The
DTSD Webinars: good evening. I'd like to call the August fourteenth, 2,023 meeting of the Dairy Township School District Board of directors to order and announce that this meeting is being live, streamed, and audio recorded.
DTSD Webinars: This meeting is being conducted both in person and virtually. I'd like to request for Board Members to please state your name when speaking.
DTSD Webinars: Mrs. Ag. Roll, call, please.
DTSD Webinars: Mr. Bennett. Dr. Cronin. Here, Mister here, Dr. Cuss, here, Mrs. Manny, here, Mr. Rizzo.
DTSD Webinars: Mrs. Schmidt, here, Mrs. Sicker, here, Mr. Singer.
DTSD Webinars: here 8 present one absent.
DTSD Webinars: Please rise, if you're able, and join me for the pledge of allegiance.
DTSD Webinars: I pledge allegiance to the pride of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands
DTSD Webinars: one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice rule
DTSD Webinars: may have a motion to approve the august fourteenth, 2,023. Board of directors, agenda, so moved Lindsey drew second Kathy sicker. Is there any discussion?
DTSD Webinars: This is a standard voice. Vote all those in favor, please say, aye, aye, any opposed? No.
DTSD Webinars: Have the agendas approved
DTSD Webinars: moving on to agenda. Item 2. Informational and proposals. First, we will hear from Ms. Carphail about the website. Design presentation.
DTSD Webinars: Ms. Garpell.
DTSD Webinars: All right. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Sarah Carpel. I am the supervisor of community Relations and Engagement. Just wanted to thank you for allowing me time to present the new Dairy township school district website.
DTSD Webinars: And I'm looking forward to showing you the progress and what's next?
DTSD Webinars: so to get started, I'm just gonna read our mission statement here. So
DTSD Webinars: our website serves as a hub of information and resources for our students, families and community. Our website is a central location where members of our school community can access a wide variety of information that is relevant to them. This includes resources such as our academic programs, school counseling support, extracurricular activities and clubs, resources for students and families and news and updates about the events happening around our district.
DTSD Webinars: We value transparency, accountability and engagement, and are and committed to keeping our community informed, engaged in the work we're doing. This means that we are transparent in our communications about the school policies and procedures, and actively seek feedback from our stakeholders so that we can continually improve.
DTSD Webinars: We have worked to reduce the clutter and outdated information on our website, and only post information that's current and relevant to the public. Ultimately we are sorry. Ultimately, our website is an important tool for ensuring that our students, families, and community have access to information. They need to be informed, engage successful members of our school community.
DTSD Webinars: So, as many of you may know or have experienced, our current website has a lot of shortcomings and can often be difficult to navigate. So I've I've identified a number of reasons at the beginning of this task of redesign designing and revamping our website as why we need to update the website.
DTSD Webinars: first of all, in December of 2022, we were informed that our website provider, which was blackboard, had been acquired by another school communications platform called Final Final Final Site
DTSD Webinars: at the time I was just beginning to discuss and explore what it would look like if we were to update the layout or change providers altogether.
DTSD Webinars: so this kind of sped up that process because we were forced into a new provider.
DTSD Webinars: The nice thing about that is that we had the ability, during the acquisition, to either stick with
DTSD Webinars: blackboard and the same back end and front end website or migrate over to final site on the back end and get a free upgrade to the front end design of our website. This is a great opportunity, because often these website redesigns can cost anywhere from like 5 to $10,000. So we got that for free, which is amazing. It sped up my timeline like I said, but it did allow for us to achieve some goals that I had been focusing on on the website.
DTSD Webinars: so with that, the biggest change that you're gonna see on the website is how it looks and the design overall, I opted for a brand new design that incorporated our school colors and lots of photos.
DTSD Webinars: I'll give you a preview here shortly, but you'll see the layout is engaging and captivating and more intuitive to use and navigate through. We've incorporated quick links for our families, community members and staff searchable calendars and headlines and eye catching buttons. But you'll see more of that shortly.
DTSD Webinars: My next focus was
DTSD Webinars: having it to be mobile, friendly. I understand the way that people access the information access, the Internet, and information has changed rapidly. And we all live very busy lives. And so we're often trying to check calendars or menus or school information while we're on the go, you know, sitting in the doctor's office, or whatever
DTSD Webinars: I know. And we know as a school that or as a district. Our website is often accessed through mobile devices. So while going through the redesign process, I made sure that everything was accessible in the same way on a small mobile screen, as it would be on a large desktop screens. This means that there will be no more tables that are cut off.
DTSD Webinars: and if you know, you know, because there are certain pages where the tables just get cut off on our current website.
DTSD Webinars: Next is something you've been hearing me talk about for a while now. It is web accessibility. It has been on my mind since I took over this job a couple of years ago, and I implemented a tool on our current website that reviews and flags accessibility errors so that we can make it easier for our users, all of them. To navigate.
DTSD Webinars: If they're using screen readers, navigation, cool tools, dictation translations, any of that.
DTSD Webinars: The journey to complete web accessibility is forever evolving. I took an opportunity, as I reviewed our content, page by page, to keep the accessibility as our priority. We will implement our current accessibility tool on our new website when we go live.
DTSD Webinars: Lastly, reduce clutter. Our website, when I had it migrated, had over 4,000 pages of stuff.
