May 10, 2021 KASD School Board Committee Meetings

001you would like to speak on the sign-in sheet after the normal business there will be time for public comment where you can bring up additional issues if attending via zoom please use the raise hand feature to be recognized to speak this meeting is recorded there will be times [Music] in our our first time on engine this evening is under curriculum uh dr queen will be sharing the flexible instructional day program application with us good evening i'm here tonight to provide communication around an application that the district will be making to the department of education to participate in the flexible instructional days program this program was offered pre-code and now another round of application is open it was added to the school code to enable public school entities with ourselves to develop a program that would

002help us meet the 180 day instructional day requirement of the school code in certain circumstances so the program about to describe as is described by pde can be online offline or a combination of two and if accepted if our application is accepted we may use this for up to five days in the school calendar as i indicated that the particular circumstances are clearly defined e and as a note again this was created pre-covered so under cert certain circumstances we are allowed to deliver instruction in a an alternative manner for these six reasons one might be hypothetically speaking an epidemic hazardous weather conditions law enforcement emergency and so forth a flexible instructional day cannot be used as a means for a regularly scheduled day in the calendar that was going to be a day off so

003these are for certain emergency situations the next several slides i'll take you through will come directly from our application and so the purpose again is for dr quinn i just if you don't mind if i interfere sure interrupt just for one second um as everyone listening you know might recognize we are very well aware of the fact that this seems like an absolute obsolete process after 2021 as dr quinn shared this process was first unveiled by pennsylvania department fed prior to copenhagen the pandemic and therefore it is still in place there is some we we must apply to potentially use it if if we intend to have it as availability but there is some understanding that it might be waived at any point because school districts across the state and country have obviously found other

004means for delivering instruction that has almost made this process obsolete but yet we are required to apply at this point per pde i'm sorry just certainly thank you thank you uh so again the next several slides come directly from our application and detail the process and the communication plan and the expectations of those involved so the first part of our application is how we're going to notify everyone and uh just to detail that that mr chattan did send an email to the staff on august sorry april 30th letting them know that we would be applying for this program this evening is the first public announcement of our application we will be posting this information on our website and social media and then seeking approval of our plan from the board on the next school board

005meeting as all applications are due by june 1st and there will be no extension of the deadline at this point as far as we're aware if our application is approved it would cover us for the 21 22 school year and two following or subsequent school years and then after that time there would be a reapplication process assuming everything stays statistical prior to implementation of a flexible instructional day that we would call teachers would be notified through email and or from direct communication from the supervisor superintendent parents and guardians would be notified as soon as possible through our normal means of communication our connected called notification as well as posting the information on our website as well as social media and as i'm going through this please stop me if there's anything that you'd like more

006clarification on one part of this plan that's going to be very important is spending time at the beginning of the next school year really over the summer ensuring that we have everything up and ready to go all of these pieces are currently in place but we want to just emphasize that this would be part of our plan moving into next year as well all students will be provided with a device at home to use at home as they are this year hot spots are made available to the through the technology department to qualifying families and the process um would be instructed and reminded in the room teachers would remind students how to access their assignments what the expectations would be and how to use the platforms that they are using in the various grade levels

007again in k to five we use google classroom as the primary means of communication canvas being our learning management in grades 6 through 12. our technology department would be available and is always available for remote assistance as needed throughout the school year the procedure for instituting on a day a flexible instructional day elementary students would be logging into their google classrooms at 9 00 a.m through a link provided by their homeroom teacher prior first time this might be introduced the day would begin at 9 00 a.m where students would be receiving their instructions for the day following a modified schedule now we have been doing a a different schedule during this school year however we want to take some time this summer to re-evaluate if that plan was appropriate talk about balancing our synchronous or

008on-camera versus asynchronous or off-camera time to be developmentally appropriate um at each of the grade levels so there'll be some further conversation and details about what that day's plan would look like or what a flexible instructional day plan would look like or scheduled secondary students will follow their normal class schedule and rather than going into the building and meeting their teachers face to face again they would be logging into the teacher's zoom classroom to re receive their instructions and their instruction instruction can be through a variety of means it may be synchronous meaning face to face not face to face sorry on camera live where teachers are conducting their class and rather than students being in front they'd be displayed on the the camera through zoom or if zoom is having any technical difficulties we

009use google meet as a backup teachers may also provide links to instructional activities instructional videos sites where there is interactive content where students are learning and then providing some feedback getting feedback and then the lesson continues students might be working in small groups through breakout rooms whether it's zoom or meet they might be working on individual practice they may be in a one-to-one instructional setting um all of the supports that we provide students on campus would be promoted through specialization supports our english as a second language supports para educators are available and we're students throughout the day as well as any of the speech or occupational therapy or other supports that normally occurred during the school day one thing that we need to clarify are some contingency plans we know murphy's law says that when

010police expect something to go wrong it will and with technology that's always a possibility so one important part of our application is ensuring that all teachers have communicated a contingency plan that if technology is not available and not working for some reason the students would leave school the day prior with a meaningful academic activity plan to carry out at home but that might not necessitate the use of the computer so these plans will be constructed by teachers they will be updated throughout the year to make sure that students are are engaged content not just offline busy work any of the assignments that are worked on during the particular type of day would be turned in the next day when teachers and students are in person so this is an aspect of our plan that we

011sort of have in this year but it's going to be formalized for next year as part of our application uh the next two slides talk about the responsibilities of professional staff and then responsibilities of our students professional staff will be available throughout the school day they'll be our teachers will be conducting classes but they will be able to be contacted through email they will be monitoring their email throughout the day where necessary and where available they might be zooming with small groups or other individual meetings as needed however as usual our teacher's primary responsibility will be to provide instruction to their classes however our school counselors our nurses administrators administrative assistants para educators will all be available throughout the day when they're not involved in direct instruction for the students their responsibilities participate in class

012that means logging into their zoom or google meet session interacting with their teachers with their peers completing assignments engaging in any classroom discourse working on individual work providing feedback getting feedback handing in assignments throughout the class day i mean this could be through a live interactive polling some teachers use programs that have a slide presentation that takes a pause students enter some information teachers can see how students are responding and then they can either move forward sidestep as necessary based on what how students are responding during the class this slide indicates a bit about attendance but that would be further covered in the next slide so tracking student participation or attendance is um is equally important during a instructional day or a virtual day as it is in the classroom students are expected to be

013in attendance as they are in any other day so the department of education has indicated that um attendance is not limited to just being physically there but also participating during the flexible instructional day we will continue to track our attendance and our student information system which is power school participation is monitored through being able to view the student but also are they submitting assignments are they participating and so forth and students will then be turned sorry assignments are turned in either live during the classroom session or on the next instructional day important to note that students who do not participate in a flexible instructional day are reported as having either an excuse or unexcused absence as is communicated by a parent contact throughout the next this next slide very difficult to read but i just

014wanted to pull out that this is the guidance from the department of education in regards to attendance during remote learning i've pulled out the most important pieces here that schools must assess whether the student is the assigned learning activity we have to account for both the students daily access to and completion of activities and then there's a line stressing the importance of daily contact with students and families and so in conclusion this is really much of what we've been doing this year without having a formal application in in place we will be required to do so moving forward it is not our intention to use these at on on a whim it is our intention to use these only when necessary at the direction of the superintendent due to the specific cases that were presented

015at the beginning and uh again the purpose of this evening was to provide this first public notice to solicit questions and feedback and then our next step will be request our uh board to provide approval for our plan so that we can apply by june 1st deadline questions i may answer so um if if i'm reading this right this is going to be a way in which we're combining the technology that we kind of rushed into place with the pandemic with an opportunity to provide instruction i'm guessing we're going to use this mostly for snow days correct that would be the most likely use would be a snow day and my kids are not going to forgive me if i do anything that assists the elimination of snow day i think the payoff will be

