September Board Meeting 2025

001September 18th Central Buck School District board meeting. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Ms. Radcliffe, will you do roll call? Present. Present. Here. Here. Okay, can I move on before we announce? Okay, great. Before we get to the announcement of executive session, I just wanted to first thank everyone for coming tonight and before we begin, I want to note that the board is not yet able to vote on any determinations from last month's hearings. Our hearing officer, not the board, set a due date of September 25th, 2025 for council for all parties to submit their findings of fact conclusions of law and supporting arguments. The board cannot vote until we review and consider these documents. Because of this timeline, we anticipate being able to render our decisions for both matters at the

002October 16th meeting. Thank you. Mr. Amuso, turning it over to you. Thank you, yes, Madam Vice President. The board met executive session before this meeting to discuss litigation and personnel matters and other than that, the last executive session since our last meeting in August was on September 8th where you conducted an interview for solicitor. Those are only executive sessions. Thank you. Dr. Malone, turning it over to you. Thank you. First, I want to acknowledge two recent matters that have caused concern in our community. The cancellation of an author visit at our elementary schools and the messaging shared in response to recent national events. In both cases, the way these were handled and communicated fell short of the clarity and responsiveness our families and staff deserve. The author's visit was canceled unnecessarily due to delays in

003direct engagement and internal coordination on our part. I take full responsibility for not addressing the situation earlier and providing clear guidance to the Cold Spring and Pine Run communities. Additionally, our messaging around national recent national events intended to support students and staff who may be impacted drew unintended backlash. While our intent is always rooted in care, we recognize that tone and timing matter and we are committed to improving how we approach sensitive communications. We own these instances and are committed to improving always. That includes examining our communications philosophies and policies so we strike the right balance between transparency and focus on our core mission, supporting and educating students. Thank you for your continued support as we work to strengthen trust in a collaboration across our district. Our next slide. We are honored to have several

004staff members here tonight who went above and beyond to help our kids. We will bring them to the front in a moment. First, you may have seen the news reports. The staff members on this slide are part of our after-school child care team at Janison. After school was dismissed on September 8th. They were on the school's playground area when a motorcycle illegally drove through a field on campus and approached the space where 20 or so students who attend our after after care program were playing. Two of the staff members here tonight, Michelle Kane and Judy Schaeffer, moved toward the motorcycle just as it reached the play area's blacktop, forcing the driver to stop. The other staff members at the scene, including Anita Haley, who is also here tonight, made sure the students were kept from

005the immediate area and help bring them inside. Because of the swift, swift actions of all these outstanding employees, the motorcyclist went back the way he came and all students were safe. The Warwick police eventually identified and caught the driver who was charged. We thank the police for their partnership and work in bringing this matter to a resolution. We are now honored to invite the staff members who are here tonight to the front to receive a certificate of commendation and an Amazon gift card to show our appreciation. Anita Haley, Michelle Kane and Judy Schaeffer, please come up. We also welcome Lauren Dowd, principal of Jamison and Dina Hahn, coordinator of our after after care program to celebrate Anita, Michelle, Judy and the other staff members who couldn't join us tonight. Chris Cool, Natalie Luca, Connie Vailamont,

006Kathy Wiggins and Nancy Zartarian. Okay, so in other news that made TV and made us proud, Fox 29's Good Day Philadelphia visited Lenape Middle School yesterday morning for a live segment to promote the station's student teacher trivia show, The Classroom. Good Day host Bob Kelly surprised the student body during the assembly. Last night, three Lenape students and teachers made their debut on the show. The students were Leighton Curtis, who is the daughter of the host, M. J. Cashman and Julia Senior. The teachers were Dana Sheselsky, Mississippi, Matt Curran and M. K. Shrak. After a lively competition, the teachers took home the win. Go teachers 3 30 to 110 and will donate the cash, the cash prize to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Well done Lenape. For my last good news item this Tuesday at C.

007B. South, we officially kicked off our next comprehensive planning process, which we are calling Vision 2030. Honor the past, design the future. Nearly 50 teachers, students, parents, administrators and community members joined us and we thank everyone who attended. After an introductory presentation by our administrative comprehensive planning team, participants rotated through four stations that represented the priority areas we are carrying forward from the current comprehensive plan, which runs through 2026. Those are academic excellence, technology and innovation, health and wellness and community engagement. Feedback during feedback gathered during this activity will guide us as we develop goals and action steps for the plan, which is due to the state's Department of Education March 20 26 following board approval. While PDE require school districts to undertake this process every three years, we see this opportunity as much more

008than compliance. It is a chance to reflect on where we've been, identify what we want to accomplish by 2030 and design a shared vision for the future of our schools. Our next session is scheduled for November 11th with a follow up in January before the draft plan is posted for public review in February. We will keep the community informed as well as share opportunities for input. Now for tonight's agenda, a few important operations projects on are on up for approval tonight to support the district's facilities and upcoming realignment plants, including a contract for synthetic turf replacement at CB East and additional engineering services for projects related to realignment at CB South. Work at several several elementary schools is also on the agenda. We are recommending a firm to oversee the placement of the domestic water

009service run at Pine Run while another firm is recommended to manage the installation of elevators at Linden and Butler. A contract with a third firm will support the replacement of rooftop rooftop HVAC units at Buckingham and new playgrounds at Doyle and Linden are up for approval to provide safe updated spaces for younger Lastly, the board will review a resolution with Warrington Township that outlines the conditions of land development for the amended and final plans associated with the CB South realignment addition project. On the education side, several curricular initiatives designed to enhance learning across grade levels are up for approval tonight. The summit K-12 program is meant to expand digital and adaptive learning opportunities. A wide range of courses, including Advanced Math 6 and Academic Math 8, which extend pathways for students in mathematics, are also

010on the agenda. Collaborative courses in health and physical education, music, family and consumer science, and art are proposed for our middle schools, while high school students will benefit from new and revised offerings in family and consumer science, art, and photography. Finally, kindergarten art ensures that creative exploration begins in a child's educational journey. There are a number of policies up for second read and passage which bolster safeguards for students and clarify district responsibilities. These include updates to policies on behavior support, student records, student rights and responsibilities, employment of staff, responsibility for student welfare, records management, and child abuse. Collectively, these revisions reinforce the district's commitment to student safety, legal compliance, and effective governance. There are two policies up for first read, policy 313, evaluation of employees, and policy 333, professional development, both of which are designed

011to strengthen expectations for staff evaluation and ongoing learning. That is all my remarks for tonight. I'll now turn things over to Angela Hendershot and Lindsay Smith, who will give us update for planning on realignment. Following their presentation, we'll hear from Jason Jaffe about the district's See the Good, Be the Good initiative this year. All right, good evening everyone. It's great to see you all, and thank you Dr. Malone for the opportunity to present tonight on our grade level realignment update. Lindsay and I are truly honored to lead this work throughout our district, and we just appreciate the opportunity. Alongside of us, working diligently while also leading their buildings, we have Mrs. Lauren Dowd, Christina Ottelberger, and Jason Booker, who are our committee leaders. And so here is our leadership team who collaborate and support this

012district initiative while working with our district staff. All right, so our next update, our update today, our presentation is going to include some celebrations. There's a lot of great things happening across our district. Provide you an update about our Pioneer full-day kindergarten program. Give you an update on our course selection process, as that will inform our staffing for the next upcoming school year. And just identify our next steps and how we'll keep you informed throughout the process. So here's our infographic, and we are just really excited to see one of our goals ignited this school year by introducing full-day kindergarten. All of our information and presentations can be found at cbsd.org slash CB realigned. So if anybody's joining our journey, you're welcome to peruse as you would like. So lots of celebrations across our district,

