001e e e I'd like to call this meeting to order please for moment of silence I pledge alance to the FL flag the United States of America to for stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all I'd like to thank everyone for coming tonight uh there's a log in front uh if you haven't done so would you please sign in if you have anything in particular you would like to bring to the board ATT please also write that down if at any time during the meeting 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 comment where you can bring up additional issues uh when speaking publicly please speak directly into the microphone uh this meeting is
002being recorded there was also an executive session conducted prior to the meeting to discuss Personnel matters with that Aaron angle here nich hats here Rea hofman here Cecilia hle here Jason cuck Jeremiah oh he is okay sorry um sorry M here Dennis dishes here Daniel whis here Laurel Ziggler here Lucas Hoffman here Joselyn dball here okay uh first on the agenda we have approval of minutes for the December 16th 2024 school board meeting do I have a motion so second that please Michael Hess yes Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes barl Ziggler yes Jason cutter yes yes uh next we have the treasurers report uh unless anybody objects we can take a through H Al together me have a motion so move like second udicious a
003[Music] second re Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Jeremiah light yes tennisy dishes yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason cck yes yes Aon angle yes uh next on the agenda is approval of bills for payment and again unless anybody objects we can take them all together motion second C hold yeah Jeremiah light yeah yes Dennis dishes yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason C yes Michael H yes Reba Hoffman yeah Aon angle yes guys next on the agenda is Communications and reports first we have superintendent report thank you um the superintendent reports a little bit different this evening first we want to make sure that we recognize uh that today is Martin Luther King Jr Day Dr King's day and his enduring Legacy of Justice equality and service his words challenge us to
004to ask us ask ourselves what are we doing for others um inspires us to create meaningful change within our communities hopefully in in honor of Dr King and our students had a day off today and had an opportunity to serve their communities in some way shape or form um we also have this evening that it is School Board member recognition month here in Pennsylvania psda recognizes our Schoolboard members and the level of service that our school board members um provide for a district not sure if we think about it often it's a you know this is an unpaid position elected to help serve our community on the calendar before any special meetings that is 28 evenings out of the Year typically Mondays um I hope we don't have any resignations after I point that out
005you spend one month the evenings of one month of the year here with us um but you do and that that is a great bit of service to our community um the number of hours that are dedicated go far beyond just our time here whether it's it's phone calls the the many community members that speak to you out in public about situations that you know they want you to be either aware of or to assist with and we are truly truly grateful we have small tokens of appreciation uh for each of our board MERS here this evening in addition to our student board reps um not quite 28 meeting nights out of the year but also spending your Monday nights when you can um just representing the idea and act of representing your peers um
006what you do so well is is a credit to you in your character and that credit to our community so on behalf of the district and Community I would like to thank everyone for their service here in board m recogition month and celebration of service Dr King our next piece for the superintendance report this evening um we're have Mrs Devon join us remotely if if you tuned into our curriculum uh committee meeting on last Monday evening we did have some items on there we didn't get to uh including some mini mini grants that our Education Foundation were providing for our teachers they are on the agenda this evening for approval as donations but we wanted to um first in informing the board the board had the information ahead of time of what these minig grants
007were but also um in gratitude to our Education Foundation for partnering with our teachers wanted to share what some of those Min this is Dev hi thank you good evening um the 2425 minig Grant proposals were a robust group of off of uh proposals from our teachers that take us from an expanse across all of our buildings um our first is an AP government and AP Human Geography trip to visit Washington DC um with varied goals around both advocacy in federal government and opportunities for Hands-On geography learning at the new planet World Museum and so the cost for that will cover transportation to assist with some other funding that is being raised um by the students and by the teachers can keep going Dr Meers our next is at cown elementary school um a group
008of students have expressed interest in starting up a school store and the opportunities that arise from that are some almost unintended consequences around financial literacy where both the merchants and the bankers and the consumers will have opportunities to learn some things about financial literacy and savings and spending and those habits um so that is about an $840 um inventory Gathering to get all the things to start up the school store project the next is our Middle School Encore group and to work to celebrate the hard work of our students in their Encore classes uh they have put together Mega time which is an opportunity for students to celebrate um their successes across the year and this grant will help provide an opportunity for students to attend some wonderful events at the end of the year
009including a trip to the running Phillies and a picnic uh the next is an exciting startup project at greenwitch elementary school and it was very student driven um a group of readers came to some teachers and said we'd really like to start a reading Olympics team and so um we've worked out what the startup cost of books for this year and a set of t-shirts to get this team up and running um along with some Transportation costs to cover the competition for this year um and then we'll be able to see what growing interest looks like what additional interest at K 10 Elementary might look like but this would be an inaugural team of Elementary in Olympics um from green witch next we have an opportunity for some elementary students to do some cooking and
010skill building um for uh with some age appropriate cooking tools so it's a smaller Grant amount that will allow a group of students to receive age appropriate cooking tools and equipment and have some Hands-On opportunities in the classroom next we have a 100 books for a middle school classroom allowing students to increase um the novels that are available to them with some specific interests and as noted all of the novels will be cautiously curated and examined upon receipt to ensure that everything is appropriate um along the way uh next we have an exciting senior trip to the Franklin Institute with Dr Mahoney and Mr Chambers heading that up um students will have a chance to visit both the Franklin Institute thinking about some Physics um pieces and then also look at some Ela pieces in
011the amazing machines exhibit that is also taking place uh they've been studying or will be studying the Hugo um and doing some film analysis with that and that ties in with that um analysis that they're doing next we have some sensory resources to support specific students um and some needs that um arise that will allow us to provide some tools that will support some things um that they have not had access to yet um some noise cancelling headphones and some swings and deep pressure equipment um that builds upon the large number of tools that help support students with varied sensory needs at the elementary level next we have a school garden that will allow a group of students to have some Hands-On experiences in um all of the components of the life cycle through science
012and ecology and the environment and we'll grow a space Outdoors that all of the students at the school will get to enjoy and next we have um an exciting event that is kind of building this is kind of a step along the way um Mr Hoffman and the art Department are putting together what's called a steamroller print festival and along the way we'll be hearing plenty more about this but the first beginning event is to kind of do a local event see how all of the logistics go um because what Mr Hoffman is working to do is grow this to a larger community and um event that expands beyond the walls of just Kutztown high school and Kutztown School District so it'll be exciting to hear more about that as we go so there you
013can see just kind of the spread of different um projects across the district and obviously as we go through the year we'll have opportunities to share the exciting results of those projects and the foundation looks forward to um having opportunities to gather with the teachers and see those events take place um I believe the grand total of Grant Awards came to about 12,900 something dollars sorry thank you Mrs Devin trying non-verbal communication proba your picture is like this big for me so I'm sorry I couldn't see I saw it for you thank you for sharing sure thank you for Shar great opportunities the Education Foundation supports our students and community in so many different ways um you know one of obviously their one of their major focuses are scholarships for our graduating seniors um the
014Min grants are ways to support fees with small projects that are either to try something outside the box or maybe an idea that popped up post budget you know where a little extra funding is possible to do something exciting in their classroom um in addition to assisting us with large projects knowing the Education Foundation um recently has joined forces with us uh in raising some funds for the auditorium and also we assum me discussing engaging in a sensory playground project so just the Education Foundation are a Wonder ful support network here in school district as as we shared those projects are all on the board this evening as donations I think that is everything for the see great thank you uh next we're moving on to board committee reports first up is pctc to the
