001e like to call this meeting to order would everyone please rise for a moment of silence Pledge of Allegiance i al to the FL the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with jti all right I'd like to thank everyone for coming this evening uh there's a log in the front if you haven't signed in actually it's right here you haven't signed in uh just please let us know uh if there's anything in particular you would like to bring to the board's attention please also write that down if at any time during theing in progress you would like to mention something on an agenda item please raise your hand to be recognized after the normal business there's also time for public comments where you can bring
002up additional issues this meeting is being recorded I'll also announce that there was an executive session conducted prior to the meeting uh to discuss Personnel matters um Mr H with back we please have call Aaron angle here Michael H here Reba Hoffman here Cecilia H here Jason cup here Jeremiah L here denisy dishes here Daniel whis here Laurel Ziggler here Lucas Hoffman here Joselyn DB all right thank you we'll move right to the approval of minutes uh think we can take February 18 2025 school board meeting minutes and the 20 February 24 2025 budget and finance uh committee meeting minutes together uh we do we have a motion move angle second motion and second does anybody have any questions or comments on either one of those right hearing none uh of a local Aon angle
003yes Michael H yes re hofman yes CIA hle yes Jeremiah light yes deny dises yes Daniel Wismer yes Laurel Ziggler yes bason com yes motion carries item four is Communications and reports Mr chatt the superintendent report Mr cup Dr Mars you put the superintendent report up for this evening Dr Mars uh first first up I would like to congratulate Emily Boer em competed in the South Central Regional District three girls wrestling tournament she's the first pentary High School um student to participa in The District 3 wrestling tournament and to get a win she got a pin in her first match and then lost her next match but congratulations to Emily for a very successful first season for PIAA girls wrestling for Co high school next up I'd like to congratulate Clara angle for placing eth
004at the indoor state championship in the long jump PIAA indoor track K Championship was held at Bucknell this weekend and Clara um performed wonderfully placing eight in the indoor in the long jump for the indoor state championships congratulations um a lot of athletic success over the weekend also congratulations to our Kutztown swimmers for the performance at District three championships Nora fley a ninth grader placed fifth in the 200 freestyle and third place in the 100th freestyle Charles Rumble a senior placed eighth in the 200 individual medley in fifth in the 100 backstroke and Haven fley a junior plac third in the 200 individual medal and is the district three champion in the 100 breast Dr congratulations to all three swimmers especially to Haven um the district championship is always special um just just an exciting
005time Haven qualified with that um win for the PIAA championships um in both events March 12th and 13th at buelli University um just very excited for all of the swimmers Norah as a freshman there's a some great performances to come following up on Haven's performances Jun yeah I got a text messageer from somebody over the weekend saying that she shaved like three seconds off her best time it was personal best I didn't know the yeah that's it's phenomenal so just great performance by our stores this weekend uh first place at National History Day congratulations to Gianna Lucas pisante and R Ziggler for first in the group documentary at regionals they'll next compete at I had Delaware Valley as the state competition did I read Scranton is it Scranton yeah read Delaware Valley I put it
006and then I read Scranton somewhere else after it was printed so um doesn't take anything away from their performance first place National History Day and I I suspect they're going to perform very very well at States as well um congratulations good luck and you know the National History Day they they can perform at States and possibly Bey on the national very exciting so congratulations and I don't have a slide for this I'm going to put this Hoffman on the spot but I think you know in terms it's a little different type performance but um last week on Friday we had a fantastic chicken barbecue fundraiser from kasma um going to put you on the spot with maybe some numbers and maybe a thank you or two because I know you were were very grateful for
007the support yeah we sold 530 um tickets and we we sold out like we did not have enough we sold out from our walk-in tickets within like half an hour of opening our doors um so thank you to the community thank you that there were five directors that helped that were volunteering um it was really great to have all of our direct everybody that volunteer I think we had a quorum in the kitchen no we did not did not we did not no Jeremiah out stay outside stay outside we kicked him out of the kitchen but yes there were four of us in the kitchen and it was a really fun night um there were a lot of people there and from what I heard it was our most profitable one to date so that
008was very exciting so thank you to everyone community volunteers the donations we really can't do this without our community thank you excellent it's a great Community event see the support I don't know if there's any organization that you see a full community support through the same way you do through kasma because it just brings together so many different people across grade levels um so thank you for your it was some extra challenges this year and to have the result to be the best ever is really incredible took took a lot of people's uh support healthy importance congratulations thank you and that's our good news for this evening all right thank you next on the agenda is board committee reports I know we normally have these committee reports in the second monthly meeting um does anyone
009have a report that they'd like to share this evening or we will okay I apolog I thought there was a BCC or bciu so we left on there just but I okay then is there a student representative report today um uh Sports started up today which was good track started and I'm in that yeah I'm not sure want to go back to sports yet but it's here anyways time to get back to work yeah um yeah so that's that's about it there hasn't been much in the school um yeah again there was that the chicken dinner um that the bands performed in which was good they put on a good show but other than that there hasn't been much okay thank you uh five then would be the Mur company EI Associates presentation I'm going
010to read it off just with sort of an intro and just the bear with Dr Myers I think we gave him five different presentations for this so just when we have parts so be um jumping around a little bit uh first I just wanted to you know as we talk about campus configuration facilities discussion here there's there's several different components to it this evening um you know we're going to talk a little bit about um HVAC uh first for because we have growing issues um terms to end of life systems then we we need to revisit as a part of that the campus configuration conversation to an extent there's a finance financing component um and I'll kind of read themes out that just to bring it back to our school Community um so first just
011want to do a little history of this process with some context and we'll go all the way back to 2022 there was the approval for the feasibility study that was a partnership um the feasibility study with the associates with Mur as a partner um we brought as a District administration the inefficient use of District spaces now remember we had the five buildings at that time um and we were feeling the crunch of a bubble kind of coming through the elementary school specifically in kown elementary school and yet we knew we had space in the district but not kind of in all the right places um in addition we had some aging facilities you know as you start hitting that 20year or systems the year 20 for systems you start getting close to end of life
012for those systems you know specifically um your uh HB in our instance but there's some other pieces as well so we we partnered with the associates to conduct a feasibility study um in 2023 the feasibility study initial draft and some options for considerations were were proposed I haven't quotes that um one through three rankings or you'll see it on some of our documents as ranks one through three um just to explain what that is the feasibility study went through all of our systems um um the physical buildings uh there's a safety component in addition to our systems and the administration along with the teams from MCL IES went and rank things from one to four you know so any cost associated with any presentation we've done through so far include all of the one through
013three ranks for for being the least um pressing in in all honesty once we get to some final cost there are a couple that go in there because they just kind of Mak sense as a part of things that are in a one two or three potentially um but I just wanted to call that out because that's you know something that when you look through uh the cost proposals you'll see that rank one through three you wouldn't know what that meant otherwise but there's a um full feasibility study that is referencing so presentation on the recomend that um what was recommended necessary updates over the next few years each building that presentation was done initially at a facilities committee meeting again talking mostly about systems um in 2024 we brought the feasibility study with some
014act with some actions and consider considerations that led to long-term planning um back um you know we do know that in 2024 the board decided to close the max of old Maxon Elementary Administration building and sell it you know so some of that all the space we had in the wrong places kind of had changed as the administration moved into the middle school um we had the administration had presented on some pros and cons of sequential schools the idea of sequential schools you know is is simply that you have all of one grade level in one building right so all kindergarten in one building all first grade in one building all second grade in one building and you know you get the gist of it which we have in 6 through 12 but we don't
015have in in K through five and some of those conversations uh started from the efficiencies related to challenging budgeting of course um but we had presented that do believe there are some pretty significant um educational advantages to that as well you know where there's increased collaboration amongst teachers there's a ability and more flexibility of programming specifically in special education and additional addition to some other supports um and there's some obvious um Financial benefits um very you know specifically at the time we presented three models of sequential schooling there was a K2 looking at Green Wich you know most likely as a K2 building because of the the size and structure of it um KES says three through five you know as an option um with that I'd Associated you know through some projections of about
016a $450,000 Savings of of operational costs that we potentially have based on 23 24 numbers and I think that's kind of key um because we would have some efficiency through Staffing that you just have through having all grade levels in one building um you know when we looked at model three in those presentations which looked at the having one Elementary building here on the campus we were projecting closer to a million dollars in savings through because now you're taking not only Staffing but you're also taking the whole operations of a building Etc so you're you're going to have a lot greater Savings in terms of operational expenses or structional expenses um coming up to one building so again I presented rounded it was about a million um about a million dollars of potential Savings in
