To call the March 25th 2019 meeting of the Derry Township School District
Board of Directors to order and announce that this meeting is being audio recorded.
Dr. Winslow Roll call.
Mr. Abel.
Here. Dr. Cronin.
Here. Is Drew. Here.
This is. Have a stick here.
This is many here.
Dr. Shore.
Here, Mr. Seger.
Here, Mr. Singer. Here.
This is Steiner. Here.
Nine present.
Thank you.
Please rise, if able, and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.
I like
States of America and to the Republic for which it says
one tradition, under God, indivisible, with liberty.
And justice.
May I have a motion to approve
the March 25th, 2019 Board of Directors agenda.
So moved
Maria.
Second and Lindsay.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor, say I II and all those opposed say no.
Okay.
Tonight we have a presentation.
The state poetry out loud.
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
We have the executive director of the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, Mr.
Carl Blaschke.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. How would you like to get from here?
You're pretty much introduced and says pretty good
guy Town.
Good evening, everyone.
Hi, I'm Carl Bliss Guy.
You got very close.
I appreciate that.
I just learned how to say it recently.
Yes, I consider that a great achievement.
But I'm the executive director of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
For those of you who may not know, we're a state agency
in the office of the governor.
And one of the things we do is
administer the poetry out Loud program.
And that's a program that was created some years ago by the National Endowment
for the Arts, in partnership with the National Poetry Foundation.
And what it does is it engages high school
students in poetry, great poetry
through memorization, performance and recitation.
And this is a competition that takes place across the country,
in the jurisdictions.
And I'm super pleased to have with us
the state winner for Pennsylvania, 2019, Jordan Marie Lewis.
Just to give you a little context
about how talented Jordan is, and I had great front row seats to it.
Very talented.
Just this year alone, we had about 5700 students.
High school students compete from 118 schools across the Commonwealth.
And you're looking at our state finals.
So she competed at the school level, at the regional level,
and then at the state level.
And now she's going to be going on to the national
finals, which is in Washington, D.C., coming up April 30th.
And May 1st in D.C.
And she'll be competing with high school students from around the country,
and they'll be competing for about $50,000 in stipends and scholarships,
including one award in the amount of at least $20,000.
So quite an achievement.
And you should feel very proud to have her as a student here for Derry Township.
I know I'm certainly proud that she's representing the Commonwealth
and she's going to do a phenomenal job and I hope that you will put her on.
I think when you know the kind of talent that she brings forward,
you kind of get a sense of what engaging in the arts
can do in terms of skill development
that help students become successful in school,
but not only in school, but in the workplace.
So just a great tribute to us, and
I am very pleased to present a trophy to you.
And I really want to thank your teacher and your principal chef
for allowing this to take place in your school and supporting the
school.
Wow. That's nice.
She she got her trophy at the school.
This is actually going to.
Be just. The sort of little thing.
I think it's actually.
A step. Nuts all along.
It's going to be very spontaneous
over there.
I'm going to.
Take two or three days to make sure we get.
Eyes open.
I don't think she got where she is knowing it.
She and
three. Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's.
Yeah.
Take a walk. Yes.
Can you talk about your history?
I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity that you've given me.
I had so much fun learning the poems, memorizing them, connecting with them,
and I was so proud to represent our school district.
And I'm so proud to represent us at the Kennedy Center next month.
I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity.
I love my experience. Thank you.
Thank you.
We are very proud.
Jordan, how did you become interested in doing this?
Oh, I really love theater.
And so when I learned about the opportunity,
I really wanted to give myself a chance to branch out of kind of,
you know, the monologue and acting side of literature.
So, yeah, I really I love doing this.
We put you on the spot and ask you to
maybe give us like a little snippet since we weren't able to see it.
Okay, sure.
Thank you.
Okay.
I sit.
And so by Alice Moore, Dunbar, Nelson.
I sit and sell a useless task.
It seems my hands grown tired.
My head away town with retreats,
the panoply of war, the martial
tread of man, grim faced, sterner side,
gazing beyond the can of lesser souls
whose eyes
have not seen death, nor learn to hold their lives.
But as a breath.
But I must sit.
And so
I sit.
And so my heart aches with desire.
That pageant terrible,
that fiercely pouring fire on wasted fields
and writhing, grotesque things once man
my soul in pity flings up healing cries, yearning only to go there.
And that fall the cost of all those fields of woe
that I must sit.
And so
the little used to seeing the idle parts
Why dream I hear beneath my homely thoughts?
You wouldn't there they lie inside in mud, in rain,
pitifully calling me the quick ones
and the slain
who need me.
Christ,
It is no roseate dream that beckons me
this pretty futile scene
stifles me,
God, and must I sit?
And so.
Thank you so.
Much.
We'll be cheering you on, Jordan.
You're going to do well at Athens.
It's awesome.
My gosh, it's a great.
Okay, Next up, we have a presentation
by Mrs.
Miller on safe and Supportive Schools Update.
Yeah, yeah,
I know that.
Yeah. Did you are you glad you're going second?
Oh, yes.
All right,
so you have to bear with me because we were talking about this as I
was setting up the screen in front of me is completely black, so I'm not sure why.
So I'm going to try and make this work from here without seeing what I'm doing.
All right.
So good evening
to this evening.
I'd like to take the opportunity to provide another update.
I have provided a few of those throughout this year,
but this one is in response to
kind of our next steps or where we are
with regards to the risk and vulnerability assessment,
providing additional information regarding the pays
the Pennsylvania use survey and also with regards to the climate survey.
