Afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to our first Curriculum Council meeting of the 2021 2022 school year.
We are just waiting for Dr.
Cronin to come in and get settled.
So if you just give us one minute of patience
and we'll be set to go on
while she's getting settled, I'll just point out that our minutes
from the will call the meeting to order at 4:03 p.m.
and our minutes from the June 14th, 2021 meeting attached.
For everyone's reference.
We do not have a long agenda today,
but we do have a couple of important items on here.
First is our list of meeting dates for the year.
Those are attached for everyone's reference to make sure
that those are on your calendar.
And then I wanted to take a moment to introduce Dr.
Aaron Schuman, who is our new assistant to the superintendent for curriculum
Instruction and Assessment and starting next month
will begin to take the lead on these meetings.
So I want to give him a chance to say hello and introduce himself.
Dr. Shuman has been with our middle school administrative team
for the last 15 years.
He has extensive experience with curriculum and professional development
and he's going to do a great job in this role.
So we're excited to
have him coming into this space.
Like myself, he is a level one curriculum auditor,
so he is very familiar with the curriculum development and review process.
So I'll just turn it over to you for a moment, Dr.
Shuman, to say hello and introduce yourself to everybody.
Hello, everybody.
Do I guess
you don't.
Need to you need to meet.
Dr. Shuman.
All right.
So I'm not a technology
about curriculum.
So this early to be here is an opportunity to work with everybody,
because this is
a real work
to be part of that
composite.
All right.
So now that I've got the microphone working, I.
Again,
just.
Thrilled to be here in this role.
Doing, like I.
Said, what I really consider to be the real work at the heart of what we.
Do in our system and working with.
Teachers and students and board members around the day to. Day.
Activities that are going to be going on in our classrooms.
So I'm just looking forward to and.
Excited. For this role.
So thank.
All right.
I did attach our goals that we had approved
back in June, just so everybody has a
copy of those.
And then I did want to remind everyone about
curriculum council procedures as we begin the
the new school year, because Curriculum council does operate
just slightly different than the other subcommittees of the board.
I will remind everybody that we do have two student reps, one of our student reps,
one of our reps did decide that this was not
how she wanted to spend her time, and so she did step away to concentrate
on events for her senior year, getting ready for college and so forth.
But we do have two other student reps who I am delighted are continuing
to serve with us, and they are Lisa Wong
and I see that she is on as a panelist
and I do not see Hannah Goma, but she is also one of our
student reps
and they have both been wonderful additions
to Curriculum council and appreciate their questions
and insights as they have gotten a handle on on what we're doing.
And I'm looking forward to starting next year with them.
Just as a reminder, when we set this up, we set it up
so that students would be serving two year terms.
So this will be
starting their second sort of their second year.
They started mid-year, so it's a little odd for the first time
around as we got this rolling.
But they are they will be serving with us for at least another year.
So it's great.
I also wanted to remind everyone that
Curriculum Council is
the way it is set up when we have new business or old business
that is being voted upon.
Board members make motions
and second, those motions.
But citizen advisors and other members of the council,
including the students, are all voting members.
So while only board members can make a motion,
everybody on curriculum council gets to vote.
So I did want to
remind everyone of that just because it it's a little different
than the other than the other committees.
So I also did not put it on here,
just gave it a a lot of thought.
There's been a lot of concern about critical race theory,
and I did want to address that and curriculum council today
just to
hopefully ease some of the concerns that have been periodically
coming to us as as an administration and I know as a board as well.
I do think it's regrettable that concerns about critical race
theory have been misdirected at the equity focused initiatives
the districts have been undertaking
to ensure that all children in our communities
have access to a high quality education and opportunities for success.
Critical race theory is just that a theory.
Race theory is a framework for examining
the effects of race and racism in society.
Being a theory, it has been discussed in graduate level
higher education and legal circles since the 1970s,
not as a curriculum, but as a point of discussion and analysis.
Though originally focused on race, it has expanded to include
the intersectional examination of the effects of other types of discrimination,
such as those centered around gender, ethnicity, class and disability
in society.
