001like to call this meeting to order. Everyone please rise for a moment of silence. Pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'd like to thank everyone for coming this evening. Uh there's a log in the front. If you haven't done so, please sign in. If you have anything in particular you would like to bring to the board's attention, please also write that down. If at any time during the meeting you'd like to mention something on an agenda item, please raise your hand, be recognized. After the normal business, there's also time for public comment where you can bring up additional issues. This meeting is being recorded. I'd also like to announce that
002there was an executive session conducted prior to the meeting to discuss personnel matters and with Mr. Roll call please. Aaron Angel here. Michael Hes here. Rea Hoffman here. Cecilia Hall here. Jason Cuck here. Jeremiah White here. Dennis Judy Dishes here. Daniel Whismer here. Laura Ziggler here. All right. Thank you. Uh first item is the approval of minutes. We'd have both the May 21st, 2025 school board meeting minutes and May 27th, 2025 budget and finance committee meeting minutes. Do we have a motion? Second. Second. Any questions or comments on this? Um May 27th. It says that I made a motion to close the meeting. I wasn't here. We'll we'll get that corrected. And I don't video. Let me I can pull up my notes too. See what happened there. I'll double check. It should have been
003from It should have been me. I was the motion and Jeremiah was the second. So So then any other questions or comments or concerns on that? Okay. With that change revision, uh, we have a roll call to approve the minutes for both meets of concerns. Aaron Angel, yes. Hess, yes. Rea, yes. Cecilia, yes. Jeremiah Lake, yes. Dennis Dishes, yes. Daniel Whisper, yes. Laurel Ziggler, yes. Jason Cuck, yes. Motion cars. Uh, next is communications and reports. Mr. Tan, superintendent report. Mr. the superintendence report. Dr. Meyers for bringing it up. You know, while there are many things to celebrate last week, we had our final celebration with the class of 2025. And with so many achievements and experiences over the course of your 13 years, this is really, you know, the best event of the year annually
004for for so many obvious reasons. Uh we lucked out had a beautiful evening on Thursday where the sun was shining with wasn't too hot and we were able to be outside in our stadium. Just want to share that is a priority of ours for a variety of reasons. This is the fifth uh celebration outside including the parade and then into the stadium. And there's just so many benefits to being outside. One, we have this beautiful facility and we get the opportunity to use it. Um but also families have an opportunity to celebrate in their their way where we do not have a really specific limit on how many guests they can have when we're outside. Um in addition to the celebrations being a little bit more organic um you know while while cheering for family
005just and it was a wonderful event. Thank you to the high school team including Dr. Flicker uh Mr. Brett the class advisors Mr. Crotwald and Mr. Miller um as well as many many other members of the team just putting on a beautiful event in the stadium. On Thursday, 102 students graduated, walked across the field and had the great fortune to hand them their diploma. led by valadictorian Tucker Hillyard and saludiatoran David Nushwander. Both who had an opportunity to speak as the president and vice president and validictorian saludiatoran for the class of 2025 and both shared inspiring messages about the way they currently and look to approach lives in the future in addition to sharing some anecdotes about their experience here in Quitztown. And then distinguished alumni Michael Harden uh also shared um some inspiring words
006about coming from a small town and and the different paths that you can take to success. Um her being an example of that. Um she she joked that she was the class I don't know if she was joking honestly. She said she was voted class clown not valictorian. Um probably accurate. um and uh shared how you know at 30 years old really didn't know what her direction was and now you know today being named a distinguished alumni and having many many successful business ventures. So uh just three wonderful messages from our students and then also our distinguished alum here. You see some pictures you know again one of my I have the great fortune to have this moment you know with each of our students every year handing them their diploma. Um look at this
007picture um go you can saw that the uh this picture of Tucker um as the class president leaving class and tossing their caps in the air before they rejoin their families for that celebration. see the beautiful night. We have so many people in the community that come out and support our students in our school district on that evening. Um, including the local police. Mayor Schweel is always involved. Um, you can see in the backdrop the I don't know the dimensions of that American flag, but it's a massive American flag that puts down fire company displays for us. And here we have a few examples of our parade. Um again it it is a whole community celebration with families and students and our our faculty and staff. It's um little better night of the year and
008as long as the weather cooperates we get to enjoy it outside together. So congratulations to the class of 2025. Um congratulations to Michael Harden and thank you to everyone for being a part of that special celebration. Thank you. Student representative report is next. Uh we have students and the budget activity fee discussion the budget uh the activity fee discussion. I I sent this won't be difficult maybe for board members to see here. I just sent it uh to you in your email. Um, but what you'll have, we we had a discussion at a budget finance committee meeting about, well, originally we talked about a pay fee that was mostly around athletics, looking at a fee of $100 per student, one time per year, no matter how many sports they participate in at the high school,
