try to improve what we're currently doing depending on what goal we were talking about the second year this year our action plan was to put those things in place and next year our third year is going is our review year we're going to take a look at what we've

034done this year and what's working what didn't work what we're going to enhance what we need to change and it just continues it's it's a it's a cycle uh there's a graphic out there on the Pennsylvania Department of Education website it's a big circle with lots of arrows and just round and round it goes and where it stops nobody knows that's uh someone once said on a radio show back in the day major BS I believe before my time all right so if you go to the first slide comprehensive plan goals so when we did this two years ago we got it approved we looked at we looked at three different goals we had an academic and behavioral goal a communic communication goal and a school climate goal so we grouped academic and behavioral into

035one because we wanted to measure the effective effectiveness of that because research will tell us behavior and academics go hand inand and can they can have an impact on each other good and bad so we wanted to keep those uh two pieces together communication is at two-way engagement and again that's one of those goals you may see again and again and again and it's probably in a lot of other District's comprehensive plans because it's important to keep improving your communication with your community members and your stakeholders and third uh School climate that was one of our initiatives that we started with uh several years ago and we wanted to continue a focus on that uh we give a school climate survey uh about every year or so and look at that data and use that

036data to drive programs in our buildings and to measure how we're doing going climate and culture-wise within each of our grade levels in our our buildings that we have so goal number one so what you see here this is the this is why we do fall and spring so what we want to do is bring to the board what each building is doing to support each one of these goals uh kind of at the beginning of the year and then show you what they've done at the end of the year so you can kind of G uh the progress that has been made what efforts are being done and just so you know that we haven't forgotten about it it's not on a shelf collecting dust somewhere this is a plan that we keep in

037front of us we talk about Dr doll shares uh um with us at every Administration team meeting uh our goals they're posted on the wall posted on the website so this is an active document so we that's why we bring it to you twice a year I'm not going to read each and every one of these bullet points you certainly can do that I can point out some themes which I will do as we go through these but what I do is I meet with the principles say how are you collecting or how are you doing with these goals what do you what have you done since the last checkpoint last time we presented to the board what are some things you want me to share with the board and just have a have a

038a discussion on how how that progress is being made so some of the themes you'll see in uh bville Intermediate Middle School here you'll see progress monitoring which is a fancy term for assessment you know a check in constantly checking in to see how how students are doing you might see uh a term on here it says class classroom diagnostic tools that and they call it cdts that is a state assessment product it is free of charge to district for districts to use so we do use that tells us how our students are doing in reading math and science and it has a very close correlation to the PSS a and Keystone exams so it helps us gauge where deficits might be so and we use classroom diagnostic tools we use iel you'll see on

039here and Dibbles at the elementary level so that's always ongoing as I said we tie in Behavior so we have Positive Behavior Support Systems you'll see that as a theme throughout as well uh whether that's Rachel's Challenge caner cares or any type of positive behavior um support plans and then the third thing you'll theme you'll see throughout the uh bullet points are targeted interventions so we have Title One going on we have all kinds of support groups can intervention at the at the middle school that which were targeting uh different skill sets uh and and providing interventions at that that point Mr Alin may I ask a question absolutely will you say again what Rachel's Challenge is please you want to speak to that Rachel challenge is a a pro kindness campaign it's a a

040national group that goes to uh areas of the United States and promotes kindness U they they um they share a story about Rachel who was the first casualty um in a school shooting um and that's how they start off and then from that it morphs into how can students grow from tragedy and how can they become more kind to one another so they were in two years ago and we hope to have them in again starting next year thank you right the next slide we have is Bigler real high school and uh special education you'll see similar themes at the high school but for special education it'll it looks a little different because of the way the comprehensive plan model Works uh special education as you know and and had Dr Boer uh present to

041you is a is a different animal on its own as as far as the plan but those goals that he creates are tied to our goals so they're kind of like a subset of of the district goals so some themes you'll see there are again the interventions that go along with that our district goal as well as transition planning uh that is making sure kids are successful that may have Behavior challenges or or or other uh issues that that may prevent them from having success in school we get those teachers together to make sure that transition is smooth and then those kids are going to be successful so they have that um in the special ed world as well goal number two is communication goal that's that two-way of communication and again I won't read

042all of the bullets here but some of the common themes you'll see are family communication whether that be through website newsletters social media they're always we're always looking to improve how can we improve our messaging how can we tell our story in the most positive way and how can we get a comprehensive communication plan out out to the community so they know what's going on uh good or bad and we they know what's going on with their students as well and the parent teacher conferences you'll see that as a as a common theme uh throughout all the schools as well to meet this goal and you can see as well PTO meetings uh student council that type of thing and you'll see more of that if we flip to the next slide at the high

043school level you really see where where the student impact comes together because we have that District student forum which students come and meet with Dr do three times a year to discuss District uh concerns or learn about District matters so they're definitely involved with student council student clubs uh and of course the social media and newsletters that Mrs Graham and her staff work on special education you can see um what they have there as far for their communication their their goals on for communication are more in line and building Capac capacity to support our students to so we can provide better communication to parents on how they're progressing in the school so it's a little bit different twist but it's it needs that same goal and goal number three is our school climate we did

044not do a school climate survey this year at the recommendation of the Intermediate Unit we will be doing one next fall so in past years we've always done one in the spring and after two or three years of that we're like ah you know maybe we're not getting the best data at that time of the year for a variety of reasons so they recommended looking at like an October November time period so that's what we're going to do this coming fall we're going to make sure our parents our teachers our students uh everybody um will take that survey and then we'll bring it to the board probably till it comes back probably January February time period uh we'll share the results with you on that and that will impact um some of our our uh

045updates in our buildings for school culture so again you can see some of the the different bullet points here for uh School culture look at some of the themes the school climate surveys mentioned in most of them and that recognition for academic and behavioral U successes are in there as well to increase that positive School climate got spirit days uh for most of the schools as well see the high school continues that theme and then special education again we're looking at it more on building that capacity with staff in order so they can provide that culture positive culture and climate for their students that may have some challenges that might could be above and beyond uh what a normal classroom might might have so we want to build that capacity anyone have any questions on

046this particular update thank you Mr Alman [Music] okay next we have TSI a TSI school plans for 2024 2025 I'd like to invite Mr Albin Mrs Buckley and miss Mr Brewer all right I'm back again not this guy again all right so we wanted to take a moment uh this evening to talk to you about two school plans uh that we need to submit to the Pennsylvania Department of Education in August and I'm going to share with you kind of the rationale why we have to do this and and then I'm going to let the principal share with you what their goals are um for the two schools that have been uh selected so what this is is PD Pennsylvania Department of Education is charged uh from the federal government to provide additional support to

047schools that need additional support that that are that are struggling or that have just been from whatever the criteria that the State Department of Education outlines needs more support So for Pennsylvania they look at Pennsylvania Department of Education looks at pssas looks at Keystone data you know those are the two big measurements so they put together in place a a framework of support that um schools can qualify for based on their their uh test scores so last year and this year we had we have two schools that qualify for this additional support we have the Upper Adams Intermediate School and we have the Upper Adams Middle School and both schools qualified for this support and we'll get to that here a little bit more directly but for the English language learner population and in that

048particular uh subgroup there are many many many different subgroups that you can qualify for additional support it could be any ethnicity group it could be special education it could be English language Learners as I as I shared it could be economically disadvantage students there's a whole host of different criteria based on what the pensia Department of Education outlines uh when they determine whatever line they they CH they they have drawn that says a a school might need some additional uh support so we were very we were excited to that we have this additional support because it's funneled through the intermediate school and we are able to take advantage of their expertise and their folks that come out meet with Mr Brewer and Mrs Buckley uh and their teams to help them write their goals and

049also to provide them with uh professional development and and different strategies that some of their teachers can use in their classrooms so we can increase in that continuous Improvement model that we talked about comprehensive plan so we can get better and better as we go on uh there is a goal uh 2033 goal now it was 2030 now it's 2033 that we are trying to get to for uh our our scores uh and based on that Gap that that provides us U that tells us whether we qualify for that support or don't qualify for that support so the terms are TSI and atsi okay TSI is targeted support and intervention and atsi is additional targeted support intervention know wouldn't accuse PD of being creative so go from there so what what's the difference and you