013and these have been occurring throughout June and then all the way through our August. But a lot of planning and preparation has gone on behind the scenes, and this is just to highlight all of the departments collaboratively working together to reach a common goal, and that's our grade level realignment. A huge thank you to our human resources department who has been supporting us with our hiring, full-day kindergarten teachers, as well as supporting those teachers who are interested in moving to a new grade level. A professional development has been interwoven throughout our time in our implementation for grade level realignment. And to support a new program, full-day kindergarten, lots of purchases have been made to support those learning environments, curricular manipulatives, and so forth. With those deliveries or with those orders comes lots of deliveries, and

014so a special thanks to our facilities team who has done a wonderful job in receiving them, but also building the furniture, the desks, and all the way down to the cutest little kitchen sets for a kindergarten classroom. They are just adorable, and it's wonderful to see for purposeful play. In addition, our teaching and learning team, as well as our innovation and technology department, and our student services has been working on the course selection process, as we know that's going to inform a lot of staffing decisions. And then last but not least, this is our realignment implementation guide. We have three years outlined for us as kind of our North star, as we are looking towards completing these tasks. And so lots of taskmaster work is going on behind the scenes, but back in June we

015met with our administrative team, and they just reflected upon where we were, and then what are our next best steps as we prepare for this school year? We're very grateful for them because they've provided us just really solid information, but also feedback to support how this transition can be successful for our district. So we thank you for them. And one of my favorite celebrations is the launch of full-day kindergarten in our six Pioneer schools. So a special thank you to those principals, building staff, and full-day kindergarten teachers for their hard work and having this come to fruition. Just a quick glimpse into all of the items within our classroom to make this a warm and welcoming environment for all. Here are just some materials that just the kindergarten teachers have really turned it and have

016it come to life. Our next slide is going to show you just a real quick glimpse into what our full day kindergarten first week was like and what a kids experienced. This week marks the launch of our full-day kindergarten pilot program. This year, Jamison, Mill Creek, Doyle, Cold Spring, Kutz, and Groveland are piloting full-day kindergarten with all elementary schools joining next year. During this first week, students don't yet have an assigned teacher. Instead, they are participating in mini lessons with different teachers and peer groups, giving them a chance to explore, connect, and learn in a variety of settings. Our teachers, principals, and support staff are carefully observing and working together to ensure each child is placed in the classroom environment where they will thrive. Our ultimate goal is to create classrooms where students can learn,

017play, and grow academically, socially, and emotionally. Just watching that video makes our hearts smile a little bit larger in seeing them. So thank you for watching with us and just envisioning what this has been. It's been incredibly positive feedback from our staff and our schools, so we're just really excited about the continuation of full-day K into all 15 buildings next school year. So next, Lindsay's going to share a little bit information about course selection and staffing and then share with you our next best steps. Thank you and good evening, everyone. With that in mind, a big thank you to Mike and Matt for making that video, too. I really appreciate you highlighting all that good stuff. So as Anne had mentioned, in June we talked about our 24-25 and wrapping that up, but in August

018we kicked off the start of this school year with our administrative council again by looking at, okay, now we're moving into our third and final year of tasks, moving into 25-26, and this is gonna be a fast and furious year, and so we really looked at that through the lens of every department, and to really maybe put the pressure on but also make it a little bit of fun in this pressure feeling moment of time is we've broken the year into quarters, if you will, that align to what we in education kind of has milestones in our calendar. So what needs to be done by Halloween, and then what needs to be done by the new year, what needs to be done by spring break, and what do we have to have before all of

019our students and staff walk out the door after graduation. So this is just a nice iconic way of looking at all of our tasks and making them feel a lot lighter even though they're big tasks, and one of the things that if we look at a pumpkin task, as we like to call this, this is what has to be done before Halloween, and this is really being driven by Mr. Kratz and the teaching and learning team, and what that means is looking at everything in our course catalog, what needs to move up, what needs to change, and how does that have a ripple-down effect into all the other departments that need to see that. So this is what our teaching and learning team is doing so diligently with the leadership of Rich Kratz and our

020counselors are helping immensely, and then what that leads into then is this kind of course selection and staffing process, which is a huge, this is a very simplified view of a huge undertaking, but what the goal of realignment is really, and when you look at this slide, our goal of realignment is one, to get students where they need to be instructionally, right, what grade level and what building do they need to be, where do they want to be, because we ask kids what they want to do when we do course selection in the program of studies, and then ultimately where would our staff like to be, right, because a lot of this is making our students and staff happy throughout this process. So if I take you actually to a planning backwards moment, what we

021are doing as a leadership team is really looking at what is our goal for staff and how do we then make everything work backwards to ensure that that happens, and that's April. So if we anticipate that our openings for our staff come out in April, which is very early for Central Bucks, but also a great goal for many reasons, not just for our own staff, but to ensure that whatever we can't, whatever can't be filled by our own staff, if there's other openings, that we can also get the external candidates as well, right, so then if you look at backwards, what that really means is we have to start now doing all of that with Mr. Kratz, and then once he does all of that in November, we start looking at, okay teachers, now we

022need you to make course recommendations. So our technology and innovation department, along with counselors, are doing a heavy lifting right now to make sure that Infinite Campus is going to be ready when we flip that switch for students to go in and start making their choices and teachers making recommendations. Therefore, then when students walk into our high school curriculum fairs, they might have already dabbled with what they want, and now I'm gonna go visit those teachers and see our high schools and make sure that that is exactly what I want as I meet with my counselor. I'm gonna look at all of those selections, finalize those, and our principals have some heavy lifting to do to get those projections of staffing to Dr. Zaleski and Dr. Malone to then start making projections, and then we

023go to work plugging along in different phases of our staffing. So of course we have our staff that have produced VIOs and interest up until this point. That's our priority. Let's get them where they want to be and then keep that involuntary or that voluntary process going to ensure that our staff ends up ultimately where they would like to be through this process. So really what we're doing, if I go back here, when you look at all of this, this means a lot of people have a lot of jobs to do, including all of us in this room, right? So all of the tasks that need to be completed, we also need, you know, we're gonna be coming to you all as a board to give you frequent updates on things that are happening along

024the budget season, along the staffing season, around the programs of study, so you're gonna be seeing some of us present to you frequently, which is a good thing hopefully in your minds, and we just want to continue to thank you for your support of this because this is kind of a package deal and is moving very quickly. So our next steps again, as I mentioned, are to come back, give you some communications to our staff, to our community, along the lines of what this looks like, come back for some Ed Committee updates, do some approvals of the program of studies, and then of course allowing us to then continue on our way to do this process of course selection and staffing. So that's very simple, but just to say thank you for your support, and

025just we're very excited, we're ready for this challenge, and we've been working for years to make sure that this is ready to go. So thank you. Thank you Dr. Malone. Thank you Lindsey and Ange. Nice job. This is a lot of work, a lot of moving parts going on, and a lot of pressure on our high school to, high school students to pick courses and get that done, so I appreciate that highlight. Mr. Jaffe? Oh yeah. We appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. Dr. Zaleski and myself, we're going to show you something we're excited about called promoting the good, and this has been a team effort. So with Dr. Malone's support, we've worked in collaboration with Mr. Battiti and the communications team to promote something this year with promoting the good. So where this started from

026was on Helen's first official day as assistant superintendent, before she spoke to all the elementary teachers, her and Suzanne Daly texted me and said we're gonna try something with like letter C, letter B, see the good, be the good. And I said I guess it would work, like we'll see what goes on with this, and then they presented it in front of the whole elementary, and it quickly caught on, and they presented a sort of second version of this to the secondary, and as you walk through our schools right now, it just quickly caught on to see the good and be the good. So tonight what we want to show you is a recap of Dr. Zaleski's opening, and then what we did last year with the lock screen with the portrait of a graduate,

027we want to sort of tie these together to make a see the good, be the good art contest for our students. So I'm going to turn over to Dr. Zaleski first to talk about the recap of the opening, and then I'm going to talk about the lock screen contest. Thanks Mr. Jaffe. So this is opening day where we have what we call a convocation. There are so many of us in Central Box that we have to divide it between elementary and secondary, but we were very happy to welcome Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Gimson that day. They were with us for the convocations, and Mrs. Suzanne Daly, who's a staff developer here in the district, and I presented to staff, and we tried to use our CB letters to promote, I love a good theme, so

