I'd like to call the September eleventh, 2,023 meeting of the Derry town school district board of directors to order.
And announce that this meeting is being live streamed and audio recorded. This meeting is being conducted both in person and virtually.
I'd like to request for board members to please state your name when speaking.
Dr. Reif Schneider is serving as our secretary for the ethic in the place of Michele Age and I please ask you to call a roll.
Mr. Bennett. Dr. Cronin. Here.
Dr. Cook. Mrs. Mimi here, Mr. Rizzo here. Mr. Schmidt?
Here. Mrs. Singer, Mrs. Sicker? Here, Mr. Singer. Here.
A present, one absent. Okay, thank you. Before we continue. As today is Patriot Day.
I would like to offer a tribute to the 9 11 victims. Their families. And the first responders.
Who showed such extraordinary courage and bravery. On that day and thereafter. So please join me in a moment of silence.
Thank you. We have the memory of 9 11 remind us of the importance of unity. Compassion and the just pursuit of peace.
Now please rise if you're able and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.
The ship. In that city. You know, Well. And justice for
I have a motion to approve the September eleventh, 2,023 board of directors agenda. So move from the 2 s.
Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I mean opposed no.
Thank you. The agenda is adopted.
Moving on to agenda item 2 informational and proposals. We have 3 presentations this evening. The first will be by crabtree Roar Bar and Associates.
Thank you.
And if you could introduce yourself before you get underway, that'd be helpful. Thank you. My name is Anthony Colstock.
I'm a principal of Crap. You, architects. I also have with us Dr. Fred Witham. Dr.
Witham is our director of educational planning. He's also retired superintendent. He's going to be going over.
Some of the demographics and enrollment study. We also have John Media from our firm.
He is managing partner. So thank you for having us.
Okay. Okay.
So before I begin the presentation, I just want to talk a little bit about the updates that we'll be giving the board.
What we've discussed with the administration is Whenever you have a general service meeting, we will provide an update at that general service meeting.
To basically present almost a draft of the presentation. Of what we would share. With the full board, 2 weeks.
Following that general service meeting. So We met on. We met on August 20 eighth. Your presentation that I handed out to you, the only revision from that is just the date to reflect today.
So moving forward, that is when we'll be giving you board updates.
So for our agenda, there's a couple of things that we want to look at. And talk a little bit about the planning process that we've been going through with the administration right now.
And it's it's establishing the need for the project, the Y for the project.
So there's a couple of things that we're going to be looking at. To verify, to help verify your educational program.
One of them is looking at your student enrollment. And the projection so we can adopt a plan capacity for the building and then also having some discussions with the administration on their vision of developing an educational program that reflects the districts.
20 first century, school requirements. Also wanted to revisit a study that we did for you in 2018 on this Granada building.
There are some questions is whether or not this would make a good candidate. To repurpose it into an elementary school.
The study that we did in 2018 the purpose of that was not to look at it as converting it to an elementary school, but.
I think that we were able to.
Look at that study and then. Do a fit analysis on whether or not this would be a good candidate.
So we'll just, we'll review that at the end of the, at the end of the presentation.
So the first thing we're going to look at and this is the part of the presentation that Dr.
Witham is going to go over. With student enrollment projections. But one of the things that we want to do is a capacity analysis.
So we're making sure that the design. Has a plan capacity that is appropriate, not just for your current enrollment, but also for future enrollment as well.
And I will say that your project is not enrollment driven. One thing though that it is is it's driven with the increase of special education students that are not typically reflected when the Department of Education looks at capacity.
Special education students are not typically calculated into that, into those capacities. So there's a couple of terminologies I wanted to review if you this one this first one is plan capacity.
So this is that total enrollment that we're looking at. 5 to 10 years into the future.
And making sure that there is.
Increase in the capacity to make sure that it can account for additional students. Within the next 10 to 20 years.
So this is your 20 year window to do a project. We wanna make sure that it's right sized.
But we also don't wanna. Enter into construction first day students show up and every single seat is occupied.
So typically when you're looking at what the educational capacity is, is that's allowing a buffer.
So that not every single. Desk is occupied through by a student throughout the day, but there is flexibility and space additional space for students to account for, potential scheduling conflicts.
So usually when we look at that plan, excuse me, that educational capacity. We're looking at about a 90% utilization of the total plan capacity.
So Dr. Withdam is gonna go over the educational, excuse me, the student enrollment projections.
And if you have any questions on this capacity analysis. Please don't hesitate to ask them during the middle of the presentation.
Good evening. Thank you for having us here. I am Fred with them. I'm the director of educational planning.
I did 35 years in public education and 10 years teaching facility courses at Chippensburg University. So it brings me here tonight.
So in the first slide is the 15 year historic enrollment and you can see that overall when you considering this is K to 12 prior to the pandemic you had in fairly stable enrollment you were starting to actually climb back up prior to 1920 when you started the dip I will tell you that unlike other school districts you are actually rebounding based on your numbers a lot faster than some of the other districts that were
occurring, that in the area that, are watching their enrollment right now after the after the dip.
So one of the things that would lead us to.
There we go. And point it the right way. So one of the things that we took a look at, where the number of students as a percent of the total population.
The number of students per household and the number of students per housing unit. And we looked at the rates 5 and 10 years prior to the pandemic.
And you can see that. Even though you had some ups and downs, they were pretty reliable measures.
The most interesting one averaging point 3 3 students. Per housing unit. If you ever hear that you're getting a new development, you want to kind of take a guesstimate as to how much.
Student enrollment you might gain from a development simply take the number of housing units time point 3 3 and that will give you an idea of what it will drive out.
So the long and short of that slide is. Your indicators are very consistent. Your enrollment is relatively stable and as Anthony indicated, your project is probably doesn't have much to do with enrollment as more than changing demographics and instructional strategies.
For your information, there's the past 5 years of Pennsylvania Department of Education enrollment projections.
And you can see what happens. They did not remove. The pandemic dip in enrollment from the projections.
So everything after 2,019, even though you've started to recover. Averages in the COVID dip.
As if it was a permanent thing that was a regular part of the district. You can see by the purple line there, by the most recent, which are now almost a year old, they're based on the 2223 enrollments.
They're starting to project you coming back up and I would imagine that given your September initial enrollments that line believe in start to tip a little bit more.
Same thing you can see that their enrollments are starting to project your elementary. A purple line is starting to push it back up.
Again. When we do our enrollment projections. We do take it to account the fact that COVID has occurred and what we do is we look at your growth rates 3 and 5 years prior to the pandemic.
But we apply those growth rates to in this case it was your 2223. Actual enrollment.
That tends to be a pretty good measure, particularly when you look at, at PDs.
And you could see that our enrollment projections are mirroring PDEs. We nearly meet them at the end.
They actually are projecting a little bit higher enrollment. Then we are out 5 and 10 years, but not much.
Given the margin of errors where and PDs, enrollment process. We're comparable.
There's K to 5 and I'm not going to go through through all these for you.
The information is fairly. Self explanatory, but ultimately what we were trying to get to is If you look at PDE and you look at your grade bands K 1 2 3 and 4 5.
How many classrooms on a minimum and a maximum? Are the enrollment projections driving out within those grade bands.
So PDE is driving out for K 1, 18 to 22 classrooms. Required 5 years from now for that.
Age band and we're predicting 17 to 23. So you can see that that gives you a planning.
Point to start at a high and a low that you can evaluate against the current space that you have and as well as the changing needs of your.
Student body. These following. Could I ask a question? Sure.
Thanks. This is Lindsey Drew. I notice up top here it says utilizing 25 seats per general classroom.
So that 18 to 22 or 17 to 23 number for like K one as example that would be with a 25 student per class.
Correct. So in practice. This the 25 per class is a PDE standard. So when we run all these reports, we run them consistent with PDE requirements.
