001okay i'd like to call tonight's meeting to order would everyone rise pledge allegiance to the flag i pledge allegiance to america i'd like to thank everyone for coming tonight there is a log in the back if you haven't done so would you please sign in if you have anything in particular that you would like to bring to the board's attention please also write that down if at any time during the meeting you would like to mention something on an agenda item please raise your hand to be recognized after the normal business there is also a time for public comment where you can bring up additional issues this meeting is being recorded and i would like to announce that there was an executive session before tonight's meeting in order to discuss personnel matters and with that
002roll call please ricky michelle batts here randy birch here al darian yeah aaron angle here michael hass here cecilia holt here jason here jeremiah light here dennis ritter here okay and uh first for us tonight is approval of the minutes of the february 7 2022 school board meeting do i have a motion so moved second bitter seconds second do we have any uh questions or corrections for the school board meeting minutes for february 7th 2022 uh hearing none roll call please yes al darian yes aaron engel yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes jason cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes randy birch yes motion carries next item item four is the treasurer's report mr miller thank you mr burch this is the treasurer's report for january 2022. the month began with a cash
003balance of fourteen million seven hundred fifty five thousand one hundred forty two dollars and thirty 38 cents we had receipts of 964 828 dollars and 39 cents paid bills and payroll and transferred money to investment of six million four hundred ninety three thousand three hundred forty eight dollars and eighty seven cents leaving us with a cash balance on at the end of the month of nine million two hundred twenty six thousand six hundred twenty one dollars and ninety cents uh thank you mr miller do we have a motion to approve the ritter moves second any questions or comments on the treasurer's report yes aaron angle yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes jason cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis redder yes michelle batts yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is approval of bills
004for payment first section 5a ratification for general account including manual checks in the amount of five million three hundred eighty nine thousand two hundred eighty nine dollars and do we have a motion second motion in a second any questions or comments regarding the ratification of bills for payment uh hearing none roll call please aaron angle yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes jason yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes yes aldarian yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is 5b approval of payment of bills from the for a general account in the amount of and 92 cents do we have a motion ritter moves second motion in a second uh any questions or comments uh regarding the approval of bills for payment hearing none roll call please michael hass yes cecilia holt yes jason
005cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle batts yes hi darian yes aaron engel yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is uh 5c ratification of bills for payment for the construction account in the amount of do we have a motion so moved a motion do we have a second second any questions regarding the uh ratification of bills for payment for the construction account a hearing none roll call please cecilia holt yes jason cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle batts yes al darian yes aaron angle yes michael hess yes randy birch yes motion carries next item 5d approval of bills for payment from the construction or for the construction account in the amount of 81 19.53 do we have a motion so moved motion second second motion in a second
006any questions or comments uh regarding the approval of the bills repair production account uh hearing none roll call please jason yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle batts yes aldarian yes aaron engel yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item six communication and reports and the first is the superintendent's report future city i am david attenborough the sun well we'd like to welcome and the middle school future city team uh here to share a little bit about their experiences and their vision are we video first um so the future city program is one of the programs we have at the middle school that's available to all students and challenges it do more and go above and beyond what the regular classes offer so for future city
007specific specifically they're challenged to design the city 100 years in the future and so they start off by researching and looking into cutting edge technology right now and then they take those ones they can fit together for their project and project them 100 years into the future and so we look 100 years in the past and see how much thing and then they try to do that going forward they have to incorporate all those different systems and ideas into an infrastructure of their city and then they have to prepare that for the judges so the model is kind of the showy piece that represents their city and their ideas they also write an essay that has infographics and different information to share their vision that way with the judges and they prepare a presentation typically
008the presentation they have to perform live in front of the engineer judges at the competition two years it's been a virtual competition so we film it and edit and prepare the video and send it in that way so if you'll indulge us for a few minutes we'll let you guys of the presentation for the judges and then you can talk to the team and i've been given the once in a lifetime experience to be able to see the thought to be i'm a local resident with first-hand knowledge of life in this city and nearly over the infrastructure of the city before we continue let's learn about this amazing waste-free city why is it that the kelpies were able to join us again yes we would love to know why first of all we are the
009city of ustadaikasha berkshire meaning austrian mountain lake and if you can't infer from our name our city is not so what is it that makes this city is so important in today's world the 20th uh-huh i heard that many other cities have been inspired by this very city it's very interesting really well stop now for starters we were one of the first completely waste free cities a way to get rid of practically all waste made from energy production food processing manufacturing transportation municipal waste and just about anything you can imagine even our buildings the ziggurats are made from bamboo grown right here in the city i see so how do you produce clean and renewable energy you do use renewable energy right uh-huh they use hydrogen fuel cells along with wind turbines made from bamboo
010i heard on the news yesterday the city was one of the highlights of the clean and efficient energy the city is the second best student to take over first that's right we use some of the the latest and most innovative forms of clean energy we have more than just clean energy we also one of the cleanest cities in the universe even wind colony we have negated all hazardous waste and found other uses for things like municipal waste plastic waste and should there be anything that could not have another use we've negated all reasons to have said waste be a possibility this great city has gotten rid of all forms of waste that a city could create they have done this in three simple steps first they found other sources of things such as textiles which
011they replaced with items made from renewable resources on a second that's not the order from the script first we educated the people on how we would make a better city then sorry i'll be quiet now as i was saying they replaced the need of wasteful products with renewable resources reduced or eliminated the need of non-reusable products such as plastic water bottles and found uses for some forms of waste like poop sorry municipal waste contaminated water and more municipal waste is used as a fertilizer while dirty water through a process called reverse osmosis and then reuse that's correct now i've heard that everyone lives in these great cigars which are an astounding 160 feet tall with eight levels a little more than half of liberty oh can i take this one please you're an expert on