DTSD Webinars: That is a lot of information to maintain and keep up to date, and I had help, and it was still a huge undertaking. I'm sure many of you have come across pages that were outdated or incorrect, or maybe even just had a spelling mistake.
DTSD Webinars: Throughout the redesign process. I have gone through every single page, one by one, and read the content and made the adjustments. I've also done a ton of consolidation. There were pages with just one single link and nothing else on the page. There are a lot of duplicate pages. So information, like the name of a school counselor would be in 6 different spots. That's a lot to update as well. So a lot of what I've done is consolidate so that everything is linked back to a single source
DTSD Webinars: that will help when we need to update as well.
DTSD Webinars: I'm down to about 2,300 pages, which still feels like a lot. But that isn't major improvement.
DTSD Webinars: Okay, on to some previous.
DTSD Webinars: So this is our new dairy township school district homepage
DTSD Webinars: the main page is definitely going to have the biggest overhaul feel of the navigation. We are highlighting our mission statement, our academics, extracurriculars, activities, athletics, awards staff recognition.
DTSD Webinars: I don't know why I paused.
DTSD Webinars: There we go. We have still have an area for headlines. We have an area for news.
DTSD Webinars: other small but exciting features on the websites. This is a small one, but a big one. At the same time.
DTSD Webinars: The website links will now have meaningful names. So instead of you know, page dash 7, 6, 5, 4. It's going to be like Hershey, K. 12 dot paus slash calendar. So those things are all going to make sense now. That is also super helpful for search engine optimization. So if someone's looking for Googling dairy townships, school district calendar, that's gonna pop right up. So those sorts of things.
DTSD Webinars: I can get this to play.
DTSD Webinars: So here's just a small preview if it
DTSD Webinars: and keep going
DTSD Webinars: highlighting some of our biggest achievements.
DTSD Webinars: And then at the end you'll see news and calendars
DTSD Webinars: next for our navigation
DTSD Webinars: while the website itself looks different. I tried to keep a lot of the information in the same places. So you'll notice the tabs across the top. Do look very similar to what they look like on our current website.
DTSD Webinars: not trying to
DTSD Webinars: reinvent the wheel here. I'm just trying to make it look better, feel better, be more consistent. I hope that that helps when we transfer for our users to understand where to go to find things.
DTSD Webinars: I did add across the top you'll see them. I have something called enrollments before I felt enrollments, was a little bit buried underneath. I believe it was the contact us tab so now it's going to be right in the middle of the screen. Very easy for our families to find and to navigate through, to make that process a little less challenging. Because it is. It's a lot of work to enroll your student into school.
DTSD Webinars: The other thing that we'll notice is that the high school, middle school and elementary school pages will all look the same now, so things will be found in the exact same spot. The handbooks will be in the same spots.
DTSD Webinars: menus, so on and so forth. This is to, as students move throughout our schools. Or if you have kids in multiple buildings, it will all look the same. It'll be easier for people to use
DTSD Webinars: And since I've touched every single page on this website, it should look. This consistent throughout.
DTSD Webinars: My videos are having a hard time here.
DTSD Webinars: But you'll see dropdowns and
DTSD Webinars: information
DTSD Webinars: similar to our current website with the dropdowns.
DTSD Webinars: I think it navigates a little better, though. Just the way that they, this company, does their websites.
DTSD Webinars: Sarah, this is Kathy Seeker. Can you go under the well at some point, show the School Board cause that recently I looked at like 21 different school districts. And there's a law that you have to have our emails individually listed. And I did not like how some school districts buried it.
DTSD Webinars: I just curious if it's easy for people to find cause it. It used to be easy, and I really like the way we did it. And I was looking at other school districts. And it's like really hard to find. Yeah, I can show you that at the end. Is that okay? I believe they're on the main page, though, and listed. Oh, good we'll confirm that been staring at these a long time, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I believe they're like that. The only reason I would think they wouldn't be like that is because sometimes there's
DTSD Webinars: scammers that will grab all of our websites or all of our emails off the website. So you can hide them behind an image. And then the Gr, the scammers won't grab them. Well, so that's what some of the school districts told me. The reason why they didn't list it. But you have to. It's a law that you have to have it listed. Not
DTSD Webinars: like Barry's. You have to hover to find it like I have it listed. We had that happen. That's why I think we had removed the hyperlink on it because we had that happen where emails were being sent out like mimicking.
DTSD Webinars: Yes, that did happen. Oh, sorry we did remove the hyperlink. You're absolutely right, but it's still listed. So I think that would still apply. You just have to copy instead of click, I guess. But I'll show you that.
DTSD Webinars: Yeah. alright quick links.
DTSD Webinars: So one of the things I've added to the main page of our website is quick links. So there will be 3 sections, one for our parents, one for our community members, and one for staff. You can see here that the community members will have things like the Board of Directors, employment volunteering Tax Collection Collection Association, hack Residency. Just trying to make that information more accessible right up front so that it's not varied. It's not 10 clicks away.
DTSD Webinars: these are ones that I found consistently, and other school websites that did quick links as well. Obviously we can add things if if we find that there are ones that are missing.
DTSD Webinars: So
DTSD Webinars: the contact us page is next that I want to show you at the top of the contact Us. Page, it's going to have information about our online staff directory, our train of command matrix which helps inform who to contact in what order and then contact information for all of our schools and district office, of course, and then
below here.
DTSD Webinars: get that?