050you can follow along on your uh computers if you will TSI uh schools in which student performance by one or more student groups would benefit from additional support and atsf atsi is a step up and that is for student groups that are consistently uh and that's usually over a threeyear period problematic they're just not they just need that extra boost that extra push so TSI gives you a little bit more money um to the intermediate schools to help us and a little bit more supports where TSI that get the support from the intermediate school but it's mainly on the school then to to kind of implement that so just two different levels of support there is an additional level outside of this and that's CSI and that's that's when you go to comprehensive School Improvement

051uh and we have several school districts I think in your county that that are unfortunately in um working in that area right now so but they're improving and we everyone continues to improve under this so where does the data come from how did how do we qualify from this support you can take a look at uh the obviously I mentioned pssas and keyst exams we also look at Pennsylvania value added assessment system and we'll talk more about that in the fall as I refresh you when we when we get the data back from our current tests we took in the spring where we have achievement which is is did they get the answer right and growth which did they improve over time we'll get into that more later so you're excitement but uh and there's

052also this world class instructional design and assessment if you remember my uh 920 presentation on the uh pssa at the last board meeting I know it was late but this was uh one of the the waeda assessment for English proficiency assessment and I have this in red because this is what kicked us into support here uh at these two uh schools was was this particular assessment which measures the proficiency of our English language Learners and how well they are progressing in English proficiency so um but I will say that's what qualified US for the support but we as a team are looking at it broadly and we are looking at how can we increase and improve the entire building all grade levels all students all subgroups even though that's what qualified for us we're looking

053at everybody we're going to improve everybody so when we looked at the English language Learners we know we have challenges with this group and I can put up any any group up here any ethnicity and not targeting singling out or anything this is just the these are just known challenges that we Embrace we celebrate and we put in uh action plans to address and we have the English language proficiency uh transiency uh is typically High uh with this this subgroup uh financial needs absenteeism and homeschool connections and we're going to we have action plans and our our goals are centered around these challenges that research has shown that this group particularly has and where you could put any of those probably in a number of different subgroups but this is particular for for why we

054qualified for this support So once again TSI and atsi difference TSI targeted support intervention atsi additional targeted support intervention Middle School is atsi Upper Adams Intermediate School is TSI so when we look at developing these school plans what we do and there this is an annual process we look at the data just like we do for com comprehensive plan we do a data review we do an inventory how's everything looking let's let's sit down and we crunch numbers uh we we are definitely Data Mining and seeing where our deficits are where our successes are who's doing well why who isn't why and then we look at root causes as to what what's preventing us from from getting to that to the place we want to be in any certain area and we develop the goals

055then we develop the action plans should sound very familiar same thing as comprehensive plan uh it's basically the same process just on a more uh minuscule scale right I'm going to turn over to Mrs Buckley uh first she's going to talk about her uh two goals and then Mr Brewer will share with you about the Intermediate School good evening everyone our team meets on a regular basis as Mr aler was saying uh looking at data and reviewing data and planning for improvement we do that on a regular basis we use in service days and we also use our mornings we have content meetings in the morning and that's what we really dive up deeply into our data to see what's working what's not working what are our subgroups looking like and how can we help

056improve those sub groups um we look at areas of strengths we look at areas of concerns so after evaluating the SE all those sources that Mr Al shared with us the steering committee show chose two um separate goals uh the first goal is by the end of the 2024 25 school year each teacher will use specific assessment data to implement differentiated instruction at least two times throughout a six days cycle and that will be implemented with consistency and Fidelity differentiation is the process of tailoring instruction to meet needs and strengths so as adults we even know we all learn a little differently some are visual Learners some are tactile some auditory and so we will make sure we assess those students to see what mode do they learn best and we'll provide that instruction for

057them in a variety of ways they'll have the same goal but they'll just get there in a different manner uh we will be providing as we have we always do but we will continue to provide enrichment and acceleration for those accelerated Learners we selected differentiation because it engages students at all different levels you are instructing students of how they learn best which is best practice it's impactful and it will cover a variety of subgroups so that's our first goal our second goal is Rel to positive relationships uh we feel strongly as upper Adam school district teachers and staff positive relationships are extremely important to us so one of our goals is by the end of the 20242 school year the staff will Implement schoolwide initiatives to enhance positive relationships among School Community resulting in a

05810% decrease in our disciplinary laws so any research that you find that you will see that positive relationships boost motivation it boosts cooperation and so in turn increases academic success we'll be adding additional incentives and initiatives to our current behavior program and they'll include things like um student team building activities parent and community outreach programs mentorships and additional social skills for those students who need that again our goal is to decrease those disciplinary lows you know by we all know by improving student teacher relationships and student student relationships it will improve attendance it will increase the willingness to participate in class and students will feel more comfortable taking risks so that's really our goal to for academic success those are our two goals at our intermediate building thank thank you Mrs Buckley Mr Brewer all

059right good evening everyone thank you um as Mrs Buckley said um at the middle school we have several goals as well uh by the end of June our team will have met almost I think eight times in total uh to discuss uh what we feel is best for the students at the middle school um through collaboration with um different areas or in different areas and with different folks throughout the the secondary and um middle school campuses uh we came up with three rules this year that we wanted to focus on and we felt we best meet the need of our students where they are currently so our first goal is we want to establish a a data team um we're going to look at the various uh sources of data that we have and we're

060going to dedicate at least one day a month to really look at that data and utilize that data to identify specific student strengths and weaknesses and then discuss how we going to use that data to help move those students uh who are struggling or to improve the uh strengths of the students so being uh successful our second goal is to decide what types of data will we use currently we are using cdts which is uh the diagnostic classroom diagnostic test given by the state uh they are aligned to the state standards we feel that they are very accurate and give us a good um indication of how our students are doing uh currently with the curriculum that we have in place uh We've adopted the ISL program in both language arts and math uh this

061is our second year our first full year of implementing it both language um in math areas our teachers really like it uh it gives us a diagnostic it gives us um a um a brief snap snapshot of where our students are currently at the beginning of the year the middle of the year and at the end of the year so we can cage what their learning progress has been and where those strengths and weaknesses lie moving into the next school year our third goal is to look at a multi-tiered system of supports so what we're going to look for is to begin to look at a framework put in place that framework discuss what those tiers of interventions might look like is it tier one tier 2 tier three what is the criteria that we

062are going to look for and what will students be showing us that will move them throughout those different tiers and What needs will we need to meet for those students to be successful to move them in and out of those different tiers um this goal is to provide a system of supports for students who may have or maybe in need um of specific academic uh areas or are in varying levels of of success uh as Mr Alin mentioned earlier these goals are meant to meet the needs of all students so these U these goals will be applied in math science Ela and history for the upcoming school year thank you thank you Mr Brewer so where do we go from here uh part of the process whether it be comprehensive plan or the school plan

063we need to let things sit so we need to have like a preview phase just like any government when they change laws and so forth they have a period where they kind of just put it out there and let people uh look at it and that's what this process is so we will be posting this on our website we'll place a copy in our waiting room upstairs in the uh Administration office and it will be available for anyone that wants to review it between now and August so at our August committee meeting I will share with this board I say remember we this presentation uh and I'll just share with you that it'll be on for recommend approval for the August I think it's August 20th uh board meeting at that time but you w't

064have usful presentation and I'll just remind you of the presentation and if you have any feedback you certainly welcome the email the principles or myself and we or we can certainly meet with you and go over in more detail thank you thank you Mr Alin thank you Mr jalo um that will conclude our bus or curricular and extracurricular meeting U do anyone need to take a quick intermission everybody's good before we move into our business and operations everybody's good okay we'll jump right into our business and operations and I would like to start that off with a roll call please Mrs Krauss here miss Jalal here Mrs Halal here Mr lustic President Mrs plank here Mr Walmer here Mr Wile here Miss Young cover here Mr lady present thank you we have nothing under property

065or Transportation tonight so that will jump us right to finance Mr Walmer okay thank thank you Mr President we'll start out with the item 4.1 and this is the extended school year Transportation agreement with folium uh doing business as Rolling Hills Transit and the contract is attached to the agenda and this is strictly for summer Transportation um through the summer months and to end whenever the next school year begins there's no questions I'll move on to donations uh School District received a basket of school supplies from Gettysburg Walmart to the Upper Adams Intermediate School and uh the second donation is actually a correction uh $500 was donated by agcom Incorporated for the AG laab previously was reported uh as a donation from MNT bank so just wanted to make make that correction and with that