017in that model now since that time last year through the budget conversations we had create we had taken advantage of some of those efficiencies um and increased class sizes in a couple areas where it was close you know so in practice if we were looking at that now about 250,000 of that million we we are already saving because we we we enacted those efficiencies last last um through last budget season so just want to kind of be open with that there are obvious you know so those are all pros and I'm just mentioning we can get into detail with those much later um you know in those conversations but the cons obviously are that you know there is a wonderful culture at Green Elementary School um you know that has we have the small school
018field that maintains that serves um primarily the northern part of the district um you know our lines have got a little blurred in the recent years but everybody knows kind of those um fairly traditional boundaries that there are advantages to that so we presented all that at that time back in 2024 um then you know again the third piece through that financial piece that um working with our representatives from Raymond James uh using some of the financing um opportunities available related to interest rates that the board approved borrowing $15 million knowing that those rank one through threes were going to have to happen sometime in in the next several years no matter what so there was an opportunity for Arbitrage um earnings which is you know earning money on the on the uh the money
019that you bark so that that happened in 2024 again I I wanted to do a timeline with a little bit of context because this is a long story going back to 2022 and here we are in 2025 you know for a presentation today um what brought us here today are a variety of things one there's always like a little simmering of the conversation and we need to maintain it you know so it doesn't just grow legs on its own and we're actually talking about it as Community but also some of those HVAC upgrades that have that I've referenced you know they're just causing increasing problems in some of our buildings so at a facilities committee meeting the question was raised you know we know we have a longer um timeline for making decisions about campus
020configuration School configuration but can we start fixing some of these HVAC is that feasible to do both financially and from a um you know purchasing and Engineering standpoint so um can we have can we bring the back a presentation on that so that will be a first part that we'll talk about once I hand over the presentation um that's the what short-term uh projects should be selected even potentially for the summer of 2025 you know just for example in the middle school you know we're seeing increased costs related to repairs and maintenance of our HVAC system because of its age um you know we're looking to be we may be 20 $25,000 over budget just in repairs and maintenance of our HVAC systems for this year by the end of the year with our current
021projections um and we have similar situations in quitan elementary school right now the newest system we have here is in the high school not to say it doesn't have as challenges but it's much newer than than the other systems um and then when we get back to the consideration of future facilities and grade configuration there is the additional conversation was raised at a facilities committee meeting about the proposed approved and then proposed industrial growth in Greenwich Township which you know some will directly po directly impact Green Elementary school because of it's location and the rest will um you know will obviously just just like any of this industrial growth that brings more truck traffic you know through our areas and with 78 um exit there so um I think that kind of hit all of
022the you know entry pieces to where this conversation has traversed over that time if there's anything you feel like anybody feels like I up here I feel like I missed a key part I think that kind of tells the story of why we are here today um I miss anything I don't think so okay um so then first up in our presentations would be um right all right so thank you for the introduction my name is Alissa willfield I've been with PO for over 19 years and my name is for think it's 13 years now um so tonight we handed out if you have the the flipping presentation yet with a mord title in it um I'll be using that as reference I'm and then um we have a presentation on kind we working on
023um so throughout this if you have questions throughout feel free to flag us down also have questions at the end and thanks again for being here so if you want to put turn to page to m is a 71 year old construction management firm we specialize in K through 12 energy projects these energy projects come with return on investments meaning there are no change orders and we guarantee the energy performance if you want to turn to the next page of your slide on um so slide three you can see our history with the district um we want to say thank you for the long-term partnership um we started our first project back in 2018 I was um a couple years younger back then when I was presenting to all of you um but what I
024was presenting one is the same thing you're were talking about tonight but your energy upgrades for your buildings Capital project needs and uh thanks again you'll see a variety of projects that have happened over three phases since 2018 um tonight we're here to kind of talk about feasibility study and you'll hear EI shortly after we present but tonight we wanted to talk about summer 2025 proposed Pro projects um so the first we'll talk about is the Middle School hbac um we didn't want to introduce Elementary School just yet just because there could be some potential for some reconfiguration so we just focused our efforts at the middle school but while you're doing the hbac system we also wanted to look at a potential space reconfiguration at the library thank you uh so what you're going
025to see tonight is really a continuation from the phase that we did in 2021 and it's specifically around the hbac in the Middle School um what we're going to have tonight is what we call a scoping level presentation so it's a lot of budgeting you will see some budgeting at the end of this at the end of the day the legislation that we do work under is essentially what we call design build so we're constant refining the scope of work till we get to a final price in scope of work that you'll see in in uh coming days and I have a schedule going forward to when you'll see some of those things so the first uh item that we're going to talk about is the HVAC in the middle school so we've done some
026work in here in 2021 we did an a rooftop unit replacement as well as a chiller replacement in that building and this scope really completes the HVAC retrofit for that building show the first uh in the back of the handout that we gave you there's a couple of loose papers that has a larger floor plan at the building with some color coding around some of the systems that we're recommending that would go into that building um the green sections on those floor plants are the items that we did in 2021 so when we did this we did this with the future in mind so we're not undoing anything we did everything that you already spent money on stays intact stays operating as it should we're only fixing and replacing what uh hasn't been touched yet
027the other thing that we did as a part of that 2021 project is we replaced the chilled water system to replace the chiller and pumping in that building on the heating side of things at some point in the past the boilers were replaced we didn't do them um and they are a high efficiency condensing boiler so that's a good upgrade that was done the one piece of the hot water system that was not done was the pumping so we actually were currently including priceing to replace those pumps probably where you'll see the biggest impact is when we get into the classrooms um the HVAC systems that we're recommending for the classroom is a much quieter uh much more efficient system it provides a much better learning environment for the kids does dehumidification uh proper ventilation
028and a lot of those things for for the classes um currently they're univet in the classrooms they're the piece of equipment that we probably all remember from when we were in school they're under the window they're noisy if you sit next to them cold or hot depending on the season and if you sit on the other side of the room they're the opposite so uh they're they're good for what they are but um in today's learning environment they they uh there's better better options out there and that's what we're providing here uh some of the larger classrooms we're replacing uh the air handlers with new Air Handlers the band room is getting a DX air uh rooftop unit going on the roof and the kitchen area is getting a new HV unit so all those
029are color coded and you can kind of follow along uh between the presentation that we handed out in the floor plan we're also addressing some of the ancillary systems that are needed to do this HVAC upgrade so there's a fire alarm panel upgrade and some some uh exterior uh maintenance on the exterior of the building that we're also including some Bricker pointing uh that goes along with the HV upgrade any questions on on that scope okay the other thing we're addressing is the library in the middle schore um so we're making that space a little more usable um libraries have changed purposes over the years technology is in schools now uh so so the space required for library is shrinking um so so that footprint of what currently is your library we're going to be
030adding some additional spaces to one of them is noted as a conference room on this floor plan but it's really a swing space potentially a conference room potentially a learning space that could be used depending on the needs of the school so it's really meant to be more of a flex space excuse me as the Middle School librarian I tell that space is being used Now by students and it sounds to me like you're taking away student space there is still student space in that space as well as cutting and a half plan these are the the recommendations for I mean a lot of that space right now is office space right we have when you're looking all I think almost all that purple is the current conference room um the director curriculum office the
031middle school librarian's office and I guess also the he estonian's office I think looking at that whole purple space there um you know so then the two other spaces are to the left of the circulation if walking in from the front of the building to the left of the circulation desk um do think the recommendation is that if we could turn that one of those spaces into a full-time potential classroom space for the future that that is um the best future use of the Spates most of that currently is office that's what you're seeing in space half B off yeah measure back out say that but I think thank you any questions on space so those two items uh when we look at this and again these are budgeting numbers so these are plus or
032minus numbers we're going to continue and Endeavor to actually bring this pricing down as we go forward um those two scops who work for full hbac and that and the space um reappropriation is is just almost $5.5 million um School District was the recipient of an act 34 Grant where they were where they received $475,000 towards uh HVAC in the building so when you include that Grant in there the actual cost of the project is just under $5 million and again we have work to do we are still honing that scope we're still soliciting pricing through all this so the goal is to bring that number down as we go forward for summer of 25 Construction the schedule that we would need to follow so we're here tonight giving you again what we call a
033scoping level presentation which is highle budgeting as well as high Lev scope for this type of work we would come back on April 7th with final cost and that would be finalized scope cost as well as savings to go along with it because these are savings there are uh Energy savings associated with these projects so we would show you exactly what all of those things were then you would have a few weeks to think about the project ask questions and what we would looking at as an April 21st uh commitment whether to move forward with the project we feel reasonably certain that we can get majority of that work done this summer not affecting School anything that we can't quite get in the summer we would do off hours or holidays to avoid that disruption