016we have a more stable sense of when the school year will end we've got more absorption before we need to start adding on days but my question is how this might influence calling a snow day because my understanding in the past it's usually been a factor of uh road conditions mainly um and uh you know if the forecast uh looked certain enough to you know take that gamble because it always is a gamble um you know at the university there's been some snow days called and nothing happened and it's it's kind of embarrassing but um would this change the decision-making process for calling an inclement weather day and the reason i asked that is that you know if we did have the chance of calling it earlier that would also allow families and especially to

017make the alternative plans instead of uh scrambling at six o'clock and whenever the call comes in to the extent it makes that possible you know the the reality is this year as we learned with a inclement weather days is we added variables you know we all of a sudden it was a traditional snow day we had the inclement weather virtual day we had the inclement weather um virtually for secondary and in-person delay for elementary and all those things became possible and determining which one is most appropriate for students often happens within a matter of an hour in the morning when we have the opportunity to make that decision in the evening that would certainly make it a lot easier to use these flexible instructional days um it's this is this is truly a compliance issue

018with the state just to maintain keep the door open to potentially use those you know right um this year they implemented what they called we had to submit our instructional time model an instructional time model to the state basically said these are all the ways that we might need to use instructional time this year in consideration of the covet 19 so we submitted that to the state like every other school district and it opened up did it approve various methods of getting to you know an instructional hour instructional day so the state is requiring at this point pde for us to complete this process to keep that window open understanding all along that they might have to open that up even further even prior to beginning the next this is you know five days is

019ideal we don't want we the fewer number of flexible instructional days virtual employment weather days whatever that is the better but just having that option for a few is something we want to at least keep open for sure yeah and this is on behalf of my kids and i'm sure most of the other kids but um you know let's say we have the potential for one of these like you know and and it would be a chance to make a three-day weekend for example um do you see um yourself going ahead and calling a snow day even when we have some of these flexible days still in the bank yeah if we could i mean if we could predict it's going to be a 10 inch day and you know it's going to be that

020traditional snow day i would absolutely call a traditional snow day um it's it's more we use those flexible instruction days when we have multiple days in a row with flexible instructional days when we you know we're piling up in that when we have that february where there's five days you know we want to maintain that consistency of construction or possibly in a day where it's just ice and you know it's rainy and icy and the road conditions are poor but it doesn't have the benefits of that traditional snow day right and the benefits on all ends from the employment standpoint slash this child enjoyment i might have missed this what what is the staff going to be doing do they have to be in school or are they going to be able to do it

021from home the flexible instructional day would likely be the option you know that they could construct from school but they also could do so from home in that particular day as was the case with some of our when conditions allowed and i'm sorry how many days are we allowed to five five the applications for five days total school year all right thank you dr flynn thank you then that moves us to the policy portion of the agenda and we have uh the behavioral support 113.2 which there are some changes to are you handling that tonight mr timton the 113.2 behavioral support this is you know most of it is language changes related to legal current legal status within individual education programs ieps apologize i'm spinning as you might see anything in bold would be new

022language from our current policy where we'll see you know the designation of least restrictive environment in accordance with their individual education programs just some more specific language related to behavioral supports um we should probably always start with the purpose for all those involved students with disabilities shall be educated in a least restrictive environment accordance with their individual education program and shall be placed in settings other than the regular education class when the nature or severity ability is such that education in the regular education classroom with the use of appropriate supplementary aid and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily and cannot meet the needs of the student the iep team for a student with a disability shall develop a positive behavior support plan if the student requires specific intervention to address behavior that interferes with learning the

023identification evaluation and plan or programs shall be conducted implemented in accordance with state and federal laws and regulations so this governs our use of behavioral supports and behavioral supports can range everything from you know reminding you you know extreme cases um there is the restraint possibility you know those any restraints are reported to the state which through a compliance program so it can range any of those what possibilities see in those changes is that the regular education class with the use of appropriate supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily and cannot meet the needs of the student you know again that's just some minor legal changes when you look under a change behavioral support programs and plans shall be based on a functional behavioral assessment commonly known as an fba in education the fba

024is performed you know by school psychologists typically can be other members of the school environment where they monitor and evaluate students behavior mark mark down um different behaviors and the frequency of them over the course of a class and then work with a special education iep team develop strategies that would help limit any behaviors that interfere with the education program you can see some of your definitions um under restraints there's a change that briefly holding a definition of a restraint is briefly holding a student without force to calm or comfort the student can be considered a restraint you're seeing most of your changes here just adding the word student there is under seclusion with the definition confinement of a student in a room with or without staff supervision in the same room at all times

025in order to provide a safe environment um you know that's just broadening that definition of what in the same room at all times might be the under the delegation of responsible regular training and retraining of staff in the use of specific procedures methods and techniques including de-escalation techniques and emergency responses we do annual training for a large percentage of our staff um you know with de-escalation techniques specifically um and then in also you'll see in that change looking at adding the language of a positive behavior support plan if you recall at our last budget meeting we talked about within the esser budget of looking at a splitting behavior specialist who would specialize in not only developing those plans but also in supporting our special education staff in developing those plans there's some reference to career

026and technical schools uh specifically under the the delegation of responsibility you know again you're gonna see these are minor uh changes in terms of terminology development of a separate positive behavior support plan positive techniques and types of intervention down near the bottom of page two the use of restraints shall not be included in the iep for convenience of staff as a substitute for an educational program or employed as a punishment restraints may be included in an iep with parental consent only all parents are well aware if that's the case it's for staff student or self safety again number four on the top of page three i think there were relative to behavior support plan current terminology um there are mechanical restraints which might be used for students with involuntary movements and we add just the

027term a student in there mechanical restraints shall prevent a student from injuring the student or others meaning injury itself oftentimes behavioral positive behavioral support plans are included for students who might injure themselves and under seclusion the district permits involuntary seclusion of a student for a limited time period you know in accordance with students ips and emergency prevent immediate or imminent injury to a student or others but the seclusion must be a least restrictive alternative district staff still provide continuous supervision of students in seclusion which need not always involve presence of staff in the room example that might be through a window where you can clearly see the student and interview necessary as you continue throughout the document you'll see additional positive behavior supports uh one change there at the first paragraph on the top of

028page four for a student with a disability who has a positive behavior support plan a time of referral subsequent to notification to law enforcement the district shall convene the student's iep team and that's that is a requirement under uh federal law in regards to the dis the discipline of students with disabilities and a couple more at adding of positive before behavior support plan the current terminology behind your support plan is a positive behavior support plan sorry for reading through all those you know those changes they're they're relatively they're all really related to the current law and updating language again this does fall very well aligned with the recent presence of looking for a behavior specialist to help support the development of the positive behavior support plans throughout the district i have a question um do

029we have facilities appropriate for things like seclusion where it's a safe space for students if that that action is needed there there's uh attempt to have those spaces um you know what could happen in instance those a student might become a threat to themselves or to others in the classroom and typically what you do in the classroom because it's this it's the easier it's easier to get the students who are not at that level of agitation and kind of a loss of maybe their control ask them to leave and then the staff deals with that you know for example we've had instances where you know we were in a classroom and and they're very few and far between believe me i mean it's i'm talking about an instance over the course of four years you

030know where we might have students where we have to clear a classroom and then one student you know with staff members inside we ensure that they do not harm themselves it's very very few and far between now but we have quite a few students with that have positive behaviors or plans but again that might be for a student that has attention you know executive functioning deficits that could be deficits that have that are not injurious in any way shape or form but we provide them with strategies that just happen to be physical strategies to help maintain tasks or you know um executive functioning would be basically ordering of information or processes so to help them with that so you could have a positive behavior support plan that has very little to do with being injured