012general infrastructure so i don't see why not general infrastructure is a great topic thank you so the cigarettes are our residential community buildings this is where people live in our city with a capacity of five thousand people at least come comfortably each town a community within an entire building there are anywhere between sixteen hundred and two thousand families in each there are eight floors in each cigarette each with its own use residential commercial shopping schooling and food courts are just a few uses for them there's even a small level dedicational purposes this whole area is essentially a gym with walk paths and everything you would want to fill your extra time even a cool down area and a relaxing garden residents lives are made easy by conveniently having an entire town's needs and services in
013one single area such as healthcare education police and firemen it gets better than that though the exterior of the ziggurats is home to magnificent gardens that help provide clean energy to the community and fresh food to the kitchen so you have these wonderful ziggurats but how are they powered for a whole community how are you able to efficiently sustain the energy intake well i decided to look into that myself as it was said earlier they use hydrogen fuel cells also known as hfcs which are a cheap and amazing source of all it uses is hydrogen and abundant element and water its own hfc to power and sustain it and now it's time to talk to our sponsor you ever wondered how to get a distant ziggurat without the long walk then consider using our gondolas
014this turkey can get you from point a to point b in no time at all and best of all the view you get a wonderful view of the mountains and the city even the great lake as you can quickly and safely get to your destination or if you walk we have beautiful pathways that are kept in peak condition and always available are you new to our city do you need a job position well we may have just that for you in our city we have many spots to fill primarily though we need engineers meeting numerous different types to support the many means of our cities such as agriculture and food engineering to produce and distribute all the food you might eat civil engineers to develop wells bridges and dams transport water and even more electrical
015and instrumental engineers to develop and build the gondolas environmental engineers to make sure we can keep the environment as clean and natural as we can traffic engineers have designed the roots of the gondolas mechanical engineers and so many more but those are just a few of the options please have a great day in our city so how did you use in process to help construct this magnificent city oh oh i know this one so they started out identifying the problems in this case how they could eliminate waste then we did research on how to accomplish this and how other people might have done this because of course we don't need to reinvent the wheel did you then think about the different possibilities for solutions obviously did you then plan by working even further on a
016solution then did you make a prototype for the solution so that later on you can test it and develop the model to fulfill its potential well calm down but yes and then for every little problem you can also use the engineering design process and you can do this for however long you need to solve every problem and have the best design you can so all of this combined was enough to restore the environment so the calpers were able to come back from what we thought to be extinction what do you mean bringing the cubbies back we're just coming up on the newly built kelpie statue honoring the myth of the lake are cities we're built upon i am david uh okay so [Applause] all right so i think these guys are a little bit nervous
017but um that was the presentation part that they put together and they worked very hard from august up through january when we competed if you guys have any questions for them about their their city or what they learned or what they enjoyed i'm sure we can get some volunteers to answer them not so much a specific question about your city but just if you can describe a little bit of the process of how you arrived at the solutions collectively as a group so most often [Music] overcome problems as a group is that we would bring all the different topics together at the end of a meeting then we'd kind of vote on it as like a panel kind of sort of thing so that's really how we dis things for our city originally we were
018going to have a deer to farm deer but we brought that to the group and we ended up scrapping that because really that isn't very productive and it brought a lot of laughs at the time but overall like we had almost no problem actually needed to go into our city and deciding how we implemented that um so starting out we just come together and we get our prompt and we have a lot of ideas just bouncing around on like what we should do where it should be um what's word i'm looking for um sources thank you uh different energy sources all that and so like andrew said we come together and we vote on everything because we don't want anyone to have an idea that isn't heard or shared so at the end of each
019meeting we would all come together and we would talk about what we had researched or learned about that day and we would basically give each person time to share what they know or learned and we would make the best of it some ideas got thrown out like said dear wheel and other ideas got incorporated or adapted to fit better into our city thank you india i'll agree it's definitely student-led in their decisions and a lot of times when they're researching and brainstorming those kind of silly crazy absurd ideas kind of get traction because they're fun for a while but then they all do kind of come around to yeah we can't really sell that to a bunch of engineers and they go for more realistic solutions um as a group so yeah um thank you
020all right thank you how did the competition take place this year was it all virtual or did they do any in person it was virtual again this year um the last two years and so they have a zoom session and so we all gathered here at the middle school and joined the zoom together so we got to be together as a team and kind of interact as a team with it um i do look forward to it's usually at the pa state museum and so you have the whole museum filled with 30 or 40 of these cities all set up and all the schools there and they can walk around and kind of talk to other teams and what did you do and what ideas did you have that's the biggest part that we've missed
021out in the last two years so yeah that's hopefully that comes back yeah so thinking you know they're another a whole different set of skills to produce the video than to do the presentation i guess you know so it's looking at it a completely different way still i watched the video earlier today so it wasn't until we started watching it this evening that the background was the future city i just didn't i was too busy watching the students but thinking about it from a film standpoint um and dubbing over the the audio is just a series of skills that you wouldn't have worked on otherwise yeah they they green screened it and then filmed clips inside the city to put in the background there yes how did you work on your script to fit in
022the certain areas that you needed to cover okay so working on the script we essentially so to actually explain that you have to kind of explain how we did our research and we did that by having several small groups research things that interested them on certain areas of the city energy food production transfer and then we had members from those groups actually come together to work on the script and had everyone read over it so that when it came time to filming the information was accurate from all the groups and then we had the information we needed and that was it yeah i can speak from experience that in past years not everyone was communicating because i was a backup last year so i was also part of script this year and it was certainly