066I'll go to Mrs Hobbs for a budget update good evening thank you thank you once again for everyone being here I know you're interested in our budget what's going to look at like for the next fiscal year um but I'm going to provide a very brief um update or where we are currently for this current fiscal year and then just to remind the board what happens in two weeks from now um board members this is also attached in your agenda and you also have a a copy with you um at your seat so at this time of the year I look at where we currently are with our revenues and expenditures and this is anything ending for June 30th of 2024 and we classify that or we say that's fiscal year 24 so you may

067hear me reference that as well um so the very first thing we look at is our revenues and I'm going to draw your attention to the far right hand side of the screen where you can see that our total revenue that we're projecting for the end of the year is um just shy of 35 million now you will see that is above what we originally budgeted which is um located in that second column from the left that is due to a number of of favorable items that have come into our budget this year for local Revenue we've had increase in um our investments meaning our interest rates being over 5% um we've had a very strong year on local taxes being collected as well State we actually received more money or will be receiving more

068money and this is due to the state budget not being passed last year on time and so we didn't have those figures in order to budget for the year and our federal dollars is regarding title and any SRA funding that the district has received um so once again we're estimating we'll be shy of just $35 million for um this current fiscal year as we look at the expenditure side um my estimated projection for expenditures is about 34,300 once again it's coming in under what was budgeted as well and we've been um the administrators are very um conscious of their spending we um look at every item that does come through how can we do it better is there something that we should be looking at so when we look at the projections for the revenues

069and expenditures ending for fiscal year 24 you're going to see that we're going to have a positive variance of about $462,000 that's estimated this time anything can still happen until June 30th and even after June 30th expenses still will come in for this current fiscal year um so this is what we're projecting right now and you're saying well what does what happens with those funds and we add that into our assigned or unassigned fund balance I should say that helps with the next year's budget so we look at this this is why this is a crucial point that we look at and um when we start preparing for the fiscal year 25 or any upcoming budget it's really important that we start looking at this information I share this with the board usually starting in

070January and sometimes they hear from me once or twice a month just to know where we stand and actually our budget process begins in October when we start looking at salary and benefits for the upcoming year we do that rollover process building administrators work on their building budgets for their operational supplies and and the building administrators um have not asked for any increases within their building operational supplies even with supplies going up so they do really use their resources we use joint purchasing Cooperative programs um to get the best money that we can for our suppli so I do appreciate the work um with the building administrators we also um the administrators may come up with like a what we call wish list or additional asks that may be new to the budget and we've

071had those administrators come and speak to the board um trying to share their concerns why they may need something for their building and then the board can indicate if that's something that should be included within the upcoming budgets or not so the board does play an active role in the budget one of the very you know important roles of the board is approving the final budget so as we've looked through some of the fiscal year 25 um information in two weeks the board will be voting on the final budget but we still have some unknowns but we have some um increases factored into the budget but not knowing what the final numbers are yet some of those um the board has heard me speak to those would be the district liability insurance um once again

072are just like your homeowners or your car insurance may go up every year our district liability insurance does as well um right now that's at about uh $6,000 or so and I'm just waiting on some final numbers and that's also due to you know we've had haven't had had any claims against the district we haven't had any auto accidents um that includes we have an item on the agenda tonight for workman's compensation once again we haven't had any workman's comp claims so when you start having claims that's when your premiums would go up so the district has been um stable in those areas we have a placement for news story um that's a special ad contract that we're still waiting to receive um so we just don't know what that may be and depending upon

073an opening that we have um within the on the teacher side for a speech pathologist um depending upon the timing of that we may have to look at contracted services to begin the school year and we are researching those items as well also factored into the budget is just some additional risk um the state budget we haven't heard anything about um if you you might start hearing some of the buzzword in the community about what the state may be talking about but we don't know what the district may be receiving in state funds um the um we did add in about $150,000 in additional State money once again that's a risk because if we don't receive that then that would have to come from our unassigned fund balance and will that budget be passed by

074June 30th another risk that we don't know so we have to factor all those in as we are building the budget um and we have Incorporated those items as I mentioned here are some of the additional asks that the board or ministers have talked about and the board has included within the budget um I'm not going to go line by line because um we've talked about those for several months now but just being transparent of what the the administrator and the board um has included in the budget so as we look at our final expenditures that we're looking at for fiscal year 25 so that would start July 1st and go to June 30th of 2025 the total expenses we're looking at a little bit over $36 million and you can see where those categories

075end up um more details um about these specific items are in previous presentations that I've done with the board that are included in the agenda manager and on our website as well um sorry I skip the slide there um if you look here at the revenues we're looking at um revenues being about 34 million so we are projecting a deficit for the fiscal year 25 of over $2.2 million and you're saying well that's a lot of money how are we going to cover that um if we look at this slide we have money set assigned and assigned funds that's going to cover some of that because what's included in this budget is the Cumberland Perry renovation and our portion for our district is about 7 $887,000 so that would come from the assigned fund that

076the previous board has set up we have money set aside in in a technology assigned fund and that's being used to pay for the faculty refresh of about 322,000 so what would be coming from our unassigned fund is just shy of 1.2 million that's how the um we would be covering that deficit of 2.2 million so when you look to the far right overall once again is factoring it if we have a surplus for this year that 462,000 knowing that we're going to have a deficit next year we're still at a very healthy fund balance for the district overall once again can we you know use this and know what the next budget may look like without a tax increase because this budget also does has a 0% tax increase next year we may have

077to have a different conversation and we may need to be looking at some things differently as a you know um just where what do we do is there a tax increase do we have to use more fund balance from something else that's all a future conversation but right now um for fiscal year 25 it's included with a 0% tax increase with a variance of about $2.2 million so going forward we're still just waiting to hear from State updates um I know Mr Alin did receive title funding information today that did go down a little bit from what we received this year um we just didn't have a time to digest that and look at that and um look at any applications so that might be one minor change that will be updated for the June

078six or I'm sorry June 18th meeting at that point the board will be voting on the budget as well does anyone have any questions I guess not a question but a comment that I hate that I can't see you down there Shelly um if I'm correct we've had four years with a 0% tax increase is that correct I just think that speaks to the to the prior boards working so very hard to uh to keep a tight ship and I just like it said that we're working very hard to maintain that while still having a top-notch school district in my opinion so thank you Shelley for this presentation and Dr do for working towards that end yes thanks for all your hard work on this budget U Mrs Hobbs there the finish line is near

079so um we look forward to that um if there's no more questions we'll move on to the next item uh which is item 4.4 and and this is a educational consultant agreement with Kelly Hammer law and it's for language services from uh June 10th until July 31st of this year and the agreement is attached to the agenda um this is an agreement spanning two fiscal years can we uh can you provide some detail on this agreement Miss SS yes this is regarding ing um students that may be behind in some language services that we need to do for this year so depending upon where their services are um like Mr Walmer mentioned some of it may hit in this current fiscal year and some may um go into next fiscal year and I believe the

080amount is not to exceed $2,000 okay thank you we'll move on to item 4.5 this is an engagement letter an engage M letter with with L with Whistler earlin lop and it's a conflct wow conflict Council conflict Council and the document the engagement letter is attached to the agenda I I can speak to I don't know if anybody wants yes please there are times and I have uh Mr Pula sitting next to me but there may be times where um we may be in a situation where our council with the stock and leader may have a conflict of interest with either a company that we're working with an agreement those types of things so we would like to have just a backup um someone on call that we could reach out to if we're notified

081by stock and leader that there's a conflict of interest we would have another um solicitor that we could reach out to and this entity provides similar Services as stock and leader okay thank you Dr do on to item 4.6 uh this is a renewal of a contract with navigate 360 and um the contract is attached and this deals with emergency and safety software it's a software platform okay if there's no questions on that we'll move right on here uh to um the uh as um Mrs Hobs mentioned earlier the workers comp insurance renewal and uh the annual cost is $31,988 and uh we're going to be seeing an increase of $1,731 uh but as Mrs hob me Hobbs mentioned it's not due to any claims inflation I suspect okay item 4.8 and this is kind