When we when Anthony drills down in your visioning exercises, you're going to have some district comparisons to make because probably nobody wants to put 25 kindergarten parents in this classroom.
That's why I wanted to make sure that we were. That this would ultimately give numbers that we're realizing our standards and the way that Our classrooms are set up versus PDE being higher.
The next exercise will be developing an educational program. So we'll start with those number of classrooms.
Of them will work in what the district thresholds are for those grade band levels and then we'll just the total number of classrooms are per those grade band levels.
And then we'll just the total number of classrooms.
And this is just a side by side comparison of that of that same chart showing you actual class sizes rather than classrooms.
And then that slide repeats itself. For the classrooms and then through the different age bands.
And again, that's That's a really a lot of numbers to get to the point to simply say if you have one take away.
Enrollment is not the driving factor. We have districts that are shrinking. We have districts that are growing and you're on a pretty even keeled course over the next 5 to 10 years.
And unless some anomaly occurs. You have a solid base from which you can begin to plan the number of classrooms and.
Like as you indicated Anthony will then take it from what's the 20,000 PDE level all the way down to What is your dairy township?
Expectation and level.
Any questions that I could answer for you?
Okay.
So with that information, then we can develop a plan capacity. The next part of the programming phase is Developing an educational program.
So the educational program of spaces. Establishes how many general classrooms do you need, what are the different special education classes you need the need for the creatives whether it's art, music, where are the administrative spaces that you need.
So one of the things we want to do is sit down with the administration. And go through some visioning exercises where we're listening from them.
On where are some of the educational program deficiencies that you currently have with the existing building. So we had these workshops where we broke up into groups and we asked the question of if you looked at the 4 structures of a school.
The physical space, time. How you group students together and how you group your professionals together. What are things in your existing school that you would cut?
What would you keep and what would you create? So we take that information. And that's gonna help us when we develop this educational program and how it's gonna relate to.
The design of the school, what are the needs? Of the spaces that you're looking for. That is going to serve as a blueprint for us and some inspiration on how we design.
The school. So this was a lot of the comments that we received back from the administration on the physical space.
And then here's some of the comments regarding time. Here are the comments regarding how you group students together and how you're grouping professionals together.
There's a lot of redundancy in those 4 different topics that we discussed. And some of the big picture items that we found out.
Was that? The current architecture of your existing space. Did not lend itself. To help deliver the educational instruction of the flexibility that the teachers and the students like to have with their students and the breakout spaces.
There were a lot of concerns with taking students from one part of the building to the next because of the travel time and the interruption of instruction.
There's also a Excuse me. There's also, with having 2 separate facilities. There is a building organization, issue where spaces that should be adjacent to each other aren't and eventually it makes collaboration difficult with students and with the, with the faculty.
So I'm not going to go over all those comments, but through there for you to review.
And so the last part is the Granada building. So this was a feasibility study that we did in 2018.
Also notes that the administration has asked other Architecture firms and engineering firms to look at this facility as well.
From the feedback that we got from the administration. They felt that all those firms. Pretty much agreed on the limitations of this building.
So the purpose of the study when we did it was we were looking at some of the existing deficiencies and then developing some options.
Based on board direction on what this facility could be converted into. And then put cost. Estimates together for for each of those, each of those options.
So you'll see those options. They're about 7 options that were developed. None of them included.
Converting this in this building into. An elementary school. But we were asked by the administration just to kind of take a general overview look of this facility and and what would it take?
And so things to consider that the existing square footage of this building is approximately a hundred 35,000 square feet.
And the total of the primary center. And the elementary school is 226,000 square feet. Now, we already have discussed that.
There are some educational program deficiencies with special education or some of the flexible agile spaces. That the administration is looking for.
So that existing program would not even fit. In this current facility. So there are square footage. Needs.
That this building would require. However, this site is only 2 and a half acres. So it has limited room for expansion.
And as a starting point, the Department of Education recommends for any property for an elementary school. At a minimum to start off on a 10 acre site.
And then one acre. Per 100 students capacity. Not for the enrollment. So you're looking at a range of anywhere from 10 to 26 acres that you would need for an adequately sized site for an elementary school with your educational with your plan capacity so that existing footprint on this side of the building is 44% of the lot which doesn't allow for separate parent and bus drop
off. And the required parking. Or the required space. To meet that 200 2,000 225,000 square foot facility.
Plus it was also noted in the study there were certain areas of the building. I want to note that these were areas that are currently unoccupied.
That there was asbestos in it and we recommended that the district consider some surveys for other potential hazardous material, whether it be mold asbestos or lead paint.
And then this last slide, you can see. The dash yellow line is this parcel. That's the 2 and a half acres.
You can see it's very. Limited with where you could put additional parking bus drop off for the number of buses that you would need.
Queuing space for parents and the additional square footage that you would need for. To meet your educational program.
Could I ask a question? On the previous side when you were saying the Department of Education recommendation for Cite Agriculture is 10 to 26 acres.
Yes. Do you know how many? Districts actually meet those recommendations. A 10 to 26 acres is rather broad and thinking about any Obviously urban area but even in some neighborhood schools and other districts.
So that recommendation is based on if a if a district is purchasing. property and they're looking for reimbursement on that property.
Those were the guidelines. So if they want reimbursement. They have to meet those. Department of Education guidelines.
So my experience, most of the districts that I've worked with, maybe if it's on an existing site.
Understand that, the, but for new purchase, yes. Thanks. I was just curious.
This big difference.
So last thing I wanted to review is some of the next steps and some of the upcoming. Milestone dates that we have with our.
Planning process. Actually last week. We started engaging in discussions with the faculty and the students. We did a visual listening exercise.
The next update that I give, we'll talk a little bit more about that. But we want to bring faculty into these discussions.
We'll eventually have some more workshops with the faculty. In November. This next month, we're going to work with the administration to develop that start to develop the educational program and also discuss how we can engage in the community as well.
And with the feedback that we get from the faculty and some of those workshops, I'm gonna jump to December.
Where we're going to start to develop. Educational specifications and what this is doing is this is helping us design the building from the inside out.
So with discussions with the faculty. That we're going to start to understand what are some desired adjacencies, of the different classrooms.
And the sizes that are needed, some of the technology, things like that. We're going to develop this ad spec.
And that is going to be the foundation for how we come up with. A schematic design. So probably take us a couple of iterations or some potential options to review with the administration that We'll start presenting conceptual designs at the beginning of the year and then wrap up a schematic design and February.
So any questions? This is Lindsey Cook. I have a question about the community engagement. Can you just briefly expand on what exactly that will look like.
Are we still looking to bring in, like tour the elementary school to kind of show the need or is it more of visioning like what exactly is the community engagement part?
So yes, the one would be to have tours. Of the existing facilities for the community and then also provide a presentation as well.
Just to review the the project need with the community and some of the findings that we've had and where we're at to date.
And eventually you would most likely have to do an Act 34 hearing later on in the design. So this would that community engagement would almost be like a precursor.
From the early phases of design where would almost be like a precursor from the early phases of design or the early phases of design where the Act 34 hearing which is going to be required by public school code law would be.
Towards the end of design. Give the community a opportunity to provide their opinion and for the board and the administration to take some of those comments under advisement.
We have talked about maybe doing some type of visioning exercise similar to what we did with. The faculty and the students with the community.
Those details haven't been worked out yet, but those are some of the ideas that we've been discussing.
Okay, thank you. This is Erica Schmidt. I have a comment more I think when you're in bringing the community in I think It will be very important for them to understand the change in how we are educating the students, doing more of like.
You know, the the pods and you know because for many people whose children have, you know, left the school district, it's been, you know, 1020 years and it was desks in a row looking up at the board and you know that is Very different from how they're looking to educate now.
So I think that that could be an important, I don't know if You know, the administration wants to go into that as well too.