028to promote a theme of CB, see the good, be the good. And so what started off just as a small motivational, we're going to have a great year where we're going to focus on all the wonderful things that happen at Central Box, and there are so very many, kind of has just now grown a little bit, and I love that it's grown the way that it has. Okay, and this, to recap what we did last year, we had a lock screen contest for the students, which tied into the portrait of a graduate, which is on the sticker behind you. This was the June winner, which this was actually at a meeting that took place at CB West. We presented her a gift certificate at the time, sponsored by a local community partner, and we did

029a website review with her, with Mr. Murray, Mr. Petiti, and then we put her lock screen on the website, as well as on every clear touch panel and every lock screen laptop in the district, which is like 20,000 devices, so it gets a lot of screen time for our students. So we have a lot of interest from our students to do this, and we're going to sort of explain to you tonight how we're going to tie this into see the good, be the good. What we decided to do is take her idea and my idea and sort of merge it together with our new logo that we're going to show you, which is called, see the good, be the good at Central Box. And tomorrow morning, this new logo is going to show up on

030all of our district laptops to sort of promote the new theme, and then it'll be parlayed with the contest that we're going to present to you at the next board meeting with our winner. Hopefully we have a good winner for this month that draws some artwork. So Dr. Zaleski is first going to show you how this ties into the comp plan, and then we're going to talk a little bit about her presentation, and we'll go back to the lock screen. Yes. So when Mr. Jaffe and I were talking about this lock screen, it happened to coincide with our planning for the comprehensive plan, and we had our first meeting on Tuesday night, and as we were going through our four priority areas that you can see here on the left, and Dr. Malone talked to

031earlier tonight, academic excellence, health and wellness, technology and innovation, and community engagement, it became apparent to us very quickly that this idea would also merge with our comprehensive plan. So the lock screen contest of this has the technology connection, the community partnerships, because we are going to be working with community members, restaurants, people in our area who are supporting this initiative, and interest of students, drawing them in, having them buy into the theme, and also inspiring them to create some art. And then the seeing the good part, of course, that's district pride. I am very proud of our district, have a long time member of Central Bucks, and I like to pass that on, and I believe this initiative will help to do that, along with the student engagement, and of course the instructional practice.

032Good. So. Still me? Yeah, we'll walk us through your presentation. So this was the presentation that I'm going to give you a very condensed version, but Mrs. Daly and I, when we presented to the elementary division, what I had asked each principal to do was to find a moment in time from the previous year when something good happened in the school. The beautiful part of it is that most principals sent me like 15, 20 pictures, and I said, oh my goodness, I just wanted one, but this is great too. But what I did is I highlighted one snapshot of an event that happened last year in each of the 15 elementary schools. So on that day, each school had a shout out, each school had its own slide, but for this evening, I'm kind of

033condensing. I'm going to highlight one school on this side and each of my side. So when we look at these four schools, I'm going to highlight the bottom left corner, Buckingham, where they continue to honor their mightiest Brian Rossica, former counselor of the school, who now is a big part of that school community. They do a fun run for him every year, and this was a snapshot of one good thing, a great day at Buckingham. When we look at these four pictures, I'm going to choose the bottom right, Groveland. You would look at this picture and think it's Halloween, but it's actually not Halloween. This is field day. And for these kiddos, field day looks a little different. And so what their teachers and staff do is they dress up to make that day something

034special and something great. So that is what you see on this particular side. On this one, I'm going to choose Kutz. Kutz in the bottom left hand corner. They have a tradition where they, all of the youth staff, go onto this bus. They go into all the neighborhoods that serve Kutz. They call it the Holly Jolly Express, and they collect donations as they go through the communities and the neighborhoods, which are all given to a woman's place, which actually there are students in Kutz who reside in a woman's place. And this one, I want to go with Titus, but I'm not going to do it. All right, so we're going to go to the bottom left hand corner. That's Warwick. This is actually Warwick's sixth grade promotion. What I highlighted about Warwick was that all

035schools take promotion very seriously going from sixth to seventh grade. But what's special about Warwick is that their entire staff and faculty are there and present that night. And that's something really special. And so that was the picture from Warwick. Shall I pass it on to you from middle school? Yep, our middle school principals were eager to join in. So we'll use Lenape to underscore what Dr. Malone showed tonight. We'll get a lot of mileage with this. So we had Fox News at Lenape just yesterday. So it's hot off the press into our celebrating the good at Lenape. And then for Yanami, the picture on the right is their field day with the captains in front of the orange and black shirts to sort of get ready for their field day kickoff. And that came

036from Mr. Powell late last night after his back to school night. He sent us that picture to add to our presentation. So we're going to end with the high school pieces. Yeah, so here is our high schools. There's so much we can say about our three grade high schools. But if you look at the bottom, this is something that I don't know that a lot of our community is aware we do. We have something called a senior walk, where our seniors are given their captain gowns a couple days early, and then they return to their elementary school where they're welcomed by their former teachers. It is a magical day where our littlest learners get to see what happens at the end of their time in Central Box. Okay, so to end, we're just going to

037explain how this ties into our lock screen and then end with a slide of the comp plan one more time to tie up loose ends. But we are hoping that each month, this is a new page on our website that if I zoom in for you, it can show you for October, we're going to do see the good be the good in your school. That's the theme that we want students to draw about. November will be see the good be the good through kindness, and then December will be see the good be the good in your community. And this all ties into the comp plan themes as well as our themes of seeing the good and being the good at Central Box. And we're hoping that students will participate. They'll have their winning design that

038will be placed on in place of this. It will be placed with their artwork. We'll bring them here in front of the board to receive accolades for their work, as well as a gift certificate for a local restaurant that's donated by the restaurant, which makes this outstanding. So if there's restaurants listening today on our live stream, we're looking for more donors. We have emailed most of the restaurants in Doylestad and many have written back, but we will take any local establishment to help with our campaign. So in ending, just to tie it back for you, we feel as if this is a nice tie into the new comp plan because it does hit especially health and wellness, tech and innovation and community engagement, but also does tie into academic excellence because we're looking for the

039arts and for students to showcase their digital art and their hand drawn art to be placed on our technology for the school year. So that is it. Here's our new logo and just want to say thank you again for your support. And thanks to Dr Malone for allowing us to move forward. Thanks, Dr Malone. Thanks, everyone. That was great. It is very catchy. See the see the good be the good. We do it all the time in the hallway. So thank you. And that is our report for tonight. Okay. I also wanted to announce Susan. I think Miss Gibson is on teams now. Yes. Okay. And Mr. Radcliffe, for your minutes, I logged in at seven twenty five. She's so good. I just wanted to make a couple of remarks before on behalf of some

040of the members on the board before we dip into public comment. So just a few comments here. So as some of you may know, Jesse Seema, author and illustrator of Snow Kid, recently canceled presentations at two of our elementary schools originally scheduled for Monday, September 15th. Personally, it was like a punch to the gut hearing the news since the last thing we would ever want is for a guest of our school district to be censored and feel unwelcome or unsafe, all completely counter to the values and principles held by members of this board in an effort to express our deepest regret and apologies for how communication between district administrators and Jesse have been handled. And with the hope that there was a path forward to ensure Jesse felt safe and supported, I contacted Jesse's liaison

041at the Doylestown Bookshop. My hope was that the visit could continue as planned on Monday, September 15th or perhaps on a later date. While that wasn't possible at that time, I was heartened to hear that Jesse would be open to visiting CBSD in the future when promoting their next book, an opportunity we would very much welcome. We have since learned that they have graciously agreed to work with the bookshop to host a virtual event on Saturday, October 18th at one p.m. This event, open to 500 people, will be first offered to Cold Spring and Pine Run families. I want to be clear, this opportunity exists only because of Jesse Seema's generosity and commitment to sharing their work with students. I, along with many central books families, are deeply grateful to them for their generosity. And

