Call the October 22nd, 20 1818 meeting of the Derry Township School
District Board of Directors to order
and announce that this meeting is being audio recorded.
Mr. Friends, Rocco.
Mr. Abel
Here.
Dr. Cronan.
Here. Ms.. Drew here.
Must have a stick here.
Miss Mamie.
Here. Dr. Show here.
Mr. Looker. Here.
Mr. Singer.
Here, Mr. Owner. Here.
Nine present, zero. Absent.
Please.
Rise of Abel and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.
To the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.
One nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
May I have a motion
to approve the October 22nd, 2018 Board of Directors agenda So moved
Second, Maria and Lindsay, is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote.
All those in favor say I.
I all those opposed say no.
Okay.
The motion carries.
Tonight we have a presentation on the Grenada property funding options.
This evening.
We have Mr.
Brad Remick with PFM and Luba Delli with RBC Capital Market
here to update us on the financing options for the Granada
roof slash exterior project
that that we're looking for.
Lou. And Brad or the presentation was last made in in June.
So ask them to update some of the information.
Of course, the market is changing daily,
so they've updated their presentation with some some updated numbers.
And just as a reminder, I'm
looking at about a $3 million project
for the roof We have already approved
for the ARC architect to start working on that process
and are timeline,
is that around the February timeframe, February or March,
the project will go out to bid and hopefully start sometime in early May.
So why
we've secured how we're moving forward with that.
Wanted to have Lou and Brad talk about the financing of the project once again
and our options on kind of the timeline we need to work through
now that we know when those funds will need need to be made available.
Brad,
good evening.
It's good to see everybody again.
I'm Brad Romig with PFM and with me live daily from RBC.
As Mike mentioned, the handout that I believe is up on the screen as well as I
hopefully is on your laptops as well, is basically the same as what we gave.
And June, we just updated some of the interest rates
and we also updated some dates and things of the like.
So and you'll be hopefully be somewhat familiar to you, although again,
it was four months, four and five months ago since you looked at it,
I'm going to go through the
pages and there's page numbers on the bottom right hand side.
The first page after the cover is the interest rate chart.
I think that's one of the topics that we want to cover with the board tonight.
And that is where has the market gone in the last four and a half months?
There's there's two charts on this page.
And the first the one I want to
concentrate is the one on the bottom, if you will.
And that's where we graph where the ten year rate in the municipal
market has gone for since 2007.
This rate, you know, has varied over time.
It got very, very low, as you know, several years ago.
It's bounced around a little bit.
And if you look to the far right, you'll see more current times.
You'll notice that line has been increasing ever so slightly
over the last couple of months, Lou.
And I looked at the ten year index of where that rate was in June,
and that was a 2.4 and now it's about a 2.7.
So we've seen rates increase, I'm sure to nobody's surprise,
a little over a quarter to a third of a percent over the last four months.
That does seem to be continuing.
I'm sure many of you follow the markets and follow what the Federal Reserve's
doing, things like that.
And you're probably hearing
that there's some more anticipated rate increases into the future
and that'll kind of dovetail into some more of our discussion
as we get a couple more minutes down there.
But we did want to update the board and let you know that, in fact,
the municipal market,
we are seeing some slight increases in rates since this past summer.
Page number
two was as a as a page break, but page three then turned sideways.
And you might be familiar with this page.
This is the page that lists all of our outstanding indebtedness for our bonds.
It's our principal and interest payments.
It lists all the different bonds that we have outstanding
as well as our share of the vote tech.
And again, it's principal and interest payments.
You'll notice in column nine those add them all up together.
And in the 1819 year, if you can see that there's about a $4,930,000
aggregate debt service and then it then it jumps up, up
ever so slightly to starting in 1920 budget.
And then you can see in I think it's 25, we see a significant drop.
So we want to keep that in mind as we look at how we structure the new financing.
Again, we have a slight increase
coming next year and then but we see a nice drop off in 25.
So if you
did nothing or decided to fund the project with cash,
this is what you would be facing in terms of your debt structure right now.
And that would continue on.
I know in talking with Mike, that's not necessarily at least his desire right now
to part with the cash for the project because this is one of the things
you're eligible to finance is these capital projects.
But anyway, we wanted to at least give you the starting point.
And there were two main options that you may recall that we talked about in June.
First was simply borrowing $3.1 million
and not do anything with your existing debt.
Just add on to what you currently have.
And that's what page number four shows you.
As we added in column nine
there, it's kind of a shaded column, if you can see it on your computer.
Those are the estimated payments as we see currently rates.
Again, we updated them and just free or
just to remind you,
all the spreadsheets that feed into this summary page are all attached,
because I know that the board expressed a desire to have all that.
So we did again update all those spreadsheets as well.
This also assumes again, you put $3.1 million in the bank
for the projects here and about half of it is financed on
a tax free basis and about half of its financing on a taxable basis.
Again, since we have that tenant over the for profit tenant,
I guess it's in the middle building. We have to.
That would be probably the way
that I think that we would need to do that financing.
So that would column nine would be the new principal and interest payments
that gets you $3.1 million in the bank for those projects.
The other thing that I did here too, as I mentioned before, other than update
the interest rates, we updated some dates and things like that.
We assumed that you you borrowed this money as we turned into January
and you got it in February.
And we'll talk a little bit more of that in a couple of minutes.
But that's what
this assumes borrowing in January or the board would approve it
in January and then the funds would be delivered to the district in February.
Now, page number five is one step further.
If you may recall, four or five months ago, we talked a little bit about, hey,
while we're looking at financing these new projects at Grider,
maybe we should consider leveling out our debt.
So I'm in column ten here on page five.
What you'll notice we did was we added
we added the 3.1 million for the projects.
And if you remember, I mentioned earlier we were going to see a slight
increase of your debt payments to over 5 million in aggregate.
Well, we've made that essentially go away. Okay.
That has not that would not continue on for those subsequent years
that I mentioned before.
The end result would be, if you can see this in column
ten, is that where our debt payment would be extended?
One year?
Remember I mentioned it was going to drop off after 25.
Well, now that would go into 26, so you would get 3.1 million
for the projects.
You would level out your debt payments.
For those years, we were going to see the modest increase and we would
simply be, you know, the lion's share of our debt would go out one more year.
Again, this
if this shows the vote check as well.
But really our general obligation debt would just be essentially extended one year.
We did try to, on page number six, bring this all together
on one sheet of paper for you so you can compare what I guess
our far right column on each of those scenarios was.
So option one, which is in blue here.
This would put in aggregate all your existing indebtedness,
simply adding the 3.1 million for Granada, not doing anything else with our,
you know, refinancing column one shows you where we are the debt service would go.
I failed to mention early and I apologize for this,
but in 2019, 20, 20, if you simply did the million,
if you borrowed the 3.1 million,
you could see that your debt service is going to jump more than that amount
that I mentioned on the earlier page, which is also shown on column three.
Okay, So blue bar, $3.1 million for Granada.
Don't do anything with your existing debt.
The green would be this other scenario that I mentioned,
and that is where we would borrow the 3.1 million for Granada
and we would refinance part of your debt.
Okay. To smooth it out.
Okay.
You can see when you total at the bottom by smoothing out the debt and moving it
around a little bit overall, over time, it costs a little bit more money.
That's the sum column two versus column one.
And then again, column three is as if you,
you know, pay cash for the project or you did nothing that's exist.
That's what your existing debt is, right, as of today.
So I hopefully we line these up for you right in a row on one page so you can see
because that's going to be at some point a decision point for the board
as to what you want to do.
Do you want to pay cash
or do you want to do one or two would be some options there.
So with that, I was going to pause and see if Lou had anything
or if anybody had any questions at this point.
Well, I'm looking at the June report,
and I guess the difference in that page with the summary is
that you had June 30th, 2018 on there because there's a $5 million difference.
Mm hmm. Yes, correct.
Can you explain. That?
Yes, because we we did that, assuming that we still wanted
the 1718 budget numbers in there last the prior budget year.
We simply move this forward because we were in June, we were in 17, 18.
Still we simply moved it forward.
So because now that we're in the 1819 budget.
Well, you took out a year, so you saved money.
I guess we already paid those dollars.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, they're already gone.
There's nothing that can be done. Yeah. Yep.
The other thing that I think my June report did is
we assumed we borrowed the money sooner than February of 2019.
I think we assume we did it in the fall.
So now all of a sudden you'll notice that the payments on the new loans
are starting later, so you don't have as much interest
expense There.
I think the only thing
I would just add to Brad's summary is when we're looking at page six,
and this is something that we've always talked about.
So you've probably heard us mention it, but it's a good way to see
everything on on one page.
When you look in column three and in the year 2026,
when if we do nothing, the debt service drops off.
Basically, that's all the school district's debt is paid off and those are
just the payments for your pro-rata share of the vote tech debt.
So we would have that drop off in columns one and two
where you're borrowing for the project.
We have been as conservative as possible by paying off basically
all of the debt that you would borrow in that very next year.
So we're not extending the debt out 15 or 20 years.
It is being inserted in the very next year, 2026.
So when we look at the district's overall debt portfolio,
we're really by doing this borrowing really just extending
the debt that you have by one year rather than spreading it over.
We're in that very fortunate position that our debt is paying off so rapidly.
So just as a reminder, we're trying to and obviously by doing that, it limits
the interest expense as much as possible, by paying it off as quickly as possible.
So we haven't ever looked at an option like number
four of some cash and some financing, have we?
No, we haven't.
And part of that,
Cassie, is that there is a certain because of the fees
and the work that goes into this,
there's a certain amount at which you say that it's not worth borrowing any money
and you know about a million and a half dollars
for me is is where that is.
And so we took that option
off the table to to to pay any dollars,
although it's something off the board, if that's what he wanted to know.
But administrators really were noting that
we would recommend not using any of our cash for this project
because it can be used on other things that may come up.