023a struggle because last year we started working on the script before everything else was so peop like people in other groups would change things and they wouldn't communicate to the script and then we would have information down that we were planning on like saying and then we'd come together at the end of the day and people are just like that's not right like you got to change that and so this if new information was added we made conversations so that all the groups knew about it and that the script could be updated so that it was all correct awesome thank you just yeah the collaboration skills that were necessary to execute are impressive so it was just a wonderful job thank you who came up with the accent i think that started with tauren he
024realized he could do david attenborough and then it just kind of bloomed from there yeah thank you all for sharing your experience it sounds like it was very rewarding and you did a great job very proud thank you thank you for having us thank you great job thank you mr ashford just a few other items on the good news um we kept the good news a little shorter this week we knew we were having our guests can almost promise every month we will have visual arts accomplishments the national arctic education association named a few winners of awards this month the youth art month height art youth art month is a month by the national art education association to honor student artists and the youth art month high school flag contest winner was emily bray and
025her flag will be displayed this year throughout pennsylvania that is the largest image there with the skeletons in mr hoffman's classroom the exhibition had several winners from cote center high school emily bray dynasty dear off flicker and carly hilbert will represent coat stonery high school this year at the youth art month exhibit so congratulations to our visual art mr hoffman as always in addition to our entire visual arts department the all county jail forms at the burks jazz fest with an opportunity to work with professional jazz musician our high school audition winners were joanna hurlin for trumpet kelly libby on trumpet will randall on trombone and alex konapelski on the bass trombone and this past weekend the jazz band performed the steel stacks jazz competition um they received an excellent rating and won the best
026trombone section and best trombone alex kanipelski so congratulations to mr shirk and the jazz man jazz ensemble for their recognition and unified bocce unified bocce team finished their season undefeated last week for the regular season defeated hamburg in a sudden death frame which came down to the last role to determine the winner they have become the bocce the berks county bocce cardiac kids the last three matches i believe came they were down big and came back to win and then just this afternoon over at the high school gymnasium they won their league championship and we'll move on to a regional competition uh so in the second year the unified bocce team had phenomenal success congratulations to all team members and mrs tenney and mrs berger for their coaching if anybody has not been to one
027of those events in the future you have to get them on they're just just exciting and great to see the students performing on that level a great deal of athletics accomplishments to share as a recap the next board meeting once all of our seasons are complete but congratulations to all our student athletes and artists both visual and performing arts on always representing kutztown at the highest levels that's our good news for this meeting thank you mr tim chachin and this uh congratulations to our art students our musicians and the bocce our students continue to excel and represent the district in so many great ways next uh item is our student representative uh report uh ms wood um no students have reached out to either cooper or i but i just want to say congratulations to
028all the students who participate in all these um after school activities it's always fun watching the vacci team play their sports they get so excited the crowd most definitely gets excited with them thank you there's a lot of drama watching a large ball roll closer to a small ball right like it's just it's unless you're there you don't understand kind of like curling it it is i guess perfect timing for winter olympics uh next item is our board uh committee reports uh first would be uh extra or actually yeah actually uh extracurricular and facilities uh committee uh ms bass yes the committee met last week and we had quite an agenda um so the first item that we discussed was a feasibility study proposal which you'll see as a recommendation agenda um there's been ongoing
029discussions just about utilization of the space that we have within the district and the infrastructure um the study will enable us to get a better sense of how we can better use our space what opportunities we have for changes and some recommendations with regards to the maxitoni building which currently houses the administration just given some of the costs associated with the yearly maintenance trying to make the right financial moves for the district to set us up for future success um so that is on the agenda for approval we also discussed let me see here the high school so we learned that there are actually multiple master keys and there's a project to try to reduce the number of keys that we have so while this is on hold for quotes i think it's it's a
030really important project because the the master keys are available for the police officers if if there is an emergency situation so that they can access and you can imagine an emergency you don't want five different keys that you have to try to sort through to get the right one open for a wing on the high school so while it is going to be fairly cost so we just we worth the time invested to look into those options the agenda for tonight but it's an ongoing discussion as well the music storage update was provided by mr lobenstein so we were able to see a sample of those cabinets but we are waiting on quotes so this is to replace all of the print lockers that are in the hall in the band area which have certainly
031seen better days then we talked about the middle school gym entrance and some of the deterioration of the flooring at that stairwell and to replace that that again is also waiting for quotes on the agenda one item that you will see is the replacement of a van so van number 10 has 175 000 miles it's 20 years old and it won't pass the next next inspection um and so we have given mr lovenstein and the administration we've made the recommendation and you see that on the agenda unfortunately now is not the time to be buying a vehicle but we don't have a choice because the vans do get used on a daily basis and are important part of the transportation program so we did we were looking for approval tonight to allow them to purchase
032another van to replace van number 10 not to exceed 60 000 our hope is that it will not cost that much but we just given current um the industry prices we just don't know and it absolutely needs to be replaced on the agenda you will also see diversified refrigeration so this particular service contract is in regards to um air co boilers um i believe i have the right now wait do i have the right one yes aircrew boilers um so we proposed on the agenda to move forward with a five-year contract for that maintenance excuse me also on the agenda you'll see an item for the guardian boiler loop service committee after hearing the recommendations um is suggesting that we do approve that this particular service company to provide quarterly service for our boilers and
033we are going to pursue seeing if that can possibly be a multi-year contract contracts that we discussed brenda will be johnson controls and also um hvac so you'll hear more about those in future meetings and the last item for facilities there was a question regarding the lights on the american flags each of the buildings and while all lights are present and working they needed some adjustment and the borough of kutztown electric department has offered to bring their bucket help to get everything aligned properly so that the flags are appropriately illuminated on to extracurricular um we did have uh some updates from mr yapszuga so he provided updates on each of the the teams that had sort of wrapped up already some hadn't the debate team was second in league competition in semifinals um the rifle