042I want to emphasize we would welcome Jesse in person at any time in our district to share their books, their experiences, their creative process and their love of storytelling with our students who may one day be inspired to follow in their footsteps. This board takes seriously our commitment to uphold the values of our community. When the administration made a decision that conflicted with the district's commitments and values, we addressed it and we did everything within our role as board members to make it right. The board's role in governance is to set policy and we will work with the administration to ensure that policy is followed. Thank you. Moving on to public comment. So persons wishing to make public comment were required to register prior to the start of tonight's meeting. If students register to speak,

043they will be permitted to do so first. Please note that public comment is not intended to be a question-and-answer session. If a question is posed, the individual may be referred to the superintendent for follow-up. When your name is called, please approach the podium and begin stating your name and municipality. Each speaker is allotted three minutes. You will be asked to cease your comments at three minutes. We kindly ask that all comments be directed to the board as a whole rather than to individual members. We appreciate your cooperation in maintaining a respectful environment. Please be considerate of all speakers and their opinions, including those that differ from your own. Thank you for understanding. And oh say it again. Oh there's two public comments. So agenda items are first and then non-agenda items are in the second

044public comment. So first public comment speaker, Edward Mackhouse, Buckingham Township. Ed Mackhouse, Buckingham Township, former teacher taught in the 70s and the discoverer of the elementary particles theory. The topic is 800 abuse. Definition of abuse is good here. Abuse is intentional harm by a teacher or someone to a child or neglect to do what is necessary to protect the child and serious injuries. So this there's a lot of stuff written here and everything but I like to emphasize that experience is important because it's easy to criticize somebody. The first step is going to kindergarten and what have you and the children sit in their class what they do. So teachers have experience at different levels. So abuse is if you push the child to do more than they can do and the most serious abuse

045is neglect to can restrain the child sufficiently so he doesn't harm himself or others. I like to this been abuse and got a lot of news. I don't necessarily think it's abuse. I don't think teachers intentionally harm children and I don't think because a parent doesn't understand what it is like to teach the first year and it's hard. Everyone makes mistakes. In the beginning you'll yell and stuff. So go into the criminal case and try and there's a shortage of special ed teachers for example and how to handle special eds. The sheriffs and the police at the DA know like district attorney Jennifer Shuren has prosecuted hundreds of cases of real abuse. She knows what it is. I attended and observed her in a trial of a mother who murdered her two young children. The

046Jennifer Shuren handled the case where the mother murdered her two children to punish her husband and other family members. Jennifer Shuren handled the case and sets away the family members that expressed their feelings interacted and in one way reasonably satisfied with the proceedings. So we have as the school board to understand that there is a real shortage of teachers. It is not easy to complete a year there's very great shortage of teachers. If a substitute comes in to students chaos can really occur. So we should be careful about firing experienced people who have successfully demonstrated to get along. I've seen too many people end up death and murder and serious injuries from lack of restraint. That is the problem not pushing the children too much. Thank you. Shannon Harris. So on the on the agenda

047you have number four is a board action item general solicitor number five is approval of minutes. Previously this board has corrected previous mistakes where they put approval of minutes before public comment. You've rectified that however according to what I have just researched just now you cannot do any new business before the approval of minutes. So that means you cannot do number four before number five and as you may be violating the Sunshine Act. So I'm just raising a question and need do you guys need to figure that out before you make any more mistakes considering you just got out of legislation or litigation with your previous Sunshine Act violation. And if it is true that you cannot do new business before the approval of minutes which is number four before number five then you will

048have to table that to the next meeting because you also cannot amend the agenda without 24 no 24 hours notice to the public. So I guess you'll have just figure that out. I'm just raising an objection Sunshine Act objection possible and we'll see what you guys do with that. The other thing in general about the solicitor from what I understand this firm was previously representing Pennsbury and lost a First Amendment violation case for several hundred thousand dollars by violating the First Amendment speech of the public or parents that were trying to speak and they were convicted of that. So my question is is why would you be putting the jeopardy of the school district by hiring the same law firm who could potentially make horrible decisions again like that like violating the Constitution. Secondly I

049also want to raise an objection to the solicitor that you have chosen for our district because the head of the Democratic Party and paid member of that law firm is Steve Sanisario. So to me it's a complete conflict of interest that you are hiring because you guys are most of you are Democrats Steve Sanisario you work with him on the Democratic Party conflict of interest is you are hiring his law firm to represent our school district which has a massive budget. I also think it's completely unethical because you are also public officials and work closely with him and have a complete I can't even believe that you are especially consider we also have two lawyers on this board that you would even obtain entertain that this law firm out of all the other law firms

050that you could have chosen in this county that this one would be chosen. So I really highly suggest that you don't do it. Thank you. Mr. Amuso would you be able to address the concern raised by Ms. Harris? On the Sunshine Act or you want all three? No well the Sunshine Act. Sure so there's there's no problem under the Sunshine Act you've you've properly posted this agenda you're voting on items the the order in which you vote on items is not important the important thing is that you let the public know what you're going to do and you allow them to make public comment before you do it. Mr. Amuso can you also address the comment about whether you were convicted or your firm was convicted for that please? Sure so there's no conviction absolutely

051we were solicitors of the Pennsbury school district several individuals sued everybody at the district the board members ourselves about how the the district was conducting public comment policy a it was a civil suit down a federal court a judge issued an injunction that prevented the school district from enforcing its public comment policy we were able to draft a public comment policy that the judge then approved and then the insurance company settled the case so there was certainly no no conviction of anybody it was a preliminary matter that was settled by the insurance company. Thank you thank you very much so moving on then that concludes public comment for this period the next item on the agenda is item number four board action item that's ours general solicitor for a appointment of Clark Gallagher, Barbiero Amuso

052and Glassman Law as general solicitor can I get a motion to approve? So moved. So moved. Moved by Mr. Herring and seconded by Ms. Gibson any questions or comments? I just have a comment. Sure. For many years central box has engaged separate legal firms in providing representation for labor matters versus general solicitor services. I feel that this separation of responsibilities provides important checks and balances for our board. When this board recently chose to separate from our prior solicitor having another firm engaged as our labor counsel enabled us to quickly transition the work to Clark Gallagher. I understand that some other districts in the area use the same firm to serve different roles they use one council for different roles however based on the pure size of central box school district with 17,000 students and 3,000

053employees it seems prudent to me to seek representation from different firms enabling each firm to focus on just focus their efforts on either labor or general solicitor representation of central box so for that reason I'm going to be voting no. Okay thank you. I guess as a comment in response to to that comment I do believe that having one firm can also help redundancies or confusion amongst lawyers when we're discussing various issues so it could prove to be very beneficial and cost-effective at the same time so that being said is anyone else want to comment I just have a couple of thoughts if I can I have a comment when you're done Rick you go first miss Gibson good no no that's okay I just wanted to be on high I just want to make

054sure I was yeah it's tough you're the voice of God tonight yeah I just want to say that you know we fully vetted any concerns over any conflict of interest I think that phrase is thrown around a lot but you can certainly look at the Pennsylvania rules of professional conduct as well as the school code and recognize that there is no conflict of interest in us hiring this firm so I just wanted to make thank you so I just have a couple of thoughts we've obviously worked our way through a couple of solicitors here since I've been on the board so we've gotten to see a bunch of different attorneys and a bunch of different solicitors as well so when I think about that and look at what I'm looking for in a solicitor a

055couple things come to my mind first is specialization and expertise and I mean there's no question here at all I think you check the box for that one and the firm does as well I look for to knowledge of Pennsylvania law I think you've proven some of the work and the firm has proven you know the expertise in that area as well around knowing school code special education union contracts and so forth the third is around preventative and proactive approach that's where I start to get a little it gets a little you know noisy for me so by this I mean like when you're looking to avoid legal problems rather than just reacting and I think you know here you were brought in and the firm was brought in at a certain pivotal time which