We can finance this project.
The law allows that and our debt structure in the way that it allows
for the payments.
So if any of those were changed, Kathy, I don't think I would be recommending this
in that way.
But that's why we're recommending
the financing approach.
So you're recommending option two
to level up.
And I am.
And we can talk about because that is a little bit as we get into the data,
you'll see that that refinancing doesn't equate to us saving money,
which is odd because normally we only go through refinancing to save US dollars.
But hopefully looking at it in the way the total debt it's accomplishing,
smoothing that out so that that that number is constant in our budget.
So if I'm reading this, then so the cost of smoothing it out
by refinancing is about $260,000 over a quarter million.
And it does move out to some extent, except those folks looking at
2026 budget are going to have a $1.9
million more in debt service.
So that's not really smoothing out that year for those folks.
I don't understand.
Well, I see the point going down from the year
2018 through 2025,
and I see that column
three is relatively even smooth.
And there are some minor changes when compared to column two
are generally a little bit less.
But then when you get to 2026 column three is about $1.9
million more than column two or or option one.
So that year is not smoothed out
and it's going to cost $260,000
to make those changes.
Just just making sure that my
that my observation and that I'm noting that accurately.
Right, guys.
So in column two, I think the easiest way to understand
it is right now you're paying 4.9 million per year in debt service right now.
So if we look at 2018, 2019, so that's already in the current budget,
paying 4.9 under that scenario,
you wouldn't might, wouldn't have to change his number.
He continues to budget 4.9, so it's already in place.
So there wouldn't be a shortfall
when you get to 2026 because it's already in the budget.
I know.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, Yes, That's some thanks for that, Mike, This is John.
So that was my question.
Like, option number two, the benefit of that is we now have we have
we have a fixed number for debt service every year for budget for budget four.
And that's a big plus.
My my question was between option one and two,
is there a difference in the amount of professional fees
we would pay, such as bond counts or other things?
The only thing
I think the only additional cost would be if there's more bonds to sell
because you're refinancing them, there might be more of a commission for that.
Okay to do that.
But most of the professional fees as it relates to the lawyers and
the credit rating is pretty much the same.
Thank you.
Well, the the one thing, too, is that
how do we know in 2023 that a board won't need
to issue more bonds and build a building or do something?
So does the option to make sense or option the option to make sense
because we don't even know five years now what we might need.
So we could do this all over again.
At that time, we could go with option one and save $260,000,
knowing that in five or six years a board might make a decision
and do this option two with another big project that they have to do.
I mean.
The only thing with that is we
no one can guarantee where the market is, so that money
may be more expensive to borrow at that time versus what we know today.
It really is a philosophy type of thing because we are not
it is not the traditional savings you're planning ahead to say,
or, you know, if
if in 2025, under scenario one,
our yearly debt service goes from 4.9 million or,
you know, but it's being slowly taken up to 5.2 million.
Will we be having discussions
about at that time we're doing that budget?
What would be why did that jump this point?
Why didn't we do something about this?
Why didn't we keep it level?
And so just bring it forth because we have the opportunity to do so.
It is more of a planning item for future budgets
than it really is a savings.
You know, it's a it's a mechanism that we're providing There.
I, I certainly
offer you a knee jerk reaction, and I'm more in favor
of maintaining the level of debt service amount for budget purposes.
But I'm just curious, when I was looking through here,
if there's anything that gives us a good snapshot of what the overall interest
expense is, especially for the bonds that would be refunded, just to look at
how much would be increasing
the interest expense of those over the life of that entire bond.
For which that.
Well, yeah, but.
For the different, you know, the different charts of each one of those series,
I just didn't know if there was something that was a snapshot photo.
You can obviously do a quick calculation to figure out interest
between one column or the other, but I just didn't know if there was anything.
Well, the the detailed worksheets behind this
that's due the option to start on page number 12.
And so just fine by bonds.
Yeah.
So what we try to do on that if you were to turn to page 12
is we actually have different column headings there as well.
And this is the red page.
And so in this hopefully this answers your questions.
Page number 12.
I think that's it right there column seven shows you
the change in payments from the refinancing exclusively.
That's that
$270,000 that I think has been referred to a couple of times of increase.
So that's the savings in this savings related test to the refinancing.
Then the eight is a column that talks about new money,
that 1.5 million of new money that would be funded is tax free.
And then column number nine shows you the payments related
to borrowing the million 550 on a taxable basis.
So that kind of breaks it out for you.
There's even more detail on the next several pages to do all the worksheets
that talk about which bonds are going to be refunded on the 2012
and and things of that nature as well.
But those hopefully try to isolate for you the differences that you're seeing
as a as a result of the refinance, the tax exempt and the taxable taxable portion.
Hopefully that helps.
It does things.
And my one other question will be the new money.
Those bonds with those be on like a five year refunding that we would be able.
So the board in five years been looking at this with other projects
and things to consider
would not be restricted to the series of bonds
that we're doing on the new money right now
and would have flexibility and options to be able to refund or refinance those.
That's what we would anticipate
doing would put another call, a five year corporate provision on those as well,
as well as I think you brought up a really good point, too, is
if you were I hate to make it flip around so much and I apologize for doing that.
But when I went back to the very I think the very first page, the page rate
behind the interest chart, interest rate chart that lists
all your existing indebtedness, there is a line
the very there you go.
Perfect.
That's towards the bottom.
You notice that we listed what's called the call date.
It's kind of almost the last line there.
So you can see for all the bonds that we currently have outstanding
when they are to be eligible to be refinanced.
So there are some points in time of which the board and the future boards will have
opportunities to consider refinancing, whether it's for interest savings
or doing something like that's being discussed tonight.
I'm sorry, but
can you just remind me why the third column is not a good option?
Because when you quickly look at it looks like,
oh, you'd say $4 million, but why again, would you not want to do that?
So you would take your liquidity Because,
I mean, that money could potentially be used for something else.
When you look at what capital savings can be earmarked for and
it's like if you have $100,000 to buy a house,
you wouldn't necessarily just pay $100,000 in an asset that.
So it's better to just not save the 4 million is what you're saying.
In just what what we're noting is that that
so the if the $3 million didn't
come from well, from borrowing, that would come from our fund balance.
Right. So we have $8 million. Right. Today.
If we spent that we'd have 5 million
because we spent the 3 million instead of borrow it.
So that's where those dollars are coming from.
So we're not this is not really about savings.
It's where where the source is.
Right. Is it borrowing money or is it money that we were.
Throwing it out at the fund that has how much in it?
8 million or eight.
$8 million.
That would leave 5 million that would actually drop below.
We have a a school district policy that has that
the fund balance should at least be 5% no more than 8%.
We also want I want that flexibility
for when
for when we needed do special education teacher when we have
those needs that arise
that are in the middle of the year that we can't say no and we can't
increase our funding.
So we say yes and we go about it because we have that that fund
balance there and we can make sure that we're not affecting programs
because we have that.
So that makes sense. I just needed that clarification.
We wouldn't be able to issue a bond for the expansion
of special education the way that we would for renovations on the property.
Got it. Thank you.
And we're at a point
where we feel that the dollars are the least expensive that they've been.
What a good purchase on money.
Whereas we need something later on.
Interest rates might be higher, it might end up costing more.
So we're kind of like gambling, but taking advantage
of the fact that money is more affordable right now.
And that's.
Funny. You know, that makes sense.
That's the key point.
And then we also go to the fact that the district has its triple-A credit rating.
So when you do borrow money, you are borrowing at the lowest possible
rate of of any school district in Pennsylvania when you do go out for it.
Thank you.
Yeah, I had just one question.
I've come across the terms that I can't say that I understand them
are negotiated transaction and competitive sale.
Can you talk about those terms in relation to the services you're providing to us
and which of the two we would be engaged in if we work with you?
What is your independent financial advisor?
We're not, you know, we serve the school district as your fiduciary,
so we represent you per matter, whoever the lender is.
Whatever approach that you work with.
The school district has traditionally used a negotiated sale method,
and that's whereby Mr.
Verdell would be involved in selling the bonds.
He would be the one
and his firm would be the one that would be matching up investors
to buy the bonds and so forth.
The theory behind doing the negotiated sale is there's is a marketing period
where you would have some time to really go out and advertise
and go ahead and really seek out on those investors.
And because his firm has done this for a long time, they know
best about who's really kind of interested in buying triple-A school bonds.
The competitive approach basically just says, all right,
here's the terms and here's the bonds that the district wants to sell on 11:00
on such and such a day, we're going to take bids
from whoever in the country wants to possibly buy those.
And the theory behind that is that the competitive process is going to yield
more,
you know, bid options than options and so forth to look at and so forth.
The other thing that we have also understand,
it happens and just by the way, we do about half and half
may be a little bit more negotiated, quite frankly, but
our firm is in both of those worked in a rising rate environment.
We get a little bit concerned that if somebody hasn't been awarded the bonds
and taken the time to pre market them and seal up who might be invested
or might be interested in buying them when they bid
because they don't have those what we call orders,
they might get a premium in there because they're going to buy them.
They know, oh my gosh, hurry up, we've got to hurry up and sell them.
In an interest rate environment where rates are going up.
We get a little bit more concerned about that
or we see that from time to time.
So it's more of a comfort thing as well.
And the other thing too, is, quite frankly,
if you have anything going on with your bond issuer, there's a concern.
There's a you know, I'm not going to say an investigation,
but if there's things that arise in the market, we can pick up the phone
and call his firm, for example, to assist us in that.
If I award the bids to somebody
in Minneapolis, they're probably not going to return my phone call.
So there's a little bit of a relationship there.
And again, this has been something that I know that his firm
has been involved with the district for a long time doing that.
So and I don't and in my experience working here,
I haven't seen any problems arise or concerns.