009and $50 per student again, no matter how many uh sports they participate at the middle school. And the question was raised about um clubs and activities. So we compiled a list with an attempt to categorize them in a way that makes um logical sense, right? And when you look at the list that I have here and have shared, uh the club name is to the left. Um they're entirely on this list except for FFA. EC stands for extracurricular versus co-curricular. Um, FFA is the only one on this list that I think is truly a co-curricular item where anyone taking one of our ad courses and is enrolled in the FFA even if they're not all that active. Um, the rest are truly extracurricular. And then we looked at any position with a stipened um there's
010one volunteer position then on the bottom, the Odyssey, the mind leader. We tried to categorize whether district then funded um activities such as registration um for for example where the majority of these groups the the group fundraises to pay for you know the the majority of it there's some where it's a mix between the district and that's categorized by both and then some where it's the district pays for those and again it's really difficult to kind of come up with a logic of where that is and the honest answer is just there's a history of how it came to be. Um where you know that um some historical reason when each group started or was proposed it was you know the district either carried the registration or did not. Then we looked at and when
011we're talking about these fees it's it's district cost but then also you know a major part of that goes into um the usage of facilities outside of the school day. I think when we start where we come to this philosophically is really that we have agreed fortunate obligation to providing a high quality public education to all the stu any resident of the sound community and the basis of that should not require a fee and that's within the school day but then outside the school day additional activities extracurricular use of those facilities paying stipens etc for that um it's fair to ask for those families to contribute a little bit more than others. So major parts of that then become transportation and facility use. Um knowing that significant amount of our costs annually as could be
012expected go to m maintaining and upgrading facilities as necessary and anybody who's participating in an activity or an athletic are using that a little bit more than others or a lot more depending on their usage. So we tried to categorize categorize transportation costs. Now why well it would seem that we could just come up with a number for transportation costs. We don't track van usage and the vast majority of these we we track usage but not from a mileage standpoint to put a dollar figure to it. So the vast majority of the usage of these groups is our own vans and the advisor or some you know or a volunteer driving the students. So certainly there is a cost to it but we don't have a number for that because we don't we don't track
013it that current. So we tried to look at kind of low, medium, high or no use of transportation um you know where that was a judgment call by using the calendar the last year's calendar from Mr. Yepsuga site. So then that next call we looked the facility usage you know and the facility usage was kind of the same of like well if they just meet in a classroom periodically that's very low but it's low right that's low usage. When you get down to others like the medium, it's because they might have um a full space to them pretty much all the time is what it comes down to. And or all the medium was they have a space kind of dedicated to them um seasonally, we'll say. And you know, the only one we have
014high there is um musical, you know, the musical usage of the auditorium is is really significant at that time year. It's as it needs to be. So it really became while we were hoping that this would lead us to like some clear categories, it's all over the map in what it is. Um you know and ultimately that it comes down to my recommendation that is if we are philosophically believing that students participating in an act any extracurricular activity would contribute families would contribute a fee then we should not worry about the specifics of that group and just anybody who participated in activity has to pay a fee and um I think if it's an extracurricular and not an athletic I think we're looking at that I would recommend that lower fee fee of the $50,
015you know, one time a year. Um, you know, and then maintain high school athletics are clearly above and beyond the usage for every transportation facilities and know entire facilities are largely dedicated to that. Um, you know, that that makes the most sense rather than um trying to sparse this out. I don't think again I look at this list and we just think of the students. I don't think it's a major revenue difference or cost difference because here in Kutztown, one of you know our greatest qualities is that these students are participating in something else. Like most are participating in something. So it's almost going to be an athletics fee or an activity fee, you know, and it's just whichever the greater of the two are, you would only pay one. And again when we calculate
016into it we are assuming you know approximately 33% 35% are either free or reduced lunch and the proposal we had was not to charge them the fees. So um I don't think this would radically change cost for individuals or radically change um revenue but it just kind of puts it all together. I think that's really the only way to do it to try to break out the groups into different usage categories is just almost impossible. So I mean that's where we have landed you know with that request and I think you know so the current proposal into the budget again as I mentioned budget finance committee I wouldn't recommend even changing the number we put into there as far as revenue until we see it play out um you know is that we were predicting