034team we had participation by emma road and shelby vasquez in the championships that was this weekend we had ethan miller in bowling at oley in the berks county single championship three swimmers were competing for a last chance swim to make district championships the unified bache as mr tim chattan already discussed the high school wrestling double a sectional tournament at central dauphin um was being held and of course we had the boys basketball game last evening um so that was the other item that he had brought up in terms of just the full run but i always feel like we get quite a bit of information at the committee meetings that's maybe not as broadly shared so i just i wanted to make sure that those items were highlighted thank you and specifically to yes emma
035rhodes and shelby percap baskerats were at the 2022 pa interscholastic high school three position small bore and precision air rifle state championship this weekend but as of this morning we were still waiting on final results okay so they were there this weekend we'll find ourselves all right and then the last item that mr episode could provide an update on was a an alternate location possibly being necessary for the boys tennis team promax was starting on work on the tennis courts but the season was only three weeks away as of last week so now it's two weeks away um and so he was reaching out both to the university and possibly to brandywine to see if we could have use of their courts so that the boys tennis team could start practice on time until our
036courts are completed all i have to report and work continues on the tennis courts we're still optimistic that they'll be ready to go for the start of the season awesome thank you michelle the policy and curriculum uh ms hull thank you mr birch the policy portion of the meeting we had on our agenda to review policy 005 but there was some inconsistencies between what was provided for our documentation and what we were supposed to discuss so there's no action on that and that will come back at a future policy meeting and then for revision we have policy 101 mission statement that's bringing us in to line with our revised mission statement from the current comprehensive plan um policy 201 admissions which clarifies our kindergarten admission process and policy 610 and 611 um which were updated
037um having to do with the state changing um the bid thresholds which they do each year so those are all on for first reading this evening and then um mr hadley presented to us about a trip to germany which we were hoping to recommend to the full board this evening but unfortunately there are some logistical concerns there so that consideration will be put off until the following year um we heard about a hoped for partnership with usu berks which um i i think it's awaiting grant approval would provide a key to have some specialized equipment for our students to use mr timchat and did you want to say anything more about that yeah it's an equipment it's there is a great need for increasing the workforce in the automation industry and penn state berks is
038partnering with school districts to provide some equipment that would just give our students if they are taking one of the courses in our technology education program at the high school would have access to some cad design and automation equipment that would just give them a sort of a glimpse into what that could be on the programs that they will be offering at penn state perks so for us it's a partnership a grant partnership that at no cost we get some equipment to provide kids access to that type of work thank you uh and then our final item for the curriculum agenda mrs devlin our new curriculum director uh presented a plan for a curriculum council which would give an opportunity for a room and some professional development on some of the elements of curriculum um
039all to support our mission and vision so [Music] she will be continuing her work on that and that completes my report thank you cecilia any uh report mr miller for burke's tcc no there was no meeting burke's career and technology center uh mr yes thank you uh the primary focus of the last uh meeting was actually on the uh the proposed operating budget uh for the next year um it's proposed it's not finalized yet so this is just uh an expectation at this point they are going to be seeking a 2.8 uh increase uh to their budget um now our shares proportionate value of 3.84 based upon our three-year average of enrollment there which is 54 and a third so they will be looking for an additional 20 000 um from kutztown for uh the
040next year which would put us at up from 523 277. those are rough figures at this point um but it i'd expect that they're going to be seeking something very similar to that thank you mr next on our list is the berks county intermediate unit dr ritter for those who may not be aware this is the 50th year 50th anniversary for the berks county intermediate unit and so we spent we've presentations around different aspects of the program that the bciu oversees um and this month we spent time hearing from some of the employees and and what it's meant to them to be able to work at bciu and the difference they feel they've made in students lives over or through their work we approved a memorandum of understanding and then a collective bargaining agreement with
041the service employees international unit uh local 668 run through june 30th in uh again approved a number of hirings and there were several terminations unfortunately as well this time and in addition as a typical variety of agreements that were ratified during the meeting that night but the big news is um bciu is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year happy anniversary to the iu thank you dr ritter is the pa school board association uh ms holt i have nothing for psbi this month okay thank you and that is everything for our board and committee report next seven public comment on agenda items and we have one person that has signed up for that jerry seaver no one else has signed up for comment on on agenda items is there anyone online that wish to speak about
042an agenda item uh dr myers that uh i would move to new business uh personnel um and handling that uh i want to do number a1 on the list uh separate and by itself and then we can do the remainder so the first is personnel item a1 the acceptance with regret of the retirement of mr david miller business administrator effective june 30th 2022 looking for a motion so moved a second [Music] thank you uh mr light uh so uh we have a motion in a second any uh comments uh regarding the uh acceptance for the retirement of mr miller deep regret comes to mind in fact attempted to vote no he's done an amazing job i think over the years he's been here just looking at the the preparation of the budgets and the fact
043that we've economized but have not cut programs been a remarkable achievement just uh i think mr miller told me he's been here since uh 2008 he's going to leave some very big shoes for us to fill david i just want to give you a very sincere thank you for all the work you've done for the district you've done a great job and you're leaving us in excellent financial shape through all your hard work and just thank you yeah i would like to thank dave um you know appreciate it as a friend as a partner in you know building a budget and being a steward of the resources for the school district while operating a school of excellence that provides the best for our students and there's not many districts around that can speak to offering
044programs like we do and do so without this for as long as we have to many people but your leadership allows that to happen and we're in great shape not only for this budget but for budgets going forward as a result of your work but we'll miss you as a member of our team both professionally personally and uh but happy for you you know it's uh that's one of those things where as much as it makes me sad to think about going into the next year in budget season without you we'll be checking in to see how you're enjoying that time so thank you dave congratulations you're welcome thanks to all of you for the kind words it's been a pleasure being here any of this alone it's a great staff that i've had to