And then at the end I'll open it up for any questions,
starting with the risk and vulnerability assessment as an overview and reminder,
this was completed in May and June of 2018, and Vulnerability
Solutions Group was the group that provided this, and it was
led by Brian Kraus.
The assessments were conducted at all of the buildings
and across the campus for the entire district.
The reports were developed in compliance with Act 44 of 2018,
and the assessments were conducted not only with that physical walking
through every square inch of the campus and buildings, but also through interview
and input from administration staff, students, parents and community.
The reports
themselves were broken down according to buildings, so we had XY,
an elementary, the middle school, high school, and also the district office.
They were then broken down into separate sections.
Within those sections there were action steps
and the designation was provided for us.
So no action recommended was that
we were in compliance with the ACT 44 guidelines.
Everything was in place and, and up to code.
The four additional consideration would be that everything is there,
but there may be some possible enhancements,
something that the district should consider.
The improvement recommended was put in place
so that there may be some things that
because of the changes that were set forth
through Act 44, that we may now need to go in a different direction
or just provide some enhancements and changes to be in compliance with that.
Overall, the
priority and recommendations for next steps were broken down into the areas
that you see there with regards to access control, communications,
main entrances, lighting, campus ingress and egress,
visitation to the buildings and staffing and support.
So those are the areas that were really providing the most focus for us.
Taking a look at what is in place and again, going back
to those recommendations where there needs
to be enhancement.
Moving on to the Pennsylvania Use survey,
this was conducted in 2017
and it is administered every other year.
It provides a comparison for the district administration, board
and so forth to take a look at what the responses are for
the current administration and as well as in comparison.
Normally what they do is provide that opportunity to look back across
three years.
But we've been administering the pace since 2009, I believe.
So we have also that historical data that we can pull out.
The questions are asked across four domains
community, school, family and peer or individual,
and we administer the survey in grades six, eight, ten and 12.
The pace is
absolutely the primary data tool that is utilized
across the Commonwealth with decisions that are made
with regards to funding for prevention efforts
across the state.
It is administered electronically.
It can be they still do have the paper and pencil,
but within our district we have moved to the electronic
administration of it because we feel that enhances that anonymity
as well as the confidentiality of those responses by each student.
The summary itself provided for us information.
So what I'd like to do is share three areas.
One, the main areas of concern that were evidenced by the data that we did receive,
which were in the areas of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use,
depression and mental health concerns in school, climate and safety
also have
a school and community health checkup,
which shows the comparison between risk factors and protective factors,
as well as our interpretations and next steps.
So I'm just going to provide a quick overview of some of the graphs
that are provided.
It's a voluminous document that provides a lot of information
from the responses from our students under the lifetime use,
if you will, of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use.
So when you take a look and you can see across the board
those areas that stand out to the eye, mainly alcohol and marijuana.
So those would be the ones that are of higher use.
We do still have
some information that has been shared
with regards to prescription narcotics,
cigaret use, stimulants and over-the-counter.
But again, taking that look at what the responses of our students
are falling in those mainly in those two areas.
Important to say this is a 30 day
representation from students with regards
to vaping, e-cigarettes, dueling, that type of thing.
Again, this was in 2017.
The infamous version.
And if you look at the the ceiling, it
it actually is at the 30 percentile there.
So when when in comparison
some of the charts will go up, you know, as high as 100%.
But keeping in mind that at the 30 percentile, it's still low.
We'll be very interesting for us to take a look at what that is when
with the next administration, which will be in the fall of 2019,
because there is some use being shown here
as far as the number of incidents that we've seen over this
current school year there, there has been some increase
sources of alcohol.
The key areas there we're seeing that the students
are reporting that they gave someone money to purchase it for them.
The parents provided it or friends parents provided it
under sources of prescription drugs
took from a family member would show is the highest.
And again, with with the percentages there you can see that
that takes it up to the 100% 100th percentile.
Also with regards to friend and family
member providing scores, high
depression symptoms, we are looking at under 35 percentile.
But still
in the grand scheme of things,
when we're looking at the numbers there, that's still a significant finding.
So something that we need to continue to address
and make sure that that we're providing,
you know, those supports in many different ways For students.
Bullying and Internet safety, good percentage
above 80% showing that they were not bullied.
And again, on that far side adults at school stop bullying for those
that were bullied, the number of students that are feeling good,
that staff are intervening is high.
Your safety issues.
There are a number of students again, the ceiling on that is 20%.
So it's still low, but there are a number of students
or a few students there that are seeing feeling that they have been threatened
at school, attacked, offered drugs or threatened.
So we need to continue to be vigilant.
This is a little difficult to see.
But if I may, these
and I may I move away from the mic.
If you're looking at this,
the the left side is the healthy side.
Okay.
Whereas the right side is on the unhealthy,
as you can see, for the most part, as we're going down, the
Derry Township is on the top right triangle.
The black would be the
indicator for the Pennsylvania average.
So looking at our community and school risk laws
and norms favorable to drug use, we're still on the low side.
Okay.
But again, with regards to the commitment,
you know, a lack of school
commitment, the you know, it's still again, on the low side.
So we remain on the healthy again.
There's still room for improvement, always room for improvement on all of these.
And again, these are good indication of all of the risk
factors, the family risk.
We have family conflict on the low side, but when we're looking at this, it's
really talking about those social norms, you know, on how
students are developing and and dealing with some of those
thought processes with regards to drug use or other behaviors,
parental attitudes being favorable are a little bit higher.
Okay. So again, that that could cause
some questioning of thoughts,
individual and peer risk, perceived
risk of drug use is is high.
