July 15, 2024 KASD School Board Meeting

001e e everyone please rise for a moment of Pledge of Allegiance i al United States of America stands nais justice for all all right I'd like to thank everyone for coming tonight uh there's a log in the front if you haven't signed uh signed in please do so you have anything in particular you would like to bring to the board's attention uh please write that down if at any time during the meeting you wouldd 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 uh where you can bring up additional issues this meeting is being recorded I would like also like to announce there was an executive session conducted prior to the meeting where we discuss personnel and real estate

002matters with that uh Mr ask could we please have a welome sure um I'm going to be referring to my in a third person which we might take some getting used to but here we go Aaron angle Michael H here re here Cecilia here Jason Co here Jeremiah light here denisy dishes here Daniel whz here La here thank you uh item three on the agenda this evening is approval June 24th 2024 school board meeting uh could we have a motion to approve those pleas motion on second does anybody have any questions or comments on meeting all right hearing none then mik we please have a roll call vote for the approval of Michael H yes Rea hawman yes Cecilia H yeah Jeremiah light yes yes deny dishes yes Daniel whisper yes Laurel Ziggler yes Jason

003C yes motion cares we can take items four and five together um the treasures Report with the items a through H are listed there item five is the approval bills for payments and we have items a through D um we have a motion to approve the treasures report and the bills for pay so move we have a second second motion is second do we have any uh questions or comments on either one of those all right hear nothing then mik is a vocal Reba Hoffman yes Celia hle yes Jeremiah light yes tennessy dishes yes Daniel wh yes La Zig yes Michael H yeah yes Jason C yes motion Caris we can go right the communications reports uh item a is the EI Associates and Raymond James foration so FL is yours folks as as they

004get set up just want to kind of set the stage we have engaged in a feasibility study in partnership with mcore and um EI associat in December of 2022 December 22 and um had thank you a lot of information that comes from the feasibility study um including the conditions of current buildings and systems evaluating the use of our rooms in our space uh evaluating expected growth in the district Etc and um there's been multiple presentations over since that time um but as we've gone from the large full presentation back in August of 2023 some things have happened um you know we've continued to operate as a school including some major changes with you know one of the several of the models included closing the um administration building Max atani but we've since made that decision

005and are moving into the middle school so that kind of eliminated some of those many of the other options um as we are continuing to seek to sell s or lease the building of Maxon and will'll be the administration will be moved fully into the middle school in the next two weeks so that eliminated some that brings us back as we discussed throughout um our budget process we've use the term sequential schools many times where there is a there's a definitive Advantage definitive advantages to getting to having all of any one grade in one building certainly from a staffing standpoint it's sort of been clear there are instructional advantages and collaboration and flexibility where you can move students together um you know we did a we've done in recent years to maximize our ability and

006and reduce expenses at times we've done these ad hoc um sequential schools where we've moved we've condensed small sections and move small number of students into another one of our elementary schools to do that so each of the plans that will be shared tonight um show a means of us getting to sequential schools there's three really only three different options at this point um there is no we don't need to do anything but if we want to get long-term efficiency you know there there's different ways that we can do that that being coupled with there's the large amounts of grant funding that are that's available to school districts this year and into future years uh we've been applying for some of those grants that would um be used for parts of these projects you know

007for example there's um if you not in this exact presentation but at times we've uh presented the ranks one through three of needs of our buildings you know there's a point where we need to upgrade certain parts of the HBA system that hbac HVAC system um which always needs upgrades on a rotating basis you know but we could go all in some of those um upgrades but we currently have a large Grant out there hoping to some of that money in when we get to the fin Financial models we'll look at what some of that is but that's just sort of some of the context and the timing for this is where we couldn't next two months find out we are the recipients of L substantial funding um and we would at that point we

008need to determine what we would do with that funding whether is you know renovate as is or look to one of these models that set this up better into the future that's I hope that sets the stage a little bit um and I think Bruce I'm I'm thinking you and maybe Alyssa a little bit and Adam I don't know who's up you're standing so you must bring him in as so so thank you Christian uh introduction my name is Bruce Chrisman from the I Associates um we have about 18 19 slides to go through we go through pretty quickly uh this may be familiar to a lot of you um new to some of you but it's kind of a culmination of a long process which started way back in 2022 and we've kind of

009narrowed it down from I think you know 11 12 options down to three so making a lot of good progress here going to go ahead and move it forward our feasibility study uh typically consists of three different elements demographics education and Facilities um and part of our facilities we determine some of the deficiency so all three of those kind of play into the role as we develop the different options and models uh because they all kind of go hand inand to see what's gives you the most bang for your buck and what's best for the school district so right now we're down to three different options as you can see um sorry for my back to everybody here um we have option number one which is four schools and two Elementary centers um we have

010uh K through one then we have two through five at kown elementary school we're in essence keeping the 6 through eight Middle School the same um we also noted on here that the doo has kind of moved over there into the offices um and the high school has remain as is and all three of the options here show that you're closing the current District administration office uh model number two um we have K through two 3 through five again we're keeping Middle School the same and also the high school the same option number three is where we get into the closing the one Elementary School um and moving over with a bigger addition and making that a K through five which currently is but it has to grow to accommodate the other Elementary School and

011again kind of keeping the middle school and the high school relatively the same the next option um going through our typical process uh this slide shows the existing conditions uh which we call this the kit of Parts um it just allocates the different spaces in terms of square footage shows you the different spaces the different support spaces that you need um or excuse me that you currently have uh based on your existing conditions want the next SL our kid ofarts for model number one you can see on the upper right hand corner not going to show up on that um the light blue up there shows any space that's in light blue we're either repurposing it or modifying it whether it's changing a name or slightly renovating it anything in the darker blue is an

012addition or new [Music] construction next and as you can see here um as we kind of go through the process here the dark blue putting a a smaller Edition on the uh green witch Elementary School and also in addition on the put down Elementary School um this one this model kind of back balances out the um addition or the work between both elementary schools uh where you'll see in the subsequent models that it's kind of leaning heavily to the green witch one and the third one kind of eliminates the green witch Elementary School next slide you can see here a little bit of the detail um of some of the different items that were discussed with green witch um you can also see kind of the site plan uh showing some of the site work

013that was being proposed also for the school in addition to the uh addition the proposed Edition that you can see on the screen here same thing for the uh put down Elementary School with model number one you can see the proposed Edition um some relocated playground areas some other work down below here um Ada signage upgrades site safety and grade realignment you can also see up here where it says K1 and 2 through five to the right of both of those both of those again including I and grade realignments all righty you can see option number two here um we get with green witch uh K through two puts down Elementary is three through five and as you can see it's kind of heavily loaded on the greenw side with a lot of the additions

014um and any renovated space within that school whereas the kown elementary school you have some minor Innovations and a real small addition on that and with the middle school here it's just modification of some of the spaces again kind of repurposing classrooms or or changing names or just reusing the spaces and then you can see here graphically kind of representing uh where the additions would go where some of the modifications would be um with each of the schools then again you can see here with greenrich um the big proposed addition um there's actually two proposed additions one on the right one on the left we're doing some modification to the parent drop off relocated play area and some other site related work the same thing with K Elementary School you can see there's a lot

015less work here um and again it's kind of pushing everything over to the Greenridge model um and doing some monor Renovations here to kown elementary school and feel free to jump in if you have any questions throughout this um trying to keep a high altitude but I know we'll probably getting some detail here too model number three uh we're going down to three schools with one Elementary School and that's closing green Wich um and putting everything with the Kutztown elementary school and you can see here a lot of new spaces within the elementary school and there's no new spaces in the middle school but you can see you know some modifications within there with again uh you know renaming rooms and moving uh you know different spaces around you can see with this option we're

016doing a two-story Edition on the end and also an addition up top here um along with modifying a few spaces within and again with the site plan you can see also um doing you know some site work here a modified Bus drop off along with kind of new parking and Courtyard relocating the basketball court um and such relocating the also the play areas there too so you can see with this option there's three different areas within kown Elementary School that would um house additions to kind of be able to handle you know the students coming over from the other Elementary School here's we get into a little bit of the cost here um you can roughly see the square footage on each of the configurations which is in the lower left hand corner U model

017number one you're adding about 22,600 ft um in new construction model number two you're about 25,400 ft with new construction and model number three you're adding about 49,000 Square ft in terms of construction these are typically just first cost um as we get further along here you'll see some of the analysis um with you know closing schools and some of the Raymond James analysis also with uh some of the benefits of the different options as we kind of move through here this slide shows um the for example model number one the total construction costs um this also includes the deficiencies per our uh facility study with each of the buildings um so for instance there's $10 million worth of deficiencies currently that are ranked one through three that came out of our facility study so

018if you were to take this out of the total construction cost the total construction cost will be about $8.6 million but because there's other deficiencies we've kind of put that number in so we can kind of see a true cost of um what it would take to kind of complete that project and we didn't want to kind of double dip saying you know because you are doing new construction some of the deficiencies might go away because you're handling it on the new construction end of things so we're trying to balance that out uh with with showing the cost and the overall uh project cost um you can see that's the same with model number two and model number three with model number one being about 23.3 million model number two being about 24 million and

019model number excuse me three being $31.7 million uh that we're estimating based on construction and please note too that even though construction costs have stabilized somewhat we we constantly have to kind of keep updating on that um almost on a month-by-month basis so we want to make sure we don't see anything kind of wacky in the industry we have a lot of good partners within the construction um industry that kind of keep us up the date so if we see something with lead times or cost fluctuating greatly we definitely let our clients know so we can make any adjustments um as you guys are going through your planning process and with this one I'll want to jump in on your how do we pay for it yes so this page summarizes the three options but

020I think it's important to start it's very hard to see I apologize so maybe it's easier to see on the the handout column two is is the district's existing Debt Service before we do anything we've had this conversation before you're set up nicely with an existing debt profile that does allow you the flexibility to do a project of this size for relatively low impact um each of the scenarios that we ran um took the numbers from EI and assumed that you're going to get um $5 million of combination of Grant buckets uh the largest being likely the arcap funding bucket that you've engaged the GSL guys for so each one of the the scenarios assumes 5 million coming in um from that bucket uh and it also includes a restructuring of your existing debt to

021make room for the new debt to come online and so model one shows a net project amount of $20 million if you look at colum four the required millage to to phase in over five years is 0.13 or 0 42% um equally over five years that's not the only way we can skin that cat if you will it's just one way to look look at it just SC I just shared oh copy of this for anybody that's zooming would be more the print is is small that so just I just shared a copy if it'll be better for anybody to see here see So currently in column two the what we call the Run rate for Debt Service that's in your budget currently is about two just over $2.2 million a year and runs out

022to 2037 you can see in in model one in the little red box The Debt Service run rate needs to get to about 2 point just over 2 .6 million and again that's the 0.13 of a mill equally for five years um model two um similar uh 0.14 a year for five years for a total of0 7 um in terms of percentage I know you guys generally look at what's that a percentage um it's about 0.45% uh each year for five years and then model three the $31 million option downsized by the arap and and grant funding gets you to a project fund deposit of roughly 26 million and there we are building in uh the sale um of the building 1,750 if I can read that correctly um coming in from the sale of

023the asset and there the millage requirement is 0.22 Mills for five years or 7% for five years for a total of just over 1.1 Mills um for the larger project so what this doesn't include is the operational savings what it also doesn't include is we're going to I think I'm going go back to Bruce but we brought with an idea this evening um to start thinking about how you would fund that project the Market's presenting an opportunity for you at the moment uh to borrow reinvest at higher interest rates and the government allows you to keep the Arbitrage or the interest earnings and so these scenarios don't um they do consider the use of the arc cap and the grant funding but it doesn't include any use of District cash which you may want to

024use use at the end to downsize a future financing again as we've talked many times your cash for the first time in a long time is working for you it's in the bank earning five or five and a quarter percent um same thing with um monies you can borrow put it in the bank and earn significant amount of what we call Arbitrage to downside the project and we would use those um those buckets at the end again you have a lot of work ahead of you in terms of design putting a shovel on the ground we say keep that dry powder in reserve until the end you want to downsize that last financing you can but the numbers I think what you see on paper here are conservative numbers and only get better as you

025start applying interest earnings and you start applying some amount of District cash if you choose to at the end of the project so with that I'll turn it back to Bruce before we go through my other handout yeah I'll just um I don't know if it's Isaiah is it possible to switch to what I shared with you I meeting started or no can I ask a quick question yeah yeah so um we're looking at you know 0.5% per year to 7% per year does this factor in the tax increase millage that we just did it does so this in addition to this is in addition to yes now again what it does not include is is operational cost savings which this is just my cons I considered a conservative I believe it is um we