034the school any questions on any of that think the obvious just for Mr H's um points that he made uh is there do you have a read available breakdown between the library upgrades and any back upgrades from a cost yeah we will we will so when we get when we get to the next step we all have breakout pricing for all the different those two different items absolutely question you may have already mentioned this here final cost presentation will that include any projections of operational savings as a result of using new equipment yes yeah Energy savings yes yeah all that yep thank you very much yes specific to that part I me we have a pretty Advanced timeline for you know if an advanced timeline if we were going to try to get this done
035in summer 20125 because it is March 2025 so um hence that that quick timeline just for the board to have some discussion this evening about what we like to see happen next there's any comments related to that this time going to wait till the end presentation does anybody have any comments they want to make have any this at the moment anybody in the public school district is currently in debt $1.9 million and now I think our debt level is a lot higher than that Mr well the current debt for this budget season that Mr K CH presented last week but now you're looking at spending Millions more to be more in Deb now I'm not a financial person but that seems if I'm at home and I don't have any money I don't spend more
036money be more thank yeah and I think you know just to stated this a little bit earlier but you know related to a large large portion of the costs um there's kind of two cost levels that have come out through this whole process right there's a cost level related to what I keep calling rank one through three and um you know that's related to systems that either need to be upgraded over the next couple years or we could or should upgrade over the next couple years and we can get into the details line by line and probably drop that number a little bit and then there is that secondary piece of if we're looking to um you know maximize kind of all operational savings that's the second piece of talking about what the campus configuration
037could look like you know these HVAC systems if we're not replacing them this year or next year it'll be the following year or the next like at some point we will have to um there are there are um Mr Huff's point though they do make heated vest these days they do um yeah yeah there are some there are some components we have in our univent systems that you know there's replacement parts AR made anymore more they're really challenging to get we're lucky that we have some um service providers that have large warehouses of these components because they just don't exist anymore so there's there's um there's a level of necessary spending just to keep the buildings to an acceptable level for learning over the next couple years um it's below the total cost that we'll
038talk about at the end if we were to go all in of course but it's but there is a significant portion I think one thing that we have to remember is we don't have $15 million in reserves to to purchase these items that need to be replaced on a 20-year basis so we carry a yearly Debt Service because we have to borrow money to be able to pay for these large upgrades um so part of what we've been talking about over the last couple years um would be that as we go through and we analyze what needs to be replaced and the reconfiguration of the buildings is the idea of trying to keep our yearly Debt Service level so that on a year-to-year basis in terms of budgeting these upgrades have as minimal effect as
039they can on our year-to-year budget as opposed to trying to save for 20 years but then you're throwing money against the wall to keep these systems that are on their last leg running and then maybe 20 years from now we can lumpsum purchase all of this stuff for the school so um in terms of trying to to balance saving a large amount of money to replace these systems versus trying to get the most that we can out of a year-to-year budget I think that's where kind of making these kind of purchases makes sense in terms of our yearly debt lad thank Mr if there's no other comments related you know specifically to that first part of the presentation then we' been then Bruce from EI Associates Dr Mars you que up that good evening everybody
040uh there Christman from thei Associates good to see everyone again um we have a really quick presentation here um we've been through this uh several times in the past as Christian mentioned um we call this presentation our executive summary about 10 or 12 slides and kind of the highlights of process that we've gone through over the last several years um as you can see here we've been on quite a journey um I think at one point in time going through the feasibility study we had up to I think about 12 different options we ever presented more than eight in public but they're there's a lot of ideas floating around which is good um you have to go through the process V everything out but we really narrowed it down over the last year to three
041different models here and for this presentation's purposes we're really focusing on model number three as you mentioned before uh the operational savings consolidation just makes a lot of sense and could potentially help the district kind of get ahead of things so to speak we see a lot of districts struggling in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania trying to get ahead of their maintenance um a lot of older schools in and Pennsylvania especially central Pennsylvania here um so anything we can do to kind of help operational savings um and also uh provide a better educational environment for our students is is a win-win yeah I think again just to clar to add some detail to that you know we presented all these different models and we say about 12 we had many more variables because we also had
042another building that was mixed in there at one point you know could Max T get Kindergarten Center so there was a lot of different variables that could been could have been considered at that time and through Community feedback and with good you know rational reason um there was kind of this models one and two created more hardships than good I think you know to get to that sequential schools so it led us to largely to a model 3 or status quo with the building upgrades kind of piece I that's that's sort of where we're at we always have the data related to model one and two if you ever one of the revisit them but we're kind of at a model three or status quo and fix what we need to fix and again part
043of our process we went through uh we kind of show um what we're doing in a number of different configurations we call this our kid of Parts which is a graphic representation of both the elementary school and the middle school and as you can see anything in light blue is just kind of a repurposing of the space uh maybe some new finishes or just calling it a different name to meet the current educational needs um as we go through kind of the greater realignment and and move things around anything in the darker blue is an addition or new construction we're doing a little bit more heavier construction on here so you can kind of get a sense just looking at each individual spaces per block um we have them kind of lined up for grade
044level also um kind of the core space is special education and the admin and facility uh with each uh could have parts for each of the different schools here we also noted because we've been at this a little bit of a time here um that the current District administration office is closed and the renovations were completed moving the Dao over to the Middle School from the kid aparts we move into the floor plans and say hey how could this work with the existing um uh floor plan within the clown Elementary school so you can see here again representing colorcoded anything in dark blue is an addition uh anything in light blue is the reconfiguration of spaces here um and you can see we kind of can't see uh the room names over here on the
045middle school but we kind of looked in to see with the reconfiguration and great alignment how can we kind of fit everything in within those spaces we going through that exercise also then we took it a step further looked at the overall site plan to say hey how would this look on the site and again you can see uh darker blue three different um additions uh to the pan Elementary School we also kind of got into several site uh upgrades so to speak modifying the Bus drop off in this option um relocated the play areas relocated the basketball courts a new parking um as we kind of go through the process just making sure we're addressing all the different needs uh for the district as we as we walk through this also with some Ada
046and security upgrades again they kind of reference the uh deficiencies ranks one through three that were identified in the feasibility study so we have a a ton of other charts um both for this slide and the next slide regarding demographics uh and capacity but we kind of summed it all up here um just to show you really quick history of the district goes all the way back to 93 94 uh anything circled in red here are kind of the high points The District in terms of uh demographics uh you can see back in 2004 2005 uh you're at your high point um things started declining for about a 10e period roughly and then stabilized around 2014 2015 and yet it's been up and down a little bit but it really you're not seeing big swings
047uh from 2014 2015 to kind of current day um you can see our our current stats about 1,374 total students we also looked at enrollment in terms of 10year projections uh we looked at pte in two different years to see what the trends were and both with the 2223 model we saw an increase of about 45 students and then 2324 about 113 students uh we also know there's a a few potential housing starts here that we're working through currently uh to see how that may or may not impact uh the overall enrollment um so we're kind of keeping an eye on that as we're going through the process here so the question is hey if you know we get like five different housing developments moving in and our enrollment really increases do we have the
048capacity if we do all this work within our district and you can see on the chart here uh the dash red line here is the current year anything to the left is past anything to the right is moving forward uh typically we look at the district capacity um basically how many students does Can a district hold within their facilities here and you can see there's a big gap between where the district capacity is and where the current enrollment projections are down in the green and blue lines here so there's about a 30 perish swing between the building capacity what the district can hold and feel comfortable with to be kind of busting at the seams versus where you currently are today um again there's about uh 576 student Delta um in terms of how you
049can grow uh in that range um we also looked at the uh educational programs the existing of how many classrooms there were was 63 and you kind of go quickly going through the options option one and two we'd have to increase uh up to 76 classrooms with option three with the consolidation we can stay at 63 we're just using our the space better and eliminating redundancies uh to be able to achieve that um and the same thing with the square footage is we're jumping up in options uh one and two about you know anywhere from 22,000 ft additional space to 25,000 squ ft additional space and with option three we only have to jump up about 7,700 squ fet of space if you know anything about construction uh square footage equals dollar dollars and cents
050so the more square footage you put on any building whether it's renovation or new the higher the cost is going to be and the Magical question is what is it going to cost just a you know simple clarification as if we were adding on to both you know although we didn't talk about models one or two a lot you see them represented on that slide if we were adding square footage to both green witch and adding square footage to KES it would be more total square footage than we would just be adding to one building you're consolidating and then you have to subtract all the square footage from the building that no longer be built so we're I think I think when you kind of Follow that and just look at it as numbers it's