So when we're looking at whether or not and again,
the information there is sharing that in the elementary years, oftentimes,
you know, it's the anti drug use in everything.
You know just really continuing with that thought and being very compliant with it.
But as students are getting older,
they are forming their own thoughts and that can change somewhat.
And then looking at those depression symptoms.
So again, very it's a good report,
but always room for improvement on this side.
The protective factors important for you to know that the whole sale
flips around because you want to go towards the
the healthy side, which is towards the 100%.
So looking at that community protection, community and family opportunities
for prosocial involvement are high as well as the rewards.
Now the rewards are not quite as high.
Maybe some ways that we can look at what can we be doing in the community,
you know, in partnering with our with our community entities, school protection,
the school opportunities for prosocial involvement,
again, on the 65 as well as the reward.
So they're at the exact same number. Okay.
And again, with the family protection, family attachment is high
as well as the rewards for the pro-social involvement.
So again, it's the check up, as you will.
It really provides good information and good indicators,
but there is still that room for improvement.
So again, we've looked at the perceived risk of drug use.
Parental attitudes favorable are higher than, you know, which,
and it could have that direct
correlation to some of the other things that we were looking at in those graphs.
The use of some of the alcohol, Tobacco or other drugs,
the depressive symptoms are below the state average.
But still, as I said, an indicator of concern,
the opportunities for prosocial involvement
in the school and community, as I said, do share,
you know, that there's a high level of family attachment
and it is above the state again looking at how can we continue to improve
upon those community rewards and again, looking at all of those protective factors
across the board, what it is that we can do to encourage
and support those recommendations for next step is to review
and revise the Alcohol, Tobacco and other drug curriculum
kindergarten through 12th grade, as well as that infusion of the social
and emotional learning and bullying prevention,
the increase in awareness of
the student assistance program and the involvement
with students in the prevention based activities would be key.
Continue to partner with our community organizations as well as providing
those educational programs for parents as well as for students.
The last aspect was the climate survey
and again, really that overview of it was providing
that opportunity to gather information
about the climate survey or the climate within Dairy Township School District.
Excuse me,
the instrument itself was
is provided through the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
As you can see that it was developed through the American Institute
for Research.
So it was something that is developed from grades three
through Grade 12, and those are the grades that we
administered for the
we administered the climate survey in November of 2018.
They were all administered online and anonymously.
And for all of those grade levels as well as for parents
and guardians of students in all grades, kindergarten through 12th grade,
all staff, K-12 and community members,
the regional results were divided into three areas
of focus academics, social, emotional and student support.
And our next steps.
When we're looking at the academic side,
are taking a look at the professional learning communities.
How can we continue to,
you know, keep the focus on what as it says there,
what will we do when students already know the information?
You know, the places can foster agreement
about that curricular rigor, consistency
and looking at how we can provide more relevance
and engagement for the students in their learning experience.
Social and emotional.
Looking at the results
from the elementary, it's very encouraging.
But what can we be doing at that middle and high school level to continue
to implement ways and support, you know, persevering
through a task, working on a team and so forth, as it says.
And again, also taking a look at what are those opportunities
that are provided, whether it's, you know, afterschool
types of activities for learning or on the conference day
with students support, we're looking at, you know, are there
some possible modifications that we can make with regards to homeroom
enhancing or increasing programs that are offered by the counseling department
looking at those clubs and activity, period?
So looking outside of the box,
identifying programs or areas within the high school
or middle school that have been successful, we've had things in the past,
you know, are there things that we can bring back, maybe revamp it in some way?
But looking at those talks with teachers?
Coco cause we used to have the fabulous Friday finish, other things like that
that really engage students and provide that venue.
So that was a quick overview.
Do you have any questions for me at this point?
I have a question recently for my license and social worker.
I went to a QPR training
and QPR is like CPR, but it's for suicide prevention and awareness.
And I thought it was incredible because anybody can be QPR trained
and the wellspan so Haven has two trainers who train people for free.
And I had emailed Dr. Winslow and Mr.
McFarland about it to say, How can we get this to our community?
Because it's a very easy thing to sit through.
It was like an hour it went over the statistics in QPR stands for question.
Persuade.
Refer, question, persuade and refer.
So it kind of gives you the outline
if you think somebody's suicidal or they're saying things, don't ignore it.
And it goes over the myths and the facts and how to train people.
So is there any way we can bring that to our community
or I they did tell me, you are QPR certified.
I am TPR.
As well as Mr. Rice.
Jerry Snyder is QPR certified.
Doctor Paterson is currently trained.
We have trained some of our staff and we have plans to do that
on the conference day as well as in working with
Mrs. Blackburn, the school nurse at the high school.
She is working with the AVM Club as well as the sad club.
So we're looking at ways that we can continue to train students
as well as staff.
So absolutely.
Yeah. Yes, it was an excellent, excellent training.
There was actually a program at the
our public library about 18 months ago, and there are about.
30 of us in the room that. Participated in it.
Was it NPR?
Yes. Same to attend to instructors from Yeah.
Yeah.
They were really.
Good at the We Matter organization has provided that a number of times,
and I believe they're going to continue to do that in the community as well,
which will be. Okay.
And also a positive.
Yeah, a big cross section of community members attended.
There were families with children, families with parents
with no children in the district.
There were some staff members.
So it was all different people.
Like you went in and you didn't like.
Didn't recognize. Everybody.
It just came from a different cross-section of the entire community.
It was really good.