DTSD Webinars: I have a who to contact section. So now,
DTSD Webinars: I'm hoping this will help people find the right person based on their need. So if they're looking for a transcript request, for example, and then click on transcript. It's going to bring them right to the form that they need. If they're looking to interview Dr. Winslow, and they need a media request. They're gonna click on Media request. It's gonna give them my contact information. I'm hoping that this will reduce the amount of
DTSD Webinars: emails that we get in community correspondence that maybe just needed to be directed in another way. Put those 2 things right next to each other, hoping that that will help reduce some of the delay, and people finding the information that they're looking for
DTSD Webinars: on this page will. Of course, we'll still have our safe to say, and our community correspondents page
DTSD Webinars: the calendar.
DTSD Webinars: so there's a number of ways we can access the school calendar. Like, I said earlier, now you can go to our website, slash calendar. It's also on the quick links.
let me get to.
Sorry.
DTSD Webinars: Perfect. Okay,
DTSD Webinars: So on the left. You'll see the year to at the glance. Pdf, with. You're all familiar with our athletic schedule, our School Board meeting schedule. We'll also have an event ticket section. So now, if you wanna if we need to sell tickets to the musical, for example, or direct people to the Pi website to buy for playoffs. It can all be host there. Down the middle. I have listed the next 5 school events. You can still access the traditional
DTSD Webinars: that you all know and are familiar with at this point by, you're clicking on the little waffle or grid view and with this top 5 or next 5 you can filter so you can filter if you only want to see high school if you only want to see school board. So all that is filterable and same thing with the grid one you can just filter to the things that you want to see. And then one other thing I've added is this important dates on the right hand
side. I noticed online
DTSD Webinars: that there is a lot of questions about, like, what are our 2 h late starts. And what are our marking periods? So I added, or what are the senior events? I added, all of those, and just an easy dropdown so that you could just click on that and see the information you're looking to find. I hope this
DTSD Webinars: helps people navigate. What can be a really chaotic calendar.
DTSD Webinars: I have headlines up next headlines are going to look pretty much the same.
DTSD Webinars: It's just going to be a little more
DTSD Webinars: customizable now. So the same way where you could filter out what sort of events you wanted to see in calendar, you can do the same thing within the headline. So if you only wanted to see high school from 2022 to 20 or 2023 to 2024, you could just see those headlines if you wanted to only see School Board information, you could filter just school board information. So that's really cool. It also gives you ability to keyword search and date range search, going back in time to find things.
DTSD Webinars: find information that you may have seen posted there at some point. I like this a lot better than the way we have it right now, because you just have to either know the month or scroll endlessly until you find it. So I hope this will be A nice
DTSD Webinars: nice change for for those looking to access our information.
DTSD Webinars: Talked a little bit about mobile design before.
DTSD Webinars: hmm!
DTSD Webinars: I've used quick links as one of the main reasons to our it's going to be one of the main features that will help people navigate to the most important areas of our website from their phone. Now with quick links, it only takes 2 clicks to get to where you're going as opposed to clicking multiple places through multiple schools to find what you're looking for. We will no longer have
DTSD Webinars: images and text and tables being cut off like we did before. So I'm really excited about what this means for accessing information on your phone
DTSD Webinars: up next. I wanna talk a little bit about web accessibility. So like, I said earlier, is something I'm really passionate about web accessibility means websites, tools, technologies that are designed and developed for people with disabilities can use them. Since a lot of accessibility stuff happens kind of behind the scenes. And we set up once we go live. I wanna just highlight some of the main things that we're focusing on and just give a few visuals. It was a little harder to get screen videos of
DTSD Webinars: what's going on here. So, for example, on our old website, I have changed this. But when I first took over our old website,
DTSD Webinars: the tabs were in orange, and the font was in white
DTSD Webinars: for web accessibility. The contrast between the background and the font and needs to be a ratio of 4.5 to one. This is only a 2.8 to one going forward. It's going to be navy blue with the white. So it's
DTSD Webinars: well above where we need to be. It's going to be easy for anyone to access at any font size. So that's it seems small. But it is important. The next thing that we I'm gonna begin doing is also the closed captioning. So here you can see a quick screen grab of Miss Schmidt talking about a student of the month.
DTSD Webinars: and that's going to be in the board minutes for our school board and for any other videos that have any kind of audio dialog.
DTSD Webinars: Alt, text is another important one. Here's just an example. We will be using meaningful alt text. So any community member using a screen reader can still access the information and the images as
anyone else would.
DTSD Webinars: any any images that include information that is important. So one of the examples I'm using here is our school supply list that used to be just an image. All of that text is going to be
DTSD Webinars: just raw text right above the image so that anyone can use it. If they're using a translation tool, a screen reader, it, or you know, it's just easier to read on your phone, then going onto an image and zooming into the right grade. This is a slow process. It does require a lot of adjusting how we do things. We love
DTSD Webinars: Pdfs, and we love colors and stuff in our schools. That's totally fine. But we do need to be aware of this going forward, so I will be working with Staff over the next year to to improve this.
Okay, so what's next?
DTSD Webinars: Here's my timeline to launch right now, I'm just finishing up the remainder of the pages for the middle school and the elementary school, the district website and the high school are done. Next, we need to move on to testing the principals and directors will see the areas of the website that belong to them, and they can provide feedback. And then I will also be utilizing my communications committee from the School Board to do like a scavenger hunt sort of thing. So
DTSD Webinars: can you find where the High school handbook is.