031any other questions on this one all right then uh all in favor of moving this for first read next week any opposed okay all right then the next one is for review with no recommended changes policy 202 eligibility of non-resident students yeah eligibility of non-resident students we are recommending no changes it's just for review you know typically these basically this provides the board the ability to um have students come to could send a request and have them pay tuition based at the state rate if that's what family wanted to do it allows families who have you know secured a building contract in the area to start school in august if they you know if they've already built again building a house it allows seniors who are leaving in their senior year have been here throughout

032high school to remain as long as they provide transportation but it also then you know earn some legal requirements in terms of non-resident students placed in a residence home um residents in institutions or potentially what falls under mckinney-vento which could be a homeless act you know which are all legal requirements to provide education to those students so those outside of the legal requirements really come down to a tuition student a student who's moving into the district or student who's moving out of the district but it makes sense for continuity of their education and those requests probably come around once once a year once every two years in those instances any questions or concerns regarding that policy okay then can mark that reviewed policy 231 social events and class trips in a policy we're not recommending

033any changes governs social events and class trips um ensuring we have opportunities this year was clearly different this is a policy that was largely stagnant for parts of the year um but very excited to say that we have those types of events happening again you know as long as we're here in addressing this particular policy with a very successful prom on friday night kudos to mr flicker and the staff for coordinating an event for our seniors and juniors to celebrate the way that they didn't have an opportunity to previously um we'll certainly have another report on that but this governs that we have the responsibility to provide proper social and um class trips that will have the right staffing to do so that when you know the when it requires special permissions that we will

034find those permissions whether it is coming to the board for the state etc um that it gives the authority that as voluntary participants and social events students shall be held responsible for their policies and also that participation in school events is not a right and may be deemed maybe deemed students may be deemed ineligible for disregard of policies um it is you know remains an ability of school discipline to exclude from a social event or a class trip if applicable to any violation of school pulses any questions or questions or concerns there okay looks like we can mark that one reviewed and then policy 322 gifts and policy gifts is a short one um essentially under the 300 or staff policies the board considers acceptance of gifts by administration professional or support employees between to

035be an undesirable practice it's policy that staff members not accept gifts of significant value as determined by the immediate supervisor if someone is approached with a gift of significant they they are to meet with their direct supervisor and inquire if that's an appropriate gift not something that happens too frequently in terms of a of significant value most in appreciation like last week for teacher appreciation if that generous generosity is significant we shall report it to the port all right on that one yeah um what do we mean by significant value uh the significant value is a it's a great question and it's um you know i would expect that if if someone were to receive a gift worth you know 150 dollars i expect they would let us know you know and i don't it's

036really difficult to make that determination it doesn't happen very frequently where anything more than you know a nominal gift of a five dollar gift card to dunkin donuts is what staff might be approached with um you know these instances these are some that again we go years without ever having that um be a situation to address so the significant value piece it's a great term you know but we don't put those hard terms in there one because we would have to be able to determine exact value for something which is often unless it is something that was recently purchased or has in known market value it's difficult to do that and that value can change over time we would be updating it annually or you know more than annually about what the significant gift i

037would expect any staff that was approached with gift that it was an excess known excess of you know 100 150 in that range that they would let notifies well if it's over a hundred dollars you know and how much wasted time is there with somebody reporting something that's uh you know 105 dollars and then yeah it's like oh that's okay um or you know i mean i just it's just significant just seems to be such a loose term here that i i don't think that this policy really has much effect i mean you know obviously a car would be significant sure um but uh you know uh you know and then again it could be a gift like you know you get a heirloom from somebody and you want to pass it along to the

038teacher and maybe it would be very expensive at an auction but teachers generally are very uncomfortable when students give them gifts that are not you know of that nature of the dunkin donuts type car and they they they often you know if that's the case they will go to an administrator to talk about um i just i struggle to find well i agree with the significant being difficult to value i struggle with what that value would be and how consistent would be over time if we did put a number on there you know i did just in conversation that said that 150 range certainly would be significant but um we could we could evaluate what could be a cost in there i just think it's gonna be difficult to determine what that would be um

039you know again your example of an heirloom many people might think it's worthless but it would be have a significant cost to it it's just it's determining that would be very very challenging okay well i guess if something does come up we can yeah or revisit this we could look at putting a value in there i just i would be curious what we would set that value sure what i've seen i've seen numbers as long as fifty dollars right like with some com that company set um for gifts and and i guess i wanna understand too when we talk about gifts that that's going to include things like trips and meals and lodging and you know any tickets yes you know those i mean that's that is intended to be a broad term yeah that's

040not defined anywhere that i see yeah gift can really be anything of value you know i just i mean as i have not you know 10 years of school administration i haven't had this become an issue you know but that's not to say the first time it is it isn't one but i just haven't had it become an issue yeah again i'm certain kids have more on a secondary level once in a while but you know you know to grab a hobie from some way is that significant value to happen once several years probably not yeah okay can i have a show of hands of everyone who's okay with marking this reviewed as is okay thank you mr tim chattan for reviewing those policies with us is there anything else from the board for the

041committee [Music] okay seeing nothing else from the board that leaves us some time for anyone in the public who would like to comment i'm just going to let you know that we do have a facilities and extracurricular committee meeting that starts at seven which we will want to adjourn this mr tim chattan is gathering the list of attendees so we can call people to the microphone and when you come up if you can just state your name and where in the district do you live sure can you hear me okay yes yeah hi hi thank you for letting me uh give me the opportunity to speak my name is rich augusto i am the father of two seventh graders i go to kutztown middle school i have um we are that's where they live um

042i'd like to speak uh to the subject of the equity team recognize that it's currently paused but it's very concerning to me as a parent when i hear a member of the board try to tell me that critical race theory is not being taught in classrooms when i know that it is in fact being taught you have a seventh grade social studies teacher that is actively teaching it one assignment alone overtly presents several pillars or tenants of critical race theory it includes social justice social transformation and systemic racism in america's history and especially on our policing today the assignment by the way was about the chauvin case where race wasn't brought up a single time in the prosecution it wasn't considered a factor in any of the convictions and well aware of the ongoing movement

043to try to inject race at every opportunity i'm also aware of that in itself being a tenant of critical race theory that racism is everywhere however i rejected being disseminated to our children as if it were fact worse when i brought my concerns surrounding this assignment to mr tim chattan he responded he ends my feelings about her approach um no i wasn't looking to be understood i didn't want my feelings misunderstood i raised those concerns to be addressed um if critical race theory is not supposed to be taught in the classroom as i am being led to believe and how is it being addressed with the teachers that are overtly teaching it as far as i can tell the future's approach is actively being supported and promoted or at the very least ignored it's also

044concerning to hear a member of this board state that equity isn't part of the curriculum um insinuating that we shouldn't worry because it's not being presented to our children it may not explicitly be presented to them but you have a team developing an equity program that directs them in the form of instructional practices the team is using loretta hammond's culturally culturally responsive teaching and the brain and it's they're using that as its prominent source from what i'm told that was yeah as i shared with you that was a resource that many of us within the district have okay and have book studies around so i just want to make sure i'm citing that source that is a source that many of the teachers you had told me yeah i have to get the exact numbers

045i know our administration i shared that with you as absolutely a resource that we have used okay yep so this resource so i looked a lot into this i researched this resource and it's a resource that expresses that we should reject the notion of being colorblind accidentally enough being tenant number four critical race theory robert hammond speaks about hiding the vegetables as a strategy to be used by teachers so they they can subtly introduce these views and not have it quote two on display it's concerning she then explains inequity by design tenant number one of critical race theory the concept that our founding fathers purposefully designed the science to ensure that children coming from certain racial linguistic routes would be under-educated moreover the remnants that are still deeply embedded embedded she expounds upon this and