Okay.
We would agree with that and it's very evident from some of the comments that we received from the students on Friday.
Yes, they do learn differently than how we were taught. When we want to school.
Any other questions? Would you just, summarize for us again the Hey,ing with general services and the board with respect to the So your general service meetings are typically at the end of the month.
We will provide a presentation to that committee. Get their feedback on potentially any revisions to the presentation, any additional information that may be needed.
And then 2 weeks later. At your full board meeting. We would give you, we would give the full board an update that we previously gave the general services committee.
Okay. Is that? Yeah, that answers my question. Thank you very much.
Anthony, I did just wanna clarify. We don't have a general services committee in September, yes, but you will still be back in October.
Any other questions? Okay, thank you.
Moving on to it. Chend item 2 B, we have a presentation from Raymond James and PFM.
Okay, brief introduction so as you know we spend a lot of time in the business office worrying about the district finances and looking at the budget.
So we look at ways not only to save money but we also. Do really look at ways to generate revenues to and anything that we can do to help our budget and help the district financially.
So given the incredible market opportunity right now with rising interest rates, we're already really looking at that.
This is white and myself and in the business office taking our local tax rows the news which are really you know coming in this time of year and how can we best invest them that we've got investments that 5 and a quarter percent pretty much that and it really does help.
From a budgetary standpoint. So as you know, we've been working with Mr. Lieberdelli with Raymond James over the past year to just really start doing some long-term financial planning for identified.
Unidentified at this point district capital planning or capital needs rather. So we have an opportunity right now because of these interest rates, but we wanted to bring the financing team to explain this opportunity.
We started exploring it this summer prior to finance. We brought it to finance committee at the end of August and we're here now tonight to explain it to the full board in the community what this opportunity is.
And to talk about it. So I'll introduce the team. We've got Mr. Lubardelli with Raymond James.
Mr. Scott share with with PFM as our financial advisor mr. Scheer is also a Hershey grad as well as Mr. Bedelli and Rhonda Lord is new to the financing team I had worked with our solicitor who agreed that she'd be a great bond council addition to this team.
I worked with her at my predecessor district and, and she, the bond council is important to do all the legal filings with the state and everything that has to be pulled together from a legal standpoint.
So I will let them take it over.
And also Olivia at last from our firm is here with us.
That was a good introduction. I'm Mrs. Purcell. I think probably the biggest. Real point to make is typically when you see the financing team here, it's driven by a market opportunity.
We come to when interest rates were really low last few years because you could do a refinancing and save money.
And so this opportunity again is, really market driven. We've all heard about the Fed raising interest rates pretty aggressively for last year and a half.
Interest rates that. You see advertised when you drive by a bank right now, you can buy a bank CD for 15 months at 5 and a quarter percent.
We all have not seen that in 15 years. So that opportunity really applies to you. And so as we've been going through kind of this financial planning that I think we started with the board really at the almost the beginning of 2023 with some of the discussions to be thinking about when you have projects like you just heard about when you have projects like you just heard about on the horizon, like you just heard about on the horizon, we
are always preaching, you need to be thinking long term because of Act One, you need to be thinking about budget impact.
Of borrowing for a substantial project, you need to be thinking about phasing in your borrowings so they don't all hit one budget at once because you're limited by how much you can increase taxes each year by the Saul index.
So a lot of these things come together and when you have this interest rate dynamic that we have right now, which is so unique, which is we actually have short term interest rates up over 5% and longer term interest rates.
The ones that you really carry about when you borrow money are actually lower, more like 4%. Economic terms it's an inverted yield curve.
We don't know how long that's going to be around. But it's a real opportunity as you're investing tax revenues when they come in.
As you look at borrowing money for various capital projects. It's good sound financial planning and good sound financial decision making to try and take advantage when the market gives you an opportunity kind of where we are today.
So just to recap in this presentation, a couple of the things that we've already talked about, we've gone through this with you, but I do think again, since you just heard the presentation from your architects.
Just how important some of these points are for all of you to be thinking about as you look at a significant project as well as the current capital needs that the district has.
And so just the current situation when we think about, you know, where's Derry Township School District right now?
Well, we're in a great position. We're one of only about 10 school districts out of 500 in the state that have a triple A rating.
Spy standard and poor's it was reaffirmed just back in December. And that trip away rating is really based on the fact that over the years the district has made really strong and smart financial decisions about how we've managed money.
When we've borrowed for projects. And about what we've done to kind of manage the district and interact with our.
Our very robust tax base that we're very fortunate to have. So that's an important thing to keep in mind.
Existing debt right now. The district has about 17.5 million dollars of existing debt from previous year's borrowings for some of the buildings that we have.
Which really is relatively low. It's paid off in about 5 years. The district has not borrowed a lot of money you'll see on the one chart i think the last borrowing we did was in 2,019 and it was less than 3 million dollars to fix, I think, to do some roof work at a couple of the different buildings.
Your state formula. When we plug that in right now you're borrowing capacity that you have remaining borrowing capacity is about 131 million.
Under the state driven borrowing limits. Third bullet point financing projects in the Act One era. This is something because it's gonna come up here on the next page.
I'd wanted to just repeat. We've talked about. When there's projects on the horizon, the importance of planning and budgeting in advance for those things, you took that advice when you adopted this current year's budget and you increased your align item there.
For future borrowings. That gives you a lot of flexibility. It's good planning and good preparation for these future projects.
Basic rules. This is something that Mrs. Lord as your bond counsel, she'll be happy to hear that we've been reiterating this which is you can only ever borrow money when you have reasonable expectations that you're going to spend 85% of it over the course of the next 3 years.
So as long as there's potential capital projects. You can certify that you have reasonable expectations to borrow money to address them.
In the timeline any time that you do authorize the team, it always takes us about 60 days to pull everything together, give the districts credit rating updated, go to the market, lock in an interest rate and then deliver the funds at a closing.
So that that timeline is important to keep in mind as we're here in early September. And some of the tax rules go by calendar year.
So really to focus in on this specific opportunity that we think is important for you to consider here in calendar year, 2,023.
The discussion that we've had with your administration is the recommendation to borrow up to 15 million dollars in this calendar year and that's really driven by the fact that you do have various capital needs to address.
There, several of the buildings in the district. So there is a need to borrow for those.
And by keeping it at 15 million or less, you qualify for something that's called the small issue or exemption.
And in that yellow box, we have the description that this is something that was carved out in the tax code just for school districts only.
That if you wish you no more than 15 million dollars in a calendar year, important calendar year, not your fiscal year.
Any of the funds that you take and invest during that 3 year what's called a temporary period any interest you generate you can keep a hundred percent of it.
And in this interest rate environment where we can invest at 5% or maybe 5 and a quarter. That's really important because you can generate a significant amount of interest that we don't have to borrow.
It has to be paid back. If we were having this discussion 2 years ago, we would borrow that money, invested at 0 in any, there would virtually be no interest earnings so you would have to borrow more money to address the projects that you have.
Right now, we just, you'll see a calculation here in a second, but taking this amount of money, investing it at 5%, you're going to generate about $62,000 every single month that it's invested.
So very significant interest earnings opportunity and you'll see we have a sample draw schedule here that just over a two-year period if you spend all the phones over 2 years, you could potentially generate about 1.2 million dollars.
For projects that doesn't have to be borrowed. And again, 2 years ago, that answer would be 0 instead of 1.2 million dollars.
So really significant difference. So what's the impact? The question came up when we were here a couple of weeks ago.
What's the impact of borrowing 15 million dollars right now? Of course you would have a debt service payment that would kick in in the fall in the spring.
And so it's about $312,000 would be in the spring of this 2324 budget.
And then as it gets up to its full payment next year, the total debt service payment would be about $750,000 in next year's budget.