017somewhere between 25 and 32 I think it's probably on that higher end um thousand for the year but also make the activity fee if an activity fee that's $50 per student um participating or 100 for head squad bes and the 100 covers covers that the activities. Yes, covers the activities as well, you know, and um will there be a handful of students who may not have, you know, um only do one activity, you know, there might be, but it's going to be very very very few. And uh you know, those we would make it our our goal to find a way to have mechanisms that if that's going to prevent somebody from participating that we can help them out in some way. Um you know, it's well certainly would have some small donations or availability
018for things like that. So I don't our goal would be to not make it prevent anybody from participating but just to understand that there's a additional support for those who are getting more out of the district. I think um my initial response to this paytoplay idea was a hard no. Um, but kind of the more we've talked about it, I think Jason might have made some comments that kind of resonated with me just about the overall cost of doing stuff when kids are really young and then they get to this point in school and it's like that that cost shift has gone from the family to the school. Um I I think as an I like a starter idea especially with the fees being fairly low and the fact that this is not something that
019we are doing in isolation from other school districts like we seems like we would be one of the last school districts to do something along these lines. Yeah. Currently 10 school districts in Bur County have some so it's more than so I I think like my perspective has changed a little bit with the caveat of what kind of you just said is that almost kind of defeats purpose putting a fee but to to not prevent anybody from doing it because I think as someone else had said the booster programs could come in and and chip in if a student can't make a fee or like you're saying, we could set aside donations to help pay for students that couldn't pay for that fee on top of the fact that students with free and reduced wouldn't
020have a fee to begin with. So, um kind of with all of those things put together and kind of the way that you're categoring categorizing these extracurricular like club programs that kind My mind has been like my perspective has changed on like the support behind doing something like this to piggy back on my two like I think you know after that first year we may find there might be some hiccups that need behind now it's relative you won't know until you kind of won't know until you try I mean I would think it's a pretty good stat for I'm done. I'll add that I agree with my where he started. I started probably in the same place. Um my gut was that I didn't like the feel of pay for play, but the the thing
021that kind of sways me in the other direction is that you know we're we're constantly going to the taxpayers asking for more tax money. Um this is a way where the people who are actually being affecting affected by the situation are contributing and we're not asking retired senior citizen to pay for somebody to play sports or whatever else we need. So it still sits kind of funky with me but I think our overall it's like a drop in the bucket to what it really cost to do these things. Um, but it's it's something. Um, and as long as we have that kind of safety net where we can somebody can come in and fill in where there might be a gap in payment, I think we we'll be okay like implementing this or some form
022of this. Do you have an idea as to how we would catch those kids who might be facing that barrier to participation but aren't free and reduced one? Yeah, the challenge is because you you you know it is a it is a it has to be done from conversations of advisors and teachers who you know who know the kids because we certainly will say you know if you need a request you can contact the activity department but then that's putting it on a kid to come and say I can't you know can you help me and that's not always going to work you know so there is no perfect system to it But, you know, our teachers and adviserss, they they know the kids better than anybody. They really do. You know, and if there's
023somebody who seems hesitant, you know, be able to it's not going to be a perfect system, but you know, I think that we just have to go out for looking for that. So, I wish there was a perfect answer just because asking somebody to raise their hand and say, "I'm the one who needs help." Some will, but many won't. But again that's also coming from you know where the instance where that's going to happen because it's it is think about it from the parent side one if we already have 35% pre-induced who are not you know going to be charged the fee that takes off the majority of those who would be able to where I see it becoming more of an issue is going to be hey I want to do this quite a
024conversation at home with parents saying are you really going to do it because once I pay the fee I expect you know I think those are going to be more the real practical ones because I think you just go to anybody's home and those conversations happen. Um that'll be the majority of them afterwards and hopefully you know um I think that's a good discussion for Yeah. Yeah. I mean it is it is a good discussion. It's just again we all have them I think as parents at some point with our kids about something. It's just with the 35% you know we shouldn't have tuned that's a true need thing. It might be a parent saying you better prioritize like that's that's okay. Hey, that's a family discussion. I mean, something else that some of these
025clubs and stuff could consider doing is they could hold a fundraiser to that every kid would benefit from, you know, whatever money they fund raise could be put towards their activity fee and don't then it's really no out of pocket to anybody except, you know, just raise it themselves. They could build those in. I just, you know, I will share the that one, two, three, fourth column where the majority are the light purple, those um all do some type of fundraising already, you know. So the majority do some type of fundraiser. Um some of them have balances, not high balances, but balances that sit for years and years. That's a couple hundred dollars, a thousand, you know. Um so they they might be able to build that cost. Um so we'll, you know, we would