082of a formality uh approval needed here that's done yearly and this is for Mrs Hobbs to make any necessary uh budget transfers and assignments of the fund balance and that's in accordance and after the annual audit uh next up is a a quote in the agenda manager and this is from abicus for a floor it's a Rejuvenation of the floor in the north gym the total cost of the project $79,800 keep moving right here on to item 4.10 this is a waiver again this is has been done in past years uh this is to uh for my school bucks which is the um software program where uh parents can prepay for school lunches and this is essentially waving the uh service Fe service fee charged by my school buck and another quote um this quote

083is to replace the cooler floor in uh the high school cafeteria cooler and it'll be paid for out of the Food Service funds budget uh next item is a request to uh close a uho Student Activity account and this this request uh pertains to the Glenn fund School service award uh which is um being requested to be terminated uh the details are also attached to the document item 4.13 another renewal for fiscal year 25 and this is water treatment by Design and the contract renewal is attached in the in the agenda manager here I didn't see any any uh figures attached to that is that is that to say that there's no increase contract no increase thank you and uh with the financial um agenda items out of the way I'll pass it to U

084Mrs joal okay thank you thank you Mr as a board member I know each one of us wants to create the best school we can everyone around this table cares about all the families students teachers and and other staff we all know there are areas where there are some differences of opinion and in our society right now and where our district does not have any clear policies on how to approach these differences of opinion there are people with various beliefs points of view and political positions and I wanted to find answers on how we could best serve everyone as best we can if we do not inst Institute policy then that in itself is an action that tells people we have either not thought through how we will handle situations that arise or worse that

085we don't want the public to know what our policy and processes are as I looked at what some other schools are doing I came across a number of policies that have been implemented that I discovered were written by Independence Law Center I was struck by how evenhanded the policies are and how they demonstrate care for every student and teacher Independence Law Center has particular expertise in these constitutional and Title Nine areas and their work in other schools has brought Clarity and Common Sense approaches to these issues where there can be tension all that to say we reached out to them because we are in interested in retaining them as special counsel to help advise us on the law in these areas and to help us navigate these issues in policy we invited them here today

086to just give us a little overview of their firm and what the relationship would look like so thank you for being here to today to speak with us Mr Winger and Mr seic well thank you all for having us here tonight uh my name is Jeremy s I'm senior council with the independence Law Center I also have with me Randall Wanger who's our chief counsel and so quick just a little bit about myself um I have been working um in education sphere since probably about 2008 I I've been practicing law almost 20 years I ran for Schoolboard um I practiced education uh employment law General civil litigation and wanted to give back to my community much like you all are doing here I was a member of the Air Force Reserve served in operation enduring

087Freedom operation Iraqi freedom and so the the opportunity to serve my community in that way um was very important to me when I was in Pittsburgh where I'm from I helped to start a legal aid clinic um where we provided Services free of charge uh to people who could not afford to pay for particular services that themselves so Independence Law Center represented an entity where I was able to work with people who might not be able to uh pay for Legal Services in important areas uh with First Amendment and free speech freedom of Association freedom of religion areas that sometimes create uh very expensive litigation um by individuals and and sometimes small companies aren't able to do that we started representing uh school boards probably about six or seven years ago and we made a

088conscious decision to continue to represent those school boards for your charge as well because that's the model that we've always operated on um when a little bit about the the types of work um and cases that we've done uh we've had two Supreme Court cases that have gone up and we've had really big uh changes in constitutional Juris prudent when it comes to uh employment case law but also when it comes to accommodations in our society we live in a pluralistic society with people who have various beliefs um various perspectives and sometimes in this country um like other parts of the world those ideas those beliefs they come into some sort of tension and one of the great things about our country is we've created a society where people can really Live and Let Live

089have differences of opinion but speak to them civil the public school system is a place where where children who come from various backgrounds diverse backgrounds with diverse families diverse makeups and different beliefs come and learn how they're going to operate in that diverse pluralistic society and do it in a civil and respectful way even when they have differences of opinion our most recent Supreme Court case um that was just came down last summer changed a 47-year president in the United States of America that help to to remedy um a misconstruing of title 7 when it comes to accommodations in the workplace in the school environment the types of policies that we've been approached to help School District uh to tackle largely deal with issues sometimes complex issues dealing with the First Amendment freedom of speech

090harassment bowling because at the end of the day I think like you said in an an introduction I I really truly believe that everybody in this room no matter whether there's some differences of opinion when you're trying to balance uh positions and interests and find which way we can move forward and all still get together we all care about these students in the school district and I can say that anybody from whatever side of whatever issue it is um that are talked about or that are addressed in policy care deeply I would hope that every teacher in the school district is a safe place for every single student whether you're a republican teacher and you have Democratic students or vice versa if you are a religious teacher and have atheist students or you're an atheist

091teacher and have religious students every one of those teachers should be a safe place for your students and policy should be no different it's not picking winners and losers as the job of the school board it's to try to how can we protect everybody recognizing that there's going to be tough questions that we have to answer our Society you'd have to be living under a rock um to realize that there's difficult questions that are Arisen over the past 10 years especially and there's questions on how can we move forward in a legal way absolutely but in a loving way in a respectful way in a way that represents the interests of all students and all families and takes it into account and then moves forward in a way that that um is best situated to

092protect everybody to protect every family um and to make sure that it's legally SED and so that's one of the reasons why um we have we have been retained by numerous school districts uh to help them to move forward with these types of issues a little bit about uh working with solicitors school districts as I'm sure all of you are aware often hire many uh attorneys to help them on issues stopen leader and Gareth particularly and I have worked um representing the same school districts in the past um and and other attorneys from their firm and I are co-counsel representing districts uh today our objective is never to take the place of your solicitor to take over their job um we operate as special counsel for a particular purpose you retain us for a for

093a defined purpose to help for specific policies or specific issues and U we work with your solicitor um and that's worked very nicely in all of the districts that we've represented um it is not about uh a vote of non-competent in your solicitor or solicitor firm in fact stock and leader themselves operate as special counsel in other school districts where they're not the solicitor so it's a very common practice uh no sign of disrespect at all to to have additional Council come in and help uh the particular benefit in this case as as a number of people uh mentioned is that we do have a reputation for being retained to deal with stuff that are particularly uh controversial um that's that's a fact of life and US school board members are here and sometimes have

094to deal with those types of things and so our objective when we're hired by schools is to help you to navigate these issues in the best way that you can in a legally sound and defensible way that's going to protect all the students in the school so uh we we have been watching we have participated in we have represented um superintendents we've represented principles in t n hearings we've represented individual school board members we've represented numerous School boards we've represented families we've represented businesses all in the area of Education law and so when it comes to the particular areas we have been watching and and analyzing case law and working uh with entities around the country so that we can provide those Services um to school districts when they requested so I want to talk

095uh briefly about the the the statements that we are Christian law firms that are sometimes they say coming to impose our values our viewpoints as attorneys um our job as attorneys is to serve the client's interest to be objective in neutral provide uh both sides to ensure that you have a robust understanding of the law in these sometimes complicated areas it is not to try to F winners and losers it's try to help you to navigate these difficult issues and illegal we sound way um just like anybody anybody in this room anybody any other attorney you'll talk to everybody has a religion everybody has political viewpoints everybody has uh backgrounds when you put on um when you're representing a client you're ethically obligated to represent your clients's best interest um that's the way that we

096approach it and we approach it in a way that is is intended to ensure that when we're writing any policy it's to ensure that you're following the law and doing things to make sure that you don't end up in litigation so let's talk about um one particular issue just because it was brought up uh the book issue the library issue and I understand that your board has has had some conversations in public about that there's a lot of M understanding when you read a newspaper article or you see somebody who gave a speech and you see a little snippet sometimes it's hard to really piece together what's actually the issue going on you may have one person come up and say that they're against pornography and obscenity in schools you may have some another person

097come up and say we're trying to get somebody is trying to get rid of books that have LGBT characters in it or that deal with race issues so where's the truth and how does law play into this I can tell you from the clients that we've represented whove wanted to address this issue how do we do this in a legal way how do we do it in a way that respects the first amendment that respects this freedom of students to be able to read uh a diverse amount of information and diverse amount of resources coming from various viewpoints well the truth is a little bit in between there's one thing that I think everybody in this room would agree on when it comes to books in school libraries especially with the with minors is that

098we're not permitted by law by criminal law to provide books that would be deemed under our state law as material harmful to miners material harmful to miners is a standard that when you when you um play it out it's the abenity test for any obscene material but geared towards children and so if you were to give material harmful to minor to students that would be illegal it would violate the criminal laws so what is material harmful to minors they say it's when you have a book that's GE towards the pur interest so excessive interest in uh in Sex and they they analyze whether there's any literary or artistic or political value to that material and some other so that standard is very very very high and it's rightly so because if you violate that standard