015meet since the last time we had a realate thank you uh bciu Mr uh we just met on Thursday and there was that weather at the end of the day so it was a little bit of abbreviated meeting um but there was um a lot of just general business the only thing that kind of stuck stuck out in my mind was uh there was a slight increase to the member district contribution to the bciu um the 18 participating superintendent already voted on this and we'll be voting on it as all school districts will and it's kind of just a regular incremental increase I wrote down one 1.13 that sound right 133% increase sounds it was low I mean small yeah which equates to I want to say like $330 as far as our share of
016that um because the uh aggregate is uh I wrote down 87,000 for all districts so it's a nominal increase it's something that generally happens every year um so it's not anything that's uh unusual but that was the only thing we know thank you uh btcc oh um yeah we met in December um to review the the financials um they discussed also the efforts that they're um doing for um collections I'm sorry the collection efforts and just the different the extracurricular and Facilities yes uh we met last week um we talked about and pushed to the board I believe for the next meeting the salony trail extension along with partnering with kown burrow on that and then uh we also got updates for adding water meter in the Fieldhouse irrigation system to cut down on our
017sewer cost with the burrow and also one in the boiler room for the discharge line that it's mandated and then uh we also talked about HVAC and building plan next steps um because we are spending a lot of money on HVAC repairs at uh KES and so we go ahead yeah so we you know we've talked about how um several times in the last like year and a half we've introduced larger projects that could be potential down the road in terms of some um Renovations in in partnership with uh restructuring potentially of the middle schools we have not established any timeline for that since since our last meeting but a major part of any cost of any of those projects that we had matter what AG go would be an upgrade to HVAC systems in
018all of our buildings because they're all at end of life so on March 3D uh McLure and EI Associates will be back our regular board meeting to do a presentation and have a discussion here in public just about what we generally are like let's wait until we know about a bigger project because that's how you would build in those major major upgrades but they can talk through over what a timeline might be that would phase that in a little bit sooner so we would stop um spending so much in the maintenance and upkeep of our current system so they'll be back here on March 3D at the regular board meeting to uh to present that's it for psba have anything thank you uh policy and curriculum yes thank you uh we had items on the
019agenda but we were only able to get through and we didn't even really get through the recommended graduation requirements discussion because there was um a lot of feedback and a lot of um input that was generated from that one as a result of that not being able to get through all of that um we are looking at voting on that February 3rd which gives us tonight uh which I I'm thinking some people will have some some additional feedback to add to that one um as far as just some things in general that I took note of um there the the general positives that came out of this were um a clear increase in the ability for families and students to be able to have some choice in what they were going to do primarily in
020their senior year um and so it opened up a lot of opportunities um some of the conversation was not in entire agreement um and uh that's where I think we're at on that one thank you thank you uh next is the student representative ofs yeah so um the students got to hear a little bit about the graduation requirement changes and the thing with the general classes um because there was an email sent out asking for feedback which I think was pretty helpful um there was negative feedback towards the general stuff I would say from what I've heard um and I think more positive feedback towards the graduation requirements but I'm not exactly sure you know more about that yeah there was um you know so I received responses sent it out to the message was
021sent to All Juniors and seniors um looking for the feedback for students who had had had the experience um did get a response from at least one sophomore so I think we shared a little bit among them which is fine um the there was definitely the of those who selected to respond um was definit more questions about General um some negative feedback some more questions too of where it was there there is a fear um one of the major fears that you hear is like Welles this mean getting rid of levels including honors AP or something like that that's just not that's never been a part of the recommendations currently the only recommendation is to um blend for lack of better words the academic and general levels ninth grade and nth grade only um so
022yeah there was definitely more of the 13 there was definitely more negative feedback related to General and some were just questions um graduation requirements it was some questions yet clarifying questions um some saying you know we need a little more details it's hard to kind of see it just in one statement and writing to get more context when we talk out um but that was better mix and more positive about the way WR Regal stents yeah yeah I think generally at least from people coming to us the main concern I for was just um lots of question about like the implementation of the general and academic classes joint and how that would just impact like the classroom environment or the structure P Jing I think one of the main conc is just clarification on how
023exactly the environment would be impacted for yeah with that being said though I think the email was uh very helpful because often times students just hear stuff through the Great Vine and you know it just changes warps what they hear but just having a Straight From the Source I think has been helpful I and I thank you for your partnership and making that happen so that was uh that's representation and service at work I if you have anything else that's pretty much about it no J classes which is the feedback here okay thank you you okay next on the agenda is public comment on agenda items we do not have anybody person signed up for anybody on the line excuse me Jack has his hand raised I'm not sure if an opportunity to see if
024he would like to speak Mr RL would you like to speak Z did you want to talk about agenda it and agenda agenda item or is this a non-end item see has muted right now oh he took it he took the ER okay thank you um okay next the agenda is new business uh first have Personnel it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors appr the following personel items uh should I take these together should I break them I take together no objections um okay as listed in the agenda we're going to take it together do I have a motion second Motion in a second any questions or comments thank you Mr Conrad for your years as maintenance and groundkeeper thank coach we always call we call him Coach around
025here coach Conrad um not retiring is in coaching but retiring from his position in the maintenance position or maintenance department um it was a great addition several years ago here just you know somebody who cares deeply about put Center School District kown burrow and this school community so whenever you can add somebody like that to the team and is a huge value ad so excited for you in retirement and uh excited that you won't be going anywhere coach s congratulations coach thank you uh that de L yes deny dishes yes Daniel whis yes Lael Ziggler yes Jason C yes yes yes re Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Aon go yes Mission carries uh next on the agenda is Item B staff device byby program it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of
026school directors approved the staff device buyback program which will staff purchase the outgoing device assigned to them at $100 per device this yeah this is something we've done in the past where you know our staff devices we typically try to have a four-year cycle this this particular Fleet is on the fifth year of a four-year cycle um and then there's at the end if we do not offer the opportunity to purchase them you know we sell them back to um a company that will refurbish them and resell them however they wish this is an estimation you know of approximately what they might we might get from those companies so it's really at we don't know the exact number until we actually go out to bid for that but Mr Hoffman does a nice job of
027projecting it we think this is probably a fair representation of what we would get back and if the staff member wants to have it for their own personal device it's an opportunity to keep using that so thank you uh do I have a motion so Move lman Motion a second any questions or comments not on this one but do we have I can't even remember from last year do we have the same thing for seniors um there's been times where we have and times we have not be depending on the device life cyle need more information yeah I think we can get another year out of current senior devices to ex that that uses a little bit more whereas the five five years out of the staff devices either ready so the the seniors that
028are graduating theirs go to a freshman time would be to to distribute those to our our loaners across the district uh you know as well as if a device is broken by current student we then s device any other questions hearing none call please Dennis udicious yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason cck yes yes re Hoffman yes yes Cecilia hle yes Jeremiah light yes Aon yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is the KD Education Foundation Min Grant donations it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the donations from the KD Education Foundation For Teacher Min grants uh this is what Mrs Devon just presented uh do you have a motion second test any questions or comments just want to say thank you to the headed
029foundation for the generous contribution through all the classes when voting we're voting for all the grants right um that is how this is yes I just had a couple questions on some of them um the one said The Encore Rewards is that it said for kids that got A's and B's but then it said schoolwide so is this for all kids or is it really only for those kids it is for students who get a and Bs in their classes um in it is not yeah that it is um The Encore classes the middle school you know in recent years have been devising in grade incentives large grade incentives like this um for students who you know maintain good grades in Encore that sometimes they feel like in justifiably I think that the Encore is