DTSD Webinars: and I want them to tell me how quickly they found it. How many clicks did it take them? Was it intuitive? Yes or no? So I can gauge that and then adjust. Is it? Is it just intuitive to me? I've been sta like, I said. I've been staring at this for so long like it makes sense to me. But does it make sense to everybody else? And that's something we need to test for
DTSD Webinars: and then training our users. There's a lot less users with the new website, by design. So, but we still have people that are going to post jobs and update their counseling areas. And there is information that other people will have to do so there's a little bit of training involved, but a lot less than training all the teachers and all the coaches.
DTSD Webinars: My plan is to go live for mid September. We're on track for that. We understand that there will be a learning curve with our community, and we hope to utilize a feedback tool. That's right. Right on the web page at the bottom. Every page will say feedback. You can click on that button, provide suggestions. If there's any issues spelling that click links that don't work stuff like that, they'll be able to send information to me quickly and efficiently.
DTSD Webinars: That's so. Lots to do before mid-september. But I'm really excited. Thank you for your time. Hopefully, I was a little long. But I hope you're excited, too, and I hope everybody loves it when it goes live. I'm really excited about it, though.
DTSD Webinars: And I will show you.
DTSD Webinars: That part of the website, Kathy.
what is it?
DTSD Webinars: So this is how I don't know if you can. Oh, yeah, that's that was too much. That's perfect. That's how we had the best way to do it. Thank you. No problem.
DTSD Webinars: Any other questions.
DTSD Webinars: Thank you, Sarah. What a big undertaking! It sounds like you've made a lot of progress so that it will be worth it. Yeah, I hope so. Thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Anybody have any questions for Sarah. Yeah, I think it looks great. I was I'm excited about. I'm not on the Communications Committee anymore. But I love the idea of a scavenger hunt. To just kind of see, you know, because again, you've been looking at this for so long, like just how everybody accesses certain information to see if it's where it should be, and the quickest way to get there. So I think that's gonna be great feedback also.
DTSD Webinars: the more feedback the better, and it will be nothing said in stone, right? So if something doesn't make any sense where I put it, and we get a lot of community feedback, we move it, we change it. It's nothing is
permanent when I press that go live button, it's an everyday adjusting tweaking. So
DTSD Webinars: yeah, thanks. Now that you've become so familiar with it. To maintain it, update it. All those things will become easier for you, I would think, yeah, absolutely. Between being really familiar with everything and knowing how exactly I want it laid out, and also consolidating where information is. I don't want to get you in the weeds with it, but, like.
DTSD Webinars: Now, I don't have to upload a file. So like, say, the Handbook, I don't need to upload that in 6 different places across the website. It's linked in one place, and everything links back to that. So just those little things alone are gonna make a really big difference. But
DTSD Webinars: going forward, it it's just gonna be easier to maintain it. Upfront work for the long term payout. I'm hoping.
DTSD Webinars: But before we move on any other questions for Sarah
DTSD Webinars: again, great job. Sarah. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to agenda. Item 2. B recognition of citizens. This is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address the board on matters related to the agenda.
DTSD Webinars: Citizens wishing to speak if in person should complete and turn in a registration form
DTSD Webinars: when your name is announced, come to the microphone. If online, you must have registered individually with your full name and addressed to be recognized. raise your virtual hand for recognition.
DTSD Webinars: Once recognized or unmuted. It is only necessary that you identify yourself by providing your full name. This is a reminder that public comment is not a forum for personal attacks.
DTSD Webinars: antagonistic behavior or harassment. Please be advised that you are accountable for any legal ramifications and liability
DTSD Webinars: that results from statements that misrepresent the truth
DTSD Webinars: defame individuals, or disclose personal information that is not of public concern.
DTSD Webinars: To provide other residents with an opportunity to speak. Each speaker during the public comment portion is limited to 5 min of speaking. Time once recognized
DTSD Webinars: and limited to one opportunity to address the Board during each of the public comment periods. if necessary, the Board may set a maximum time for the public comment portion of any meeting.
DTSD Webinars: In the absence of our treasurer, Mr. Rizzo, I will ask our Board, vice president, Dr. Cook to please keep time.
DTSD Webinars: Mrs. Ag. Are there any residents or taxpayers in the room who have registered to comment at this time?
DTSD Webinars: Not at this time. Okay, thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Mr. Ayella. Are there any citizens participating virtually who would like to comment at this time?
DTSD Webinars: There are no virtual raise virtual hands raised at this time. Okay.
DTSD Webinars: well, thank you. Moving on to agenda. Item 2 C. Back to you, Miss Carpel, do you have a community correspondence report?
DTSD Webinars: Yes, I do. 1. 1 s
DTSD Webinars: went through citizen comment, kind of quick. Yeah.
DTSD Webinars: I just caught my breath. Okay, for the month of July we had 70 a second. Sorry.
DTSD Webinars: 7 community correspondence submissions, comments and questions from this month included a concern about summer athletic workouts, a submission to share resources, a request for grades, a question about sharing information for an after school program, a request for transcripts, a question about registration, and a question about back to school supplies. That's all I got.
DTSD Webinars: Okay. Thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Moving on to agenda. Item 2D standing committee meeting reports. The policy committee met today. Mr. Bennett, do you have a policy report?