056was challenging but for me you know I'm looking for a firm and a solicitor that will not just react but will also try to do what they can to mitigate a risk here and I struggle with that one a bit which reads my fourth point which is around independence and accountability you know for me there it's about a solicitor that needs to remember who their client is which is the board in the district and it's not only the superintendent or individual officers on the board and for that one I kind of get a little uneasy on that one based on some experience good communication responsiveness no issues there value cost effectiveness that's fee structure clear approach good there and reputation references I did check with Council Rock I kind of do lean a little bit

057where you are miss Sedano it's in the size of this being an issue I spoke to a person on the Council Rock board who I am close with no issues obviously so I think you check out but my concern there is there also a very unified board there and I think at times we've been challenging ourselves as a board collectively in that area so so just a couple of comments there I just wanted to bring up for a consideration thank you any anyone else I'm concerned about capacity in the firm also not necessarily that we need two separate attorneys I do understand you know places do have that I am concerned about the capacity with the firm having Council Rock and other districts and our district is large on top of that so that's a

058concern that I have also I'm thinking maybe a roll call vote because we have people on teams as well okay yeah you do I do it or you do it you do Mr. Duggar no this is Foley yes Mr. Harry no Mr. Pepper yes yes no yes okay do I know that motion passes six three sorry thank you and then so thank you congratulations Mr. Musso thank you appreciate looking forward to the opportunity to continue to serve the district thank you and mr. Hellenicke sorry didn't and I will be logging off miss Radcliffe thank you as will I thank you thank you thank you okay now moving on to the approval of school board minutes meeting minutes from August 21st 2025 may have a motion to approve so moved motion moved by miss and seconded

059by miss Smith any comments questions okay all in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions I don't know if I have to ask okay okay thanks thank you thank you okay motion passes what is it eight eight zero seven seven two off yes seven zero okay moving on to school board reports education committee is is up first so mrs. Foley if you would take it away sure the education committee met on September 4th and moved several items to this month's board meeting for a full vote which dr. Malone already covered nauseam so I'm not thank you for making my job easier dr. Malone and our next meeting is forgive me I believe written down but now I do not October the sorry five weeks in October thank you October the night because the meeting shift

060a little bit yes so I was hesitant to say the first Thursday and that's all I've got for education okay thank you very much moving on to policy that would be mrs. Zandana wits I can say it that's okay it took me like a year and a half of being engaged before I could get there no worries you say it right all the time thank you the policy committee met on Thursday September 11th I want to thank everybody who came and I also want to thank everybody who participated in our moment of silence for the solemn occasion for our country dr. Malone covered a little bit but just to you know quick readers digest versions we have two first read policies on the agenda and eight second read policies on the agenda I also want

061to take an opportunity to thank the administration because we've really started a practice where in order to provide more transparency and understanding both to our board members and to the public we've been asking our administration to develop a lot of administrative regulations to back up the policies on almost every policy that we've done and in many cases those administrative regulations did not exist before if you're new to this there's a policy that the board sets out administrative regulation is basically how the district operationalizes that and the rules that they follow within the district and within the staff to follow those policies so we've been really focusing on making sure accountability is clear for our teachers and staff as it relates to a lot of the policies that we're covering I want to make sure that

062everybody's on the same page so thanks for that dr. Malone and company our next meeting is Thursday November November 13th at 7 o'clock and just a heads up there's no policy meeting in October I don't know why they're scheduled that way but that's the way they're scheduled so October is education and finance and no policy okay yes thanks thank you so much moving on to finance and operations that would be mr. Herring thank you mr. Reynolds so everything you heard from dr. Malone in his recap was reviewed at our last committee meeting and that was on September 11th there are a couple of things I will highlight that he didn't hit on which are kind of exciting there you know there's six operational items that we will vote on tonight he hit on all of

063those in the four operational support services information items there was one that was kind of interesting it's the advertising and sponsorship for athletic facilities so that's a pretty cool thing that we're looking at as a committee to see if we can you know really help the district can help offset or help with some expenses in the in the district by having local businesses or even national businesses from that standpoint I will be responsible on how we do it but it's a great initiative I think for us to look at as a district pretty exciting there were two business recommendations for approval that we'll see tonight one is the finance report and then there was a business update as well which is kind of great to see we did implement as a board and a district

064a real estate tax program for those who need in the community and so far we've had 98 real estate submissions for that for about $26,000 so it's a really great thing for the community as well which I think we're proud of and let's see so just I just want to say remember all of what we talked about and what comes to vote tonight really is happening at the committee meetings so I strongly invite one and all to come we have one long-standing person that shows up every night she'd love some company I'm sure we welcome you all so our next meeting is on October 9th hope to see you there thanks thank you very much moving on Bucks County Intermediate Unit oh my goodness that is you Mrs. Bully. The Bucks IU met this past

065Tuesday and highlighted all of their opening week training activities and classroom setup sessions as well as all of their various professional development opportunities across the county the big highlight this month was addressing the growing demand for specialized student services and on Friday September 5th the Bucks County IU officially opened new programs in the former Pearl S. Buck Elementary School on Top Road in Levittown there's 18 classrooms grades K through 8 so very exciting for them also acknowledged this month was arts and education week September 14th through the 20th as well as Deaf Awareness Month which aims to raise awareness about the challenges faced by the deaf community and promote inclusivity and recognition of sign language rights the next meeting for the IU is Tuesday October 21st thank you very much MBIT is that going to

066be you Mrs. Smith new staff this year six new teachers but Dr. Koval and the administration have done a good job getting them all up to speed and going we have the kickoff for the Education Foundation and Alumni Association for middle bucks which is occurring on October 8th and that is open to the public if anyone would be interested in attending there's a registration link on the website one of our students in the dental sciences program did us proud this summer at the HOSA conference which is international conference and she placed eighth basically in the world so that was proud moment and then also our the welding teacher mr. H he attended a national conference in Florida two concurrent conferences and brought pride to the MBIT name down there in Florida and we have our

067next meeting on October 7th and just to jump off on one thing for Mrs. Smith just a reminder that the MBIT annual open house plan ahead because they're usually pretty crowded is November 30th November 20th I'm sorry it's from 6 to 8 o'clock so if you have a student who is interested in attending MBIT it's a great opportunity they really do have a fabulous program over there it's a great opportunity for them to go meet the staff see the building and see what kind of doors can be open for them over there sorry that concludes okay moving on so item seven would be finance so mr. Mattis I'll turn it over to you thank you administration recommends approval of items B through D please can I get a motion okay you have to ask for

068the motion I think I was about to but yeah there get a little antsy yeah no I get it settle down we're just excited I'm the one who has all the energy okay motion to approve items 7b through D so moved motion moved by mr. Herring seconded by mrs. Smith any questions comments okay all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions okay motion passes 7-0 moving on to operations mr. Spencer that's you yes thank you administration seeking approval of operations items 8b through 8h may I get a motion from someone for eight eight B through H so moved okay motion made by mrs. Danowitz and seconded by mr. Herring any questions comments okay all in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions okay motion passes 7-0 moving on to special oh you're welcome sorry no

069formalities I'm just kidding no nice cities don't throw her up yeah yeah don't yeah she's doing great she's doing try to be like a machine here no I'm kidding okay um special education that will be you touch him alone administration is seeking approval for special education items B through G okay can I get did I skip sorry sorry sorry can I get a motion to approve item 9 B through 9g please second okay motion made by mrs. Foley seconded by mrs. Danowitz yes fine we posted at the same time all good no it's all good who I who was the loudest just pick any question me yeah mrs. motion was made by mrs. Foley seconded by mrs. Danowitz you're welcome any questions comments okay all in favor aye any abstentions oh any opposed any abstentions