And again, ultimately, at the end of the day, I have to I have to
and my firm has to make a representation as to whether or not
the offer that's being presented to the district is fair.
So sorry for the long sentence.
Yeah, I want to make sure I do.
We have a contract with you, Lou, that you always handle our bonds.
There's no ongoing contract. No.
So what happens is when you authorize the transaction to happen,
then we present a bond purchase agreement
that we're going to purchase the bonds, and it's at that point in time.
So it's just really per transaction.
And and what I do is I review it and we go through a process
by which before it gets to you, it's been hashed out and reviewed and.
You know,
and do we have a contract with the firm that we like three years, five years.
Or it's a basically
you have a contract with us until you decide you want to terminate it.
So we're contract with you.
But on 30 days notice, if you were displeased with PFM,
you could terminate our contract.
I'd also like to add, as
Brad noted, the
the underwriter stands by that purchase of the bonds as they work through.
And we recently the continuing disclosure
item that we had to work through
a couple of years ago with the IRS,
we provide a document of
the owes essentially all of our pertinent
information that somebody investing would would want to know about.
And there's a continuing disclosure requirement in which,
you know, a bond that we issued 30 years ago,
we still have to report on that bond and where we're at.
And for a certain period of time, that was very
a very lax structure in in my world.
The IRS came down and said this all has to change.
And we went through a process where they they pore back through all of your
bond information.
And how do you explain what happened?
Because
all of ours were with one firm, we were able to work.
As Brad noted, I was able to pick up the phone, talk
with Lou and eventually essentially get this all worked out.
If I if we had purchased those all over the place, it would have been
the district's responsibility
to go curtail that information, some of it going back 25 years,
which would have been impossible to put to put it lightly.
So there is advantages to having that single source
that we should consider past the price because there is a service that is ongoing
now, you know, to note that this will be paid off
before your normal 20 or 30 years.
Maybe it is a little different here, but there is a lot of value in having
that single source
past the interest that that cost of issuance
because they are sticking with this through the entire life.
And I think the last thing is the assurance that, you know,
you're getting the very best interest rate that's available on the market.
We have about 130 school district clients here in Pennsylvania out of 500.
So we're the biggest we do this every single day
and we see every transaction that happens.
So not only the ones that are firms doing
for other areas in the state, the other firms, we see their competitors.
And so it's our job and my job to make sure that what
we send to Brad and say, here's the interest rates
we can sell your bonds at today are right on the market.
It's all transparent.
Everybody can see the interest rates.
So most importantly, that's where when we talk about what
drives the interest expense and we have to deliver that
that interest rate is the lowest possible out there that we can get for you.
And just so you know, the one thing I want to add is we're not affiliated.
We work for different companies.
I work on teams with other
you know, he works for teams with other group people we're not
or to independent placement firms and so forth.
So I have one more question
that relates more to the bond rating and the rating agencies.
And when that's done at the time we do that, and I had asked Mike about this
previously based on comments, but wanted to just kind of on public,
you know, record as we're talking about this publicly tonight,
there has been talk in the community about the township and and bonds
that would be issued for the construction of the community center
and the increase of the debt burden to the taxpayers.
And it's
and what has been discussed
is that there would could potentially be negative impact
on the school district's rating because of the overall debt
burden increasing
so much as the township would be getting closer to a borrowing capacity.
Can you just talk about that?
And if there's anything that we need to give consideration
to as we're looking and making these decisions
to make sure that our, you know, bond rating is not adversely?
I'll give you my two second thoughts on that.
First of all, because, again, I live here, too, is that
I think basically if you keep your house in order,
keep your reserves up to the level the triple-A schools do
things of that nature, that's much more important
than what we call the overlapping debt, which I think that was a good point.
You brought that up because that's one area that they could possibly look at,
because as you can imagine, as taxpayers, we can only pay so much.
So to the extent we're paying more on township debt, that limits,
you know, some other spreading out of those resources
I talked to, I thought a lot about this myself, too.
But I think basically if we keep our house in order
and we do, we're supposed to be doing that.
We're going to be just fine in terms of our triple-A rating.
That's that's my gut take away from that.
I don't know if you have any thoughts, but that's kind of ironic
because I have thought about that, too.
Yeah, I would agree.
And just
for transparency, Mike did provide, you know, that that exact same response.
I just think that from our responsibility as the district
and looking at our own financing options as the township is doing,
you know, something separately as well, we want to be mindful of all of it.
I think maybe just from a timing standpoint, we've talked about maybe
if you decided to go forward in this transaction,
you'd be going through the rating process in December or January.
As stated right now, the township's planning for the financing
for the rec center project really wouldn't be happening until February or March.
So at that point in time that that's not even going to be recorded
on what we file with the rating agencies in terms of serving.
A non-factor in this potentially based on that timeline.
Okay. Thank you.
So I know we've used up a lot of your time,
but a couple of one of the thing I just want to mention
is as we move forward in terms of timing, first of all, once we have to figure out,
we'll have to get comfortable with what number it is that you want to finance.
Okay.
3.1 is the examples we've been using here.
So once we get comfortable with that number,
you know, we want to know that the second will be
whether or not you want option one or option two.
I think I've heard a lot of discussion about that.
But ultimately it's your decision as to which one that you would want to do.
And then the last real decision point would be is that
do you want to do it now or sooner rather than later?
As has been mentioned, you know, maybe in the next three months or so,
if you're comfortable with a number, for example,
and you want to lock in interest rates before they get away with us any further,
or do you want to take more interest rate risk and wait for the bids themselves,
keeping in mind that if we do, if 3.1 numbers are the number
we're comfortable with and we want to move forward with that,
and if bids come in a little bit more or whatever, we know
we have a little bit of, we might have to tap into our cash a bit for that.
So there is that option.
You don't have to wait for your project bids to do this financing.
If you're concerned about interest rates or if you say, you know,
we're not sure we're going to do the project
for some reason, we want to wait, then we can do that.
But there's more interest rate risk associated with that, which we just again,
wouldn't be doing if our job if we weren't telling the board
that, you know, we are seeing a trend and rates going up
and that's something that we want to make sure of.
So we'll let you stew on that.
But we'll be ready to go whenever you tell us you're ready to go.
And if we were looking at doing all of the construction dollars
inside of the bond, we would still be able to pay any administrative fees or
anything going on to go through the bond issue process out of capital.
Right. Okay.
Thank you.
So, Kathy, then, is this something that can be put on a future agenda?
Soon to discuss the timing of when we want to do this?
Is that what.
Yeah, we're taking the next step.
When we got that $3.1 million from the first architect.
Right? That was a rough estimate.
But now we're waiting for warehouse to come back with details.
So, no,
we're we're kind of flying with that that estimate at this point
because we had paid for that service or gone through that process
before work occurred.
Architect was not going to provide that, just going to go through the bid documents
and move forward from there.
We I can circle back and take a look because I think we were actually
at a little under 3 million because I had asked them
before to get to this 3.1 million, we were uncertain.
But that's the safe schools item that we talked about today in the Finance
Committee meeting.
So I can get a number back to to them based on what the
the process was or what the estimates were from the old architect
and move forward from there.
If it ends up being,
it won't be drastically less.
But if it is less, it they can frame it in a way that
any dollars that would be left over would just go into their capital
projects, fund and they would have to be the first dollar spent.
But I don't foresee that.
I don't foresee there being a large swing
in terms that are probably more likely that will borrow just enough money
to make sure probably pay some administrative fees and other things
directly from from our funds.
Mike When they gave us the estimate on the roof, the first company, Crabtree,
weren't they talking about replacing the terracotta parts of the roof
with a synthetic material and what not?
And this is probably something you can answer later.
Like what?
Not affect the amount of money that the roof would cause.
And I'm wondering what warehouse his thoughts are on that.
There seem to be some significant conversation
about the type of material that they were going to use.
Yeah, we actually
so our current architect has has taken
a different approach that they don't believe that some of that
they believe it can be done a better way
in terms of not replacing everything, but just upgrading and fixing,
but doing it in a way that ensures that
the structure with the water and everything stays consistent.
That being said, so there may be a savings there.
But that being said, as they're going through the process,
they've identified some things that they'd feel better dealing with
in a different way than maybe our prior architect did.
So my feeling at this point and I just got some of this information,
you know, a couple of days ago, is that I would treat it
kind of like a wash, you know, that I think they'll be different.
But once again, that if that ballpark was within ten or 15%, I think, you know,
we have our ballpark figure to move forward with.
The detail remains to be worked out from there.
But but I think we're still in the same ballpark.
Okay, good. Thank you.
And as you said, we could secure the money ahead of time before we had
all those details just to capitalize on how the market is doing now.
So when do we
want to put it back on a board agenda?
So this could be on the next board agenda, too,
to talk about again and maybe set
a goal for the end of of November
to make the decision of
that day.
We want to finance it and be,
you know, that we want to lock in and move forward.
I just want to make sure it's understood.
Once we borrow those dollars, a project has to occur.
We can't go out, borrow the money, and then get to a point
decided, well, this just isn't going to work.
So it is a commitment
that we're making to continue to follow through with the project as well.
Well, if we borrow the money and then sign the papers and get the money,
but we don't actually start construction until July or August,
is that how it works?
That's what yeah, that'd be more than okay.
In an account somewhere. That's normal. Yep.
You reasonably you have to expect to spend it within three years.
Oh yeah. You got three years worth of time if you want, do it.
Because we were looking to get the bids back in the spring and then hoping
to get a new roof on this building next fall, Correct.
Right.
So you're well within your window to be able to do this.
Okay.
And the one thing that has changed
since the when we first started having this discussion is to your point.
So why don't you borrow it?
Say we lock in an interest rate of 3%,
then Mike is going to invest it until you have construction bills to pay.
So a year ago, if we were having that discussion,
he'd be investing it a quarter of a percent.
Whereas the Fed has continued to increase short term rates.