DTSD Webinars: I do. So we looked at a couple policies and a board operating guidelines, one specifically board relations. There was some amendments to the suggested changes, and they were approved, and we'll be heading to the board for the 30 Day Review. We look at 2 other policies, board communications, and the attendance policies, and no.
DTSD Webinars: no changes were adopted. Or so those kind of stay the same. We didn't do anything with those 2 policies. That's as far as we got.
Okay.
DTSD Webinars: Does anybody have anything to add, or any questions for Mr. Bennett?
DTSD Webinars: The this is Eric Schmidt, the attendance policy. And what was that in regard to it had to do with electronic communication, the the virtual attendance of policy. Okay?
DTSD Webinars: And but were, what were we looking to
DTSD Webinars: change with that? Or
DTSD Webinars: we was looking at how someone would get approved to do that, whether it be the full board a vote, and I think the same conversation we had about a year ago, and it just often to stay the same. And how we had it. Very.
DTSD Webinars: you know, board one person can, you know
DTSD Webinars: stuff and come along? So it stays the same.
Okay.
DTSD Webinars: yeah. Anything else.
DTSD Webinars: When is the next meeting? Should be? September eleventh.
Okay?
DTSD Webinars: All right. Well, thank you. Very much. Moving on to agenda. Item 2 E.
DTSD Webinars: Sorry. Get ready.
DTSD Webinars: The listed items are on the anticipated August 20. Eighth board of directors meeting agenda.
DTSD Webinars: They're up there on the screen. Those are the anticipated items for August 20, eighth.
DTSD Webinars: Thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Moving on to agenda. Item 3. There is no unfinished business
DTSD Webinars: agenda. Item 4. That's the consent agenda items. The consent agenda contains routinely adopted items and items that normally do not require public deliberations on the part of the board.
DTSD Webinars: A board member may pull items which will then be discussed and voted on separately. May I have a motion to approve the consent? Agenda items as listed so moved Lindsey cock. Second, Lindsey drew
DTSD Webinars: This is Erica Schmidt. If I wanted to pull something for discussion
DTSD Webinars: I would like to post something for discussion, I believe, to make a motion.
DTSD Webinars: Thanks. I'd like to. I make a motion to just pull. Which item would you like to pull? I just have. I want to need a clarification on the
DTSD Webinars: The plc.
DTSD Webinars: which item is it? They're they're all numbered in letters. The the kind of the Dts D conference workshops. or see the request forms
DTSD Webinars: that foresee 4 C. Staff Developmental conferences. I guess that's what it is. I'm just looking at the the board brief
DTSD Webinars: right now.
DTSD Webinars: San Antonio, Texas, the Plc. At work. Yes, okay, that's C,
just oversee.
DTSD Webinars: Do you have a question? Or do you want to vote it on separately?
DTSD Webinars: I just have a question. Yeah, I wanted clarification. That's fine. Okay? So it looks, it looks like the conference start. Dates were for 11, 6 to 11, 8.
DTSD Webinars: Okay, which is 2 days. And then it was the number of nights and lodging were 4
DTSD Webinars: and some
DTSD Webinars: room rates were different prices. So I was just confused. I just wanted to understand.
DTSD Webinars: Some of that.
DTSD Webinars: Dr. Schuman. Do you know why roommates would be roommates would be different. My my guess is, Mrs. Schmidt, that people are sharing rooms, and so
DTSD Webinars: there could be different room rates for 2 people as opposed to one. Okay, would be my, that would be my guess without having that in front of me. Okay, I mean I and that's and I was wondering that if cause it just had, like.
DTSD Webinars: you know one person on the request form.
DTSD Webinars: and it's a 2 day conference number of nights, for so
DTSD Webinars: my question was, 2 people that would be 4 nights, and that's that's what I'm wondering. I didn't know if there was. That's why there were 2 people on the request form. If we're because they can only submit per one person at a time. Okay.
DTSD Webinars: so they can't. So you can't put 2 people on one form. It's just the way the form works. Okay.
DTSD Webinars: and my.
DTSD Webinars: I would think that maybe there's if it's a 2 day conference. They're probably arriving the night before, because the conference will start at 80'clock in the morning on the first day, and probably goes till 40'clock or 50'clock on the second day, and they might not be able to get a flight out until the following morning. Okay.
DTSD Webinars: okay, thank you. Sure, absolutely
DTSD Webinars: any other questions on the consent agenda.
DTSD Webinars: Dr. Winslow. I think we just figured out why, there might be a
difference in the room rate. One of our teachers.
DTSD Webinars: Eric Learner, put down
where it was supposed to be the night rate. She calculated 4 times over.
DTSD Webinars: So an accident?
DTSD Webinars: Yeah, I don't think she. But
I think that's where the difference is coming from, Dr. Craig Snyder. And I just.
DTSD Webinars: Okay.
Thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Is there is there any other discussion? If not, this is a standard voice. Vote all those in favor, please say, aye, aye, any opposed. No.
DTSD Webinars: okay. The motion passes
DTSD Webinars: and we're moving on to agenda. Item number 5, new business
DTSD Webinars: 5. A personnel resignations. Dr. Winslow.
DTSD Webinars: The administration recommends the approval of the personnel resignations.
