001um okay okay we'll call okay mr andrews he's absent mr detmore here strikefield here mr caravan mrs magnona she wants to be in on zoom but i know mike was trying to give her yes i'm here here she is okay hello say yes mrs miller yes i'm here and i want to file a verbal protest we have a member of the audience and the president of the board refuses to ask him to wear a mask mr welch here dr paxton president and board president mrs baxter here a president one absent may have a motion to approve the agenda second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye the eyes have it we had an executive session tonight at 6 15 for the purposes of personnel i may have a motion to approve the minutes
002from august 24th second any questions or comments all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye you guys have it um okay a superintendent's report you name evening directors all right i'd just like to take a minute tonight to as usual extended thank you to our faculty staff and administration for getting the school year up and running i think things are operating relatively smoothly i know our students are enjoying being back in school and our teachers i think are just doing a great job to get things back in a group and are educating the students and really into making the most of every day so just a brief announcement and a thank you to our faculty staff and administration for all their efforts over the last three weeks as we move ahead thank you
003miss baxter a courtesy of the florida visitors oh dave you said that you had a comment that will be after that's a non-agenda item okay all right i made a motion to approve the presentation of bills so moved second any questions all those in favor signify by saying aye aye the eyes have it may i have a motion to approve the treasurer's report so moved any questions oh second any questions all those in favor signify by saying aye aye okay the minutes of the amp meeting from august 25th are attached okay we're under personnel we have a retirement and resignation uh we have well let's just do we have every return we have dr butler is retiring effective august 14th may i have a motion so moved second any comments or questions oh i just
004wanted to say doc about butler this is a culmination of uh four years that you've been here i think uh maybe uh to the date right uh you started september of 2017. lots of good things happened here in this district during this time um a lot for all of us in the community and especially in the school to be proud of and uh i i just want to wish you a great retirement and uh thank you for your services thank you dr paxton and i'll say we'll be accepting this with regret thank you very much for all your time yes thank you dr we have we have weeks ahead but just we do we do so this isn't the last thank you all respects for man just take a minute directors i would like to
005thank you for the opportunity to lead this district over the past four years it has been a challenge but also a joy and it not only brought me to [Music] a great school district but it brought me closer to family and i'm extremely appreciative of that i do want to publicly say thank you to my wife kathleen my two sons dustin and travis who over my 42 year career have supported me thick and then gone where i needed to go to advance my career and i'm extremely appreciative of my family i do also want to thank administrators faculty and staff it has been a pleasure to serve in this district and it's been a pleasure to establish relationships that i will cherish for many years to come is it a fine school with the great
006faculty and staff and i'm so appreciative of the opportunities that i have had to interact with such fine professionals and lastly just to thank you to the parents in the school community as you know i often times send out emails to parents and i get replies uh as well and and the reply is have 99.9 of the time being courteous thankful professional respectful grateful and as a leader during my time here it's made a big difference a big big difference so directors thank you for the opportunity to have served here it's been a pleasure thank you thank you thank you thank you all right um well this isn't the final final going we still we still have you for another couple meetings so yeah all right all those in favor signify by saying aye aye
007opposed the eyes have it all right um we will move on to um resignations um food service appointment bus driver appointment um an unpaid leave which is going into fmla approval of homebound instructors co-curricular appointments day-to-day subs and additions to the sub list that's a lot a lot of motions i'll just give everybody a minute to make sure that they don't have a question on any of these particular items may i ask a question about number eight does that have us up to full complement on the day-to-day dedicated day-to-day sub i'm sorry miss miller i'm sorry does that keep us up to full compliment on dedicated dated gay subs so we have a good oh yes i think mr d are you full do you need one one more still okay thank you i knew
008that we were working on it i just didn't know the status thank you for all your effort i know it's important for everybody in the building so thank you high school is full dr nicola yeah yeah okay and once again directors i cannot even express in words i think i'm speaking on behalf of our principals how much these individuals help our day-to-day operation of the school so we're extremely appreciative thank you thank you all right all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye the ice have it we have no uh no facilities items we do not have excuse me we should have minutes though attached to that we had a meeting so for record if we could add them in the next i don't know if the minutes have been have been written