051a little bit hard to follow away but that's the conceptual piece you're subtracting squ footage of green Wich in model 3 while adding square footage to KES instead of adding in models one and two you're adding square footage to both so but using more right so we go through a cost exercise we went through this with a uh a lot of the different models as we got uh to this point and you can see here as mentioned previously we have the rank one through three um deficiencies kind of worked into the cost here um just a quick synopsis on the rankings uh rank one typically when we identify something in ranked one means her on fire we got to get it done if the system fails it's going to cost even more money or potentially
052God forbid shut down school for a period of time to address it and then rank four is hey it's more of a wish list if we get to it we get to it but um and then there's everything in between the ranks two and three here so to compare apples to apples we were focused on ranks 1 through three in the study and out of the $25.4 million construction cost that includes $8 million worth of deficiencies um that's currently going on with your facility so um just want to kind of point that out that we are addressing a lot of deficiencies uh looking at this model number three if we move forward with the hbac project in the summertime here we also looked at the uh project cost how that would impact it and it
053drops down in terms of the total project cost about $3.3 million and it also addresses um a little under $3 million worth of the deficiencies on that also we were also asked to say hey if we were to move forward with with option number three and we want to get in by the uh 2728 school year what would the schedule look like so we put together a hypothetical uh schedule here and we do have some flexibility in the schedule again this is hypothetical and there's a lot of moving Parts here typically with a project of this size what really kind of dictates the schedule is Land Development so if we were to start in March uh 2025 which is this month uh we'd have to start Land Development uh in conjunction with the conceptual schematic
054design the good thing we have going on we have a footprint of an existing building and we have an idea of the potential additions that would go on that building which means Land Development can get started pretty quickly versus if we're doing a new bill they'd have to wait you know probably about 30 to 40 day 45 days before they can even do anything so they can kind of start right out of the gate with us here and typically Land Development takes anywhere from 12 to 15 months and in discussions with our civil engineers they feel you know probably the 12 to 13 month range they'll be able to get through their process and get their approvals but um it can be quicker it can go longer there's just so many factors in there that
055we typically build into some fluff in the schedule here because that kind of drives everything at the end of the day um you can actually get back to this go uh we also put in there the act 3 uh act 34 hearing um and also some of the hbac potentially uh Esco early procurement package for the hbac equipment with the um project and you can see about a year from now about 13 months we had the Land Development and other approvals secured potentially issued the bid for March of 2026 and um get rocking and rolling in June 2026 and it gives the contractor a little bit over a year to kind of get the substantial completion and turn the building over in August and get ready to go for the school year of 2027 again
056a lot of factors go into this um it doesn't mean we can't start April May of this year and still meet that but we'd have to have a lot more kind of go right out of the gate but again this is just kind of a conceptual schedule based on when you'd like to open school with a new addition and get everybody in there and this is just the graphic represent excuse me graphic representation of the timeline here um same information as before and I'm not going to talk too much about this as a good Segway into Alex's presentation um we've been working with them and the team to kind of look at the different uh financing models um you know for their potential project and and how to move forward and also including operational savings
057into the model uh to see which option uh benefits the district the most you know ton of information um related to you know mostly to that model three of course using the others as comparisons to some of the history of this um before we get to the financing piece always have to review that is there any questions first from the board guess my only question is like do we as a board or Christian to you as our superintendent like have a recommendation on like how we should proceed because it sounds like if we take longer than making a decision let's say we can't make a decision till June or July then you're really looking at this not being available till 202 um we have an idea like how quickly we we want to move on
058this well I mean I think you know there's so in Pennsylvania the closure of a school requires go to the law requires 90 days three months notice of a of a public hearing that where that decision is going to be made um you know where we could we could certainly you know give the approval to start moving for with schematic design EX um you know before that but then if we didn't decide to do it we'd be wasting the money to do that so I don't think it is realistic you know this is March 3D um you know April May June I don't think any decision for July is realistic for the way we want to do anything like that the right way again because you could you could do it I mean we could
059pay anybody to make designs and you know start preparing for it without decision but we would that's not how our board operates probably most of so um the the idea is that either the board prior to a formal hearing for that conversation needs to have a vote you know whether we want to continue the conversations about that or if we want to move separate to how do we upgrade our systems as necessary in a status quo you know or we set a three-month timeline to have that formal conversation make that the meeting you know what I mean they're they're really that's really A or B but I don't see I don't see a decision for July because of that timeline and the way we would want to handle it like you know the board want
060wanted to do something different that's fine I just don't think that's all business so that's my recommendation now we could we could say we could put on a March 17th agenda you know an item where the board just votes to say whether we continue down this path or we abandon it and then that ends it too I mean that's just I just do think that some point in the near fut very near future the board has to decide whether we're going to continue having this discussion and get to a decision or just get to a decision like like it's um so well I think as they pointed out that we need to it needs to benefit the distri as a whole and a lot of is financial piece right um because if it it's costing
061us more money to do this that is a not a very and the one thing with money I mean you're talking longterm hypothetically got to make sense financially guess I'm try to hypothetically the savings or the reduced expenses go on for perpetuity right like I mean you know they they hypo in in a theoretical world if you we don't know how schools are going to be operated 35 years from now but in theory if we can run a more efficient school and we continue to as a community determined to run the most efficient SP possible then those savings go on for ever um you know so it's really just about whether it's a short-term financial decision or a long-term financial decision and we are absolutely in a situation where sometimes we have to make sure
062financial decisions where you know you wish you were always in position to make long-term ones but that's not that's not always the case if it's just a financial so um and if it's to your point 100% if we don't feel that it makes sense operationally you know and that meaning that financially I don't think we would do it right I mean I I think that's that's one of the pieces that let us here while I do 100% believe that there are academic benefits to it there has to be both or it's not too much of so does that mean do you want to go through the financing is that what you're getting to yeah I guess I mean if there's anybody else wants to make comments I guess that's my point we are missing a
063key aspect of this yes currently because we've left one untouched part of the challenge is you're always going to have deficiencies within your facility over the course of time and right yes you can we call it kind of the Band-Aid approach um if you just focus on your deficiencies yes you're repairing you're hoping nothing else above and beyond what your current pring is going a break within a 10e period maybe a 15 and you're back in the cycle again you're not really addressing any educational needs and part of the process we've been going through is how do we look at this from a more holistic standpoint address educational needs but also address facility needs and improve on multiple different fronts here and get a lot of value for that including the operational savings here so
064it's just not looking I know the numbers very big here but when you look at the big picture as we'll see in a minute you know it's kind of counterintuitive but sometimes you're spending more money to save more money and put the district in a better position we see that kind of time and time again working through the different models and the different different options also while you know closing a school or closing multiple schools in some cases so thank you Bruce than good evening I'm Alie Macky from Raymond James thanks for having us here tonight the administration had reached out and asked to kind of maybe flush out a little bit more detail about the overall financing plan as you're thinking about and considering the option three model um and potentially how the summer
065hbac Pro um projects could play into the needed financing over the long term and in the holistic approach here so before I get into that I just wanted to quickly run through and give you a little bit of a market update um on the first page you can see here an interest rate chart you've seen four um we like to show this one because this is the current yield curve in red and what you'll notice about it is the shape is kind of wonky we're starting to see it come back into a more normalized shape but it has been a good fact pattern um over the last 18 months that the the shape was like this because what we've seen is folks being able to borrow longterm and actually put it in the bank and
066earn money on on it sitting there because short-term rates have been elevated because as we all know the Fed ran rates up short term they're now starting to gradually lower them but we expected many more Cuts uh at this point already and we're not seeing that and we're seeing the projected for this year to maybe be one to two where we were talking maybe this time last year of four or five um so we are seeing that slow down which is good for the investment side of the house the Blue Line there is just the normal uh historic average so what you can see there is that long-term rates are still pretty much at the long-term average just slightly below um so borrowing costs are still good right now and actually um the market does
067not like uncertainty so kind of just the new Administration and not being overly sure where things are going is driving a flight to Quality uh so investors are turning out of the stock market and investing in treasuries or municipal bonds which is pushing our yields down so it's actually making it a better time to borrow while that sounds counterintuitive when the market goes down it's actually good for people that are borrowing money in the Capital markets the next page is just an interest rate history so just a longer term view here this is the tenure AAA MMD that's the uh Municipal index that all municipal bonds price off of including yours you pric it the spread to this index but we what you can see here is that you know in the covid Years there
068at the very bottom to the right hand side those were the alltime alltime historic lows we have never been lower in history it was a great time to refinance or borrow money and even though we've heard that rates have been going up which they are um we're just kind of coming back to the average so it's not particularly high from historic standpoint it's just higher than when we were at basically zero and when you weren't earning anything on any money that you had anywhere so that was just to put it in a little perspective uh that still a very good time to borrow this is the existing uh debt portfolio of the district so prior to November of 2024 uh you have had columns two through five on your books already in as you know