Critical race theory should not be confused
with culturally responsive teaching and leadership practices.
Through these practices, teachers and school leaders affirm and incorporate
inclusivity the diverse cultures, voices,
experiences and histories of all students and their families.
This is nothing more and nothing less than good teaching
debates about
critical race theory are not beneficial to our decision
making about the district's equity needs and goals.
For example,
one of the district's equity goals
is access to advanced placement classes.
Right now, approximately 23% of our students in the high school
qualify for free and reduced lunch.
In other words, these students fall below the poverty line.
When we examine our enrollment in AP classes,
we find that only about 10% of students in these classes qualify for free
and reduced lunch, meaning that students in poverty are far underrepresented
and upper underrepresented in our most challenging classes.
Our goal is to ensure a more appropriate representation
of students in poverty in our upper upper level classes.
So that's an example of one of our equity goals.
When teachers are doing work to examine our own biases
or to learn about different cultures, it is not so that we can change
some students or to infringe upon family values,
but rather to ensure that we, the trusted adults in our schools,
are welcoming and understanding of all students.
We are a public school.
All students come to us.
We need to create a place of belonging.
Welcome and respect for all of the students.
And we do remain confident that our community wants
the very best education for every student so that every child can succeed.
And that is the business that we are about.
So I did I wanted to share that, to
hopefully ease some of those concerns.
Can you make a comment on that?
Yes, only because obviously we're getting emails
and we get discussions in the community asking why are you
pretending to not have CRT?
Why are you sneaking in there?
And I just want to just make a comment because I've been on
clinical curriculum council for a while.
And one of the things that I know I've spoken with you about Stacie
over the years as well as Dr.
Smith was what you said about not only A.P.
courses, but in general.
You know, equity, of course, availability is critical.
We have a lot of we have in the past have a lot of barriers in place
in terms of prerequisites and testing
into into courses, which is very common on the collegiate level for sure.
But Stacie and Dr.
Smith are very committed to as am I,
as I approached you guys couple several years ago about,
you know, any student in the high school, at least, you know,
I want them to be able to take the the most rigorous courses that they can
without being told, oh, sorry, you didn't have an 85.
You only have an 84.
You can't go into AP English because you only had honors or C.P..
And it really equity across the board, regardless of race,
gender, socio economic, whatever they're we just want equity all around.
And then when it comes to inclusion, I we see it on a monthly bi monthly basis.
All the different clubs that are started, students are allowed to join clubs
in order to be included in something that's important to them.
So we are not only fostering the ability
to start your own club, but also to, you know, to join.
We're probably up to 50 or 60 clubs now.
We want to have inclusion of everybody and then the sense of belonging is and
is another component that, you know, people say as a as a you know, as a force.
But I know we've had the the the goal of having every student
being to identify with at least one, one adult or whatever.
And and the more clubs and
and activities that you join, you start to get those relationships.
So to me, everything about what we're trying to do
is for every student to be able to thrive in this environment.
And there is nothing in there for me
that is a hidden CRT agenda.
I don't know how else to assure people, but I'd be happy
to speak with anyone individually.
But that is never been something that I've talked about with anybody
in the school district in all my years on the board and on curriculum council.
But these other pieces of making opportunities available to
everyone has always been
at the crux of what we want to do and certainly what I want to do.
So thank you. Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Okay.
On a completely different topic, sort of,
although it does have some equity pieces involved for sure,
as making sure that all of our students are being successful
as part of our Esser funding.
The Esser three
dictates
that 20% of those monies need to be spent
specifically on items that could help
with any kind of learning loss.
And so
as a part of that work, we needed to get stakeholder input.
And it seem like curriculum council is an excellent place to get that input as
we have board members, we have community members, we have students,
we have teachers, we have administrators all on this committee.
And so I wanted to share a draft of this plan.
And with this, it's
not really something that we make a motion on and approve more of.
Give your blessing.
We will
move forward to put this in our IT grants application,
but wanted to give you the opportunity to give feedback.
So what it is looking for is a plan for how to use
those 20% of funds reserve to measure and address academic impact.