099you could potentially face jail time so that is a very very high standard often times there are schools that don't put into place what is that our Baseline standard as long as we don't go to jail then this book is age appropriate and belongs in the school or are we permitted to have standards that go beyond that and so the schools that we've helped represent when it comes to areas of of literature um have taken that issue and put together some objective standards on what would be age appropriate for certain age groups by way of example one of those standards is something like uh if it it's it's visually depicting people engaging in sex acts and then sex act is defined the way the penylan law defines it that being AG in appropriate doesn't depend

100on whether the people engaging in a sex act happens to be a homosexual couple or a hetosexual couple or even an individual by themselves it's just objectively determined on whether it's visually depicting people engaging in sex act and so as a board you can determine do we want to draw the line as to what's what we think is age appropriate as what would land Us in jail or can we have additional standards beyond that what's the benefit of putting those standards on paper are you more likely to be sued well in reality you're less likely to be sued there are schools that have not had any anything on paper as to why something is aged inappropriate or not aged inappropriate and a librarian uh sees a book often Librarians do not and could not possibly

101read all of the books that are purchased for the library which is way too many of them and so when they come across a book that has been put in the library whether whether was something that they ordered or some one of their predecessors and there's a question is is this age appropriate they go back to the standards and there may not be standards um if they determine this particular book doesn't appear to be age appropriate and they remove it they can be St they usually win um but the problem is if that book happens to have uh a homosexual couple or happens to deal with race issues as well or happens to deal with any other number of factors it gives a plaintive sperm the ability to say well we think think you remove

102the book because of that information rather than because it visually depicts people engaging in sex act and so you go to court you spend a couple thousand dollars you get it dismissed on preliminary injunction or summary judgment but you spent some money if that same school district had had a policy that said if you have visual depictions of people engaging in sex acts we're not going to have that in the junior high school library they're not getting sued or they're getting that out much much earlier and this is a real case it's called Wentzville it happened in a federal court and they were sued and it was alleged that it was being removed because of viewpoint discrimination and what the judge said to the plainist firm who about 35 times accused the school district and

103the Librarians of said that type of overr rhetoric has no place in this case schools are permitted to create standards for age appropriateness and a school board who takes the time to put into words what some of those standards are beyond what would be illegal to give to Miners and land you in jail for doing so are protecting their Administration you're protecting your teachers and you're respect you're you're protecting your Librarians from unjust accusations of viewpoint discrimination sometimes you'll read in media accounts uh that that school districts and I fully expect if you were to go down this road or maybe people have already said this about you that as soon as you start talking about Library issues people will start to call you book banners they will start to call call you names that

104are simply untrue um but when people actually look at the policy themselves the the story changes so taking a it's hard it is hard to take a stand on these type of things and to poke your head out of the fox hole um they will say things that uh are important for you as a district to be able to say here's what our policy is on paper so people can understand it and it can remedy a lot of problems in the future there's a question about whether independent Law Center policies have caused millions of dollars of liability for school districts um none of the policies the independence Law Center has drafted has ever been challenged in a court of law no law no law suit has ever been filed in court um against the policies

105that Independence Law Center has drafted I think part of the reason is because the the common knowledge from maybe reading one newspaper article reading what somebody's characterization of it is very different from what the policies actually do the policies that we draft are intended to try to balance find balance and to help all students and to try to find a way that we can live and light live together when it comes to the question of the Dover School District somebody brought that up today and it's something that's that's brought up quite often my partner Randy Winger uh is often accused of of costing do millions of dollars for those who aren't aware a little bit over 20 years ago there was a uh the school district at do passed a policy policy that they ended

106up getting sued over at the time Randy Wanger had Independence Law Center had started head uh he was put in contact with some of the board members and he encouraged them to resend that policy because he saw the problems with it he also got in contact with the solicor of the school district and advised them you really should resend the policy because there's problems with it the school district uh and the solicitors didn't listen to Randy at the time and they did end up continuing on with that litigation and ended up uh losing in District cour than paying a million dollar settlement if they would have listened to Randy at the time uh they would have avoided that liability and I'm not just saying that because he's my boss um the there was an attorney

107in the audience who got up and he posed lots of great questions lots of great questions what's personal personal liability of school board members how does how does Title 9 work in this what does the non-discrimination laws say about this what are federal courts saying about these types of issues those are precisely the things if you retain us that we are happy to provide and to help you to work through and understand so when you move forward with a policy that you feel very confident and comfortable as to what the law is and that you can move forward in a way that's really seeking to protect all of your students and um and promote uh that Live and Let Live type of environment that we're hoping to create and build these kids up into a

108a society um with various different beliefs but to live and work together civy and respectfully um the the last thing that I want to bring up and this is sort of a touchy subject there's often times that people will come and say policies dealing with sports for instance instance male and female sports how do we how do we navigate this uh there are there are ti9 regulations um and then comments to those title n regulations that the Biden Administration just answered in a very long almost 1600 page document uh by and large there's there are a number of policies that scho dists who have retained us who have passed that are supported more so even today than before those answers came down and I think that's a testament uh to the care and forethought that

109we have put into these types of policies along with Schoolboard members along with solicitors and various um and various firms across the state of Pennsylvania to make sure that we're really protecting everybody in the school there will be people and I want to speak specifically to students here there will be people who may say things uh along the lines of that that maybe members of the board or maybe members of your legal council are anti- groups of people or that don't want them to exist and I want to speak to those people right now and all them that as is FS we live we live in a wonderful country where keep people can believe all sorts of things where people where people can can live and work together respect each other stand up for each

110other I I think this school district is one in which every person in this room cares about every student you don't have to be the same religion to make sure that somebody is not bullied and mistreated you don't have to be the same political party to be a loving respectful teacher teachers are capable of that board members are capable of that law firms attorneys are capable of that and that's our objective as a society and there will be times um when you move forward these things if it's with us or without us that those kind of tensions will be high but don't don't forget the shared common ideals that we have in the United States and so if if there's any questions that any of you have I'd be glad to answer some of so

111did I understand you correctly and that any the policies that you helped to draft there have not been any lawsuits brought against those correct yes there there has not been any litigation any lawsuits filed against those policies there was a school that didn't retain us uh whose administration had done some things without policies and then the school board had passed some policies uh that are related to some of the things that that we work on there is a administrative complaint to the Biden Administration about about bullying and um those those complaints sat for I think about a year and a half or two until the board flipped and they undid those policies and then settled um but during the course of an investigation um it was really based around these accusations of undel buing uh

112the The Firm that the school hired to conduct that title investigation uncovered that there there was a teacher who was soliciting um instances of bullying who wasn't passing this on to the administration so but none of those cases none of those ended up in court and even the bid Administration themselves never did any assessment or had any comment on policies that that school district had passed can you speak to the Boyer Town issue mhm so the Boyertown case uh dealt with with privacy um boms locker rooms so that was where a school board had not passed a policy um so sort of in an untransparent way decided they were going to switch their practice uh to allow males to identify as females and vice versa use locker rooms bathrooms and so there were students who

113discovered that um in the locker room while they were undressed and so that case went up to the third circuit we represented the students in that case and this was on a preliminary injunction standard the court determined that because the school had now given them the ability to go into single user locker rooms and bathrooms that there were there was no risk of privacy violations occurring so that case would have gone back down to the trial court um and that case was dropped after the Supreme Court denied Ser on that case and so one of the one of the um the I guess the features of that case was that while they held that a school school could open up bathrooms lock rooms based on gender identity instead of sex that cor decision never did

114not say that school was must there are two other dis circuits were're in the third circuit the seventh circuit and in the fourth circuit we said schools must open it up to gender identity instead of sex the 11 circuit held the exact opposite and so we had what's called a circuit split where we have numerous uh circuits coming to different conclusions as to what's re require required in the Privacy area um that 11th circuit case was the most recent the plaintiffs unfortunately decided not to appeal it to the US Supreme Court that would have been nice for them to take that and but they didn't appeal it since then the the abide Administration in their new title 9 regulations has essentially said that they they're leaving that bathroom locker room issue and they think it