026we'll work with our teachers, advisors. I think the implementation's going to be the hard part because if you implement it at the beginning of the school year, all the fall sports are going to get hit with the like those um booster programs are going to get hit with the request to pay and then this the winter spring ones won't. So, it might just be like how do we want to implement this? Maybe not do it till the season's over or Well, I mean, we would be an interesting we would require it at the beginning of the season. You know, one thing that we have going for us in a variety of ways is we currently don't cut any sports. Um yeah, we don't have like because a lot of times schools do things and they
027won't collect it until the the cuts are made where it elongates our time where we can collect because it's really from the beginning of workouts in that second week of August until beginning of the season where we could kind of work those and you're right most yeah more than half of our kids will already be done by the time you know that's one of the reasons why I'm not all that concerned about kids not being missing out because they're afraid to raise their hands because our coaches need these kids and our coaches raise their hands. They're going to raise their hands for them and they're figured out because yeah, they want them and they want them in these clubs and they want them on the field and you I think I think that will work
028itself out to a large extent. Yeah. So, there's no action on this. Um, but we will we'll just build this structure into, you know, once we get to the final budget adoption, the June 23rd meeting. We've done this in some previous years. You know, in addition, we'll do an attachment of all the things that kind of go along with it. Um, because we discussed them through, but there's no formal action on any of them. So, um, this would be a piece of that is including this instruction. Thank you. Uh we can move on to five for a comment on agenda items. No one signed up with our check to speak in the audience. Dr. Myers, is there anyone on? No, there is. Okay, we can go into new business starting with a personnel. It is
029the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the following personnel items one through seven are listed out. Do we have a motion? So move test motion in a second. Any questions or comments on the personal hearing? Any Mr. Please roll? Michael Hess, yes. Rea Hoffman, yes. Cecilia Hall, yes. Jeremiah Light, yes. Dennis Sudicious, yes. Daniel Whismer, yes. Laurel Ziggler, yes. Aaron Angel, yes. Jason C, yes. Motion carries. All personnel is approved pending receipt of wellmandated credentials. B is policy maintenance. It is the recommendation of the policy curriculum commit and policy and curriculum committee that the board of school directors approve the following policies for second reading and approval one through three are listed there. I believe we can take those together. So unless there's an objection, I'd be looking for a
030motion to do just that. So movement second. Any questions or comments on those three policies? This is the second reading. Mr. Press, we have roll call, please. Reopton, yes. Cecilia, yes. Jeremiah Light, yes. Dennis Dishes, yes. Daniel Whismer, yes. Laura Ziggler, yes. Aaron Angel, yes. Michael Hess, yes. Jason Cotch, yes. Motion carries. C is the elimination of position director of curriculum instruction and assessment. It resolved that the board of directors of Sonia school district hereby eliminates the followed administrative position for the purposes of budget reduction and cost savings. Director of curriculum instruction and professional development yet further resolved by the board of directors of the board president and secretary are directed to give notice and issue the enclosed statement to the effective personnel employee as contemplated by section 1511 of the Pennsylvania school code and
031that said transferred to motion shall become effective at June 30th 2025. Do we have a motion? So move Whismer second late motion any second questions or comments a comment to the timing you know where this is something obviously we've been discussing with the budget and finance committee meetings and budget and you know as we hit last week's meeting um without the referendum passing as we look at the numbers within the available um revenue you know that that the board still has to decide on within this month it's you know we are at the juncture where it's it's not possible to to save position without you know other um staffing changes you know so looking along and we say this this stands in isolation because the other positions are attrition you know so this is the
032only true elimination of a position and um so the timing was was made sense for us to look at this now with the understandability of a way to raise revenue to save. Any other questions or comments? Uh just a comment. Um I I understand that this is a an elimination of the position, not the person in the position. um administration had to make a lot of difficult decisions based on where we are in the budget. Part of those decisions came um to the consensus that we had to eliminate teaching positions. So, actual positions affecting uh students and then to if we're going to be removing teachers from uh our staff to take a hard look at what our administrative needs are throughout the district. Um, and as a position, this seemingly made the most sense
033because of being able to cover the duties of this position throughout the other administrators, whereas other administrative positions would not have been able to do that. So, I'm making a generalization as to kind of what we spoke about at the budget meeting. So, um, while it's not an optimal decision, I think it's a decision that has to be made in the light of kind of where we stand with uh with the budget that we were presented with. Thank you, Mr. H. Yeah, I was I mean, I was going to say this after usually after a vote, but I you know, this is an incredible loss for our team and for our district in terms of the position. um you know where we are forced unfortunately to make really really challenging decisions. Um you know Mr.