070okay passes 7-0 seven oh sorry student services that is also gonna be okay dr. administration seeks approval for student services items 10a motion for items 10a so move okay yeah yeah motion made by mrs. Smith seconded by mr. Herring any comments questions concerns okay all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes 7-0 moving on to item 11 education yes dr. Zulinski administration is seeking approval for item 11 B items 11 B through M okay a motion for item 11 B through M 11 M okay moved by mrs. Foley seconded by mr. Kimikata any questions comments okay all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes 7-0 thank you thank you moving on to policy I would say that was you dr. Malone okay administration is seeking approval for policy items B and

071C so moved oh sorry sorry we did it again you all have to just take a breath okay no okay so looking for a motion for items 12 B and C so moved okay okay so moved by mrs. Danowitz and seconded by mrs. Smith any questions or comments all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes 7-0 I'm getting good all right field trips who's that's gonna be yeah they're usually are in the secondary division yeah this is Radcliffe told me that by the way before him administration is seeking approval for field trip items 13 B through J okay so looking for a motion for 13 B through J motion okay motion made by mr. Duggar seconded by mrs. Smith any questions or comments all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes

0727-0 human resources yes thank you thank you and administration requests approval of items 14 B through G may get a motion on 14 B through G please motion second motion from mr. Duggar seconded by mrs. Danowitz any questions or comments I just have a statement and a question if I could on on two of these sure if that's okay so first on the the approval on 14 D the appointments there was a salary adjustment for a person on here who's the elementary principal and I did just want to take a minute I I mean I'll continue to abstain on these for a reason and I just I do want to read an email that I did send to us as a board because I think it's important for the community to hear that as well

073so there was a question about why this happened and and I agree that this adjustment on here should happen it's just the way that it has happened which I struggle with given everything that this district has been through so my question here was stated and I'll just read it so let me get this straight we are increasing a salary for an employee who has more experience than another employee because we see it is right to honor past experience with higher pay yet as I stated in the past and what has become abundantly clear through lawsuits against the district we have current female teachers who have been with us for years and have asked that their salaries be increased to reflect that their experience be honored because one we hired men at higher salaries and two

074we spent the last few years hiring people with less experience at higher salaries than their peers many of which are teaching the same subjects those women have sent notes to the board and HR requesting that their experience be honored and nothing has happened make this make sense please for those that like to deep dive please be aware that now you have chosen to appeal that case to the Third Circuit the outcome may dictate equal pay laws not just for CBSD employees but for all women residing in the Third Circuit in Pennsylvania New York New Jersey and the Virgin Islands I just wanted the women that are in the community and teaching in our schools because we are talking constantly about the issue of trying to find new teachers we have a ton of existing teachers

075that I worry about retainment so that's my comment there so I will abstain again from the vote as I have in the past the other question I just had here was on the EDRs for athletic points I was looking through this and if I'm if I'm looking at it correctly the longevity pay in here it would appear there are twelve people on this list that have longevity pay and out of the twelve two or women now I don't know if we have any title nine issues there I guess I would pose that to the solicitor or to HR or all but two out of twelve is not great I don't know if they're title nine issues there because of the pay and who we've grandfathered into this but I think it's worth a look because

076that that concerns me quite frankly on the equal pay standpoint there and I guess I just I'd like to maybe ask the administration perhaps can we look at the longevity pay again because it's tough to find these coaches and so longevity pay I think makes sense you know but like we've cut it off and we've stopped it I mean I know budget I'm not advocating to spend more money I know this is not but it's it's a struggle to find good talent as we all know to volunteer essentially for the pay they're getting so I think looking at longevity pay especially going forward is something that we may need to look at again so I'm happy to take a look at it thank you that's all okay thank you any other comments questions okay I

077forget who did I already announce who made the motions okay great okay all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions abstain okay so six four with one abstention okay motion passes oh can you pass this down for me and finally the item 15 reports and information is just that it's reports and information there is nothing for us as a board to vote on so fifth oh sorry you were you gonna say that oh okay okay 15 a leaves of absence reports and 15 be TPEP semi-annual ratings and then 15 see new job descriptions are all available for the public to review on our agenda thank you okay now thank you thank you everyone almost there I think I'm talking to myself out loud okay so now this brings us to our second public comment thank

078you and I'm sorry so this brings us to our second as section of public comment so persons wishing to make public comment were required to register prior to the start of tonight's meeting again if students my reading this right yes if students were registered to speak they'll be permitted to do so first please note that the public comment is not intended to be a question and answer session if a question is posed the individual may be referred to the superintendent for follow-up when your name is called please approach the podium begin stating your name and municipality each speaker is a lot of three minutes you'll be asked to cease your comments at three minutes we kindly ask that all comments be directed to the board as a whole rather than to the individual members but

079you keep it we appreciate your cooperation in maintaining a respectful environment please be considerate of all speakers and their opinions including those that differ from your own thank you very much for understanding yeah okay so Kirsten McGowan of Buckingham Township you are up first hi good evening I'm here as a parent of two Buckingham students and I'm here to talk about about about cell phone policies in schools one I want to thank you know this community for one listening to many parents that are pushing this topic and being very concerned about the both mental physical and emotional health challenges that our kids are facing with too early too often and access in school to technology I wanted to use this opportunity to hopefully inspire other parents in the community to kind of come forward and

080engage in this dialogue it is a really important one for our kids and for their future first a belt about policy is a phone free school policy it is about not having access during the academic day so first bell at the beginning of school to the very end no access there are three major reasons why this is the best practice kind of scientifically proven policy and 17 other states in the nation have adopted this and many more on the way first academic success it allows teachers to teach rather than police devices reduce classroom distractions increase focus and cognitive performance improve grades and test scores decrease cheating and eliminate partial presence on phones which drain cognitive ability on the mental health front it creates space to build real-life social skills and grow school connectedness encourage emotional

081resilience independence and problem-solving skills without texting or calling home parents were some of the worst offenders reduce cyberbullying and social media drama in the school building third from a school safety perspective it is about maintaining calm and emergency situations and helping kids focus on teacher instructions and best practices according to safety experts keep communication lines clear for first responders and to protect kids from online harm such as sexual predators and access to drugs while at school there are a lot of other variations of policies that states and school districts have tried and then find themselves back in the very same situation where they're not able to benefit from the ability of having a focused safe environment for students just a couple of comments I will also make is teachers want this 83% of NEA teachers

082support Bell to Bell it's increasing if we've got issues with retention this is one way to help support them and let them do their jobs taxpayers want this up to 25% of the school day is lost to smartphone use that is taxpayer dollars down the drain parents want this we see what's happening to our kids their ability to focus and safety school safety and resources officers want this across the country it is their stance nationally I want to thank the administration if you want to get engaged there is an event next Thursday on the 25th there is a town hall in Newtown on cell phones in schools please come learn engage we urge the district in the community to continue this and support our schools and if we see the good and what other school

083districts are doing Bell to Bell policies we should be the good and adopting these policies thank you that was well done Katie Moran Buckingham Township hi everyone my name is Katie Moran my husband Chip and I are the proud parents to two girls who go to Cold Spring Elementary first of all thank you all for so much for what you do for our children in our community I'm here tonight with a simple but urgent request similar to Kirsten's to help protect our kids from the negative impacts of screen addiction research shows that devices are impacting their brain development their mental health and social connection I have three specific requests so first can we lead the way in our state by implementing a bell-to-bell cell phone band which Kirsten just talked about through designated storage lockers

084or phone pouches right now teachers are really left to police phone use and quite frankly it's not working a common sense media study found that kids received a median of 237 notifications a day more than half of those were received during school hours another study showed it takes over 23 minutes to refocus after checking a smartphone certain students are less focused in class when they know their phones are just minutes away making a strong case storing these devices all day alarmingly another common-sense media study showed that 41% of teens have viewed pornography at school 20 and or more states already have these bans Pennsylvania is not yet one of them although we're working on it these schools are experiencing results like shifts in behavior improved grades and decreases in bullying second can we cap the

