Evans 2019 meeting of the Derry Township School District Board of Directors
to order and announce that this meeting has been audio recorded.
Mr. Friends, Rocco.
Mr. Abel here.
Dr. Cronin.
Mr. Drew Here.
Mr. Stick. Here.
Memory here. Dr. Shore. Here.
Mr. Liquor Here. Mr. Singer.
Here, Mr. Owner. Here.
We present one absent.
Please rise of Abel and join me for the Pledge
of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance.
To the flag
of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.
One nation,
indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
May I have a motion to approve
the March 11, 2019 Board of Directors agenda?
So moved.
Second, Maria and Lindsey, is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I, I and all those opposed say no.
Hey, the motion carries.
We have students of the month recognize and Mr.
Smith.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. Good evening.
Members of the school board, administration, students, family members.
It's always a privilege to be able to stand up and introduce
our students of the month.
And as I've always said, there's just so many amazing young adults
in our building, and they all have very unique and special talents.
And it's it's always very interesting when we have to go through
and make these decisions because it's always such a very difficult decision.
So it's my pleasure to introduce to of
two of our members of our of our school tonight.
These are two very special young people.
And I'm looking forward to hearing, hearing what they say.
Usually, I hear this at the luncheon before we get to the school board meeting,
so I know what to expect.
So I'm looking forward to learning a little bit more about these two amazing
young adults here.
So it's my pleasure to introduce Ms..
Malia Painter.
Hi. I just want to start by thanking the school board
for having me here tonight and for this recognition
and also by thanking the high school
administration and teachers for
selecting me for this honor and for making the pass for years
at Hershey High School.
Such a memorable experience, I think. Oh,
and I'd also like to congratulate Charlie Sackler, who's a master of the month.
I'm really honored to be able to share this accomplishment with you.
I think that receiving this honor has allowed me to take a little bit time
and reflect on the things that I've accomplished this past year
and I have been involved with for the past five years.
I've been involved with the Hershey Boys Track Club
as an athlete and more recently this year as a coach to use track athletes.
I'm also a member of the National Honor Society
and Spanish National Society, and I have been for the past two years,
and I'm involved with the Hershey
High School Key Club and the Sad Club.
I'm also a classroom assistant in the middle school, which is a lot of fun.
And this past fall I had the opportunity to be a member
of the high school homecoming court.
And this year I am the co-captain of the high school
track team, which I'm really excited about for the season.
This fall, I'll be attending Davidson College
in North Carolina on a Division one track scholarship.
And while I will be going undecided, I hope to study history in the future.
Just I just want to thank you guys again for having me here and
I look forward to meeting.
And now I'd like to introduce Mr.
Charlie Sackler.
First, I would like to thank the school board
for honoring with this recognition and the Rotary Club for this award.
And, Leo, congratulations for being the finalist
in the month.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mr.
Santino.
He is the accounting teacher at our school.
He has increased my knowledge in accounting, finance and business
by providing opportunities to work with the school store and field trips
and the chance to speak with business professionals in a variety of industries
as he brings them in both in person and connecting
with professionals across the country that he knows who were former students
or someone he connected with from previous jobs.
His desire to take us out of the classroom and into the business arena
brings the business road to life for his students.
And I'm grateful for all the opportunities that he has provided.
They gave me insights into the business world.
I'd like to thank Principal Smith, who has an open door
for Hershey High School students in my work with many thanks.
I have been so appreciative of the ability to approach him
with any fundraising ideas I may have
and I believe his willingness to hear our ideas and support
student efforts to give back to our local hospital through
many thought is a shining example of how committing
community is must work together to make a difference.
I would also like to thank my parents.
They have been a shining example of service to your community,
whether it be my mom, through working with our first or providing a meal
for a recently hospitalized family or my dad with his work for diamonds.
United Way or the new community center.
I've been privileged to learn by watching them,
and I've come to understand that
strong communities are built and lives are improved and residents
give back to the neighbors, friends and charitable organizations.
One of my favorite service
activities has been my work with the Four Diamonds
through Work and I've learned the impact a group of dedicated students
can have on the world around them.
I've been inspired
by the strength and commitment I see in students from across the state
as we have all united under the common Cause
and working to one day find the cure to childhood cancer.
I greatly enjoyed my time at Hershey as a part of the swim team.
This year I am excited to be part of the States team
as we travel to Bucknell on Thursday to compete in competition. And
as I was elected, one of the captains of the team.
Swimming has been a part of my life for the majority of it, about 14 years,
and it's something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
I'm grateful for the coaching staff and the entire
athletic department at Hershey because to me it's more than just a sport.
It's the opportunity to learn some of life's best lessons
and make friendships and things that last a lifetime.
And again,
like to thank you all for the recognition as one of the students of the month.
It's just a school like no other,
and I can confidently say that through my time here, I feel prepared for the day
we cross the stage, receive our diplomas and embark on a new journey
through all my experiences here.
I'm excited for the next chapter as I French study finance and accounting
and none to turn college.
But I'll always remember my time at Hershey.
Thank you all for coming.
It's a pleasure having our students come
and be Students of the month and hearing everything that you do.
And good luck in the future to both of you.
We would like to take all the credit for your success that we see.
Your wonderful parents are both our assets here.
But thank you for coming.
Great kids. Congratulations.
You do not have to stay for the rest and if you don't want to,
we have just boring business to take care of. So
I'd like to point out that sorry, we Malia Painter forgot to mention
probably one of her best qualities is she is an amazing babysitter.
Oh, and there are some moms that are really not happy about you graduating, but
what we do have some good
presentations coming up if you want to stay,
but I don't want to keep you if you have plans.
But thank you so much for coming.
We're very proud of you.
Yes, I'm next.
We have a presentation on the link crew.
We have Michelle Kent and Barb Clouser.
It's not typing.
It went.
Yep. Whenever you're ready, no doubt.
And having a little bit of technical issue.
Okay. Yeah.
The Wi-Fi is not working for me.
Yes. Yeah, I'm reconnecting.
I apologize.
Okay.
Oh, there is a delay, but
you can go ahead and introduce yourself.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm Michel.
Since I teach French class for high school
and I am very pleased to be here tonight to talk to you
about a new endeavor that we are embarking on.
A welcome link. So.
Right. So I am here with
my colleagues.
Kent at the board members do have a copy of it at their seats.
They can look at it while they're while you're trying to get it to work.
So far.
Yeah. Pretty
find it.
There it is.
This worked really well right before we sort of.
I don't know where to go.
I think
I am so
pleased to be here today to talk to you about this crew
and with my colleague far
to see all of you again tonight.
We're here to explain a little bit about linker
and kind of how things came together for for this endeavor.
We started back in early 2017, 2000, 17, 18 school year
looking to come together, the star group, the Gold Group, community service
teachers, administrators,
a few board members we were looking at how can we make transition better
from age to ninth grade and then from fifth or sixth grade.
And in the middle of all of this planning and talking about meeting
and coming together, and we received some information
from an organization called the Boomerang Project.
And through that is this program called Link Crew.
Meanwhile, we went ahead and we had a bridge day
last August, which was quite successful.
We had well over 80% of high school students, ninth graders coming out
on a day.
They didn't have to come in the summer
to basically go through a mini orientation of what was happening.
Meanwhile, last spring, Michelle and I were fortunate enough through a grant,
through the Trojan Foundation to attend training out in Chicago.
And it was, what, 32 hours and three days?
It was a pretty intensive thing and we learned a lot.
It was probably one of the best professional development experiences
I've had in my career.
So moving ahead, kind of what is link here?
So this is on out in Washington State, but this is just kind of like
a little introductory video of what this is.
Anything is anybody is actually
well, I think we all have experienced
that first time in the Olympic Building and a whole bunch of kids.
And you get to see them come in with the big eyes and slowly through
the different activities that are planned to come out of their shell.
I was very much welcome, especially for the people.
It's an important program because it connects kids.
We kind of run because we're all going to be like, okay,
we're just going to be like, okay, I know what that is.
We have this class together,
and then they can feel like they know something that they're not.
Alone in creating this very intentionally inviting
that needs leaders coming into this area, looking at dropout rates.
And that's really such an integral part of their success here.
They're likely to stay in school
and be connected to this group of leaders, to be our student leaders.