026ran through bless you what each you know what we would see as operational cost and we based this off of 23 24 numbers you know you're you're projecting numbers into the future but what we what I looked at is in model one and two basically the savings are identical there obviously be you know once we get into the details there be slight differences but if you're looking at pretty round numbers you know you're looking at 400,000 a little more than 400,000 of operational Savings in either model one or two and um just under a million dollars of annual savings again I think this is a conservative number in year one of model 3 and then just the year five 10 15 I just applied 3% you know each year so you could see how as

027we're looking at um Debt Service you know the increases in debt service that happened over the course of the life of it um the operational cost savings let's be honest years down the road nobody say hey yeah remember how we save this amount of money but we know that now that it's it's from our current operations um that's what I project as potential operational Savings of course model 3 is significantly more because you're not operating another building so that includes the building operations um and there's some areas where you need addition you need even less kind of staff to run building in that case so um just some assumptions that are there it started with assumptions of the average 100 student for grade enrollment and just use again I say these are conservative con current

028special education enrollment um and five sections in grades K through three and four sections in grades um four through five so looking at class size average to 20 or 25 we know that would vary greatly um there's some discussion on that but it all even though I'm basing it off of an average of 100 students going to a sequential School model and with the spaces that are in these projects we could we are protected against grow better than we are now because we could more functionally use our space when we have either bubbles or longer term Iron enrollments that look more like 125 you know so uh we know those projections are difficult again we are projected to grow one of the few districts four districts in Bur County projected to grow um there's uh

029some potential development in the area residential development um there's nothing that is kind of on Horizon let's say but there's definitely potential growth so those are conservative numbers just like anything in this once we get into the details they get a lot more specific but those are numbers I feel comfortable showing you you know in this presentation so that is not included in the um Financial Mar I just have a concern well question concerned so on all these models you are saying there grades four to five would be for SE on all these models are grades to the five are still five sections yeah I mean if we're going to do I I think that's that is again based off these assumptions I think if we were doing any construction we want to make sure

030the last thing we want to do is to get the year four after construction and need more space you know so you do try to conservatively overbuild when you're doing space because you know it there's and again we talk about operational costs too if we all of a sudden have an explosion of um residential well there's more tax revenue but our costs go up if you know if we have an explosion if it's moderate slow climb it doesn't really you know it's just a matter of of what that increase in involment looks like and how long it takes to kind of break those thresholds when significant cost so um what we base this I based these numbers off of 100 average of 100 students per grade the building would be designed for 125 students per

031grade um and has better and more intentional support spaces that as anybody who's lived through you know School District iterations as they grow those spaces sometimes then get turned into full-time instructional spaces as needed it's just it's what happens if you grow so this it is B it is designed they are all designed to protect us from the challenges of GL where if there's a growth explosion yeah you can't count on these reductions and costs anymore but that's that's what happen and that's what our capacity charts are showing too that even though you're kind of going down in capacity right now ped enrollment says you can handle a certain percentage more so if anything it will buy you some more time if you do have a explosion in your District to kind of address that

032in a timely manner without being oh crap what am I going to do because we have enough space so there's definitely options um you know that we looked at to be able to kind of accommodate that in the short term to see if it's a bubble or the longterm Trend yeah I mean and just we live through we walked buildings and when we two years ago when we were bursting at the SCS in our elementary schools it was really like a 60 student increase you know at the elementary levels it wasn't that big because the way of our spaces are currently designed these the spaces as you know constructed in the model provide for flexibility well that's not even going to be a problem um but yeah we just projecting enrollment is really really challenging

033there's models I don't think any of improvement would be perfect very Crystal ballish yeah but we see properties for sale in the district you know large tracks of properties for sale with the intent of being for residential homes so it's certain possible we got a couple more slides and we're done with ours yeah this was just a one-off slide just because again my intent was to keep the operation the projected operational savings separate from the financing model I think from my perspective I think it's clean I think all our approaches too are very conservative the last thing we want to do is put on the dog and pony show up here and then the cost came in $10 million more that doesn't serve anybody's interest so um as we jump back to the the one

034slide over here um in terms of our deficiencies uh just really quick if you go line it by line item actually can go back to slide don't mind you can see the the rank uh one through three study cost those things are broken out individual line items on there so if you look at those say for instance um you see needing to replace uh five sets of du Hardware you have a cost assign to that for $5,000 you're looking at that going wait a minute why would it cost $5,000 to do that um but we're looking at it very conservatively because depending on how you do a construction manager DC um the cost can fluctuate but more importantly we're looking at the bigger pot of money here that yes it might not cost $5,000 if

035you do it yourself it might cost say 3500 if you get a GC to do it but then you can reallocate that within the deficiency list moved to something that might have cost a little bit more that you weren't anticipating based on markting conditions or other lead time items so just keep in mind when you're looking at the deficiency in the feasibility study that look at the big picture um the individual line items are important but look at it from a holistic standpoint too that you know you're going to be kind of horse trading within that um you know to kind of Meet the overall number you should be below that because we do take a very conservative approach uh that's by that's intentional so um just wanted to kind of throw that out there

036because we've been asked about that before of you know hey these seem to be out of whack but there was a reason why we kind of do that um because we don't want to come back again saying well yeah the deficiencies are really $15 million not $10 million that's again not a good spot to be in for any of us want to go two slides in our timeline typically you can see on the left there our feasibility study notice to proceed was uh I think February 24th the contract was signed in 2022 so we've been doing a lot of work um we're coming to the end here um as you can see um kind of approv the study section so once we get um an understanding of the direction and kind of which way to

037move um depending on the type of project if there is a project coming out of the feasibility study um you know we can be talking anywhere from design to the end of construction anywhere from like 24 months to 36 months um our design process probably takes anywhere from six to 12 depending on the size of the project could be a little bit longer um but once we get to the end of that and get it out the bid um you're probably looking at least you know anywhere from 18 to 36 months again depending on the size of the project depending on when it's time throughout the school year uh that's important uh we try to focus on that too depending on the size to see what um school year we can kind of get it

038open do we want to kind of phase it there's a number of different factors that are involved so um long story short anything we decide to do now we're probably at least about 24 months out um to get people in the building so the importance of that is that we we can't just focus on today's needs we got to be looking down the road and kind of projecting a little bit where we might be so we have a little extra space that's not necessarily a bad thing because it gives us that flexibility so we don't kind of get caught that well we designed for today but now we're here and we're right back in the same situation and just SP on the money so there's a little bit of kind of forecasting going on here

039based on what we're seeing ahead of us and and right in front of us too next time with that there's any questions yeah okay you can go back to the this one the draft yep chart yep I'm just trying to understand so if you look at you know models one and two um when you when you take out the project fund amount it looks like you have a net project amount of about 14 million on each of those is that correct 34 minus 20 35 - 21 so no so we took the Top Line par amount is inclusive of restructuring that we will need to do to make room for the new debt so the get the yellow shaded across the top is the project fund specific only to the project so 20 million 21

040million and 26 6 million but that's netted against roughly 5 million in each of those scenarios coming in from various buckets of grant funding or cap funding so I'm kiss my question is Project funding is reducing the overall amount we would be spending right correct yeah we're downsizing if option one is question you roughly 2045 million we're downsizing it by grant money to be received over the next two or three budget cycle in Harrisburg as you applied not just this year but multiple years for that bucket I guess what I'm getting as it looks like when you get to model three um know because of the C cash from the building and the higher Project funding like in all actuality the amount that the district would spend would be less am I reading that correctly

041they gave a $40 million part and a $26 million fund might not supposed to be subtracting those no so again again they're two different don't be caught off guard by the $40 million power amount so the Topline restructuring grows under each of those scenarios because of the project size being larger under each one of those so we need to restructure more in model three to make room for a larger project size project size is 31 million is in option three downsized by roughly 5 million of grant money and the sale of the building at a mil 750 so we kind of there's a number of variables that go into that equation but we kind of back into how much do we need to put in the pot to pay for project costs um that the

042folks EI and MCL give to us okay is that yeah there's bigger savings too with the operational savings potentially it's not factored into there yeah the other piece when think about how we would phase Mills in you raised the question doesn't include what you just put in for this upcoming budget this is just one way of phasing Mills equally over five years we will tell all of our clients the sooner you can put Mills in place the easier the out years get we understand that every budget is going to be different over the next five years so let's just say next year you have an easier budget than for whatever reason and you're able to put in a quarter Mill or a third of a mill that makes years two three four and easier because

043that money in your budget kind of compounds on itself and makes again every budget's going to be different so if you put0 three in the first year you can be a little late the next year if you have a harder budget and kind of roll with those punch punches as you get into the weeds of of building out the project and again I would emphasize to you that Christian went through the the operational savings the sale of the building in option three the other thing we're going to talk to you briefly about this evening is the opportunity presenting itself in the marketplace to earn some significant dollars if you're going to whether you choose option one two or three um to put some dollars in the bank if you're going to move forward with a

044project um use of cash again is going to be very important we haven't factored in any of those which will help help offset that know impct that make sense when we're allocating that m for those five years do we set up like a separate account that we would fund with with with that Mage let's like for example this year we raised taxes but we were still we still had a budget shortfall this year how would that work in these years even if we had a budget shortfall will we still allocate those specific Mills to a separate fund for this project y it's got to be dedicated Mills dedicated to debt serviceing your but line not it can't be one time yeah and then next year use per it's got to be dedicated Mills that stay

045in the budget because your run rate at 2.2 million now we're going to restructure to make room for new debt but you have to get to to you know the little red boxes in each of the scenarios that's the Run rate you need to get to and make sure you have Mills in place for the debt service line item in your budget now well through 20 the next 30 Years essentially we have to make up that difference between what are current current debt Services about 2.2 million to hit 2.6 for the first model 2.7 for the second or the three for the third you can send me your resume that's pretty good yeah that's spot on and again the restructuring one of the things we talked with Christian about last year we've been talking about

046this project for a number of years now um we talked to bond Council the folks at Stevens only we've taken a number of bites at that restructuring apple and refinancing Apple the last three or four years when you've done projects and financed them we restructured along the way in in much lower rate environments and so now we're we're running up against a useful life test and so the existing debt financed buildings that the IRS says you can't stretch that debt out anymore because the useful life of the asset that you finance we have to live within the in the rules that are dictated by the IRS and so now um unfortunately we can't stretch it out more and gain any additional offset to Debt Service by stretching out your debt and nor do we think

047it would be prudent and we do show you in the top box what the cost of that restructuring is um it's roughly a million $1.8 million to take your existing debt restructure it refinance it stretch it out and make room for the new debt we would say that's still a smallish price to pay to keep the millage rate as low as we possibly can for these projects depending which one you just point I think I just want to point out the rest of the board is that um you know these Mills that we would be setting aside that would be in addition to anything that we need to do to Ure that we have a budget year to year so in the difficult decisions that we made in this year this millage offset is an

048addition to those decisions just thought yeah and when I say you have for a district your size you have very good cash balances you have a very good rating we were out here before talking about your existing rating and keeping that good going forward so you can do the things you want to do we would tell you to build a financial model that doesn't to your point doesn't back you into a corner that three or four years from now on the other side of this project that you decide to do it you say holy crap I backed myself into a corner now I can't get out I can't keep the lights on for the other stuff want to do the other programs that we want to you know Endeavor to to to roll out to

049our students here at Kutztown so we want to make sure you're building a financial model both program from a program perspective but also a financing perspective that you come out on the other side being just as strong as you were going in with a good rating and cash balances both capital reserve and fund balance are not factored in here which we think at the end you need that dry powder to roll with budget punches but also if you get to the end and you have excess cap Reserve or you have excess fund balance you can throw it at this project to to help the Mage will we be getting multiple bonds over multiple years for this yeah so if you want to take a short amount of time I can go through the next hand

050out that probably speaks to some of that didn't bring it in digital form um but this is the opportunity that's currently presenting itself in the marketplace that um it's probably going to change pretty pretty soon so to answer your question um what you saw on the screen is really three pieces we would think about the restructuring um being one piece uh we would think about this $15 million financing and then whatever the balance needs to be once you get into design once you know the pool scope once you know what kind of grant funding you're getting um that's the point at which you would decide what the third piece the final kind of cleanup bond issue would be or bank loan would be so very quickly page two uh is an interest rate chart that

051speaks to the current shape of the yield curve so the Blue Line uh is what is a normal shaped yield curve meaning if you go to the bank and buy a one-year CD generally the rat's 3% you buy a fiveyear CD it's much higher four or 5% the shape of the U curve for every year should be a positive slope that's the normal shape of the Yu curve the red line is what we see today which is what's called an an inverted Yu curve meaning short-term rates are higher than long-term rates that creates an opportunity for you so if you look at page three it's the first time we've seen this this chart goes back to 2015 it's actually a situation that hasn't presented itself probably in the last 20 years rates have been at