030get a little less attention and the is best award students who maintain some focus on as well my other question was would the the hundred books it said 100 books for room 208 on Mrs dein's thing it just said 100 books on this paper it says graphic novel clost di so is it going to be 100 graphic Noel they they they have a large selection of titles picked out that we are looking through to make sure that all are appropriate and designated on all appropriate lists for that age range um they do have that largeest selection because there are so many non-fiction um novels available at this point so novel might not be always the right word because some really dive into some non-fiction topics that are just they're all high interest for kids if
031you're interested in seeing the whole list I can certainly share that graphic that's what I mean they're all the graphic gra no novels we would you know old school okay I was just curious about that that's part of what makes that the add-on is that we would typically fun make sure classrooms have what they would need so this is kind of that additional project of there's this High interest and so that was why the the grant was proposed that way I would like to see that list please sure I have one question so in all of the slides it said the requested amount was that also the same as the granted amount are these all approved granted amounts yes the the way that it works is that the no purchases are made until board approval
032is received and so from the time when the original proposal is created until purchases might be made there can be some slight little adjustments so we to never go over that amount so we always just kind of call it the proposed amount that is what will be fully funded by the foundation it sometimes comes in a little bit under that and we work to not go over that if it is something that would fall under my budget I work to you know a slight overage or something along the way we work to manage those thank you sure any other questions comments hear none Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes C yes yes Reba Hoffman yes CIA Hol yes Jeremiah light yes dasty dish yes Aon yes uh let's see next up we have item D
033tax collector it is sorry the acceptance of the resignation of Tina ALB town ship tax collector affected January 1st 2025 and the approval of Angela Bitner as Albany Township Tax Collector affected January 6 do I have a motion whis moves second H motion second uh any questions or comments hearing none Laurel Zigler yes Mason cck yes yes Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Jeremiah light yes veny dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes Aon angle yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is item e uh kada retirement incentive it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the kada retirement incentive for the attached motion so move to Second Edition uh any questions or comments say the incentive is um linked on there it's an opportunity for um kada members I
034appreciate the collaboration between K leadership um Administration in the board to look at ways to help us with our potentially with our financial efficiency but also honoring the time dedication of teachers here in the district so looking forward to if approved seeing if this comes to parition members of K thank you any other questions here none Jason cck yes Michael hes yes R Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes denisy dishes yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Aron yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is item F IU 13 wide area Network Services excuse me it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approved the letter of commitment to the Consortium purchase of wide area network services in the Lancaster Leon Intermediate Unit starting July 1st 2026
035this is a 5year agreement at the yearly cost of 47,9 $845 after e rate discounts any questions comment we usually do a motion oh my have a motion don't move second pass okay now any questions or comment I just had a question if this was um like the aggregation of like an hourly rate um to give like a rough yearly estimate or this is Mr hofman's the expert on all things when ask sure uh so the um the L Le IU uh takes all of the operational costs to run the WAN and they just divide it by the number of total members That's How We R costs thank you uh any other question hearing none Michael pass yes Rea Hoffman yes cilia hul yes Jeremiah Lake yes Dennis dishes yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler
036yes Jason cck yes Aon angle yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is ESS agendum it is the recommendation of the administration of the board of school directors inove the addendum withs for a district off office Administrative Assistant substitute could be attached we have a motion second second any questions or comments just partnership withs we have many standard uh positions within that agreement anytime we add a position and sometimes even rates we have new addendum so most I think we have an addendum on most of our agendas thank you any questions Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis udicious yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason cut yes Michael Hess yes Aon angle yes motion carries next on the agenda is item H student summer worker custodial position job description
037it is the recommendation of the administration the board of school directors approved the student summer work custodial position job description PR attached so moved yes second second any questions or comments when would the students be able to apply for that usually get that posted yeah in the spring spring probably April April May yeah any other questions hearing none please Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes den yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason cut yes Michael hes yes Rea Hoffman yes Aron yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is item I Nimble IT solutions agreement it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the agreement with Nimble IT solutions are be attached you have a motion so move second any questions or comments Mr off or anything You'
038like to share about Nimble sure Ian we've been partnering with Nimble for a number of years now I think seven or eight at this point um and this is just continuation of the agreement and and supports that we have in place today thank you the other questions or comments heing none Jeremiah light yes Dennis dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes Laurel Ziggler yes C yes yes Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Aon angle yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is item J Merlin mind pte Grant agreement it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors appr approve a grant partnership with Merlin mind and the Pia Department of Education for the attached you have a motion so move that good Mo a second any questions concerns comments merley mind is
039a so as I said this is a grant program no cost to the district uh Merlin m is partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Education has a few other funding sources uh to provide devices and software that would allow teachers to use um a little microphone pens shaped device that they could so if they're walking around their classroom they wanted to access something that was on their laptop or bring it up on a screen they can give a command to that device to bring um to bring that up on a screen for their students so it's it's designed to provide a little bit of efficiency or a lot of efficiency for um teachers when moving about the classroom but still instead of having to run back and access to device um there's some intuitive nature
040to it where um it does scan resources quickly to kind of ensure that there's um it has extra filtering in addition to our filtering to make sure something doesn't get pulled up by accident um and there are specific tasks that you can train it to do um but again it's a free not we haven't even asked all of our teachers if they're interested yet but the idea is we Grant if we can make it available and we help teachers feel like they can better respond to students in the Moment by being able to access their advice um Ming feel like it's an opportunity to find your Grant sometimes with Grant you worry you know you take something for free and then you grow a dependency on it um you know five years from now the
041tools would probably be even more advanced than this you know so I think that we'll see sort of commonplace type things over that time period anything I'm missing you know I'm looking over Mr hoop and Dr Myers and Devin raw involved in this presentation really about efficiency and allowing teachers to move around the room we talking about student engagement and um just teachers in proximity to students so that's really what the devices that rather than hitting keys and cleaning things up and going steps so it's a big time saer optional for our teachers at least you know in early stages and at some point we feel like it's needs to be aive advice certain sharing that but at this point it just be optional for teachers who want to give it try I I looked
042at some of the the online content describing it um it seemed like it could be more comprehensive than that it didn't it seemed like there was a lot more uh added capability of essentially just pulling content or it deriving content because it's mod yeah I mean there are some things that does like natively you know which we didn't feel would be all that beneficial but some you know maybe somebody will find it like you can do a very generic um question through open class period um that that generates um generate questions generate questions um it will set a timer it'll do things like that once again out of an efficiency so you can say hey Marlin set a timer for five minutes you're doing a five minute activity so in other words instead of pulling
043your timer up being on the screen it'll do it automatically so there things like that I'm sure there are much more in depth things that we can do that we wouldn't really understand until we get into it um but it definitely felt like something the teacher a teacher would start by choice using some of those lower levels and they start learning new pieces then you could train staff to do that find Value if we find to be something that is less than desirable then we could always you know back away from those parts of prodct it definitely looks incredible I it looks like a great tool um I guess when I my first evaluation of it was one if it if just the added concern of if it is creating content in the AI sense