DTSD Webinars: May I have a motion to approve the personnel resignations? So moved Maria Mama, second Kathy Sicker. Is there any discussion? I just wanna thank Dr. Fuentes Gillespie for all the work that she's done for the district, and wish her well, as she goes on to York suburban in a new and exciting opportunity. She'll be working with Brian Ellis, who will be her principal. It's someone we worked with at man. I'm township.
DTSD Webinars: So I'm I'm very excited for her. It's a it's a loss for us, but it's an exciting opportunity for her, and I wish her well.
DTSD Webinars: This is Lindsey drew I would echo the the thanks to Dr. Flintzbi, but also wanted to just recognize Lauren Doyle and Sarah O'brien.
DTSD Webinars: Lauren, in the guidance, has just done a really great job, and having seen her interact with students, it's a loss for us. But I wish her the best, and also Missus O'brien, I know that she will be a mispush.
DTSD Webinars: Miss part of of that sixth grade group and wanted to thank her for everything she's done for the district 100%,
DTSD Webinars: any other discussion.
DTSD Webinars: Maybe this is a standard voice phone all in favor, please say, aye, aye, any opposed? No.
DTSD Webinars: and the motion passes. Thank you
DTSD Webinars: moving on to item agenda. Item 5. B. Personnel. General
DTSD Webinars: Dr. Winslow. The Administration recommends the approval of the listed personnel and recognition of any listed transfers.
DTSD Webinars: We have a motion to approve the listed personnel and recognition of any listed transfers. So move Lindsey Cox. Is there any discussion?
DTSD Webinars: This is a standard voice vote all those in favor, please say aye, aye, any opposed, no
DTSD Webinars: motion carries. Thank you.
DTSD Webinars: That brings us to agenda. Item 6. Delegate reports. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association report is attached. Dr. Cronin, do you have anything that you'd like to add? I'll just highlight one of the items was the the fact that the this year's pre-conference on October fifteenth is going to highlight 2 different tracks, besides physical security aspects of school safety, but also on student support and mental health needs of schools. So I thought that was important to highlight.
DTSD Webinars: Thank you. Anything else.
DTSD Webinars: All right. That takes us to agenda. Item 7 special reports. Are there any Board members who would like to give a report?
DTSD Webinars: I'll take that as a no.
DTSD Webinars: Dr. Winslow, do you have a superintendent's report? I do.
DTSD Webinars: Last Monday we welcomed our new teachers to the district for several days of orientation and induction. We are very excited about this new group
DTSD Webinars: of folks that we have joining our team, very talented, very dedicated.
DTSD Webinars: and excited to
DTSD Webinars: for some of them to be starting their careers, and some of them to be transferring to to Derry Township.
DTSD Webinars: Today. We welcome the full staff back for 3 days of in-service this week, getting ready for next week
DTSD Webinars: when our students return on Monday.
DTSD Webinars: Wednesday is Bridge Day begins at 7 15 in the morning.
DTSD Webinars: right on school schedule, and everybody here bright and early. That is an opportunity for sixth graders and ninth graders to check out the buildings, meet their meet. Their teachers get to know each other. Work with a web.
DTSD Webinars: web crew and link crew.
DTSD Webinars: So that's exciting for them. The afternoon at the High School on Wednesday. This week is block party from 2 to 4. There'll be food trucks. There'll be games. The clubs will be out. Trojan trading posts will be available to buy lots of gear, and then high school is having open house from 4 30 to 6 Pm. And Elementary's having sneak a peak again. This is all on Wednesday, from 3 30 to 5 Pm.
DTSD Webinars: And again, and students will be joining us on Monday, the 20 first. We are very excited to welcome them back. and unrelated to school starting. I do have 3 certificates of appreciation on behalf of Psba to present
DTSD Webinars: for 8 years of board service
DTSD Webinars: to thank President Terry Singer.
DTSD Webinars: They don't know they're getting these. and Kathy Sticker, who has acted as our Board President and as our treasurer.
DTSD Webinars: Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. And Mrs. Maria Mummy, who has served as our vice President.
Okay.
DTSD Webinars: thank you all for your service. It's been 8 years of
DTSD Webinars: very interesting ride for you years of overwhelming happiness
DTSD Webinars: sometimes, and that is all I have. Thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Okay? Well, thank you very much, Dr. Winslow. I didn't have a moving on to Item 7 C. Board. President's report doesn't really have a report, but I did want to say that I did attend the
DTSD Webinars: the the first day of the staff opening this morning with Dr. Kuck, actually.
DTSD Webinars: and we were greeted by the marching band.
DTSD Webinars: That's how the activity got started which really wakes you up.
DTSD Webinars: And we just see the effort of the conductors and the kids. It's just pretty amazing. They can't help but get your blood
DTSD Webinars: blowing
DTSD Webinars: and then
DTSD Webinars: Dr. Winslow started with, I think it was kind of an icebreaker with different different kinds of really interesting questions. I thought I hadn't seen an icebreaker quite like that, and I don't remember enough about it to like
DTSD Webinars: repeat it, but it was. I thought it was done well, and it kind of got people.
DTSD Webinars: you know, going a little bit, and then doctor Winslow delivered what I thought was an extremely educational presentation
DTSD Webinars: about where the district is at and where where she hopes it'll go. and you know what supports are in place to to support everybody, and I thought I also felt it was a very inspiring
DTSD Webinars: talk in a great way to to welcome your new staff and teachers back. So, though you did a great job, thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Moving on to Item number 8, recognition of citizens.