It's just an amazing group of young people.
I feel included because I like being able to make a difference in their lives.
I wanted to give back to the kids where I had my sessions,
and actually one of my neighbors even made it clear
I felt like I should be doing this for other freshmen too, especially if
they get an opportunity to leave, an opportunity to change their school
environment in the building,
you know, an opportunity to connect to some of those young kids.
It's a great program that has.
So Link Crew has
a purpose, which is really to connect students with each other and the school
and to help them form friendships, bonds that will create an environment
and a culture where everyone is succeeding.
And what's unique about it is it also it has, of course, the idea that we're going
to work with the ninth grade, but it also uses students to do that.
So we have a leadership prong as well and it's very exciting
to watch students invest in other students lives.
So there's a lot of data and this is sort of just me basically
an image to show you that lots of schools have seen great results.
Overall.
The boomerang projects has some data that they are in 47 different states,
seven Canadian provinces in seven other countries.
There's 20 plus years of proven success,
37% decrease in discipline referrals,
33% fewer truancy and 20% fewer suspensions.
In addition, there is a decrease in the amount of ninth grade course failures.
I recently was at a presentation from the one week high school
that is currently been doing this program for about five years now,
and they have amazing data of all of those statistics
and it's local, someone close by that's been doing the exact same thing.
There are
really what we call the golden five things that we want to address,
an attack in Link group, and one of them is attendance grades,
discipline test scores, and then school pride and culture,
which is a little trickier to measure, but still possible to measure.
But these are the things that we want to work on
with Link Road, and we think that we can make those changes in the ninth grade.
And then of course, as I mentioned in the video, each subsequent year,
we're seeing more and more students that are succeeding in school
and then wanting to give back when they get their turn is 11th and 12th graders.
So the Boomerang project, their three kids to the transition
that they like to address, and one of them is safety.
And, you know, it's really easy
to put a dollar sign on the physical part of safety.
You can put more locks on the door, you can do more physical barriers,
whatever it is, to make it feel safe that way.
But it's really hard to address sometimes that emotional safety.
And that's what this program is really all about, making kids feel like they have
a safe place to be are connected to others information.
They call them the big L's. Where am I going to have lunch?
Where's how does my locker work?
What happens if I get lost?
What if I'm left out?
And what if people laugh at me
So they want to address those right up front
so kids have the connections before the school year even starts.
They'll have less anxiety about those things.
And then, of course, the big the big idea is connection.
And this, you know, I have it written.
We got these huge binders and everything we out there.
I probably have this last thing written about 14 times
all over different pages about increasing engagement to decrease apathy,
which is going to lead to a better school culture overall.
Again, some other messages that they included
the whole idea that structure is going to create behavior
that we want to see from our students and the idea of including everyone,
no matter what, what is going on, that everybody has a place.
The big, big thing on the relationships in the connections
building leader capacity, which Michelle touched on already,
the shift in the culture and then preparing students for success,
whatever that may look like, whether it's academic success, emotional
success, social success, just preparing them to handle life.
This image and I think just that you had it in
the handout is just something from their one.
I think it's from their website and it talks about the cycle of activities.
And it's not just about like we saw some fun games
and things in that video clip, but there are also academic follow ups
built in that the link group leaders, the older students will be checking in
with the kids and making sure, hey, how are things going academically?
Do you need help?
Is there anything that I can help you with or point
you in the right direction to get the help that you need?
So this is kind of embedded the whole way through, and there's a very
structured curriculum for the coordinators,
so the teacher leaders to work with the student leaders
and then they in turn will work with the students.
So it's it's all you know, everybody is working together to make this happen.
So the structure and it
really involves almost the entire school and it's kind of exciting.
And as the years go by, every student will have a part of it.
Obviously, every freshman has that opportunity.
So it starts with coordinators, with two teacher coordinators,
and that's going to be Barb and myself over this next year.
And we also have the opportunity to talk to the faculty already about this
and have been getting a lot of volunteers, people saying, we love to help,
we want to be a part of this. It sounds exciting.
Bridge Day was a very big success in all of our minds, and teachers
were really positive about that.
And now that we're adding this extra layer whistling crew,
they're very excited to be a part of it.
And so we definitely have teachers behind us
willing ready to use any kind of support role that they can.
The next step is that we meet little crew leaders and we need student leaders.
It's really important that students are reaching out to students and being in
and building their culture, having that opportunity to change that culture.
So we're going to we're looking at juniors and seniors.
So next year, juniors and seniors are going to be our core leaders.
And if we have a class of roughly 300 students, ninth graders,
we need to be have between 65 and 75 careers.
One thing that's really important to us is and this is important to the Lincoln
program, is that every ninth grader should be able to look at the leaders
and see themselves being one of these leaders, whether it's
the things that they're interested in, the color of their skin.
They we we really want them to be able to see a cross-section, diverse
cross-section of our student population as leaders.
We're not necessarily looking for the kid that does everything.
We're looking for somebody who really wants to commit to being a friendly, kind,
assisting kind of
person who is going to walk alongside a group of young people
and really encourage them along their journey at the high school.
So every ninth grade student, every ninth grade student
will be in a group of 8 to 10 students.
And each of those groups will have two leaders,
hopefully one male and one female.
That's our goal.
It doesn't always work that way, but that's what we try to aim for.
And as far mentioned before, those leaders are going to have
that same group of 8 to 10 students all year long touching base with them
inviting them to social activities
that we planned throughout the year, inviting them to
teaching little academic lessons
like organization, time management, things like that.
The power of that message and those kinds of invitations coming from
other students is very, very crucial to the success
and of course, to students feeling connected and wanting to be a part.
So what do we need from you?
Well, we just need your support because at this point,
we we really feel like we have a lot of things in motion
bargaining between, you know, we our rooms are next door
to each other and we can actually go days without seeing each other.
But we but we it's true when we make a connection
to see each other, we really enjoy talking about what our next steps are for this.
And we're excited about what we have ready to go.
And you know, as you know, when you first time you do something, it's conjecture.
You're figuring it out as you go.
But we're really excited about
taking advantage of the schools around us that are participating in this.
And of course, we still have connections in and
an access to the websites that Lincoln gave us
that we can continually and even ask for advice and questions from them.
So we just need your support.
We need your stamp of approval in the sense that we just want
the community to be excited about what we're doing with One Crow.
And of course, we do invite you all to come to the bridge service year
as that's going to do little to look a little bit different
with more inclusion of the Lincoln activities for our inaugural year.
Next year, we did receive a grant from the Trojan Foundation for a $1,500
to support the activities throughout the year.
Make sure everybody is included.
We don't want there to be cost to be an issue for any student
to be able to participate in any of the activities that we're doing.
So we tried to come up with a proposal and that would include
making sure that no child
would be left out for any reason, financially or otherwise. So
this little this little clip here, this is actually from work
just down the road, and we thought we would close out kind of review.
They show one thing that was interesting about this one.
They have some of the individual activities
that are separated like after the group stuff.
And we thought it would be nice for you to see a little bit about the student
led groups.
That's all I think is best for you.
Yes, I have one.
Oh, go ahead.
It's a wonderful idea.
I'm very excited about it.
And I was just wondering.
So it sounds like you're going to be able to get it up
and running for the incoming freshman class.
And I'm just curious of what the process of how you're going to determine
the leaders.
Is it similar to like gold where they fill out
so we started last week at our faculty meeting.
We actually started with and we had talked to faculty
about this prior back in November, just to kind of give them a heads up.
Here's what's coming.
We started with a recommendation of who do you think,
who do you see in your classes that maybe the wider ones or
who do you think
would be a good role for this and we're going to be having next week?
We're calling them lunch and learn where they can come.
We have the LG I set aside over the lunch periods.
They can bring their lunch
and we're going to invite the ones who were chosen by not chosen,
selected by the teachers as far as I think this would be a good person to contact,
but it's going to be open to anybody to stop in
and then in that process will have the applications available.
And then we're going to work with other staff members
who said they wanted to help out with things to determine
where we go next with things, There's there's actually like an interview process
that was like playing some games
and see how they interact and how they interact with each other.
And so there is a process that's normally in place by link group
and we feel like we are like, we haven't done it yet.
So right, like she said, there is a lot of conjecture.