069in November we went out and we got the first 15 million for the projects that you're considering doing whether it be the option three model or just the other overall maintenance and replacement items that you need to undertake um you'll see there in column six that's the final debt service on those new bonds so now your debt runs out through 2054 and what you might notice in column seven there is there's kind of a a dip down between 2038 and 2045 and that's intentional because as you may recall we had talked about um as you kind of were mulling over your project decisions that once we got closer to having a decision on which direction you were going to go we would come back borrow any additional funds that were needed at that time and
070then restructure your debt at that point in time the existing debt to make the overall run rate of the district as low as we can um to minimize any tax impact from the project to the the lowest point we can get it uh so that's intentional and that's why that's left there is that's where we're going to fill in that restructuring debt when the time comes to do that which is going to be uh prior to September because otherwise we will have a budget impact uh next year larger than I think you all would like it to be from borrowing the 15 million so the intent was always to give you as long as we could for you to think about the projects decide what you were going to do and come back and kind
071of finalize everything and do the restructuring at that point now when we're talking about potentially doing the summer HVAC projects um we wanted to show you what the accelerated timeline would look like on that and what that possibly could mean because I don't know that it makes a ton of sense to incur two sets of cost of issuance to go out to Market if you need money now and then to go ahead and uh restructure later in the year if that's what you wanted to do so we just wanted to show you how that works in the overall plan of finances you start think about um what you may or may not want to do here as a reminder when we borrowed that 15 million we did so under the the yellow box here which
072is the small issuer exemp exemption when you borrow $15 million or less in a calendar year you're considered a small issuer for IRS purposes and all that does is take away the spend down rules for that money so basically if you didn't have that in place you'd have to meet one of these spending exceptions you'd have to be spending that money and meeting these benchmarks in order to keep any interest that you're earning on it um because it's a small isure exemption you can leave that in the bank for three years you can earn what you can earn on it and you can keep it all and and and it's your scen clear because you're a small issuer exemption so that was the reason we went out in 24 and did that knowing that we
073had to restructure in 25 because that counts towards your exemption um so that money is there sitting invested earning right now until you need it and it kind of behooves you to leave it there as long as you can before you're going to put a shovel in the ground because you're just going to continue to earn interest on it knowing what rates have been doing um locking it up longer term obviously where you know rates are good today is always a good idea um and I'm sure that bethanne and Christian are are doing that whatever account they're holding it in um but that you know allows us to earn project dollars too so as we consider to think about what projects we may or may not do we're accumulating kind of a side pot of
074money there that we can use to downsize any future borrowing so then we get to just the the Crux of what happens if we uh undertake the summer projects and how's that fit into the big plan and these are a lot of really tiny numbers so I do apologize trying to get them all one page is difficult um but the green column there is the 2024 money so that's done that's locked in that's $15 million that hit your bank account back in November of 2024 and then all the orange columns are the restructuring uh first three there are restructuring we have to restructure in tranches because you have a couple of limitations on how we can restructure that debt because we've done it a couple of times over the years so we have some useful
075life limitations Etc but we do it all at one time and that doesn't much matter to you at the end of the day we're still just bringing the Run rate down as as low as we can by restructuring that existing debt and then the fourth column was um and we I apologize when I put this together we didn't have a final number yet on what the HVAC summer projects were going to be so we just use 6 million for this example that's can be changed it's not set in stone you don't even have to borrow it if you don't want to um but knowing that the 15 million was kind of sitting there and trying to earn for any larger project or other future projects that you were trying to accomplish we thought it may
076make sense to borrow what you needed for the summer hbac projects while you're doing the restructuring anyways uh get some economies of scale and the cost of issuance there spend that money down so that you don't have to spend down the 15 million that's sitting there earning um and then in the blue column there we come back after you have bids or decide on what the final projects are and know how much the final cost is and we do what we call the cleanup issue which is just whatever else we need to borrow and that would also be net of I know we're working with GSL to get grant funding um from the arcat program so once we have a a better handle on all the kind of inflows of we would rightsize that column
077to be whatever it is that the district needed to kind of finalize and and do the total scope of the projects that point and again the timing there not set in stone we're just kind of putting it out there in 2026 knowing that you were thinking about getting bids around that time um then you can see there over in column 10 we need to then take our run rate for total debt service after we restructure and after we would do what the full scope of the project which here was that 26 million we had talked about previously we didn't move off of that um but this is based on that 26 million so you we would have to get from the current run rate of 2, 225,000 roughly annually per year to roughly 2, 950,000
078so we basically need a one mil increase to be able to afford The Debt Service on the full $26 million scope of projects we wanted to phase that in over five years so that we're not taking any giant hit in anyone year so you'll see over there in column 13 in the yellow that we need roughly 2.21 Mills dedicated to Debt Service each year annually for the next five budget years that also just for reference because sometimes people don't like to think in Mills is 65.7% of your index that you would need to dedicate just to Debt Service obviously we know you have other budget pressures not just Debt Service but that would be the the equivalent each year for five years um on that basis just let me point out one thing is that
079you know because sometimes these summaries are done in different ways you I mean you pointed this out that there are there is in this version The Assumption of grant funding right uh we assume that we get $5 million of dollars of grant funding from the arcat program hopefully we'll get more but that was a conservative assumption that's in there because this is model three there's also an assumption of sale of property yes right what is not in this though is any Opals correct that is not counted in this calculation it's kind of separate so see it that's correct and if we get you know moreing brought that up because I I think when I look at this if for for Debt Service for the next you know 10 12 years is 2.2 basically million right
080and we're going to go to 2.9 that's 700,000 our operational savings are 700,000 we should be able to manage this without uh having to assuming yeah assuming the year when the building would open right then yes and another thing with you know with operational costs it's tough because you're comparing today's dollars to 2030 dollars right and if you take today's dollars by$ 2030 you can assume that there's a 3% increase annually to that whether because it's whether it is you're going to save more operational costs each year right and your debt service is going to stay the same correct right so your debt service is already set all your other costs go up I mean I for me and I'm just going to speak out out on this but like I feel like if we're
081going to consider doing a project of this size and scope we should be doing it with the vein of thought that we're not going to have to increase taxes to do it and it looks like that's possible if you consider the oper expenses right now the challenge is like a year or so of timeline I think that we might have a challenge because you know we wouldn't actually the benefit of the operational savings don't kick and it's until kids are in building yeah and now you you guys might be able to work with that I'm not sure I just if we actually we had a date I think you probably work with that I just if we're comparing this and believing it to be kind of actual there changes yeah and we can always build
082in the Assumption to our model that the operational savings are there to offset um what you'll see to Christian's point just on the timing perspective is that we'll probably need to use some cash or something to get over the couple of years before the operational savings would materialize gotta but yeah that I would agree with that and then again if we get more grant funding then this blue column either goes down or goes away depending on how much money we can obtain from the the arcap program because I know we were talking about based on the timing going through multiple rounds of of funding through there thank you you're welcome and then last slide here is just assuming um you wanted to do the HVAC projects this summer and you did want to borrow the
0836 million and leave the 15 million to earn this is just a preliminary timeline on um kind of the high Lev bench marks we' need to meet to get you money in the bank in this example by the end of May so that you had it to start work uh in the summer I have one question um we just saw the dope and the cost of the hbac systems at Middle School to renovate say we go not do nothing and we keep bring much open what are the costs associated with that's a least that we haven't touched on at all so when you go to the rank if you go rank one through three you know which isn't just just a hbac it's other pieces about $1 million between the Middle School and the two
084elementary schools that we would need to take care of over the next couple years that's what you're asking right yes yeah so six million in addition to the five that we're allocating thatn that's based off of the numbers that we have yeah it's it's it's about 11 in total between the three schools even if we don't do the close the school at addition at K thank you comments we did add public comment specific the facility's presentation um I don't have anybody that check that box I have two that check agenda and you may have thought that that were one of the same just depending on how you read these documents so did anybody does anybody want to talk public comment Rel to this I guess way to go um with the amount of operational savings
085you're talking about that obviously involves Personnel how many teachers do you see getting rid of to achieve those savings um I mean plus I I'm assuming you're going to completely eliminate the green wi office staff including there's you know one we don't look at the people necessarily what we did is we take all we take the school and looked at it as if it were a school of the size of the two schools together um you know there's definitely Staffing implications in there I think that they are certainly within the historical bounds of what we see through attrition you know as long as we're planning it out that way um you know so there are when I look at it I think we would be looking at two to three instructional positions because remember we're