046this is quote it's why we see police behaving in a particular way the pennsylvania school board associate defines equity as the just and fair distribution of resources based upon an individual student's need needs the idea of equal outcome for every individual has been tried and it has failed all over the world is most prevalent in marxism the reality is that when equity is put into practice it ensures that its highest performers do not reach their fullest potential i'm asking the sport to consider equality over equity as the only real way to ensure that each individual has the opportunity in reaching our fullest potential does this guarantee that student that a student will have the same outcome no but nothing really does it just isn't realistic but it does allow for the opportunity to succeed without

047limitations i would like to ask the board to reject zoretta hammond's assertions that are founded in critical race theory and instead focus on what we all have in common i would ask that the board i would ask the board to reaffirm dr martin luther king jr's legacy and that we should judge people based on the content of their character i would also like to ask the board to be more transparent equity is in fact a tenet of critical race theory and the materials that are being used by the equity team bear that out i'm a strong i'm of the strong belief that an effort was taken to hide that fact from the parents and perhaps even some members of the board but make no mistake we're all aware of it now i would also like

048to ask the board lastly i'd like to point out that this is not an isolated circumstance this is going on all over country right now parents of loudoun county virginia are being openly attacked by teachers and educators proposing as florida idaho tennessee texas have all introduced legislation to banned these philosophies from being taught to our children we are not alone in opposing this equity doesn't belong in our schools kutztown has great programs that are tailored to individuals my son benefits greatly from the iep program promote these types of programs because they work and they are individually tailored equity has no place here i think that we should spend some time know the constituents because i have a strong feeling that many are not on board with this that is all i wanted to say thank

049you for your time thank you thank you um mr jason i apologize i apologize for the pronunciation you did all right thank you jason kuck from greenwich township the first grader a second grader and then a three-year-old who's got 13 years left and i've been told that i'd better pay close attention to what happened in the school but mr trump for the next 13 years and you better believe i will mr dan whismur requested you all educate yourself on critical race theory it is my belief theory has no place in our school district it is also my opinion that the board has voted in support of critical race theory nine to nothing through numerous policy approvals recently members of this board posted publicly that the notion critical race theory was supported by the board was

050misconceived and incorrectly assumed a document published by the californians for equal rights foundation give some key words defies pleasant sounding ambiguous names that are regularly paraded about our schools in this country in an effort to conceal the truth about critical race theory systematic systemic racism white privilege internalized racism anti-racism racial prejudice educational justice diversity equity and inclusion training anti-racism initiative culturally responsive practices sadly as we go through these documents that we have recently that have recently been passed we will find that we have not misconceived benefit the purpose and granular work approved by this board is clear in the first paragraph of the educational equity document the purpose of the document is stated in that paragraph it states personal and institutional racism have historically existed and continue to exist critical race theory framework is established

051in the purpose of the document under the delegation of responsibility it states each school employee shall foster a school climate that is equity focused and culturally responsive employees shall receive supports in the form of training regarding cultural competency cultural proficiency cultural responsiveness implicit bias explicit bias diversity and inclusion it is very clear this policy is being used to usher in critical race theory the document published by the published publicly by the board members also outlined that the board approved the equity team an anti-racist school climate resolution the resolution states we understand and accept that racism is systemic and is unconsciously and consciously rooted into our institutions policies and practices more clear evidence that this board supports the introduction of critical race theory and the vote was unanimous the equity team formation and their purpose document

052is very clear in outlining that it is here to develop policies goals and action plans to support diversity equity and inclusion practices in pro programming which i take also known as indoctrination throughout the question area school district the equity team has published their biased politically motivated views on white privilege microaggressions their offensive ideologies on their public website the most ridiculous has got to be that their belief that infants are prejudiced by the age of six months material being produced by the board approved equity team is in the start of critical race theory it is neck defending we are missing the opportunity to address issues for our kids in our community that are not rooted in skin color but are by impact all about ethnicities income loss but we know the reason that the board approved

053them nothing in the same public response board members stated that it was done because of all the other school districts that are doing i'm sorry but i teach my kids from a young age if bobby jumps off a bridge i'm not gonna do it too there's also that of course this equity policy has been improved because the district has legal obligation to provide equally for all students which made me scratch my head it is clearly a statement void of fact that borders are not right dishonestly we obviously have policy already in place to meet state laws the true explanation is this policy was an opportunity for this board to virtual signal and allow critical race theory into our district public letter also states that the activities of the equity team were paused this is flat

054out untruthful and another attemptable over our eyes the motion was the motion was upon the dissemination of information which has not occurred because the website is still active and readily accessible the website is the formulation because i deactivated myself and that's what if it's active and that is compared thank you it's also very clear that the activity team was to continue to meet and plan one would assume that this is so they were ready to reinforce their critical race through propaganda once the uproar blows over a stronger motion would have been to dissolve the equity team and reject these divisive ideologies ask will we make our children better by teaching them real american values where we continue to indoctrinate them with marxist marxist intersectionality and blame all our troubles on race my belief is our

055community will not sit back silently and watch race-based propaganda destroy our school and community not allow the indoctrination of our children based upon the implicit bias of a few the path you have chosen in the name of educational equity is a divisive path to reach at best mediocrity we will not accept mediocrity to justify your use of critical race theory we need to return our focus to the fight for excellence and real american values teach our children to love their neighbors as themselves without any lens for race teach our children to pursue right kind of confusion to deal generously with others teach them that they get ahead with hard work in all toil there is profit do not teach them critical race there thank you mr jeremiah light my name is jeremiah light i'm from

056greenwich township i have two children in the school district one in middle school and one in elementary school and i just have some questions to ask here of this policy and curriculum i would like to know who actually created policy 832 that includes this equity that you claim it is but it's actually critical race theory one of the board members mentioned publicly that the uh equity team was created in response to this where that's actually a false statement a few meeting minutes of august 17th the under the policy and curriculum committee the equity team wholeheartedly uh backed this resolution at the first reading so if the equity team comes after this how could they be in support of it and who also put the members of that equity team together there is no documentation to

057that who approved that because there was no input from the community at all there's nobody from the community on that board right now and you know you you claimed to want to include the community yet you snuck this through under the guise of covet because nobody could come to these meetings and hear what was going on yet we could have come in on zoom but that's limited and you can't comment on youtube any just for the the answer to questions the policy is there is a uh proposed policies or recommended policies that come out from psba you know that's why you'll see a lot of schools from who psba pennsylvania school board association i'm sorry pennsylvania school board association and where's that documentation at um i mean there's it's on the pennsylvania school board association

058website can you provide a link for that that shows this equity i can email you that i believe i have to check that it's still you haven't responded to my email that i sent to you before i'm it's two weeks now mr kamchat you know we we tried to arrange the time to speak yeah and i felt that was best to send you a letter and get into a heated argument with you and you completely ignored me the in terms of the question of the equity team you know they were volunteers from within the district with the goal to expand the team to include command committee members um in advance of next year that was a goal for this year to expand the committee you're already at like what nine members how much more do

059you want to expand that committee i mean that that is why why wasn't why wasn't the community involved in the first one you have no problem sending out emails to all the members of the the school district asking about what kind of business would we like to see coming to this district to help the tax base maybe you weren't responsible maybe your predecessor was but something this important that absolutely positively needed parental and community input was snuck through without any input and why is that you know as i as we have our committee meetings monthly here we present anything that goes before policy um you know so it would have been presented at those meetings who wrote the policy i told i will share the pspa link i just have to get out of here

060and i'll email you policy 832 specifically it is basically a recommended policy from pspa that i'll share with you okay so you don't want to answer the question it's answered three times that that's who wrote that's the source of the policy so you guys didn't have any input in it at all but you've passed so does anybody here know what was actually in it what research did you do prior to voting for that policy what research i can't speak to individual board members but we do look at the policies we read through them we discuss them when they need to be like you saw tonight that's a typical process okay what research was done on something this important did you guys do did you go and look up anything about what equity is did you