I will say this because I compiled all of the names that the teachers submitted
and there were 224 names submitted for for these.
Now, that's not to say they'll all come or they will all want to participate,
but like, what are we going to have?
Too many are not enough. We're trying,
you know, one of us leans one way or the other and we're
not sure which one is going to be, but it's exciting this first time around.
But they have provided us
the Boomerang Project has provided all link for leaders
with so many resources for how to do things, and they basically
kept enforcing over and over again, follow the recipe and it'll work.
Just do what we have here
because they've done it in so many different places for so long.
So we're going to kind of trust in that.
And move forward from there.
And any other questions?
My first question was what student was about how to identify the leaders,
But just looking at it and seeing the church and foundation
provided the grant for this year, which thank you to the Children Foundation.
I think this program sounds great.
How do you see this evolving over time and for continued funding
or different ways
to incorporate other resources is how you know, what does that look like?
I can speak to that.
What we've talked to the
Church and Foundation about, and they've been incredibly supportive.
They actually paid to have Barbie Michelle trained last year.
They also funded middle school teachers and
a couple of extra high school counselor to get trained this year.
And then they've sponsored
the first year of implementation here.
What we would be looking for, then we'd have to add it into our budget.
And it's a similar model of what we did with the after school
tutoring at the middle school where the church and foundation sponsored it.
The first year with the transportation costs and everything.
And we knew that moving forward we would have to put it into our budget
if it was successful.
So what we would look at for the foundation as we go back next year
with a request to do the same thing they did for the high school,
for the middle school the year following, and then rolled into our budget.
Okay, I didn't say I think that it would also be something really great
to reach out to the community.
I think that there are a lot of different community groups
and nonprofits that would probably be really excited
to be a part of funding something like this.
So, you know, that's something we're looking at in addition to the budget.
I'm not opposed to something like this being in the budget as we like.
You're volunteering to help us with that.
I just think that for that dollar figure
amount that it would be, you know, just off the top.
And I can think of several different groups
that would probably be really interested in financially supporting it.
So thank you for taking this on.
I have a
I think I think it's a question at the risk of sounding ignorant
or like the Grinch,
I'm a little taken
aback like, and I maybe just need to explain it
to me a little bit better, like welcoming freshmen. Why?
Why is that?
$12,500?
Like, I'm kind of a little bit it seems like a very simple concept
and I'm not sure why it's coming with a price tag.
So this is for everything, including all the social events.
So we're looking at if we do like a bulling event on campus
or an ice skating event over at Mona, like we've tried to take
in different events to include all freshmen.
So there are no costs back on the students.
You might see this all year long.
Maria Yeah, this is not just the course.
All year long for all events.
This is every month there's different things going on.
T-shirts for the leaders.
It's pizza to feed the leaders on their training days like that kind of stuff.
Like it's a lot of that.
It's the supplies for the activities that all the leaders are going to need
for the freshmen as they're working with them on the different days.
Like it's an entire program.
It's not just the orientation day.
If I'm looking
at this correctly, it goes like all yet you have like socials
every month and throughout the year, year on year, we'll hear.
So it's to cover all those kind of activities and it would.
Be all for the student plus like for every one of the outings
and things, there'd be refreshments or food.
It's covering all those costs.
It's every cost associated for every activity for the kid
that involved the kids.
And then is there an initial cost for the curriculum
upfront that that was already covered in our training?
So we have access and once we have that, like we're able to access it forever.
Now, like even when they change, when they update, when they put new video
training things out,
like we can always have access to that because we've already been trained right.
Any other questions?
And I'm sure if you find there's leftover money, you just would
put that towards the subsequent years because it's a guesswork right now.
I mean, sure, it's going to be like until
and I don't have a proposal in front of me,
but there was a whole grant proposal that we did with the Trojan Foundation,
like we went through it line by line to look at the types
of different things that we were doing and how many students were involved
and things, you know, along that.
But, you know, as I'm sure
that's kind of conjecture right now, we'll have a better idea moving forward.
And. BARDEN
Michelle did a very detailed report for the Trojan Foundation on those costs.
And what the Trojan Foundation committed to was it cost up to 12,000.
So, I mean, if we don't use all that.
Much, we may not you know, we might not need that, but it's there for
it sounds like a win win for not only the incoming freshmen,
but also for an opportunity for the older students to have leadership role.
And like a my ears really perked up when you said that they were going to teach
the ninth graders organization and time management.
So then that means that the older kids
are going to learn time management, which I think is like a huge thing.
So that's a great opportunity for them to learn it for themselves as well.
And so I think it's a really wonderful program.
And I just want to say as a as delegate for the church and foundation
from the board,
the proposal that they provided was very detailed and broke that down.
And if anyone's interested in seeing that, to see the the various costs
and how that was put together, I'm happy to forward it by email, but
it went into pretty detailed specifics.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming.
We appreciate it.
And thank you for all the work you're doing.
I think Terry had his finger on his microphone. Oh.
No, just a just a quick one.
I'm sure that our student representatives would have made
an observation or comment if they had any.
I would certainly be interested in hearing what
what you think
I can make comment that
like I would really
if I were not a senior this year, I would love to be a part of this program.
It sounds very like engaging for the students,
so I think it'll help them a lot.
Speaking from a student perspective as a freshman coming into that transition
to the high school, it can be a scary one because it's a whole new building.
There are three other grades above you that can seem a little intimidating.
So once you have that connection with those students
that are older than you, those upperclassmen, it'll
definitely lower your worries and lessen your anxieties when you first step in.
And if I were to be able to participate
in this, I would definitely take that opportunity.
So, yeah, thanks.
Just to add on to that, I think that's a really excellent observation
and also the fact that it will help increase, you know, the school spirit
we have in our school, which I think is something our school
definitely needs a little boost of,
and not only for this, but like for other events
like sporting events and mini fund,
this will definitely help foster a community
that will go and support these events and thus bring the whole school up.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. All right.
Now we have another presentation air update.
It's our Ms..
Ashley Teeter. Hi.
Good evening, everyone. I
thank you, Mike.
Good evening. Thanks for having me.
So when I was here last April and we I talked about our contract
and our services for the district, your ask of me was to come back
and kind of quantify and be able to talk about, Hey,
what are the things that you're doing for us
and what's the value in the fee that you're paying to us.
So what I'd like to do today is really review the areas of engagement.
Thank you very much.
Within I service platform both at renewal and open enrollment time period.
What's that's a bulk of you know, there's high activity timeframe
and then some of the ongoing support that we've provided.
And then just briefly discuss some of the upcoming areas of focus
as we shockingly are now approaching your next renewal.
We that
the wheel you did say that, didn't you?
Okay.
And I believe you might have these lies in front of you, but just as a refresher
on what we aim to do.
So simply put, we really want to be an extension of your team, your h.r.
Team, your business office,
and take the things off of their plate that we can do so they can focus on things
that are more based on what you do here in your core value proposition,
which is your students and your curriculum.
So the things like your benefits, negotiation, the administrative support,
all the acronyms that accompany health care, that's where we want to focus
and really, you know, increase and sustain the value of your benefits,
hopefully increase employee engagement in those programs and services.
And then obviously
the economic sustainability of your health care plan.
We want to be your partner in order to preserve that.
So we're we're trying to bring ideas, do due diligence,
market evaluation and really, as the industry experts
really be these good stewards of our money and of the dollars that you pay
for a very important and very costly item on your overall spend.
So A so actually this is a refresher.
So the team that is dedicated so I have the slide in here
just to showcase that we have
a lot of people working on your behalf behind the scenes within my office.
So fully staffed are about 70 people within AIAA as a national firm,
we about 600 employees overall, but your core team is highlighted there.
I represent both the executive leadership
representation as well as I maintain overall responsibility for account.
I'm supported on a day to day basis by an account director, an analyst
and a senior consultant who really focuses on your disability work.
But all the other individuals I call on there kind of my army behind me
for whatever we might need on a day to day basis.
So I kind of bucket our
consulting services platform into these core areas.
And so what I'd like to do is walk through each of those and kind of explain
the work that we've done since the inception of of the contract
and then hopefully be able to quantify some of the hard dollar savings
that we've been able to achieve for the district in the period thus far.
So I'm going to start with account management,
and we think of that as our day to day support.