085total device usage during the school day and eliminate device required homework for K through 5 unless it offers evidence-based advantages a science direct report found that 38 of every 60 minutes spent on school laptops were off tasks teachers report that students are often distracted while using their Chromebooks I think back to my 1990s history book and imagine 25% of its pages being filled with sports current news porn and video games I wonder how our kids even stand a chance of distraction free learning lastly let let's enforce device device free indoor recess after school programs and school sponsored events to foster human interaction a Danish study shows that devices during recess and other school events contribute to lower interaction higher stress and decreased attention let me paint a picture using real life snapshots of how childhood

086has shifted during indoor recess kids sit silently immersed in Minecraft the room lacks the buzz of laughter and clatter of board games at an eighth grade dance kids line the walls awkwardly scrolling their phones the energy and dancing are replaced by glowing screens and silence on the bus en route to a volleyball game it's quiet each kid absorbed in their own device instead of joking or bonding with their teammates in closing let's make school a safe haven free from the constant pull of these dopamine devices the data is clear we must work as a community to free our children from these addictive technologies threatening their development and their well-being I along with other parents stand ready to collaborate with you on these critical issues in any way we can thank you for your time thank

087you so much Elizabeth told us Warwick Township hi everyone Elizabeth told us I reside in Jamison with my family and tonight I am here on behalf of my 16 year old summit or excuse me my 16 year old son Emmett who is a junior at East and unable to speak for himself non speaking autism and intellectual disability profoundly impact his everyday life he's home with his dad tonight central bucks school district sports programs are booming but a glaring inequity exists within our P.I. double-a Special Olympics sports unified bocce and unified track it is time to consider fairly compensating our exceptional unified sports coaches and open the coach search to community like every other sport in this district when coaching positions become available unified coaches currently only receive a small stipend to be split it is

088provided by Special Olympics of Pennsylvania and not by the central bucks school district this creates a devaluing of our Special Olympics athletes and the dedicated individuals who are expected to coach them it sends a message that their athletic pursuits are somehow less important than others additionally the coaching positions for unified teams are not open to the community in the same manner that other sports are when there is staff turnover this limits the pool of talented and passionate coaches who could contribute to the success of our Special Olympics athletes the kids today call this gatekeeping last year Emmett and his teammates experienced the following the unified bocce and unified track team are the only sports in the 2025 central bucks East yearbook that do not have the participating athletes names listed for their sports in fact

089they are the only two sports teams in that book that do not have a standard team photo all 2025 P.I. double-a spring sports began practice on March 3rd of 2025 at that time the members of the unified track team had not received any kind of correspondence regarding the season scheduled meets or a practice schedule we started the season two weeks late and then went on a three and a half week stretch without a single practice from the end of May excuse me through the end of April through May rain was not a factor on any of these days off I can provide several more examples at your request I have been engaging with the admin through email conversations and scheduled meetings over the course of the 24-25 school year and throughout the summer in reference

090to these inequities our student athletes whether in bocce track or any other sport deserve to be treated with equal respect and value I urge you to address this disparity by ensuring that the coaching pay for P.I. double-a unified bocce and track is in line with that of other sports and by opening these positions to the community in the same manner that qualified community members can approach any other sport and coach in this district let's invest in all athletes in central box and I don't think that there's a better time in the history of our district to do that thank you thank you okay next up Michael Henry Warwick Township I almost wrote my name down on the list as you are conscience because I'm definitely worried about what's going on around here we await this

091decision on Yanni and Heineman and it makes me sad to even think about the saga of my nonverbal autistic kids classroom continuing to drag on for even longer but it does make me think I think about some things that stood out from the hearings the behaviors of the students weren't ever a thing in question during the hearings it was really just how the staff handled these behaviors that was the issue testimony didn't say anything about the abuse not happening it was about who reported what and why it took several days to file one or in Dave Heineman's case never filing one their defense wasn't about proving competency it was about blaming others they certainly didn't prove they weren't negligent the principal never filed a child line report and the superintendent didn't send a detailed report

092till January then they left that classroom under staff for months from January till about March or April oh yeah and they're legally mandated reporter so they didn't just break all of our trust they broke the law so if we all agree that this happened in that classroom it shouldn't even be a question to try and do something about it we need to prevent it in the future if Yanni and Heineman face no consequences this is going to happen again there will be a precedent set that says it is okay to abuse special needs kids nothing bad comes from it you know there's people up here at that desk that have made statements not all people up here but I did learn that the mics do work on this side of the room so that's great

093but there's been statements of sorrow and sympathy if there's sympathy for these kids we need to think about the people who let this happen let this abuse happen and are we gonna keep these people in their roles actions speak louder than words here you know I wonder why would someone join the school board in the first place I imagine you joined the board to try and create a positive change in the school district because you were sitting at home and you were looking around and you said you know what I think I can do better I think I can help make this place better I can think of no bigger opportunity to make this district better yes higher teachers salaries are crucial of course but these children need the most help from all of us

094prove to all of us that these kids matter you want a unified board please unify on this what do you want people to remember later in the fall when the polls are open for some of the seats that are opening on the board you know Dave Heinem and himself said I think I was on the wrong side of this will this board be on the right side of history will this community look back and feel relief or resentment can parents count on you to do the right thing make this make sense please I genuinely hope so not just for my special needs child but for every child in this district who deserves a safe environment what if it was your kid is my kid lesser than others because they can't talk do they not deserve

095the same human decency that normal kids get they can't talk but they could feel and I don't want any kid to ever feel how mine felt in that room there's many names to blame for what happened at Jamison from those inside the classroom to those in charge of the school to those in charge of the district there's plenty of blame to go around but if nothing is done about it when it happens again it's gonna be you who we blame thank you and Mac house of Buckingham and Mac house of Buckingham and scientists engineer discover the elementary particles in the 70s I taught and Brooklyn for 10 years I never saw an autistic child the autistic rate was one in ten thousand if you look at the media they'll say well they never they didn't

096put the autistic children in school because they put him in they they didn't bring him into the mainstream they put him in a special institutions there was only one in ten thousand most schools don't have ten thousand now since that time that the autism rates been doubling every five ten years in in woke New Jersey one in every three children has some degree of autism and fact they call fascists Trump and Robert Kennedy jr. who want to stop the rates of autism going up to one in every two children which will be if they continue the same policies before so I'm a scientist look at this stuff is it vaccines when we had five vaccines or so seven and and the autism rate was one in ten thousand now the autism rate is much higher

097and America and and Canada lead the world in autism I mean we spend more money per child per person than any other country in the world and we have the worst health reserves reserves no other country mandates that you jab your children with these vaccines like in New York no no other countries don't do that's why they don't have so many autistic children almost when they don't do that they don't have any autistic children like in Vietnam until Bill Gates introduced the vaccines so people want to believe that there's a vaccine or medicine for everything so they want to believe oh if you don't they make the lie and say if you don't take this COVID shot you get COVID if people get COVID chops as far as COVID like Robert Kennedy said America is

0985% of the world's population but 20% of the deaths from COVID were in America that's why he's cutting the CDC there firing these people they're spending hundreds of millions for autism but are they but they're making worse results it should not be for covering up promoting medical profits the job is to solve the problems and deal with it and parents who give continue giving their children vaccines who have autism will have regression and the children will not prosper and overcome the problems of autism because they're overwhelms their their medical system thank you look into the science support the Republicans they are the anti-fascists mayor wait Christina Bucci sorry Shalfon borough sorry about that hello my name is Christina Bucci and I'm central books mom of four tonight I'd like to discuss advanced placement courses at

099the high school level specifically AP seminar and AP research with the goal of implementing the AP diploma program before I jump into my prepared speech I would also like to highlight the urgency of this issue given the presentation that was given earlier today about school realignment and this being a pumpkin task so this is this is a fall situation and it would be good if we could really get it on the schedule to discuss so last month we discussed the first course required for obtaining the AP diploma which was AP seminar tonight I would like to take a closer look at the second requirement which is AP research the titles AP seminar AC AP research don't tell us much about the content of these courses so I turned to College Board the nonprofit responsible for