052or near zero on the reinvestment side borrowing rates have been very very good but you've not had an opportunity to borrow money put it in the bank and earn anything on and same thing holds true for your capital reserve funds and your fund balance so the dark blue line is where you can currently reinvest your dollars and the light blue line is where you can borrow if you look at the far right hand part of that chart essentially what we're saying is you can borrow today at 4% and put the money in the bank and earn five or 54% everything we're hearing and I'm sure you're paying attention to the news is what the Federal Reserve has done over the last 24 months is raise short-term interest rates that's why we have this inverted y

053curve to put the brakes on inflation and to slow the economy and slow inflation so we're finally getting to the end where we're seeing inflation pooling signs are that Federal Reserve as of today is saying we think we're going to be in a position to lower short-term rates probably once maybe twice before the end of the year all bets are off with the election in November but this time next year is very likely that short-term interest rates are going to be lower so that opportunity is waning in in our opinion we don't have that crystal ball we feel like you have an opportunity to take advantage of it at the moment so I'm not going to go through page five but the Box Shad at the bottom of page five speaks to what the IRS

054allows you to do currently the IRS says if you borrow any money you have to have a reasonable expectation that you're going to spend the money in three years that's the first test when Bond Council calls you up and says do you have a project well folks sitting here you have a project and are you likely to spend the proceeds of an issue a tax exempt issue over the next three years reasonable expectation is the test the next test is if you want to borrow that money at 4% put in the bank and earn five or five in a quarter and keep those interest earnings you have to meet one of a couple of tests the first one is the bottom of the Box bottom page if you borrow $15 million or less in a

055calendar year you qualify as a small issue and so you can borrow 15 million put in the bank earn as much Arbitrage as you want um and use those earnings towards the project the other is if you if you have a larger project Newberg as an example and you borrow $50 million and you expect to spend it meeting certain benchmarks over a two-year period you can also keep the proceeds the easiest one for you is you're just a small issue you're borrowing 15 million or less so what we're going to talk about here on the next page doesn't if you decide to move forward with a project and you want to take advantage of this Market opportunity over the next couple of months this doesn't limit your ability to do the restructuring that you need

056under either option one two or three it doesn't prude you know change your conversation about which project you want to do and it's the seed money for the grants that are mostly most likely matching fund grants where you need to come up with the local match so that said this is just a hypothetical draw schedule putting $15 million in the bank borrowing it at today's interest rates most important column is second column from the right um You would spend this money last in in the big scheme of things reasonably you can expect to earn roughly a million and a half to a million six at current interest rates that's not factored into the numbers that you've seen it's simply money that would be um jined up to be used to downsize that last borrowing um

057phase in Mills it's one of the things how we how we get to even 0.14 or 0.15 for five years is we use interest earnings to um kind of smooth that out if you will this bucket is one of the things we can use to our advantage cash is another and so we think it's a significant opportunity many of your peers are that have projects where they're committed to those projects um are taking advantage of this Market opportunity so that's a lot in pages of complicated IRS jargon I'm happy to answer any questions you might have are these like then multiple um uh what's the word looking for like investment object I don't know what they would be CDs or or whatever but they would be multiple ones that have give us the ability to

058draw money out at differing time so if we know that we're not going to use the bulk of it in this example till 2026 those be like under a two or three year so we would make the most interest off of those I'm telling you should s me your resume so to answer your question there's only certain permitted Investments it would be collateralized CDs at the bank it would be Investments that will be locked up and not subject to interest rate risk if the expectation is rates are going to go down over the next 12 24 36 months this bucket would sit there and be spent last you would buy US Treasury Securities you would would buy collateral icds that would mature you would keep some liquid to to use to as your match funding

059for those grants but yes by and large you would lock up those Investments and spend that money last and the other borrowings would would be the dollars first in last in and first out so the real opportunity here is just under 1.7 million to be able to if we took um if we went for Public Finance now for 15 million we'll be able to take advantage of that and that's again that's because you curb is inverted we know we can go out and buy one and two year treasuries at 5 40% and we can borrow it roughly 4% so that 125 basis points so I mean the simple question of putting them all together I think sometimes is what would it take between you know before September which is a very short time timeline you

060know if we were looking to maximize borrowing a 15 million any of the three of those three projects would be more than 15 million you know so that's not even necessarily a decision point that so what would it take if we wanted to try to take advantage of that market between now and then for that decision to happen you know and that could be nothing needs to happen because we feel like there's a commitment to need to get that point it could be we need to see some grant funding you know kind of start to see awarding which that timeline almost perfectly aligns from what we project even though nobody can say exactly where the first group of grant funding is going to come through but it seems like in the next two months is

061when we find out every um you know so they're just there's a lot of stars that kind of need to align if we're looking for the perfect situation mind Al line we might find out we're getting three to four million of grant funding that we don't have to spend immediately it would have match this timeline it's not something you have to spend immediately and then you can determine that we should borrow money for e project spend the time after deciding exactly which one that is you know that is possible are we allowed to invest the grant money no because it's a reimbursement reimbursement yeah and if we would do this thing with this $15 million this would be then we would um refinance our existing debt roll in this 15 that would be the first

062piece of this whole I'm trying to figure out like what what when are we first have to make a payment on that debt if we would do this so again very good question so the two first first two pieces are whether you borrow 10 or 15 million under what you just have seen and then the next piece would be the restructuring to make room for it we would do that after the calendar year flips because again we we have to be mindful of the IRS says if you borrow 15 or 10 million or less in a calendar year so we have to wait to do the other piece that we haven't talked about again is if we if we think about interest rates are going to go down again I don't have that crystal ball

063and I can't promise you where rates you're going to be this time next year but you're you're also dollar cost averaging and hedging your interest rate risk you're you're locking in both $15 million today's what are still pretty attractive rates you're also putting that money in the bank and earning the Arbitrage but the hope would be that you know early part of next year when you go to do the restructuring the rates are lower and that's less expensive for you and so if the stars are aligning that would be the perfect scenario and at the same time you'd be learning how much money is coming into that Grant bucket that's that's being used here that answers your question we would we would start with the new money piece first come back and restructure after the

064new year and then you would be in the middle of design and figuring out the full scope of the project along the way none of which is kind of impacted by first borrow 15 million is is the optimal solution because you can the IRS says you can borrow 15 but if you guys said the the stuff that's on the list project one two or three is the needs and and the projects if you said we know we need to do $10 million of stuff um maybe you pick 10 million as your first piece the Arbitrage earnings are less obviously if you don't borrow as much but that's an option too we think if you're committed to a project or some subset of projects this is an opportunity to offset it with interest earnings and I

065think fully answer your question the first interest payment due on the 10 or the 15 million could be paid for out of those interest earnings and so borrow $5 million the interest payments 400,000 that's due you've earned more than that in the bucket in those Investments worst case scenario so Christi I'm G to take a savit answering the question you asked what would it take right so the thing that's not in these uh cost of financing is the op AAL expenses we're moving from a model where we're currently paying 2.2 million per year on our debt service we're going to a place where we're paying I'm using model 3 just as an example 3 million on our debt service but after the fifth year um if our saving operational savings is a million is there

066a possibility then that we could do this without millage if we had a million dollars a year in operational Savings in essence we're covering the additional cost yes um I mean and that's where I think often times you'll see this presented that way where those operational costs are built in and there's not you know I just struggle some because I know I'll be we'll be back here in the spring and we'll be looking for operational costs related to a specific to the budget and we'll have already kind of assumed that into here but in both of in in all three of these models our operational costs will cover the increased Debt Service and then some get the three you know I mean in reality they will um but I appreciate you that you broke them

067out because it makes it easier to see I just wanted to make sure that I was processing yeah my fears always would if we buried in is that we get to Any Given spring you say well where are those costs say well we already chewed them up in our debt service which is true it's all the same you know it's it's all part of the same pie but as we're making decisions I just that that was I feel better that way so yes the operational cost savings would prevent the need for the project Al loan for costing need for tax right there's other variables that could and so that's not in here the obviously the ability to earn money from borrowing early is not in there and we have that grand funding number of five

068million which you know we have we're optimistic we would see that up higher as well I feel like if our operational costs overcome the you know the additional cost of our debt service it almost becomes at that point it almost becomes a no-brainer we're back to managing our normal operations year here I'll just say from the beginning of the project to the end of the project um if we don't allocate some funds we're going to be paying additional Debt Service um with money that we won't have realized on operational savings so said what three three years or so we just need to be careful like if we're banking on on that makes sense what's the what do we like when do we need to like I mean we're not going to sit here and probably

069have a full discussion right now because I think we all want to kind of absorb this but when should we need to like get back as a board and start to really like want these different options when is the grant funding there's no def there's no definitive timeline but everybody's expecting you know August September you you could follow I think that's important as well it is and I think you can follow the political calendar a little bit for that but there's there's only one bucket that we're currently have applied for we're expecting another bucket that open up sometime in the relatively in the future they both you know by the time sometime this fall both will probably be distributed so we just don't know you know now I think having a budget that was passed

070this past weekend definitely sets up a faster timeline for both of them you know so we are if we were waiting for a budget for another few weeks we' still be great so you know and just um context I mean we recently this Friday for the public school facilities Grant we were asking for additional information which good I mean like processing so I don't know if that tells you you're getting funded but yet with you and your application current is there any way that we could potentially put this document with all three models up with be able to get feedback from the community and specifically the parents because I know in this whole budget process even though we weren't really talking about sequential schooling there was a lot of comment about sequential schooling and how

071some parents didn't like the idea of going to three different school buildings particular particularly up North with green witch to pick up kids to go to say like a doctor's appointment or dentist appointment yeah I mean we we can find a way to put it out there and get some feedback um I think the key to that is putting enough details but not too much you know just for to assume without a presentation or without somebody that directly ask questions um but yeah we can figure that out what and um there is there's so many different opinions you know there is like the there's going going to be and with good reason um and I mean model 3 requires a little bit more time because there are very specific requirements for what we what you

072do in closing the school in in Pennsylvania for PA code and you need to give people opportunity but like you said we would hear frustrations for any of them I think because it's natural how does it impact my life you know that's that's a very real thing so um we'll get something up I I just feel that it would be more showing that we're being transparent and taking it the fact you know everybody's opinion I mean everybody's going to have a different opinion of course but you know it might make things a little easier too because we're gonna be spending a quite a bit of money on this too oh yeah yeah this $5 million rant that we're looking at is this a once and done thing or can we apply for it next year

073as well I mean so honestly we are saying over three years our hope you know there's there I mean right now the current grant that you might well he about first most likely is just under five mil but we are feeling we want to be optimistic that we can secure 5 million over three years I think that can be much higher I mean it could we just don't know everybody I don't know if there's 500 conversations like this across the common there's probably there's definitely 200 and probably that's low right it's just because there's funding out the schools so everybody realizes that I think it's our duty as a district to try to get that funding to our community but that's so um we can definitely put something out the feedback um we will monitor

074timelines with grant funding and keep an eye you know with um Scott as far as how rates are moving you I don't know from a project standpoint that there's a lot to be done until we get to those points and we say um you know unless until we get to a point where we can commit that the project is going to happen I suspect that notification of Grant fund that once there's once there's a bucket of it then we were going to think about how we start B without losing that out right so the just in terms of from our side of the house the first 15 million needs to happen before your end right and the closer we get to your end rates are likely moving lower and so we need 60 days 45

075days to mobilize on borrow you know that's the time it takes to get rating get documents ready and and be in a place to lock in interest rates and reinvestment rates and you would need to do that before you R preferably not sooner the better sooner the better from that from that side the house yes I feel like fund funding triggers the next conversation so what are we looking for for the next conversation we're thinking this is going to take place in August discussions will move back quickly we I mean we can discuss it anytime the board wants to I just like I said what is what is the thing that we'll bring into the next conversation is it I guess what direction we kind of need from the board is should we be discussing

076it until we get notifi you know till we get notified if we're going to receive any funding if if it's not worth having that conversation until that happens then we won't have the conversation quite simply um the decision we have to make is based on that time frame we need to proceed to to for the OB we need to make a decision realistically in the next goodness 30 to 60 days to still beat that 45 day timeline especially if breakups occur um or the decision is we're not making a decision until after um a grant decision is made that may change we may not be able to lock in anything in this calendar year if that occurs because if we won't get the grant determination in the next two months till we get through a

077process we we may not be able to do it by the end of the year so I think yeah what's more important locking in the ability to earn off borrowing because we think it's going to happen either way or feeling the security of notifying that we get some fund they let me add this caveat you can get ready on the financing side of the house and not do anything you could say we want to hedge our bets let's go get ready get get a rating put documents in place do a parameters resolution and then you don't have to act on it but you're at least ready so it's on the Shelf if you will and if you want to pull the trigger in September or October you're ready as opposed to September or October rolling

078around and say okay now let's get started that's an option as well and kind of like getting pre-qualified for home 100% get everything ready to that option is there a downside on that option you incur an advertising cost for the parameters resolution that's it we're willing to I think the lawyers are willing to get you ready to a parameters resolution um and if you actually get the rating from from Moody's you'll pay I think 70% of the rate Fe which is probably not a small number it's probably 10 grand but that's to to get you a place where you can issue bonds we could get up to that point just need to have a reading call if we can legally I think the legal side of the house is more important to get ready get