So it's not the fancy stuff, but it's the stuff that we do
daily renewal and open enrollment.
This really involved your renewal negotiation support,
which is predominantly bless you, focused on your our X rebates.
And so we did some things to leverage high mark
to get some savings there which I will discuss coordination
of all renewal paperwork, getting some signatures, everything that's necessary.
And then probably the most time consuming are all the group
contract reviews.
So we go through and read those line by line, compare them to existing contracts.
I'm Mark has a knack for sometimes putting in new provisions
that like advance funding provisions that weren't there before.
And we want
to make sure that you don't sign anything that puts you in those positions.
So we we spend time to do that as well and then provide them to Mike and his team
as well as that also extends to ancillary and disability contract review.
So just a note
we did take over that we are now your broker of record on those lines.
I do want to point out too, that, you know, as a
I think when I was here the last time I said that one of our value
propositions from a fee structure is that full transparency.
So I shared with Mike
that we received an override from your disability in life carrier.
And so we have applied that as a credit and offset to what you're paying us.
So not collecting an additional amount, but applying is that as a cost offset
to the fee that you're paying us so neutral to you
but didn't feel like you should?
I thought it would be appropriate to apply it
on an ongoing basis.
So we came here.
My team provided a first quarter update in November, met with Mike and Luna
just to talk about,
hey, recap some of things we did, set some objectives for the upcoming year,
and one of those was a high mark enrollment audit.
So really auditing your system here internally against time, our system
to make sure when you have retires retirees, when you have
people moving in and out, it is not uncommon that you might have
someone that is enrolled in your plan, that might have been
that shouldn't have been.
And you don't certainly don't want to be paying claims for someone that isn't
enrolled in your plan and vice versa, someone that should be enrolled
that isn't in the system.
So we did your current enrollment and we have a currently doing
a historical year underway which might say what's the value in that?
But it is not uncommon to find historical errors as well.
And then we can go back
and do some claim reprocessing and then just general day to day support.
So, you know, vendor management, if there's a claim issue or a denial,
we help get resolution on that to really be a firewall
between the district and the employee and a lot of enrollment verification.
So the other employee that we need to figure out
when were they covered, when were they not covered.
So this is a of back and forth triaging with your vendor partners.
So that kind of sums up from an account manager support some of the things
that we've been doing from a communication and member education standpoint.
Really it's pretty two really simple things
because there weren't a lot of changes and we kind of already entered a structure
that you had under control from an open enrollment standpoint.
But what we did do in an attempt to fill in the gap
between when Sherri Downs last and when Luna was identified
was we created a dedicated employee email inbox that we monitored.
So the employees had questions.
We had someone that was monitoring that to make sure
that they got their questions answered in a timely fashion.
And certainly to take away that from from off of Mike's
and then are reviewing all high marks, medical and vision vision
employee benefit booklets that we hand out to employees at open enrollment.
And when they're first hired
from a compliance and h.r.
Support standpoint, renewal, open enrollment.
So there is an inundation of government required disclosures and notices
everything from your initial cover rights notice to ship
notice to marketplace enrollment notices.
All these a whole list, a laundry list.
So we created all of those.
We provide those to the district as well as other things like
your summaries of benefits and coverage that need to be reviewed and created.
All things that are required
to be provided, summary plan descriptions, things of those nature.
We prepare those and provide them to use.
They can be used at open enrollment and throughout the year
We also did your bakery fee calculation,
which is the patient centered Outcomes and Research Institute fee,
which was an ACA associated fee that has now phased out.
You will not have that fee anymore. It's nominal.
But we did prepare that calculation so that it could be filed
an ongoing basis.
We did conduct a detailed compliance assessment I can share.
The good news is you guys were in good shape.
That included a review of your current Section 125 plan document,
which is the document that allows employees
to take contributions for their health care on a pretax basis.
And then your SBT as a school, as a school
district, you're not subject to a recess, so you don't have that component.
But Section 125 is so important.
And then creation of a wrap document, which really allows you to,
in a consolidated fashion, provide all of those documents together.
We also completed your Section 125 and 105h nondiscrimination testing,
which is an annual requirement to make sure that you're not discriminate.
Discriminating in terms of benefits are eligible
in your highly comped employees or executives.
So it's just a it's a test that needs.
So it's a dual requirement.
So we did complete that for you as well and provided also access to a leora h.r.
Workplace pro, which is it's a privately labeled version of think h.r.
So there's a host of training materials,
but also it's a really great resource for luna from an h.r.
perspective.
So there might be things that she has questions on that fall
outside of our purview, but certainly fall under hers.
So provides one of the nicest things is daily access to benefit professionals
that can sometimes that life support which can avoid some legal fees there.
So again, no additional costs for those for that for that service
from a data analytics and actuarial
support standpoint at renewal and open enrollment, we did the stop
loss RFP, the request for proposal management negotiation.
So your original Avalon renewal was released at a 54% ask.
We released an RFP, we did get some competitive leverage
and were able to negotiate Avalon down to a 35%, about a $34,000
annual savings and negotiated no lasers as a refresher, a laser.
If your specific deductible, for example, is 150,000,
which means that's the district's liability per member covered on the plan,
a laser could be someone that can be issued a higher amount
or can have no coverage at all based on maybe they've got a high cost condition.
We are seeing this becoming more and more prevalent.
And we also conducted a specific reinsurance deductible analysis analysis
specific reinsurance is that per member level, there's also aggregate reinsurance
which protects you in the aggregate for your low dollar claims.
And so we conducted analysis just to make sure you were at the right level.
So just a balance of the more
exposure that you take on per member and you compare that to the savings
that you might get in a premium to say what's the and what we might expect from
a high cost claimant standpoint to say, are you in the right place?
That analysis concluded that you were.
We thought that the deductible that you had was appropriate
and then finally your cover rate development.
So that's basically what we use.
Think of that as your budget surrogate,
but also the rate that you're going to assign for people that leave your plan
if they're paying it just all the aspects of what we believe
are going to go into your total plan costs on an ongoing basis.
We do your weekly claim monitoring and stop loss reimbursement tracking,
which might seem the latter piece might seem like something that is a small task.
But I can assure you getting paid after you've overpaid on
something from reinsurance carrier is sometimes a daunting task.
So you had approximately 563,000 in owed
reimbursements for the 1718 plan year.
So it's giving the information that Avalon requires, collecting that from Highmark,
confirming eligibility
and making sure that the district is paid in a timely fashion.
I believe you only have one month left and a very small amount
that is still owed to you that we're working through.
And then we create a monthly IBNR which is incurred but not reported amounts.
And we report that to Mike for budget monitoring.
So that really is produces the amount of claims that we know
have been incurred but have not been paid yet.
So it's basically what do you need to accrue
that would attribute back to any single month
because we know in health care
claims are not always paid in the month that they occur.
From a cost containment perspective,
there are so many areas that we can focus on.
And this is probably when you say
actually, where do you think that we see the bulk of savings potential?
It's certainly in this area in terms of hard dollars savings.
So the areas highlighted in yellow are some of the things that we engaged
with throughout the past ten months and some the other ones
that are not highlighted.
We're certainly going to be areas of focus as we move forward,
a review of that activity at renewal and open enrollment.
You of course remember the arcs carve out repricing analysis
which we really ultimately use to leverage high mark.
And I say the due diligence from that standpoint,
even if we use it to and we don't make any change,
I am confident to say that it was instrumental in getting Highmark to move
savings yield of approximately 93,006 re our ICS rebate credit.
So if you recall, the district prior two years ago
had a rebate credit of about $8 at renewal.
I think they offered 26 and we were able to get it up to 40,
which I still think it's going to be one of the areas of focus
as we move into the next plan year.
We also completed actuarial model projections
for your covered rate development, and we have software that we use to try
to be a little bit scientific about that using actuarial probabilities
so that when we give you a budget number, it's not just
this is where we think your claims are going to be, but it's supported by
in case you're audited, which I know is a common we have a
what we believe is a scientific as possible to back that development
and then certainly some advisory support for Highmark value added programs.
So there's been some different things
that Highmark launches at Reneau on throughout the year.
There was just a recent one as well,
but some coordination of benefit programs and also state of service.