Impact of lost instructional time.
And it also asks for some particular data.
So I did include the PSA data results
as well as the Algebra one
Keystone results that we have received so far.
At this point in time, we have not received any middle school
data back on Sage or Keystone,
and I expect that that won't come for a little while yet.
And so at this point in time to target student
need as quickly as possible, we've already spent 126,000 plus
for summer standards
remediation, which took place for three weeks in June and targeted
students who were in danger of retention due to failing all core subject areas.
It also targeted students who at the high school
were in danger of not achieving credits and Keystone courses.
If you've ever heard of a freshman
on track as a as a kind of a
way of looking at making sure that kids continue appropriately,
you never, ever, ever want freshmen and sophomores to be off
track in their credits because once they're off track with credits,
with the credits that they need to go to the next grade level, it becomes
exceedingly more difficult
each year to get the credits that students need.
And so really wanted to target, especially those Keystone courses, because
that is also part of their graduation requirements to pass those exams
to make sure that they
stayed on track for graduation.
We have also
purchased several supplemental
programs to help
with some of the work
that that's being done.
We did it.
We just knocked my microphone right
out of that.
We had a we do use read
184 hour reading intervention at the middle school.
We were able to extend that and to a three year contract for our licenses.
We purchased Matthew student licenses
for the middle school in order to intervene with mathematics.
We also purchased no red ink for English
at the middle school.
We purchased
a catch up readers, if you'll recall, we approved those in curriculum Counsel.
So we approved those at the elementary school.
We approved the core project,
which is a social emotional learning program for the high school,
and it's not necessarily curriculum related,
but we did purchase a speaker system at the elementary school for parents
to help with at the SCC.
So, so far that's $126,000 plus change
everything except for a read on 80 or new strategies.
The remainder remainder of the learning loss plan is an expansion
of our existing strategies
because we have strong evidence of their effectiveness
and we would be looking at the fall of 2022 for implementation.
So strategy number one is maintaining small class
sizes at the early grade levels.
If you'll recall, we went down for teachers,
for classroom teachers at the elementary school
through attrition with retirement
as a budget savings for this year.
So our first strategy would be to
bring back those four teachers for the K
three grade levels in order to keep those class sizes small,
because we know that the more individual attention that students receive,
the the
stronger their their early learning is.
And so that is and there are two studies provided they're
supporting that information.
There is conflicting research on class sizes.
I want to be very clear on that.
It is at the early grades
below 20 students per class where there is true effect and that is
why K through three is being targeted as opposed to later grades.
And we are estimating about $100,000 per teacher
depending on the experience level that teachers would come in at.
And considering health care costs.
The second one would be to maintain and expand a focus on quality
mathematics intervention with an emphasis on acceleration
that would support our multi-tiered systems of support.
And in looking at that, what we would be doing
is when we've wanted this for years and years.
Right now we have four
mathematics interventionist at the middle school.
We don't have any at the start, the elementary school,
none at the middle school.
So we'd be looking to add an additional at the elementary school.
So we would have five math interventionists at the elementary school.
Math is the subject area that seem to be hit hardest by
students being out of the classroom.
It's a place where they've we've seen
we have not seen a giant dip, but where we've seen definitely more of a dip.
And in L.A.
and we've always been
hesitant in the past to add an additional interventionist
because we weren't convinced that our intervention was working.
We have revamped those intervention programs
and are seeing a significant impact in that revamping,
which makes me very confident that spending
this money on that would actually make a difference.
It wouldn't be just doing more of the same thing
that may or may not be making a difference.
So we'd be looking at
one elementary interventionist being added
and one being implemented at the middle school,
again estimating about $100,000 per staff member.
That $200,000.
Dr. Wenzel Have you run these numbers by Mr.
Friends? Oh, yes.
So what,
since these are already part of the ACA agreement because we just
didn't fill them, is there any impact to the union agreement by bringing them back?
There is not an impact to the association agreement.
What there is potentially an impact in
is that this would initially be paid for out of grant funding.