079a document ready get a parameters resolution ready into your point then you're you're two weeks away from being able to pull the trigger I mean regardless we got to have some kind of discussion here because we got two elementary school buildings that were last renovated 20 22 years ago some of the systems are about ready to go that we can't get parts for anymore um we've been talking about possibly sequential schooling which means we're gonna have to do some kind of upgrades to both buildings and if we close the one down and move everybody down well that's a big project at another building so I I think we need to keep the discussion moving and be ready to come up with some kind of plan line too with the grants they're notorious for dragging um

080you know especially with this many players kind of going the same amount of money um earn a lot of good things with districts um but you should probably know within the next 30 days if they're going to be hitting that kind of late August early September March like right around Labor Day um but again grants notorious were kind of dragging on and depending on how they did beat up it could be another 3060 days beyond that um but notare anybody it's just kind of hisorical have you seen with uh grants I feel like we're going to keep applying for Grants so the potential is going to be there to make up what we're conservatively saying is five million if we hit our conservative number which sounds like there's a good chance we will I think

081it's probably worth that gamble to move forward with the Arbitrage and then being conservative we hit on multiple grants and we get even more than that and I think that really ends up putting us in a much better position overall so I'm with Jeremiah keeping the conversation moving even if that means like the next meeting in August something um that we continue our discussions there at minimum um but maybe be prepared on August 5th for a motion to decide if we're going to move forward or motion that we're not going to make any decision until we know more in August and then um the Arbitrage just maybe isn't as much as we have initially planned here so I I would actually in those same lines but maybe being a little bit more aggressive recommend that

082we give the direction to Raymond James to get to start preparing um you know for the ratings and start doing that like your analogy the pre-qualification work now um so that we could you know potentially be making a decision you know in August because um and it could be in August it could be in September but I see minimal downside in us you know moving forward with getting us prepared so I believe that you'll need a motion from us to authorize you to correct I would just say uh we would like Raymond James and the professionals Bond counsel and solicitor prepare the necessary documents to come back at a future meeting with a parameters resolution and take all the necessary steps in terms of read you know something very simple just you're authorized to proceed

083is a very good way to say it and you're I mean okay with a formal approval on at the next board meeting because we just yeah we just want to make sure that we're doing right by act 65 anding take motion action corre so we just need support to be forward to bring you a resolution effectively yeah okay um well everybody heard that so so do we have the support to start do the pre-approval process um by show chance I have one more yes please no absolutely I don't want to rush it so um when I when we make decisions like this I like to go to those that are the most affected by this and the most the ones that are like actually in kneep in this and so I'd hate to put you

084on the spot but I'm going to put you on the spot Mrs Barnes and what are your thoughts on this are you excited or is this like why are we doing this overwhelmed so I think year after year we're constantly trying to figure out the logistics and balance class size and ensure that resources so the opportunity to streamline those resources would be a positive ver wanting to think about construction and restructuring and all those kinds of things but ultimately we want to do what investment interest students and you think that one of these models is definitely like we need to do it for the best interest of the students I think there's honestly um the appeal of having all of our students and all of our faculty on one campus is you know uming but

085I also worked in a primary Center early on in my career and there's a lot of benefits to having young children all together with you know everybody working toward the same goal in a primary Center so I could I could talk for a long time about theen of option but I don't know that has yeah I mean being here a short time and being in and listening to some of these conversations I think we need to do what's best for the district and for our kids so um you know I came from a district that had Early Childhood centers um and they were pretty impressive and I think we could do really good things having a K2 Center I also understand the importance of having everyone I've heard people here talk about everybody in one

086spot which I think is Sly nice as well so um I'm kind of with Mr Lawrence I'm not sure which one I would pick um but I do think there's a lot of benefits and there's also a lot of you know you're going to run into some some Hills and Valleys too but I think that's going to happen no matter we do something sorry that that didn't really clear things up what I'm hearing is that both of you generally support doing something as opposed to doing nothing like doing something with the streamlining as supposed to not doing something leaving it as is okay they they love their school communities I mean Mr piles kind of you know he's new to his but Mrs Barnes has crafted you know as part of the culture with the

087other staff it's just Mrs B has lived with every year every year we do you know it's it's the moving student so you know because we have to from a resource standpoint so there are those two pieces but there are very exciting things we can do with the primary Center I think educationally it doesn't come with the same Financial benefits you know so that's kind of that it's that trade-off and if you recall going back to our 12 models one of them was a case Center if that would have been you know in theory it would have been out at the Dao building kindergarten building would be one of you know a truly just fun exciting experience it wouldn't have been very you know financially it's not for to do that you didn't have example

088so there's there are Financial benefits to any of these but um there's just obviously greater ones with just other another quick comment with that with the same thing just kind of follow up with there is a lot of it sounds like upside to this so I think that kind of puts an exclamation point on the necessity to share with the community and if and make them aware of of how positive this is and and where the teachers are on this and you know just to make that conversation happen and if we're moving quickly on this then to make sure that you know that becomes a priority too make sure I'll make sure there's information you know communicated both families and staff you know again the benefits educational benefits we heard some of the opposite you

089know some of the downside to having less sections when we made some necessary decisions here in the budget having all of our fourth graders third graders second graders first graders kindergart one building there's there are huge educational benefits in addition to yeah in addition to financial so I think we have our our marching orders are to have a resolution ready for the next board meeting um and to continue the conversation we can kind of discuss what that might need to be between now and and August 5th just with you Fe back and board as far as what type of details that might be um but in the meantime you know my charge is one get that on the agenda but then two start communicating the community about different everybody sounds like you show hands if

090you want to sure so it's this this is like a straw vote to tell Raymond James to get the paperwork PR to come back with a resolution oh come back with a resolution okay and I don't really have to mark anything down like official basically the vote will be August 5th yeah I would consider this administrative work in the meantime yeah I I don't know that we need a straw hole seems like we're all in agreement with it so unless anybody has significant objection to moving forward to this fight think what's the direction we go very good thank you thank you all um without you know in the middle of summer here we I do not have a formal superintendent report I just wanted to take a moment to thank the there's so much work

091that takes place thank you thank you um thank our teams that are working diligently in the summer U and in no particular order but our our facilities um custodial maintenance Crews that that are managing not only the normal operations of the summer but also addition some moves throughout the district including us to the Middle School the new Administration Suites and we're just doing a phenomenal job so they thank for lot for his leadership and Direction um they're doing a fantastic job Mr Hoffman's not here but technology where I think it's easier to see the work of facilities in the summer technolog is working just as hard to get us ready close out one year and get us ready for another year also thank Mr Hopman and the team for all the work they're doing um

092and our Administration and teachers going to periodically throughout the throughout the summer poing in to get ourselves ready from the academic side so it's it's a very busy time this summer grateful to have people have with us June July and August thank you very good um move into the board committee reports extracurricular facilities we have no meeting no meeting no meeting passing um BCC we did have a meeting um um excuse me they reviewed their quarterly financials their normal update was not insignificant okay thank [Music] you sophan Brooker and Technology c yeah they they U also reviewed their their all their raises and all that stuff management um one of the cool things that they talked about was the career camp that they had they had a 100 students um at the career camp where

093you know pockets of students get to go to different um they go to one program every day so they get to see five different programs um their weight list for next year is already at 103 kids so their enrollment is is doing really well um one of the schools talked about they looked into investing their funds at a different bank for better rates and that got like that got me thinking like have we you know looked into changing Banks to get a better rate I don't know well we do we do keep keep an eye on the different banks and what they can offer us we try to get the best yeah yeah so that said that they I they got like 2% more from the new bank so stand immedate meetings next meeting is

094August 15th all right thank you uh Pennsylvania School boards Association all I have is that um psba has done a you know in-depth look at the the budget that was signed by Governor Shapiro and there's both a webinar and a written um dissection available psda okay thank you know folks getting up and walking on and coming back um I'm gonna want to do that too so make a short please and we'll come back just I just want to share one second before as uh when so brought up the budget the budget numbers we're still some of the details from the state budget are still sort of trickling in as far as mandated expenses but we will we are projecting to see an increase of 345 of funding from what we budgeted in in our budget

095so that's positive news I think some of that will be it'll be dedicated to mandated costs that are also passed as a part of the PA code but definitely more funding than what we had shouldn't say more yeah more funding from a variety of different sources some of it's actually reimbursement but um so it's positive news maybe a little I was a little more optimistic and the we leading up to it but still positive news for our budget State very good thank you anybody else or good for recess yeah recess e e e all right we'll call the meeting back we are moving right into public comment on agenda items Mr King you are signed up um let me read my my my directions here the board requires that the public participants or residents or

096taxpayers of this District or anyone having registered a legitimate interest and contemplated action of the board participants must be recognized by the presiding officer and must prace their comments plan an announcement of their name municipality and group affiliation of applicable each statement made by a participant shall be limited to three minutes during duration on a single agenda or non-agenda item if a participant wishes to speak more than on one agenda item and time remains after all participants have made their statements they may then speak on additional agenda or non additional or non-agenda items all statement shall be directed to the presiding officer with the understanding that individual board members are not required to respond to the participants comments or questions the presiding officer May interrupt or terminate a participant statement when the statement is too

097lengthly personally directed abuse of obscene or irrelevance request an individual to leave the meeting to win that that person does not observe reasonable decorum or call a recess to adjourn to another time when the lack of public decorum interferes with the ordinary conduct of the meeting um thank you Mr K yes uh and back to the statement that you made uh I still want to revisit those roots I think it's unfair basically um I didn't have a chance to speak they had a big presentation here and the reason why I came today is because a lot of parents and some grandparents and some residents asked me to be their voice and I said you know what I'm going to just go and continue to speak because not for nothing people need a voice now the

098most affected you ask the principles what they thought about it but nobody spoke to the parents and the taxpayers because when you're in the deficit what you do raise taxes so who's the most affected is me but we don't have a voice I think that's something that needs to be uh Revisited and then they just allow me three minutes you had a whole presentation that was done and I didn't have a chance to speak or ask a question which is kind of ridiculous you might as well have a meeting by yourselves with whoever but don't have it to the public the public and and speak now um I see that they talking about borrowing money to get to invest it to get more money now how do we benefit from I know when there's a

099deficit they raise the taxes but let's say that there's a surplus do you lower the taxes how do we benefit how are the kids benefit I didn't see nothing on that L to saying about what's the class sizes all I heard was oh we're going to raise the space but I haven't heard nothing about class sizes I haven't heard nothing about Personnel that's going to take to run the additional space you know teachers are not involved with the planning process you know the teachers are very important they the one that's that's basically teaching our kids you know and um I just see a lot of decisions being made but the the people that's vested which is myself and 5,000 other people are not don't have a voice that's a problem now he talking about one

100of the the choices was to get rid of one of the schools the principal just came AB board all sudden he's he can get laid off you know it's it's a big issue you know if they close one of the buildings that means the class hour is going to get larger and one of my my issues is that class class class sizes should be smaller not larger so I don't understand how we confer little board members are we caner little teachers but we trying to make investments might as well just invest in stocks we gon put money away invest in stocks why do we need this guy what other schools did he do I don't know where his background is I there's a lot of questions that need to be and it's sad that a

101lot of people don't even know about this meeting they don't know what's going on decisions being made that tactics could be raised even further because the end result is the risk that's being taken is that the taxes are going to go up taxes are going up classroom sizes are going to get be increased there's a lot of different downsides to all this and I need some answers and the residents need answers parents need answers not just oh we just tell them what we want to tell them superintendent just said oh we tell them some things we don't tell them everything you know that's that's ridiculous how you gonna say you gonna tell them some things what we want to tell them we are very important here you don't just tell us what you want to

102tell us you go to tell us everything that we can make an agitated decision to say you know what okay let's go with it don't just keep stuff from us what's Happening Here Jeremiah he he mentioned he said what's where's the parent involved in this this everybody just brushes to the side or let's rush and make the decision you know it's really ridiculous really ridiculous and we need to do better and I'mma keep coming here and being the voice but parents are really concerned about the class they're really concerned about taxes being increased and when we going to speak speak about that we going to speak about the people that really mad as the kids and the parents and residents of this community yeah I close my statement thank you Mr Mr King I just

103want to you know I just want to clarify that Mr light brought up about getting information out to parents um I think Mr whis then said the same thing similar a few minutes later that one of the directions I was given tonight was to make sure that information was shared out with parents we can get feedback or community members I guess parents were mentioned but community members and parents that was direction that I was given from the board this and as far as class sizes the assumptions that were built into the operational savings that I shared as you know was on the slide was that um class size averages of 20 in grades K through three and 25 in grades four and five is what we where those operational savings up to um you know