Now that money is going to be invested.
I mean, by the time you close on it,
you might be able to invest it at two or two and a quarter percent.
So you're earning interest
on those bond proceeds until you use them to pay the construction bills, Correct?
So that's an offset.
So even though you've borrowed the money a little bit earlier,
which means you have to start making payments
unless you've locked in your borrowing rate Now you can take it.
Mike, invest it in.
You have it invested until you needed to pay.
Do you have a place to put it for 2% interest for like six months?
Lou And I have to talk, but I'm sure we'll find something.
Does that cover the payment, the monthly payment?
It's not paid monthly as we make our payments twice a year.
So Lou is noting in theory how it's going to go.
So we'll still we'd still have the same debt structure.
That's our payment structure.
We make our payments in
we make one payment in September and then we make another payment in May.
So we pay twice a year for that.
But as Lou noted, having the money in our pockets
would increase the interest that's coming back to us.
So in that way it would offset it, but it wouldn't change our payment structure.
Yeah, if you chose the green column,
that doesn't factor in any interest that banks can turn to.
If that answers your question that any interest earnings is over
and above, you know, he's going to, you know, that doesn't change that at all.
And just those interest earnings are then available to use
towards the projects as well.
You'll be receiving 3.1 million on day one.
That's going to earn interest until you start spending it down.
So you end up having a little bit more than 3.1 available over time.
In the timeframe that might give is if we talked about it the next
and then voted on it by the end of November,
would that make the December deadline that you guys need to lock in
rate before the township would be doing there.
Yeah we these are these numbers assume like the rate in January
and close in February.
So if you meet the time
frame you're talking about now that'll be plenty of time
and you'll make the decision by the end of the month.
It'll take us December to get through the rating process.
Then we'll be back to go to the market in January, close in February.
That's so what you're describing would be able to meet that timeline.
Okay.
So we'll get it on the agenda for either
the next meeting or November or the second meeting in November.
Just one quick question.
Is there any way to lock in a rate without fully committing to the financing?
The no mechanism for that.
I know there's three crops, but those are usually for much larger amounts of money.
All right.
All right. Thank you.
Does the board feel comfortable
voting and make a decision on this at the next meeting or just making
one decision at a time?
Like which option first or how do you how do we want to go with that for you?
Feel comfortable, see how far we get, Put it on the next board agenda.
Maybe we should do start early. Okay. Yeah.
And I think you're decision really.
You know, again, Brad and I don't care whether you choose option one or two,
it doesn't, it doesn't matter.
I we have clients and ask us for these scenarios all the time
and it's usually because the business manager
is trying to present you with budgets that are mindful that you have to live
within the saw index, that your tax increase can only be so much.
So business managers often say, Can we get a scenario
where we can borrow the new money and our payments stay the same as they are
because at least the debt service number stays the same?
You have the pressures that you deal with with your health care costs
and the other things that hit your budget that we're not as familiar with.
So if if you have that flexibility when you're having your budget
discussions, that column one, the way it would bounce up
and down a little bit, you know, would increase next year to 5.1
and then eventually to 5.2, if that's within your comfort
to be able to manage that, then you should just do column one.
If taking at least one of those variables
that moves your budget around would feel a little bit better.
When you think about those pressures, whatever they may be, think column two
Even though you do pay a little bit more interest over time,
it gives you that flexibility
that it's one less thing putting pressure on your your tax increase.
Do you foresee there ever being a market change that the refinance
would prove to be a savings instead of just like a leveling out?
I mean, interest rates would have to drop.
A lot a lot.
Hey, any other questions?
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
You okay?
I would like to announce the board met in executive session prior to this meeting
to discuss matters of personnel and consultation with the attorneys.
The next item is this is an opportunity for residents
and taxpayers to address the board on matters related to the agenda.
I do not see anybody in the audience
to anyone who would like to come forward at this time.
Okay.
We have standing committee reports.
The Policy Standing Committee met on October 15.
Mrs. Steiner, do you have a report?
Yes, I do.
It's long.
It was as was our meeting.
Our meeting was from 4 to 6 p.m.
on October 15th to address the policies
that we didn't have time previously to address and other meetings.
So I wanted to thank our solicitor, Mrs.
Smith, for coming to that meeting to help us expedite things and also
some of our administrators that were also able to come, Dr.
Winslow and Mr. Valentin, and especially Ms..
Wade, who was able to stay long enough to answer questions for us.
And I wanted to thank Ms..
Drew, who also came and made things a lot
more efficient for us to get through,
especially regarding our first policy for the tax increment financing
dress policy that her committee as a subcommittee worked on.
And the committee had a lot of questions that Mr.
was able to answer, and there were several modification
recommendations that were made that are going to go back
to that subcommittee, who will then submit
a revised form of that policy to Mrs.
Smith, who will review it.
And then once that's reviewed, it's going to come to the full board
committee for us to review.
So I get that all that right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Next, we talked about several other policies
to sort of close the loop on a question from Mr.
Singer from a board meeting back in June
about
who has access to advertise to our students
and his question was specifically regarding
in the context of a teacher who requested
advertising to kids for a foreign trip.
And we looked at
several policies where it is stated pretty clearly.
So Policy 121 field trips and tours.
It does state that no staff member may solicit district students for such trips
within district facilities or on district grounds without board permission.
And so that's why
we saw that as a board.
It's also stated again and policy one 21.1 foreign travel.
It says that a request by the district professional staff
to organize a foreign trip for students beyond the limits of the United States
shall be considered for approval by the board.
And we also
looked at it more broadly in 913,
which is the non school organizations,
groups and individuals.
And it says that, let's see,
I had it highlighted.
Oh, here it is
for travel services or foreign trips.
There's a specific section where it says
solicitation and sale of travel services for foreign trips to students
may be permitted with the approval of the board.
So we have that specific scenario covered pretty,
pretty well and over several policies.
But there was also a broader concern not only from Mr.
Singer, but from several other board members
about just the overall consistency
of among groups and and who has access to
to to
advertise and solicit to
to our kids regarding activities and programs.
So Ms..
Drew had a question about how 913
aligns with our use of school facilities policies.
So we had a discussion about that
and we were able to determine that the
there's a difference between that non-school and nonprofit
can request a use of facilities but not necessarily distribute materials
and that there's no
discrimination there because it's based on the the distribution of materials
is not the same type of open forum as a facility.
Use is.
So it took a few readings of that to get that straight.
But I think that that's clear.
It still leaves us
open to some questions about the facility use
policy.
And for example, Mrs.
Cronan had a question to that.
We also addressed
you wanted to ask to consider,
including locally based organizations only, which we did consider that.
But concluded
that it excludes too many groups like Girls on the Run, for instance,
or other groups that would be hard to even define as local.
It could be a national group that has a local chapter or that has a local sponsor.
So there were no changes made by the committee
for that specific consideration.
There was also a request
that I submitted to incorporate some elements from the model
use policy from the website and trends intrinsic to Indeed.com
to include requirements for good behavior, inclusiveness and transparency.
These, along with a few additional
items, were discussed and a revised version of policies.
Seven and seven will stay in the committee for the November 12th meeting.
So I feel like this
school facilities use policy has a lot of issues been swirling
around for a long time, and looking back at the history of this policy,
we still have some kinks to work out.
So I would welcome other additional comments
as they arise to come back as well as it's still working in committee.
Let's see.
Next, we talked about policy 249,
which is bullying, cyberbullying,
and we talked about ways to improve the policy by adding
a more specific definition
to include, for example, an imbalance of power.
But we talked about including some more specifics
as an attachment, along with examples of what bullying
and what bullying is, not to better educate and illustrate the differences
for our students and our parents.
We also suggested adding a list of resources
for bullying at the end of the policy and discussed the need to make the code
of conduct more clear across grade levels in the building handbooks.
It's not clear to everyone that the handbook is the code of conduct,
and the code of conduct is also referenced in the policy.
So that's why we brought it up.
So but those
suggestions were
are going to be worked into the policy and revise and again,
staying in policy committee for the next meeting on November 13th
and then
that did not leave us with much time,
but we were at least got through those.
We had a couple of minutes to review our new draft
policy of gender identity and expression, and Mr.
Refsnyder suggested that we use
model from Haverford township's policy as an example,
and that school district just has a very brief policy,
and then they go into all the more specifics as an attached
administration guideline.
So we're going to include that
on our next agenda as well and and talk about that.
So that also is going to stay in the committee for the next meeting.
And as well as the draft of our diversity, inclusion and equity policy
and adding non religion as a protected
class and 221 dress and grooming.
Now if we get to those, I'm not sure we might have to schedule
another additional meeting, but we discussed a lot.
But clearly we still have a lot to do.
So are there any questions?
So even the diversion
and the policy that you mentioned are
diversity and equity. One,
there could be a title change based on what we learned with the whole.
Yeah, it's a very, very preliminary draft.
Yes. And you know, the title that I came up with
was diversity, inclusion and equity.
But it's it's in the very early stages.
So based on the new information that we learned from the conference,
Okay. Yes.
All right.
Thank you very much.
The Finance Committee met today.
Mr. Singer, do you have a report?
Yes, thank you.
The Finance Committee met at 4 p.m.
this afternoon.
We welcomed our four new citizen advisors
and we set our goals for the committee.
There were three goals that we set.
One is to solicit from all the board members any input or thoughts or ideas
they have on capital or human resource
efforts and the costs related to those are that those board priorities
be communicated probably within the next 30 days
at most, so that we are able to
to move forward at the end of November and make the decision
about whether we're going to live within the 2.3% index or not.
So we'll be in the committee
will be encouraging board members to identify
any priorities that they have individually so the whole board can talk about them.
Secondly, we're going to
look at the
the list of contracts
that the district has in place now.
And identify a few that we might want to take a closer look at
and and think about possibly opening up for bid.