009yet yeah but i'm just saying we had a meeting so that normally they we'll have the summary by the next meeting thank you very much no pressure on judy it was just a no good they've been good at that um so there's nothing under finance uh does anybody have anything to share under community updates which now includes the stock valley partnership lower stockholm chamber of commerce the foundation and ncc i have absolutely nothing at this point okay you only have need to speak up if you have something okay then we will move on to bethlehem area vote um we had a meeting uh last week and the big item of discussion is how to spend the grant money that's coming from the government we're working on that the first draft wasn't uh quite ready for
010prime time but we'll we're working to get it shaped up and the iu i went to my first meeting uh a lot a lot to take up centered the the the pamphlets they didn't give me at the meeting how did they get those to us the ones that they pass out the the newsletter what's that okay it's online so i'll just have to forward that on to all the board members then okay it works fair enough and uh yeah we're uh it's a lot to take on a lot of a lot of things moving uh we'll be uh i'll bring you more as things move forward all right is there any new business in the old business well i just uh wanted to ask a couple of updates if i may yes the first one
011is about the dog so uh you know we all uh read a story uh in newspaper about uh denial of access and i just wondering if uh there is any update there's any information that you can share with the community about the circumstances i thought uh stock and valley uh uh honors uh medical needs so uh if you can uh or i don't know maybe mr fitzgerald or you or from the last lawyer yeah i think i can hopefully add a little bit and obviously there was a there was an article um in the local paper recently um i i think as a fuller response the district has fully adhered with the individuals with education education act as well as section 504 of the rehabilitation act and all applicable regulations in terms of individualizing education
012for all students and in particular this student as well i am not going to speak to specifics of the students program but suffice to say that this is something that the administration is aware of it has been reviewing and and they feel comfortable with how they've supported the children in the district in general but also in this issue as well so uh you don't think that we are in violation of any laws or any regulations or any uh no any policies of the board no i don't um because and as as the board knows programming for students is highly prescribed by federal law there's there's a lot that goes into it a lot of scrutiny in terms of review of documentation and the like uh in this instance that's what this district has done um
013and i feel comfortable that they've adhered to what the expectations are state and federal law surrounding programming for for these students uh the the second question is uh for dr butler and his velocity either one is about the uh iu cyber program i think when we discussed this last time or when we sort of like decided to participate the great premise was that this is uh this is a way for the district to save money because uh we would uh basically uh send students who would be otherwise going to charter schools or coming from charter schools to these uh to these programs so i'm just wondering if you have any updates in terms of the numbers how many students are participating what is the sort of like expected projected amount of saving uh that the
014district is uh uh basically uh taking advantage of through this uh yeah miss velasque would you mind commenting on that please no not at all sorry sorry about my voice by the way um so we are currently at 10 fully enrolled students k to 12. for virtual there was roughly 20 um parents who have shown interest and we had 16 enrolled but six have withdrew and have returned back in in person um at this point in time it is no savings there is only a cost at this point because there were no students that were from outside coming these are all our students that have now gone to virtual we can do a savings on based on what they would have gone to with outside cyber versus the price for the iu cyber so that
015would give us a of savings on that number that would give us an indication of what would without that option that was what the choice would have been and we do have a set cyber rate and we do have a set iu rate so that is you know applicable numbers we can use so we had did we have any of our cyber students that left last year have any of those returned back to stockholm no mrs muller they have not but i understand your point we really don't know what what they would have done so it's all at this point conjecture as to whether they would have stayed in our school or gone to the iu so we don't know right well i mean the the one thing is that this is if if there
016were people who were in cyber charter last year and this year rented this option then that would be so uh and we had quite a few last year so this is the the idea was whether this is really competing with the cyber charter or is it competing with our own programming because you can you know easily argue that those kids would be the home schooled or they would join the in-person uh learning that we have so i or they would have joined the cyber program right but whatever the number would have been worse say that these are 16 kids or 10 kids who were in that clearly six of them you know when they didn't like it uh they they came back to uh yeah anyway thank you very much thanks jimmy any other questions