2425. As I mentioned earlier, you were doing some forward financial planning and in this current budget.
Included a line item for $750,000 towards future. Future borrowings.
So really that potential debt service if you follow through on this is really already in place in the budget that you have right now.
The second to last bullet point just goes back to what I mentioned earlier of just the importance of phasing in borrowings, trying to spread them out.
In this Act One world that we all live in now for school districts and especially when construction costs are as high as they are.
By staggering the borrowings. Doing one, maybe it's every other year. Maybe it is every year depending on your project timeline.
We can at least spread this impact out on the budgets that you don't have to try to figure out.
If we go and borrowed all of this money at once. How would you handle all of that new debt service hitting a future budget all at once?
It's really Almost impossible to manage when you think about all the other parts of your budget that usually increase each year like salaries and health care.
Death service is just one item. To be thinking about. And then the last bullet, which is just that any.
If we decided to do this, any future borrowings, of course, would be just driven by what are the projects?
What's the timeline of those projects? And of course, you would have those decisions to make as to whether or not.
We were ready to borrow money again for anything else. On this next page. Oh, I'm sorry, sir.
I'm not following along. Oh, you got it? Okay, nope. On the next page, as I mentioned, we put together a sample draw schedule.
Some of you might remember we had shown that one sample of just a various project from another district of how money gets paid out on on these types of projects.
So that's all this is to show you that if you borrowed 15 million and we put it into a construction fund and we invested it at 5%.
So Column 3 shows you what the monthly interest earnings would be. And there's that 62,500 that I mentioned.
And you can see how that would grow. Of course, as money is compounding. Until you would start spending it and we just put in some sample draws there in column 4 that if in January of 2025 you started spending it down a little over a million dollars a month on your projects you would eventually spend a little over a million dollars a month on your projects, you would eventually spend that 15 million dollars down.
And so over the 2 year period, when you look at the bottom of column 3, There's that 1.2 million dollars of interest.
That could be generated over a 2 year time frame.
Switch gears just a little bit to talk about the the market opportunity you heard being mentioned long term rates you can probably borrow money right now at about 4% on a long-term basis.
And that's really driven by this chart. On page 5.
This shows interest rates for the last 20 years or so. And we're on the far right side where the red line is right now.
Course a couple years ago during the pandemic you can see those were the lowest rates we had ever seen in Record keeping history for interest rates.
And then rates really kind of spiked up last year when the Fed started their aggressive campaign to raise rates.
And then kind of early in 2023 rates came down and just here in the last month or 2 they've slowly been moving back up a little bit but from a long term perspective when you look at that chart it's still a pretty good time to be thinking about borrowing money and we think this chart which has 30 years worth of data even shows that better.
The blue line on this chart. Shows the average interest rates. On bonds from one to 30 years. Over the last 30 years and you can see the red line which is where interest rates are today we're still below those 30 year averages.
So it's still a pretty good time to be thinking about borrowing.
Oops.
There we go. So you heard me mention kind of in the intro the district's existing debt and that we've we've really structured it and been very careful over the last 20 years of managing your debt to keep it as short as possible.
And this chart, which shows the remaining payments on the district's outstanding debt. If we look over on the far right column where we add up the payments on the different borrowings.
Your annual debt service is about 4 million dollars per year. It's about where it's been the last few years.
And we have 3 more years after this current budget at 4 million and then it drops to 2 million and then basically the district is out of debt.
Those smaller payments are left of our debt that really belongs to the Votex school. It's not direct that of yours.
So the debt that you have on your existing facilities really goes away in 5 years. So the district is really well positioned for any future.
Borrowings for future projects that we may have. And again, this is a good place to point out when we look at the purposes at the bottom of the 2,019 borrowings.
That was the last time the district borrowed any new money to address any capital needs of all of our facilities.
And as I said, it was just under 3 million dollars that was borrowed. All the other borrowings in the past were to take advantage of refinancing opportunities because interest rates were so low.
So when we look across a pretty long time horizon they're going back to 2,015.
No, no new borrowing by the district with the exception of what was borrowed in 2019.
On this next page just to show you if we were to borrow the 15 million how we would structure it.
To basically mesh with the district's existing debt. The first column on the left, column 2.
Shows that same existing debt service. There's the 4 million and you can see how it tapers off.
So column 3 shows the new payments the way we would structure them to wrap around that existing debt. You've heard us use that term that helps keep the budget impact down.
And so when you drop those new payments in, add them to your existing debt, you end up with column 4.
And that would be the district's new annual debt. Service. And the way we have this structured right now is to go out about 20 years.
With the new debt. Given that the projects useful life of these types of projects would would be at least 20 years and that would help to basically set a level debt service schedule.
That future borrowings could then fit into.
The next page is just what the, when we break it down into the semi annual payments, what that debt service schedule would look like.
And that's feeding the schedule that we, we're just looking at. And then this next page has a breakdown of the sources and uses.
If you borrow the 15 million, how much money would be available in your construction fund after we pay the cost of issuance and that would be the money that would then get invested and would be available.
Start generating interest. And I will wrap up with the potential timeline. If you wanted to do this, we really need to work back from when closing is because the IRS rules go by when does the issue close not when we actually sell sell bonds it's when does the transaction close and as i mentioned these rules go by calendar year here in 2023 obviously the district has not borrowed any money so we have a clean
slate. If you were thinking about doing this, the good decision would be to get it done in 2,023, which leaves you then a clean slate for 2,024.
It's kind of just like don't contributing to your 401 K you never want to miss a year when you could have gotten that contribution in.
So good planning would be if we were going to do this, we should get it closed in 2,023 since we have not done anything else this year.
So working backwards from December, we're going to close in December. That means in November when we would be locking in interest rates because the state needs to approve all of these documents, that's what your bond council is for.
So that's really what happens between November and December. We were backing up and targeting that the board would actually vote on a parameters resolution.
That's actually when you're voting to incur the dead on October the tenth.
So for that to happen and for us to have the documents ready for your consideration, that would basically mean on September the 20 fifth, you would just need to authorize all of us to kind of get to work on this and start working with the business office on on the credit rating.
So here tonight on September eleventh, we're just reviewing this with you. We're not asking for a decision tonight.
Obviously we were here last on October the 20 eighth to introduce this. Idea and this opportunity. But this basically lays out a timeline that you could follow in order to have this transaction close by December to have those funds available to you.
And to get them invested into a construction fund. So I will stop there and see if there's any questions before I know Scott wants to make a few points.
This is Kathy Sicker. So every time we go to bond, we have to.
Get re-rated, right? So our last rating was in December, A. So we would have to get rerated for this one.
And I do recall the last time that. There were some comments about us ensuring that we boosted and made sure our savings account is healthy.
So we had pulled some money out of it. So I know we have a plan to replenish that, but Are we jeopardizing any future borrowing?
Bye, pulling 15 million out now and then we need another perhaps 85 million in a few years for an elementary and we go for another rating.
Do we, does it still look good for us to stay triple A rated? For future bonds if we do this one now.
So I think kind of your question is as you're incurring more debt obviously the rating agencies look at your they look at debt ratio there's a couple different calculations in the rating report that they do.
As long as the typically when there's a big financing plan as long as we've been planning for it talking to the rating agency about it doing things like building that service into the budget.
That type of planning. Usually does not result in a rating downgrade. Now if there's other things going on where you've drawn the fund balance down.
To, you know, it's rapidly declining. You're talking about borrowing large amounts of money.
And you haven't raised taxes to try and keep up, those are a bad scenario that typically would lead to a credit rating downgrade.
But your recent history has not been doing any of those things. So I think we would tell them on the rating call if we were doing this in a month.
We would say we're borrowing 15 million for current capital projects. We have an architect engaged for some future projects.
That may cost X, we don't know yet, and I would not anticipate to downgrade and.