DTSD Webinars: This is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address the board on matters related to the agenda or matters of district governance, not on the agenda.
DTSD Webinars: Those who speak are asked to follow the same guidelines outlined at the initial public comment portion of the meeting. I will ask Board Vice President, Dr. Kuch, to please keep time.
DTSD Webinars: Mrs. Ag. Are there any residents or taxpayers in the room who have registered to comment at this time? Not at this time. Okay, thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Mr. Ayala. Are there any citizens participating virtually. Who would like to comment at this time?
DTSD Webinars: At this time there are no hands raised. Okay.
DTSD Webinars: guess we're not gonna have any citizen comment tonight. Is there anything else for the good of the order?
DTSD Webinars: I have something, Maria, mammy!
DTSD Webinars: I have a some thoughts that I'd like to read. So you have to bear with me. Little bit of patience. I will get to my main point
DTSD Webinars: tonight. I attended the 50'clock Policy committee meeting. That meeting lasted 1 h. Not one time during the meeting was anything discussed that would have direct impact on our children of this district.
DTSD Webinars: What was discussed were our board, operating guidelines.
DTSD Webinars: guidelines that act as suggestions. They do not carry any authoritative weight, and in turn there are 0 consequences for any board member, if they choose not to adhere to those guidelines.
The guidelines are mere statements of expectations of how we should act as a board.
DTSD Webinars: I do agree. This is an important gesture to try and set some guardrails concerning professional behavior. However, I would like to reiterate that these guidelines, if not followed.
DTSD Webinars: have 0 consequences to the person who decides not to follow them. There was a lot of talk about what people think should happen, based on their personal opinions.
DTSD Webinars: since I did not have a chance to speak my thoughts and opinions at that meeting. I would like to take an opportunity to do so now.
DTSD Webinars: since we are on the topic of discussing board operating guidelines. I would like to bring to your attention to your attention to a section called Principles for Governance and Leadership.
DTSD Webinars: This policy can be found under Section 0 0, 0 Local Board procedures
DTSD Webinars: under the Act. Ethically, section of this policy, it states never use the position for improper benefit to self or others.
DTSD Webinars: Quote, avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest.
DTSD Webinars: It is no secret that we have a divided board. I have consistently over the years that this I have said this consistently over the years that this Board spends more time dealing with their own manufactured drama than on the educational and safety needs of our students
DTSD Webinars: to be clear. This statement is 100%. About the board, not our administration. How the administration functions amid our manufactured drama and issues is a miracle.
DTSD Webinars: I have seen first hand the hundreds of hours of time our administration has spent spinning in our vortex of drama
DTSD Webinars: in conjunction with the tens of thousands of dollars spent on label fees. I have consistently watched the same board members sit around this table and openly get up in arms about fiscally fiscal responsibility, yet turn a blind eye to spending money on things, to support other board members over the district's needs.
DTSD Webinars: A perfect example of this is the proposed hockey rank that was brought forward by the joy of sports, an organization founded by Terry Singer, our current Board President.
DTSD Webinars: our Board administration and solicitor spent an exhaustive amount of time, effort, energy, and money over the past several years discussing this hockey rank project
DTSD Webinars: for the sake of putting this in very boiled down terms. In my opinion, if anyone other than a sitting board member had proposed to erect a structure on our property, they would have never gotten as far as that hockey rink did.
DTSD Webinars: How does this happen?
DTSD Webinars: Someone who has firsthand access to schedule special meetings, keep conversations going access to our solicitor, someone who can get a majority of the board behind him to force the hockey rink into agendas.
DTSD Webinars: If we are going to sit around this table and talk about transparency and ethical behavior. The public has a right to know what other members are up to, as well. Specifically, the president of this board.
DTSD Webinars: If you sit down with Mister Singer and ask him about this project, the inception of it, and the way it played out, he sees nothing wrong with it. I, on the other hand, think differently. I would describe it as the ultimate abuse of his role for those of you who are thinking. Well, Mrs. Memi, I think you abused your position because of the actions you took by exposing information on your personal social media account.
To that I will say this. The difference is.
DTSD Webinars: I took a bold stand to advocate for what I perceive to be a highly marginalized group of students. I did not use my position to obtain information that would not have been available to me otherwise, as a private citizen.
DTSD Webinars: As I understand it, Mister Singer had an obligation to the people who had invested money into a project that he and his organization were promoting. In my opinion, Mister Singer's actions in support of the joyous sports and the hockey rink superseded his obligation to this district.
DTSD Webinars: My focus was a demographic of students that have little to no voice because of their vulnerable nature. They will not fill this Board room and be publicly heard. How do I know this? Because I have personally received many messages from community members, parents, and students thanking me for speaking out on their behalf.
DTSD Webinars: contacting me privately because they do not feel safe coming forward for the past several months after I spoke out about the transgender book that was close to being removed from one of our libraries. Half of this board has been trying to figure out how to shut me down and quiet my voice.
DTSD Webinars: There is not one policy or law that anyone can point to that was broken. You would think all members of this board should have a basic understanding of policy, and if they don't understand them, they would ask questions. Discussions would have been had, and some steps forward could have been taken. Instead, we chose the round of grand dramatics, forced motions on to an agenda. Hours of conversation had by Mister Singer
all the while giving the public a very sense, a very false sense of what confidentiality means.