044because it's a a language model AI M um so that was just something I was concerned about and um it looked like that there was you know at least like you say may not know until we get into it right um but that kind of creates a just something that I would want to what concern about and then um the other thing is I just you can even Google and the Google AI says that one of the professions at risk of leing losing their jobs language modeler AIS is education itself it almost made me feel like you know if this is if this is has has limited application I think it's one thing but if it's starting to take on larger roles the only thing based on its capability yeah our understanding is the only
045thing will generate questions and they very generic questions so Life on Mars you know something like that they you know it could generate a question like that for the class to answer okay but we we have not seen anything and asking those questions to the company and what they showed us we haven't seen anything that will generate beond that we don't really anticipate using that feature it's possible it's possible we can use it but really it's to detach the teacher from a device that proximity and moving around the classroom just the efficiency pieces what we see it for and it'll pull from Google Google Drive so if you have a presentation let's say on Mars um I pull up the presentation on life on Mars and then from there so this is an example lack
046of I do have a couple questions as well um one would be when when we would we look to implement this um would it be this year it it would be next year next year okay um so a couple things I think I'd like to know as a board member is who's using it um and what their feedback is on it after using it for amount of time um how the products being used um and then what kind of data collection does mer do because I'm sure they're not giving it to us for free because they're nice I'm sure that they're doing like some massive data collection um so I'm just kind of curious like what kind of data collection would it be doing they do collect data so they'll collect once again what the
047what the directives are figure out what teachers want to do with it they've already adapted it based on teacher feedback so yes they will collect that that piece um whether it's presentations whether it's worksheets like they want to know that to make it more intuitive so they will build it as it goes so that is one piece of the grant so that that data will be now it is text based so they will collect it through text but they want to see the commands because that'll allow to build Fe make it more robust and to Dan's Point all that data collection could have some down the road so anyway just a general our first question you know just to go that path is like obviously it's voice there voice command so we were first we
048just listening all the time but no you push a button like it's there's a button that the teacher pushes so it's not just collecting data from voices in the room all the time um which yeah that was our first know we're not just putting microphones in there to like data but we felt comfortable putting it operated by its and that's the command command based piece y so when you're pushing that you're giving a command that's what they want to know how that being said some classrooms have 25 phones and Pockets C it's a separate yeah so just I just think I in general I will be looking for Teacher feedback um after it's been used for a while and then like what all classes is it being used for is it helpful that kind of
049stuff I I just got a couple things too I looked at a video online about it and one of the things that you know they had a teacher say where did the Pythagorean theorem get its name from and it brought it up how do we know that that AI system is getting from responsible resources and not just Wikipedia we have any assurances on that yeah I mean I it's like any resource that a teacher uses I think they're going to have to you know in the moment they might pull it up and they have to read it and if it doesn't pass muster you know that's it's just a different mechanism to a same to a classic problem is that we have to ensure that they're you know betting Resources with with a level of
050um you know some some level of uh depth and uh I mean it's ESS to be aware of it's a possibility but I think I need to search engine would give you the same you know you have the same and then I know it's a five year Grant but after five years and we have this for five years it's hard to give up technology once you implement it so do we have any idea what the cost of this program is going to be after that we don't and we talked about that at length and just you know my the fiveyear length is pretty long um I think it's highly likely that technology like this will be so pervasive in five years that it'll be built right into your device I I feel like that's a
051long time the way these the way this technology is growing I like it will be obsolete before it's before it's something that we are relying unless if we are relying on it bu in SCH that's just my feeling on that because of for a long time with it again that's exactly two questions I asked initially is what do we do when the grant runs out because that's always a problem and um data just after listen the presentation I felt very comtable on both of those that you know five years will'll be better tools or or tools are just native to our devices it's kind of my prediction I suspect like many tools I think we're going to have a small percentage handful number of teachers that become highly proficient and make it a really valuable
052part of their daily use I think um there's many won't even want to use it and you know there's going to kind of be that in between and be something that is really important that small group of experts that are using in classroom Pro most teolog questions [Music] denn dises yes Daniel whis yeah I think I'm gonna say no Laurel zler yes Jason cck yes Michael Hess yes Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia hle yes Jeremiah Life I'm going to say no too oh sorry Aron angle sorry uh yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is item K uh recis of the accelerated budget pot out resolution it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the recision of accelerated accelerated budget optout resolution originally approved on December 16th 2023 have
053a motion some move like second yes motion a second any comments questions yeah I think you're explaining this one you know this this and the next budget item really go together in terms of the explanation is that as we are preparing for our first whole budget meeting which be on February 24 um and we have so many unknowns into our budget yet um into our expense side um and our Reven specifically our expense side you know we are we still are working on a labor agreement we have new information coming in every day and we have a I think a commitment from you know some part of the board for sure into approving a balanced budget and you know and and as we've gone through the process as I talked earlier about building project moding
054money um we need to be committed to passing a balanced budget you know we we've passed um deficit budgets in recent years and and then costs go up in the middle of the year and it ends up really putting a hit on the fund balance and the our fund balance is dwindling so all those things considered the only thing that we can do right now to maintain flexibility and how we adopt a budget is to resend the accelerated budget optout resolution and then pass a preliminary budget that preliminary budget which is the next budget item is is it represents numbers where we usually start our budget conversations which is assuming outset of things that we know we're going to change assuming things stay the same how do our budget numbers Advance um you know that
055has in recent years um included a pretty significant deficit and it does as you'll see on here at the 1.8 8.8 million sorry 1.8 million deficit that's a deficit includes a 4% tax increase which is the full index this year approving any of this doesn't commit to anything it's just it just provides flexibility as we go into the future we have to represent on this document that we what the budget would look like is a 4% or a full Act One index tax increase because this flexibility is all around ways that you could um go above the index which the only ways in Pennsylvania that you can or if you are qualified for exceptions you can ask pde to allow you to go to those exceptions which can go up about 1% or a little
056bit more depending what they are we might be eligible for those exceptions but the only other way to go above it is a referendum on the M ballot which is you know a vote of our residents again all of those nothing tonight is saying that any of that is going to happen it just allows the flexibility to continue building the budget um knowing that there are more options than just um the index so they just provide flexibility it does give a little view into you know kind of the starting point on February 24th you know so it's not like it's if it is real information it's actual information but it is that starting point um for November or February 24 that's the explanation for the two of those just maintaining flexibility the timelines that kind
057of move from there this would be available then for uh the next 30 days um right 20 yeah it'll be available it's it'll be available to you on the on the budget then if we were looking to um request a exception from PBE that needs to be done by the end of February you're looking at a referendum these done by the end of March you can kind of see how that timeline starts moving pretty quickly but um the next like major date for us be that February any question um just comment I guess I me I I think in general you know budget time is always tough um or always fighting seems against the numbers um we certainly uh owe it to the taxpayers to try to bring in a budget that reduces the amount
058of increase or whatever it may be that we would be considering and so certainly if we were to improve a opt out it gives us the opportunity to potentially tax even more that scares me however um since this would have to go to referendum I think it would allow our citizens to have a voice in that and so because of that reason I would be in favor of this although I would vote against Max increase if it was exessive and I guess the state state mrud dis just said you know by Pennsylvania law the elected Board of of a school district has the authority to raise taxes to the Act One index and that is issued every year um there's like a Statewide number and then there's you know some variations Maybe by Community but