We would have to consider whether or not where willing to look at
raising taxes a small amount in order to sustain it going forward.
But all of the for elementary teachers and the college and career
counselor were already part of our previous budget, correct.
The only new one are the two math and one the two math interventions are.
The two new staff are brand new. Yep.
Which would have a potential impact on the 2020 to 2023 school year.
Because you're spending that money now.
We would be spending it next year.
You're not hiring these people this school year now.
Okay, So you're hiring them 20, 22, 20.
So we're not going to see an impact until 2324, correct?
Well, I would hope 2223 that we would see some impact through.
You're going to pay for it paying 20 to 23 with the grant money.
So we need to be concerned about the 24.
Yes, 23,
24 school year because there's ten new people.
Yes. Are you $200,000 is a large impact.
Yes. That is a tax increase. Yes.
More than likely for the future. Yes.
A belt in that we decide now that a board in two years will have to consider.
That's exactly what happened with full day kindergarten.
We made a vote on adding a staff
that caused eight in me.
We had two texts
two years later and then we plan and then we had new board members.
Come on.
We had to explain what what we had done when they were not even on the board for
correct. It would be very similar to that.
That's actually exactly the conversation
that we had when we were working on building this. Right.
So if this is being run to the curriculum council, this seems like
it needs to be run through the Finance Committee.
I think that
that would be fine ultimately because
and then Finance Committee to the whole board, because this I'm
not as concerned as the existing staff members that we're adding back in.
As long as we get back to pre-COVID budget numbers
with our tax revenue and our bringing back our,
you know, the Hershey Park revenue and all those things do come back.
The giant center pilot payment comes back.
I mean, things are starting to open that will hopefully we will get
the grant money will get us through to the end of that.
Yeah, but the concern is after that.
After that, that's a big concern. Yes.
And prioritizing that, this is where we want that money to go,
if that is indeed a huge impact to the budget.
Because, you know, we've always said when you add staff,
you add them for 30 years, you don't just add them for a year.
Absolutely.
So this is a huge consideration.
Yes, I totally agree.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, That was a that was going to be my summary. Okay.
So you are we are right on the same page.
Okay.
So this is Kip Shore, and I have some questions for additional clarification.
Absolutely.
I understand Cathy's point about the positions.
However, if they're not filled, then they're not paid.
So. That's correct. Right.
So this this would be about incurring costs.
Even though the positions are there, we would then
be paying them rather than not paying because they're not filled.
You mentioned that just the numbers include the health care costs,
but does that also include the retirement cost, pieces of retirement costs?
Is this all in or all this is.
I includes that.
Okay.
And it it might be just a tiny bit high depending on where you bring
someone in at.
So in aggregate, we're looking at $700,000 a year.
Yes. Okay.
So that
does result in a significant tax increase.
I think it's is it help me.
Help me out.
This one will results in $800,000 additional.
Now, I think it's more than.
You know I can't but it this.
Significantly is 100,000 or something like that.
Yeah yeah I don't I don't want to say the wrong.
Numbers but yeah it's something that we really need to crunch for
because I think we need to see like keep saying the ones we're
just adding back in that we didn't fail because we're saving money now
we have to see what impact that is to make sure next year's budget
and the year after can handle that if we get back.
Because we did a lot this year to meet this budget
without a tax increase, with it taking money out of the trust,
getting the grant money
that helped us survive next year is going to help us survive.
But we need to be mindful of the year after the grant money runs out.
Yes, that's completely the trick.
And we have a lot of things to consider
right now.
Means yeah.
And that number of items, part of
I'll be very transparent with this piece of it, part of why
we would not look to fill these positions right now is because we would want
to see where our revenues end up and we might have to adjust this plan.
Okay.
So in my final question for
clarification is regarding the Ashworth three funding.
Having read that, again, the 20% number,
they just say 20%.
Now that's not
accurate. Is that is that a maximum?
Is that a minimum or is that just they just say 20%?
And the reason I'm asking there's a point to the question is that
if it's just that's your starting point, then
we could get two years of these numbers out of your of the extra funding
because we could then use the 2223 and 2324.