034Develin is a is a valuable member of our team and has contributed in her four plus years here you know in so many different ways and helping us build programs and ones that we're excited about going into next year as well. Um it's just you know we we we sit here every month and even we say we have to make challenging decisions, challenging recommendations and this is just one of them. Um you know looking at some of the language within it because of the timing you know and also the opportunity to stay on our team in the teaching role. That's where it has to be listed as that transfer to motion piece where um it's it's truly just about the the opportunity to stay on in a teaching role with that position eliminated what that
035language is about. Um so thank Mrs. Develin for you know everything she does with us as a team in pure district from that role. Um continue to enjoy benefiting from her talents in a different role from the teaching side of the future. Awesome. Mr. School, please. Cecilia Holt. Yes. Jeremiah Light. Yes. Dennis Yudishious. Yes. Daniel Whismer. Yes. Laurel Ziggler. Yes. Aaron Angel. Yes. Michael Hes. Yes. Rea Hoffman. Yes. Jason Cuff. Uh, yes. Motion carries. D is donations. It is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors accept with gratitude the following donations. One is a donation from the National Rifle Association grant of $3,496 for activities of the Zenary High School and Middle School rifle. And the second is a donation check from Giant Food Markets in the amount of $1,946.97. Do
036we have a motion? So move like second bees motion second. Thank you. Um just thank you to both groups for the generous donations. I have a question. So when we have a donation that goes directly to a specific team or something, does that money get earmarked specifically into that? Yeah, within the fall into the general fund without within the athletics department. Um last year um the the rifle team was able to purchase new equipment as a result of this. Um and they've been as you know they've been trying to expand and they've expanded and then contracted a little bit expanded you know some so you know there's a more need but this is they apply for the grant and they get any other questions or comments. Mr. House roll call please. Jeremiah Leight. Yes. Dennisy
037Bishious. Yes. Daniel Whismer. Yes. Laurel Ziggler. Same. Aaron Angel. Yes. Michael Hes. Yes. Rea Hoffman. Yes. Cecilia Hope. Yes. Jason C. Yes. Motion carries. E is the rack dual enrollment agreement. It is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the dual enrollment agreement between Christown Area School District and Reading Area Community College for the 2025 2026 school year per the attached. Do we have any move with second? Are there any questions or comments on that agreement? This is just our annual dual agreement. Um essentially $99 of credit for RAT courses. uh mostly used for those that are taught by out teachers here in high school. Any questions or comments? Mr. Hel, please. Dennis Bishious, yes. Daniel Whismer, yes. Laurel Ziggler, yes. Aaron Angel, yes. Michael Hes, yes. Rea Hoffman, yes.
038Cecilia Hull, yes. Jeremiah Light, yes. Jason C, yes. Motion carries. F is the uh BCIU custodial supplies bid. This is a recommendation of the administration of the board of school directors award contracts for the purchase of items through the Burks County joint purchasing bids for the attached. We have a motion move. Motion a second. Any questions or comments? Mr. Es. Daniel Whismer. Yes. Laurel Sigler. Yes. Aaron Angel. Yes. Michael P. Yes. Eva Hoffman, yes. Cecilia Hull, yes. Jeremiah Light, yes. Dennis Sudicious, yes. Jason Cup, yes. Motion carries. G is the employee assistance program. It is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the agreement with inroads at family guidance centers to prov provide employee assistance program services for a term of one year beginning July 1st, 2025 with no rate
039increase. We have a motion. I'll move second. Thank you. Any questions or comments on the employee assistance program? It's an existing program that allows any employees um to some limited access to some supports uh through the family guidance partner that we have. So any employee any employee can access certain there's various services including some counseling um some grief counseling potentially um some assistance working through the death and family murder opportunity for all staff in great thank you any questions or comments all right Mr. Um, pro. Laurel Ziggler, yes. Aaron Angel, yes. Michael Hes, yes. Rea Hoffman, yes. Cecilia Hulk, yes. Jeremiah Light, yes. Dennis Dishes, yes. Daniel Whismer, yes. Jason Cuck, yes. Motion carries. H is introduction of new business uh by board members. Do we have any new business to be introduced? The only
040thing I I mentioned this several times, we want to discuss the 16th meeting. Um just you know the the three meetings planned regular meetings planned for this month. We always say that 23rd is necessary. The 23rd is necessary because we need our 30 days for the posted budget. So if the board is open to it, I think we could we can cancel the meeting on the 16th. We still have committees next week, but the meeting on the 16th would be cancelled as long as the board's open to that. We're able to move all of our business stuff up to the 23rd without any issues. Yes. still have eight unless you want to move to two. So yeah, I mean just fine. I I just it's the challenge the challenge of budget and we'll just talk
041this the challenge of budget adoption is you know we may have more than one option on the agenda depending on you know what kind of requested to be on there. Um I think as long as we stick to those options, you know, we don't have any um sunshine law violations obviously as long as they're posted in the amount of time as they would be, you know. So the if something is if a motion is made and then doesn't pass, then we have some Robert's rules that we have to manage ourselves and I think we're capable of that. But available by phone to me that's the only issue we would likely run into was just some Robert's rule of if a motion doesn't pass, what do we do next? What are the different budget options that