059largely it's very similar that is 4% dur this year a referendum would be essentially the taxpayers or say the voters right then get granting greater authority to the board to the tax than the law that that's what the referend would essentially do again none of this is recommended it is even saying that that's what should happen and just moves to the next step to maintain flexibility yeah my comment will be similar to to what Dennis said just this isn't locking us into anything um this isn't saying how I would vote either way on any kind of tax increase um it's just saying it's giving us more flexibility as we work through an exceedingly difficult U budget season again um so I think having more options as we work through those steps is a good thing
060um limiting those options I think would would not be the right thing to do any comments questions hearing none uh roll call Daniel whisner yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason cck yes Michael hes yes Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia H yes Jeremiah light yes D Sous yes Aaron angle yes motion carries uh next on the agenda is uh item L proposed preliminary budget it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors make available for public inspection the proposed preliminary budget for the 2025 2026 school year with intent to approve at the February 18th 2025 school board meeting that's you said before no that would actually be at the next regular meeting 24th is just a budget I see okay that's Mond February February 182 uh do we have a motion so Mo play
061second yes motion second any questions or comments hearing none roll call please Laurel Ziggler yes Jason cup yes Michael H yes re hofman yes Cecilia H Jeremiah L yes Dennis ous yes Daniel Wismer yes Aaron edal yes motion carries next on the agenda is item M uh introduction of new business by board members anyone have anything she would like to introduce next on the agenda is item it's number nine public comment on non-agenda items we have anybody signed up we do Dr tell me the rules I have rul I apologize uh okay the board requires that public participants be residents or taxpayers of this District or any anyone having registered a legitimate interest in a contemplated action of the board participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and must preface their comments by an
062announcement of their name municipality and group affiliation applicable each statement made by a participant shall be limited to 3 minutes duration on a single agenda or non-agenda item participant wishes to speak on more than one agenda item time remains after all other participants have made their statements they may then speak on additional agenda or non-agenda items all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer the understanding that individual board members are not required to respond to participants comments or questions uh the first presiding officer May uh interrupt or terminate a participant statement when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant uh two request any individual to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable forum and finally call a recess or adjourn to another time when the lack of
063public forum interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting thank you okay uh my name is Robin Underwood I live in cown burrow and I'm here to speak uh with my individual opinion about the changes to the graduation requirements I have now had two students go through the school and what I feel like has been missing for my children is um what you're seeking to do which is have more parental involvement I feel that the only reason I was able to understand the awesome amount of uh flexibility that we actually do have was because I made a point of doing it I met with guidance I asked for things for my children and so I would encourage you to have your administrators have more open forums with parents um for example um I have a
064child at BCTC she is currently doing a co-op program which is a paid internship during school it's awesome I love BCTC she gets to do an internship go to work and it has solidified her feelings on what she wants to be so these internships do exist already um I also had my children experience the dual enrollment options so to me I came here um for high school open houses and I did not learn about dual enrollment except for Dr flicker would briefly talk about well maybe if you take this chemistry you can get uh credit at rap but there's a whole other side of it you can take classes at cstone University get credits for college get credits for high school even if you're not going to college maybe that's a better fit for you
065as a senior to be finishing your schooling at the University and getting credits in both places that already exists Juniors do it you can do it over the summer um my kids took a course that allowed them to ease up their senior year because of that dual enrollment I only knew about that because of Word of Mouth of my friends no one ever t to me about how you can take classes at KU okay so I feel like we're doing a disservice to our families right now by not telling them all of the great things the other thing is if you read the document that includes the graduation requirements it's not set in stone if your kid is struggling if there's a medical emergency if there's anything you can talk to guidance and work it
066out you know it is flexible right now is what I'm trying to say um my kids graduating so I don't have a really strong feeling about 23 versus 21 credits I I don't have a good understanding what that would mean if someone did decide to go to the university what would they maybe be missing but I do know that if you if it's a wide open space and some internship is supposed to appear out of nowhere it's not going to work you're going to need a dedicated person to make those things happen so please whatever happens either way I encourage you to have open nights where the parents can come in not just go to the BCTC openhouse come here and learn about what BCTC could mean to your kids what are all these awesome
067programs that they have that you may not have thought of because you think of BCTC one way but reality is different so more information for parents please thank you thank you Kenzie I'm Mackenzie I am a senior this year I have no siblings in a year I will leave and not have to worry about you or your decisions or this school ever again I have no stake in this at all I could have chosen to not care and walk away as many of my fellow students advised me to do but I decided I will speak my mind and not just my mind but other students Minds as well the survey that was given to us with was given to us with vague information and that was unclear on your plans I myself did not submit
068it as I figured I would go to the meeting with Dr Flicker and Mrs Devin and then changed my reasoning later but that survey was closed before myself and others had the chance to fill it out I found the meeting to be just as clear as the original course description plans in the email and the form to further understand the actions that are taking place I decided to watch the school board meeting TI that took place on the 13th of January from that I found greater clarification on the subject and I further understand the changes being made in the course material I further researched schools that have also gone through similar changes and understand that it was not beneficial as you hope it to be several sources claimed that teachers were unable to exhibit the
069same amount of help and resources prior to the changes and the students greatly suffered to for this their education was being limited and it was found to be less effective than the current curriculum a teacher in a school with a similar curriculum to what you were striving for who at a mixability classes stated my institution aimed at the middle of the class and it was leaving approximately 2third of my Learners I did not like those odds is it true is that truly what you want to leave out part of a class in their learning how would it be beneficial for your that for your students education throughout my education I have seen that a majority of students if given the choice will not challenge themselves although removing generally education courses will provide a more intense
070education set setting it will also limit the amount of resources provided to those students who really need them in a more rigorous courses some students will Thrive more than others due the due to different understandings of the subject matter I believe students who do not Thrive as well in that environment will become frustrated and not ask questions as they are easily embarrassed by the greater uh abilities of their other classmates and it there will be a lack of support because of the teachers being focused on so many of different abilities of students in the last meeting you said that the negative effects of this plan are minuscule with that information provided by my peers and me and the clear fact that many students and staff are in a disagreement with this plan is it is
071it really truly the best idea for our school the this draft for the current curriculum courses requirements was provided with little explanation and not enough time to immediately pursue several things clearly need to be further discussed through staff and administration and for that reason I truly hope you Rec considerer this plan excuse me McKenzie can I just ask I think I think you're you are you you're speaking about graduation requirements and leveling and the leveling conversation as if they're one thing are you only talking about weather we were from the form that I was given I was under the assumption that these two things were in the same plan they they've been in they've so they've been presented in the same meetings kind of but there are they are kind of two independent things so
072just most of what you said I was interpreting to be sharing your feelings about um leveling not I didn't hear you Rel anything that I thought was directly related to graduation requirements and that at least was the um the question from last Monday of me saying minimal that was specifically a graduation so I just wanted to clarify that is that all fair okay thank you can I just say kudos to kzi is it on all the research that you did in the amount of involvement that you put yourself into to learn about it I think most students um could benefit from doing the same thing you did so thank you um next your name's kind of sir C sorry apologize I'm speaking on both on the elimination of general cources and on the adjusted graduation