We could obtain that money both for both years from Ashura
because that runs through September of 24.
However, after that year,
if these are permanent positions, then that is for a future board
to consider that we could just we could get one more year.
But nonetheless.
Thank you.
Very good points.
One of the the pieces that we
were trying to take into account with the remaining funds and this is
so that to the 20% point
that is that is a sum
that can only be spent on learning loss.
And then they give us a list of things that count
as as those pieces.
And we have been looking
at the rest of the funds as a means to continue to balance the budget through
paying for substitute costs, paying for.
And I would I would have to look at the list because it is a piece that Dr.
Snyder and Mr. Friends have looked at.
But some other salaries as well, in order to continue
to keep that cost down and to keep the budget
balanced.
Well,
I don't know if so what you're saying is you're going to
you're telling the curriculum council about this, but you're
you still need this year to see if you really need this.
You're just giving us a heads up. Oh, no.
These are definitely
the things that we would like to have and how we would like to spend this money.
Okay.
But we have to make a decision about though, is
these are clearly some of them are one time expenses.
So the things that we spent,
you know, initially that 126,000, that's those are pretty much onetime expenses.
They're done.
Adding staff members
is not a one time expense.
It would this would allow us to jumpstart that process to to get them into place.
But then we would have to decide
that we were willing to continue to support those positions.
Yeah.
And, you know, depending on what happens
with our revenues, even like to your point,
there were eight positions that we did not fill.
So these would take us back to
kind of the status with that.
So there's two more that you've just changed them to.
Interaction is correct.
So we like we again, if you'll recall there was the SCC librarian
so when I interventionists would be in that space
and there was another one, I can't remember what it is but there were
so these would be, well the math interventionists are positions
that we have not had they are not on top of
OC Does that make sense.
Yes, I understand the positions that we did not fill.
So assuming our revenues come back,
we would be able to support the budgets that we've had in the past.
Right. Assuming, assuming.
But that's a big assumption.
And so there's some
risk assumption with that should we decide to move forward that way?
Well, what we did during the pandemic is we didn't fill positions
that opened up due to retirement or resignation
in order to not layoff any employees to maintain the state.
Same academic standard.
So what you're suggesting is that we consider going back to where
we were pre-pandemic.
We did that as a way to save money and
make the budget work without a tax increase.
So I understand.
So I do think it's something that Finance Committee should chew over as well,
because we are doing the budget planning in the fall.
And like when would be, for instance, on the Chair of finance.
That's why I'm saying that.
When would be
when would the Finance Committee need to give you more information
or where one would the board need to give you more information?
I think that maybe by the end of this month
so that we could start building out that that grant
will we can do it.
We have a meeting in two weeks. Yeah.
So that's okay.
That would be perfect.
I have a question about the math interventionalists right now.
Do they have a group of students or is it, is it much more
a really good question is does it flow?
But based on what's going on in the classroom
use cases or a combination of both?
It used to be very static, right?
So that was it was very difficult to get out of math intervention
once you were in it. Right.
And that was where I was never willing to do more of that.
In the last two years with our math coaches, they have
worked with the intervention team that we have
and really revamp the way that we're doing so that it is much more fluid.
So the teachers do pretest
on prerequisite skills and students who have not yet mastered
those prerequisite skills will go into math intervention
for a period of time to master those skills,
but not lose any classroom instruction.
So they're they're kind of
they're kind of learning the background skills
while they're learning the new at the same time. Correct. Okay.
And then for PSA, if they're
not proficient in PSA, is that a complete different track for intervention?
No, no.
It actually is just sort of an additional piece of data.
Okay. Gotcha.
So usually if a student is not proficient on PSA, we are not surprised, but
it can help us to target discrete skills that we need to look at even more closely.
It's often a good starting place versus a we.
Now you're here,
it's just a interventionalists working in small groups or one on one.
They they work in small groups.
So usually when you're when you identify students, you have a need.
There's usually two or three that have the same need from different classrooms.
So they pull from different injury specific.
You know what?