104we had all depends on the number of kids in any class but that was shared that was one of the assumptions in there and again from the parent Community lens that was the direction I was given so that was one of the assumptions in where in the package that we see in the one slide that I presented and talked about that was um the assumptions of my project operational consquence so you understand what happened the letter the language and the print is so small and I can't see it they gave out packages to everyone in here besides me but meanwhile it's affecting me the most I don't understand why is it that I gotta wait we gonna take a break come back then I get a chance to speak when meanwhile all the things that

105was said that led before this affects me you going to take a break before chance to I'm sorry use the apologize no I understand it but come on so I maybe I'd like to just take a quick moment because I know you've stood up a couple of times now and shared some perspectives in in different meetings and I know I took some time after the last meeting to just help help share a broader understanding how the board operates so first of all I mean we are all taxpayers many of us are parents um we are here to represent those people who elected us into these uh volunteer unpaid positions right so we as a school we certainly hire people in the administration like Mr Tim chaden and and the principles and the other members of

106the administration to handle all of the daytoday uh decision making and um and to help guide and bring the recommendations forward to the board so things like you know understanding which which uh vendors or Consultants are qualified to come in and and present recommendations that is all work that we hand off to the administration because they are full-time paid employees so you know this is a a once a month meeting it is publicly available and all of the materials that are shared online and can be uh viewed digitally ahead of the meeting so this is a a regular meeting in which we will continue to I'll say process the the business of the school district and certainly you know we offer the opportunities for folks to like yourself to get up and share perspective you're

107all always welcome to email us at any time and share perspective as well um you know all of us are here because we want to to hear from the taxpayers from the parents and and we want your input as as we make decisions so um you know please just know I I know I can speak for everyone else in the board we we are all here we also need to follow the policy IES and rules that guide how this board operates so you know the statement that Mr Co read the the policies and the process that we go through are all governed it's all written out in the policies on the school district website so um please know that we are here each and every multiple times a month having meetings having them in public

108um having discussions in public so that that everyone can follow along um on the web you know the reconfiguration of school options feasibility discussions have been going on for several years so you can go back and watch all those previous meetings to get um up to speed on those details as well so I just wanted to maybe take a quick moment because you know I I can sense frustration I I you know certainly reached out last uh meeting as well um but I I can assure you that we're all here trying to obviously be as transparent as possible while also not trying to be here until midnight you know every every Monday night so I know one of the rules that was stated that you can't ask questions of board members and that's what he

109just said so that's why I said revisit because if people are making statements to me I should have a chance to respond hey and I should be able to to ask a question if I need to well any of us can respond if we you had a chance to speak I'm speaking now so what I'm saying is that those r rules and the way that it was written and the language in it I'm not an attorney but I know my understand and interpretation of the way is WR is that it doesn't really give me a chance to really speak it just gives me a chance to comment now a whole bunch of things was said they had a whole presentation but I didn't have a chance to even ask for one question now I have

110a problem with that because if it's supposed to be a public meeting and it's supposed to be for taxpayers and you really want to hear from taxpayers and parents you will allow me an opportunity to speak now I was told in several situations that according to the rules and guidelines I don't have a chck voice I can't speak so if I can't speak and the decisions are already made so when I when it's a chance for me to speak what effects does it have on anything yeah there are two seven and0 n on the agenda every single meeting are here for anyone in the public to speak we do limit that time because you could imagine if we had 5,000 people sitting in the audience you know we we can't just have um hundreds and

111hundreds of hours of of comments so that is that is why we limit it we do have Mr manuso who is a lawyer here each and every week I think Mr CL let's maybe move on at this point but again I thank you I thank you for your com she's making she's making statements to me tell them about she had a talk with me you know things like that first of all if you had talk with me that was a talk that we supposed to have not being brought up here but if you want to bring your stuff up here we can do that this Mr King at this point it's probably best we move on with the business at hand I this is not being productive especially if you miss Ziggler need to have

112a discussion no but she's coming out to me I didn't I make I'm I'm sorry I said anything I was compassion I see trying to help so she was just trying to understand move on thank you okay so then we can move into new business um first up there Personnel um be looking for a motion to approve the Personnel uh as listed on the agenda it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the following items one to two are listed there um do I have a motion for approval of personel all moved we have a motion a second does anybody have any comments or questions here none Mr Cecilia Hulk yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis udicious yes Daniel Wismer yes Laurel Ziggler yes Michael PES yes Rea Hoffman yes

113and Jason yes motion carries all Personnel are approved pending receipt of all mandated credentials next we can move into uh Item B policy maintenance is the recommendation of the policy and curriculum committee that the board of school directors approve the following policies for second reading and adoption policies listed there are one through six um are we able to take these together or is there discussion that needs to be had on any one of them individually I'd like two of three to be taken separately please okay then we will take uh item uh one first here so I'd be looking for a motion for the approval of um the second reading of policy 203 have a motion second and second um and then the floor is open for uh comments and discussion okay thanks um so

114uh we had significant discussion on this at the last full board meeting um for about a half an hour or so um and I think that we did not have adequate time to talk about it at the committee meeting when the changes were first introduced I think typically when we're when somebody has a lot of change to a policy see um that it's better if we know in advance so that we can have a full discussion at the committee level um so for one thing going forward if anybody plans to bring significant changes to the policy committee I would request that we be able to see those changes in advance of the meeting it's only an hour meeting and we've had some I mean we had at least these six policies on there to talk

115about um that being said um although I don't personally agree with some of the additions I certainly appreciate that Mr udicious was representing some of his constituents um that want to make sure that there is every choice available to parents and families um and like I said although I don't personally agree I was never looking to remove that additional language um and I you know hope that families do make well-informed choices that work for them and also consider the common good when they're making them um I do feel that as a public school we do have some vested interest in the public health um and that's the reason that I think the extra and repeated emphasis is on how one opts out is in Balan with the requirements that would protect the public health within

116our schools um so when there's that much conversation amongst the full board after a recommendation comes from the committee a typical thing that we've done over the years is send it back to committee so there's time for that adequate discussion once people have been able to absorb it all um so I realized that didn't happen I hope that it does in the future um I think that in the spirit of collaboration and compromise and working together as the board that that's that's an opportunity that we should have we should all have um there was direction or suggestion at the end of that discussion last month that Mr tin chat and Dr Meer Mr wh and myself meet and and uh my understanding was to kind of synthesize what we had talked about in that better

117than a half an hour at the meeting um the language had certainly been tidied up um I don't I don't feel that it necessarily synthesized all that we had talked about um but I have been reassured by Dr Meers and Mr Tim chaten that none of the way that it currently emphasizes one way or another changes what we do as a district so um I appreciate that reassurance um but I will be voting no um because I don't think the process was followed and I think it continues to not be balanced language I share and Echo many of those same comments um again I had no intention to have a 32-minute conversation at the last board meeting you know in the depth which is why I had recommended that it go back to committee so

118um you know again there's nothing pressing or timely that required this to have that formal first reading in the last board meeting so I I would also um ask that we return to Common Board practices which is to be respectful of of all of the voices within um our board and when there is something that requires more discussion to send it back to committee so um I also will be voting no again I I share all of the comments that Miss fol shared but uh and sentiments but you know I I would ask that the process be more respectfully followed in the future well I'll just make a couple comments and then want go um I think to say that there's too much information about how someone opts out is the only other option is

119to not tell people how to opt out so we either have to tell them how to opt out or we don't and I think um if we're going to provide op out we have to provide Direction um the only other thing I would say is that Miss oh you were in policy meeting that approved the first reading as it sat at that time there was discussion at that meeting that there could be changes and those changes were made and resubmitted for the first reading without discussion or understanding and I said at that meeting that there was a lot to absorb and that I would be looking at it through that at any rate I have never suggested for a moment that we not inform people how to opt out I have repeatedly stated that I

120want to be in compliance with school code and law and that that provides for opt out and that it should be cleared for everyone so that's not the only other option and I never suggested that I'll see you appreciate everyone taking the time to comment you know throughout this process Dr Myers for kind of leading that part of the process it was an educational for me in some ways and that you know one piece that I didn't even realize was how it is communicated about exemptions in the initial registration process online um simply because it's buried in you know it it's part of the registration process there's a lot but it was very clear that there was a checkbox you know to anybody now that's new registry um anybody newly registering over the last three

121years and our nurses you know have communicated that um this won't change I think in the end they're actually going to get better information about what the form looks like in the final result um in a in a good way but um there was the learning experience I think in some ways that what was in that initial registration was closer to what our final version is now than what I would even thought in the morning so I was happy that we were communicating very clearly on the front new regist um can I just ask one one clarifying question and I know we have a definition of healthcare intervention um can I get an example of what a healthcare intervention is and well night let me back up if a healthcare intervention would be getting a

122a test like a physical so that you can perform in in the Athletics is someone allowed to opt out of that physical no but that's because it's governed by pi so that's outside the realm of this policy yes okay yeah we can't I mean we can say yes you do not have to form a p won't let to compete disqualify okay I think that was answer my question I'd like to just make a comment too I I was actually really pleased with how everything proceeded with policy 203 and the conversations that we had because I think we did talk about a lot and I think it was really nice that we were able to reach a point where we could still have a good faith conversation based on the discussions and concerns that were specifically

123voted on and discussed in the meeting and then we were able to take those specific things what I what I hope continues in the future is we can continue to have good faith conversations that align with what happens in a board meeting so we don't get dragged into to um you know more than what is required so that we can you know focus on the things which we specifically voted on with the Redundant language with according to the PA code so I think that was really nice that we were able to to to meet in the middle to meet those concerns um anyone else have a comment okay then I think we can take have a roll call vote on the second reading of policy 203 Jeremiah light yes Dennis dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes

124Laurel Ziggler no Michael Hess no Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol no Jason cut yes motion carries we can move right into the second reading uh policies 2 through six it is recommendation of the policy and fr committee that the board of school directors approve the following policies for second reading and adoption and then policies two through six are listed there um be looking for a motion for those and the second second thank you um any questions or comments on those uh five policies here none I think thank you Dennis udicious yes Daniel whisper yes Laurel Ziggler yes Michael hes yes Reva Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Jeremiah L yes Jason C yes motion carries item C is conference requests is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approved the conference request

125for employee 1811 to attend B exp Technical Center for welding technology intermediate training at a total cost of $2,171 42 uh do we have a motion still move second second Mo second does anybody have any questions regarding the toin requests does this mean we'll be teaching a welding course here at the school we have welding oh we do this is to sharpen up those skills okay I just had a question Mr F chatt we I mean these conference requests kind of come one at a time over period of time have we evaluated you know the overall cost of these conferences and is there a way to do them for Less um I know a lot of school districts um have ban them all together the live ones and have gone to online and I'm not

126saying that they necessarily need to do that um but I think we should evaluate yes the overall cost to conf I mean we we can share some about the conference requests that we have and we pass over the course of the year um we have when possible someone will attend one that it's virtual I mean obviously welding welding classes we di will be there at BC so we do look for the best options there are you know a few throughout the year you know I can think of one this year where we were we saw such excitement and growth for one teacher about something that was we were seeing a product in the classroom and it was spreading I think in a good way to other teachers that I think we probably spent a little

127bit more on that one because we'd already seen a return on that investment of just the initial study you know without getting into details there otherwise we always look for the best option um but we can share report on the cost over the course of the year and um what other information thank you this particular request seems like it's a class though it's a class yes but it's not a gr level course that would be for Callum movement and we asked the staff member to take it so we're looking at his PD and pctc does a great job yeah so it's it's working our partnership okay uh no one else has another any other comments on that I think we can have aoll call vote M on the confer request Daniel whisman yes Laurel Ziggler

128yes Michael Hess yes reaw yes Celia hle yes Jeremiah light yes Dennis udicious yes Jason cck yes motion carries edmd is the student School Board representative it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors appoint J and be a student representative alternate representing the class of 2026 to the kutan area Board of school directors for the 2024 2025 school year uh do we have a motion many and a second second motion any second are there any uh questions or comments on that agenda excited to have Joselyn joined as the alternate representative per policy the junior is the alternate um I believe we will have a senior at all right uh mik we please have a roll call vote on the approval of the student School Board representative Laurel Ziggler yes Michael

129pess Yes Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia Holt yes Jeremiah L yes Dennis udicious yes Daniel whis yes Jason C yes motion carries congratulations uh to josin uh item e is the TCC appointment is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors appoint bethan seyman as cown Area School District representative to the Burks tax collection committee do we have a motion so moved a second thank you any questions or comments heing none roll call vote please Michael Hess yes Reba Hoffman yes Cecilia hul yes Jeremiah light yes denisy dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes Laura Ziggler yes Jason C yes motion cares and F is the student and in adult meal prices it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve meal prices for the 2024 2025 school year student