Mike has already provided a pretty exhaustive list of the contracts.
So the committee members are going to take a look
and see if there are any specific contracts
we want to learn a little bit more about and possibly open up for bidding
with the idea of trying, you know, looking to save money, if we can.
And then the last goal is to specifically take a look
at the melt her school trust
to see if
there are any any advantages to possibly
looking at having that managed in a different way.
And those are the three goals that were set by the committee.
Mike also asked us to think about
denoting the money,
the one time payment this year that came from the Harrisburg School District
going to for their buy in to the DAF
Accounting Technical School, $560,000.
Mike, You can specify the exact amount.
Mike was asking for support and approval
to earmark that for safe and supportive schools.
Once our vulnerability assessment is complete and we make some decisions
on how that money in a separate earmark account.
In. Support of schools and the
board members present supported
Mike in that in that recommendation.
I think that's it, unless any other committee members have anything to add.
And Mike, I'm not sure if you wanted to do something tonight with that item or not.
No, I think we can
put that on on the next agenda.
Noting that it has the committee support
wouldn't be something just for the rest of the board members.
The commitment just has to happen before our audit is finalized,
which is usually the end of December.
Okay.
Any questions?
The Athletic Activities Committee also met today.
Mr. Singer, do you have a report?
Yes, we met at 5:00.
We welcome the two new citizen advisors.
We revisited the three goals that we had set
at the last meeting and passed through the board and
concluded after discussion of 25 minutes
or so that the best starting place for us as committee
with looking at the athletics and activities
would be to do a comprehensive review of the policy
being that the primary role of the board is to set policy so that we would take
a comprehensive look at the policies related to activities and athletics.
And then secondly, review what administrative guidelines
are currently available that guide the implementation
of those policies and see what, if any,
content can be, can be, you
know, added or as needed in the administrative regulations area.
So that's where we decided to start
unless any other board members have any other comments to put on top of that.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Student Representatives Report.
Mr. Gove, Ozzy and Mr. Mangia.
Good evening, Madam President.
Derry Township Board members and public.
It is crazy to think that we are nearing the end of the first marking period
with only a fourth of the year gone.
Many students are now just starting to be engrossed in their studies
or just realizing they
did not turn in five homework assignments and are now failing online gym.
Many of our free fall concerts are coming up for
both the orchestra, band and choirs.
I know the high school choir concert's next Monday and I know the band concerts
the week after that, so definitely check out those throughout the district.
Also, the high school
is planning a fundraiser tomorrow at a ruckus, and they're also
having their annual fall fest, which is a family oriented activity
event this Saturday.
We would also like to congratulate a couple of sports teams
that we have at the high school.
So the girls field hockey team, they're the Keystone champions.
The girls cross-country team did really well at Mount Pens.
We had Olivia Wilson finish
fifth, fifth Mark finished ninth, and Katie Jones finished 10th at the race.
And then we also have our soccer teams doing really well.
The boys soccer team is playing right now the right number four in the district.
And they are and they're playing right now against Northern York.
And the girls soccer team is ranked number 16
in the district and they will be playing tomorrow at Central Dauphin.
And we'd also like to congratulate Jackson Foreman, who is a student
at the high school. And he ran with this local,
a local five came with a speech pathologist
from the township, Leah Hayward.
We'd also like to recognize some of the National Merit commencement students.
I know a while ago.
We recognize the finalists, but we also had 12
commended students who did really well on the practice S.A.T.
exam.
And they are Anthony Al Quinn, Matty Barto, Laverne Pataki, Twan Bui,
Desiree Chandra, Camille Heck, Mahina Ebrahimi, James Mullins.
Jacob Nichols.
Maxwell Potter, Samantha Ramesh and John Chung.
Congratulations to all the students again.
Our National Honor Society also held a food drive for the bank a week ago.
Students went out and they donated distributed fliers
to the neighborhoods that we chose to choose to donate food.
And then this past Sunday,
a few more students came around and they picked up foods
that people may have left on their
front porches for donations.
And when we dropped it off, we raised we donated a total of £1,330 of food.
The student council also has been brainstorming new ways to keep the student
body involved with more activities throughout the school year.
So we are planning to have a winter snowball dance
and also to bring back movies and play them on the 322 turf field.
And we just started playing this last week.
So more information that comes in
at the middle school.
The members of the eighth Grade Student Council, they went to Gettysburg
to participate in a leadership sort of conference that they held there.
And so it was at Gettysburg,
and the park rangers arranged it for those students to have fun.
And they also learned a lot about the history.
But it was also focus and focus towards how to apply their leadership
in their community.
Also at the middle school, the art club over there, which is composed of over 60
students, is painting murals up and down the hallways of the middle school.
And it's really nice to have them spice up the middle school.
And so
our last thing we wanted to mention was our experience at the SBA
conference are all three of our US as representatives
went down there to present other topics, and we saw a few there as well.
And so we went with Mrs.
Silvestri to talk about memory team and the downtown Hershey project
that the students are doing.
And we also got to touch
on our blended learning option that we have in the high school.
So it's really interesting
to see what other schools were doing and it was also really nice
to present what we were doing as well.
So thank you for your time and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
You guys did a great job representing the district.
Just observing as I was walking through all of the other schools.
You guys are really engaged with the folks you were talking to
that were attendees there.
So thank you for representing our district so well and
congratulations on a great job. Thanks.
I'd like to throw in that
the soccer team is winning to nothing right now.
Say thank you for your report.
The listed items are on the proposed
November 12th, 2018 Board of Directors Meeting Agenda
and there's no unfinished business.
The content agenda items adoption of items are routine nature
and those that normally do not require public
deliberations on the part of the governing board.
A board member may pull items which will then be discussed and voted on separately.
I would like to pull off
the request for use of school facilities with a waiver.
The senior men's senior basketball and also the Joy Sports Foundation.
Are there any other items board members would like to pull off the consent agenda?
I was I would like to pull off the
Hershey Youth Basketball Association for discussion.
Okay.
Anything else?
Okay.
So may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda
items as listed without Men's Senior Basketball,
Joy Sports Foundation and the Hershey Youth Basketball Association.
Requests for the use of school facilities with the waiver of second.
Terry and Maria, is there any discussion?
Kate is the standard voice vote.
All those in favor, say I II and all those opposed say no.
Okay, The motion carries so moving on
to request for use of school facilities
with a waiver.
First of all, I just will make a motion and then we'll have discussion.
So is that proper procedure?
Okay.
May I have a motion to approve the senior men's
basketball requests for use of school facilities with the waiver.
So moved.
Terry, second and Maria. Okay.
Is there any discussion?
The reason I pulled this off is
I would like to only approve this request through the end of the school year.
We just adopted a new facility request policy and
they're requesting that dates from November 1st, 2018 through October
31st, 2019.
And I understand it's traditionally been a year to request,
but since we are implementing a new facility request policy,
we want to have the request end
at the end of the school year so we can reexamine them
per school year.
And have a point of clarification.
Cathy, are you seeing end of school
student year or June 30th of 2019?
Our fiscal year?
She said December.
Should we do June 30th?
That's we traditionally or should we do the first week in June?
Jason's there, shaking his head.
So can you?
I thought at the Policy Committee meeting
we said we would approve request that, submit it.
Now under the current the current policy and then anything submit it now
that's after January would would be under another facility's request usage form.
So I thought we were only improving things up until really December 31st, January
2nd until the new policy takes effect or the new fee structure takes effect.
I could be wrong, but that's that's what I remember from our committee meeting.
That I think a lot of these what that would affect
a lot of these facility waivers that are that are present like
a lot of these go beyond January 2nd, 2019.
I mean,
Jason, do we get any more requests for that
like a year, November 1st, 2018 to October 31st, 2019?
I'm not involved in facility usage, so I, I don't know.
We do not get many that overlap a year like that.
I mean, I think we wanted to start setting the presidents now because
approving this the way it is,
I feel like we're going to get caught up in some issues
because first of all, I don't think this
even our new policy isn't in effect
until January 1st, 2930 19.
They don't fall under number two of the category.
So I think what we wanted to do is go ahead and approve them
for the end of the school year and then start being stricter
with our new policy come the end of school year.
So the decision would be, would it be the first week in June or June 30th?
And traditionally, I've been told we consider the school year
end June 30th because that's our fiscal school years.
We've kind of when we say school year, we usually mean June 30th,
start again July 1st.
So I would be comfortable
approving it through June 30th because that would be consistent
with every time we say school year, we mean that.
I agree with that.
I just noticed the Ben and Tim date is for August 23rd of 2019,
but that's for one day.
And we do know that they are nonprofit and not fine with that.
I just wanted to clarify, I mean, if we're saying we're going to look at
just till the end of June 30th, 2019
for just some clubs or I'm just clarifying
because that one does go beyond June 30th, 2019.
The only reason why I'm bringing it up, Right.
Well, and the reason why this came on our radar
is because we know that they're not a nonprofit.
But I do know that Ben and Tim Day is a nonprofit.
So and we're not under the new facility policy, right?
So I think that if you decide to go forward with
approval through June 30th and the school year,
then you'll need to go back, look at the facilities, use requests
that have already been approved that might exceed that deadline,
and then probably contact them and just let them know that at this meeting,
whatever, you know, so that there is some of them you could grandfather in.
They've already been approved.
Some you could I'd try to be as consistent as possible, but I would
I would suggest that you at least find out how many we're talking about
that would go beyond June 30th that you may have to have resubmit.
And if you're saying, Cathy, just we're looking at the ones
that are not nonprofit, then Ben and Tim would not qualify
and it would be fine to approve it.
So I'm just
looking for clarification for the public so that they know what exactly
we're saying, whether we're saying Mens League, they check the nonprofit box.
So what constitutes somebody as a true nonprofit?
So you have to have a state nonprofit number which you apply for,
which means you have to have bylaws and an associated tax I.D.
number with it.