Yes, I just had a comment, too, because John and I recently
went to a training at the PSB and there was a presenter there,
Dr. Perry Rosen, who was speaking about suicide prevention.
And I asked her specifically about
the Pase data if it can be broken down by gender.
And she said it can be.
She said there's a cross tab mechanism on the website
where you can break it down into different factors.
But if that's not available, because she wasn't sure if that was available,
but by every tab that we were looking for that is available
from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency if we request it,
but it might be an additional fee.
So I just thought I'd put that out there just as an extra data point to how.
We met last time I did
go back to the meeting that Friday and checked into the same thing.
So I have the same exact information and actually put it forth that it
if I'm thinking
that we're not the only district that would like something like that.
So they're actually entertaining the thought of having that as
not necessarily
for everything, but for mainly the alcohol, Tobacco
and other drug areas to just really have that as an easy cross tab.
Okay.
Yeah, I think it would be important to just for like bullying,
you know, because girls interpret bullying differently or experience it differently
and and for depression and suicide just and other aggressive
tendencies that present themselves differently in girls and they do in boys.
So I just think it's still an interesting factor for us to consider.
Definitely
no other questions.
Thank you so much for coming in to share it
and thank you.
Okay.
I would like to announce that the board met in executive session
prior to this meeting to discuss matters of personnel
in certain work sessions,
recognition of citizens.
I don't see any citizens in the room at this time,
but this is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address the board.
So no, no citizens are here at this time.
Standing Committee report.
The Finance Committee met today.
Mr. Sanger, do you have a report? Yes, I do.
Thank you.
We met at 4:00 this afternoon, had the
three agenda items that we discussed, primarily of
and this is in continuation of budget preparation
for school year 20 1920.
We had we talked about
the budget requests coming in from the various departments
across the district, projected expenses
related to those budget requests.
We talked a little bit about projected revenue
and we also discussed very briefly
the utility contract that that the district has.
Like with insurance, we have an intermediary organization
that helps us shop for and purchase
utilities, electric gas primarily,
which have now become a commodity and they can be shop for.
And we didn't get into a great deal of detail, but
but Mike did give us an overview of
how that intermediary functions and
and how utilities are price and so forth.
There are a couple special or a couple items that came up that
I wanted to bring to everybody's attention.
And I'll ask for other board members on the committee to to jump in
if they want to add anything.
Now, the first is
on the agenda tonight.
There is an item, I believe it's under the consent agenda,
Sacramento business.
It's under. New business.
Whether we are going to opt in or opt out for the 20 1920
school year with the National School Lunch Program at the high school level,
there was some
discussion relative to the related to the budget
regarding this issue, regarding this issue and
there was recommended
that we
continue with
the way that we are going now with with the program
and that we might possibly look to do something differently in 2020
21 so that we would continue to opt out for now
and possibly look at taking a different course in the future.
No, no, nothing's certain, but that might would guide us through
in a timely way a discussion about that to see how we want to proceed.
He also talked about financially
moving the director of food services into full, full support of budget
with the district, not just revenue coming from from food sales.
That's a little bit of a change. And
so he covered that with us.
He also mentioned that he is proposing we don't have to
this isn't coming before the board tonight,
but he's proposing moving $1.5 million from the peace
stabilization fund into our health insurance fund.
We've had
high costs this year
related to health health costs.
The pizzas increases are kind of leveling out.
So he's recommending that
as part of our budget for next year, we'll move 1.5 million
from pieces of stabilization into our our health insurance area.
And I think that's about it.
If I missed anything while we're continuing with the
budget projections and revenue projections
and should be able to come to you as a committee,
probably at the next meeting, recommend preliminary
approval of the budget for May and proceed accordingly.
There's a lot of information up on
the agenda
as it is online.
There's attachments to the agenda that provide a lot of information.
And if you want to take a look at it, So this is anything else.
Lindsay Kemp, Kathy.
I just wanted to add
about the National School Lunch program for the high school that we did discuss it
being a committee goal for next year, perhaps General Services,
because I think what's happened is it's in our first year on the board,
we got to tour the elementary middle school and high school
cafeterias and get a very detailed explanation of it.
I think the newer board members
would benefit from that, perhaps doing it in the fall,
because I think it was very good to understand.
And if we are considering it, then you can see firsthand
what are what's going to happen if you opt if you take the federal money,
this is what's going to change in the high school cafeteria.
They will not have this. They will have this.
So that can be part of the discussion for you to get a firsthand look at it
for the people who have it. And I'd like another look as well.
So something for General
Services to consider.
I don't know, though, that wasn't
necessarily that piece of it just for the goal of the committee,
because one of the things we talked about was that
if we were looking at the food service program in general,
that the timing of getting that done
would have to occur prior to the fall.
Because if we were going to look at, say,
an RFP to review options for outsourcing,
it would have to happen sooner than later
because of how it would relate to the Hasbro contract negotiated.
That opt in or opt out of national school lunch is separate from the RFP.
But if we were to decide as a board
that we were fine with opting out
ongoing, then RFP goes off the table
because in order to outsource, you have to opt in
across the board for all.
So all schools have to be in or out.
So the first step would be to
make sure everyone is okay with opting out
going forward, and then it would make the RFP process a moot point?
When do we have to make the decision to opt in or out for this year?
Tonight.
They said, because of not because there's a deadline
that it has to be filed by, but because of the implications
that it would have on an organization and planning for food services
that if we were to change course right now,
it would be detrimental to the planning and operations
for next year because so much has to go into it.
Yeah, Mike Mike strongly recommended that we, that.
We do it for
this year.