086already talking about to have been taken care of right in that regard um you know with the efficiencies that were already created so there are then some additional support staff positions in there you know I don't want to get into the details of something hypothetical that's a couple years down the road but in addition to where we are we're probably looking two to three team positions so so very much within the scope of what we've been able to handle through attri in recent years and that's over you know planning out for a couple years I am I have and I have one Michelle would you do me a favor just stand up or come up here just projects a little the Acoustics here aren great my name is Michelle I'm with I have two children
087that went to Green wi I have one that still bu to Green wi um said I'm with PTO we had a meeting other night we all expressed concerns about the possibility ofage Elementary going way so we put together a petition at this point we have 642 signatures on it which I have here and I'd like to read what our petition St the name of the petition is Save Green lenville Elementary School recent Communications from the ctown area school district has expressed the desire to reconfigure the elementary school with the significant possibility of closing green lville element this petition is in favor of keeping renale Elementary School open in our community has deep concerns regarding the potential closure of Greenville Elementary School a small yet vital part of our Theory as parents teachers and members of
088this neighborhood we strongly urge you to reconsider any decision that would lead to the closure of this school Greenwich lenhartsville Elementary School is a family as a school a small School Greenwich lenhartsville Elementary School delivers a quality education while providing each student with an experience that allows every child to know the faculty staff and administrators in the school building in the rural landscape of the Northern areas of the ktown area school district Greenwich lenville Elementary School is more than just a building it is the heartbeat of our community for years it has provided a nurturing and personalized environment for our children to learn and grow the small class sizes allow for individualized attention fostering an atmosphere of support and belonging that larger schools often struggle to gr withy it is Within These Walls that children
089are not just educated but are instilled with a sense of pride in their commun while we understand budgetary concerns and other factors may be it's like we believe that closing the school will do more harm than good not only will disrupt the lives of students and their families but it will also significantly impact the social fabric of our titly community parents teachers and students have built lasting relationships that are essential to the overall success of the school and these bonds will be shattered if the school is closed Additionally the closure of our school could result in increased Transportation cost and longer commute times for students making education more difficult for families these hardships could also exacerbate existing inequalities especially for those who rely on the local school for both educational and social support we ask
090that you take into consideration the profound effects that closing greenu L heartville Elementary School would have on our community we're not just asking for our school to remain open we are advocating for the well-being of our children the strength of our community and the preservation of a place that is both a symbol and a foundation of our shared values please reconsider this decision and find a way to keep our school open for the future of of our children and the Vitality of our community thank you thank you is there anyone else nobody else really signed up so I just don't know if there's anybody else that wanted to be thank you again Michelle um there a com any public comment on any other agenda items Dr Underwood up Robin Underwood cstown bur um I see
091in 7f here you're going to be talking about support staff retirement incentive and I read through that I didn't see where a certain number of people had to take this incentive for it to go forward so I'm just here to ask what happened when you offered this to the teachers in the past what whatever happened with that yeah we just didn't have the number didn't come through that we needed the financial models for the support staff and and the teaching staff are completely different when we look at what the benefits are because you know in any retirement incentive you are trying to project what will naturally happen versus you know so in terms of when retirements will come um and then calculating your District costs of the incentive for you know non-negotiated benefits or benefits
092don't exist versus what your savings will be position so they're just the we didn't you know in the previous agreement that was posted um we didn't get the number so and this is just a little bit of a different calculation because well it's completely different calculation because it's a different work support staff model yeah that's lucky for them it's too bad for the teachers that wanted to do it and weren't able to because there weren't enough all right thank you sorry can I ask a real quick question back to the Raymond James presentation um the the timeline that we had for making a decision so that we could start the um Document Preparation and getting the rtings done was midm March and that was to try to get the issue done by the end of
093May so you could start moving forward with the hbac instruction in June um do we have any potential dates like on our calendar to discuss and potentially make a motion um for the financing to do the HVAC systems coming up of March maybe March 17 e so basically the way that's laid out is you know you all make a decision you give us just a head nod authorization to proceed with working with the administration to start to compile the documentation the actual formal action the resolution wouldn't happen till your April meeting your April voting meeting okay and that's when everything would be kind of like finalized and we go into the market really shortly after that so just because we're on such a tight time frame the only thing with the mid-march thing was trying
094to get a head knot if wanted to proceed saying yes please go put together the documentation let's prepare do the rating call get ready to go because in April we're going to vote the mar March meeting could just kind of be doesn't not necessarily a vote but just like a yes we're going to move forward or does it have to be a so generally in the past we have voted non binding I think generally there's some administrative cost associated with it but yeah like if we do a rating call and then you decide you don't want to move forward with it Al we could still just do the restructuring piece and you'd still be fine um because you have to do that anyway you incur like the rating cost and if we don't do it
095and we don't use the rating you have to pay 70% of the cost of that but um again we could use it for the restructuring so it's not even that much of our risk because we have to do that anyway it sounds like we are good for March 17th that to be on the agenda okay thank you and again clarify that was just for the peach B projects for this summer and that's determining I mean really if we're going to do it and then also kind of if we're going to borrow to do it versus you have to do it because there complications you know we do that part related to our debt service for thiss year right right so that but that that question had nothing to do with the larger question by that
096was specifically yeah just the middle school ageb thank you thanks okay well then we can move into a new business I'm sorry we did have somebody else oh we did yeah um Aon teer no okay I mean I guess I should yes I mean it's just a question so like my boys and my third world very much um it's just like you move them all into one school I just think of that like where are the parents going to go you know when you have this events like it's already we're packed at PR much where how is this going to affect our kid kids or how is it positively known to affect the kids to go into one school and all cram in I mean I came from Albany so you know you could you
097could tell when the kids came from Albany you have a small class I don't know I just I just Fear the Future for the kids yeah I mean I think the parent you know from from the student side and we always start there you know there's there's advantages to it creates a great level of consistency for us it allows us to maintain um more of a standard class size again that's looking at the whole you know where green witch often has smaller class sizes just because of the where the lines are there are times where that's not the case I mean there are times when that's not the case um I'm looking at two recent beneficiaries of that I guess right now um the wrong use that positive word right um so there are times
098when we'd have one section where you would have a larger class size rather than a smaller class size um you know and the way that we would be able to differentiate kind of even within grade level four students to meet their needs a lot more flexibly when you have five sections and and um you know can have students in a classroom for a period of time based off their level of need and we do that now right but it's but it's not you don't have as much a range with two sections maybe as should do with five sections in addition to special education program we can offer much more efficiently so there are benefits to students there I think that parent side you know um KES is a larger school now and has a great
099Community you know and I think that if you bring them both together you would still have a great Community because there are schools much larger than what this hypothetical combined school would be that have incredible cultures and engaged parents um you know it would be different there's no doubt about that I mean but it's and I don't mean like us not would Clash I don't mean it that way I mean like space like where would we park where would you know what I mean oh I mean there there definitely has to be some alterations to um you know our um drop off pickup lines and parking and things you know we we wouldn't create a massive parking lot I mean but there's we have the high school parking lot which is right there you know
100which as long as we're not having both major events at any time we do have the opportunity on that campus we have tons of parking here you know um so to me I I get concerned more about working with our firms that have great experience in this of the flow of traffic than the parking for events um we better parking for events instead of parking across a busy highway you'd be parking you know parking lot in an adjacent building you know what I mean so I just think that's that's an advantage that we would have there um you know and if you want to talk like details you know I'd be happy to get together anytime and kind of talk talk about what I believe it would look like um you know and that offer
101is extended to the green witch PTO as well as a group or individually so you know I and I think trans Transportation gets brought up a lot but we have you know we have situations you can talk to many many families that'll say my middle school child has a shorter ride than my elementary child to Green wish and that's you know so because that that varies so greatly um and I truly believe we would see greater efficiencies in transportation at times in addition to summarizing would be slightly longer um you know so that would that kind of varies the one thing I've talked to some parents about that I think is unquestionable is it is an inconvenience for parents right if you choose to pick up your child and drop them off that extra eight
102minutes is twice right it's coming and going you know so there's no doubt about that that there's a little bit of that doesn't even we could have more efficient bus routes but the parent ride from home to school is what it is um you know so I I see that as more of that inconvenience there that just more so than the transportation for students because we've just we do have routes that are shorter to the campus than are to Greenwich some instances so it it takes a full rerouting to find all those efficiencies and we did contract with um transfinder it's going to help us you know reroute irrelevant of whether this happens or not you know we'll be looking at routes to to create efficiencies yeah I just think of like my ride from