DTSD Webinars: The biggest misstep that I see with our board is that we led the public into thinking that certain information should be held to a privileged standard of confidentiality when doing so, would literally go against the Pennsylvania right to know law.
DTSD Webinars: I have highlighted the scenario involving the joy of sports and their proposed hockey rink to shed light on the importance of effective leadership leadership. That this entire board is an active participant in in my opinion, since that's what to day's policy meeting was really centred around a few board members, opinions of a perceived wrong.
DTSD Webinars: My opinion is that we have a board member who clearly violated the principle for governance and leadership by using his position to improperly benefit an organization he founded.
DTSD Webinars: If our expectation at this board is to hold every one accountable, I would say Mister Singer's actions clearly fall under.
DTSD Webinars: avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest.
DTSD Webinars: I have no problem. Listening to the criticism about what people perceive that I did wrong. Along with that you have to listen to my opinion on perceived wrongs as well. What we have here are adults protecting and supporting other adults with very little consideration, for the vast majority of our students are the vulnerable and marginalized.
DTSD Webinars: We are making decisions based on feelings, opinions, personal and political relationships. The hypocrisy to pick and choose what items we think fall under the definition of ethical based on purpose. Personal relationships is appalling.
DTSD Webinars: That
DTSD Webinars: okay? Well, II don't know whether you started this out by indicating that there's too much
DTSD Webinars: drama going on.
DTSD Webinars: I guess you think your remarks will help pamped that down a little bit. It doesn't seem like that's what's what it's gonna do. But
DTSD Webinars: I'm entitled to say your piece. So thank you.
DTSD Webinars: Yes, I'd like to say something. This is Erica Schmidt.
DTSD Webinars: this this whole. I'm
DTSD Webinars: trying to figure out how to put this into words.
DTSD Webinars: you you are! You sit there and you say you're defending a marginalized group.
DTSD Webinars: If anybody wants to go back and listen to that meeting.
DTSD Webinars: There was nobody
DTSD Webinars: in this room who wanted that book removed
DTSD Webinars: because of it, the transgender information
DTSD Webinars: it was all about, and on your Instagram. You did not put the entire right to know it was completely
DTSD Webinars: about the sex work.
DTSD Webinars: and whether sex work was a vocation that belonged in the middle school for 11 year olds.
DTSD Webinars: So that was what that book was about. that it was being questioned
DTSD Webinars: so to continually say that we were trying to get this book out of the library, because we don't want transgender books in. There is absolutely not true.
DTSD Webinars: That's your opinion. It's fine. And and to continually say
DTSD Webinars: that the joyous sports did this, and the joyous sports did that. And Terry Singer did this, and Terry Singer did that without really knowing
DTSD Webinars: the beginning of the project and all the work that went into it through the 3 years that it it was underway. There's a lot of errors in the, in the observations and comments you make, and I guess I'm going to have to take time now to
DTSD Webinars: to point out what they are, Maria.
DTSD Webinars: the Joyous Sports Foundation is a nonprofit organization. was trying to create a a play space for kids in the community that would contribute to their health. Hopefully.
DTSD Webinars: there increased social interaction hopefully.
DTSD Webinars: There was no private money to be earned, no, no badges of anything to be awarded. It was it was pursued with the support of the Administration.
DTSD Webinars: and there weren't hundreds and tens of thousands of dollars worth of legal fees. I don't know where you got that from. and whatever time the the district spent working on it, it seemed like it was because they wanted to work on it.
DTSD Webinars: So you want to add it into this big, bad, ugly thing.
DTSD Webinars: I guess, for your own personal reasons.
DTSD Webinars: When all there was was an effort by a community-based organization to try to try to create a play space for kids to help them become more physically active
DTSD Webinars: and provide them more opportunities for social interaction. I you know I don't know
DTSD Webinars: why you view that as so awful
DTSD Webinars: you say it wouldn't have happened if
DTSD Webinars: I didn't have the position that I have. I mean I don't.
DTSD Webinars: I don't know that to be the case. Maybe you do. I never
DTSD Webinars: heard that
DTSD Webinars: but I can say when I guess when you asked Dr. Winslow for the book review form that you used for some of your social media work.
DTSD Webinars: Please don't bring me into all of this. Please don't bring me into all of this. This is all between all of you.
DTSD Webinars: Well, Mrs. Mami kind of opened the Pandora's box here, so
DTSD Webinars: I guess we'll close it then.
DTSD Webinars: So Maria gets to come in here and
DTSD Webinars: okay, anybody else have any comments? I'm being encouraged to
DTSD Webinars: just a
DTSD Webinars: stop saying anything about this. Does anybody else have any comments for the good of the order. Yeah. please move to adjourn. Yeah. Adjourn the meeting.
DTSD Webinars: Yeah, I'm got it
DTSD Webinars: just finishing up to see if anybody else had any comments for the good of the order.
DTSD Webinars: Okay, we're moving on to
DTSD Webinars: agenda. Item number 9, adjournment. The next public board of Directors meeting will be held August 20, eighth, 2,023. Starting at 7 PM.
DTSD Webinars: Please refer to the district website to register for virtual attendance. As the meeting draws closer.
DTSD Webinars: I have a motion to adjourn. This meeting. So moved, Lindsey drew
DTSD Webinars: all in favor. Say, aye, aye, any opposed? No. the meeting is adjourned, thank you.