115should be up to based on gender identity and not sex they said very different things when it comes to sports uh also different things when it comes to parental uh involvement in decision- making for their children and so there are numerous cases around the country where schools are being sued for hiding um uh information about parents' children and there's also schools in Pennsylvania who ensued uh purchase that reason their are schools who being sued because they're forcing teachers they're compelling teachers speech and so they there is a lot of liability risk um in in schools not having a clear uh cut standard or policy that deals with those issues ahead of time and balances them in a respectful way that would prohibit people from harassing others by calling them names that they don't want to

116be called but also on the other end of the spectrum prevents whe the school or another uh individual in the school from compelling somebody to speak things that would violate their conscience so there's these tension between these things and thankfully the V Administration actually um provided a lot of support that recognizing those tensions that exist and citing cases favorably uh that held that you cannot compel speech even as you can't allow harassment so schools have to balance those interests and and that's one of the things that we can help help you do um if you would be interested in working with us have a question if if you are offering your services pro bono how are you funded we are funded through individual donations uh from people across the state um and like I talked

117about earlier there are people who just want to make sure that uh that folks who can't afford legal services in some important areas that they care about are able to to have that type of representation and they're not um they're not chilled from having their constitutional rights protected because they don't have the money and funds to do so we don't have government we're not funded by any government entities or or government grants or anything like that it's all from from donations so if if we were to get into a legal difficulty where where do you stand are you supporting us um and as far as funding sure so if and I think you guys have a copy of a contract I believe but um if we would represent you all the way through if that

118were to happen um and uh we so we would work with um within the Insurance Council to the extent that the school district desired to have EXT additional legal council we can to recommend um Council to work with from the insurance side of things but we we're fully prepared to to represent clients for re charge all the way through we also with our school district clients um are available to work with the superintendent or the principles if any issues were to arise in how to handle implementation um and are available to consult them throughout the implementations of these policies and beond thank you I'm sorry I'm not clear on your answer when Mrs Krauss said you know what happens if we end up in a legal battle and we need representation you said something about

119insurance companies who pays that Bill yes so we will represent you free of charge you also would have the option of working with Insurance Council and we can work with that Insurance Council or without those insurance counc so that would be up to the board to determine what you would want to do in that situation but our our charges would be we would be free of charge for all of our insurance Council I don't understand what an insurance council is can anyone respond to that your insurance policy would your insurance policy often hires or recommends Council okay so if there's a slip and fall in your District you call your insurance company and go say hey here's an here's a firm that can help you so that's so oh sorry I raised my hand first

120uh so if there was a lawsuit that was pending and the board would say no we don't want to involve our insurance because obviously that would make our insurance rates go up you would still represent us free of charge even if okay yes yeah and and like like I said um our gole and what I believe is can really be helpful is where you have a policy that clearly explains how you're addressing all of the issues we're all aware that there are issues and there are question marks on how we can move forward in a way that respects everyone and so when you do the work of putting together a policy um that's addressing all of those different concerns you're less likely to be sued than if you don't have any set standards you're more

121likely to be accused of doing things in a um in a in a way that is this way one time and this way another time or this way in with one principle or this way with another principle which can create some problems or uh where things are being done where not a member of the school board or no member of the public is aware of how they're being done and so there's there's complicated issues there and so those are the things that we can help you to work through um as a board through our vast experience with other districts in the State um and with the substant of issues that these things are deal with another question you made the comment um that a librarian can't possibly read all the books which I think is

122certainly a valid comment so who does in your purview do your folks read the books and tell us what is allowed and what is not or who reads those thousands of books no Ma so I I think if a if your district is going to be moving forward with policies um addressing how do we set age appropriate standards for a district uh you're not looking in any book at all what you're doing is saying what are the standards that we should have in place as to what what is age appropriate and so an example when it and usually the sexually explicit uh content is what's at issue so the first example is things that would be illegal to give you miners so material that would be har for miners that's an easy one because that's

123required by law but beyond that where do we draw the line and I would suggest drawing that line differently in high school middle school and elementary school and then putting some objective standards that are not related to um any particular no Viewpoint to ensure that there's no Viewpoint discrimination happening I'll give you an example and this is a book that I that is not in your library so that's why I'm going to use it there's a a Illustrated novel about a a TV show um or game of firms and it's a it's an illustrated novel that are in in a number of school districts in Pennsylvania and it shows graphic depictions of people engaging in sex apps on each other uh W frontal nudity all sorts of things and so what standards do you judge

124and whether that's age appropriate you can do it based off of uh what somebody's subjective opinions are um the problem and the difficulty is if those books have people from various ethnicities right they have people with various sexual orientations and backgrounds is that the reason the book is being discussed not really it's not at all right but people can accuse you of that and that can create problems for the school that can create problems for the librarian or maybe the superintendent who made that determination so when you have set standards in place that are objective that say we're not going to remove any books based on Viewpoint discrimination um based on who's in the book way of another example would be if there was a book about about Mary and and um Sue going on

125a romantic date or John and Sue going a romantic date age appropriate standards wouldn't be dealing with right that's not sexually explicit type cont content but if either of those books with both of those couples involve them pages of explicit descriptions of the sex acts that they're performing on each other those might fall below standards uh in a school district unrelated to the the type of grouping of the individual should that make sense it does but I just question what then becomes the role of the librarian and the administrators who are overseeing our libraries is their job done now because somebody else is going to move in and say what can and can't be in our library which in my opinion is handled fantastically we've had zero complaints I just I just can't wrap my

126head around so so there's no the policies that we helped school districts Implement dealing with this issue it's not a it's not a a Search and Destroy in Miss City works now everybody has to go and read every single book in the library but when at times where a book comes up it's like what this one might maybe this one is more appropriate for the high school library than the Middle School library or something like that when those determinations need to be make made um having some objective standards in place is protective for the people making those decisions some schools have made a determination to say we're going to have the The Librarians in consultation with the principes make this determinations some have said I think your neighbor in Bermudian Springs said if there's a

127that's how it'll be done and if there's a question question if it's like a borderline we're not really sure then they have a committee of people to take an additional look at it um so people can schools can do all sorts of different ways on how to address those those question marks but when we have the objective standards it ensures number one what I think everybody here would want to ensure that there is no Viewpoint discrimination that books are not being removed because of the color of skin or or because it deals with racial issues or because it deals with human sexuality in in ways that people may agree to disagree on um but to make sure they're done in objective man any other board members have a comment or questions uh as per policy

128903 as the presiding officer I am allowed to Grant uh someone to speak that's not on the agenda I'm not opening the floor up to everyone uh there is a person in the back of the room that's been raising his hand patiently and I think wants to ask a question Mr admic so if you would like to ask a question I will allow it I don't understand how we can offer services men Adra so far presentation are they providing servic upper schol is the body Administration providing free services to the upper AD school sure sure um individual donations individual donations ear are they onay are they the ones Support provid Services yeah individual donations uh will make sure that our entity can operate this so and that's very the the same as the legal a

129clinic um that we run individual donations helped us to do the work that we do um just like many other 501c3 type organizations loal services I do I do have another question I think mik clarify so when you're saying um individual donations you mean people all over the country are donating money for you to represent people if your policies would end up in a lawsuit is that correct like in other words if you help to draft a policy a lawsuit is brought and it needs to go to court you're free of charge because people all over the country have donated money for you to use for that representation is that correct for all the representations that we do yes right for everybody you do I think what he's trying maybe and I don't want mean

130to speak for him but if those donations are coming from religious or you know politically oriented people does that affect your representation no our our ethical duty is to serve the Cent's interests okay and and that's and I'm not sure if that's you know what he was but I'm just trying to get my own mind wrapped around that is in other words it doesn't matter who is funding the money that's correct the representation is done by the law but the law is being presented correct okay yeah I would even add it just an example um there are situations where where a a parent or a grandparent might pay the legal fees for their adult son um that's in legal trouble even though that that grandparent or or is paying those fees that attorney's ethical obligation

131is to serve the client and not to uh run the litigation based on the dictates of the person who is is making payments and that would be an even closer situation than here where the donors are larg I mean unrated to a spe they're not get any money for specific cases to support the organization it goes into like a general and then it gets dispersed does that help go ahead no I will allow one or two public comments here or questions so right here so I'm hearing that your recommendations are in order to make the school culture a safer place by pulling things out that might cause any kind of conflict that might come to the school board or the school so basically the more we take away to make it safer the safer we