Yeah.
That we, that we opt out for this year and then look forward.
And that he assured us he'll work in a timely manner with us
to think through whether we want to
stay the course with that choice going forward
or whether we want to take a different path.
So Kathy, than we could in the fall.
Look at start looking at it
because we wouldn't vote on it until the following spring. Right.
But that's separate the vote for opting in or opting out is completely separate.
If we were to the conversation
rose to the higher point of when food services
budgets become no longer self-sustaining, which is where we are right now.
And most school districts
have experienced being not self-sufficient for a long time in their food services.
And so it's great that we've been able to do it for that long.
But the employment and health care and personnel costs now exceed the revenues.
So now that the food services department is impacting the general fund,
if we were to take a look at the options for outsourcing food services
and all of the other things that come around, come with that,
that would be a required opt
in to the national school lunch program for all the schools.
Right now,
we opt in for two schools, opt out for one and have one standalone to outsource.
All of them would have to consistently be opted in.
And so
being able to understand what it looks like
if we were not a standalone program is the first step in determining
whether we would want to look at doing an RFP
for potential or possible outsourcing,
because if we wanted to keep the standalone program
at the high school, then we could not move forward
with exploring or moving to an outsourced option.
And to Lindsay's point, with
the revenue generation not meeting
the needs of expenses, that was part of the recommendation of moving Mr.
Hummels salary over Mr.
Hummel is a district administrator under Act 93, so it made sense.
All our other administrators are paid out of the general fund,
removing his salary and benefits and pleasers out of that
does actually it is still sustainable
I think the now $40,000. Yeah.
So for next year, removing Mr.
Hummel and putting him in the general fund
still maintains the viability of the program to pay for itself.
That's all the other employees benefits, pizzas
and all their operating costs,
and we could easily set up a tour this year
for anybody that would want to see it again.
We could get that set up in the next month or so.
That's not a problem.
I think it's a good idea.
I think year to get it to ahead of it.
So how much are we moving over?
How much are we agreeing to tonight?
Which on new business just for next year.
It's just like previous years to remain off the school
lunch program at the high school only.
So we're not moving any money over to bridge the gap.
No, no, no, no.
That's a separate piece.
Okay.
We'll leave it.
Been even the
transfer of Mr.
Hummel over to the general fund isn't something that would go into effect
until next next school year.
And if you look at the documents that Mr.
Friends put on, when you look at salaries, the salary increase
include
the two positions, new positions, and it also includes Mr.
Hummels
salary moved over as well as just the net normal incremental
increases for all the bargaining units for next year.
So that dollar figure is all those things
in totality for next year's budget that makes.
Sense and that that'll be approved
as part of the approval of our preliminary budget and final budget for 1920.
So so traditionally, the whole food service is supposed to be self-sustaining.
This was the.
That's the way it was set up eight years ago.
I want to say back in early nineties or late eighties or somewhere in there
initially, that's how it was set up and it has run that way
with the big.
Is also they've really controlled costs.
Even the seniors have gone up.
They've been.
If you figure the freezers increases that really hit them hard
over the last
seven or eight. Years. Right.
So I mean, considering that just going through business as usual for something
that's been operating since the nineties, we should definitely open it up and.
Right.
So you want that to kick back to General Services or no, because.
Let's talk about that because we're not at that point yet.
That was just an idea, but.
It's going to be too long to put it there.
Well, the other part of it can be put there.
Okay.
Communications and community engagement.
See any committee report met today,
Mr. G. Of a report?
I do met and discussed primarily.
Well, we did the election of committee chairperson
and I was selected to remain chair for this year
in our unfinished business.
We reviewed at further length the Citizen Advisor program documents
and will be had a great constructive discussion around that
and that entire program and the orientation
that the Communications and Community Engagement Committee
will be presenting
and being responsible for implementing
in the future.
And so we're in the process of finishing the edits on those documents
and we'll be reviewing those at our next meeting and then anticipate
that we will be recommending that to come to the full board for review
and approval to try and streamline and make sure that all
information around Citizen Advisors
is accessible on the website and then that all citizen
advisors are on board at the same regardless of what committee
they serve on four levels setting expectations
and responsibility.
We had more conversations
around the community event that was part of our goals for this year.
And in doing that and and reviewed the district website
section of the school board section
which we're doing on a meeting, tie meeting, every meeting,
we're reviewing a different section of the website tonight.
We looked at the school board and made some recommendations
with Dan to further enhance
and make information a little bit more accessible and easy to locate.
So and Dan also gave some feedback
regarding changes that were implemented to the community section of the website
following our last meeting and suggestions and recommendations there and gave us
a draft list for some community links to be able
to link information to the community from the district website.
So we will be reviewing that again next time.
One of the suggestions
that came forward from the
school board section of the website that we would want to
ask the opinion of the board would be what are the citizen advisors recommended
and suggested
that they would like to see an area of the school board section contain short
brief bios of with a photo of an
of the school board members individually to try and
I guess humanize or,
you know, give a little bit more information about each one of us.
So one of our takeaways was that we would bring it forward to the board
and get opinions or if anyone was
strongly opposed to doing that, because
then there would be kind of a template of information that you'd be able
to fill out and submit a photo with to have that placed on the website.
So everybody have a LinkedIn page.
So just link it to that one, I think.
And we weren't looking
strictly at just resume, but you know,
you know, other
kind of funny guys want to jump in
information about your if you have children, how long you lived
in the community, what your favorite thing about the you know, those types of yeah.
It could be anything I mean and also just to.