042are being prepared and will be presented? I mean, I I'm right now just on the the 4% one. I haven't heard anything else specifically. I've requested that we also have the the 5%. Right. So, there are the two that we have that we could have on there. Um, you know, I haven't heard I haven't received anything else. how because last year I was confused because I had made a s I was going to make a motion about the budget and then we said well because we didn't post that exact budget ahead of time even though we had posted a certain percent and I was my motion was going to be for less than that. So it's weird that we can't we said hey we're going to pass a budget with let's make this up a
0434% tax increase. I then proposed a three and a half percent and we were like, "No, we can't do that." To me, that doesn't make any sense. I I mean, I sense I agree, but Mr. Manuso feels pretty strongly that it should be listed exactly, you know, the option should be listed exactly. Um, you know, that's um it feels like we should be able to list a budget not to exceed X, right? and then any motion. But um that's uh again they the general assembly altered your powers um and they limit your ability to make uh you know major changes or any changes that aren't considered dimminimous to uh and to me it does not make a lot of sense as a school district to risk such a big vote and not comply the letter
044of the law. So I mean if there's like takes away our ability to have like discussion and it actually limits public debate but you know that's just the interpretation of it and you know so we so then then I think the ultimate question is what determines what makes it onto that monthly schoolboard meetings agenda in terms of recommendations? Can any of us just recommend any potential and we literally would have a list of of I'm exaggerating but just to get my point across a list of 10 potential I mean per policy the president can put things on the agenda. We have traditionally obviously something that comes through committee would be on there of course because that's what committee serves a purpose for. Um, you know, I think I believe that the way this board operates
045and has operated that a reasonable amount of options I think would be open to. Of course, we don't want a limited option, but I think if there was someone was recommending a third option of those two, I don't I don't think there'd be that. There's nine board members if there's nine options, right? So, I mean, that's ultimately the president says nine options are on the table. um maybe Mr. Nuso over there, but but I mean, you know, every the public would would know that that's the conversation and that's the point of the sunshine law. Um I would hope we don't have nine. I do I do remind people that I did last time. There is there's work and effort from putting it into the PTE format from the assignments perspective. But um so again, Jason
046just said it, he's open to having multiple options on there. So if there's something specific that you want to see, um I would ask we try to keep it under five, you know, advocate for three. I don't mean percentage, I mean, right? I'm not policywise could potentially put the president in a bad position if you were saying he's the only one that can tell you what to put because then that means the rest of us have no input and potentially a president could just say this is the budget that I want. This is the only one you're going to put on the meeting minutes. Jason said, you know, there's nine board members potentially. I don't think we're going to do this. Yeah, we could potentially put nine on there. And again, no time have I
047been told don't put that on the agenda, but you know, so it's it hasn't been a practical reality, but it's just um you know, I think through conversations kind of, you know, we're not going to discuss it a whole lot more here. What other options? If I as long as someone makes a request, you know, I'll share, you know, include me and Jason on email and, you know, you just heard it be and that is sufficient like that we can just email and say this was this is my suggestion and just include everybody on or something that include everybody or just us and we'll make sure everybody knows what's happen. Yeah, I think that's I think I think you make a good point about the president being put in a position. Um, however, the flip
048side of that is if a president did go that road, the whole rest of us could vote against them. So, but then we're like as a district we're in a bad position because now we have to wait till tomorrow to have another meeting, right? Because or not maybe not even tomorrow, technically two days because you have to post 24 hours. any it's a slippery kind of dangerous slope. Jason's kind of covered and said like no like you everyone can kind of potentially put in what they want to a degree. Um I'm to me that I'm that makes sense and I'm fine with that. Everyone else is that's my one vote per se. Okay. So no meeting on the 16th. we'll um communicate communicate via email if there's something specific you would like to see or
049your question very well might be what would it look like at this and then you know I would send that out to the board so I would ask that any of those requests um would be sent to our office yeah by the end of the business on the 16th say a deadline to that's okay just you know by the end of business on the 16th just so we can work and we can move should we have a backup date just in case like now instead of trying to figure it out two days so it would be the 25th which is one of the reason why we shouldn't move it to the 24th right so I know that I had requested this one before I would like to see the full breakdown of projected class sizes
050in each of the um you know by by teacher and grade right so reducing a student in elementary what does that practically mean in terms of class sizes Okay. General number of incoming kindergarters. Um, I don't know the number to date. I'm looking good. Barnes might be a little bit more up to date than me. Low right now. We're in the 60, which is low for this time of the year. Normally, we'd be right around 80, I think, at this time. So, could be a small class or Mr. I just have one additional question um with regard to the abstain vote. What are the qualifications to abstain since Mr. Mus answer the question? So my understanding is like it's a conflict of interest vote only abstain otherwise it's not an opinion to abstain correct generally