130meal prices will increase 10 cents uh from 2023 through 2024 uh rates to student breakfast um remains free uh lunch Elementary is $3 middle school and high school is three and a quarter adult meal prices will increase to breakfast 285 and lunch 465 uh do we have a motion to approve the student and adult me prices so Mo second motion on a second any questions or comments on those prices the um the lunch prices all the money for the lunch that comes from a different budget right it's not from reg all the food services there is a pde price calculator to assess your meal prices to ensure that you're not below you know or well below or above um we are still consider considerably below um the pte calculator these recommended prices and our classification

131for reimbursement were required to increase the adult prices for first have breakfasts always done free or was that a byproduct Co we just yeah it's a BCT it was all meals were free for year a little bit more than a year and then the breakfast has remained subsidized we are what reimbursing through the state with the meals that we essentially serve yes enourage your children and others to go get even if it's a second breakast uh anybody else any other comments Mr hus reall yes cilia H yes sh my light yes Dennis udicious yes Daniel whis yes ARL Ziggler yes Michael Hess yes Jason cook yes motion carries item G is donations it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors accept with gratitude the following donations a donation from Hannah

132wolfer to C on Elementary School in the amount of $6.20 and a donation from the Philadelphia affili the elementary school and an amount of $1,000 uh do we have a motion to accept those two donations so move second second any uh questions or comments on those just want to express the Gratitude to miss wolfinger and the Philadelphia Phillies for their generous donations it's just too bad the Phillies couldn't give us a baseball field take what we get take here a donation from the police that was a result of Zachary Ziggler being um selected as a student they really gave him a great night the whole family went down it was a fun honor for him to be out in the field with fanatic and it's a lot of fun very cool are they designated for

133anything or it's just Student Activities all right if there's other comments call please Cecilia yes Jeremiah light yes denisy dishes yes Daniel Wismer yes Laurel Zig yes Michael hes yes Reba Hoffman yes Jason cck yes motion carries letter H is K a k a HS connections it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approve the kown area high school B schedule to include a daily connections period of 34 minutes do we have any motion second motion second do we have any questions or comments on this agenda item the connections period which last year existed and every other day the model um there are huge benefits to the connections period um it is when used efficiently allows teachers to meet with their students uh it allows the opportunity for remediation it

134allows the opportunity for expand expanding on lab work and um it it has this challenging need for both flexibility and structure you know that that's what we we work with the High School administration to develop that balance of structure flexibility so that need so there's uh a lot of positive energy in the high school about Connections that the day very good anybody have any question or comments board members senior is going to be excited Jeremiah light yes denisy vious yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Michael hes yes Rea Hoffman yes Cecilia Hol yes Jason cck yes motion carries I is the 2024 2025 ESS pay scale and increase is a recommendation of the administration at the board of school directors approved the 2024 2025 ESS pay scale and employee salary increases for the attached

135uh do we have a motion some moves second motion a second does anybody have any questions or comments on on the uh P scale and increase all right hearing none Mike Dennis udicious yes Daniel whis yes Laurel Ziggler yes Michael Hess yes Rea hawman yes Cecilia hle yes Jeremiah Lake yes Jason cck yes motion carries item J is communities and schools it is the recommendation of the board of school directors that the board of school directors approved the agreement with the communities and schools to provide integrated student supports at uh pitson Area Middle School for the 2024 2025 school year for the attached after Grant secured but the communities and schools and a donation from put down strong the 2024 25 cost the district is not to exceed 7,500 uh do we have a motion

136any second second motion any second any questions or comments on uh communities and schools yeah I have a couple comments about this um if you go to their website and you go through their website they have they greatly speak of educational equity and diversity Ed uh equity and inclusion throughout throughout their website um one we as a board recently to the educational Equity policy here in DEC this past December so that's part of what they're pushing is what was in that policy um if you look under their Dei core values there's a state under the equity portion and this is directly from their website we leverage a diverse inclusive and anti-racist support network to break down systemic barriers in schools and Beyond however if you go through several of their brochures which are also available

137on their website they go through and single out black brown and Indigenous students in my mind that not anti-racism that's actually Reverse Racism because now you're singling out three groups of people and not including everybody um you know we've been down this road before with they also State about white supremacy and how they combat that we had that issue here in one of our schools with some of the uh documents that were made available or some teachings that were made available to elementary school students which you know the parents we're not very happy about um also in there three tiers of support that's directly on their website um if you look down their service category and then they have three different tiers for each service category a lot of the stuff that's on here is

138stuff that we're already providing as a SCH district and if we're not you know we could look at providing some of these additional supports I I know we get uh are we still getting the psychologist students from KU is that we we had a student for period of time last year um and it just comes down to availability for the availability of those students um one that program was designed a little bit in conjunction with communities and schools so they been help provide some support to interns so I don't know we don't know for sure for 2425 yet they'll come out the they'll go to this but I mean that's it's something that we don't have to pay another group to go right up the road here to ksan University and and ask them for

139students and those students I'm sure have guidance from their professors and other people available at the University so you know I I question you need to pay an outside group to do stuff that we can do internally and also without a lot of controversy around what they have on their website um you know so I am voting no for this and uh that's it Mr anybody else I you know I just want to comment that community of schools you know I we have been in partnership with them for three years now um and there have you know when contracts were approved in the past concerns have been raised about some of the same issues and that you know I think those are valid concerns um just the history that we have now and having local

140individuals that are hired to communities and schools to provide service to our students in the Middle School um provide it's a value ad for another layer of support for some of our students who are struggling the most and helps connect them with services in the community and someone else to be a champion for them in the school so um well I see there a type of there doesn't actually say it is the recommendation of the administration it is you know it is the recommendation of the administration and when I say that I'm not asking for the board support of what communities in the schools you know website says or asking for support of any of that it's just support for a group of students in our Middle School at an extremely um District advantageous cost

141compared to what similar Services would cost anyway else um unun and schools was brought to us as a district through could sound strong initially because they believe in supporting students with um medal and behavioral health challenges um and that partnership has has served us well has served students well you so I I just I would ask when voting for this it's it's about the service that has been provided for our students and we've had no concerns you know with with actually happening classroom um rather than what the website might say um you know understand every board member you know has their reasons for their vote just that's my perspective from the administration's can you explain to me the difference between what the communities and schools does and what our guidance counselors do at school yeah

142I mean you know school counselors they're you know their Pro they are their primary function is obviously working with not only teachers but with students to um first get students set up in the right classes make sure that students you know have um someone that they can go uh visit when they're expressing a challenge they might help them navigate a um student student peer-to-peer issue at times what the communities and schools person does is they're essentially a social worker you know they called integrated support essentially a social worker where they are able to work more with students for challenges they are experiencing outside of school they will manifest themselves inside School through attendance through reductive grades you know wor behavioral challenges but often times it's they're really the rud them was outside of school so

143that they can connect those students in their amilies with agencies in the community that can help support them um so it becomes this different level of the confidence that you know now again it's in there the when we asked middle school for example what percent what number of students was the staff member full-time staff member working with just depends on how you look at that they might say there's 80 students but a good majority of them are working through maybe the backpack program or something where it's really just helping connect them with um food that they can bring home on the weekend but the number of students they were directly working with in um problem solving these challenges along with their family was right around 30 and all of those students you know well any

144student working directly with them the parents with parent approval you know to um be on their case load so it's more about that connection to Community Resources um and that layer of support that is kind of both inside and outside of spirit our our guidance counselors um what's their degree in is it in school counsel does that have anything to do with like um psychology or oh there they definitely have a background in Psychology for sure yeah um they I mean they probably have a stronger background in Psychology than social work does and this individual that comes in from the organization are they like when I went to school the guidance counselor to me was that person that you went to when you were struggling so I'm in my mind that's what the guidance C

145job is um and they have a that psychology background it's not just social work it's psychology so she they have this understanding of like if this kid is struggling with this they would know who to point them to and in my mind too Miss Miss White right Miss White like she's been with our kids for you know she's building this Rapport I don't know if this person for this oration actually knows our kids as well as our guidance down Serv does um I mean the communism schools the goal of communis schools is to be fully integrated into the school setting where that mean that group smaller group of students that they are working with they have a very very close relationship with those students and then with their families as well um it's just sort

146of like you know if you think give tiers of level again the school counselor has some background in Psychology they're not a psychologist near social worker but um they have you know they are more of a tier 2 support if we just think we I always think back to our tier process tier one would be classroom support I'm struggling today I'm gonna go tell my teacher I'm having a conflict the snake Solve IT tier two might be that oh it's been ongoing now for a week and I need somebody else to kind of help me and go to the counselor these are students who are experiencing challenges that are much deeper than that it might be food insecurity you know it might be um a home life that is constantly in flux and changing that

147has you know that level of instability and it's it's just another it is another level of support beyond what the guidance School C I understand that but I feel like our gu is conern that's what she should be like and and having it in house like having this organization that's coming out of house and we have no control over like their policies their their whatever their core beliefs are we have no control over that so I'd rather like you're saying I'd rather hire somebody inh house to do that job to add that layer of help I'm not saying I don't want to help the kids but I'd rather do it in house than bring out an outside source that we have no control over their policies or their um my hesitation and we've worked with

148the communties and schools folks when you know when there's any question about yeah policies or procedures whatever it might be sometimes it's as small as like what is the polic for putting up a poster you know in a hallway or something and they're always receptive and do what we ask them to do in our again in our experience we've had complete success there one of the advantages the communities and schools is the financial you know side of it is that the if you were trying to replicate these exact services without the support of some of the grant funding you know communities and schools applies for the grants themselves and then applies to it um you know you're looking at a salary 10 times this plus whatever the benefits might be you know we always we

149know that multiplier 1.41 with a full-time person ourselves so and throughout the now exception of we had a person at the high school last year that we us the yeser funding for but as long as we had the group at the middle school we've been able to with the help of quick sandr and Comm and schools you know secure grant funding that has reduced the cost of a that so you know and that's that is a part of the package this you know we I've been pretty clear I think in our meetings with communities and schools that we don't have outside of Esser grant that was there we don't have the financial capacity to maintain a social work soci worker at our middle school so they've worked with us to help find resources um so

150this was a resource that came as a result of Esser no it actually I'm sorry so it actually started an initiative through put St strong and and other local communities where we shared two um we had grant funding and we shared two full-time people between the middle schools at Brandy line Chris and and grant funding this s through coordinated through qu strong through a few different organizations for that for the three school districts then we continued and expanded into the high school through Esser and then this year after the budget process with Esser falling out it was a recommendation that we do not continue with the um high school and the middle school was dependent upon funding whether it's a recommendation and ultimately the recommendation came down to now at this reduced cost you know

151it's um the recommendation to maintain that fund you know the partnership with miss schools and we've had a good experience you know I I completely understand reservation you know we put from that different lens but we've had a positive experience with the individuals that we work with and it has a great is this similar to the programs that concern um provides no I mean the concern concern is more groups um concern can do um we work with family guidance now where they would do individual counseling but that we school-based therapy family agrees to do individual therapy they can sign up with f with guidance and it can just happen in school but that's it's really a we just kind of connect family guidance so it's it's a different layer of social that connects family and

152student sometimes it could be making them helping them get for something like so I I'd like to clarify this individual or individuals who are supporting us in this function um they have zero influence over curriculum and they are in no way teaching any sort of curriculum belief structure Etc within a classroom that no occasionally occasionally they'll part participate in like a schoolwide event celebrating you know something for the month but they always they work in collaboration with Mr Lynch on that um you know but that's otherwise I just want to help make sure we're all in the same page and that we're easing concerns right so this is someone who we paying $7,500 and we know that a full-time you know employee would cost 10 times that or 140% of that cost um we're getting

153the parents approval in order to for the student and the family to engage with this individual there's no forcing they don't they could choose if they don't like what's being discussed to um not participate at any point is that accurate yeah okay and um I guess clearly there is a need whether it's food insecurity you know drug and alcohol issues whatever that social concern is housing Etc so I guess if we didn't have this do we feel that Miss White has open capacity where she's free during the day to take on additional support and services if this person were to go away is she under staffed no no no I don't think so I you know I guess there's there's the there's always two sides of that right like I don't think that she has

154that extra capacity to do that that being said whether it was I think you noticed that I would say that our Capac we will find capacity for things that kids need you know no matter what it is I just that's just my philosophy I think we as a team and as a district are that way so no I don't think this why just has that available schedule okay so we could reasonably assume that if Miss way does not have additional support in a social worker she would need to reprioritize and begin providing more support to these highest of need students which would you know really flow down and cause less support less social support guidance counseling all of this the core School counseling things that we want Miss Mike to be doing every day for

155the larger School Comm Community would um again there just would not be that same level of capacity because I don't see in a budget how we would be bringing on we would continue to seek additional communting resources that can help support you know help support us um we didn't have social workers five years ago it something that as we saw a growing need in a community need that working collaborated with other districts and as a partner that we brought to the district um so I believe that if we both put aack on the counselors time but also send us back out to the community trying to bring resources I could just make um one comment please I would say for the people that the students that won't get any use out of this are are