132will be from having somebody come up and tell us that we're wrong just take this away because it's really not a good idea this makes this might make not be a safe thing in the public and then maybe this other thing just really doesn't make you feel as safe as you would like everybody nice little circle to feel so given that I also hear can you could you give an example I well I just mean by taking certain books away because specially explicit no matter what the learning uh that has come from it maybe because they include a rape or something like that so any but I'm not going to yeah so so that might make it a safer place for the school library therefore it might eliminate anybody bringing conflict to the superintendent or

133the librarian but if you recommend that therefore we remove these books and we don't agree you know the board says or or you know I I think that this book is a really good book how WR up by Library Association but you told them trouble here for your school then I heard you say just now that where people did continue and get in trouble with when they didn't take your advice correct they didn't take the advice that you had given School District that wasn't about libr but what I'm hearing is this would make you safer and it's true you know the the re build our fence and keep our children in the safer they are that's true there's no doubt you don't go as far as intellectual Freedom or how much they learn perhaps from

134some books that might not be our favorite subject but wait so if you're telling the board and and the community that this isn't safe and you need to be safe and then and then as a group be a community or the school board together decide well we think that this is okay then the fact that you disagreed with their decision does that pull you then you say well I just can't be a part of this anymore if you can't take my recommendations so go it on your own so I never said that any particular book is safe or unsafe but what I right said certain things in a book might make it UNS no no that's not accurate so what what would be what would be problematic is if if people looked at let's say

135the book that I referenced The Game of Thrones Illustrated novel and they said you know I don't think this is appropriate for junior high school um but we don't have that book right you don't have that book that's why I use that example um so what criteria does one determine as to what is appropriate what is a appropriate and so for a district you have one criteria that you have to abide including the American Library Association which is is it material harm for miners so is it illegal Cas so the question for the board and for the community for the elected board is is that the standard is that the only standard we ought to have when it comes to age appropriateness or ought we have additional standards and if so what are they as

136a as an attorney uh Garrett's role and my role is not to say here's where we think their standard should be that's Your Role that's your role um to determine how you're going to make those determination so when it comes to safety if you're going to make a determination that goes beyond will we go to jail for providings to a kid it's good to have it in writing so that there's some guidelines that people can point to so that it can't be wrongly alleged that the reason it is being addressed because of illegal Viewpoint discrimination because I can tell that you and I very much agree on intellectual freedom and and in protecting First Amendment rights when it comes to things like and the ability to read amount information g a deal of work Tolan

137School Association approve any policy changes so do you disagree with the the work of Pensylvania School Board Association when it comes to what their lawyers invis policy that they they advise so when I was a school board member I was um I was appointed to be on the legislative platform committee for the School Board Association great great and then I was also on their their bylaws committee attended all of the the events that they have out in hery so um I absolutely recognize the value of the Pennsylvania Schoolboard Association but when the Schoolboard Association provides uh policies they're not providing legal advice they very clearly say we are are not providing legal advice to you so that is for your attorneys to look at and make an assessment of for your circumstance in your school

138district they do provide a helpful benefit for instance when there's a law that's passed um related to a school board policy they'll let the school board know hey there's a new law here's how you can modify some existing policies um I'm not aware of of Pennsylvania School Board Association policies that try to whatever they think age appropriate standards are um those are up for the individual school boards to make those determinations but I am aware that they would say things that we would 100% agree with which is we will not tolerate discrimination will not tolerate uh infringement of First Amendment rights will not tolerate religious discrimination removing books just because it deals with a religious uh topic that make people feel uncomfortable so it's not about um it's it's not at all about trying to

139make a determination on what f is safe or not uh if you are making a determination based off of the most strict parent in the district or making a determination on the most loose parent in the district on what a particular kid in 8th grade you're probably not doing a great job of making those type of Assessments um you're trying to make policies that apply for everybody in the district the best you can it's not trying to to make things the lowest common or highest common denom or the person with the most stct most um loose standards hopefully that was helpful I'll take in yes it's a time I'm going to do two more two more two more that's okay you had your hand up first um you said that there are no lawsuits have

140been accusations so accusations of District polies have there been accusations of of discrimination or any of that have scho District [Music] uhat after you WR it no no no court not even the bid administra I just said accusations earlier I did let everybody know that I mean accusations against the school district and even though that didn't go to court it still cost the school district money so my question has nothing to do with court I'm talking headlines I'm talking people accusing um you know the school district of discriminatory anything or going up against or going against any sort of group of people that was my question yeah so there there are people who who will come up maybe they haven't read the policies that school districts have implemented or maybe a score District hasn't even

141uh presented any policies that they want to promote and people accuse them of all sorts of things and that that really can't be helped um but what can be helped is that you do the due diligence um that is required of you as board members to try to understand what the law is in these these areas and to to put pen to paper and address issues in a way that's transparent for the public so people are aware of how decisions are going to be make made that's that's really the best you can do so the answer is yes and then um you said that you know so is there a second person that's going your question yes one more okay one more he had his hand up back there sorry mention do you have list

142of your contributors donated to your Law Firm to help support it and have you presented it to the bo the uh 501c3 organizations don't publish the list of the individual donors that's not a practice that any by relig organiz organ that do like LBT C well I mean I I I I would take that as an accusation that that you would believe that we would be an organization who wouldn't follow the ethical duties that lawyers are are required to follow and and I I appreciate that if you are if obviously people can be worried if there's folks that don't agree with them that are supporting I I I completely understand that but I don't think I can do anything more than tell you that our obligation is to support the clients and try to help

143them so I encourage you sir to look at policies that we help past in other districts that's are those are my questions I more dum being student I olypia and Venus are gra there are stories behind them that about of the women to sacrifice themselves for R when you were talking about stories and visualizations of those I histori of art that is my degree SP at AG saying that they violated that right of me as a 13-year-old and 12-year-old when I went to the museum and you guys go into the m so I I don't I don't believe that um I I believe that I must have been very unclear when I was explaining to how the standards for for these things work the school districts the school boards um when they put put together

144standards and what is appropriate for certain ages have the ability to make draw lines like that and and quite frankly if if you were so inclined but you indicated you weren't you would see that school districts through past policies like that make a explain uh that when you're dealing with with things like art uh class works of art and such that those things can be protected and the school boards can do all sorts of unique things but they have to make sure that they're providing for those robust opportunities like you said the the impact that art has had on your life is a wonderful thing and as school districts are making these determinations they're taking all of these things into account to ensure that they can provide the best material they can for the finite

145amount of space that's in their libraries that's in their curriculum to say what is the best material we have are there things that fall below that standard there may be maybe not but the school district putting that on paper ensures that what's not happening is things are being removed under cover of night uh for Viewpoint discriminatory reasons okay any any other board members have any um I just I'm sorry did you want to say something go ahead uh I can say something um you know it's interesting to hear the back and forth here and there's some passionate views you know I saw a story it was recent a couple months ago and it was uh the Bucks County Beacon and their headline was the independent Law Center seeks to impose its biblical world view on

146Pennsylvania school districts um I've heard that comment sort of echoed out in the audience and maybe intimated on the Schoolboard here uh I've read through a couple of the policies in fact all all four three or four of your policies and it didn't strike me that there was any uh biblical overtones in these policies it didn't seem like it was pushing a certain view on anybody um so you know with that said maybe it would be important for the school district to post policies that Independence Law Center has put forth and read it read them thoroughly and see if some of these headlines like the independence Law Center seeks to impose its biblical worldview on the Pennsylvania school districts see if that actually applies to those policies I contend it doesn't yeah I I appreciate

147that and one of the things that we always request members of the media to post links to those policies um rarely do they take us up on that but sometimes they do and that's always an appre appreciated step because there are people uh from maybe an opposing viewpoint on certain things who might say you know and who reached out and said I I kind of see what you're doing here just kind of makes sense it works sort of the way that we understand first amendment I might not agree with everybody but I fight for the right to be able to say it um that principle that I think we all value when it comes to things like the freedom of speech is a principle that it really um intersects with a lot of the policies

148uh that we are helping school districts uh to move forward and so I encourage everybody to take time Ser take time to to to look at those policies if you can um I understand people are busy but that's yeah I appreciate that okay have something I'll wave to yeah we're done with public sorry it's just a quick question throw it out quick uh I was just curious forr said that she had contacted the independence Law Center because she was interested in specific policy areas and saw that they had drafted them for other districts I was curious to the board what what are the specific policy areas that um upper Adam School District they would be valuable for so that we can know which policy areas you're looking for counseling so that they can be drafted