I don't know if I can answer that question this year.
There's there's five elementary grade.
Yeah, there's there's four, there's four interventionist and I believe they work in
twos across three grade levels.
So so two of them work K through three
into work for I'm sorry, K through two and two of them are kids.
Three through five. Gotcha. Okay.
Now is your window
just thinking through this process?
My only concern is that when we do the budget,
we don't.
We kind of get a wish list from the administration on things
to add back in or things to move forward with in around December.
This is
pretty early to lock us in to something
for a future budget and a future even down the road.
So before Finance Committee, I think we need to know
like what else is coming because we can't say yes to this
if we don't know what could be coming in December.
As far as staff is concerned. Yes, new staff.
There will not be any other no other new staff,
because that's the biggest issue.
Always. Always.
Yes. Last year we told everybody, no new staff.
This year we're going to be saying the same thing.
Okay.
Another is cap again,
another concern is delaying this until the 2023 school year.
This is this is the year.
This 2122 school year is the year of biggest learning loss.
I don't think there's any way to argue otherwise.
It may persist, but will certainly wane over the ensuing years.
And so this would be a year where it would have
the greatest impact, presumably.
That is a fair comment.
I guess at this point in time, hiring additional staff
would be next to impossible.
It's it's really hard to find
people
in general, let alone the best and the brightest at this point in the year.
I do feel like our current staff has an excellent plan
for for addressing the learning loss that they're seeing this year.
And being able to move forward with this would help us
not only with the learning loss piece, but with further goals that we already had.
You know, so one of one of my goals for us and that I shared with staff
on the opening day is that all students are taking algebra by eighth grade.
You know, this is something we've been working on for a while
and and would help us to get further into that goal as well,
because that opens doors for them in high school.
So while while this would fall
under learning loss for the initial
part, it's a it's a big part of what we already do
and what our goals already are because we know they're good practices.
Mr. Schweiger, Are you seeing any questions from panelists?
Dr. Winslow I do not
want to ignore our panelists
and I see Lindsey drill.
Our President is on as a participant.
Did did you already go over this in agenda planning like does she know about it?
She's on the finance committee as well with me
know this is this is everybody's first time this is everybody's first time
hearing it Yes.
Okay.
Completed this as a cabinet last week and can make sure
we are getting in front of you as fast as possible. Okay, great.
All right.
Well, we will we will get it to Finance Committee and chew over it there.
Thank you. Really great questions.
I appreciate the dialog and and the questions and the opportunity to
just share the plan.
There are pieces that I'm very excited about.
While I also am very cognizant of the potential impact.
So things not to be done lightly either.
Were there any other questions or comments?
Okay.
All right.
We do not have any new business this time
next month.
I do plan on sharing.
We should have our new citizen advisors, I believe, by next month.
So at that time I plan on
showing the presentation on why we need curriculum and why it's important,
which I have not done, I don't think, since I came into the role of assistant
to the superintendent.
So it seemed a good time to do that as we got new
citizen advisors on board.
And we'll also be sharing
the summer curriculum work that was completed.
That's usually something I do at this meeting,
but wasn't sure how long this discussion was going to take.
So we'll be sharing that also because I would like you to see
all the work that teachers are doing all summer long
to keep our
curriculum dynamic and moving forward.
We do not have any new business
or any old business.
Is there any public comment?
We do have some participants today which, as you all know, I'm always very excited
about when somebody comes to the curriculum council.
Yes, yes, yes, please come on up.
You could just identify yourself with your name and address.
Sure.
Everybody else.
Pileggi 156 West River Avenue
or CPA.
So first of all, I was I had emailed Dr.
Winslow over a year ago.
Maybe, remember, maybe it's not a big deal.
You guys have a very, very busy about adding something to the curriculum.
And what I certainly did not want to do is bother anybody
during this past year because you had far more important things to to deal with.
I promise you, what I'm going to ask for or propose is nothing terribly urgent.
It's very important to me personally, I think probably to a lot of other people.
And I can also promise you, I can't promise,
but I don't think it will cost the school district
any any money.