So my guess is unless they have some type of entity formation
for the new
policy, we can request that documentation.
We can request their nonprofit status,
and they believe their bylaws because that's part of it.
And then and their insurance.
So you're right, we haven't the new policy been implemented implemented yet.
So I have a bigger question.
So we're talking about nonprofit and and I'm not picking on the senior men's
basketball club.
But if you just look at their facility request two times,
two times a week for all of these weeks.
I mean, it was a it was an incredible amount of hours
that they're requesting to use the facilities.
And this is kind of a blanket statement to all to everybody that submits waiver
request to us that I really think that we need to start being conscientious about
is they might not need custodial and they're not using the showers,
but there's absolutely wear tear happening on our
courts
regardless of what they are.
So when we're making these waivers, they're still using it,
just like this is all starting to come to the forefront for me.
Like, what are we really waiving our requests for with?
We're trying to maintain the integrity of the quality of the facilities
that we have.
And I know that doesn't nobody needs to answer that.
That's where I'm going with agreeing with pulling this out
and having to relook at what we're actually waiving.
And my question is, how often, if at all are we waiving fees
for custodial services that we actually have to pay
extra, meaning weekends like I'm fine if we we have custodial fees
that custodians already there during the week, but on the weekends,
are we ever bringing in and paying custodians.
So that's we're taking a hit on. Yes, we do.
And we're a nonprofit too.
So this is like a big issue that the
prior board that Kathy Terry and I were on contended with where this
something came up about facility like this is kind of a life of of its own.
And I don't know with all facility waiver requests I'm just talking out loud
should be vetted through the athletic committee you know and that
like I don't know how we can better I think it's a cumbersome process.
I think it's cumbersome for buildings and grounds.
Then like some things kind of fall through the cracks.
Nobody's fault, not all.
But I've I've noticed
since I've been on the board, like the facility waiver request has been
a topic.
Mm hmm.
And athletics
wouldn't necessarily be a good idea because they may meet quarterly.
But I,
we do still have that policy in policy committee because we're still
finding issues with it.
So we need to talk about adding school year in there.
Perhaps we only take requests that followed July 1st to June 30th. So
but we will we will we will have a good policy in place
come January 3rd, which will all address a lot of what we're discussing.
And so the whole I mean, we should be trying to bridge
the gap between now and January 3rd when the new policy will be in effect.
And then what we'll do is we will follow that policy.
How would you handle like, let's just say, this particular situation
when they're saying we're not we're nonprofit because really
they're not making a profit, but we're we have but they have to show it.
But they won't.
But in this particular right, in this particular instance,
they would not qualify as nonprofit under the definition that we in the policy.
They'll then qualify as for profit.
And there's no way for for profit. Right.
They just won't be they won't be a certified nonprofit.
They can see they are whatever they are.
But but our definition of nonprofit, they don't qualify.
I mean, many organizations are having to jump through hoops like Hershey.
Literacy is now pursuing the nonprofit and and starting the bylaws
because of the new policy.
All of these organizations got a letter from Jason Wright Snider
saying they did not because we saw a copy of one of the letters in our board.
For Mr. and.
Oh, for Mr. Anderson.
So, yeah, they were warned that there's a new policy coming
and that if you want to use our facilities, you had to fall into these
three categories.
So I'm comfortable with approving
that is we're giving them the gym for free until June 30th.
We're just asking that in our interim, we're figuring out
our policy that we're just not giving it until.
And they did address in their waiver request
letter the new policy and our requesting the waiver
because of that, because historically there wasn't a fee to be waived.
So they're making mention of that. I just want to clarify.
So we're approving with waiver and use through June 30th.
It's effectively only taking 90 days
off of the request.
And so we're conceding on our new policy for six months.
So maybe better to
approve this through the end of this calendar year
knowing that we'll revisit it when the new policy goes into effect.
Will we be fixing that policy again before
January 3rd for policy Committee?
Yeah, I mean, I'm not convinced that policy is going to be in perfect shape
when we say it's going to be in by January 3rd
in order to implement it fully, it's all it's approved as is now.
So it will be the way it is the new what we might be editing it again so they
they can get we can honor their requests through December 31st and,
and if they want to proceed, they can pay
I mean more requests some concession of.
Right. I also just want to add that
while I don't want to
single out this group because they happen to be
the ones that are coming up and this is where it's coming to light,
I do think that we have to be mindful of the access to their use
because if we're allowing a group of individuals
who have used this facility for many years, for 4 hours a week,
I think it was 45 years that by doing that,
we're not creating a first come, first serve, get the free gym.
When as taxpayers and residents, we have a community center
that charges a fee for use of the an exact same type of facility.
So by putting something in place for any long of time,
like a year, we're blocking off our
act. We're buying up the access
to any other group of individuals would potentially want to request
use of our facilities with a fee waiver.
It seems to create an unfair situation.
So if we changed it to December 31st, 2018,
what is that saying to any of the other requests
that were just approved under consent agenda in 2019?
Now, my understanding is that the
so, for example, the Youth Basketball Association,
which was not just approved in
consent agenda because we pulled it, but they would meet qualifications
for being able to be considered for a fee waiver
because they meet nonprofit status and and will fall within
all of the guidelines of the policy as it reads January 3rd, 2019.
So men's senior men's basketball is what we're discussing
because it will not comply with the policy once January happens.
What you're saying also
applies to the Hershey boys basketball boosters, which
probably a nonprofit in the definition that was given the school related to that.
Okay.
So that's under the other
and then Ben and Tim would be okay because that does follow.
Okay.
So it really is just the ones in your men's right that we're looking at.
Right? Right. It's a group of residents.
We're not an organization that has any tax exempt status.
So. Right.
Go ahead.
But I thought what Kim said and you correct me if I'm wrong, that but
if we move forward the way we're talking that we would want
to look back at ones that have been approved
not just last month of the month before, but I don't know, back to.
The beginning of the.
Beginning of this July 1st, beginning of the new you know, the new phase should.
Really pull out.
The ones that are going to that are going to straddle over through next year.
I mean, to do it right and to be consistent.
And there's one more point that I'd like to make.
And again, I really don't mean to pick on anybody.
I'm just trying to do my job.
Hershey Youth basketball.
They're asking us to waive like $30,000.
That's, you know, we're going to get out of it.
We're going to go to that one next. Okay.
So you want me to hold my cards?
Yeah. This just men. This Not fair.
That's the next new business item.
Okay,
let me. Just.
Let me see your basketball.
I do want to ask one question.
The Hershey
Senior Basketball League, they're requesting twice a week.
It's Tuesdays and Thursdays from 530 to 7:30 p.m.,
half of the gym in the elementary school.
And for a.
Full for a full 12 months. Yeah.
So it's for you don't know whether they're I mean, we're assuming
they're not a not for profit.
We're we don't know I guess.
Okay. Yeah.
I mean they addressed in the letter that you know.
They are not.
They address in the letter that they're individual members of this pickup
game will be contributing individually to cover the insurance requirements.
So let me just pose a hypothetical.
So suppose there was a nonprofit out there that was willing to take them
under their wing and serve as their,
you know, fiduciary.
As sponsor.
As their sponsor,
just so they didn't have to go out and form their own corporation
and all that kind of stuff and mean is that.
But this gets back to my more philosophical question are the weight,
the fees that we're charging to cover the wear and tear on our facilities.
So like what are we trying to do,
get out of paying for the things that people are using?
That's a different question.
We're going to take that up.
I think I have a question for you, Tricia, Just a
just to find out, does the policy differentiate
and I'm hung up on this, the fee waiver on weekends versus during the week?
No, no. Okay.
So if we waive someone during the week and we're not
we're looking straight into there anyway.
We're not incurring any additional costs.
We're just not getting any extra income.
But on the weekend, when we have to bring in a custodian
to allow them to use the facility, we are then costing the district
and our taxpayers more money. Right.
Can we address that in the policy?
Because I don't think that that is should be the fee waiver,
which I don't think we should waive the fee for custodians
if we don't want to charge them for the use or the two different fees,
the use and the custodian, or is it one of the same two different fees?
Right.
So if we're going to waive them
from not paying us to use the facility and we don't get the income, fine.
But if we're going to lose money, that was we're bringing the custodian in.
That's where I draw the line.
I don't think that should be part of it.
I don't know if any direct cost should be passed on.
There should be no incurred cost by us if we're not going to be gaining anything.
We want to weigh waive the fee because as a nonprofit, I'm all for that
in some sense.
Then we're donating in-kind services.
Yeah, I don't think we should be.
We're a nonprofit also.
I don't think we should be paying for other nonprofits for custodial services.
Well, we will definitely address that.
And I think that's a good point.
And that's one of
the things that I think will come up and one of the other items.
But as far as for the men's and I would move to amend the approval
for the senior men's basketball facility use request waiver
to be from November 1st through
December 31st, 2018
with fee waiver
through December 31st, 2018.
My second time there was a motion, right?
Yeah, that was in motion. Okay.
Is there any further discussion with the new motion on the floor?
Just a question.
So this would provide waiver of
the facility cost and the
the custodian.
There is no custodial fee because it's a weekday rental.
Okay.
Through December 31st, 2018.
This is just complying with the policy changes that are coming forward.
Okay.
So we have a motion on the floor a second discussion, and then
all those in favor
say I was opposed, say no.
Okay.
So the motion carries that.
We've approved senior men's senior basketball through December
31st, 2018, with the waiver.
Okay, we have another
transfer.
Yes, sir.
May I have a motion to approve the Joya Sports Foundation
request for use of a school facilities with the waiver
so moved and Maria,
is there a second?
Second,
second line?
Oh, Tricia. Okay. Is there any discussion?
Madam Chairwoman, I need to recuse myself of from this item and abstain. I'm.
I serve as a board member of the Joy Sports Foundation.