Probably unless we went out and. In that next borrowing say in 2024 borrowed a really large amount of money, I think that would be the only thing that would jeopardize the rating, I think that would be the only thing that would jeopardize the rating.
But typically what they will do the only thing that would jeopardize the rating but typically what they will do is you usually get a warning first, they put the rating on based basically a negative watch that they might lower it the next time.
So there's usually a warning before that happens, but I think given that district track record of kind of strong financial management and the plan to borrow, I would not anticipate a downgrade.
Okay. And I think this is a smart idea because obviously we're borrowing money around 4%, but we're reinvesting it and making 5%.
So it's it's a positive return but when I just roughly do the numbers that we could potentially make 1.2 to 1.5 million on the 5%.
We are paying out a million dollars. To repay the note. So in the end. We make maybe 300,000 is that a fair calculation like we don't actually make 1.2 because we have to pay back.
The note but we know we're borrowing in the future anyway we're just doing it a little earlier right right and that's really what you have to think about if you if you have capital projects that you have to address.
You're going to have to borrow and you're going to have to start paying back that borrowing.
So the debt service side is going to happen. Right. Really the advantage here is 2 years ago, you wouldn't generate any interest earnings.
That answer would be 0. And now you can generate an extra 1.2 million that we don't have to borrow somewhere down the road.
Because of the interest earnings and what the market gives us. So that's really the way to think about it is.
That 1.2 is really interest earnings that otherwise would not be there and we would have to borrow that money.
Okay. And we are looking to borrow for the elementary school project. Is this going to be a reoccurring theme that this would be a recommendation then for 202-42-0250n along the way to.
When we get our final number. So that's really gonna depend on your project timeline. You know, when, when will those draw start?
When does ground get broken? When does steel start being delivered when those big expenses start hitting? So depending on what that future draw schedule looks like.
You know, maybe you could do another 15 in 2024. But again, depending on the total cost of the project.
15 per year might not be enough. To keep up with as the draws really kick in as large projects start.
So. Breaking it up, you might recall some of those initial plans we had shown you several months ago.
We were kind of saying, well, you can borrow some in 2024 and some in 2,025.
You can still and it will make sense to break those up for phasing in the budget impact. But that's all gonna really be driven by what's your timeline on the project and how much do you need.
Okay. So this might be the this might be the only opportunity to take advantage of this small issue or exception here in 2,023.
That just depends on your project of this small issue or exception here in 2023. That just depends on your project.
To seeing the project come to final numbers. So maybe, 15 and 2024 would work, but then there would have to be something larger in 2025.
Okay. Thank you. And this just goes by calendar year again resets every year.
I have a question. Lou, so is the the smaller show exemption is the limit 15 million?
Correct.
Thank you. Yeah, and that again, that's just for schools like for the township, it's 5.
Lou, this is Lindsey Drew. When we had a presentation back at the beginning of the year and we were looking at what would the potential financing look like.
We were starting to have budget conversations about millage increase needs and one of the things we had discussed was structuring out the borrowing in 2,025 with examples of being able to restructure some of our current debt and that we could take on a up to 51 million dollars of additional debt without having millage impact the way the debt service payments would be structured, which would allow for the timing of the building capacity.
Through millage increases in the budget.
Is that no longer really as a scenario given this opportunity and the interest earning opportunity that we would be looking to do.
So can you explain kind of the 2 different ideas that from where we had talked about to where we are now and then on the other side of it if we were to do this with these with this bond be callable for a restructure once we got to the larger chunks of financing to try to balance out.
Sure. So, back when we first started these discussions and in that recollection of those restructuring interest rates on that chart were lower than they were today.
So that restructuring, we kept running it up until several months ago and it really was just getting more and more expensive to try and do that.
Because rates especially short term rates we were only extending the debt a little bit but that's where the rates are highest right now on the yokeur.
So it started getting expensive. I had the conversation. And we just decided it really doesn't make the most sense to pursue that in this rate environment.
So that's the main reason that now you could probably if you were only talking about a smaller borrowing, we could still probably figure that out a little bit.
But with the discussion that there's other things coming, probably that restructuring of trying to stay at like a 4 million dollar number really isn't realistic with what we're talking about on the horizon.
Right, because I think initially we looked at that we would need to eventually go up to that. Above 6 million dollar range but kind of that step process was going to be if we were looking at a hundred 1 million dollars total that that first 51 million could be structured in a way that was not going to have the debt service millage increase demand the same.
But what you're saying, you know, makes sense. I think I just want to make sure that as we have these conversations.
That where we've been, we talk about why it no longer works so that we can kind of follow along.
And just on the second part of the question, so the 15 million dollars when we would be going into larger financing with the call deeds for that bond. Yeah.
The issues we actually just did a transaction almost identical to this for colonial school district who's also triple A rated and we sold those bonds with a call date that was 7 years.
So that's really the pushing it typically on this size issue. It would be 8 to 10 years.
So we shorten that up the issues that are 10 million and less, you recall, or 5 years.
So it would absolutely have have a call date and it's probably 7 years. Okay. And then my only other question is from the fee perspective as we start looking at this, why I understand the 15 million per year till we really get our arms around what a total project cost is going to be and what the borrowing needs are on that.
Where does, where do we start looking at, you know, those like in this presentation, there's, you know, fees of a couple $100,000 for, 15 million dollar bond.
If we were to do it in smaller increments for the, you know, interest rate purpose does it end up somewhat defeating the purpose.
From a fee perspective versus doing a couple of larger bonds. Right, right. So, some of the fees that are duplicate or things like that rating fee that every time we borrow, you pay that rating fee over and over.
So a much smaller portion are kind of the duplicate for how many you do and certainly we would be mindful of that.
A smaller portion are kind of the duplicate for how many you do. And certainly we would be mindful of that.
I think given the Estimates of what you're talking about, we're probably not going to have a lot of small borrowings that would have duplicate fees of like the rating fees.
So I would think we're probably into just a few borrowings that will limit those kind of duplicate.
Cost of insurance happening. Thanks. Cause my hesitancy would be, you know, if. If it was going to be 2025 until we really needed the big amount and we've now taken 15 million dollars to take advantage of the interest earnings.
You're pulling some of that out ultimately because there's fee impact there and and that's going to reduce really what the net earnings in opportunity provides.
Yeah, some impact, you know, we always weigh that like on the 10 million dollar issues. Sometimes there's an interest rate differential of keeping your, issue under 10 million of a quarter of a percent.
And that's, that's literally, you know, over the life of that borrowing, it might be 8 or $900,000 versus the duplicate cost of issuance of maybe 45,000 and it becomes kind of a no-brainer.
And you still want to take advantage of that. Scott, do you want to? Try, man. Good evening.
Again, Scotch here. I'll be real brief. So all great questions and agreed with everything that Mr. Videlli had said.
Obviously, the finance team has been spending a lot of time together working through this, talking with the administration.
This in our eyes is a very prudent plan. We have as Mr. Deli mentioned quite a few mutual school industry clients and other clients that are considering and implementing the same exact plan such as highly rated districts like the Colonials like the Hand Fields and a handful of others that we're currently doing.
So again, from our perspective, from the rationale and from the prudency standpoint, very much makes a lot of sense.
You know, you heard earlier today to see about the potential future projects and the reasonable expectations and the overall need.
So that's one thing that we all look at very closely, especially your bond council to make sure you do have the kind of the legal ability to do it and you do have that reasonable expectation to spend the money.
So we look very closely again at that. Seems to be not an issue at all. So again, overall, kind of based on all the different parameters that we've been analyzing and the question that you've been asking this evening, we again, think it's a very sound and prudent plan to move forward.
And I would just finish that last page that we have, page 12 of the handout, a sample motion.
If you're inclined in 2 weeks at your next meeting to authorize the team, this is a sample like we've provided to you many times before it would just be a motion authorizing the team to prepare the documents and come back to your board meeting for your final.