103H to cut down we were on the bus over an hour and then I think of when this is all if it happens my youngest will be in kindergarten and do I want him to have to be on the bus for 45 minutes you know to an hour you know I I get things need to be thought of in all aspects but I just at the end of it I know money plays a role but I I want to benefit the kids the most you know like that's yeah and the time on bus I mean you know it's 45 minutes we absolutely have always and always will have 45 minute bus rides I think in our district because of our our size I mean you know we have students on the bus now that long
104um I don't think we'd get much over an hour when I look at what is currently running and what those changes would be we have neighboring districts that you know have one elementary school and just about as large square mileage as we do and you know um so the individual experience um would change for sure you know but I through efficiencies you know I do think that we would limit some of those concerns care so right now we have about five classes for the a level or grade level because three two a grade which but I'm assuming that is not be large enough like what's the increase in class size well I mean the addition would be large enough but what the Staffing model that I used for these numbers counts for is an assump
105so if there was an assumption of 100 students per grade level which is what we always use is that fa that assumption and it it it tracks out for the most part you know when you average it we'll be looking at five sections per 100 in K through three but looking potentially at four in four and five I mean that's that's that's what I used as the assumptions since that model again I apologize I didn't say that earlier I did last year when I kind of presented on the same thing I used those numbers so but the class classroom spaces would be so for f three it actually wouldn't that's not yeah what I'm projecting you know I mean if other factors come into play that that changes it but the model is based off
106of five sections per hundred you know just like we have now just again these conversations will go on for a long time but there is one other point too that I've heard is um gym space that's going to be a concern or is a concern not going to be a concern uh you remove that at school these these uh gyms and even cafeteras are pack now say it's large meeting space because cafeteria in the gym you know so that is something we have to look at if that's where you know there we could can add spaces like that as well you know and that's that's something that we need to see um exactly what it would looked like and put it we put it in there in that next presentation you know is that was
107there additional square footage for that in this conversation today or no no we didn't show any on that I think your current elementary is around 5,400 Square fet iium it jumps up to 76 and then 94 from the middle school and high school so a good siiz elementary school gymnasium is about 6500 square feet and the good size high school gymnasium is around 12,000 so putting a dollar per square foot on that you're probably in the range of like $2.5 to5 million depending on where you go for that additional space for for another like school gymnasium yeah correct yeah that could be a field I mean that could be a number of different things but we're looking at pure Square footage there based off of what the needs are based off what what level you're
108looking at whether it's elementary middle or High School the the first two speakers I apologize I didn't get your your full names I I did get you were both from Green Wich Township the first speaker um oh perfect thank you I'm good thank you Michelle's name wasn't on there but okay yeah we go Dr Mars was there anybody online who wanted to speak there is okay all right um is everybody okay here at the board or do we need recess okay have a recess um recess e e e back to order Dr Myers are we we're good okay thank you um we are in new business uh Personnel so I would be looking for a motion to approve the Personnel um recommend it is the recommendation of the administration the board of School director approve
109the following Personnel items uh one is listed there we have a motion don't move ous second motion and a second do we have any questions or comments all right hearing none then M please to a call Michael P yes re man yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis judicious yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Aaron angle yes Jason C yes motion carries all Personnel are approved pending receipt of all mandated credentials B is policy maintenance I think we can take um these together unless there's any objections all right then is the recommendation of the policy and curriculum committee that the board of school directors approve the second reading and the option of the following policies one through three are listed there all we have a motion second motion second any questions or comments
110on any of these polies Mr H roll call please Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes denisy dishes yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Aaron angle yes Michael P yes C yes motion carries C is a donation uh it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors accept the generous donation of $268 from Dr Michael Stevens East pen podiatry associates LLC to be used to purchase a US flag for the kown high school a motion second uh thank you to Dr Stevens uh for that uh donation um definitely use in yeah i' like thank Dr Stevens but also thank colon fener who did the connection um between Dr stepen in the school district for this donation um we have several new flags that are um recently purchased or
111are being purchased because it is time to retire a few of the flags here here at our schools um and car F mocker is also working with the um local Boy Scouts to do a formal retirement excellent all right thank you again Dr Stevens uh any other questions or comments okay uh Mr H Cecilia Hol yes Jeremiah light yes denisy dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes Laurel Ziggler yes Aaron angle yes Michael hes yes Reba Hoffman yes Jason C yes motion carries all right the next item is the 2025 2026 school calendar there are two options there I just option option A is like the shorter Holiday version option b is the longer Holiday version where we have the full weeks the two full weeks for Christmas and then also the full week for um Easter
112so okay so what are what's the difference like when you do the longer vacation what changes like you you stealing yeah a school year was one of them yeah so when we do the long breaks we did so um for Easter then it's like this year the students are off and teachers have a flex day um Monday March 30th through Friday um April 3D Easter Sunday is the 5th we then come back on Monday so we that day we added in that version and the last day for students is June 5th in the other version um we have we instead of January 2nd which was a Friday I went with December 22nd and 23rd um so we we stole that day in that version we're off for a full week for Easter but it's Tuesday
113to Tuesday and then the last Daye of Suits is June 3 so June so that's option A that is option A yes I'm sorry maybe I should have given them better so B is the longer holiday B is longer holidays yep okay so then um I'm going look for a motion to accept whichever I'll make a motion for option b we have a motion for option b so um we have second option second for option b uh do we have any comments about option b anybody um that would like to make a case for option A I suppose or we vote on option b we can't have two motions for each one separately can we can I make a motion for option A and somebody second that at the same time we had the motion
114for Al you could alter it as a basically an inory motion to change it amended to option that and take a vot Okay so you can just let this vote go if it wins otherwise def okay then the option b is on the table else roll call on option b please sorry jeremi light no Dennis dishes yes Daniel whis um I want I'm more in favor of uh voting in what's the I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other I think this one I would possibly prefer but I I'll vote can I get a feel like do we kind of like this then I'll vote Yes on this Zigler yeah only the president gets the Aaron angle yes Michael Hess yes Rea Hoffman I know it's it's like oh my I like
115something of each and it's like it's a hard one just keep your kids home whenever you want yes good Cecilia ho Jason cut yes notion carries two things just to clarify cut off up to two weather related closures we're recommending in that would then be um in service days at the end of the year and then we can use Virtual days you know intermittent there um and please don't just keep your kids home whenever but but we do approve vacations it's better way of putting just I know you were thinking yeah but you you you articulated it better than I did although it was well L comical though uh all right on the agenda item e prek Child Care Contin agreements it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve
116the emergency contingency plans between Shane and Kenner daycare center and St John's daycare center in cown Area School District where the attached do we have a motion so move second Hoffman motion seconds any questions or comments just to share what that is is you know for their planning um for their state audits they need to have a contingency plan in case they would have an emergency and this is an agreement with the district that we would accomodate them somehow one of our buildings of fat emergency stud they're they're 99% our students Advent right hear other questions Mr please Dennis udicious yes Daniel Wismer yes laurl Ziggler yes Aon angle yes Michael Hess yes Reva Hoffman yes Cecilia hold yes Jeremiah light yes Jason cup yes motion carries f is the support staff retirement incentive is
117the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the retirement incentive for support staff early attached um do we have a motion so move pass second motion and second do have any questions or comments on the support staff retirement intive all right Mr house phone call please Daniel whisman yes laurl Ziggler yes Aaron angle yes Michael Hess yes Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis udicious yes Jason cck yes motion carries G is the clear residency Services agreement it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the agreement with Thomas rouers for Clear proplex residency service for the attached we have a motion please MO second pass motion second any questions or comments this is a service um that uses a variety of data
118points to confirm residency within the district uh many districts are partnering with the clear program specifically for to ensure that Cyber Charter families live in the district you know it's um we have our natural checks through the paperwork that we collect but then we also have our natural checks that bus drivers tend to know when you know we're picking up students whether they are brick and mor Charter or come here um it's the Cyber Charter that see you know if you're a Cyber Charter family and you move sometimes you might think that's the point of telling the SCH because you don't really feel like you're receiving anything from them but it's a cost upcome tell so we've had uh one neighboring District have some success and a few others along with us recommending to right
119thank you any any questions form has our old address right the that's the old address we get we get Mr has call please La Zigler yes Aaron angle yes Michael Hess yes Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis udicious yes Daniel whis yes Jason yes motion carries H is the KD Education Foundation fundraising efforts it is the recommendation of the administration at the board of school directors accept with gratitude the plan fundraising efforts of ksan Area School District Education Foundation for a century playground of ksan elementary school and Performing Arts updates in the kutsan area high school auditorium for for the attached uh do we have a motion so move Z second motion second any questions or comments Mr we're grateful to the Education Foundation for all they do to support our