Okay. Thank you. Cap
on all Abstain.
I thought we had determined previously that
those kinds of abstentions weren't necessary.
Because you don't make any money.
Okay, cool.
Directly Perfect.
So I don't believe you have to abstain
because actually, there's too many of you.
Well, the reason I pulled this off the consent
agenda is because they are using the facility on the weekends
and I believe the Joy of Sports Foundation did pay for custodian last year.
I think it's a Sunday evening thing.
And I believe they're okay with paying for that now, because they did it last year.
I think there was a miscommunication in the form
and I believe they kind of set up the whole organization around knowing
they were going to pay this fee with the fee that they were charging the kids.
So I would move that we approve that for and waive the $80
an hour gym fee, but not waive the custodial fee.
And is that a motion that was in motion?
I think it. Was.
So there was Mrs.
Mimi made a motion seconded by Mrs.
Steiner to approve it.
As it was noted, you were just recommending a an amendment to.
That, recommending an amendment to the motion that we approve it
with a waiver for the gym.
See, But we do not waive the custodial fee.
Thank you.
And Donna Cronan seconded that.
Is there any further discussion on that?
Okay.
All those in favor say I, I, all those opposed say no.
Okay.
We're moving on to the Hershey Youth Basketball Association.
May I have a motion to approve the Hershey Youth Basketball Association
request for use of school facilities.
With the waiver moved Maria Dance, Lindsay and Maria, is there any discussion? Yes.
The reason that I pulled this out to ask is because in looking at it
as it's presented on the agenda, it states that
there are
the the waiver of the gym fees
for the weekday hours according to the letter and request.
And that would be it's listed as approximately $28,500.
I want to be sure that we're just appropriately accounting
for the actual waivers that are occurring and the number of hours.
Taking a look at this, based on the request and the number of hours
that are listed within the request over a span of 13 weeks,
there's an average of 70 hours
a week of total use across our four gym facilities.
If you
break down the $28,500 by hours
and rate, that's only about 356 hours, which would only cover about five weeks
worth of of the actual usage
because the majority of usage is the Monday through Friday hours.
So I just wanted to make sure
that we're properly accounting for that so that if we are
agreeing to waive these fears
that there not be any discrepancy in what we're actually waiving
so that the organization would not be adversely affected when the bill came
because we had only approved up to a certain amount
and to I would just ask in the future,
when we're being presented with requests, especially ones as extensive and complex
and complex as this, with the fee waivers, that there be a better breakdown
in calculation of what is actually being done in this specific instance.
It's seven days a week over the course of 13 weeks
that four different facilities are being requested for use.
The fee waiver request is just for the weekday portion
and then they'll be paying the weekend facility use and custodial fees.
The way that it's presented here, it is impossible to see what the breakout
of those
really would be.
And so
if we could have a listing of all of that,
what's being waived or requested for waiver
and then what would ultimately be billed to the organization.
So are the numbers correct?
So it's just for
weekends, what, 28,500?
Correct.
I can't find how that number is correct at all.
I calculate a total of the week, the weekday hours,
somewhere in the $45,000 range,
because there's over
hundred hours accounted for over the course
of those 13 weeks, Monday through Friday, across the four different buildings.
Weekend hours is nearly 300 hours then plus the custodial fees.
So based on my rough calculations, you know, without knowing if there's
an extra date here or there,
it's 40 close to 45,000 for the weekday.
And then with custodial fees and weekend hours,
they will still be paying us close to 34,000, $35,000.
I guess one thing that
I agree with, what you're saying, that when we approve these
facility use requests
with fee waivers, we should assure that the numbers
are accurate and correspond whether we waive the fees or not.
But relative to the request, I just want to say this before
I forget it.
My feeling would be, even though they're saying
that they would pay for the weekend use of the facility
if other organizations aren't paying for that,
which we just discussed.
One that's not
my feeling is we should not charge them for that weekend
facility use even though they said that they would pay that.
I'm not sure they meant to say they would pay that,
but that's the way it came across, I guess.
So anyway,
I would suggest that
we be consistent with charges.
Right now in this case compared to the one we just discussed.
This is a nonprofit organization.
And so they'll meet the guidelines of our policy after January 1st.
So I don't know that that's apples to apples comparison.
I meant the. Joy of sports when.
We saw that, they said, okay,
but now we're not waiting to do a sports, are we?
Just custodian?
Oh, I see. Okay.
In the facility cost, Right.
So we should. Right. Make it even.
But it's a little different than a couple hours as opposed to 600 hours.
I don't know.
Like then we probably need like a definition of where the cutoff is
of how many hours I just to make it fair to everybody if you're going to.
And they stated we would certainly continue to pay for the weekend gym use
but they don't specify custodian or gym use.
I guess we probably have to look at last year's history and see what they paid.
Right.
I just I also look at it from the perspective of,
I think these organizations in their planning process
and budgeting that we want to make it as easy as possible for them to be able
to calculate what their expenses are going to be.
And, you know, whether
a conversation like this could put a halt in that
because they're already in motion and accepting registrations and doing that.
And, you know, a shift in one direction
could significantly impact their overall operation.
So I think we have to just be mindful of making it easy
to digest when making these requests.
Does anybody know why they would say they would pay the weekday gym use?
I mean, why they would pay one and not the other?
Because I think there are
I don't know for sure, but I think they're employing weekends.
They know they have to pay for customers. Right.
I think what I don't think they want to pay for Sodi or not for you.
So so then so then we would be leaving the we would be leaving
all hours jewelry rental and they would be charged
the 11,006 something for the custodial on the weekends.
Right.
So that we're we're basically net zero.
We're not cleaning it, we're not doing anything
which makes the $28,500 listed as the waiver
even more often because then the waiver is in the $60,000 range,
my money tax plan announced January 1st.
But that's where it's just getting like.
But I don't know too.
Did we look at all the ones we've already approved and do they all match up?
I can't tell you for sure.
I've added every single
one of those waivers to see if they match with the dates too.
And I only made these calculations just for the point of comparison
and discussion.
I'm not saying like I'm fully willing to move forward
with approving this request and this waiver of the organization.
And I think it's important that our students
and there's hundreds of kids that are involved in this organization.
So I'm just the reason I pulled it out was make the clarification that I think
that for transparency purposes,
for us approving it and for the digestion of the community
in looking at these requests, that we should be a little bit more detail
focused in laying out the requests
and the overall impact and what we potentially are leaving.
Well, maybe relatively new.
We did not always put on the cost extra programs.
We wanted to have it out there so everybody could see what it was that
we're approving.
And I wonder, too,
if we could redo that form, because I think to that form might not
lend itself to fill it out as complete is.
Maybe we would like it
because if you look at how people fill it out,
I mean, there's just comments everywhere because there's no real boxes
or places them to put certain information.
So maybe too, we should look at how that form is
laid out so that we make sure we have all the questions
covered that we want and they are able to put the information we're looking for.
And some of those notes are like dates, none available.
That's our staff noting back.
And I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of dictating what forms
should or shouldn't look like.
Well, I mean, just administration wants to present to us
that these are the dates, this is the amount,
this is it's being waived and this is what's being paid.
I don't want to dictate the form either.
I'm just saying if it would make it easier for people to fill it
out is why I'd want to look at it, not because I want to dictate the forms.
It's just
whatever would be easiest to be able to communicate what they're asking
and what we're going.
And that was up at policy as well, the form.
So I guess the big question for me is why are we
why are we waiving facility use like
for the in this youth basketball is not for profit.
There's 300 kids using the gyms.
So is it a matter of
if you're a not for profit, you know it can't be all or nothing.
We can't expect them to pay $60,000.
But is there an amount where we can
cover, wear and tear or usage where?
It's not like this really enormous amount of money.
Like that's where I'm kind of struggling with this.
Like, why do we have facility fees?
We we waive a lot of them.
There's a lot of ways to loophole and kind of skirt around them.
I'm not saying these people are doing that,
but that's what I'm trying to contend with.
Even like this is a non not they're nonprofit.
They're 350 kids on the courts using them.
You know, is that how we either question number
one are when we waiver facility or waiver facility fee?
Is that is that of any tax benefits?
I know you mentioned that.
Do we get any tax benefit for waiving those facilities?
Because we're not really providing we're providing in-kind.
But do we get any tax break for that?
We don't pay we don't pay taxes.
Oh, that's right. We don't we don't get anything.
There's nothing there's no benefit to doing that. Right.
They're just receiving the service.
We we it's that's number one.
It's a philosophical argument.
Then number two, kids, what is the wear and tear?
I really don't know.
But my feeling is if we have 300 students in the basketball program
who are doing this as a youth, I am fine with them using facility.
I don't
my my guess is that that wear and tear is not that great
unless they're doing things other than playing basketball like that.
That court is meant to be used, right?
If they're doing graffiti and throwing trash everywhere
and putting gum and places and making a mess that we have to,
then I think there's a cost.
But I don't know that maybe we ask an insurance liability
that they're required to carry covers up to really $100,000 in property damage.
So if there was any significant damage, Right.
Maria Craig is wrong.
What you're addressing is the everyday wear
and tear of 350 extra pairs of feet,
you know, shoes crossing these gyms outside of school hours
Monday night.
I think that, you know,
we had this discussion in policy is that we want are these are our kids.
We want them to play sports.
We don't want a fee set so many fees it that we prevent these programs
from going forward.
We already have these gyms so we replace the resurfaced floor
every ten or 15 years
is probably already in our capital plan to do that or our budget to do that.
That doesn't bother me that even the youth using the grass fields
and the turf fields, I mean, this is this is for the community.
I would I would like us to figure out like
like Donna said, let's not lose money on this.
It's not about the fees and hard charge is not b
B non-negotiable for waiver because that has to come out of the school.
So we we talk. Right. And I agree.