061go and look up what critical race theory is did you look up what white privileges when you were told about that being presented to our children i respond back to you equity appears in a variety of our policies we talk about when we talk about providing um opportunity for our special ed students we talk about equity with respect to the various uh sports teams that we put out there on the field so that we have sports teams for female athletes as well as male athletes and people uh that's equality no no no that is ultimately a question of equity that we provide the opportunity okay what is the definition of equality what is the definition of equity to you to me the definition of equity is that we try to provide the resources necessary so

062that all students can succeed so it's the same thing i would argue that the first policy went over that doesn't necessarily provide success yes the example the first policy we went over to policy about equity because equality we give this was the behavioral support policy that we discussed and if we were just going equally with equality every student regardless of their behavioral support needs would just be getting the same thing racial equity yeah similarly um because uh okay so racial equity um there that basically there are some historical ties to the lack of equality that still exists for some groups today nobody's taking away everything but the needs of uh different people from different groups and different past different historical backgrounds mr johnson i have a question for you as a history teacher okay what

063is the difference between this and because everything on the equity team site has this in it along with black lives matter stuff what's the difference between this from the nazi salute the area nation salute to this from the black panthers the new black panthers and now black lives matter saying black power what is the difference because what you guys are promoting through this equity team is social marxism and you're also okay that's just i mean there's there's i mean i'm not sure you understand what any of those words mean okay this this is a time for public comment i thank those of you who have had the time to come up unfortunately we will be adjourning this meeting because there is another one coming up there will be opportunity for public comments at the next

064public meeting next week if further people would like to speak and please keep it respectful looking forward to it thank you may i have a motion to adjourn give me a thumbs up when you're good to go mr myers thumbs up okay so let's call tonight's uh facilities and extracurricular uh meeting uh to order and uh my understanding is uh mr yapsugo would like to go first because we've got a game going on and he'd like to get back to it so uh the floors uh mr yapsuka thank you very much for for accommodating us we actually have a couple games going on we have softball in the park tonight we also had our baseball senior night which is taking place right now first conrad wise we're a busy day today we had our track

065senior senior day this afternoon as well so quite a lot going on in the world of athletics today uh the first uh the first thing is the the huddle stadium camera uh so we've all seen what uh the great things that the huddle indoor camera has provided for our volleyball our basketball and our wrestling team uh this winter and so now huddle is releasing an outdoor camera which can be mounted onto the stadium press box now with the same specifications we have a wi-fi server right out there in the press box we have power obviously right there so it's gonna be a nice fit uh for our outdoor contest in the stadium so football and uh soccer will benefit from this in the fall and we're able to you know adapt to certain other situations

066like we did with our kia kutztown indoor association teams with our indoor camera in the high school gym so we're looking forward to that that will be shipped out by huddle after july 1st to the school districts that it has agreed to with and it should be ready to go to our fall season this uh this coming school year are the funds for that out of general fund like this is the first i was hearing about it where did that all evolve from uh this will this will be able to come out of the athletic budget for for next year so have no impact on to the general fund so um it'll actually go right into roland there should be a price freeze uh with our huddle account that we have with our uh with

067huddle um so it'll just kind of roll into the athletic department package that we already have and it'll be uh price frozen for three years and then after three years um hopefully it's not too much of an increase but you can certainly build that into the budget within three years from now if there's no other questions on the camera it doesn't sound like there's any uh action that would be needed for that it's this is an item you know it's informational on that this is part of the budget that mystery episode was presenting to mr miller which is just a part of the budget that's presented to the board so you know technically it's the purchase that is approved through the approval of the general budget for 21 22. very good um then the next

068item was uh coaches uh or coaching openings currently right uh we have three openings uh first one is our high school girls basketball uh our head coach so we're currently upset accepting applications uh we'll be closing the application process at the end of the month and our plan is a candidate uh for the june 7th board meeting so we'll be getting interviews soon by the end of the month and then we have two positions at the middle level both our middle school boys soccer team so we're looking for a head and an assistant coach with our middle school boys soccer team that came up because our former middle school voice stopper coach is now our varsity so we need to replace him okay and then the last item was a post date yep so this

069is really the last week of the regular season for three of our teams our boys volleyball team and tennis team has already concluded their seasons uh baseball is playing their final regular season game tonight versus conrad weiser they're currently seven and 11 and are fifth in district three double a the top six will qualify for districts uh so if the if the seating was complete today uh we would be the best seed and we would be traveling to upper dolphin for a quarterfinal game but that will soon to be determined but feel very confident that the boys will qualify for districts just be a matter of seating uh softball we have a busy week with softball four varsity games remain this week but possibly a fifth uh if we beat brooks catholic tomorrow night so

070await the new playoff format is for berks county playoffs uh since we are the runner-up in section four if we beat the runner-up team in section three we will get the automatic birth uh for that so tomorrow niza is a highly anticipated game for our girls and then right now uh so right now we are six and ten and the top eight qualify for district playoffs we are seated number eight right now with some decent separation between us and the ninth place team so we're gonna seem pretty confident that we'll definitely get into districts and we would be if it was determined right now we'd be traveling to trinity who is the top seed and that game would be on thursday may 27th and then with track and field we have the berks county firing

071meet this week which are essentially berks county championships as of right now we have 28 total qualifiers 15 girls and 13 boys participating weekend and district qualifiers will be announced by the district 3 committee on sunday evening so we have several athletes who have already met the qualifying standard but district 3 will ultimately determine the field based on the number of competitors allowed per event so waiting to see what the what the standard will be and make that determination on the competitors per event so right now some of our uh some of our ones that are sure to get in some of the names that you're familiar with mitchell brett abby reasoner erica moriarty our girls 4 by 400 relay our girls 4 by 800 relay uh one of our sprinters elizabeth schwartz actually another

072sprinter taylor conrad keller conroy seemed to be ultimately locked in for for districts and we hope to get a few more kids in once the district's three standards are met thank you for that update and that i think is wednesday on the 12th is the uh athletic uh end of season uh ceremony actually the district this wednesday the 12th is the high school senior awards so yeah the athletic the athletic awards our yearly award ceremony i actually have those notes here as well to add that on uh that will be tuesday may 25th uh we are having our ncaa signing day ceremony as well that day we're going to have the signing day ceremony at 5 30 and we'll start the athletic awards ceremony shortly after that at six o'clock and as of right now

073we have that out in the stadium this year uh to allow for as many people as i think we as would want to come would be able to attend and we also have the auditorium that we could use in the case of inclement weather we just might just have to scale back you know some of the the participation limits there with the auditorium but as of right now it's tuesday may 25th in the uh high school stadium and then the 12th is what again uh school senior awards senior awards cakes in addition to the dinner banquet so that'll be nice that our student athletes can be recognized for competing this uh this school year endemic and then did you have anything else for the good of the uh the committee this evening and uh just

074it's a little bit of a heads up and you know i know mr yepsou is working on these things we're not ready to present them in full yet but there is a discussion about some upgrades within the weight room with in collaboration with the education foundation and then also looking at some other repairs around the facilities including the tennis courts so future future dates just some things where we have partial information on it to get this point on all of those sounds good and then uh with that i guess uh we can let you go and you can get back to the games then sounds good thank you very much you thank you thank you and moving back up to the facilities part of the agenda we have a discussion regarding the sidewalks uh walkway

075maintenance proposal ada sidewalk at high school and uh kes sidewalk extension all three items have come about in different ways but we figured it was best to update them all in one in one lump because they all involve the sidewalks on the campus right thank you so the walkway maintenance proposal is something that's come up on several of the safety committee meetings throughout the year so uh did you share it electronically i'm sorry you said that as i was traveling over to the track and field event right now a company come out save sidewalks that does this uh a lot of uh school districts and uh they surveyed all five of our buildings and uh pointed out and i can share this kind of have a soup to nuts uh proposal through there about with