And before I get into that, let me just say something
that was not planned
unrelated to me speaking here.
I'm if you don't know, I'm
the local tax collector about to start my fifth consecutive term.
I'm not an expert on the topic.
I want your real estate taxes.
But believe me, I see the numbers and I know what you guys are up against.
I know what the township is up against.
I would encourage, if you have any leverage at all
to get an R to pay the pilot program
and not wait a four year period.
And I am also a proponent of of the amusement tax increase.
I think
I'm at I living here I didn't come to discuss this,
but just a little thing to keep in mind for the curriculum even of itself.
Something like a 3% flat tax
could really, really help a lot of financial problems.
And I think
somebody's paying $70 a ticket to go to Hershey Park for a day
would certainly not have a problem paying another $0.85
on top of what they're paying. Right, Right.
So I really appreciate what you guys are doing.
You didn't have a very easy year.
And anyhow.
Okay, Sorry for that
two curriculum.
I the past couple of years I've had a I'll make this as quick as possible.
I apologize.
The past couple of years, I've
engaged in a little hobby
that I wish I would have started many, many years ago.
It's pertaining to Italian American history.
Ah, matter of fact, a year ago, my daughter
and I, she's a senior at Hershey High School.
We both applied for our Italian citizenship
and I have every reason to think we're going to get it.
It's just a waiting game. And at this point
and also
I've been doing a lot of self reflection are
my own views towards racism and and so forth.
And and I've heard a lot of talk about
critical race theory, which I'll be the first to admit.
I don't know enough about it to comment on it.
And I would also bet money that those who are in favor of it
and against it probably also don't have a lot of facts about it.
What I do know
me included in this criticism is that many of us
who maybe have been critical
of other minorities, whether it be the African-American community,
whether it be the community
from Mexico or South America,
that has been criticized so much from coming across the border,
I think of a lot of people would realize
that their own white ancestors.
Okay. And Italians were not always considered to be white.
By the way,
if people would
realize what their own white ancestors went through,
it might make them a little less critical of other things going on.
Okay.
And what I'm about to tell you is a little bit selfish because I am
biased towards Italian-American history, especially in this town.
But I also think discussing this in the curriculum could also have
a greater good and benefit and benefit students.
If I could just I have some handwritten notes
and I'm going to explain why this is so important to me.
There's been, over the years now,
terrible discrimination in Hershey, in the community
and in the factory against Italian-Americans,
not so much today anymore, but as recently as the 1990s.
These a lot of people don't realize this.
Deeds and Hershey said do not sell to Italians.
They were not permitted to live on Elm Avenue,
not that we could afford Elm Avenue at the time, but.
But we were not permitted to live on on, on Elm,
on Elm Avenue. As a
matter of fact, 157 West Granada Avenue.
To this day, it's not an active deed,
but it says I cannot be leased
or sold to anybody other than the Caucasian race.
That's 157 West Granada Avenue.
Friends of mine.
Many of you know I'm in this room. I'm not going to mention their names.
They're in their seventies right now.
They bought their first home in Derry Township in the 1970s,
down in Palmdale, and they said cannot be sold to Italians.
They were able to buy their home because of the Civil
Liberties Act in the factory.
This is all documented.
The janitor did not want to clean the lockers
because of the quote unquote stench of the Italians.
Then we had the 1937 strike,
which is a peaceful strike involving
not just Italians, but there were some Italians in it.
The pay was very low at the chocolate company compared to other industries.
And that was supported in an oral history by Hershey's own
Sam Tancredo, who became head of payroll at Hershey.
So he said he was against the strike.
But years later he realized we were very, very underpaid,
not the best of working conditions.
There was a lot of resentment towards Milton Hershey, a great man, by the way,
but a lot of resentment towards Milton Hershey about putting so much money
into the Milton Hershey School and less money into the workers.
Yet the Hershey executives hired.
This is from oral histories, hired strike breaking thugs from the Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh area to come in and violently break up
the otherwise peaceful strikers. Now,
I just like, you know, you're at 6 minutes, usually at board meetings.