So really that's channel management in terms of,
hey, if I have a member that's in infused infusion therapy,
you have the ability to put in a program that kind of requires them
to get that at their home and which actually can be cost
effective and more convenient certainly for the member.
So we read to those programs and have a dialog
with Mike on on what our recommendation might be.
And then on an ongoing basis, we conducted an opportunity assessment
for some volunteers, $0 employee costs what we call bolt on our X programs.
So we have that data and those will be some of the things that we'll talk about.
We think about where your areas of opportunity
are in the future, but we did that analysis for you.
So probably what you're most interested in is what have you.
What is the roll up of the savings?
So from an R ex rebate negotiation standpoint from 20 to 40,
that gets you the 93,000, the reinsurance negotiation.
Now they're 54 and the way of compliance on our support fees,
which normally we charge our clients, we did waive those for you another 2000 so
under and 49,000 approximately in year to date hard dollars savings
and then certainly I would say that
there are some soft dollar savings I can't quantify with the ongoing support.
But that's, you know, what what you pay us our consulting fee for.
And then lastly, just wanted to give you a preview of
some of the things that I'm going to be focused on with my team
and with Mike that hopefully we can present to you for consideration
in the next several weeks.
Now, I'm supposed to be here in February, but good old winter got us, so
we're going to be meeting later
in this month, early next month to really do a plan performance review
that's going to be a deep dive financial and clinical review from our standpoint
and then really set the stage for our annual planning
in terms of areas of focus and immediate opportunity
in the short term, which I would define as the next 12 to 18 months.
And we talked about doing a benchmarking study really in conjunction
with your contract negotiation.
So we have a lot of school districts that we work with.
Just added a few more since actually we've since I was here last.
So we actually have a plethora of data for school districts in the state
and we've just provided that information to you as a useful tool
are recognizing that each district has their own certain nuances
in their own microcosm.
But hopefully it might be helpful for you
some voluntary arts programs.
I talked about that and hopefully with your support
moving forward and implementation with one or both of those programs
are currently already underway in the repricing, again for the pharmacy,
because I believe it's a worthwhile exercise
even if we just use it from a Highmark negotiation standpoint.
Speaking of Highmark, I'm sure you've all heard, particularly
where you're located about Penn State health and with an UPMC Pinnacle.
So launching July one had an opportunity to meet
with some Highmark folks a couple of weeks ago.
They're actually launching a product.
So they have, you know, their network there.
They're launching a product that would provide deeper discounts
for those that provide incentive to stay within the Penn State Hershey network.
That might be something I'm not saying definite,
but it certainly might be something to take a look at.
So when we think of discounts, it's a discount off an allowable amount.
So if you choose this product,
you as a district might be able to reduce your claim exposure.
If we know that the majority of your
volume is going to staying within the Penn State Hershey Medical Center system.
So some things to think about from a product standpoint
within High Marks platform,
I think continued our Medicare education and enrollment supports.
We've got a team of Medicare enrollees.
So bringing them here and having them be onsite and meet with some of your staff
and or family members, it's a community service as well
evaluation of volunteer worksite benefit programs.
So these are just the the employee paid benefits.
Your critical illness, your cancer, your accident plans,
some of those things just to take a look to see what might be available.
And so there's some great things that are available with your current relationship.
And then another thing that we are focused on
and I think is a good opportunity, is really surrounding conditions, specific
opportunities, dialysis being one of them,
as well as some of the Centers of Excellence are really directing
and helping out your employees when they're diagnosed
with a really expensive and and complex case,
making sure that they get to the best place possible for that care.
Really good examples.
If you have a heart issue, you want to go to a Cleveland clinic.
So so things like that that we are really getting into
and we're calling kind of self-funded survival kit.
So some things that we can bring
to the table as areas of opportunity that are perceived as employee
benefits and don't compromise certainly quality or cost. So
that's what I have for you today.
Do you have any questions?
I do have a question.
Why would we have $563,000 in overpayments and we're getting that money back?
So the way that your contract is structured is because you're not partner.
So Highmark Blue Shield has a reinsurer that is wholly owned by them.
HMO You are not with them, so you're with Avalon Insurance Company.
So basically what happens is you pay a claim
and your liability caps at a certain level and then we have to go seek
that reimbursement.
So the district pays the claim.
And and the claim is, let's say per member, it's 150,000
if you pay if, they have a $200,000 bill, you pay 200,000.
And then we seek the reimbursement for the 50,000 to pay you back as a district.
That's ridiculous.
It is a standard.
It's a standard operating protocol.
Basically, we pay the fee and then there is a lower peak.
As you're
we we were with an insurance company and we try to get
that kind of the write offs back or the.
Well, no it's it's a reimbursement for so in a
unless you are partnered it is rare unless you're partnered
with a reinsurer that is owned by your third
party administrator or which in this case yours is high mark.
And unless you were partnered with their reinsurer, which is HMG,
that is the only situation that you would get
what's called a build credit where they're going to say,
we're just going to automatically credit you for the amount.
Is the overpayment in a traditional model, which most employers are,
and you're always paying the claim and then submitting for reimbursement
against the contract,
which the contract provides you coverage over that certain limit.
So it is not uncommon, but it is an onerous process
because you have to make sure these reinsurance carriers want to make sure
the person should have been covered under the plan,
the service that they received or covered under the plan in a covered service.
So there's back and forth when you don't have
when you're not with the reinsurer that's owned by the TPA.
And really Capital and Highmark
are the only two Aetna does as well that have a wholly owned reinsurer.
We just happen to be with Capital Reinsurer, which is why it requires this
additional work.
Can I just
note this is just specifically for our stop loss insurance.
So this is the amount over the $170,000 that that Ashley noted
would be our liability for each life that we cover
is that $170,000 over that.
The stop loss insurance kicks in.
The process actually was noting was for you to have incurred $200,000 in claims.
We have to pay that $200,000.
Then we can go submit for the $30,000 to be reimbursed because it was over 370.
Not per individual claims that come in and out daily.
No, no, it's. Per correct.
Per person and it's per person and it's that $170,000 level.
That's what, what actually is helping with that.
We track that to make sure, hey, where people are accumulating
because it includes both medical and prescription drugs.
We're tracking that to say, hey,
patient, you know, one, two and three, we know they've breached your limit
and now it's time to go seek reimbursement.
So we collect all the data from Highmark, we submit it to Avalon
and make sure that you get paid.
This process prior to handling it.
This year was done by the office and gathering the data.
So it's easy to track when somebody goes over.
That's not the hard part where they step in and really take
the time is then gathering all the data on that person's claim, which you think
would be fairly easy with Highmark because we go through this process.
But a little bit of it is.
Hi, Mark is our coverage.
Avalon is through Capital Blue Cross.
And so they don't like to play in the sandbox together all the time.
So there is a hard time in gathering all of that.
It was a huge help to have that taken off my plate
this year entirely and just have the checks
show up on time as well as the tracking that goes along with that.
I was keeping track of how quickly those were coming back.
The payments were coming back about a month ahead of time
when it's processed by air versus us doing the processing.
And then we do a reconciliation
at the end of the year to make sure that the records that we have
from Highmark match all the reimbursements that you've received
to make sure that, you know, you haven't missed out on any payments
or claims that should have been owed to you.
Thank you.
Of course, Ashleigh.
Any other questions on that same line?
So the 563,000 in reimbursement, it's not in the cost savings like your summary
of actual cost savings doesn't have that number because it's not a hard
The work that we put into it, I'd say, is, you know what, you pay us to do.
But the, the just the, the activity of tracking down that reimbursement is
but it's not a hard dollars savings because you shouldn't have paid it at
the first place. Okay.
I do have a couple questions I should clarify on the savings
that you listed include like $93,000 for related to the Highmark rebate.
And I'm covered that for the 20 to $40.
Previously we were like $8.
And so our actual overall savings
is really it was 200,000, right?
It's just you're reflecting the 93,000 because that's when you became engaged.
Yes. Yes.
Okay.
I just wonder if I didn't want to over inflate, I could have.
But I know this group is sharp and I say what I said
and then I guess my other ask would be that
when you're doing the pricing the side and would bring that back this year,
looking at whether or not
we would stay with Highmark or look at other carve out plans and PBMs,
if we can look
as detailed as possible on transparency and spread
pricing so that we can take a look at it, one from the districts impact.