045work with so any other questions or comments can we get one more budget out of it yet 22-23 roll call please jeremiah light yes dennis ritter reluctantly yes michelle batts yes howdarian yes aaron angle yes yes cecilia holt yes jason yes randy birch yes motion carries and just thank you again dave for all you've done for the district [Applause] next item personnel we'll be doing uh part a numbers 2 through 9 and looking for a motion to approve those personnel positions ritter moves we have a motion second please second motion questions or comments regarding any of the personnel items roll call please dennis ritter yes michelle batts yes aldarius yes aaron engel yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes jason yes jeremiah light yes randy burch yes motion carries uh all personnel are approved pending
046receipt of updated credentials next item item b is policy maintenance and we have uh four policies here for first reading um being it's a first reading i would just suggest we take these all at once unless someone feels the need to take that um mr burch i'd like to take the mission statements uh separately please okay any others that we would want to do separately other than the mission statement so b little i it is the recommendation of the policy that the board of school directors approved the first reading of the following policy 101 mission statement ritter moves second motion in a second and those are comments regarding policy 101 the mission statement yes i i do like the challenge the effectiveness of the mission statement as a whole at this point when you boil
047it down a good mission statement explains in a concise manner your purpose for existing as a school district i'm concerned that we're moving forward with not once mentioned education while i can support the idea that one of our goals is to empower our children it should not be stated as the sole purpose of our district if you i took the time to pull from u.s news top five pennsylvania school districts as they have them ranked and going through their mission statements then the one word they all mentioned inspire all students love of learning creating empower them to discover and pursue educate all students to strive for personal excellence while becoming caring and contributing citizens committed to excellence and continuous improvements uh the lower marion school district tries to make sure all students achieve critical activity
048and you can i can go on and on i just wanted to to raise my concerns regarding the lack of any mention of academic achievement in our mission statement thank you just to speak to that quickly you know this the mission statement was is a slight iteration of the mission statement that had been previously approved through the comprehensive planning process um there was a group as dr lever has shared you know we started it almost two years ago because there was delays in the comprehensive planning process you know as a result of covet 19 situations and you know those meetings end up coming down to these nuanced wordsmithing sometimes and in that room you know a sense was generally that higher learners and defining what a learner is those learners um you know in it
049implies that excellence in education piece so there's never was an intent to leave that out but when we have in the room full of people working on a mission statement there tends to be these varied definitions within the words and what they mean and not wanting it to get too long that's always that was a mechanism but completely understand that concern just that's what the group had come to as an iteration of the previously existing mission statement well as a just as a first reading this will go back to the committee for further review before it would come back for a second reading is not back to the committee typically i mean it could but the first reading typically passed by committee goes to full board and then when approved we can change language in
050between first and second reading if that's the will of the board um but the our typical first reading if it's approved it moves for a second reading with any alterations that were discussed and approved at this meeting any other questions or comments from the board then regarding the mission statement and policy 101 yeah i just want to reiterate what jason had said you know i my wife always wants to know what was discussing on at these meetings i said you know about the mission statement and she said what is it i read it to her last night and she's like was waiting for more and she's like that's it and i looked up a couple other districts and like this one here it is the mission of the school district to provide all of our
051students with equal access to resources in order to develop their academic physical and social abilities to their fullest potential our students will develop skills to become lifelong learners and contributing members of the society through a cooperative effort of school parents in the community ours does not really reflect anything it's just one sentence and that's that's it there's when you look at districts like i said there's i pulled up too from around here and have much more just in their mission statement alone and then they have uh uh vision statements after that which have a lot more too so i think we can do a lot better than just this one sentence that we're trying to push through here so the mission statement and vision are developed as part of developing the comprehensive plan is that
052correct yeah i mean it's so there's these pro right the mission statement the formal official mission station of the school district is what is approved by the board you know heard the policy um but throughout the comprehensive as a part of the comprehensive planning process it is a requirement that we evaluate the mission with a group with a group of stakeholders um and either recommend a change to it or recommend it be the same recommend a new new mission statement that is a part of the comprehensive planning process but ultimately the formal mission statement of the district is the one that's approved by the board but we when we met with um you know we met right down here in this in the commons about two years ago with you know teachers students parents and
053went through activities looking at the language of the current mission statement evaluating some other mission statements and you know there's just a lot of opinions that go into the statement should look like as i said there's definitely some sentiment about not making it exceptionally long which then does come down to wordsmithing some some items within it and that group this is the alteration to the pre-existing mission statement that that group landed on any other questions or comments yeah just uh another comment kind of mirroring off of what jason had said and i guess i kind of understand the need to want a concise mission statement and our previous one felt or i should say our current one felt pretty concise um so i understand maybe not having three paragraphs as your mission statement but um
054this current one boiling it down even more i think is just pushing like just to that a little too concise and i don't think it would hurt to be a little more broad and what our district's mission is while still trying to be concise again to your point of wordsmithing um but yeah i don't know that i necessarily agree with with how concise um i think i would agree with uh you know i'm in favor of brevity that sometimes more is not necessarily more but i do think it could be built upon any other questions or comments regarding policy 101 i'm going to make a motion that we remove it from vote tonight or table it and that it go back to the policy and curriculum committee for uh further conversation i'll second that second
055so we have a motion in a second to table any questions or comments regarding the motion to table i'm just going to say that i believe that once again we're in the unfortunate position of where we have had people who put a lot of time and effort into coming up with something and making a recommendation and it was a large group and cross-section of people who came to consensus on this and i would feel like the time to address it is bringing those people together you know the new set of people together when we develop another comprehensive plan um so i well i'm not in favor of that i'm not in favor of basically wasting people's time and effort that already went into it well i'm gonna speak to that i was i was part