So this really would just be the next step is just telling the telling us to get started, take care of those things so that we can bring back to you for your final consideration, a parameters resolution.
Mr. Vidali, just because it's been so long since we've done something like this.
Could you introduce the members of the team and their role for the community sure make sure that everybody knows who is who and what they do and why they have multiple members of the team.
Really, when we think of the financing team, there's kind of these, firms that are all named here.
So if I just start with our firm as an underwriting firm, when you sell bonds to the market, you need someone to really.
Get those bonds in the hands of investors. That's our job to do that as well as to help structure the transaction and give feedback.
So you need an underwriter as you're linked to the market. You need a financial advisor like Scott's firm at PFM and the role that they play in terms of helping with the credit rating and pulling the documents together and looking at all of this and telling you that this all makes sense and it's a it's a fair transaction and in that role.
Rhonda's firm serving as bond council. These documents you're issuing tax exempt bonds so that the investor that buys them and the interest you pay them they don't have to pay taxes on that so the tax codes this thick on what makes these legal for you to issue them so she's checking to make sure that all the procedures were following fit within the tax code and then our state has an approval process.
So filing that paperwork with the state so that it can be approved and that she really works hand in hand with your solicitor.
Who also has to review the things that we say in the offering statement about the district. That none of our taxpayers are appealing.
Any major assessments, things like that, that we should be disclosing to investors and that we're following all proper procedures.
So really when we think of the financing team, it's really an underwriter, financial advisor, bond counsel, your solicitor working in conjunction with the business office.
Thank you. So much. Thank you. Any other questions from?
Anyone? I have a question back to Cathy's question about the borrowing rate and the payback and then the fees like at the end of the day what what are we going to realize?
What what are we gaining? Like the bottom line number at the end of the day. In terms of just.
How much money you're gonna have available for your construction projects. Is that the? No, because they were talking about borrowing at a, like we're buying them.
Like we have to pay them back. Right. So we're paying that back at an interest rate that's lower than the interest rate that we're okay.
But what is that actual number? Like what's the bottom line of the what we're actually gaining?
Yeah. So good question. I think I see where you're going. So just in terms of interest rates, if we think about that, we think we're going to borrow it around 4.
We can probably invest these funds once we get them at 5 to 5 and a quarter. It's that 5 to 5 and a quarter that if we take 15 or 16 million dollars depending on what it all nets out of premiums and things.
That's where we feel very confident. You're gonna generate 1.2 million dollars of interest earnings.
And that really is the key that you don't have to borrow. To address your projects and it's generating that 1.2 million.
Of interest that we view is the real benefit. Okay, I think we're gonna have a extra so we can really grasp it because I get what you're saying but I think I need to see it like I think I made you see it watch you write it out and say this is like, I think I need to see what you write it out and say this is.
I think one for the net of what we would the interest paid on the loan minus the interest received. So really what's the net difference?
Which would be that one to one and a quarter percent. Right, right, right. I mean, the tough part is any time you borrow money, you're gonna have to pay that back.
So you're going to have that debt service to pay back. Because you have projects to address. I mean, we're not doing this just as a arbitrage play just to make money and say well we have no projects we're just gonna try and you know, that the spread here and see what we can generate.
So. It's that differential that's truly a benefit. We call that positive arbitrage because you used to be borrowing at 3 and investing at 0.
So you had 300 basis points of negative arbitrage. Right now we have about 125 basis points of positive arbitrage.
Working in your favor. Money that you're generating over and above the cost of your funds.
Is one way to think about it just in terms of, you know, what's your rate, what rate are you gonna borrow it?
What rate are you going to invest it? And our sample just if it helps you. Since you mentioned seeing it, I think that draw schedule.
Page 4. When you look at taking the money and investing it and you see column 3 every month.
What that generates at 5%. You can see that's run the interest earnings says 5% underneath it.
Shows you the magnitude of having that money invested for you
Hello, this is Erica Schmidt. I think you're what We keep going back to we discussed this, the, you know.
A week 2 weeks ago is And this is maybe where I keep getting hung up is yes, we make this, you know, 1.2 million, which is amazing.
But then starting next year, we have to. Increase our debt from 4 million a year up to Another, what is that?
4.7. 4.7. So if you come up with another $700,000 a year.
Right. So it just it just feels like we're at the end of the day. We're not going to be making that much money.
It's kind of gonna feel like a wash. I don't know that's why I keep Yeah, I think that just goes back to if you have to borrow money for these projects, you're gonna have an a new payment that we don't have today.
It's like buying a new car, right? We have this new payment. We have to figure out how we're gonna pay for it.
And that's kind of where the budget planning comes in that you've been planning for it. And that's where I think you can.
Forget about the 1.2. I mean, say it was 2 years. Back in time and you had an immediate need that you had to be borrowing 15 million dollars, we would be borrowing it.
You'd be figuring out how to pay that 700,000 and you know what you'd have 0 interest earnings.
You'd kind of get no extra benefit of doing it. You'd kind of get no extra benefit of doing it.
I also, this is Lindsay, I think one of the things we missed in our finance conversation about this is Lindsey, I think one of the things we missed in our finance conversation about this when we were talking about the debt service.
Was that we were looking at it from the budget perspective of this year and what was in the ability to service that for this year.
I think where I know I can even say I didn't connect the dots in that initial conversation is that with the millage increase that happened for the 2324 budget that generated about $750,000 in additional revenue for future debt service.
It's put in a line item for the capital fund to be able to kind of put that money away to build the capacity down the road.
So really This would be taking that and moving it into the debt service item. As a transfer to cover that additional debt.
And it's not going to be building the same capacity because we're increasing the debt earlier than what we initially thought.
Is that a correct? It's and that's a good way to put it and really it's just a it's just a timing issue it's instead of paying for picking it up we were starting in 2024 we were starting in 2024 we're just starting in 2,024 we were starting in 2024 we're just starting actually $300,000 early which yes we do have
an extra $700,000 early which yes we do have an extra $750,000 and we have an extra $750,000 and we have earmarked it transfer to capital funds but it all was for the purpose, $750,000 and we had earmarked it transfer to capital funds, but it all was for the purpose, the explicit purpose of future debt service.
So it's. Either out cap phones or out of, you know, a debt service. It's still, it still is for the same purpose of repaying debt.
So. In my mind, it's just taking it on. It doesn't change that 15 million dollar debt that we will have to pay back.
It's just a timing. But we originally talked about the. You know, the, the 1.9 9.
Thank you for the next 4 years to cover it and then it would then we could stop but with this Does this mean we're not going to have to stop?
What what what that planning was was just each year we'd look at and see okay now what do we have to do for the next Now 3 more years, you know, for those initials.
So once you get that tax base built up, then you're going to keep generating more revenue that you can back off of that debt schedule.
And that's how when we when we look at the long-term planning and we know better the, when we need those bigger borrowings, how to lay that in, what kind of, what does that look like?
But those early on tax increases and specifically to set them aside. For this is building up that capacity. So each year we can generate that 750,000 to keep paying for the debt.
And it compounds so that currently in year one at 750,000 in year 2 with the additional increase on the new millage that it would be you know say One and a half because it's building, you know, on top of it.
So if initially we weren't looking at borrowing and having the 6 million dollar debt service until 2,025 by the time we got to 2,025 we would have that extra 2 million dollars in revenue off those millage increases.
We would have had a bulk. Cash amount that would kind of go off the top there. So it's like we're starting early and using what we've already saved.
For a couple of years and then going. So you don't foresee this. Potentially affecting the 1.9 that we had talked about.
Over 4 years. That it wouldn't change that. It wouldn't change that. Still the plan.
Okay. That's just getting to get to a larger borrowing capacity. And typically we recommend that.