017from anybody else um susan it's tracy can i just add in i know you skipped over um i think you skipped over the sock and valley foundation for education and i just wanted to chime in that uh we wanted to give a big thank you out to embassy bank who donated ten thousand dollars to the saucon valley foundation for education and um didn't want to be remiss and acknowledging that gift and expressing our gratitude for it oh that's great yes thank you missy bank for that yes who was it who uh donated it again it was embassy bank yes thank you great was that through the eitc program yes so big shout out to embassy bank for that thank you tracy ms baxter um well no excuse me along the lines of donations i had
018shared with the board and i mentioned publicly having permission to do so that the diggs family donated a scoreboard out in the track and field area to the tune of several thousand dollars to uh earmark student achievements in track and field and that um board will be correct mr frank so we appreciate the diggs family donation and that i think that will be a nice added feature to our outdoor track and field arena yes that's much appreciated yeah thank you all right does anybody have anything else a quick meeting oh sorry no now we have the citizens inquiries and commons anybody does anybody have anything they'd like to comment on okay uh dave did you say that there was somebody that um sent an email yes there was a an email and it was from
019sarah hawk and that 1761 arden lane bethlehem pa and its review of elementary school lunches with the free lunch for all programs this year at school i'm having my children eat lunch at school every day i firmly believe in the quality this creates having grown up in a free lunch school program myself that said i think our school does an okay job with some days but other days are extremely unhealthy options for example pizza french fries and rice krispie treats are served one day our french fries are the vegetable of course the kids love this option but any of those items are a treat in itself it seems hypocritical to be teaching the food pyramid in school and then going to lunch where this is not followed and we count french fries for healthy vegetables
020i don't even know if this is all surgery well sugary canned fruit or actually fresh fruit what are max max sticks or bosco sticks i feel we can do better and i know the argument is often just packed for your kids but what about the children that are under financial constraint and cannot pack what kind of a message does this send in the end i want to know what we can do as parents to support the school to provide healthier options for school lunches for all okay also i just have one question that i uh forgot to ask earlier do we have minutes from the special meeting or did we already approve those or they haven't come out yet uh they haven't come out they're buried i found them they're buried inside uh the previous
021set of minutes oh they are they're they're in there okay he's got a dig okay all right they don't jump out at you they probably should be posted separately okay all right all right the next meeting will be tuesday september 28th excuse me one point um are we sure there's nobody who wants to say anything oh okay boom ma'am yeah you got it okay yes you can you can speak i came here tonight yeah i came here tonight and apparently it is clear as day that i got scrutinized sitting here without a mask i came here purposely without a mask because this is a mandate it is not at all it is stated in there you can't physically remove me or take me out of here so i don't know what that act was tonight
022when i came in here but it was not right to do to anyone the school board does have the authority to supersede the government i guess you guys didn't hear enough complaints or care or or want to change it but i came here tonight to voice my opinion i think it is borderline child abuse to interfere with the breathing of a child and i will let you guys figure it out this virun is a thousand times smaller than a piece of hair do you think that mask is gonna really protect me i understand you guys are up against it i understand you guys have it coming from all angles just remember these are our children this is our future that we're masking we're giving them complexes we're trying to label them with a 504 form
023when there's no disability i'm not going to take my child to a doctor and ask to get a thing saying that they need a permission not to wear a mask this is still the united states our constitution still gives us the freedom so i'm asking you guys as a school board to hear what the people and what the parents won for their children can you just state your name my name is keith and your last name we always put it on the record gerstenberg okay thank you i i understand your comments i appreciate them the board is continuously examining and investigating and looking at the situation so well i appreciate that but the way i was treated here is wrong i'm sorry and i can guarantee you no you don't have to apologize for her
024actions i can guarantee if this is the way we're treating our children you will see me back here a lot more so so are you hellertown lower stockton laura saccone okay thank you is there anybody else that would like to speak tonight yes please or is this coming before school started you all had a survey sent out on our emails asking us if we wanted our children in fully mass classrooms or optional classrooms without math i guess it was maybe a week before school started several days next thing i know there is no options and i signed on to that a lot of other people i know signed on to it too i'd like to know what that survey was about was that actually a survey or did you guys already have it decided that