056of that study group that presented um in the main change that happened their statement which had was the empowerment uh the word empowerment or we wouldn't even be dealing with it tonight but i do feel in some ways it's very sparse our conversation at policy and curriculum could very well say we want to open it up to some more community input and and spend a little time with this i don't think we have to rush it through there's also there is a decide this like even as i'm trying to recall and summarize the thoughts within the room it was two years ago you know when that group was together i mean so that's just one factor that is unique that wouldn't typically be the case between starting a comprehensive because it's the beginning of the
057comprehensive planning process that is the first thing that you do you know and that was it was a full two years ago um so it's i'm trying to summarize a room full of thoughts which was a well it was a lot of time spent there was great participation by a cross-section of people it was two years ago yeah it was we met at least once i guess twice before uh the pandemic set in definitely twice and once after and this itself goes back even further than that because we just one word in that statement which yeah the statement would have been to us in the first place you started we started with the mission statement um we didn't really i mean the activity starts with um groups getting their own mission statements and then comparing
058it to the existing one and then from the existing one looking at where there were sentiments from the group i mean so it was a lengthy process to get to this version of it and i do know that we my tenure on board goes back to a different period of time we did talk about lifelong learning and some other aspects in in previous statements so it may be worthwhile to visit and look at again i'm not i don't think that's a bad thing any other questions or comments regarding the motion to table yeah i understand your point cecilia and i'm not so disagreeing with it i just think it's enough concern that it's worthy of more discussion at committee i'm trying to parse this sentence and uh so far i've come up with like five
059different meanings and so perhaps we need to flesh that out a little bit more just through discussion make sure everyone understands what the words mean empower is a pretty powerful word but worthy of discussion anything else uh hearing none so now this would be the rope roll call on the motion to table for the first reading of policy 101 mission statement so with that we'll call rickey michelle batts yes al darian yes aaron angle yes michael hass yes cecilia holt no jason yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes randy birch yes motion carries um so that will be tabled and go back to committee for further discussion so now for the remainder of the policies for policy maintenance subsection b policy maintenance it's the recommendation of the policy and curriculum committee that the board of
060school direct first reading of the following and it's policy 201 admission of students policy 610 purchases subject to bid quotation policy 611 purchases budgeted do we have a motion so move uh second a second and again this is for first reading on these policies 201 610 and 611. uh any questions or comments uh hearing none roll call please aldarian yes aaron engel yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes jason cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter michelle bats yes randy birch yes motion carries next item item c assistant superintendent contract extension is the recommendation of the administration that the board approved the contract extension for dr stephen lieber as assistant superintendent for a term of four years effective october 23rd 2022 at a salary of 150 000 subject to the terms and conditions of the
061attached contract do we have a motion second motion in a second any questions regarding the extension for dr lever my only comment is just look forward to having dr lever on school board for another four years or not the school board the school district any other questions or comments i i just having worked with him in some other ways he is set for our district anything else uh hearing none uh roll call please aaron angle yes michael hass yes cecilia holt yes jason cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle aldarian yes randy birch yes motion carries next item item d is 2022 2023 support staff administration holiday schedule it is a recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approved the 22 2022 2023 support staff administration holiday schedule per the
062attached do we have a motion so moved second motion in a second any questions or comments regarding the holiday for staff and administration uh hearing none roll call please michael hass yes cecilia holt yes jason yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yeah bats yes aldarian yes aaron engel yes randy birch yes motion carries item e conference request it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors approved the conference request for employee number three to attend the pennsylvania federal programs coordination's p-a-f-p-c annual conference in seven springs pennsylvania on through sixth 2022 at a cost of 1433.64 cents potion so moved second motion in a second any questions or comments regarding the conference request a hearing none roll call please cecilia holt yes jason yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle bats
063yes aldarian yes aaron angle yes michael hess yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item f it's the l associates feasibility study it is the recommendation of the facilities committee that the board of school directors approve the proposal from elle associates to conduct a feasibility study all kutztown area school district buildings for a cost of seven thousand five hundred dollars per the attached do we have a motion so moved second motion in a second any questions or comments regarding the feasibility study feasibility of what feasibility is um the study will encompass uh looking at demographics and then the building usage essentially looking at all of our buildings uh what they're they are how other ways that we could use the buildings any other questions regarding the feasibility study uh hearing none roll paul
064please jason jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle aaron engel yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item g the van purchase it is the recommendation of the facilities committee that the board of school directors approved the purchase of a new van at a cost not to exceed sixty thousand dollars when one becomes available from an improved vendor uh do we have a motion second motion in a second and again this is a vehicle that we need to replace it's got high mileage on it and has really worked through its uh useful life so it does need to be replaced yeah the expectation is the that by the time next year the event wouldn't pass inspection but we have we have a replacement process where annually we
065put one vehicle into the budget so this is an expected vehicle in the 22 23 that we do annually due to the need to order for lead times and be ready when a van is available that is why the administrative thing the ability to make that purchase we're just in a place as most people know that when a vehicle becomes available you need to be able to order it and then this would be applied from the 2223 budget any other questions or comments regarding the van purchase and i assume we're moving we're moving the old van in some way shape or form off the yeah they kind of go down the line sometimes the van goes from being one that transports students to one that is what is used for field lining or something that