Even if the borrowing amounts were different and didn't really coincide with what the debt service schedule said to try and manage that it's a manageable increase.
That's how we came up with that 1.9 was kind of taking the total dividing it by 4 years and saying if you do this incremental.
Dividing it by 4 years and saying if you do this incremental amount by 4 years and saying if you do this incremental amount each year, it keeps it more manageable than if we wait and do one large borrowing and now we have to figure out how do we increase go from 4 million a year to 6.5 million all at once.
We have a big increase and if the soul is not high. That means we have a problem.
I have a quick question. This is Donna Crownen. Is, I think I have this right.
Is it, but is this, going to be serviced over a 19 year payment repayment plan?
Yeah I think we have it going out to 2043. Right okay let's make sure I had that right.
Yep.
Okay, unless there's any further questions, remember we are going to have a, hopefully have a workshop or more learning opportunities for.
Board members between now and us having to make a decision. On this matter. So it clearly is a, you know, it's a Complex, complicated.
Topic and I think we've learned a lot and there's probably a few more things we we might be able to learn as we progress.
Anything more? Was personnel or Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you to Raymond James and, PFM and to our bond council for being here.
We greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Moving on to.
Item 2 C. We're going to have a mental health screener presentation by.
Dr. Reif Steiner? Actually, the presenters will be, Lisa Seep and Miller and Lindsay Schmidt.
Okay, thank you very much. Alright, good evening. So, wanted to start off with, Just a little information.
Hashtag be the 1 2. Is the 9 8 8 suicide and crisis lifelines message for national suicide prevention.
This month as well as for this year. The hashtag be the 1 2 references be the one to ask be the one to be there to keep them safe, to help them stay connected.
To follow up and to learn more. This message is an effort. To change the connection from suicide to suicide prevention.
And the actions they can promote healing, health. And to give hope. Thought this was a perfect segue into our topic of mental health screening.
So looking at how we can move forward. To provide that information. Thank you.
So the current statistics that are listed there, are national statistics. So looking at the 40% increase in feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness as well as suicidal thoughts, behaviors over the past 10 years.
A lot of the statistics are trying to tease out those numbers. Before, after and during pandemic. So keeping that in mind.
20 point 1% age 12 to 17 had at least one major depressive episode. 29.2, major depressive episode among adolescent females, 11.5 among adolescent males and 27.2 was the prevalence reporting 2 or more races, which is the highest rate.
What is mental health screening? It's a to facilitate, as it says, that early identification, intervention for youth with that could have those emerging mental health needs and it is that universal type mental health screening.
Uses a systemic tool. That is, looking at the strengths and needs of the students.
It's conducted for all students. So if we're choosing a grade within a building providing the screening for all of those students, not just students that may be at risk for mental health concerns.
Please remember that this is a snapshot in time. So it is taking a look at all of those students.
At that moment that may be or may be reporting as experiencing difficulties whether you know they have been undetected in the past or maybe currently undetected.
So as they're answering those questions, it's providing that information.
Why is it important? So approximately 50% of lifetime mental health conditions begin by age 1475% begin by age 20.
Please keep in mind that there are diagnoses that are not diagnosed. Until you're an adult or in adulthood as well as keeping in mind that those things that have been diagnosed and any of those mental health conditions or disorders.
Could show up in adolescence in childhood and they may not. Continue on into adulthood.
So important to just give you that disclaimer. With that particular piece of information. The same time the average delay between when symptoms first appear in intervention is approximately 11 years.
So the mental health screenings provide for that early identification as we said. US Preventative Services Task Force.
Evaluate evidence, prevented health services. They do now recommend regular anxiety screenings for youth ages 8 to 18 and regular depression screenings.
Oftentimes physicians are, and I would say a good number of physicians are providing that.
Mental health or depression type screening for children adolescents and adults when you're going in to see them.
School-based screening efforts can help schools to proactively identify students. So allowing that. Especially for those that may be internalizing those symptoms.
Screening also provides a means to gather data. So we can look at those social emotional behavioral health supports that we can put into place and include that on the prevention based side of things that we do.
So the mental health screening in schools does complement mission. The mission of schools, prevention based and early identification as I shared, initiates the conversation and connection with those that are in need.
The way it is set up, there is that connection with every student. Provides a means to link students and families with effective services and contribute to a positive educational outcomes.
When we're looking at some of those barriers to learning and we're looking at some of those barriers to learning and our school and life success.
Screening is universal, least individualized interventions, but again as I shared it can also provide for those prevention based activities.
And programming and the symptoms of depression anxiety have continued to increase with adolescence. Especially since the pandemic.
So providing this the primary goal of screening to be identifying and supporting. Students with those needs continues to be a major effort.
Previous screening. We partnered with Dr. Deepas Hekhar through Penn State Health Milton as Hershey Medical Center in the past provided the screening for students within our high school.
It identified some students with concerns. We were able to connect them in with resources and assist both those students and their families.
The research project was part of a grant that was funded through the health resources and services administration to conduct that universal mood screening as they refer to it with our students.
This was prior to the pandemic. So as time is continuing on, I know Dr. Sekar is looking at reinitating those funds, connecting back in with the grant funding back in with the grant funding.
But in the interim, this project, but in the interim, this project truly initiated an important process for us with mental health screening and important process for us with mental health screening and important process for us with mental health screening and important process for us with mental health screening, for us with mental health screening in within our district provided that opportunity with us.
And with her team would look forward to doing that again in the future but in the interim provides us with the opportunity to continue that effort.
Essentially on our own through our own means. So I will switch it over to Lindsey Shan. Thank you.
And good evening. So I am here to talk about what this actually would look like at Hershey High School.
So as Lisa Miller mentioned, we would focus on a grade level and the grade level that we have chosen would be tenth grade.
Each student's participation is completely voluntary and the parent or the student may choose to opt out of the screening, there would be an opt-out form sent home to each tenth grader and we would just ask that that would be returned prior to the administration of the actual screening itself.
The screening will be completely private. Students will complete this on an iPad in the library. Which would be closed to other students.
So providing students with an opportunity to feel safe. And in an environment that they can be honest and then we would be using a standard set of questions that come from the patient health questionnaire and the general anxiety disorder screener and it can be completed in a approximately 5 to 10 min.
Oh, I did not want to do that. There we go. So what would happen if a student has an elevated score from the screener?
So those students would, so I actually want to talk about the whole process and I'm deviating a little bit.
Students are gonna take this screener. All students go and check in with an adult. So every student follows the exact same process they check in with an adult based on what that screener for that student says, students will be sent different places.
Some students will be going into our counseling office where students with elevated scores will be referred to an immediate connection with one of our counselors or a school psychologist and then potentially refer to our student assistance program or our hip team or parents will be contacted immediately.
That's going to depend completely on the outcome of that screening. In addition to that, our standard process for hip, which is something that happens at all of our schools K to 12 is to address student behavior and mental health concerns.
So this is already a piece of this team's work. We would just be getting some potential new students on our hip case loads from this screening process.
Students with any suicidal feelings as I have potentially already mentioned will receive that immediate referral to emergency care, which also includes contacting home with that screening score and parents are notified.
Data will be collected and it will not include anything that could identify any individual student and as we mentioned on here any use of that data or the results will not identify any students by name that would just be for the district to be able to report numbers back.
And with that, we just wanted to say thank you and answer. Any comments or questions? This is Kathy Sicker.
Haven't we already done this for many years?
I'll let you I was not here when. Yeah, I thought we've done this. We did.
And that was the piece there where we did partner with Dr. Deepasakar. So we did provide this up through the the pandemic.
So, post pandemic, we have not.
This is Eric Schmidt. 2 questions. Why do we pick tenth grade?
Wouldn't it be better to do? Maybe something like this, you know, elementary one grade elementary, one grade for middle and then one from high school.