156are lucky um but the students who need this service um it's really immeasurable the kind of difference that it can make um on that level from working in healthcare and talking from a healthcare perspective um social determinants of Health are a huge push in healthcare because you're really just trying to meet people where their biggest needs are um and this from a preventative standpoint is trying to make an impact before Things become a bigger issue so if we can flag students that are having attendance issues or grade issues um and get some intervention there and and like we've said multiple times the intervention is not done without parental involvement um that goes a long way in helping that student overcome whatever those issues are and I think if we're looking for something um at like

157from a cost benefit analysis for the little bit amount of money that we're going to be spending um I think the the benefit way outweighs that little bit of a cost um for those people that are that really truly need the services so would hope that when you make your vote you understand that we've worked with this institution for a number of years successfully um it's obviously not as broad as maybe we would want it to be so we're pulling it back to the area of greatest need at this school at a highly reduced cost um so just that's it I just want to add that you know I've heard several times about food availability for students and backpacks and stuff like that and we already have a program for that we have this program

158called Helping Hands and every building has a coordinator for that and unless I'm misunderstanding they're all the guidance counselors anyways including Dr Meyers and some of the the work that they provide according to you know the information here is clothing meals and food school supplies and uniforms backpacks book bags rental utility financial assistance employment opportunities um bed and blanket assistance Christmas cards uh mentoring Services mental health services medical services I mean this is all stuff that we're already providing through the guidance counselors and you know h honestly if students are struggling with schoolwork that should be a discussion between the student and the teacher and the parents as to how to properly get that student back up to where they need to be involving somebody as Miss Hoffman had said that doesn't have a day-to-day

159contact with the students and doesn't really fully understand where the students are coming from is a lot more difficult than people in the building that are already here we're already paying for that already know what the students going through now sometimes they don't know what the students going through too because you know kids don't like to talk about some of the issues because they don't want to get bullly or left out or whatever so we just need to express to the students that you know don't sit here and struggle there is help available and you know if they want to come privately and talk to one of the guidance counselors the teacher the building principal whoever then they need to be able to understand they have that option and you know I I like I

160said I just yeah we kind of have a little control over what they say and do but do we really when they're one toone with the students not really we don't know what's going on until the student goes back to the parents and says hey they said this now now it's too late so you know I I think we need to look at other other avenues and just move on have we had any complaints from parents we have not and and what is the frequency with which uh this individual is typically engaging with the students and how often are they in the building they're in the building every day they're 100% full it's a full-time person in building and the uh frequency of Engagement depends on the student um some of their most frequent students

161it's daily um and that's everything from maybe a formal meeting to just casual stop in um but you know it it varies based on student there are there are students on the cas there's a data engagement so these people really are embedded within the school Community they're every day talking to students every day and they actually do know the students extremely well um know the parents know all of the family members um to be able to supp the the broader ecosystem on that child for students on the cas yeah again I I would Advocate very strongly we we are talking about $7,500 to support children who are most in need with their parents approval um they are not they have zero influence over any curriculum you know if if parents want this support if we've

162had zero concerns I mean this this is an absolute no-brainer from my perspective so um you know I thank you for clarifying these several of those questions there but it it sounds like it's been highly successful year overy year um and I serly advocate and we'll hope that we continue forward I some questions and comments so um and this is correct me if I'm wrong but there are multiple organizations that do similar such things as comedian schools so comedian schools is not the only option for us don't for so of those other options that we have that do the same thing um do they not receive grant funding so in other words is community in schools the only one that's getting funding to put us in a position to help us out so other other

163people do the same thing don't get funding I'd have to explore it and some of it comes down to their yeah their ability to secure grants like that so I don't um I would have to explore that so that hasn't been explored yet it's just no we have this partnership with I mean so and we they've been successful in Partnerships in getting the funding so no I haven't sure um so it sounds like their so from their web page that they believe that transformative relationships are key to unlocking a students potential and it sounds like you know being in the building that's that's the idea so so it's it's largely mentoring um so I think like as far as I'm concerned I think this is it's it's almost a travesty that there's organizations like this

164that have um so definitively um not only broaden their goals but but made actually like the help of children the mentoring of children um a secondary thing and so like when I I didn't I didn't know what to think about this because it is it's it's really at affordable price and there's obviously a need but then when I started to read about it like in April 2021 uh communities and schools calls to renew focus on racial Justice and systemic change in America um and you know it's it's true IAL Justice will require fundamental change in our cultures laws policies behaviors and we must see it exercised in every institution in America it's committed to being part CIS is committed to being part of this movement for systemic change um I mean it's there's the the

165part of we think that transformative relationships are key to unlocking a student's potential like that's what we all agree with but then when there they're literally saying it's renewing its focus on racial justice so what what in essence what I found in Reading is that it certainly appears that CIS is going well you know the mentoring and helping kids is certainly important but how we do that is through this lens and so the actual helping kids becomes secondary to to a narrative or a Viewpoint or a particular lens and that's what I I have a a problem with because um there are other organizations out there that that do the same thing and they don't prescribe to anything specific um CIS put outs very very specific statements on their stance on January 7th 2021 very

166specific stance on June 1st 2020 um after very um political and divisive and uh things that that that really caused a lot of disruption around the whole entire country um so they they very much embedded themselves in this um which I find I just find I just find it unfortunate because you're we're we're faced with decisions like this now where we want we all agree we want the students to have helps and mentoring and relationships are great but I don't I just think so if what they're doing is they're we have they're building relationships they're following that from their website they're transformtive relationships and then how do they do it they integrate behaviors principles practices of Dei Endor strategies cultures and behavior as a result we break down immediate and systemic barriers to create a

167sustained equal outcomes and and again it's it's another thing where we get into this whole language where we discuss the equity policy and and how the the C tack would view for people who are in favor of it um they said well it's not it's equal opportunity and and so like this is even on the other side of that so it's they're they're in everything it's Equitable outcomes they're not saying Equitable opportunity they're saying Equitable outcomes and in order to get there it's it have to permeate every aspect of this so how I read this how I read all of their reports is we will we will fulfill our uh call to renew focus on racial Justice and St change and it's almost like disguised in helping kids and that's I mean it's it's unfortunate

168and maybe that's not the case and it sounds like it's not the case at all all we've experienced is having you know individuals in the building who want to help kids you know and with a genuine care and concern and and have you know had a positive impact on a group of kids in need remote step AR yeah and so I it's just I just feel like it's such an unfortunate byproduct where now we were using helping kids in order to to to further that so I I think what I am certainly in favor of is um connecting kids with the mentor situation that they need um I I reached out to one organization I know and I can share with the board that could be a possible alternative and Lead um and then there's

169another National um communities that care CTC is responsible for connecting um schools with these other um multiple agencies that that do these sort of things um and then they they kind of can even um build some of these other uh um like groups so if there's another group other than CIS that can help and they're not in this particular location you talk to CTC and they help make that happen so I have information on an existing agency that can help and one that is also a great lead on on the future way on how we can we can get the mentor the the relationship for kids without the focus quote unquote focus on racial Justice and systemic change that has to permeate everything so we have a yearslong relationship with an organization which has benefited

170children there have been no problems with it there's been none of the things that you're concerned about it sounds like we're looking for a problem we don't have a problem we have something that's helping kids and now a lot of what I'm hearing is a desire to take those supports away from those kids and those families and you know potentially start a new relationship with an organization that we don't know that we haven't worked with we don't know what sort of success they're going to have with these children and families and I I think it's I don't understand what you know it's kind of like if it's it ain't broke don't fix it you know it's definitely helping our kids I hate to see us take it away especially at the price point by years

171long though I thought we set three years yeah last year not everybody agreed with keeping them Bo but it has benefited children whether people agreed with it or not it benefit of children and causing problems or issues I'd like to to look at the evidence and what what the feedback is that we're hearing right so again we we have a recommendation from the administration we hear that it's helping children parents have an OP to write in it feels like this is becoming just a a politicized Talking Point again there there they have no control of curriculum they're not meeting with par with children without parents approval I agree this is it seems like we're you're explicitly trying to vote to take away services that are helping children with three yearlong relationships these children have built

172relationships with with this individual in the school and and I mean I was assured back in December oh we don't need the equity policy because we're already Equitable we're already looking out to provide students with all the support that they need and yet here we are at a a cheap $7,500 cost getting a full-time resource there is no way that we could assume that on July 15th we could just p pull this out pull this individual out who's been working for three years with families and expect that we'll to have a new a new partner who's received grant funding and and somebody in the door on the first day of school so I again I I really feel strongly that this is let's not take Support Services away from those who are most in need

173within our community I'm not saying to take support away from those in need I have said that we are already supplying a lot of those you can look at it on our website if you want um and that we have people in place already and if we got to look at maybe hiring somebody yeah it might be more it going to be more than 7,500 but I would rather pay potentially a Community member that money and paying some outside organization that you go to their website they speak kyly of stuff they do in alltown school district Bethlehem School District Easton School District what about foot toown School District Fleetwood school district and all the other smaller districts that they're supposed to be involved in too there's not a lot of talk there's the only talk

174you see is from the actual people who are in the buildings and that's it but all over their website they speak highly of all the city school districts you know like I said we're not saying to take stuff away we're already providing a lot of it and if there's stuff that we need to look at other avenues of providing that access and support then let's do it in house let's not have a National Organization in here telling us you know this is what this is how we will help you you know it's there there's other aves can we reasonably assume that this is someone who lives within our community who is showing up at the school every single day I mean I don't know where this person lives but they they're obviously within driving distance

175currently currently it is yes okay so it's somebody who's here every day it's a consistent known person do we have the ability if we have a concern with that individual that we could ask for a different placement from them yes okay so we can replace that person if we have any concern with them you know I it it again it feels like we are are directly impacting those who need it the most in a in a budget environment in which we're already dipping $700,000 into savings while we have millions and millions of dollars to be spent on school funding on school reconfiguration in future years I I can't fathom how we'd say let's take something that's not broken and put a 100,000 Plus on it by the time you have salaries and and um and

176benefits and again there's there's no way that we could say that we'd be providing the same support if we pull a full-time resource out of the school so I respect that we have our Helping Hands program that's great but that is not what we're talking about when we're talking about providing these targeted students with their parents approval with an extra layer of support to help support their educational outcomes yeah I'm I'm sure I mean I there there has to be value for them to have been here but I think at the end of the day to have this conversation from the perspective that no there's no other entity out there that can provide what community and schools provides I mean by that same logic you know every time there's a teacher that leaves or retires

177will never be able to find another teacher who can replace that teacher because of what they had established so is going to be a you know a limited amount of transition that's going to be involved with that but that's that's just simply I mean that comes with everything so hang on let me finish so so when we have these discussions I think it's probably most important for us to all recognize which I think we do that there is a need that needs to be met and if that is mentoring or through a regular support person then I would hope that we could get together and say hey you know what we need to support these kids in this way and if it means that it's going to be a little bit more expensive then maybe

178we may have to do that in order to make sure that we're helping kids over going no the only opportunity we have or the only way you can actually help kids is with employees through an organization that called Ren to focus on racial Justice and 67 J in America so if they're focused on this it's it's unfortunately polluting what should be this is what we're doing we're going to help kids and this is how we help kids we help them build um you know lasting relationships to make good decisions to become resilient instead of teaching them um from a perspective of you know you're a victim and um things that possibly might even be detrimental and I'm not saying the data shows that I'm just saying on the website that's their that's what their professed

179statements are so acknowledging the fact that it is it is there is probably value within this individual person and I and I can't take that away I can't say anything specific to that all I'm saying is it's unfortunate if we we have to go well the only way to help kids is if we help them through CIS which has these very very concerning statements which actually see to put helping kids lower so then Mr Tim chaden I'd recommend that over the course of the next school year over the course of the next 15 months we evaluate other vendors who can provide these types of services who can come to us with grant funding who can come to us and maybe even employ the same person who has built relationships you know in the school already

180because again we've heard zero concerns with this specific individual who is helping our students what I am concerned about is there is no way that in the next 35 days before school starts if we rip this person out that we will have something in its place so I don't really care if it's CIS or or another company I I don't care who it is but what I am passionate about is not taking Services away from these students at the absolute minimal cost of $7,500 for full-time employee so I fully support us us re-evaluating which vendor to use for the following school year and and if this was a again a sincere concern of let's try to get position for next school year then you know this should should have been brought up months and months

181and months ago right but I I it is an absolute travesty to think that we would pull this from these students for whom we've had extremely positive feedback 45 days before 35 days before this school year starts this is a one-year term contract is that correct that's what we're voting on that's I mean why don't we proceed with a vote but this is a direct vote to take Services away from children who need it 35 days from now don't worry about it I just want to make maybe two two comments I mean I think everybody shared a lot um and I think it's not a secret that I'm generally the one that pushes back against spending money and you know in this case I mean $7,500 is not a lot of money but I don't