073requirements U my name is S Miller and I'm a senior at C High scho um so I first want to address the um wording in the documents in the email that was initially sent out to the students um one of the points that was made about the elimination of General courses was that a benefit could be reducing the stigma around being in a general course and I just think that that's an incredibly harmful point to make because yes there is a stigma that some students have from being in a general course but I think that's a problem that we should aim to solve not by taking away General courses from students who are there because they have struggles with learning as fast as their peers we should we should be addressing the fact that students
074who are able to succeed better in an academic setting are putting down peers who just cannot or peers who don't have the ability to have that motivation which goes to my next Point are what are we doing to help those students who have difficulties finding the motivation and the desire because maybe they could be doing better maybe they do belong in an academic class but maybe they have struggled maybe they are struggling mentally maybe at home they don't have the resources that other students do maybe their home life is difficult and what are we doing for those students to help them to be doing better to have the motivation to succeed at school and furthermore I'm concerned with combining the general and academic courses because I personally have experienced this when I typically take honors
075courses and when I've taken academic courses there is an issue because you're taken out of your normal Social Circle and you become afraid to ask questions and when you're at a different learning Pace than your peers whether it's faster or slower it's much more difficult to like pay attention to feel like you're engaged in the class to retain all the information because you're just thinking about like how you're just not on Pace with everyone else so I feel that combining these classes without a regard for these different skill levels and learning paces and then asking a teacher to manage that and to make sure that students feel comfortable asking questions and being at such different skill levels is kind of an impossible task and to address the reduced credits um I do think it is
076good to recognize that there are students that may benefit from not taking the college route After High School and from exploring career interests through having an internship through doing dual enrollment or through BCTC however I think that a huge part of being in high school especially and just being a teenager is trying new things and especially the things that you might not like like you don't go into all of your classes feeling excited to learn but a lot of classes are much bigger than the topic of just what's in the name like you take a physics class but right now in my physics class you know I was learning about nuclear energy which helped me in my environmental science class and you know if I had the option I wouldn't have taken physics because that's
077just not my interest area but because I did take physics it helped me with my other class and I found it interesting I realized that I liked it and it's robbing students of the moment to be in a class and to realize this is something that I actually do enjoy this is something that I want to know more about and something that I might want to do someday um and I also so I think it's important to consider the purpose of a graduate Readiness class because I also discussed this with other students and a lot of all students pretty much and even teachers were confused about what a graduate Readiness course would be like because we feel like we come to high school to be ready to graduate I feel like that's what we're here
078for and isn't that what career and financial literacy is for we it was very confusing and any Clarity on that and why that would be like a substitute for a work experience would also be appr thank thank you to the you have Clarity on the the that class is one um some of the ambiguity around it is simply because we would be building it now you know that's and kind of excited about building it and what it can be so the in graduation requirements is the philosophy on the graduation requirements that we're recommending is that some type of a post secondary experience is valuable for all students many of our students have some secondary experience you know whether it is because they took a do ROM class because they were BCTC because they an internship
079whatever it might be so that course would be for any student who did not you know or didn't have one planned by their senior year where we can create a curriculum around providing those types of experience or at least guiding students to what it might look like to you know reach out to employers what it what it might be to connect with different resources in the community so um I think some of the the ambiguity was it's fair to say that didn't have that many details as far as that specific course because the intent is to build it but it's more of a commitment to that philosophy that if you did not take that opportunity an opportunity like that then we should have a mentor teacher coach helping you have that during your C essentially
080not everybody's going to be required to take that course no if you if you had any of those other experiences you would have met that requirement and then you know you would have be able to use that time credit whenever you yeah to the same to the other side of that that if you wanted to take it even if you had then you would have the opportunity to do that as well thank thank you um kayin no I'm sorry I just asked Miss Miller how do you spell your first name I just want to make sure I get it correctly s a o i r s thank you I currently see here I think that the getting rid of General classes isn't fair to the students who struggle academically with being in higher level classes
081for me personally I know that I struggle in math and especially in science so getting rid of those classes wouldn't I feel like wouldn't be fair to the kids that struggle with those classes um I also feel like now I was talking to Miss Brown about it now we are one of like the best pools in the county I believe I don't remember exactly what she said but we are up there so why now would we change the curricular and the plans for the future for people if we are already doing so good instead of like keeping it the same way you have the risk of ruining it and making your school go down instead of helping the students I me to that because we think we think we're great we think we can be
082better I mean that's that's really my answer for that is that I do believe there is there is um those comparative rankings are awesome they mean they mean they mean so much that we can compare ourselves to others I just think we can also compare and um just to be I know this was in some of you know in the information that was shared um talking about General to academic level you know right now our proposal only includes ninth grade in that you know I think where it it starts as into some of the later grades um 11th grade 12th grade I wouldn't anticipate changing that anytime you know anytime in the near future 10th grade maybe if we see how ninth grade goes it's just entering into your high school career and setting off
083on a you know a track based off the levels um we feel that there is a and this was big to some of the other statement as well is that we have to commit to finding new ways to support students as well right like it's it's um not just through a leveling but also being able supp through additional time for math if it's a math you know math situation that someone need help with the supporting by using better data and different instructional strategies in additional time I think in a perfect world any deficit in a Content area in academics is best treated by grade level instruction plus support right like those are two things plus something in addition I think that's a simple formula that um is not always easy to administer but I think
084that we always the trust yeah Mr T what what are the levels coming into ninth grade so like what are the levels at the eth at in eighth grade yeah we don't have formal levels in eighth grade know you can be in a different level MTH you know but other than that we're don't level so um there's uh it's it's a new phenomenon to do it like that to do formalized level new phenomenon we get today John John who my non-verbal communication failed with earlier yes Sergeant wasn't your I I was equally part of fault on that if not more I'm sure oh not you being late but I don't think I was I'm responsible for you being late well no but me being late anyway I'm Jonathan Le I'm a senior here um I'd
085just like to preface this by saying I mean no disrespect from anything I say especially because I know many of you um but I do very much disagree with leveling policy about and bit of the speech so um it's come to my attention that you are considering eliminating General classes um which concerns me which concerns me deeply while this may not affect me regul it will impact students like especially those with ADHD ADHD can affect learn can make learning difficult to the lack of neur frame which protects tension to FR function many student thinks need a slower piece of general education um medication medications can help this but they're not accessible to all students especially since they're Controlled Substances however Beyond ADHD feedback from students um I found that I found an overwhelming opposition to
086this point on January 8 2025 principal flicker sent out a survey to seniors if you read those responses you would see that students and teachers is Mr Tim um okay if you don't but do you happen to recall the mission and Vis statements um yeah I mean our vision is to maximize potential and Brace change create create the future yeah um so um and the mission talked about inspiring Learners to grow me um so like you just said division speaks of that's potential um if we are truly committed to these values we shouldn't we should be providing all students especially those ination for to get to their Highest Potential taking away that support which is the general classes contradicts that very Mission the document you shared in the email or at least flicker shared in
087email with that survey um states that the presence of general education course is send a message to some students that aren't capable to some students that they aren't capable achieve but for many students including myself if I take these classes these classes are essential they are for more resources and support than academic Andes which help which helps boost our belief potential the idea G that General classes limit future choices also Workforce bound students who are want to choose these classes don't need academic levels for job job colleges for GP the idea that integr classes students where General students are forced to keep up with academics also only cause problems General students will struggle in academic settings and academic students will field back um this brings up another aspect student stress levels after speaking one particularly