051speaking an exemption uh relates to a conflict of interest. Uh I believe you will take a press statement. Yeah, we have it. Correct. The standard for quite a while. Back in the olden days, people used to just abstain. There was no documentation. Well, I guess that's my question. We can't just abstain just because we don't want to be on record. No, you have to fill in a form. So we'll send a foreign for anybody who abstains and they fill in why they [Music] abandon informationational items student enrollment listed there. Nine we have upcoming public meetings and dates listed out. The second is tonight. So the 9th is policy and curriculum committee meeting and the facilities and ECC committee meeting at 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock respectively are here in the high school library and by
052Zoom and the 16th we are not having the 23rd will be the uh monthly schoolboard meeting. Are we still here in the high school library at that point? We are still here. We just have to move exact to a different we will we don't need to move the meetings until August. Okay. Um so here Mr. there there was an email that we had all received from Reverend Dr. Ritter requesting that his comments be read. Okay. So he had asked I mean we all received his email. So there's no obligation for any board member to ever read the email. Any individual board member can you know can make can read or make a statement if they want um public comment. Okay. I'll be happy to read it on his behalf then. So, uh, Reverend Dr. Dennis
053Ritter sent an email asking that his, uh, representatives share, um, a message because he was not able to attend this evening either, uh, in person or online. So, I'll be happy to read this aloud for him. Uh, dear school board members, I wish to thank Mike Cess for his comments at a school board meeting in May. They were made in response to Dan Swisser's suggestion that those who voted for the tax referendum on the primary ballot could make a voluntary donation in that amount. Mr. Hes was right to call it quote a ridiculous suggestion. He was also correct to remind Mr. Whismer at the board and our entire community that quote funding the school is a shared burden by everyone in the school district not just a select few people who might make that sacrifice.
054I know that it has become fashionable some circle in some circles to complain about public education and to seek its demise through starving it of adequate funds to do its job of educating our children and youth. That is why, for example, in the state of PA, we have a horrible situation in which private cyber charter schools receive public monies or taxes with little or no accountability to the public and often produce substandard results when it comes to their students performance and standardized testing. Uh, Mr. Reverend Dr. Dennis Ritter continues uh say saying that as a recent board member, he also knows that the last two years that he was on the V board, there was an opportunity to raise taxes a small amount each of those years. And had he done had the board done
055so uh and and had raised taxes in the full amount it legally could have last year, our district would not be in its current predicament, namely having to cut cut four faculty and one administrative positions to reach a balanced budget with no reduction in student population of which he is aware. Uh he continues to state that he and his wife are both retired. They have no children in the district any longer. However, they chose to live in this district when he moved here nearly 35 years ago because they were told at that time that KD was the best. Indeed, the success that his daughters have had and are achieving in their lives affirm what they were told. They they continue to believe that the quality and quality and properly funded public schools are a treasure
056to be cherished, essential to the health and welfare of the community, the responsibility of everyone who lives and owns a business in the district. uh he believes that the current board has set a negative tone and a direction for KD that will harm the students in our district's care and will lead our district down a path to mediocrity through larger class sizes. Reduce guidance from the librarian who will not be readily available to our middle school students at a time in their lives when they need to become more accomplished in research methods. A lighter academic expectation at a time when our country and the world be more intelleentally gifted and wise students. and the elimination of our current director of curriculum instruction in its assessment position. In conclusion, uh the Reverend Dr. Dennis Ritter encourages
057the board to raise property taxes the full amount that act one permits so that our district will be in a better position moving forward to deal with seen and unforeseen challenges our students and community deserve the best of your leadership now and in the days ahead. He signed that sincerely and the Reverend Dr. Dennis Thank you. All right. Thank you. Just uh Mrs. Barnes, thank you for we have 64 completed registrations but also 21 in progress. So, you know, once those are completed, we are pretty much on target, you know, with that 85 here at the end of the school. Last year was Yeah. And we typically continue to see another 10, 15 to 20 year old. So this I would project this to be right at um since we're on the discussion of this
058because Mr. Wizzler's comments like to continue. Um I know I said last two meetings ago that I didn't think his comments were ridiculous and I still don't. In fact, um I I think that they may have been taken out of context. He can speak for himself. That's not the way I took it because I I took it as a a positive uh that there was at least 18% of people who would be willing to to give more. I think in reality even in that 80% there's people that are willing to give more. I don't think that Mr. Whismer was stating that we should be batting a budget based upon donations. I think that Mr. Whismer was stating that it's a positive sign that we have people willing to contribute to education in this community. I