100developing AP curricula for a better understanding after reading the descriptions of these courses I cannot think of a pair of classes that is more desperately needed in our politically divisive environment College Board has this to say facilitating students entrance into academic or real-world conversations about complex issues is a key goal of both AP seminar and AP research research courses AP seminar course aims to build independent critical thinkers by empowering students to develop the skills and traits necessary for future academic study through the examination of multiple perspectives evaluation of credibility of sources and construction of arguments the AP research course provides students the opportunity to build upon these skills by choosing and deeply exploring a topic or question of personal interest and developing and defending a more comprehensive argument and conclusion throughout the research or inquiry

101process student documents and reflects back on the received sorry feedback received and on their own thinking writing and creative processes through a reflection portfolio the AP research course culminates in the students presentation and oral defense of their academic paper AP research is the second course in the AP capstone experience it allows students to deeply explore an academic topic problem issue or idea of individual interests students design plan and implement a year-long investigation to address a research question through this inquiry they further the skills they acquired in the AP seminar course by learning research methodology employing ethical research practices and accessing analyze and synthesizing information students reflect on their skill development document their processes and curate the artifacts of their scholarly work through a process and reflection portfolio the course culminates in an academic paper of

102four to five thousand words accompanied by a performance exhibit or product or applicable and a presentation with an oral defense these courses are more than just advanced classes they are structured rigorous environments that help students think independently write clearly and speak with confidence they ask students to do exactly what college will require of them to ask good questions to dig deep to defend their ideas and to reflect on their own growth in an era when information is abundant but discernment is rare AP seminar and ACP research offer students the tool to think critically and communicate thoughtfully skills that will serve them not only in college but in life thank you thank you so much Mara Whitson, Chalfont Borough. Mara Whitson, Chalfont. So I attended a vigil this past Sunday after the assassination of Charlie Kirk

103at which many of your students were in attendance and what they had to say was pretty concerning I learned that just as I had warned against in this room a few years ago your conservative and religious students have felt silenced and ostracized in this district for their political and religious beliefs I don't know how I could be shocked by this given that some board members have sat at this dais and attacked those same beliefs as bigoted and hateful all I can say is that you've utterly failed them it is not the job of kids or young adults to fight back against that it's our job and it's definitely your job it's your job to create a school environment where they don't have to fight back against it you denied children a learning environment in which

104they could feel safe to express their beliefs when you took away the neutrality policy immediately upon being sworn in on political grounds under your leadership there is a classroom in this school district that has a Che Guevara poster and flag hanging in the room I've brought this up previously nothing has been done Che Guevara was an anti-gay racist genocidal dictator who used political violence to execute political opponents given recent events what kind of message do you think that sends to your students a former school board member who has since resigned even visited that classroom sitting right under the flag still nothing happened your lack of neutrality policy makes it difficult for you to do anything about this even if you wanted to I don't know if you want to it's unacceptable I want to know

105what you're going to do to fix this your leadership has allowed this to go on for far too long your role is to set policies for educating young people but you've done nothing to ensure that they can receive that education properly without fear of retaliation for having the wrong view you can't ignore or what about ism your way out of this problem as you've said this all happens at committee meetings but it never comes up to the committee unless it's brought up here so I'm here to ask that it be brought up to committee to discuss putting back neutrality policy I hope you'll take it seriously thank you thank you Doreen Stratton and then there's gonna be one more person Nicole Prox Byers yep so we'll add you okay Doreen Stratton Doylestown borough I'm a

106third generation Doylestown resident and retired and my pay my taxes each cycle I am a product of the central box school district from grade 1 through grade 12 I come before you with several decades of life experience some of which were not from a college or university I'm a mother grandmother and a great granny of two beautiful girls I am also a writer a blogger a photographer a researcher and a lecturer I often speak out about causes and concerns that affect me and every else I know and do not know I am so old I remember the 1950s when the House on un-American Activities Commission held hearings affecting dozens of writers who could no longer practice their craft within a decade that list expanded to hundreds more including actors singers musicians writers composers dancers comedians

107and journalists I am also so old I remember when the news was where we learned about our neighbors our country and beyond our students in the halls or classrooms of our schools are the petri dishes where information and knowledge expands the right to speak and learn is under threat please be conscious of those rights as we mold the future students of Bucks County and beyond and I love this see the good be the good program that's very very neat thank you thank you it is very neat very Nicole prox buyers if I'm saying that incorrectly you can correct me when you do come up if you could also just state your municipality just because we didn't get that on the piece of paper my name is Nicole I'm from Warwick Township and I have three

108kids in central box two in East and one in holocon currently I came here on a whim just to be heard because I feel like I'm not being heard it's in regards to bullion at East and my daughter is 16 years old she's had a current run-in with girls for the last few years you know it's mostly drama so we kind of just went on with it she finally we got her into MBIT which she loves it's probably the best thing we ever done for it because she's out of the school for the most of the day she found that when she tried to stray away from this group of girls it was actually worse for her it was easier to be their friend than their enemy because the school did not back her up

109they kind of swept it under the rug it was the easy way the way they protected her was they made her eat lunch for a couple months in the principal's office and then she felt like she was being punished for it so now she's friendly with these girls but she's not friends with these girls she's but she talks to them in school and that's it she is friendly with other people outside of that group but these girls are not I don't have any notes I have a text so as you can see everybody this is the cyber bullion of another girl there's just online cyber bullying and my daughter then got a text from a girl and I'm not gonna use the children's names because I didn't get their permission so let me just go

110back to the original text so my daughter I'm gonna say my daughter's name her name is Ariana Ariana what are bad things that blank has done Ariana says like what the bully says anything I'm beefing with her the other my daughter says I know I heard and the bully says she looked me up and down with the most disgusted face I want her dead my daughter then there's a bunch of text going back and forth my daughter says she doesn't know anything better and she said that's fine I she said she and I asked Anna sorry I use somebody's name she said that she has stuff that she's gonna tell me then my daughter said outside of these texts that they were plotting on jumping her so my daughter made a safe to say and

111the school failed my daughter because they took her safe to say text they brought these bullies into the office and they showed my daughter they showed then my daughter's texts with her face in the background then my daughter was getting numerous threat messages texting it's calling her a snitch I had to pull her out of school she's starting home school next week because the school is doing nothing I went to the superintendent's office nobody called me back nobody's answering me I went to the school they have nothing they admit it that they showed on the text I have no apology these bullies are still walking at school meanwhile the girl who's being bullied is too afraid to go back to the school so she's been out of school for a couple days my daughter's missing

112school for a couple of days until she starts home schooling and these girls are still at school with no consequences thank you I'm so sorry okay we can look into that yes okay okay thank you for coming thank you everybody for coming do I call a motion to adjourn or do I do sorry yes I'm so sorry you are correct I was off the screen excuse me item 17 board comment do we have anyone who would like to make board comment tonight no just say I'd like to thank all of our staff for all their hard work over the summer getting everything ready to go for the school year I was found it interesting when I work for the school district people would say oh you must be off in the summer I'm like no

113there's a lot of stuff that happens in the summer I don't know how people think you're gonna open up an organization for you know 20,000 kids and 3,000 employees and nobody does anything all summer long so just thanks to all our staff who made made our schools ready to go great Kevin wasn't busy Kevin's team yeah I just wanted to I just want to kind of jump on to miss miss comment I also want to thank all the administrators in all the buildings because sometimes they do things behind the scene that we don't realize and we've been going through a tough time I think you know you've heard a lot about it in public comment and everything and I think we've had a lot of people in our administration in our back office staff and

114in our building step up to help fill holes for missing people to help do extra work a lot of it really you know just because they care about what they do so I really want to thank and recognize those people for really stepping up and doing extra and helping us through a tough time thank you for doing that thank you for making the right the acknowledgments and the recognitions and thank you to everyone I echo your sentiments anybody else okay motion to adjourn so moved motion to adjourn made by Miss Dana would seconded by mrs. Smith all in favor aye