076the trip hazards taking all the trip hazards down what they do is actually uh grind uh the sidewalks that anything is more than a quarter inch so that's a smooth uh sidewalk as well as the cracks that are in the existing sidewall there's also a proposal to redo the expansion joints as well as any other curbing repair i'm proposing that we look at the trip hazards which is twenty three thousand one hundred and fifty eight dollars and add the repair uh that's four thousand three hundred and eighty dollars for a total of twenty seven thousand five hundred and thirty eight dollars uh that's for the walkway maintenance proposal is that for all the buildings that is for all five buildings correct okay what's our what's our um history of people falling dave can you how

077many injuries have we had from people falling or how many falls have we had on these sidewalks don't think i know of any and how many years well it's it's something happens over gradually over time no no how many years of the site these sidewalks have just moved in the past they were evaluated that way to look at those side if you um in that picture i see them in these streets or towns where you see them grinded down owners they were just evaluated now looking at how many of them were had significant dis leveling um so you know how many years but they how do you mean how many years have the sidewalks been installed yeah i don't know do you know that so why are we doing it again anything larger than a

078quarter inch is posed as hazard by the dave is that the insurance company when they come through and assess that um they always have an adjuster come out every year this document says it's the americans with disabilities act to comply with the americans with disabilities act alternative than quarter inch will be repaired that's a legal standard as well in trip and fall cases anything under a quarter inch is considered diminished but anything over would be considered a tripping hazard and that number can be adjusted and again what they based on they have a measurement each one they had done obviously that number could come down we want to raise it to 3 8 or whatever this is just again the american disabilities which brings us to the uh the second one yeah so interesting last

079so last week or the week before i don't recall exactly i was walking out of high school and a student of ours who was in a wheelchair was out there with a teacher we contract with from the bciu who does orientation and mobility and one of the jobs of an orientation and mobility teacher is to take students with physical disabilities you know they might even it ranges extremes the most basic is you'll see them outside on the property crossing the street getting onto the sidewalk just basic life skills of someone with a disability and navigating those um navigators areas when i came out um i had met the gentleman who works at eiu maybe once before but he's are you richard he said no i'm not richard you know but he was sitting there with

080two of our students who i talked to and um he explained why he was waiting for richard because he had been called by the office took us down the sidewalk at the corner so the sidewalk across mark where the sidewalk where the parking lot is for the um we're going to walk from the high school down to the elementary school as you would cross the sidewalk on where our dr our parking lot is iada compliant this student you know so i said to the student what would you do to get that part of this he said well i would just cross the street because he would be fearful that he would get stuck there that he could get stuck or tip and fall um this is you know that was a very a great way

081to kind of see it and something we were surprised because we saw it two years ago that evaluated access to all pro across the district but because of where that rest of our uh the rest of our corners are beautiful they're well done you can see it was done with with care this is just one that was missed and then we had the question is it really our property or is it the property of the borough is our property you know so that's one for like a true direct ada compliance we would need to take care of the tripping hazards kind of fall in line with that as they are smaller tripping hazards it's you know even if people don't fall the first time that someone does you know type of thing is really it's

082really a shame especially when we look at students with disabilities traversing about the campus where is this ada um i'm assuming there's a the is to put in an ada sidewalk at the high school i could not hear where that's going to be so that is a long constitution uh enter in the high school it's the north side of the sidewalk okay if you were traveling on constitution on this right at at the entrance to the high school okay but the thing with the high school though i have a question about is when we did the renovations at the high school we re-did large sections of sidewalk along the front of the school and it looks like they have areas that they've designated for work with that i mean that wouldn't even be two years

083old yet the sidewalks there would be a little just a little bit older than two years so i mean but they yeah they they marked on here anywhere that was over a quarter of an inch i mean that's that's the standard that ada sets as a safe sidewall right i mean i'm on the board a month or two over two years so it was done before then it's it's probably cool yeah i think yeah further out i think it was 2014. small parts of the project being done maybe three to four years ago this was one of the first things that was done after a business manager i don't want to stop the disc it just seems 21 20 000 is a lot of money to spend in my opinion to shave some sidewalks to

084quarter inch if there's no history of the the other side is you have one one incident and you'll be sorry you didn't take care of it you know i don't know and i understand what you're saying i'm not but the whole you have to do everything or just do a select portion of it it just seems sometimes i think it's worth to even you know we it's not a rush we have to do this now is it worth as a committee kind of through the sidewalks a little bit i'd appreciate that yeah just to go for a walk you know wait till june and go for a walk on the sidewalks take a look at them and with it now i know i just sent the team now when you look at it it's so

085detailed you can walk and say okay that spot yeah that really looks like i don't think i sold it you didn't i just sent an electronic one today and i did not forward at the time so i just sent it right now carl there's the paper version yeah so i was just kind of looking through this this crazy detail it's almost like they took a picture of each slab of of concrete on the sidewalk if you're walking our sidewalks now you'll see little blue numbers those blue numbers are with this report it would be very valuable to take a walk but we could do that for sure um my question would be like they're very explicit in saying what they won't fix um so they're saying like they won't address slabs if if they have

086to grade them more than two inches because if the slab gets too thin then there's an issue there which that makes sense that would have been one of my questions and that anything that they have a replacement they won't do so i think the cost of this would be the bare minimum cost because stuff that they won't fix if it's been addressed and we've fixed everything else it's almost like we probably would have to fix the other that they've identified and hire another company to probably report sections of concrete so just a thought the booklet that's being passed around uh christian did send an email so it's a google doc it can be referenced as well so when looking at the details you know it looks to me like right at the elementary school there's

087the most issue can we almost take like a risk based or phased approach to this that we identify where the you know like the biggest challenges are like what they experience you know with students um you know and make sure that we don't you know if a quarter of an inch yes it may not be compatible but can we do that next year or like spread that out to to make it less of an impact to the overall and really the significant concerns this year absolutely this can be you know you can pick five that's in this or 25 or 35 or pick a building uh it's just depending on you know there are some larger ones and i can't say that after report came out that i went and looked at every single number

088on there so i would you know as christian said you know go look a little bit more uh just like again number two with the ada sidewalk i've driven by that entrance every day since coming in and it didn't even consider uh until we had a perspective i met our representative from the vacation for our civil rights audit about 100 feet from that sidewalk and either one of us you know that was two years ago it's just remarkable that we didn't have any reports of that one previously but the best way to hear it from a student's map do we have any kind of ramp ability out into the directly out into the parking lot from the high school what i can't recall yes every every entrance there is a ramp both right okay and

089as well as at the of constitution in trexler just not on the opposite corner okay to get you can get off our property but you can't go across to our other side of our property correct what's the ada issue exactly uh it's curb you can't you cannot go over it with a wheelchair i mean that that was the situation where the gentleman was in a or one of our students was in a wheelchair and there's no ramp there for him to get up onto the sidewalk was that ever made ada compliant i mean there's got to be ramps it appears that it met an old standard by my you know just by looking at it it was not done completely different than the rest of the district they were all done to it to a

090modern standard this one looks like it was possibly the standard at one time and it wasn't addressed when the rest were i think it was just missed at some point i mean minimum that's going to have to be addressed yeah yes we have a we have a quote we have to be ada compliant beyond that i would uh just echo some of uh mr nolte's concerns as to what your exact need might be and i mean we should better define the scope please please don't interpret that i don't want to be ada compliant i just does the board have a big ticket to go do a number that we're comfortable with that we could take that down that we're comfortable spending or do we want to sit on it for a month you know everybody