120teachers our students and the district um these are two larger projects that they are excited about um and excited to really get rolling we think you know for the auditorium upgrades there's already pretty good Head Start through an eitc um Grant uh through guess I could say The Local Company right through ruers um the pretty significant um eitc dollars coming in from ruds and uh this there excited to see the board formally approve the concept so they can really get fun of anything s excellent thank you any other questions or comments Mr H local please Aaron angle yes Michael H yes Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis dishes yes Daniel whisman yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason Cox yes motion carries I is the Burks County Technology Center pctc budget for 25
1212025 and 2026 as recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors authorized the expenditures of the Burk sere and Technology Center's general program for the period July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2026 for the attached do we have a motion motion on second any questions or comments on that BC TC budget overall itre by 4.56% um our percentage increased a little bit less than that but it in dollar amounts it is a little less than $14,000 our increase for this year um it is you know the service is incredible that we receive from BCTC um any on annually any year between 20 25% of our high school students are attending BCTC and being very very successful we have historically highest attendance rates amongst our students who go to BCTC so um while you
122know any increase we prefer not to have an increase we'll say you know it's it's money well spent directly on their students and their preparation for their careers any other questions Mr H call please Michael hes yes Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes deny dishes yes Daniel whis yes la Ziggler yes Aaron angle yes Jon cup yes motion carries then Jay's introduction of new business by board members do any board members have new business to introduce I do I hate to do this because I know we've had a long meeting but I don't think this take more than a minute um I had a a student here tell me that the gym where you the waight the wait room is unavailable to students um like after school or whatever which I found
123odd um so I'd like to see if we could discuss that in committee is there a way to resolve that that they could we need somebody to supervise right so it's it's available if there's not on the maybe consistent basis that they want it's it's when there is the St maybe we just need to discuss if we can make a consistent push towards something I think benefit from I just thought it was odd I mean I mean I went to school a long time long long time ago but the gym has always so super guys um and it doesn't I don't think needs to be extreme probably a couple of hours days a week or something something we could discuss yeah we can discuss it ECC yeah for sure thank you no I I was
124just wondering about the library thing like I guess you guys don't know how much the library would cost to renovate or do changes to I was wondering why that was going to go through if we're in debt right now as it is and why that's beneficial to do really if the Middle School library question yeah you know I mean I don't want to supersede the expertise of Mr Chrisman but I had seen a document where that was the renovation of that space was looking at about 220,000 you know and on one of their documents now I don't there's been a couple different iteration so don't quote me on that number but I did see that on Su um is it why is it beneficial the idea is just when we are doing you know alterations
125to a building maximizing instructional space is a good thing um people you know I want to make sure we have enough instructional SPAC into the future one thing I will share is that despite even with us the ad Administration moving to the middle school there's still space in the middle school you know where I used to say if you gave you the fifth grade and you walked them over or drove them over to the middle school we could we could have comment them right away um now I'll say if you give me 10 days we can accommodate you know another grade in there um and having a full classroom space would be wise and then if you would never have seen it this but since the admin moved there there's some ad hoc kind of
126office spaces over there so with that space we can make them more formal office spaces have all the admin team in the same space and put student space there so um it's certainly something that if we're going to move forward with project we can take out you know because we don't need need it today but if you're going to making renovations to the building you know using it for the best longterm option can answer the question yeah stop over the well next time you're over the middle school for anything take a walk through them and grab one of those and show you want me tell to school tomorrow out yeah um I just have one thing to I'd like to bring up um pertaining to the zoom policy for board meetings uh I have a
127few changes I'd like to see made and I can send that to Dr Myers and Mr Wismer for the next meeting uh I also would like to see moving forward on the uh yeah the meeting minutes sorry about that um any board member that's attending via Zoom because we do do it for participants of the audience I'd like to see that also marked out you know so that because when when uh anybody brings this up they don't know how the person offended unless they watch the Youtube they will and I think it's just fair to people at the district that they see who's here in person who's attending via Zoom are the nature of the types of changes that you're looking to request just looking at some updates that's all do include Zoom members on
128the board as far as participants yeah but I think what he's saying is we don't specify X was in person and X was on Zoom but we do do that for you know I guess that's a question we do it for one but not the other I think it's is whether we need to question there um I'll get I'm going to take a look at the the policies around minutes and I it's not going to get that detailed so it's really just a decision point for us but um the uh policy yeah send send whatever that's that's how we handle things chair and Dr Myers and talk about poliy good the minute it's all it says in also present it has the list and then it says remote so it would almost make sense to
129have them you know just put remote but yeah yeah I don't I mean I I honestly don't remember you know that was a new thing a couple years ago don't remember why I don't think it was a strong decision Point why we put one and on the other it just kind of bued out that way um I I think I was just because we all the board members they're either here one way or another but to just document that there were other people in attendance um so so that we would know that there was more public involvement yeah our public never addressed but we know we couldn't put this on put some way but it wouldn't be meaningful we could put on our minutes we have more attendees via YouTube than we do in person
130and zoom typically and that's not even like after the fact watching if you go in an hour from now and look at YouTube You'll see you know it's not massive it might be 30 people where we rarely have we at here um I think I think changing anything we do with minutes before we talk about the policy probably doesn't make a lot of sense because that that would probably be one conversation that let poliy decisions drive and change yeah just s Mr does anybody else have any all right well then nine is informational items a through e are listed there um 10 upcoming public meetings in informative dates March 10th we have PNC committee meeting at 6:00 in the high school and by Zoom followed by the facilities and ECC committee meeting at 7 o'clock
131here in high school and by zoom on March 17th we have our next uh school board meeting 7:30 here in the high school and by Zoom March 24th is the next budget and finance committee meeting at 7 o'clock and that will be in the Middle School in the Commons and by Zoom I'd be looking for a motion to adjourn Miss on agenda item oh I apologize do we have any public comments on non-agenda no one signed up okay Dr Meers anyone on that no there's not all right I think Michelle was trying to indicate you to say something oh please come on I apologize for actually this was on the agenda but um about green witch um one issue is the space y as far as my space I've been moved from the high school
132to Max Tony now to Green you've been upgraded yes I have been but um there are issues as far as timing there's basketball there in the evening there's my practice I'm the rifle coach um we have Girls on the Run we have Scouts and we all can't fit in so if you want us to go to cstown how is that space going to be fit us all all in even if you make a bigger space which he mentioned about it doesn't logistically make sense um and I I do want to say I'm a parent of two very successful graduates of this district and who attended Max anonia and that school was like a family as the family atmosphere I found a greenage I found that family when I was able to volunteer and had the
133opportunity to fill longterm subp position much both of these schools being rural schools they are a draw to the community in a central part where things revolve around the activities within the school and these teachers have stuck together and one of these teachers that um has been in all of those schools and I've had the opportunity to work with her and um the teachers all AG green which are top-notch and I'm not saying that Co town I've worked with them as well um but I commend that specific person on her flexibility um and Brett much has stuck through help these past few years and they've stuck together and I'm proud to be part of that community and have great uh grandchildren in the school and I look forward to my two young grandsons being part
134of that atmosphere and having those great teachers now um there's three warehouses projected when I leave for work at for 500 a.m. to come into town I'm already behind trucks buses is going to make it even longer from all the way up in hempton through there and they're expecting I think the one Warehouse they projected 1500 truck trips per day or even more um having those warehouses in my backyard property property values going to go down not having a community school in that Community will also make that property value going going down so I sorry I didn't speak earlier um um but I love this school district I am invested in it and I think there are other ways to make this work instead of closing thank you Michelle um I mean GRE is an
135incredible Community you know and those the teachers would be great teachers anywhere I think as evidence by who's in all four schools Cindy yeah I thought so um so you know and and that's that said I think the traffic thing cuts a couple different because yes the truck traffic will impact Transportation alog together but what it will do to that immediate area you know right off of the exit where green just which sits as a major part of this conversation you know in addition to the warehouses that have been approved and those that are in some form of proposal um in addition to a sketch plan for a travel Center Travel Plaza you know where the currently where the hentk cement plant is um you know it's just and there's there's some that say that's
136going to look move to another spot I me I know that but that that whole dynamic of that exit is going to change I think over the next five years so that conversation that the role that plays in this discussion I think Cuts in a couple of thingss those things are proposed that they they are it's just as you know as development happens it becomes more likely that there's you know the some the warehouses are approved there's a hand there's three warehouses two under one name but three of that are approved so that's all just that's all I just think it cuts a couple different ways in the conversation nothing you said is wrong it's just that the other side is also a reason thing to consider so I just would like you to consider
137looking at spacewise of the different groups oh yeah yeah conc yep that concern was raised and and just so you know rifle was specifically mentioned in that privately I don't I'm not sure if we have have another upgrade for you okay um then a motion for adjournment second light