182know that I would want to spend any money on an organization that is professing the way they are um one of the board members made a statement that she's concerned that we're making we're using political talking points to dissuade us we didn't make political talking points these political talking points are made by community at schools they've decided to become an activist organization over as Mr Wismer has stated over the importance of taking care of the children and that's the concern so I will be loaning them and I hope that we will find a better a better option I I just have to say that you know sure you can dig in and bring those statements out and we all know that your perspective on racial Justice is what it is but they're yes they said

183words like we want to renew our focus on on things like that it doesn't mean that that is now our sole Focus like if you look at their website and their main things that they do and they say it is absolutely about supporting the kids and it's absolutely caring about the kids and you know so I I don't think it's accurate that their focus is about something other than the support of the HS their main ni and end gold they've been pretty public about where they stand on this and you know if even one kid is affected by the fact that he's now called the victim and that affects that person's life and that's a negative we have had zero incidents or complaints or concerns in the last three years no control we we have

184full control if we hear a complaint we can have that individual replaced um someone said their pece are we ready to vote s please Daniel Wismer no laurl Ziggler yes Michael P yes Reba Hoffman no Cecilia hul yes Jeremiah light no Dennis dishas no Jason cck no motion does not VAR item K is the 2024 2025 K is Declassified pay scale it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approved the 2024 2025 classified employees pay scale Cy attached do we have a motion move second second Motion in a second do we have any questions or comments on this agenda it right none Mr H call please Laurel Ziggler uh yes Michael H yes RBA Hof yes Celia Hall yes Jeremiah light yes deny dishes yes Daniel whisper yes Jason yes

185tion teres um H is Introduction of new business by board members um I'll lead off after that mran please proceed and find any other organization that um replace uh CIS with values that we all agree on I would like to see something in house because that's that's where we get into these discussions we have these out for days if we would have an organization where their agenda is you know we believe in the definition of marriage we believe in the definition of genders we believe in this we would be having the opposite conversation so I believe we need to to go in house with this because there's too many organizations out there that we know they have their own agendas and the only the only downsides in houses it's the most expensive op because of

186P that's all that's yeah well when an organization is raising their own funds to me that sends a red flag too um so I like like you're saying I'd rather pay more I you know and I think parents $95,000 worth what was that $95,000 worth that what it cost if they don't have an agenda you know I I would like to see actual list of everything that CIA was providing at the middle school level because I mean to me like I said we're already providing a lot of what they claim they providing number one and you know anything that we're currently not offering I'd like to get a handle on and see you know why we're not offering that or can we get it from some other you know if we have to go with

187a different organization then so be it but you know it's just want to clar that the Helping Hands document that um Dr Myers put together that was also inclusive I think some services that Comm schools was offering he developed that document it either offered or supported you know for example like the um backpack program something that they administered at the middle school again not to say it could happen another way but that just was with with a full-time person we definitely used that we use that time wisely to help supports in those programs there's there's other organizations that provide the similar Services too but but not within 45 days I I mean again the the heing hands program will be slashed in half when we talk about removing that that full-time person it it you

188know the history of bringing this need into our schools is because of the drug and alcohol abuse that we see in our area in Rural and and urban communities throughout throughout the country so you know when Kut toown strong an extremely well-respected local organization focused on helping children who are at risk to receive the services and support that they need they they have worked to bring in and and help structure and they've committed dollars of their own program and you know again it it just is is heartbreaking to me that those children who need it the most we have now stripped but you know the ability again for them to get food to take home on the weekends for the for all of these these support systems that were run by this individual I I

189mean can we put it back up for vote again with a a a addendum that we will re-evaluate other vendors this upcoming year that could we get some some more commentary from you know on on how much of the Helping Hands program was supported through this individual uh it could be brought up for a vote um if another board member would introduce um introduce that um if you want to request that Mr chatton provides that information for to be provided at another time you can do that as well um you have to be a board member that voted no communities and schools to reintroduce it I encourage any of you if if you're ser about helping students to put this back on the agenda let's give them direction that by next year we want a

190different vendor in here let's ask some questions as far as how much of the Helping Hands is supported by this individual but it it seems again there's this is um unfortunately not a conversation that has actually focused on the students um we I would also kind of like to keep this like to factual stuff so I mean we have teachers we need to hire before the coming school year we're we're not you know going oh my gosh we're not going to have teachers you know I mean like possibly we have some situations that we need to look at whatever but it's very few and far between that we run into these issues so the history would show that the likelihood of finding a replacement is pretty good and it may I I might be wrong

191and we don't know that I think theih of finding replacement is not is reasonably good it's just it will be more expensive I mean that's that's where I think and by by the first day of school I it's not it's certainly not impossible it's not impossible I mean it's just at a at a cost that is significantly different to $7,500 I have again I can't give a probability to it but it is not impossible um because it's about but we're not going I do not think it is possible to find a similar service at that cost could could we get some more clarity on how much of the Helping Hands program was supported and administered by this individual yeah it's really hard to say the purpose of the Helping Hands program is to pull all

192the resources together our high school counselors our elementary nurse I mean the list goes on and all as far as different a che program in the high school that's another piece to it CIS is a piece to it so what that what that one page and what the name of Helping Hands is to allow us to do is the resources and to show the elements that we do provide to students and then figure out a way to get those resources to students in the best so rather than having all these pockets of help um continuing with pockets of but pulling it together in approprate so this was the first this past school year was the first year that we did that next step is to is to just build it as much as we can

193that's that's building sponsorships with businesses and getting businesses involved and expanding what we do but also from the from the start knowing exactly what we do I'll give you an example her Fair child the Middle School tremendous things during U winter season and Thanksgiving and U that's another piece to so we have all these pieces that are out there I can't quantify the piece of CIS and what exactly that is from the percentage standpoint it's an element it's an element um you know we had had a worker here at the high school we had a worker at the middle school again it's just an element of The Helping Hands concept so what we will do you know we going to Mo for and keep building that build in different [Music] ways all all the different

194entities I know that doesn't really answer the question because I don't have that answer I don't have a fire that and I mean for our moving forward if there's you know nothing changes from here tonight you will both our time attention to seeing what other options there are before the next board know which again I don't think it's I don't think it's impossible but it will be it would be at a much hard Ed could I ask you to put together so we want to help children could you put together where you think that those things are going to fall what are the things that like Laurel is saying kids aren't going to eat now over the weekend if that is something that CIS did provide could you send all us board members a list

195because I do want to help and you know if that's something that I as a board member can be like hey I I can find a church that would sponsor I I'd like to do that and that's part of the effort you Community Resources churches businesses you know who can who can help us increase and expand this effort so that's how we're going to save money too rather than than having somebody in the school if B board members know of an organization that can help provide for backs you know Ras might want to sponsor the backpack this year or I I do if if things are G to fall through the are going to get neglected because we're getting rid of this then I'd like to as a board member get a list of those

196things so that they don't get neglected and they clarify again we start you know talking down past like helping Harvest is the backpack program it is not twers and schools doesn't provide the food for us they just administered it for us because that's that's the challenge is even when there's resources who's doing it on a consistent basis you know that and and obviously that was a it was a natural place for it we what will be missing is that eighth grade student who has known someone and worked with someone for two years and their families know and trust them they they feel like they can connect and get the support that they need and they'll now walk into school on the first day of school and that person will not be there so I mean

197that is what it is but they do have Miss white and they will continue to have Miss white and they will and Miss White will be there for years to come hopefully but Miss White is one person you cannot reasonably expect that the work that two full-time people were doing will be able to be replaced by one person so it is what it is and if no one wants to put forward a a new motion that recommends that we do this in a more thoughtful manner rather than just strip out the services from our students but actually plan for it and change vendors you know over time I I still encourage any of you to move forward with that motion it's unfortunate Community Schools did things in a more thoughtful manner than they've done we

198won't be in this situation they they supported us for three years with no issues does anybody else have any other uh new business Inu I just have um one comment to make um I know I've heard in the past that schools need to just get back to focusing on ABCs and one 123s um but I think our conversation here makes it readily apparent that schools do a lot more than just reading and writing and math um that they're involved in a whole gamut of things that are outside of just teaching kids letters and numbers um and it sounds like we all agree on that because at some level we want the school to be doing a lot of extra things so um I Come Away with one positive it's that we at least kind of

199all agree that we do have a higher mandate than just Teaching letters and numbers to our students and um I really hope that we try our best to meet those mandates Mr C I hate to do this because it's 10:30 and I know everybody probably wants to leave but when you read your statement to the uh community in the beginning um I think there's a word in there at the end that says you can deem it's relevance or something like that like when they're allowed to talk um interrupt or terminated been statement when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abuse of obscene or irrelevant yeah maybe in a future meeting since it's 10:30 at night I think the word irrelevant is very um subjective um I think that's all of the other descriptors I

200think fall right in line with what is our normal decorum but I think and I've heard Mr King say in previous meetings that you know how do you determine what's relevant and I think that's a valid point think we should consider maybe weing relevant in a future meeting is that based on so relevant again usually relates to agenda items if you're not speaking to agenda items in that specific section because you have two sections that would wear usually where it comes into play however you know we generally I I recommend a more permissive view on public speech um but again all of those items are are supported by la not that you can't change we just updated that policy mons AG maybe Mr King I just agree with was St nobody should be able to

201determine what's relevant because you making a statement and freedom of speech I agre somebody at home is wondering why you're out so yeah thata should be more permissible like as far as you know your speech um I just want to say that also we have to worry about safety and um now the nurses are being a Shar both middle schools I think they should have one nurse per building or medical profession per building um anything that happen with KS they can choke they can fall they get asthma attack you know things can happen when you need medical attention like this um so we need to look at getting a medical professional and age Builder I believe has one we have a we have a certified school nurse which is like a Pennsylvania Department had like

202a teaching degree school nurse in two of our buildings one at the high school one it could elementary school but at middle school and at Greenwich Elementary we have we call a staff nurse and they all are lpn's and they just are not certified School nurses so we do have an LPN in every at least an LPN in every Bill okay and also uh as far as safety uh I was brought to my attention by a parent that they stated that there's a lot of cars that pass through there speeding um I don't know if we can have develop a relationship with the state police as I believe that they have the jurisdiction but I want to make sure that maybe we can get some type of uh speed par uh odometer there that that

203way people know that they passing a school zone where they shouldn't be speeding maybe they can get tickets out some something to deter them um and also if there's an a medical emergency or uh stranger or some Intruder um we don't know what the what the reaction time would be for them somebody to get there and what's the protocol regarding that so I just think that we need to be more proactive when it comes to that and um instead of reactive and waiting for something to happen first so we work with our local burough police frequently um the response time for here to the build here to the campus is three minutes it's like maybe a little more than three minutes um green witch is a little bit longer obviously because it's State Police territory

204in the state the average is seven minutes um if it was a we identified it as the worst typee of emergency C police would respond C University respond but we have about a three minute response time for for put down bro police um and coincidentally had a very similar conversation with Chief clear about he brought it up about um speed the speed in the school zone um one of the last days of school so we talked about you know having some public uh education series on that so that's just a coincidence that he brought it up as well and um I know and I know had disagreement some certain things but I totally agree with what she's saying the school year is about to start and kids are already expecting the help and they're not

205g to have that when they start the school year that's very critical that somebody doesn't have the food necessary to survive over the weekend and also you know everybody has their own beliefs and things like that but they shouldn't be held because of what they believe so if they if they Republican or Democrat they shouldn't we shouldn't use their services and things like that it doesn't make sense and you know statistic show that there is systemic racism no that's factual that's not something that we just make it up you said Reverse Racism maybe that's there some cases where there is revers racism what I'm saying is overall if there's somebody that's providing services for $7,500 and I know I used to work at a school system I know the importance of having somebody there kid

206trust they can go to I used to work for the school system I was abent one day what did a kid do go around every to look for somebody for help I wasn't there if she went home and killed herself because she didn't feel comfortable talking to anybody else with me and that's one of the reasons that I left the school system because I didn't want that pressure on me that I was the go-to person for everything so it's very critical you think about that and and I agree with Missler that somebody should put another vote on the table because in the school when the school starts and the parents are in desperate need for food for the weekend and it's not going to be there that's very critical one person one family that doesn't

207have one too many so I'll close on that note and I appreciate you allowing me to speak thank you Mr K upcoming public meeting and informative dates August 5th is a workshop school board meeting 7:30 here in the high school library and by Zoom August 12th through the fing curriculum committee meetings and the facilities and extracurricular committee meeting um policy in breim is at 6 PM in d17 and by Zoom 700 p.m follows for the facilities and extra curricular committee and then 19 we have another uh monthly meeting back here in the library and by zo with that I'd be looking for a motion to adjourn second all in favor