091i think just about everyone here will be on campus you know over the course of next take the report look at it not that you're going to examine or we could all meet as a group and go for a walk i just think i think it is valuable to take a look because some you know some of the ones that are numbered do not look like a tripping hazard and others yeah i would agree because i actually did some loops here the one day after practice with the girls and there were some i saw the blue numbers i didn't know exactly what they were but like yeah they're not at plate all places that are to me seem really significant but i'm also not a specialist in this area so i mean the elementary the

092ks looks to be very red marked right yeah and we have a lot of walters there and i mean one of the other possibilities would be we have left the administration building out of our other act you know actions uh if we are going to be doing something different with that that might be a possibility too because as i look at the map of that school it seems they're mostly trip hazards there may be one uh blue or or expansion joint problem purple i don't see any blue there so um you know and maybe some of those things like a crack we could seal ourselves with sealant you know our own mate could take care of some things i would think but yeah it would be good to look at this a bit so i'd

093recommend we you know table the whole thing because it's not uh we have less traffic on the campus coming up rather than more in the coming months um do we want to schedule time to walk all together or just do you want to kind of look at it on your own when you're out about on the campus i think just to get us and with the exception i would again recommend that we do the ada sidewalk on constitution as soon as possible which soon as possible trying to get someone to do concrete work may not mean very soon either i mean if we get done soon enough tonight i'll uh i can if it's still daylight we can walk it real quick uh by the high school and the the elementary school here even not

094today just hold hands because we don't want to get lost and i have to say i thought it was a clever math assignment the first time i saw the the numbers i thought i wanted to i'm looking at it on the computer thank you and then what's this extension uh just to finish up the ada sidewalk at the high school uh we have a quote from uh clayton smith of clayton concrete for uh five five hundred dollars that's to do uh the up-to-date current ada and in that area that must be replaced right but the the the uh agenda says kes sidewalk extension high school yeah i was just uh finishing up number two mr birch number three is the kes sidewalk extension that is a request uh at the principal uh request to look

095at the sidewalk that comes off of normal avenue and go directly to their building instead of crossing the path of the driveway where currently the students cross the driveway in the mornings and she asked from a safety concern if we could put a dry sidewalk that would come completely off of normal avenue and go right to the building without crossing the driveway how long of an area is that do we know the dimensions it has to be uh just about 80 feet going to be a four foot wide sidewalk by uh 80 feet long it's actually also the entrance to the saucony trail that goes onto our school property near the end of the guardrail is there they have a quote for that here with what we were given we have uh a low quote

096of uh 4 000 plus so again we want to put some uh adjustments for material material price up of 4000 plus material increase as the time we do it or a high of six thousand dollars from another uh vendor it looks like with the maintenance it also included the uh admin building or is that incorrect no that the the maintenance definitely includes it includes all five of our buildings because we refrained from doing things at the ad at the other project is there something with the sidewalks that we would definitely need to address or is that something that would need to be considered for the same reasons we uh did not do anything at the admin building or the other project dr ritter had said the same got out of any proposal it could be

097a la carte there's no reason you know we you think of the foot traffic on all of our other sidewalks is significantly greater than what is uh that maxitani with max attorney again next year as of right now would just be those employees and our few visitors the elc will be closed does the committee have any other questions regarding the uh sidewalk maintenance and proposed work that we're discussing with with the costs for these um activities are is it capable of being covered in our current budget i'm asking you richard what if we have the space financially to do these things these would be construction fund things so they come out of our construction account yes steve what you sent what's the balance 400 some thousand dollars correct 444 866. do we do we put

098funds into that every year yep and uh currently we are proposing to put 000 into the construction fund for next year correct days for next year yeah we had 2 30 in and we're going to put another 100 of esser funds in there richard did you say we had five buildings or four five what's the what's the fifth building i'm completely blind yeah greenwich elementary school middle school high school oh i think about greenwich in my head sorry about that yeah so do a lot of people i was just thinking kutztown first thank you is there anything else that he would like to see addressed before we uh revisit this i mean i just is this the only company that does this kind of work or is there a possibility of another bid on this

099just to see if they're in line this is the one in the eastern pa who who does this i have not researched many other companies that do this but i can certainly look out and see if there's any other this is a this company is a uh part of the kpn so it's again it's a we don't have to go out to bid for that but i can definitely search out so the 27 000 figure you quoted does that cover all three items or does that just cover the maintenance that covers just the the walkway maintenance proposal and again that's the five buildings doing the trip hazards and the crack repair does not cover the expansion joints did they break the price out by buildings i didn't look at that yes yes it is i

100mean at the very least i would suggest we not do the admin building but you know there again that might be foolish too because people do pull up there and walk those walks but but it looks like they're all fairly minor cracks are not cracks but rises not not significant problems so it could be done at a later time once we know what we're doing with that building is made in that regard the trip hazard that they've quoted for the admin building was 1 387 and the crack repair at that building is 300. so just i'm sorry this is a naive question i'm just refined print here that they don't guarantee crack expansion or curb repairs to be municipal ada compliant but they are willing to do those repairs for the the estimated costs right

101right so the curb repair and i spoke with brian bailey at the borough so uh official curb is seven inches so okay what they're saying is that the curb is higher and and curb is an additional price that you'll see in uh on page here i'm on 75. but that's when they cut down the curves to bring the curves down to the height of the sidewalk and they're not guaranteeing uh at that point but i'm not suggesting we do the curves at this point so they would cut down the top of the curve and they're saying it wouldn't be again a seven inch curve is what is uh required and none of the what you shared is according to this is talking about doing any curb repair at all at any cases correct and the

102reason we're holding off and doing that is paving because we're doing painting right a lot of locations so is it the will of the committee that they would like richard to still come back with some more clarification on the project yeah i would in front of russia not anything specific you'd like to look at i haven't had a chance to see the report other than just scanning through it now i think outside of taking a walk around yeah because they list it's it's a lot of detail to try to stay just from questioning we need to give us along right you'd probably have to in whatever response back we have to indicate clearly what what ones we want them to repair anything over a half inch or whatever i think it'd be good to know

103too what they can't repair that we would be responsible for getting repaired by somebody else those probably would be like the most the worst areas too because it sounds like they can't repair anything that's like past a certain threshold so you need to know that address this again at the next uh committee meeting i think the walkway maintenance proposal was one piece and then there were the two other items are sort of independent of that the 88 compliant curbing and the extension at elementary school um is there any uh urgency with any of those that we have to get them done right away i think the ada flying curving is pretty urgent um because it's a clear ada violation and again the urgency is getting on the books of a contractor because they're they're just

104scheduling out so far as well as our paving coming up to that and we want to do that advancing prior to the paving trip because you're gonna be some time during the summer the extension for kes i mean if you're putting a timeline on it we really wouldn't need it before the beginning of school obviously i'm willing to move those two projects to make a motion for those two projects if somebody wants to what were the costs on those projects the uh we have a quote for the ada sidewalk at the high school for five thousand five hundred dollars and we have a uh estimate for the kes sidewalk equipment for 4 000 plus or minus any increase in concrete from that particular vendor that and those would be the two-eyed move do we have

105a second no second is that a sound second yeah so we have a motion in a second does anyone want to discuss that any further are we ready to take a vote uh do a show of hands was two items then we can come back at the next meeting and talk about the maintenance proposal just may want to do with that next item is the asbestos abatement so in the uh project uh with the auditorium and lgi rooms the flooring needs to be removed for obviously the uh updated floors and the mat the glue that holds those tiles and and flooring down has asbestos uh that has been uh done throughout the high school remediated uh as time has been uh these are the last apparently uh spaces in the school that have this again

106it's since it's sealed it's not a problem until it becomes friable which is uh during the removal process that's why we have to go this route meeting with the team from mcclure that is not covered in the contract the asbestos part of the removal there is removal of flooring but it's there's an extra cost to do it with an invasion yeah that was the original contract that was done whenever mcclure had done the original project uh so we have uh three options and i'm exploring every all of them currently uh we can go with a co-stars uh vendor which would allow us to proceed with an immediate uh you know project uh since this is going to exceed twenty thousand dollars we could go out to bid you know for a sealed bid for this