025there was maps going to be worn was that more of an illegal census to see who prefers not to have mass and who prefers to have mass because that's what i kind of think it was since it seems like your minds were already made up that masks were going to be worn by our students so what was that survey about we we went met until one o'clock that day and i can tell you i i'm against the masking so and i think a lot of the board members feel that way too we are and we have done our homework on this well oh no i'm listening i want to know because it was like like okay we are up against some very tough issues one of the issues is keeping kids in school and that's
026there's there's a lot of quarantining issues that are being placed on us that we have to evaluate because and we're we're looking at it i'm not saying we're not uh we're not turning away from it but our main mission is to keep students in school and we're doing some analysis of the numbers and this is my opinion let me i think what hold on i think what needs to be clarified is and and just to answer hopefully answer your question is the board did this wasn't a bait and switch they they did not do a survey uh to elicit information from the public and then all of a sudden go another way this was ordered by the department of health and the pennsylvania department of education what the survey was ordered no no no the
027the decision to have mass or the requirement that masks in the buildings so the board didn't meet and say we're going to mandate masks from from k through 12. this came down from the governor's office through the department of health on august 31st clarity came through the department of education a few days later and the district which is essentially licensed and is overseen by the department of education is is adhering to that order the order is in front of the commonwealth court right now i'm understanding the commonwealth court will be hearing arguments over the next say six to ten days on this issue if the commonwealth court were to find that the order is illegal then the board would revert back to its current health and safety plan um if it is found to continue
028to be legal then they would likely be continuing to follow that order governor wolf is supposed to address the issue of the of the order on october 1st so we're going to hear from the commonwealth court between now and october 1st or the governor on october 1st but there was no decision by this board to change what it had had approved back on august 15th or 16th okay i think something important too this is basically a statewide mandate what you're saying this is correct in the board of in the uh i understand your first appointment of education your frustration is not with these nine members all right well you know it seemed very strange i have to be honest with you i i get it trust me you know i mean ever since that happened
029i had a question like you know what was going on i think another thing though to get to your point about bait and switch there was no bait and switch in the sense that what the assistant superintendent did with that query was to pull together and structure classes that were in a mass track and in an optional track and that still stands and that structure is still there so when we can revert back we can accommodate the wishes of both sets of parents and that's why that question went air went out that's why it was revalidated and she will likely monitor this as we move forward assuming there's some change that comes out from the state we don't do baits and switch around here we give you face value okay and you know we don't
030want you to think that we're we're doing something underhanded here because we don't that's not the way this board operates and i can tell you that ain't the way i operate okay well as you can see i'm the kind of guy that'll come and face it right i'm glad both of you gentlemen came in here and talked thank you and uh can i have one more question sure all right that critical race theory that's going around the country is that anything that we got to expect that this school's going to do i'm not getting a no from anybody so i have a feeling that it's under consideration no no it's not it's not it's not under consideration at this time it is not under and it is not understood any curriculum work we're doing now
031or in the future sir as miss baxter said and the others chimed in if there's anything like that that comes about would the parents be aware of it before it was brought in what we would ask you to do is watch your materials to come home to your children take a look at them we can't look at everything right there's a lot of material that's put out by the state there's a lot of material that's inside these textbooks if you think all nine of us can watch that stuff i i got a bridge in brooklyn for you um we can't so watch what your kids are getting and what do you mean so the state could sneak it in is what you're saying i would tell you to go take a look at the state
032website and go look at its materials wait a minute wait we have an administration here yes that i pay these guys and women and guys to look over these programs and to look what the curriculum has in it and if somehow that would get in to the system without us knowing it without the parents knowing it it's their heads yes i hold them responsible correct come to us and give us proper information on what we're doing in our schools and that's how it lays out yes okay that's correct we would also ask that you watch and be involved with that well i'll be keeping a watch okay thank you thank you and i appreciate it thank you thank you thank you thank you any of the comments with that may i have a motion to
033adjourn motion second meeting adjourn thanks everyone um