But then also there's so much
going on, you know, at a state level and talks of legislation
for transparency and PBM pricing and what it's doing to community pharmacy
and having those in our community, I think that it's important
we look at it overall and get as much information as possible.
You got it. Thanks.
Any other questions, Terry?
Aside from volume,
what's what are the variables that affect the tax rebate?
So the Horrocks rebate.
So the question itself is what is a rebate?
So, you know, when you don't have your drug carved out,
you don't have access to your group contract.
And so it just the very nature of what defines a rebate
and what is a rebate able scrips when you don't have access
to your contract and you don't because it's your tapping into high marks
contract as their whole entity and they will not give that to us.
So for example, is it only on a list of of a certain list of drugs?
Is it is a rebate of all script only a brand script,
which then leads to what's the definition of a brand drug?
And, and you know, sometimes you have different shell
games with what defines a brand versus generic. So
even just and then,
you know, there's different streams that PBMs get not just rebates
but manufacturer kind of discounts which make up about 3 to 4%.
So there's a whole world of different things that go into
cost.
And I would I would say just and this is me speaking that if high mark
would go up from 8 to 40 in one year, that means there's probably
a lot dollars left on the table if they're willing to make that big of a jump.
And still
we achieve that pretty easily.
I would say just with a little bit of due diligence.
So that would be my commentary on that.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah. I just wondered if it was kind of like
Comcast or Verizon on a given day.
You call, you could get a different price. Yeah.
So a rebate is generated on a brand script.
So, you know, so but not all brand scripts sometimes
and it might depend on again, all these different definitions.
But yeah, so just so following up on something that Lindsay Lindsay touched on
from a regulatory point of view
are there storm clouds on the horizon that will squeeze
down some of these opportunities for for savings?
And that's a great question.
So I mean, there's some talk to should there be rebates at all.
Right.
So and I don't know that we're ready to see a world in that way, but
I think there's a lot of things going on in the pharmacy,
pharmacy space in general consolidation.
So you see insurers buying PBMs.
So, I mean, you're with Express Scripts now through high mark, but they've been
you know, they're intending to be there's consolidation all across the market.
We're also seeing a lot of new things being introduced.
So things like biosimilars.
So I think I personally think biosimilars are a good thing for those
who don't think of biosimilar as a generic option for a specialty drug.
I think those are good different people, all different opinions.
I think it's a good thing.
We're also seeing a lot of focus on pharmacogenetics,
which is let's test to see dujon that basically genetic
testing to see clinical efficacy of a drug before it's prescribed.
So we're seeing a lot of different trends in
how we can
make sure that drugs that are being prescribed are going to have
maximized their clinical value and reduce the costs.
I mean, when I talk about Centers of excellence,
one of the things that we're putting in for clients are
is a is really a cancer kind of step therapy, because we know
oncology is a big space where there's a lot of misdiagnosis and waste.
And so making sure that there's the proper oversight to make sure that patient
treatment isn't compromised.
But as the employer,
you're not paying for something that has no proven clinical value.
So I think I mean, if you're if you read, you'll see you've got like the the
the 333 buffet basis and the other one I'm missing there, you know,
they think they just lost a sight to be able to kind of tackle health care.
So there's a lot of different things in the pharmacy space.
But I think in health care in general
right now that we're seeing a lot of we're seeing a paradigm shift for sure.
Well, thank you very much.
One question.
Can you just remind us when your contract ends
and when we will be looking to renew, sir?
So we are I think we signed that and believe it when it fact me first.
I said, no, that's I apologize.
July four I first went into effect.
So we renew at the anniversary of your health care
no spending
any other questions?
Thank you very much for that.
Take care of me.
Next, we have a presentation
for the 2019 2020 school calendar. Mr.
MCFARLAND Yes, thank you.
And you received this calendar in your board brief.
I'm just going to highlight over a few things
and then answer any questions you may have basically focusing on that.
The changes are the differences from this year's calendar.
As I've said, every year,
calendar year gets a lot of attention, but it doesn't have
a lot of moving parts to it or a lot of parts that are movable.
We have to have 180 school days and we have to have 900 hours
at the elementary level, 990 hours at the secondary level.
Every year.
We have some at 80 days, in fact, 80 days or something.
The state allows that we can count as school days
for things like parent conferences, for professional development.
So you'll see a few of those.
And as I go through this, so August seniors,
I know you really want to pay attention to this because it's important to know
in August, it's basically the same calendar as we've had other years.
The second full week of August,
we have our new new teacher orientation induction days and then the following
week, starting Monday through Wednesday, are full staff, in-service days as Mrs.
Claus and Ms..
Kent had shared.
Bridge Day slash link Crew Day will be the 21st
this year, so you are welcome to attendance.
You want to put that on your calendar.
You May 1st school day for students will be Monday
the 26th, which is the same as it has been other years.
The Monday prior to Labor Day.
The Labor Day holiday has Friday and Monday for the staff and students.
And then in October there is a slate there.
Columbus Day this coming year in 2019 will be a
a day off for staff and students.
The 59th will be our in-service conference day, which traditionally
our conference day.
That one is pretty set because you've already approved some
conference speakers and things.
So we have to have it on that day this year.
You also know as the 16th is a two hour late start,
we have five of those throughout next year.
And last point is out to you,
end of the first marking period, that is October 31st.
There's no change in the November calendar from this previous year.
On the 15th, we do one conference for sixth graders and that will be on the 15th,
which means only sixth graders will not have school that day.
So the teachers can hold parent conferences or elementary trimester
conferences will be the money on Tuesday of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is late next year, very late.
So you see there, the holiday is Wednesday, Thursday
and Friday, coming back to a two hour late start.
Then on Monday,
the winter recess is
pretty much the same as it was this year, with the exception.
If you go into January, we are coming back January 2nd, the day after New Year's.
The last two years we've had the second as a part of the winter recess holiday.
So we'll be in the second and third.
Then.
Martin Luther King Day is a teacher workday
that is actually a contractual teacher workday.
There's a day in the contract
for professional staff that is a workday and it's between semesters.
So the end of the second semester is the seventh
January 17th, which then gives the workday on the 20th.
There's the the third late start is the day after that workday.
Then in February, Presidents Day is a holiday for all
and a two hour late start.
The next day, the end of the second trimester comes the end of February,
which then puts elementary of the second trimester conferences
on March 12th and 13th.
The 12th is just a a day for elementary school,
for elementary students, because the conferences,
the 13th is actually conferences and a 612 in-service
and then there's no school for students on the 16th,
which is very similar to this year, this coming Monday, the 18th,
except next year, that will be a snow makeup day built in.
Then we go to the April, the spring recess.
There is it is a day shorter.
Next year is scheduled, a day shorter.
And two of those days, the eighth and ninth
are the second and third weather make up days in that
May. The only
day is Memorial Day and then a to early start in June.
Commencement for seniors will be on the third.
The last day for Carl Levin will be scheduled as the fourth
and then there's an extra we a staff in-service day on the fifth.
So if you look at the total days and you have to
add in the act 80 days that we're using so you can see those in the calendar,
there are 181
elementary days and 181 secondary days.
What that potentially allows us is if we would have a fourth snow day,
there is a potential that we would not have to make
that fourth one up because we have one more counteract 80 days.
We have one more day than the state actually says we need to.
That makes sense.
So that's an overview
of the record and the calendar for next year.
Does anyone have any questions
if if there is no fourth
snow day, will there be one more day that will be like surprise.
We're going to have the day off.
Now. It won't, because that if you
if you look at it, if you look at secondary days,
the actual days the students are in session is 180.
Okay. Okay.
And at the elementary, it's 177.
So we would not do that because we we feel that time is important.
Just saying
good idea, though.
Good advocating there for the kids.
Good try.
Any other questions about the school calendar?
We are voting on that. Yes.
So kind of a quick turn around that.
And just a reminder, we're also using the Hershey Theater again next year
for our commencement and that
also that agreement is also on tonight's board agenda for approval.
Okay.
The board met in executive session prior
I'm sorry, the board met in executive session
for a special session on March 4th, 2019.
And the board also met in executive session prior
to this meeting to discuss certain working conditions,
recognition of citizens.
This is an for residents and taxpayers to come to the board.