107removal or we can allow mcclure to do it and then they would just put the additional management fee of five percent plus uh whatever other service uh for that there i have some verbal quotes from a couple of companies uh between 36 and 40 000. uh i'm still going back and forth with the uh environmental company that we've used before element environmental to see how they would manage that they have to manage the air process during that met with another vendor today and he's supposed to get me some some quotes that would be through our co-stars partners who've done the work in the building before division nine uh and then again mcclure said that they would potentially take it on again with the expectations that they add that management fee and roll it into the

108esco project yeah so i'd be curious what that management fee is if it's something that we have vendors that are experienced in the district that have worked with us and save that management fee that seems like the logical path to take in my mind with that kind of cost yeah and i mean in addition which the cost built-in contract for the flooring removal would then be a credit back if we do not have mcclure involved in doing it i'm not sure if we were able to pull out that number of what that credit would be a rough number of credit would be uh 20 000 so roughly potentially half of what the removal would be for the abatement yeah if we if we do it ourselves do we just then pay that out right up

109front i guess we couldn't roll that into the financing i'm sorry would you if we if we um hire the company to do the asbestos room without going through mcclure would we just pay that out up front and we couldn't really roll that into the financing well our financing dollars are set so we can't i thought we had some extra dollars in there no we pretty i thought there's a bit above that but talked about not using it all that we had so many years to use it no we didn't do that we borrowed the least amount we had to all right and there will be with the project some pluses and minuses throughout terms of cost but at this point we wouldn't know and obviously this needs to be done prior to knowing what

110those pluses and minuses are so this will come out of the construction again happen i i think it's better to keep mcclure out of it too that's an added cost to us if we have a some you know we've you've done this before and and quality work done i i would just move ahead to contract it and have it done then who's who would run that project though because we wouldn't want to risk those people falling behind because that pushed the rest of the project back i'm just kind of wondering if it's outside of mcclure or did they will they just be responsible for communicating and make sure that the removal stays on track for getting everything completed for next year yes i explained that uh i explained that today and i had a verbal

111commitment that they would you know be a partner per se with that to make sure we have everything uh you know on time you're talking about would you over is richard i mean would you be the one to oversee that they're keeping on track with yes what needs to happen yes and again working with our the vendor who's coming in which is division nine who has done a lot of work in the uh in the district before do we have uh available money in the budget to take care of this expense in the current the current balance is uh that 444 000 you know so it would come from the construction funds with the current plan to add 320 000 in the 22 budget so it would be a part of that because now when

112the project was uh written up by mcclure did they identify that there would be as best or no how did we just discover this if it wasn't before it was questioned and until we had the report from element environmental again i had very little files when i came on board but those files actually they forward me their last inspection when they did the uh abatement uh with the last i guess two classrooms that were done they had a report according to mcclure they've stopped including that contracts quite a few years ago you know that's something that they because it's they considered an unknown that was the old contract the previous project they were more specific about it but since then they've just essentially eliminated as a part of their proposals because of the unknowns around

113asbestos and is it just those two richard is it just those two rooms the the adjoining uh band storage closet uh which was the other thing that was on the list as well well what about the auditorium because isn't that floor getting torn up as well yes i'm sorry that's that's the two two rooms so the d17 d18 auditorium and the band okay the whole area that's what i wanted to be sure we were talking about everything here not getting surprised again okay and we pulled up some other carpet today as well and we're happy to find that there was no mastic in that room so when would that work take place it worked as soon as they can as soon as we can commit to them uh as soon as i get that quote

114back and as soon as we can commit to them once uh we have given mcclure the green light on june 7th that they can start removing seating from the auditorium and as soon as the seat moved the abatement could come in after that and start that procedure so this would be after schools closed correct yes so there'll be no students no students and what was what would be if mcclure handled it what would be the cost it's whatever they had contracted they would use a vendor from the harrisburg area that they have used in the past uh they apparently adjust i spoke to via text anyway they did doing one in palmerton uh uh handling that but again just the uh the side of that they'll handle it but they're gonna charge us that five

115percent you know a minimum of five percent on top of whatever the cost that they come up with but we don't know what that call can we have them get a cost yes yeah that would be interesting to know what would be the less expensive let me just go ahead and expensive route correct every uh every option at this point and i said i literally was texting with alyssa about an hour ago they might have good purchasing power with that group if they use them a lot sure i mean i want to find out what they were and just go with the least expensive option sure okay there's nothing else just some updates you know facilities why is that i don't can i just question on that because if we wait till committee meeting we're

116going to put everything back and not have that ready to go can are we comfortable with trusting the administration to bring put on the agenda the proposal of the cheapest of the least expensive alternative i can do as soon as i find out the cost from uh you know the multiple vendors that i have i can forward it to this group and uh i don't know what the procedure policy is there for you know doing a vote i don't know i'm asking our fellow fellow board members whether we're comfortable with having that we've we've done that before yeah i'm comfortable doing it that way if you give us the lowest option times of the essence yeah i think it is in this case but supported on it during the board meeting it's just a matter

117of what's the lowest option you've done that kind of thing and we could just listen on the agenda as a recommendation of the administration and not of the committee because you know we could explain right there in the meeting it was the lowest bid do you want a motion to that effect so we're clear on it from everyone or do you need that or i just want to be the right thing here it's unnecessary um you certainly can but it's unnecessary we the administration can make recommendations right to the board agenda which just comes with a little bit different i would just give the administrator okay to make the best recommendation because if the price difference is like a hundred bucks it might just be better to go with mcclure and let them run it

118from start to finish so right yeah i just leave it to administration dude recommend the best option all right thank you i'm just saying some updates here uh the obviously max itani there will be the discussion regarding the warehouse coming up their next meeting in addition to uh expecting not this month but in in a few months they're expecting um official proposals oh really yeah in the coming months uh it's not there yet but i'm sorry chris i didn't hear you they are expecting some uh official proposals from wawa okay um across from long lane sorry at the next meeting but in the coming months that is an expectation that's the property adjacent to the run the rudders are still on one and then you go through right but because the way that circle runs

119the wawa access is going to have to be from long lane yeah i think long lane is how you're going to access the rudders too i don't think they're going to let anybody get off of 2p22 yeah it's too steep yeah it's it's all off a long lane and the other growth in max tunney would be um there is a building with uh caddy corner from the ho on the other side of maxitoni leaving town was described as caddy corner where they're looking at a proposal for a building that would include like a medical facility an urgent care type medical facility oh across from the new hotel yes from a new hotel where is this question um leaving now and heading west um across from the new hotel from the kutztown foundation oh okay could

120say university foundation hotel i think there was a large uh big transaction to greenwich township that was in the paper on sunday i didn't see that when they're talking from greenway don't remember the specifics yeah but i think it was over 4 million yeah i saw that i didn't know what it was about i'm not sure if it's i'm not sure what the property's used for than yesterday's paper the warehouse i think the planning commission is meeting on may 20th may 20th business for max county township does anyone else have anything for the good of the committee tonight i i just say thank you richard it's good to have someone paying attention to these kinds of things for us i know it seems like you're forever asking us to spend money but i think some

121of it is because we didn't have to do for a long time i mean i'm fairly new to the board so i appreciate your being willing to come here and let us know there's things that need to be looked after thank you as i as i speak to other directors uh throughout the throughout berks county uh i think the school district is in very good uh shape so overall i mean i i hear uh definitely other horror stories about uh old equipment and and whatnot and overall i believe that this district is in pretty good shape obviously we don't have here in public anymore but online uh dr meyers that very good um so with uh that being the case uh be looking for a uh to adjourn for the night thank you richard