088general student he said that he said that if he were to take all academic classes his dress would be way too high manag work all because he was struggling to keep up acad students another thing School wants for the students for them to feel comfortable and not feel stress this would be another reason for stud think about if your child has is not for benefit this just proves the policies they Equitable for Effective lastly your document emphasizes Equity excellence and potential for Everyone by eliminating general education you break this student should always priority not fixing budgets or policies if this is not same students thank you and sorry really sh all right John thank you um you know I will just say I think you 100% believe in the recommendations you know and for students
089it's not most of the things that you you bring up I think we just have different perspectives on them in a way um you know and I say I say this to members of the board sometimes I'm not always right I'm not suggesting always right but I always do ad anything I advocate for our students I would advocate for my my children as well you know that's the one your last points there um but again there's just there are valid different perspectives on topics and I you know I think I would argue that some of this is just that case um and I'm just going to go again I think summarizing I think almost everything we heard from all the suits was about leveling and not so much about gradation just because we we keep
090mixing together just want to make sure kind of keep things in somewhat in boxes for that purpose um thank you again thank you for for coming and speaking you know on your own behalf and on behalf of others um there's a a small group that has been fairly vocal and even in the responses I think we have a couple duplicates here in the audience to people who did respond um you know as I said I receiv received 13 responses um it was as of the end of the day the first session I think that they held um you know where it was open but was 13 are passionate um P can I just add one I mean the one thing that I heard I think most of them talk about was the support level for
091those people that maybe need the extra help I don't know if we have a current system in place but I've seen it work in other schools where the National Honor Society takes on a tutoring role and often times what you see is the you know the Seniors Helping with the freshman and since we're talking about freshman here in this case only um I think it's something that should be do to consider our school it's not already we would provide a leadership opportunity hon students as well volunte yes I mean I can't say that right now there are there are honor study students that that are tutoring but there definitely have been over the years and I think you know that that is an availability that we have um in addition know a couple years ago
092Dr flicker started the mentor program where he has upper classman that are pressure not directly academics they can't help ining component um that's a great support you know when when um when it can be arranged for under classment the we 100% acknowledge that not only related to the suggested changes but to increase supports is you know is a huge part of this um one example one more concrete example I can say um this Devin and the math team we're working on is for example algebra um rather than um pre algebra for students who might be in high school looking at what they're calling it algebra plus but it's essentially a period and a half of algebra instead of having a period a day of prealgebra looking at a period and a half of algebra and
093I say it's a period and a half it would be two periods every other day Aver out it's a period and a half you know where you're adding more time in the day dedicated towards math we can provide more supports um rather than most of our courses you have the course for the year you kind of play it out the year and then it's time to start the next one so that's just one example of ways that we structurally um need to increase supports we've had uh conversations with um the language arts department with the recommended graduation requirements um there would be some additional flexibility and some of their schedules you know they was very excited the idea of having writing labs to support students that you know might might be struggling in language arts
094field so with the commitment and recommendation to flexibility needs to be a commitment to new ways of supporting students who support as well and just as an example um probably the brightest of my daughters was both on the receiving end and on the tutoring end of that kind of a program yeah so you know I think even students who might be in upper level classes may still struggle in a particular subject so I think creating that environment in school where students are helping students would also benefit just in general I mean so um I recently joined NHS and they do we actually did recently like sign up for like what classes you'd be able to tut I do believe that's I'm not quite sure if it's exactly a requirement but every student in NHS does
095like sign up and then they just have to do like a module about like tutoring support but there are several students who can like sign up for classes that they're confident that they can their other students and so that I that's still definitely enough have take advantage of it um I mean I joined recently so I haven't really known I mean one I was talking to just like for chemistry like she took advantage of NHS Tut because it just benefited her so we haven't Al personally for like all the incoming Juniors we haven't gotten quite to that point at like feing others but I have heard of students who've taken advantage of before yes it's a culture thing so I've seen that not work very well because all these National Honor Society students are really
096busy they're in band they're in all these things and they don't even have they can't connect right like finding the time to actually meet in a timely manner before the test when the reports do or whatever it's exceedingly difficult it's like anything I mean what it can happen with a consistency I think it can be very successful just tough and again a challenging schedule sometimes it does be a very with that I never heard of any tutoring until this year um when I needed it I didn't hear anything about it I don't I didn't know you could get tutoring here I was going to get tutoring outside of school um but I managed to pull my grade back up to where I didn't need it so I think maybe uh bringing that light and information
097students would also be helpful um I was going to add on to December was point where just I feel that the culture is very different between even just an honors class and an academic class like especially around school and grades and it's very difficult or like honor students to like often times EXP explain their process in doing school work and to teach students who don't learn in the same way that they do so while it could be an effective program I do think that part of it does need to come from a teacher oh yeah 100% I mean where it's an effective um cultural option that you have and there's many instances where it works great that's it's not that's that fores built on it's buil that's built on teachers of course um thank you
098thank you all for speaking it Tes a lot of Courage speak I think um okay uh next on the agenda we have Excuse Me Miss angle I'd also like to speak on this topic okay great sorry I wasn't I was trying to let everyone there uh in person speak first so um I guess a couple asks I I really do app appreciate um those who spoke up this evening and share their their perspectives again I I recognize it does take a lot of Courage as a great call out and thank you for those who did um I'd really like to ask that our Administration and faculty um provide in writing some suggestions on how we could provide some more flexibility within the current 24 credit graduation requirements to address some of the challenges that parents
099and students um have expressed to us uh either you know in your multiple forums up until this point um because sometimes when when we're looking to make a decision um you know just keeping what we have versus changing to something uh completely different like a 21 uh credit uh graduation requirement set there there really might be a bit of a middle ground there so I'd like to understand um a a perspective uh from the administration and faculty on on how we could keep the 24 credits while also taking some more of these other considerations um into play um my second request is and this is related to both the the course leveling which we heard some comments about as well as graduation requirements this seems like an an excellent opportunity we could even get some
100students involved uh this is a very similar to a a data science challenge that we'd have in a in a business environment I'd love to really uh have some some data and and analys conducted on both the Keystone exam data as well as our PSAT data uh to understand where we're at today and and where we think um more specifically will be able to improve uh with the approaches to both course leveling um and the graduation requirement that are represented um my concern is that we we still are lowering the overall uh expectation and for our students on how much math they will have uh within their High School career um and I'd really like to better understand our our performance specifically on the keystones in PSAT uh and how that compares to uh college
101readiness and college expectations uh so that we can try to better predict um what what these changes would mean to us from a uh empirical data perspective um and then I also think before before we go in for a vote and a consideration sharing the full survey results and and written feedback from the surveys that have been conducted with parents uh with our students with the faculty again i' I'd like to understand um I did hear the the overall kada um you know statement on graduation requirements but I really want to make sure that we're pulling in um the more specific uh teacher level feedback as um as we go into a decision-making process on some of these items in the upcoming meetings thank you those are the items that I was hoping to bring