Okay, I'm not going to read the whole paragraph
because I see I see one person here, but she's shaking her head.
No, that's we will move on to student representatives report.
We have Mr.
Gove, OSI and Mr.
Mangia, and I think Mr.
Gove A you should speak in your accent from the play the ago.
You did a great job.
Thank you.
I'd love to, but I'm not rehearsed. Okay.
I don't know how that would go over,
but anyway, good evening, Madam President, Derry Township board members and public.
Over the past two weeks, some incredible students have been achieving
some high level accomplishments in our school.
At our middle school, the Geography Bee champion.
His name was Brady Keller.
He just qualified to be in the top 100 contestants in Pennsylvania,
which means he will be competing on March 29th and move on to nationals
which are in D.C.
We also have a high school sophomore named Jordan Lewis, and she recently took home
the place of number one in the Poetry Out Loud States competition.
And she'll be moving on to represent
Pennsylvania and nationals against all other 50 states.
Also We had two high school wrestlers, Tanner undergrad
and James Lucas, and both of them were competing at states last weekend.
Sadly, I did not get to see how they did, but I hope they did.
Awesome.
So good luck to all of these people who have been competing or have competed
on the note of competition.
We also have the middle school and high school Science Olympiad teams
to Millersville, where they competed in different events about sciences,
chemistry, biology, physics, everything you could think of.
And so the middle school plays really well.
They did.
Second, overall in this region, there were many individual events
where the students placed first, second, third places
in the high school placed fifth overall at the regional competition
with many students also placing in those individual events.
Also last Thursday, the junior class had the opportunity
to go to DC through the day and visit a bunch of museums there,
including the Holocaust Museum, the Spy Museum, the White House,
National Monuments, Smithsonian, all the great stuff.
And the kids really enjoyed the trip.
They like immersing themselves
in the history, and most importantly, they enjoyed missing a day of school.
The jokes aside, the students actually really enjoyed getting a chance
to learn firsthand what some of these amazing
historic historical moments were that they had been learning about
in their American history classes all year.
Some other students also got to take a trip
to the abandoned orchestra regional level competitions.
So JT Mullins and Kyra Hiatt went two weeks ago
and they both qualified for the state orchestra level.
And Michelle in JT mullins, Ethan Secor, Davin Mailman,
John Trang and Avila Ivy Lou Catcher said that
made it to the state level of the band, which is a really great showing.
They had a lot of fun at their regional level band this past weekend.
They had a fantastic conductor.
They had fun times with other students
and so they're very motivated and challenged to go to the next level
where they'll be competing on April 3rd through sixth in Pittsburgh.
Also is mini fun season again this year.
And so just over at the elementary school last Friday,
they had their own mini mini-sar, which I understand was new.
This year.
One of the leaders,
the high school name is Julie, so she told me about how excited kids were
and they sent them a video and they all learned about this dance
and they even raised over $3,000 just alone.
From the I have no change left in my house.
Like every couch cushion has been limited to those areas.
Yeah, it's incredible that an elementary school got to do that
and the middle school got to have there's a couple of weeks ago,
but coming up to Saturday will be the school's mini thon
and it's not too late for any students to start raising money again
and to attend the events.
And thanks to everyone who's put in the time and effort
to raise money for this noble cause,
another awesome event, another awesome cause that we're looking
forward to is for the Walk for Clean Water, which is on April 7th.
On Saturday, it's going to be from 1230 to 430, I believe, at the high school.
We're going to have a little assembly about that
as well where we'll talk a little bit about the details.
But it's a fun event.
There's a lot of dancing, food, a lot of different activities that we can do there.
So be sure to check that as well.
And I also want to give my last shout out to Patrick and everybody in the musical
for an awesome job.
I really love the show.
When I went on Friday, it was an awesome show.
I if you guys didn't you out on a lot, but it was a really good show
and congratulations to everybody that was involved with that.
And so if you have any questions, feel free to ask and thank you for time.
Thank you very much.
I would like to add that it's it's Kyra.
She made actually state orchestra,
but she made Eastern band which is higher than steel.
She's going to that, which is impressive because if it goes Eastern,
then it goes nationals.
So that's great.
And I guess
it has to be a record number of students making All-State Band this year.
Yeah, I was surprised by the numbers.
Well, yeah,
and I don't know if anyone else went to the musical, but great job, Patrick.
It was fantastic.
Really good. I really enjoyed your performance.
I think it's neat you're able to act with your sister up there.
I'm sure that was,
you know, a special opportunity to be able to be in a play together.
Yeah, I actually had to do with my older sister when I was a freshman, so I guess
it's cool experience here.
But we want the accent back before your before you graduate.
Like, I have to make an appearance again.
I'll rehearse for next week. Okay.
I just want to ask about the junior trip to D.C.
Is that a trip that they take every year or is it decided upon the class?
Also, it started
three years ago, I think, with the junior class,
and it never really was a thing until they decided to do it.
And then the year after that, the class above our class decided to do it
and our class decided to do it and the class under us decided to do it.
So I guess it's sort of both.
It's sort of like up to the
student representatives, but usually just keep continuing on.
And I have to give a shout out to the junior class.
We got an email.
Mr. Smith did that.
One of the people at the Smithsonian asked where our students were from.
And sometimes you can be a little hesitant when they ask that
because you're not sure.
But the reason they asked was because they were so impressed
with the respect and the politeness and the courtesy of our kids.
So huge shout out to the junior class there.
That's nice because I have a junior, so.
But he wasn't on the.
Any other questions?
All right.
Thank you very much, Mr. Turgenev.
Do you have a community correspondent's report?
I do have a brief report For the month of February 2019 of the board
received a total of eight submissions via the constituent contact form.
All five of those are related to spring sports.
We also received some positive feedback on the implementation
of the four day kindergarten.
We had a message for the IT department and the remaining one was a question
regarding residency requirements for enrollment.
All right, thank you very much.
The listed items on the proposed
March 25th, 2019 Board of Directors Agenda.
And just to note that we do have a safe and supportive Schools
update presentation that night on March 25th.
Okay, There's no unfinished business.
We have content, consent, agenda items, adoption of items
of a routine nature, and those that normally do not require
public deliberations on the part of the governing board.
A member may put items which will then be discussed and voted on separately.
I'd like to just pull the speech and debate consent form.
Okay.
It's item D, okay, just say requests.
Okay.
So may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items
as listed except for item D, the Speech
and Debate Club Trip Field Trip Excursion.
So most.
Second.
Teri and Maria, is there any discussion?
Okay, no discussion.
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I always opposed.
Say no.
Okay.
The content consent agenda passes.
Okay.
Let me just get the right page here.
So we have a motion,
the approval of the overnight field trip excursion of the Speech and Debate club.
Mr. McFarland.
Thank you.
The administration recommends
the approval of the overnight field trip excursion has listed
the district reserves the right to cancel the excursion based on events
that could pose a heightened security or safety risk.
Hey, may I have a motion to approve that field
trip excursion so moved Maria and Lindsey.
Is there any discussion?
Yes. I'd just like to make some clarification on this form.
The volunteer listed Mr.
Prescott.
It's not checked that he has his clearances.
They have been turned in.
They're waiting for confirmation.
But the way it looks now, it looks like he's not cleared with his clearances.
And I just want to make a motion that when we approve this, that we're
making it pending that his clearances do come through and that he is
okay.
So you've made in a motion to amend the motion.
So I'm not sure how you want to word it, but just when we vote on it
that we're approving it
only if his clearances come through because the field to deny it.
If they didn't. If he didn't, It's not listed on here, though.
It looks like we're approving someone that has no clearances and.
That's what we want to approve is
pending or with
all chaperons having clearances. Yes.
However Right.
So if we could just worded in that way that be a bit May I clarify quickly
just that we're not we're approving the trip or perhaps
not this one chaperon
is the trip is on Friday, Right.
That the trip is still going through
and there are two approved chaperons on the list.
So right now it's just Mr.
Prescott that's listed as a chaperon. There's no one else listed.
It does say additional pending clearances, but there's no other that the teachers.
Oh, the teachers, right.
Yeah. Teachers are. Yes.
And a third one isn't required because there's only five, correct?
Correct.
So if we
amend this to say that clearances must be amended.
Right. Okay.
There's no okay.