149and and why that expertise is needed over stock and leader who are clients of the school district and not clients of their special interest owners that's the question sir I I could just barely hear you myself and I'm sure that others could not could you repeat it at a much Lou louder volume please I was curious uh board member deal in her introduction stated that she had uh found uh the independence Law Center when looking at the policies of other districts that had been written to address certain issues I think that because we already have a solicitor and a company that represents the school as a client I wanted to know what were those particular policy areas that they were decided they needed additional counsel from uh the independence Law Center so that we can

150understand what are these areas that this council is needed for and why they're Superior in that to stock and leader particularly because stock and leader represent the district that's a client and are paid by the district as a client to keep us out of legal trouble as opposed to a firm which is funded by private special interests which we've just learned are not available to the public to know who that is and what their interest might be in providing Us free legal counsel to address these things Mr schroer um just briefly I I am chair of the policy committee and if if you've been following our meetings since March we've been trying to get to the 109.2 and that keeps moving along we will be discussing that in August when we have the next policy

151meeting but I can say as policy chair that that's the only policy that has been available for discussion so maybe someone else on the board can answer to the rest of your question well as far as I understand it I'm just kind of learning the ropes here but policies come up on a regular basis don't they like is there like a schedule that the policies come up for review or from what I understand there there are some recommendations quarterly that come from psba so it would be more from my understanding when a policy is up for review it would be like having a second opinion I don't think there was specific policies in mind I thought from the introduction I've used the analogy that the board is probably sick of it but in our business

152if I'm going to build something I'm going to have a general contractor and I'm going to trust the general contractor he's going to do the job and he's going to find the people to get the job done I can't wrap my head around why we have a general contractor sitting two seats down and we also need somebody else to come in and throw dart I can't get my head around [Applause] that so to answer your question thank you um some of the policies I was looking at that uh Red Lion has adopted um have to do with uh male and female sports teams and locker rooms and Pro prouns and things like that and a parental consent for you know social um transitioning at school like keeping that kind like some some districts um have

153a policy of not uh of keeping certain things secret from parents and so I wanted to see how um other schools were dealing with that because I believe that parents have are the primary educators of their children and so there's some concern about that so that's what I was looking at and um school boards hire special counsel all the time for different reasons and this is like really quite specific to Title 9 and First Amendment issues and so um I really I really um when I looked at the policies uh that they have written up or helped Red Lion right I'm like wow this is so um fair to everyone involved it's fair to the parents it's fair to the students it protects the teachers and as a teacher myself I am a certified teacher

154I speak four languages I'm an internationally recognized expert in in culturally responsive social emotional learning I uh I I'm a certified um uh I'm I don't want to go through all my lists of things I am I am an educator certified teacher secondary Eng English language arts uh teacher and I speak Spanish ESL um I teach for higher education a graduate school of education question sorry person sitting questions you show articles and ask scho District um um Jim are we just going to have a round table now we're not no we're not we're going we're wrap this up let's move on official corain laer polici I'm sorry we're going to move on tonight we're not going to answer any more questions uh we I did give the some some leeway there that we normally don't

155give so we are going to move on tonight this isn't a voting meeting this will come up again at our June 18th meeting uh so he's prepared to be there for the voting meeting that will take us to Personnel Mrs plank are you there yes can you hear me yep go ahead right item 5.2.1 accept the following professional resignation Danielle SCH guidance CER bville High School affected June 30th 2024 Holly Jones science teacher phille High School affected the end of the 2023 202 school year item 5.2.2 approval to post and advertise to the following professional positions school guidance counselor mville high school and science teacher mville High School item 5.2.3 hire the following professional staff Nicole ST Math teacher big Lial High School Master Step 11 76514 effective the start of the 2024 2025 school

156year replacing Teresa Fritz Daniel mford bag teacher bigal High School instructional one St one 54514 with an additional 10 days at a 30m raid replacing Scott how item 5.4.2 supplemental contracts educational for extended school year 71 2024 to 725 2024 Audrey Jacobs instructional inant regularly hourly rate for 2024 2025 not to exceed 16 hours per week Amanda chinik instructional assistant Kelly Services hourly ra25 not 6 hour C item 5.5 add the following individual to the volunteer listing Heidi car retroactive 2024 Amy Thomas retroactive to 524 2024 and Wesley Thomas retroactive to 524 2024 item 5.6.1 make the following changes to the other contracted Services error mark and listing remove Michael Coleman and add Heather Matthews custodian retroactive dis 5304 and I believe that is all for personnel anyone have any questions for Mrs PL thank

157you Mrs plank you're welcome does any other board member have anything else tonight I have some something I'm going to say uh I'm not a speech writer um I've been sitting here taking some notes and listening to everybody I appreciate everybody's input I know everybody's very passionate about this um I'm going to start out by just saying when I was appointed to the board before I was elected and I was asked what my agenda was and my answer at first when I was asked and actually I was sitting in the room with all the current cated board members and all the administrators there was probably 20 people in the room that night when I was interviewed um my first response was I don't have an agenda then I thought about a little bit and I

158said well if you want me to give you an agenda my agenda is to preserve what's here I graduated from here my kids have gone here I still have a child here I'm proud of this school I'm proud of this community my agenda was to preserve that to be fiscally responsible to this community which we have been we've had zero tax increase for several years we're headed there this year I'm sitting here as the president of this board and I'm asking myself why are we at where we're at I you know it's true I was a s i i was a Township supervisor for several years and I've learned one thing in public government when there's not a problem people don't come to meetings our meetings for the last since Co and those meetings were

159pretty minimal um not well attended meetings administrators news reporter that's about it not a lot going on and now 2024 and here we are so the public is here they're voicing their opinions they're upset about things that are happening and they're passionate about what's happening I don't understand I'm asking myself you know why we didn't have any problems people are sitting here because there's problems being created we didn't have a problem at this board the community was happy because people weren't coming to the meetings I'm glad people are here I'm glad there's attendance it's it's nice to see faces because usually there was just no offense but just the administrators that was our that was our audience um I'm glad you're here but I also know you're taking a lot of time out of your

160lives because you're passionate about this and I do believe problems are being created that did not exist books have been in this Library probably the same books have been here since I graduated 35 years ago I'm going to ask the question and you don't know I don't want an answer but the question is realistically how many kids are walking into that Library looking for a certain book that has a certain expert in it in a matter of 2 seconds they can pick this up and be looking at anything you know bville high school has been handed a lot of accolades you know we we we're ranked High both nationally and through the state Biglerville imagine that Biglerville little old Biglerville our teachers are great our administrative staff is great I trust our teachers with our

161kids two of my children have graduated we our children receive great educations look at the class of 24 look how many kids are going on to to hire their education when I asked that question at graduation for those of you who weren't there I'm going to guesstimate it was about 90% of the kids stood up they going on to further their education there was five or six that are going into the military and there is some that are joining the workforce which part of our mission statement is career and college ready that's what we're here to do doesn't matter who walks through that door doesn't matter their religion doesn't matter their race doesn't matter their gender identity we are here to provide them an education as a public educator I will admittedly say do I

162agree with things that are going on in society today I don't but I sit at this table at a public school board committed to offer everybody that walks through that door regardless the education that they deserve I do [Applause] believe I do believe and I've thought long and hard and probably I'm going to make people laugh been trying to think of an analogy for is and I really wish they were still sitting here but they left my analogy of ilc and this is going to come off hillbilly redneck whatever you want to call it but it looks like three witches standing over a pot with her witch's hat stir in the pot and they're going to leave us hanging I think we risk with some of the policy changes there's risking of losing Federal funding

163which would be detrimental to our community with our free breakfast reduced lunches it would be detrimental to our community there's risk of that it's not free we all know that you know he couldn't even answer the question straight you know it's not free um again I don't feel as though as there's a problem with help Adam school district and I hope the directors can sit back and reflect I was going to save my statements for the voting meeting but I felt like everybody needed time to do on it at our voting meeting so again thank you everyone for showing up thank you for your support and your passion on on on your stance thank you directors for doing the job that you do and I hope we all can really think deeply about things for

164the next two weeks before we have this vote thank you Jim [Applause] no other board members have anything else we are adjourned have a good evening for