102up just want to address one thing Mr Ziggler you pointed out you asked about data related to the Keystone exams and PSATs um the graduation requirements changes would not have any impact on they don't impact courses that would be taken prior to students taking Keystone exams or PSATs that would all would all happen by 11th grade and that would have no direct well I mean those are the two main tests that I can think of that look at at the overall Readiness of our students uh you know as they're preparing for graduation or um or for college readiness um in the case of PSAT so again they're they're the only uh yeah data ref just OCC so uh understood but it it again I I'd love to dig into that some more and really have
103have the administration faculty take a look at at what do we think would really happen how what is the detailed breakdown for our student of population over the past couple of years um looking at at both of those data elements and again a great opportunity for some students uh to get involved and and to try to uh really draw some of their own uh you know conclusions and and perspectives uh after looking at that data as well uh any other comments have one here I just have a question or two um about the the leveling um situation you said uh you're going to rely a lot on the tutoring of students to help no no that was just that was a discussion that kind of came up as one of the supports I mean that's
104not that is not our plan is to rely heavily on student tutoring um any if any student tutoring that can occur is wonderful it's a it's a you know it could be a nice part of a um you know of a support system for students but that is not what we would be ring How would the general students now in academic classes receive their extra care to kind of help them adjust to the new level yeah I mean so we we're not not necessarily looking at like at in that perspective it's that we use the term mtss the multi-tiered system for supports that's kind of education lingo um that that we end up using is that we are currently exploring different ways that we can provide more layers of support support for students and that
105has to happen to creating time for those students and time with teachers um that is one of the you know what major factors as to why I say this cautiously because it's um we always say when we went from connections we went back to having connections every day I say back but there was actually nobody in high school who was here when we had it every day so it was back for adults not back their students but having connections every day is one piece of that as I said building um more opportunities within the schedule youing math algebra as an example for students to have more time for those levels of supports being have doing a better job of having data teams that can really evaluate where those supports are so what when you look
106at um again this mtss terminology if you start in the elementary school as as we work our way up through 12th grade early on it is all skills based right it skills based skills based skills based um as we get to secondary as we get to our secondary schools too often the skills-based supports transition to what I would call curriculum based supports it's helping you improve your grade right but it's not necessarily targeting those underlying skills that are the reason you know are the building blocks that allow students to be successful and get good grades where in everything that we are trying to reform around some things in the middle school but also in the high school around an SS is adding some of that skill-based support back into our to our secondary school so
107that in addition to just worrying about getting a grade up what are the actual root causes of that so to do that we'd be able to Value data we' be able to provide what we would call tier two or tier three supports which is targeting essential skills that would support that gr so um that's kind of all the work of building this you know it's but it there certainly would not be Reliance on just student tutors if that if where student tutor helps is some is student who I think some of you brought up chemistry as like an example where like things are going well you know and then you hit kind of a tough spot and maybe that student tutor is going to be able to help you kind of um be a little
108bit of extra work and talking through things that kind of get you back on track but it's not so much going to be that core level of support um because there's probably not a underlying skill that you're missing you just kind of got lost in the challenges that are chemistry you know along the way um where we need we need our teachers professionals and with data to really try to work on those skill okay I just wanted to like make a point going back to what Missler said um I think it would be extremely beneficial to like bring out not necessarily a survey but just like see what the the staff and administration have to say about this and also the families because I think they play a really big role in it you know
109they teaching the courses so I think it would just be really beneficial to have more opinions on this before going forther yeah we've had I've had multiple Avenues in which people could provide information questions or feedback you know so far I mean it's already it's that's already occurred um I've gotten limited responses in most of those you know the graduation requirement so again maybe work mixing I shouldn't be mixing them out because I asked you not to mix them so um there have not been as many opportunities for leveling I would say at this point as there was graduation requirments because specifically the message last week was was related to that so um appreciate your point Thank one little comment on that um I'm new to the board and I get where you're at like
110as a parent back a year ago I would have been where you're at being like I haven't heard about this why haven't you told us um being on this side of the table I got to tell you guys we've been talking about this done so September 9th was the first day we talk in a public meeting um Dr Tim chatton bless his heart he talks to the teachers he talks to the parents it has been in talks just letting you all know I'm a parent of you guys know me I have four kids in these schools so this this I always say I have a lot of a lot of skin in this game because I have a lot of kids in the school I have one in the elementary one in the middle school
111and two in the high school so this you know it's going to affect all my kids every single decision that we make up here is affecting each and every one of my kids so just know we're not just throwing this out there today we're not just thinking about this today we are thinking about it um I can't tell you how I'm going to vote on The General I do have mixed feelings on it I do have one kid who he took the honors courses he took the AP courses I have another kid who is more on the you know you know my Nick I love him but so but just know that we do look at that we look at talking to the administration we look about talking to the parents it's not just me
112the decisions we make up here are me overnight I I do I do agree I mean we certainly are all I trust and believe and know we are all trying to make the best decision possible I I think some of the feedback that I have given in the past is that it's important that we get to a specific recommendation much earlier in the discussion process so whether it's a budget or whether it's a specific recommendation around graduation requirements you know I I I believe that that explicit recommendation just came out for the last board meeting so while we've been um generally talking about it within policy and curriculum meetings and known that it was in the works we are only now actually seeing a specific uh recommendation that we can now actually provide uh again
113explicit feedback on so um I I do want to make sure that we are pulling in and and again an an explicit recommendation on course leveling should be out there and available and we should assume that it's going to take several months to talk through it and discuss it discuss it as a community before we move forward um with approving it and I I would I'm know we have a a first draft of a u the outline of the budget that's out there today but I do want to see this year having um the the different tradeoffs and recommendations presented far sooner than you know the the May June time frame this is um we try to sometimes peel the onion I think in a series of meetings um and it doesn't allow allow folks
114to really fully engage because it's expecting that they're going to be attending these meetings um participating month over month over month and and and really I mean these topics are are coming up to the surface to be um discussed within the community because there's now a specific recommendation to look at in this example of graduation requirements so um you know just a a continued piece of feedback that you know we need to assume in the process that that there will be a lengthy time period for involvement on these major decisions that are affecting um our students and and how the high school works thank you hope this meeting is running late I just have one real quick question and I probably already know the answer but I'm gonna ask anyway um the difference between um
115the academic track and the general track is it more of a um difference in curriculum is it more of a difference in pacing or is it a combination of both of those things it's mostly basic mostly be I mean there's um there are that that is the largest I mean and any of the feedback we hear from students with concern it is about that's but content wise I would imagine if you're running at a quicker Pace at some point you're going to get content that the other people don't get to yeah that's just an inevitable part of it really it's but for the most part content is generally the same yes is it still up for about leveling changes at the nth grade or I thought that was already in play that was not voted
116on that that would be and our intent was to have that voted on in the for selection manual where you see the different options for courses so that would beig that not any other comments or questions hearing none uh moving on to number 10 informational items uh they're outlined a through C your agenda uh number 11 is upcoming public meetings and informative dates February 3rrd we have Workshop school board meeting at 7:30 p.m in high school and by Zoom February 10th we have policy and curriculum and facilities and extracurricular committee meetings those are at 6 pm and 7 PM respectively in the high school and by Zoom uh February 18th which is a Tuesday following Monday President's Day uh school meeting at 7:30 pm in the high school and by Zoom February 24th is a
117budget and finance committee meeting and that's at 7M in the Middle School in by Zoom uh with that I'd be looking for a motion tojn move second all in favor hi