059also think that and I think I wish the conversation would have went in a different direction um two weeks ago um because I think there's opportunities to do that. But then again, I'm I don't think we would have gotten too far because we already have the opportunity, right? And maybe we don't do a good enough job of facilitating that connection. Um Wednesday night, uh last Wednesday, um Miss Sang and I were at the um education foundation dinner, which was very nice. And right now there's two two they're they have uh concurrently running campaign um uh they're they're raising funds for for a sensory playground and a um and the and the auditorium upgrades. Um, Dr. Myers, I emailed you the link to their uh website. If you scroll down on that website, they have a
060video explaining both uh capital funds program that they're running. If you don't mind playing, you know, I think we need to do a better job of uh public uh publicizing this. Um because there's probably a large chunk of that 18% and a large chunk of the 80% uh that even voted no that aren't aware of opportunities like the one the Kissan Education Foundation provides. And I don't think that that would be a very um and I don't think that it's I think it is something that the whole entire board can agree about that we can do better in um providing opportunities for folks to support the district and the students financially. is going to come through. If it doesn't this time, I just ask that maybe we get those videos up um for our next
061board meeting. Um, but I think we need to do a better job of getting this information out to the community because it's a incredible it's an incredible um campaign that is only to benefit our students. And I think that the the vote is proven that people are looking for ways to to to support our district in in a you know in another manner other than just property taxes. And I also think that we'll find that there's a lot of people even on the 80% side who aren't aware of the opportunity. So if we could make sure we get that maybe in the superintendent report for next time. Absolutely. That would be phenomenal. And I 100% agree. Um, when we have dedicated capital fundraising projects that are going on, it makes perfect sense to try to
062get that out in front of as many people as possible because we have very specific fundraising goals for a very specific project. You know, to build this sensory playground and to do certain things for for the stage. Um, my reaction to Mr. Whismer's comment was in no way related to to Dan himself. I think Dan and I get along really great. It was just it was my kind of it was my guttal reaction to the fact that I thought it was being presented as well if people have money they can just donate their money to operate the school. And we can't operate a school on donations. Okay? We need to operate a school on um standardized funding that that is reliable year-over-year so that we can build budgets based on that funding. Is the funding
063in Pennsylvania the best way to fund schools? Probably not because 70% of our funding comes from local. So, it's everybody in our community is responsible for the large majority of the funding that goes into this school. Um, and the only real way to fund increased costs of the school is through tax increases. Um, if there was some giant trust fund with multi-millions of dollars that someone could donate, maybe I could see using that to do some of our standard like budgeting costs. Um, but from from budgeting just the standard um cost of running the school district, I didn't feel like asking donations from people to do that was is the right way to run the school district. And thankfully on June 23rd, we're going to vote on a budget, but no donation line um as
064part of the revenue. So I don't believe anyway. All right. Say again. We will vote on a budget on June 23rd where there are no donation lines as part of the revenue. Oh yeah, probably not. Unless you're going to request one, Mr. No, I I in all seriousness though, we took Mr. Whismer's suggestions differently. If any I think there absolutely is room and we should be finding ways and I'm glad to hear that you agree with them. And I think to that point, I mean, we have both direct donations that can be made to the district as well as, as you're calling out, the long history of the Cotown Ed Foundation, which allows for the nonprofit sponsorship of these capital campaigns as well as ongoing scholarships, etc. So, you know, that's certainly an excellent way
065to give. And again, I strongly support and have have supported them for years. I think, you know, the I I very much do agree with Mr. has his comments of, you know, in order to actually run a school district, we need to ensure that we have a consistent um and and understood tax base that that is supporting um our regular business. I can jump into this is this is exactly the conversation that I was really driving for and I I apologize if I was not clear in getting that across. So, I mean, I did I did not ask for any specific direction. Um, I asked specifically for board engagement. I asked specifically for something that we could all agree on. Um, so I guess to clarify, what I was doing was listening to my constituents
066in the same way that uh Dennis Ritter has asked as a member of the community to have his opinion brought in the forum that is right here. That's exactly what I did. I brought the opinions of the multiple people who I spoke with to the the the conversation here in the ways that I was hoping for that, you know, we're getting at here. So, all right. Very good. Thank you everyone. Um, with that motion to miss something after all that. Oh, I'm sorry. We did public comment on agenda items. No, no agenda items. Dr. Myers, is there anyone online? No, there is not. Okay. I think I already covered nine. Uh, so I'd be looking for a motion