Humanize beyond
so that people
realize that you don't have to have all these accolades behind your name.
Want to show. The difference, right.
We want to show our city the diversity in all of our experiences.
Stay at home parent.
They can be a school board member.
You know, you don't have to be.
One of the examples we looked at as we do currently
have very brief bios for building and level administrators as well as Mr.
McFarland.
Mr. Snyder and Dr. Winslow.
So we kind of look at those just as a sort of model.
They're fairly simple and I'm very happy to pull together
a template, but we just look for some basic information about who you are,
how long you've been in the township's professional background,
and maybe just some, you know, what motivated you or what
your particular interests or committees you serve on for the board.
So it isn't going to be a complex,
you know, six hour Netflix series on your life,
just something short and sweet to just give a little bit
of additional background behind your name.
Where would you put it in the dropdown?
Would you make another tab?
What I'm thinking what we would do is, is on the main board page,
all of you are listed. Those are just
by name.
Right now.
Each of your names would become a Lincoln
or just then go over and give that brief biographical page for you.
Each one of you.
As long as you can keep it updated.
It shouldn't.
Be that difficult.
We have elections every two years.
Your kids are a certain age. In a year they're different.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
That's why I keep a sort of 10,000 plus level.
We have a lot of people like to know, what age are your kids?
I want you to be comfortable putting that out there now.
Just saying.
And we keep it fairly high level.
If you look at what we do for our building in most areas, it is fairly high level.
We don't really get into deep personal information.
Again, just a sort of general overview of of of who you are.
And you said you could send that to us
just to see what it is that you're talking about.
Sure.
Well, if you look at any of the buildings, if you go under our school,
one of the dropdown options, those administrations up there
that will show you what we do for principals,
we would do something very similar, like I said, and I can come up with
a very brief list of questions for you all to answer in sentence form.
That would be the basis for the bios we would create for the board members.
The general idea is to keep it
simple but provide information.
We more or less just wanted to gauge, make sure that no one was very
opposed to it
so that we could be able to move forward.
And that's all I have.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Student representatives report. Mr.
Gove and Mr. Mangia.
Hi. Good evening, Madam President.
Board members and public.
I always wanted to give you a update of accomplishments
throughout the three different schools and start.
We'd like to congratulate him and his on committee for raising $45,753.37.
That was the total
that was announced on the day, which I believe was two weekends ago.
And it was really fun.
People had a lot of fun playing games, dancing around.
It was really fun to do that and with the puppies as well.
And there was
also a student at the middle school, Aiden Norton, who got an award.
It was the Pennsylvania Association
for Middle Level Education's John Jarrett Award,
and he is a very well rounded student who demonstrates
a lot of leadership and good involvement in this community.
For example, he does.
He volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House and he also volunteers for
these are Susquehanna service dogs Armed Organization.
So he was very fortunate and we congratulate him for receiving
that award as well.
And this past weekend, all three quarters at the high school got to go on a trip
to New Jersey to compete at the 29th annual Roxbury
High School Choir Festival.
Now, these choirs, they got to perform front of
choirs from New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York
and was really great way
to show off our choir skills and also to watch some other choirs.
So the all female in Voce Choir
received a rating of silver in the concert choir division.
The All male Boys Noise Choir received a rating of silver as well,
but this time in the pop division and also senior Parker
Lawson won a special award for his solo in Boys Nose cover of Reach Out.
I'll Be There by the Four Tops.
So just like this saying special kudos to him.
And also our mixed gender Canterbury Choir received
a rating of gold at the festival and also placed second overall.
So congratulations to all of them.
And after the competition, the students also got a chance to explore
New York City's go see a show, either some restaurants and also
have the very educational experience
of learning how expensive it is to live in New York City.
Yeah, I bought two T-shirts and both are 80 bucks.
Yeah.
So about two weekends ago,
the state, the girls and boys swimming
team went to the state competition at Bucknell University.
They had lots of fun and they placed in several
individual events as well as relays of events.
Overall, the girl swimming team placed ninth and there was a diver,
Meredith Gould, who placed six as I was really good
and they had a very successful season in Mid-penn districts and as well as state.
So we congratulate them on that also going along with the sports theme, the Hershey
hockey team recently went to the Fliers cup and I know sadly
they lost 5 to 1, but they still it was a really great accomplishment.
It's only the second time in the school's history that the boys have had a chance
to actually compete for this title, and that was incredible for them.
And not I mean, looking past their loss.
They had a wonderful season of 20 wins and four losses, and they also got to win
our local Bears Cup.
So congratulations to them on a wonderful season.
Over at the high school.
There's a club called the Camp Mad Club.
There's high school students
that basically meet every so often about a monthly basis
that they do some fun experience experiments,
and this time they actually reach out to the public library and they're hosting
well, they already hosted one, but they're hosting another one tomorrow.
It's a seminar for kids that are in grades 3 to 5.
It's really fun for those kids to learn about sciences
and how it can be applied in the real world.
So the first thing that they had was actually a science and art.
So they had students draw some combinations of both science and art.
So they had snowflake chromatography as well as rainbow paper,
where they poured nail polish onto it and it changed different colors.
And then tomorrow I believe they will be doing
science and Earth.
So that's pretty general overall just about geology.
And so they'll have students pointing out
different things near the library, such as plants and rocks,
and they'll be doing a little scavenger hunt as well.
Also this past week, students over in the fourth and fifth grades
got a chance to go along with Milton Hershey School
and learn from TV personality Jeff Corwin.
And they got to visit the Pennsylvania American Water headquarters
in Hershey, P.A., and got to learn a lot about ecology and different science stuff.