We do 3 minutes. Okay.
Can you give me like one more minute or two and I'll be out of here.
I'll be here. Okay.
I speak for, like once every ten years.
I'm sorry.
Okay, so it's extremely historic If you do the history
of this of this strike, you know, Jews were not permitted.
Not permitted.
Jews were not welcome to live in Hershey back in the old days.
And a lot of Italians were were were Jews.
There were cross burnings
during the war effort.
There are 40 homes in the Swatara Station neighborhood.
That's a little Italy, that neighborhood across from Staples, 40 homes
sent over 80 soldiers off to fight in World War Two nationwide,
while 1 million of us of almost 1 million of us were fighting for the U.S.
and World War Two, Italian-Americans, 600,000 of Italian immigrants
were deemed enemy aliens of the state
by the by the US, by the US government.
And there's often this stereotype of mafiosi, right?
That's one of the reasons why the Vikings were so feared.
Even in Hershey, only 5000 Italians at the highest
were in the mob, yet 600,000 of us, me included.
That became educators.
But yet we're still talking about the mob.
And let me end it with this.
Let me end with this.
We are standing in a historic neighborhood.
All right.
Granada Avenue, Arena Avenue, maybe a couple blocks down the chocolate.
This neighborhood alone, against all imaginable
odds, produced an NFL general manager,
a medical doctor at the Mayo Clinic.
His brother, who's a doctor, lawyer and professor at NYU.
NYU, a renowned anthropologist, Lola Roman Nucci,
who studied and traveled the world with Margaret Mead, a West Point graduate,
a professor emeritus at City University of New York who graduated from Saint Joan
Hershey High School, Hershey Junior College, Millersville, Penn State and NYU.
Several priests, a nun, a World War Two, Bronze Star
recipient for valor
and a man who will be inducted
into the Hershey High School Hall of Fame this Friday night.
A guy who is a former retired school
superintendent, Dennis Dennis Tooley.
So I do think there's a lot of good history of a very important ethnic group.
I would ask out of all this talk, I apologize.
I would ask that we find a way
to incorporate into our curriculum.
I'm not asking for a whole class supplemental material.
I'll even donate the books
more Italian American culture
into our into our school, into our school district.
I'd like to be part of that discussion in the future.
I promise I won't talk this long again, but I wanted to at least
come here and address it with everybody.
And if there's anything I can do in the future to help you out
or provide information, I would I would love I would love to do that.
Thank you.
I appreciate you sharing.
I went way over. I'm really sorry.
We don't we don't have the same kind of nobody ever talks a curriculum council. So
I appreciate I find it very informative
and I want to take your first mini course.
Thank you.
Thanks, everybody. I really appreciate. It.
Thank you very much.
And I just want to share with you that when we're talking about
all of our students seeing themselves somewhere in our curriculum and the work
that we're trying to do to do that, this is what we're talking about,
is making sure that we're incorporating local history
as well as the national history.
On a side note, if you want to just
tell the teachers, like my daughter just did an internship
this summer at the Historical Society, where she interviewed
six Italian-Americans, three of them were in their nineties.
One was Jesse Kunitz, who was my kindergarten teacher here.
And we're great friends.
That's awesome.
Doesn't have to be Italian.
There's there's there's a ton of stuff that is very educational.
I'm not trying to plug the society, just it's just such good.
You give me an idea and I will share that with you.
Thank you.
Thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Thanks for letting.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, absolutely.
We do have a few other participants.
Is there anyone virtually who would like to say
anything for public comment,
Dr. Winslow?
I see no hands raised. Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Swiger.
And that being said, then, our next meeting will be Tuesday,
October 12th, and Dr.
Sheerin and I will be co-leading that meeting,
bring him on gradually, and
then starting in November, he'll take over the meetings fully.
So you're aware how that transition will work
and without anything else,
could I have a motion to adjourn at 450?
So move.
Donna Cronan, thank you very much.
Second, Kip Scholl Thank you.
We are adjourned at 450 and I thank you all very much for excellent discussion and
wish you a good afternoon.