066doesn't transport students so it's yeah the the one that will no longer pass inspection would then be gone and they just kind of moved down the line with the newest van taking do we have a contingency plan because it's my understanding we're already a van short the motor blew up on something before and you know don't we usually have like 12 vans or something yeah we currently have enough vans to needs if in the case that we would need a van we would work through lorkhan look at extra bands that they have through our con you know and work to rent one from them but for right now we have the vans we need to do our runs that's like this is you know to prevent the not having enough vans next year is it
067could happen if we were ordering one on july 1st and it was not delivered until september october whenever it might be any other questions or comments regarding the van hearing none roll call please yes dennis ritter yes michelle batts yes aldarian yes aaron engel yes michael hess yes cecilia holt yes jason cut yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item h the guardian boiler loop service contract it is the recommendation of the facilities committee that the board of school directors approved the one-year service agreement with guardian csc per the attached do we have a motion ritter moves second motion in a second any questions or comments regarding the guardian boiler loop service contract hearing none roll call please dennis ritter yes michelle bats yes aldarian yes aaron engel yes michael hess yes cecilia
068holt yes yes jeremiah light yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item i crowdstrike server protection agreement is the recommendation that the board school directors approve the contract with crowdstrike to provide server protection per the do we have uh emotion so moved second second motion in a second any questions or comments regarding the crowdstrike server protection agreement uh hearing none roll call please michelle batts yes ah darian yes aaron engel yes michael hess yes yes jason cook yes yes yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item j the refrigeration service agreements it is the recommendation of the facilities committee that the board of school directors approve the five-year service agreements with diversified refrigeration per the attached do we have a motion so moved motion a second second motion in a second
069any questions regarding the diversified refrigeration service agreements hearing none roll call please aldarian yes aaron engel yes yes yes cecilia holt yes jason cook yes jeremiah light yes dennis ritter yes michelle batts yes randy birch yes motion carries next item is item k donation it is the recommendation of the administration that the board of school directors accept with gratitude the donation from violins of hope to kutztown high school in the amount of five hundred dollars to be used to further curriculum development classroom resources and educational materials for holocaust and anti-hate education during the 2021-2022 school year do we have a motion so moved motion in a second second motion in a second any uh questions or comments regarding the donation hearing none roll call please yes michael hass yes cecilia holt jason yes jeremiah light
070yes dennis ritter yes michelle bats yes aldarian yes randy birch yes motion carries and just thank you to the violins of hope for their generous donation next item is item i introduction of new business by board members does any board members have any new business hearing none moving to section 9 public comment on non items uh we have four people that have signed up uh first is jackie bridges hi jackie bridges in kutztown i'm here today to talk about the mask on the school bus and while i'm thankful that the board has voted for the a few months ago to go mask optional i'm wondering how long you're going to continue to play the cdc recommendation and mandate card when it comes to kids wearing masks on the bus i heard an announcement was made
071to remind kids that they need to have a mask on when getting on the bus because i'm in school now and have been reminded at the end of the day this is adding to the confusion the hypocrisy and any other common sense on how this is even logical when they are living unmasked everywhere else in our district are riding on the bus an extended amount of time just to get home or you have teams driving extended periods of time to a game or come home from a game where they just exhausted themselves then expect them to sit on the bus next to their teammates who had just had direct contact with them in a mask we're using a transportation company eshelman hamburg school district also uses the same company and they are mask optional on
072the bus so the decision to continue the mask required on the bus falls directly on our i'd like to point out that by blindly following a cdc order you are in direct violation of u.s code title 49 in which public transportation is defined in section 5302 15b public transportation item three where it states public transportation does not include school bus service you have an opportunity now to go mask optional on the school buses before being served on a federal level where the could be listed as part of a statewide lawsuit for being in direct violation of a us code that has signed up is is it heather shearer hello i'm heather sher from albany township um i just want to say i find it interesting that our mission statement was up for discussion by the
073board tonight some of the things i want to share with you directly impact how we turn our children out to be part of this global community talk about a mission statement and it deals with how we need to educate them in a much better way my child recently experienced sexual harassment in a school i'm not going to discuss that specific incident i feel very strongly that all of the people involved with that should have their confidentiality respected however i do have some concerns and questions about how things were handled within the district and how we handle these types of incidents with our children within the school i do want to say the response of the administration was immediate i received a phone call you know the very next afternoon things were dealt with quickly and
074i am appreciative of that it is a long process it is a stressful process um going through this i do have some questions i don't feel were completely answered and i'm sure other parents wouldn't even be aware of how title ix affects how you handle sexual harassment um it was not brought up to me mentioned to me but as soon as i mentioned title ix to the school i feel the response changed i felt that the school was more responsive i have concerns on how much support was offered to the before title nine was involved um i believe that you know title ix is a federal program it is a very and if you follow the exact title ix procedure of how a sexual harassment came how you're supposed to mediate one of the things
075that to my knowledge has never happened was an offer or a suggestion for the student who was the offending party to make amends to other students i don't know if any guidance was given to him on how he could do things to change his ways to repair his reputation i don't want to see any child you know we're dealing with children i don't want to see any child because of some wrong actions continue down this path um also have um some concerns that you know i had to be the one to bring title ix forward again i'm not there wasn't any discussion of it until i was the one who brought it up and think that things changed a little there was a little more interaction with higher administration also there was a lot of
076discussion about how it is the responsibility of the victims to come forward i've been a victim at this age in a high school coming forward is one of the hardest most horrific things you can ask these children to do what we need to do as adults what we need to do as a school district district is create an environment where they are comfortable talking about things of a sexual nature where they have been taught how to both ask for consent where they are comfortable with the adults knowing that they're going to be heard and believed i have five children within the district i've asked them you know what are you taught about consent they're all at different levels they've been you know through elementary school up to a senior in high school and they said