And they got to learn about how tap water was made.
And it was just a great example of how even our youngest students are being
able to connect with real life experts in the fields they're learning about.
So that's all we have for you this week.
As always, thank you so much for your time.
And if you have any questions, just feel free to ask.
Thank you.
Thank you for the update.
I was wondering how the choir kids got from New Jersey to the Big Apple
because I saw on Instagram some pictures and I was like,
I thought they were supposed to be in New Jersey. But.
We just took two really big busses.
That's fun.
And you got to see a show or.
Yeah, we saw my Fair Lady. Oh, that's great.
That's great.
Well, thank you for the report.
I've listed items are on the proposed April
8th, 2019, Board of Directors Meeting Agenda.
Okay.
No unfinished business consent agenda items.
This is adoption of items of routine nature and those that normally
do not require public deliberations on part of the governing board.
A board member may pull items which will then be discussed and voted on separately.
May I have a motion to approve it?
I'm sorry, I need to pull.
The Joint Sports Foundation request for use of school facilities with waiver
as I need to abstain for the vote for conflict of interest.
Okay. And what letters?
Okay.
May I have a motion to
approve the consent agenda items listed except for item E,
which is the facility used with waiver?
Yes. The joy of sports foundation items inside of a letter.
To suggest the last to join Sports Foundation
and the joy of the last shoe.
So may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda
items as listed except for the to facility use with the waiver.
Join a sports segment Second, Maria and Donna.
Second,
is there any discussion,
Kate, all those in favor say I
II all those opposed say no
to the motion carries
requests for use of facilities with the waiver Joyous Sports
Foundation for April 25th and Joy, a sports foundation
for April 31st.
On. March 31st and April.
All the listed dates here.
Then you say.
The administration recommends
the approval of the two listed
request for facilities with waivers for the Joy Sports Foundation.
May I have a motion to put to approve
the request for use of facilities with waiver for the Joy Sports Foundation?
So moved.
Maria
second, Second by Tricia.
Is there any discussion?
I would just like to mention that I am abstaining from vote
due to potential conflict of interest because I have a business relationship
with the Joy Sports Foundation for which I receive fees for services.
Okay.
Shall we do a roll call for this?
Yes. Dr.
Winslow, roll the
couple.
Okay.
Mr. Abel? Yes.
Dr. Cronan?
Yes, Mr.
Epstein.
Mrs. Harris? Yes.
Mrs. Mamie? Yes.
Dr. Shaw?
Yes. As the Speaker? Yes.
Mr. Singer. Yes. Mr. Steiner? Yes.
Eight. Yes.
One I've seen. Okay. Thank you.
Under new business approval to renew the multifunction printer lease.
Fleet Lease. Mr. McFarland.
Thank you.
The Administration recommends the board renew a five year
lease agreement with higher information group. J.G.
or J.G.
Funding LLC for the rental and ongoing maintenance of a brand new copier fleet.
May I have a motion to approve to renew the five year lease agreement
with higher information Group J g f Funding LLC.
The. Second k Donna and Lindsay Attorney
Discussion.
I have a question, so I saw on.
Here that after the.
Five years.
Are we buying them out?
Because it does say a fair market buyout at the end of the term.
So does this mean more. On them or.
No, No.
It just it it's an option in the lease but most likely renew the lease.
Things. To enter another lease right.
Okay.
There's the standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I was opposed to no in the motion
carries approval of the elementary I pad refresh the lease proposal. Mr.
McFarland. Thank you.
The administration recommends the board approve the elementary iPad refresh lease.
May I have a motion to approve the elementary iPad refresh lease proposal?
So moved.
Second, Donna and Terri, is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say aye. Aye.
And all those opposed say no.
Emotion carries high school, National School, Breakfast and lunch program.
Mr. McFarland.
The administration recommends not to participate in the National School
Breakfast and Lunch Program at the High School for the 2019 2020 school year.
May I have a motion to not participate
in the High School, National School and Breakfast lunch program?
Some old. Seconds.
Terry and Donna, is there any discussion.
In just wanting to see that?
Obviously, we had discussion about this
in Finance Committee, which we discussed earlier.
I'm in support of approving
for this year but would want to have more information
and take a look at the entire high school program before
I would support it again in the future, because I believe that
for myself I need to have a better understanding
of what it looks like If we were to opt in to that
and not forego those that federal program options
to be able to justify the vote in support of it.
Okay, this is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I agree and I was opposed.
Say no to the motion carries personnel.
General. Mr. McFarland, thank you.
The administration recommends the approval of the listed personnel.
May I have a motion to approve personnel, General?
So I moved second.
Donna and Maria, is there any discussion?
Kate is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I was opposed.
Say no.
Hey, the motion carries delegate report.
Dr. Shaw, Do you have a Dauphin County Tax Association report?
I do. It has been.
Included in the materials for the board briefing.
I have nothing to add to what's in the report,
but we'll entertain any questions you might have.
I Okay. Thank you.
Any questions?
I will, Skip.
I'm just checking. We did not have any resignations.
Is that what you're asking?
Now, under new business, do we skip over B the iPad? No.
Okay.
You voted on it.
At least
special reports.
Are there any board members who would like to give a report?
I just wanted to
to thank all of the volunteers
for the elementary International Fair Celebrate Our Cultures event on Friday.
It is like an epic event every year and every year.
It takes a colossal amount of effort from a huge amount of volunteers
and coordination from the administration to make this happen.
And every year it's like amazing.