But this is for the kids and this is a great thing
the the in the policy and I don't know if you're redoing it, but
at under the purpose of the policy, it says to
the complete function of education is not achieved
until the school facilities are made to serve the total community.
So now we get into the senior men's basketball like
we're kind of pulling them out and saying, Well,
okay, and again, these aren't questions I think that need to be answered,
but we're pulling them out and saying we know they're not not
they're not making any money on it.
They're using the gym like it just I think there's a lot of gray matter here.
We were addressing in that first paragraph as total community.
But then our classification guidelines only
apply to business entity structures,
not small groups of
like non-ifrs individual residents,
because we took out the residency requirement
like the percentage of residency requirement for people using it.
So the onus on them is to just form a group
like like every other group has to do.
You know, it's not ideal, but heck, you know, at some point
they go under and not nonprofit sports organization in the community.
So go ahead. I'm sorry for that.
Maybe we just also look and see.
We could be speaking completely out of turn
and maybe they already have that because they're going to have
to have their insurance policy named a certain way.
So I'll be speculating.
Yeah.
So maybe who are we actually charging facility fees to
profit organization
or profits or out of district
nonresidents.
So what's the motion on the for.
The motion on the floor is to approve the Hershey Youth
Basketball Association use of a school facility with a waiver.
And I don't think that has changed.
Yeah, I just wanted to pull it out.
I just wanted to get okay, dollar figures.
So that is the current motion.
And then we just went to have a discussion about.
Okay, well.
How it should be itemized for board approval.
Just for Kim, if I could just clarify, because the board agenda
that we are taking action on includes 28,500, Should I amend that to include
the for all facility fees so that we are covering
that in case it's a miscalculation.
I can answer that from an operations perspective.
You are waiving the facility fees.
The calculation is the amount of money.
It doesn't matter in terms of that decision.
So when you are waiving the fees which is provided to you now,
we would not charge them the facility fee.
We'd still it's still noted that they would incur the custodial.
Okay.
So when it's listed in here is approximately X number of dollars.
That is simply just for reference and discussion.
Correct. Okay. Then then the motion stands.
So all those in favor, let me just clarify.
So the motion with the motion includes
the waiver of the custodian fees and the we no, I'm sorry,
the facility and of course the waiver of the facility fees on the weekend.
But they would pay for custodians.
Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
All those in favor say I, I, i, all those opposed say no.
Okay.
Motion carries new business.
May I have a motion to approve the listed resignations?
First, Second, Donna and Maria is there any discussion?
I guess this is standard voice vote.
All those in favor, say I II and all those opposed say no.
Okay. The motion carries personnel.
General. Mr. McFarland.
The administration recommends the approval of the listed personnel.
May I have a motion to approve personnel, General?
So moved.
Second, Maria and Lindsay, are there any discussion?
This is a standard horse race vote.
All those in favor say aye. Aye.
All those opposed say no.
Okay.
The motion carries board member reports.
Are there any board members who would like to give a report?
I do.
Mrs. Steiner.
I actually have gifts for everybody
now, so I just wanted to give a hopefully
not too long a report about the PSB Leadership Conference.
It was fabulous.
Maybe it's because I'm a new board member and I was totally geeking out
on everything, but I thought it was amazing.
The the theme were like three little people climbing up a mountain
summit with the words
Inspire and like big sunshine coming through and was feeling it.
So I was inspired and I was
I was feeling the leadership and the the builder ship and and all of that.
So I just wanted to and I got some little pens
for everybody and some little goodies, and
I wanted to
share with you some of the
some of the sessions that I went to,
just so that it's more than just, Oh, it was so great
because I wanted to give you some actual, like real feedback.
So it's one of the sessions that I went to was on school leadership
in the transgender experience and just a few takeaways.
Education is the key to break out of our binary worldview,
and the more we educate, the more we can create an inclusive connective culture.
And it's important to develop policy and administration guidelines to protect
and include our students.
And so I included the
presentation
along with my little packet for everybody to take.
Another one that I went to was
how a school community changed their school start times and also
in my little packets for you here, Linsey, we take Pacer, take one assessment.
How are
these little sheets which has information about
how Unionville Chadds Ford changed her start time.
The main takeaway was that the scientific evidence leads to a moral imperative.
But obviously that moral imperative comes in conflict.
What's feasibility?
They did at 25 minutes away from 735 to 8 a.m.,
and even that modestly made a difference in conjunction
with the sleep campaign was a heavy sleep campaign and so on.
Here it's like sleep hygiene and I want to make sure you two students get one.
So I have one.
I have sheets for you too. This is for you.
So hopefully you can pass that along because sleep hygiene is really important.
You can't just, you know, delay the start time and not have good sleep hygiene.
I also went to
one that was responding to claims of sexual harassment
and misconduct in the MeToo era.
So my takeaways were that it's important to know the process.
Also, this kind of want to.
It's important to know the process of
who to report to and make sure that everyone feels comfortable
coming forward and that sexual harassment may constitute
sex discrimination under Title nine, which includes gender based
sex stereotyping, which is the failure to conform
to stereotyped notions of masculinity, femininity.
And it's important to communicate that our district does not tolerate
harassment, and that will be responsive to those who report it.
I also went to another session,
which was sort of a theme for the whole three days, which was about equity
and pursuit of equity.
And there's a new director equity services with PSB that's been there.
I'm sorry, am I talking to you?
I took
that's been there for about a year now and
the main takeaways were that diversity in equality are not enough.
Equality is meaning kids are equity.
We have to focus on equity.
Equity is meeting kids.
They are giving supports they need that are inclusive, just and fair.
And we must work to overcome our institutional barriers
to close, not only the achievement gaps, but the opportunity gaps
and that Pennsylvania is a rapidly changing environment,
racially, culturally, linguistic, linguistically and economically.
So we have to make sure that we stay on top of that.
So I could go on and on.
But like I said, the main theme there was a lot of focus
on equity and community and advocacy.
One comment that I made to Judy when I was there
that it's sad that we have to focus so much on advocacy
just to get basic fundamental education for our kids.
But that's something that really needs to be pushed and protected.
And in the little gift packets
that I gave to others, the education Law Blueprint,
phase one, which has information about direction and goals.
And real quick, I just
wanted to share the last speaker all the speakers were like amazing
and phenomenal, but the last close up speaker
was from
Darrell Scott, who's the father of Rachel Scott,
who was the first student to die in the Columbine shooting.
And his
program called Rachel's Challenge was so moving.
It's a it's a social emotional learning program for K through 12.
And it promotes a culture of kindness to combat bullying, eliminate prejudice.
It focuses on solutions, not problems teachers, not just kids, but adults.
How to look through not at situations and people
how to choose to see the best in others reaching out.
And they have workshops to figure out
who you want to be and who you want to be.
He stated that we are human beings, not human having,
so we focus so much on what we have when we don't have
and we don't focus enough about who we are.
So he says he receives at least three notes a week from students
that are being saved by his program from suicide.
So it was really powerful moving.
And I have a folder for Jojo and Kathy
to consider and
that's it.
Like I said, I can talk more, but I will I will save you all.
But it was really great.
I recommend it to everyone to go.
It was fabulous.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any other board member reports?
Yeah, I agree with Tricia. It was a fabulous conference.
It really had some really good information.
And Joe, there definitely is some workshops to.
Think about just for staff development for bringing speakers in.
And another workshop I attended on Mindfulness
offered you information as well on just some staff development
speakers that they had that might be worth
investigating for our staff development days as well.
But so thank you for sending us because it was a really great conference.
And we also have some exhibitor information for Joe
just on some of our processes of how it could save
the district possibly some money just to streamline what we're doing.
And we'll forward that information to you as well.
And three of our vendors that we talked with that might be beneficial.
The sessions that
I attended educational sessions for, just really
it was a lot more than I expected them to be and was appreciative of that.
But if we are able to give any feedback as a district to PSB,
it would be nice if they repeated some of the
of the sessions that they gave.
I found that the bulk of the really important to us
as board member sessions all happened at the same time.
We had to pick and choose and I think even with like, you know, a few of us
putting out where we were going, we still missed some of them.
Are there any other board member reports?
Okay.
Thank you very much, Mr. McFarlane.
Do you have a superintendent's report?
I do. I just have one.
I just want to congratulate our Transportation Department.
As you can see them on the screen,
who fifth place in the Hershey Halloween parade, Just a neat
community opportunity they did that voluntarily gave of their time.
Our bus safety bus.
Was there
just an example of our great staff who go above and beyond.
Give of their time?
It is one of our bus drivers.
There are bus drivers and then our transportation director, Mr.
Bell, is on there too.
And then our
awesome computerized
bus helps teach the elementary kids about bus safety.
All right, great.
Thank you.
Board President Report.
I also was able to attend the SBA conference for one day
and it was fabulous.
I really enjoyed that.
The keynote speaker, Dr. Robin Jackson.
And she talked about leadership in well versus skill and went to effective
board policy, which was great to learn even after three years, learned
some new things about policy development and administrative regulations.
And then Lindsay and I went together to the student suicide,
facing the reality of K through 12 mental illness issues.
And that was pretty enlightening.
And thank you for all of those of who attended.
It was a three day conference.
It was a lot of your time, so I really appreciate you
taking the time to do that and your enthusiasm for it.
I did send out an email this week as a reminder of, the SBA online
modules that you can view on your own for some online professional learning,
and those are things that we've kind of agreed to do in October,
November We did have September off, so we didn't miss anything.
Those are for October.
November, we have our board retreat scheduled for November 13th.
I did send information out about that and that concludes my report.
This is recognition of any citizens.
I don't see any in the audience.
The next public board of Directors meeting will be held November 12th 2018,
starting at 7:00 in the District Office Board of Directors Room.
May I have a motion to adjourn this meeting?
I'm second. Lindsay and Maria.
All those in favor say? I.
I think all those opposed say no.
And the meeting is adjourned at 857.