077the discussion is lacking they said that you know things are brushed over they're told abstinence is the only way they're not comfortable talking about um different sexual characteristics comfortable talking about how do i say no to a friend who's doing something that i'm uncomfortable with there are so many ways we can talk about consent starting at the kindergarten level where it's you know no i don't want you to tickle my foot versus no i don't want you to touch my breasts if they're not comfortable saying i don't want you to tickle my foot or touch my shoulder how are they going to feel comfortable talking about sexual touches i don't know if i can emphasize enough that this is something that you know as we move forward and put our children out as adults we
078find a better way to teach them and to make them stronger to protect you know children who are where they may be violating others and not realizing it there's a horrible amount of media out there that normalize intimidating and harassing behavior really be moving forward as a school district to make sure that we're not supporting that and are actually actively teaching correct students you know i have concerns i don't want to bring the issue up again but we just voted at the last school board meeting to leave a book in the library that has graphic sexual images what you feel about the story i am listen one of my christmas gifts was socks that said i read banned books i do i am not about banning literature but if comfortable having sexual discussions with our
079students and with our children how can we be comfortable with the sexual literature within our school thank you [Applause] uh philip scherer this is the book my wife was speaking of um you guys voted for this have you read it have you looked at this book and you're okay having this in school i mean some pictures of this up on the youtube feed for the district to see this is an adult book it is written and made out as a comic book this is adult material for adults to read this should not be in high school elementary middle not appropriate if someone were to give this book to one of my children i would be furious absolutely furious moving on questions and chat talking about harassment we had a conversation and you had said at
080the time that you really didn't know much about you know how these things were dealt with your level but you are the title nine director for the school system correct so yeah i mean if if there is a yes if there is a title ix investigation then the awards comes to me yes so for the sake of anonymity i'm not going to mention any names here but i have an entire sheet of young ladies that have been the first lady was smacked on the butt multiple occasions the next lady was also smackdown about several times and stares at thighs the next lady said she was asked to touch her butt and was told no but did it anyway set up i saw an opportunity so it took it another anonymous young lady was smacked on
081the butt three indominus ladies threatened to touch chest and butt another lady was touched on the butt tried to hit head and grabbed thigh another young lady went under clothing and touched everywhere wouldn't stop stuck on a bus with no escape anonymous talked about butt size all of these were separate cases over three months it makes necrophilia jokes if they're dead they can't fight back admit staring at girls inappropriately makes jokes about raping girls makes excuses for every instance attempted to recruit another boy to do this too i will not mention his name either and physically has hurt people as well but there's been no investigation into this nothing would have moved on until my wife filed title ix paperwork with the school is this something we just brush away we're okay with stuff like
082this happening in our school we're okay seeing young women harassed no no no i mean and you know the this obviously isn't the venue to have you know conversation about specific incidents that way but things indicated as you were a part of you know and discussion and then and then the principle of the high school and was adamant with my wife three they saw what happened and something was going to be done about it but then a day later the story changed you would have reviewed the video and said oh no absolutely not you can't see anything there you can't make anything of this one person was adamant that yes okay so it happened and then the story changed it makes zero sense i have zero faith in the school system anymore how things if
083this is what's going to go on i don't want my children in the school something needs to you guys need to get yourself together [Applause] the last person that had signed up is jeremy rheem hi jeremy my daughter's in the high school and she had to deal with sorry my daughter was involved in an incident at the high school with sexual harassment and we were notified by the school right away and basically reiterating what they said there was one punishment everyone was in agreement yes this happened you know we're going to deal with this and then there was a step back where you know they i don't know if they watched the video so many that they cast out to themselves but there's enough cooperation in the video that you can see it's justified that
084he should have been punished more especially being the individual's second offense that's all i'll say about that so you know as a parent you're allowed of the incident with your child because they were directly involved not a bystander and i had to fight for that saying i don't want you to see it i don't want you to see it it's not right for you to see it i had to do my own and i should have wrote it down but i cannot remember there was a certain thing that allows me to see it because my child was directly involved yeah i mean that is something that that the law around that changed over the course of the last few years is something that we consulted then with i mean that part is fair that initially
085what you were told has changed in the law over the last few years that's true but okay because of that you know we got incident paperwork it was filled out we're moving along didn't even realize there was a separate set of paperwork for a title ix incident that deals with sexual harassment you know why wasn't this offered in the first place when that's clearly what the incident was about and it didn't get handled then the second incident happened and i had to look my daughter in the eye when she's leaving extracurricular activity having to relive seeing this person face to face and the second incident occurred which i really don't want to go into details for giving away who the people are and then yeah see our the siana's mother found the title ix paperwork
086should have been issued in the first place and that got the ball rolling change the whole attitude and then things happen so everyone that's in a position that their reaction deal with sexual harassment they need to know how to handle it because it really feels like the administration as a whole does not or it's purposely trying to be swept to the side you know only you can speak to that because you're the superintendent so you are the one in charge nothing's nothing's being swept to the side so there's there's definitely a failure in the process somewhere it needs to be identified so it doesn't happen to anyone else you know i don't know how many of you have daughters or do not but if you ever have to look them in the eye after something
087like this happen remember this conversation and how it's handled you know you might have to do your own research but i don't want anyone to ever have to go what she went through [Applause] that's everyone that had signed up for non-agenda items is there anyone online dr meyers for comment mr tim chad can i trust that we're going to get an account of what has been occurring at an executive session next time please anyone else for public comment seeing uh items were the condensed board summary report the cafeteria fund report upcoming meetings march 7th is the workshop board meeting at 7 30 at the middle school and by zoom march 14th is the policy in curriculum committee meeting 6 pm at the middle school and by zoom march 14th is the facilities and extracurricular committee
088meeting at 7 pm at the middle school and by zoom and with that i'd be looking for a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor say aye aye aye and that concludes our meeting for tonight thank you for coming everybody stay safe