So I just think it's such a really wonderful event.
And I want to thank the volunteers for their hard work, for pulling it off again
and make it another fabulous event for our for our kids and families.
I thank you.
And I just want to.
Remind you in the board docs that we got
about the April 7th meeting with Dauphin County Technical School.
It is twice a year they do a joint.
So everyone is invited to that meeting
and they are going to discuss a little bit about retaining.
More of the surplus. From each school district.
It's a very small amount that they retain,
but they want to up it to slightly to have more in their capital reserve.
I think it's Wednesday, April 10th. Oh, April 10th.
Thanks Yes, 7:00. Everyone's invited.
Hey, thank you for that.
And if I may, Madam President.
Tricia, I had an opportunity to attend PSP
Sectional a regional meeting last week.
It was composed of really three different parts.
And just rather briefly, the thrust of the program was school safety.
But we first heard from John Callahan, who I guess is the SBA lobbyist
who kind of gave us an update on the legislative front,
how the the composition of the House and the Senate has changed.
And then he previewed
some of the governor's budget requests in broad and broad strokes.
We also heard from a Dr.
Rosen
who was a psychologist employed
by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
She talked about the behavioral
aspects of school safety and security.
A number of, you know, very compelling statistics
and approaches that the schools can take.
20% of students live
with a mental health condition and only around half received treatment.
And a lot of a lot of good information in there and some suggestions
about how schools can be,
you know, approaching this particular area.
The last part of the program was a presentation on the safety.
Say something.
I'm not going to get it right now.
It's safe to say yes. Yes.
That program update was presented
by representative from the attorney general's office.
We know we have that on our on our website.
He talked about sort of the number of contacts
so far, how the program works,
gave gave a case example and basically outlined
how those tips are handled as they come in on that on that hotline.
So it was on, I thought, a very informative evening.
Thank you for attending. Yes.
And they they did send through the
the PowerPoint presentations late on Friday.
We can for those, buddy. Thank you.
Any other board member reports
okay Mr.
McFarland Superintendent report.
Thank you.
I would like to follow up on students report for Aiden Norton, our sixth grader
at the middle school that was honored by the Pennsylvania
Middle School Association just a little bit more.
He was one of two selected from the east region.
And out of that, a $50 donation was made to his charity of choice,
and he chose cocoa PACs to give that donation to.
Also, I think it's a little bit to know about Aiden
and the type of students is an example of the type of students that we have.
He is an active member of the middle school branch of the community
service club called SWAC, Student World Action Club at the middle school.
It's a club at the high school.
It's a class he's participated through this
organization and baking muffins at the Ronald McDonald House,
learning about service dogs from the subsequent Service Dogs agency.
And he also serves as a student mentor for students in our middle
school life skills class.
He volunteers with cocoa PACs,
and he volunteers regularly in the life skills classroom at the middle school.
And he also goes once a week to volunteer in the elementary school.
So just a great example of a young person
giving back to their school community and their community at large.
So we're really proud of him.
And the other one,
I wanted to congratulate high school students Angie Boo and Iman Asghar,
who recently won Region eight a Pendants Innovation Challenge.
I don't understand this one at all, but their new digital safety device
called a red wrench, which will automatically bring cars
in to speed compliance in PennDOT construction zones.
Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
They will compete actually in the state
competition on April 10th and in Harrisburg. So.
Wow. Wonderful.
I'm really impressed with our kids. That's great.
Thank you. And board Presidents report.
I just wanted to say that I've been hearing glowing reviews
from fifth grade parents about this town and the field trip.
The fifth graders took a trip to this town and they it was just incredible.
My nephew went and the teacher sent live updates
throughout the day on an app of pictures and videos.
And he was the CEO of a bank for the day and he had a sit behind a big wooden
desk and stamped and signed papers and for in a four hour shift.
And he was like,
Mom, we had to work for hours and then we had to take lunch breaks.
But we all can't go to lunch at the same time.
So we had to stagger our lunches.
And I think I got more money because I was a CEO,
because you can take your money and then go shopping.
So he thinks he maybe got paid a little more because he was sick.
Does that right?
Think he did so he was right because he got to go
get lemonade at the restaurant and nobody else had that kind of money.
Yeah, I was just.
And then I saw on Facebook
another mom had posted that her son was the manager of a restaurant
for the day, wiping tables and stock in the waters and stuff.
So that's it.
It's the parents are very, very excited about the kids.
Where to.
The bank are banking.
Hours did
he. Said yes you are there are waking hours
yeah so there's a long line to the bank
I went last year the first one and it is an amazing experience
and the kids learn so much and they prepare for it all year long.
So it's a big deal.
Yeah, he wanted to be the mayor, but you had to, like, submit a video
on a certain day that he wasn't there, so he couldn't run for mayor.
But it was a big Oh yeah, they take a vote.
It's like it's a real election. Yes.
The mayor wears a suit and tie and they give a speech
at the beginning of the day in the town square.
It's really great. Yeah.
And then the I did send out
in the weekly email about the all things diversity dates are set for next year.
And I'm so excited that our school social worker
is going to be presenting at one of those next January in 2020.
And then thank you, Judy, for reminding us about the Joint Board meeting
at the Dauphin County Technical School on April 10th.
Recognition of citizens.
Are there any residents?
No, no residents and taxpayers in the audience.
Okay.
Next, Public Board of Directors meeting will be held April eight,
2019, starting at 7:00 in District Office Board of Directors Room.
May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting?
So moved and a second.
Maria and Donna, all those in favor say I always opposed.
We are adjourned at 813.