There's no need to be processing it.
So there's no need to amend it.
We can approve it with the motion and moving forward, we'll add in that
we will not be approving chaperons unless we'll just add that language
into our motion. Right.
Just because of repr keep it record keeping purposes. I don't
want it to look like we're approving someone that is not cleared okay.
Okay.
So we are going to approve
the motion on the floor to approve the speech and debate field trip excursion.
The first.
And second, just.
Yes. So we just need a standard vote, okay.
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I was opposed.
Say no, kid. A trip is approved.
Okay.
New business approval of the 2019 2020 proposed school calendar.
Mr. McFarland.
Thank you.
The administration recommends the board approve the proposed 2019
2020 school calendar.
May I have a motion to approve the 2019 2020 school calendar?
So most second, Maria and Lindsey,
is there any discussion?
Is this standard voice vote?
All those in favor say aye.
I was opposed. Say no. Share the calendars.
Approved approval of the Hershey Theater Venue Agreement
for the 2019 2020 High school commencement.
Mr. McFarland.
The administration recommends the approval of the Hershey Theater
Venue Use Agreement for the 2019 2020 Hershey High School commencement ceremony.
May I have a motion to approve the Hershey
Theater Venue Agreement for the 2019 2020 High School commencement
So moved Second, Maria and Tricia, is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I, I opposed say no,
I The venue is approved.
Derry Township Tax Collection.
Mr. McFarland. Thank you.
The administration recommends the board deny request for the Hershey
Community Chorus to be exempted from the amusement tax.
May I have a motion to deny the Hershey Community
Chorus amusement tax exemption request So moved.
Second, Maria and Tricia. So any discussion?
I just want to add in that we are motion to
approve the denial of this as per the tax ordinance as it's written
and demonstrated on the Derry Township website
where it says that the
failure to fully and I cannot provide any relevant
information requested by Derry Township Board of Supervisors to verify the basis
for the exact exemption shall be cause for the township to deny the exemption.
So we're just following along with written ordinance
as it stands for Derry Township.
This is not something that was debatable amongst the school board members.
It was not an emotional decision.
That is what the way it reads.
Okay, Any further discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I opposed.
Say no.
Okay.
The motion carries approval of Warehouse Agreement Amendment.
Mr. McFarland.
The administration recommends the board approve the amendment to the warehouse
agreement concerning the Grenada Avenue Building project in the amount of $36,800.
May I have a motion to approve the warehouse agreement Amendment
So moved Second, pre and Lindsey's.
Is there any discussion?
Yes. At the General Services Committee meeting in November,
it was mentioned that there would be additional costs
related to a discussion that occurred with warehouse.
Now this these amount
36,800, It's not
there's no detail regarding that.
And I'm
the question is what specifically is
that related to.
So the listed as part of that are the additional considerations
that are noted as items 1.0
and I think 1.1, 1.2.
And then there's a separate section for 2.0.
The items noted in section two
were items that were identified
between myself and the meeting with Buildings Grounds director Mr.
Anderson and the architect
of some details as we went through the plans that were not attributed
or identified before and were things that we both agreed
should be things that we are identifying during this project.
The one item is noted as 1.1
was additional work needed because of the transition
from Crabtree Grove Ball to warehouse.
Thank you.
Sir. Any other discussion?
Okay.
This is standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I, I always opposed.
Say no. No.
Go back.
Yeah, let's do a roll call Vote.
Mr. Friend.
Mr. Able.
Yes, Mr. Drew? Yes, Miss. Have a stick?
Yes, Rosemary? Yes.
Dr. Show. No.
Miss Sicker.
Yes. Mr. Singer?
Yes, Miss Stoner?
Yes. Eight.
Yes. One now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Request to bid the chiller replacement installation.
Mr. McFarland.
Thank you.
The administration recommends the board approve.
The administration, solicit the listed bids.
May I have a motion to approve the administration?
Solicit bids for the Granada Properties Granada Center
Medical Center Building installed the chiller and the elementary
gym, install three air conditioning dehumidifier units.
So moved
Second, Maria and Lindsay, Is there any discussion?
Okay, It's a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I right.
All those opposed say no to the motion carries may I have a motion to approve
that listed resignations
somewhere
Second, Lindsay and Maria, is there any discussion?
I didn't want to motion this because while I wish Linda
well on her retirement, we will greatly miss her.
Oh, we don't have to approve that.
I think we need an inquiry.
If she's old enough to retire.
That's my question.
Well, we have if you see the date is listed at July 7th,
and we know that she has done many years of service to the district.
So we have some time to give her an appropriate thank you before she leaves.
But I agree it's it's not one we want to accept, but
understanding that she made a decision.
It's been 31 years. 37.
That's my.
Second.
It was Lindsey and Maria.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh I did.
You concerted effort.
Hey, this is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I always opposed say no care.
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 moved
Second. Tricia.
It was Maria and Tricia. Is.
Is there any discussion?
Okay, This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I was opposed.
Say no to the motion Carry CAIR delegate report.
The report is attached.
Ms.. Steiner,
do you have a Derry Township Tax Association report?
Nope, the report is attached.
Okay. Thank you.
And, Ms..
Drew, do you have a SBA delegate report?
I just want to call attention
to the attachment, which is that the SBA is seeking members
to serve on a district committee's NPI,
board of directors, and all of the
submissions
for interested candidates are due by March 15th.
So it's time, if you're interested in serving on that.
Madam President,
I'm going back to the Derry Township Tax Association for the delegates.
I have a question and maybe a comment.
So the amusement tax is currently
it's set by ordinance and it's $0.75, maybe going to $0.85.
So that would be 1% less than one and a half percent.
I mean, why can't you make some movement
to get that raised?
Seems to me that
given the
landscape of the upcoming
tax increases that an increase in amusement tax
would be beneficial to the taxpayers
in the township.
Mike,
it's kind of a two part.
We'll take it back to the committee. Yes.
All right. Thank you.
Any other questions about the special reports or the delegate reports?
Is anyone
interested in the district committees?
I was reading about them.
Isn't anyone going to put your name in?
I may put mine in if nobody else does.
But yeah, one of them was just maybe
one annual meeting and then some quarterly phone call meetings.
So it didn't seem like a huge time commitment.
One of them,
but very interesting.
Okay, special reports.
Are there any board members who would like to give a report.
If I might miss or I did not get this on as a delegate report,
but I will the next meeting having attended the downtown Hershey
Association Board meeting on March 4th, that was at 530.
Unfortunately, I had to leave early to get to the executive session.
So once complete minutes are provided, I will provide that
to the board for for the meeting that I was able to attend.
I did want to note that one of the upcoming events is something
called an art show and Cultural Fest on May 18th
and I'll have a more complete report for a future meeting.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other board members who would like to give a report?
I just want to thank the Trotter Foundation.
The Taste of Hershey event yesterday was was just great.
Just seeing all the student displays and seeing
just some of the innovative
things that they had going on and that the teachers, the time
they gave to have the students there, it was just great.
And all the restaurants, thank you to all the restaurants that participated.
It was a really good event.
Thank you.
Okay. Mr.
McFarland, do you have a superintendent's report?
I do not.
Other than just want to congratulate the cast and crew of anything goes.
It was fantastic. Thank. Thank you.
Board Presidents Report.
I just wanted to report that Dr.
Winslow and I attended the All Things Diversity Committee meeting last week
and the committee is very excited to have a renewed partnership with the district.
And we are looking at trying to expand the outreach
to current students and parents teachers.
So it was great to have Dr.
Winslow there to talk
about how we can get our teachers more involved and potentially
moving some of the dates of all things diversity
to our high school, which could.
Right now, the Hershey story, they get about 120 attendees.
They can offer it up to about 150 or 60, but
we could accommodate more if we did it at our location.
Possibly.
And I guess it would be spring of 2020 potentially.
So we're kind of exploring those options if that could
work.
A recognition of citizens.
This is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address the board.
I don't see any new citizens in the same citizen
is shaking her head no
adjournment.
The next public Board of Directors meeting will be held March 25th, 2019,
starting at 7:00 in the District Board of Directors room.
May I have motion to adjourn this meeting?
So move to second.
Hey, Maria and Lyndsey, All those in favor say I and all those opposed say no can.
We are adjourned at eight seven.