Tense sometimes can be a little late. So what we're looking at is for the first time that we're administering this is to essentially mirror what Dr.
Sekhar had set up for us. So the way that was administered was in 2 grades actually within the high school.
We administer to ninth and eleventh grades. So as we continue to move through. So looking in the future, there are opportunities of things that we can do.
This is going to be the first time that we're we are administering. So we are essentially as I said, mirroring what what we have done in the past and choosing one great.
Okay, and then there was. Depending on how high the score was, you had different levels of what you would recommend.
But it wasn't clear on. When you would contact the parents. So you'd only contact the parents at a certain.
Or just flat out contact the parents if anything's elevated. If anything is elevated, there is contact that happens with the parent.
If there is if meet that certain criteria of concern that makes it a little bit more urgent or emergent.
Then we are looking at additional supports that we're putting in place right away and having parents come in.
Okay, but they would be The parents would be contacted. There was going to be some sort of action taken. Absolutely.
And that is what we have done in the past. This is Lindsay Cook. I just wanted to make sure I understand the process.
So students would see their results. After the screening in front of them. And that's why they would then check in with an adult regardless of.
The screening results, they're actually answering the questions and the way it is set up is that we will be receiving the results but in order to provide for that privacy as well as go hand in hand with the support for every child.
It's going to allow us that opportunity for every child. To talk with an adult after they have taken the survey okay and since parents will be aware because they would see the opt out form will they also will there be any sort of communication that the score did not come back elevated like if they if a parent potentially has concerns or is it going to be an understanding that they'll be contacted only if it's elevated
so then you kind of know I'm just thinking that parents would want to know since they'll be aware of it, like where their child may fall.
Yeah, the contact will come if it's elevated. Okay, yeah. And that would be clear in the opt out form so that a parent would know when or when they would not expect communication.
And we can assure to detail that language to make sure it is very clear. And we can assure to detail that language to make sure it is very clear. And we can assure to detail that language to make sure it is very clear. Okay. Thank you.
This is Lindsey D How often would this screening be conducted on for a student? Is it just a one time?
And is it at certain points throughout the day during, you know, like a certain period that they would be going to the library to do that.
So we identified out of tenth grade we identified the social studies classes because we pulled kids out of English classes a lot because every student has English for 4 years.
So we tried to look at another subject area. Math and science are a little bit more complicated. So when that student, we would be working with the teachers, let them know the date that they would be bringing their classes down.
So we would work through the 3 teachers of tenth grade students in social studies and pull them during their class time.
So they be coming down with their class. And you mentioned about data collected will not identify a student. How's that connection made of?
Tying it back then I guess so you know like if a student is being screened and would have an elevated score like what's the separation there to be able to know that that was that particular student.
So as it's coming through, we can make the connection of, their particular score as we're seeing it.
So it's being monitored by someone in real time. Yes, for the output. Correct.
But the data itself has no connection to any student. Okay. Thanks. And final question is.
For the opt out, opportunity. Will a copy of the screening questions be kind of included in that to help parents make a decision on whether or not they're comfortable?
Yes. Okay, thanks.
Anybody else have any questions?
Yes. If not, thank you very much. Miller and Miss Smith. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay. Okay, we are up to Agenda item 2D president communications. I'd like to announce the board met in executive session prior to this meeting to discuss.
Matters of personnel.
And item 2, a recognition of citizens.
This is the first opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address the board on matters related to the agenda. Citizens wishing to speak if in person should complete and turn in a registration form to Dr.
Reif Schneider. Who was filling in for the board secretary this evening. Registration forms can be found on this.
On the sign in table adjacent to the board and adjacent to the boardroom entrance. When your name is announced, come to the microphone.
If online, you must have registered individually with your full name and address to be recognized. Raise your virtual hand for recognition.
Lunch recognition. Once recognized or unmuted, it is only necessary that You identify yourself by providing your full name.
This is a reminder that public comment is not a forum for personal attacks. Antagonistic behavior or harassment.
Please be advised that you are accountable for any legal ramifications and liability that result from statements that misrepresent the truth, defam individuals.
Or disclose personal information that is not a public concern. Provide other residents with an opportunity to speak each speaker during the public comment portion is limited to 5 min of speaking time once recognized.
And limited to one opportunity to address the board during each of the public comment periods. If necessary, the board may set a maximum time for the public comment portion of any meeting.
I'll ask poor treasurer, Mr. Rizzo, to please keep time. Dr.
Reichstag, are there any residents or taxpayers in the room who have registered to comment? At this time?
Why did you go ahead and.
Go ahead and comment and you can complete filling out that form when you're done in hand it to Mr. Reifsnyder, please, Dr.
Reichsner.
Dave Weaver. I was hoping that we would have an opportunity to ask questions of the architect and things tonight.
Will we, will the public have an opportunity at some point to do that? Prior to intensive design and
That kind of thing. Yes. Did you wanna answer? Oh sure, I think we're anticipating setting up a time in October for that.
Okay. That would be the first time and that would be it's still there are very beginning phases.
Okay. I did get the information. Thank you for that.
Am I? I think I was under the understanding from the Architects presentation that the main dryer one of the main drivers for the expansion project is not necessarily population increase.
But the parameters related to public education, is that correct or not public? Special education. Is that correct?
Special education is definitely a driver in the kind of design that we're going to be looking for.
I think it's important, it's not necessarily an expansion project. But that are 2 to 5 building is at end of life.
The building is 70 years old and We just can't continue to maintain it. The way that it is.
But a relatively small component of the education process is the driver for that. It's not a relatively small component.
It's a very large. Special education is not it is not small. No it is very large.
Percentage? At least 19%. If not more, but. This isn't a question answer, but I can I would be happy to meet with you individually and answer as many questions as you want.
Okay, maybe at some point. Second. Comment is.
So what the finance personnel did not do perhaps a very good job of explaining is yes you are going to be generating moneys, but you all to generate that money, you will have to pay money to generate.
So you are your net is going to be about $300,000. So he, just, there seems to be a little problem getting that.
Around and the third thing related to the last presentation maybe I misunderstood. But. If I had children in the school, I don't think that I would want them.
Directed to a psychologist. Or any other. A guy is counselor necessarily without.
Being notified first. After a. Survey was taken.
I think that's parents. Prerogative it seemed to me that if the survey registered a certain level they were going to be referred to a psychiatrist or guidance counselor.
And the parents would be notified. I think the parents should be involved. In the end fire process of that.
So if I'm if I'm mistaken on that I apologize. But That's all I have.
Thank you. Thank you. And if you could finish completing the forum, please and hand it in to Dr.
Reichst.
Anyone else in the room? Dr. Reynolds, that's registered to. Comment?
Mr. Rail, anyone online?
At this time there are no virtual hands raised. Okay, thank you. Moving on to agenda item 2 F, Miss Carpell, do you have a community correspondence report?
I do. For the month of August, the district received 51 community correspondence submissions.
Comments and questions from this month include 35 submissions regarding elementary school recess. 2 questions about. School teacher assignments and schedules.
7 requests for student information changes. Feedback on the 2,023, 2,026 special education plan.
Information about broken link on the website, our request for tech support, a question about the school grounds, a question about COVID information on the website and information about a local aquatics program.
And that's all I have. Okay, thank you very much. Agend item 2 G standing committee meeting reports the curriculum council and policy committees met today. Dr.
Crona, do you have a curriculum report? I do. It was a fairly concise meeting the main topic for the agenda was the curriculum goals which are outlined each year and there are 4 goals for this coming year.
The first one is for the district to implement the new PA science standards for K through 12 and like I said that is something that is coming down from the state and although it's science standards it also includes technology and the goal is for have to have that implemented by the 2 5 26 school year.
The second goal was to ensure compliance with Pennsylvania's Act 55, which which involves training our staff in the science of reading and the structured reading approach to classroom instruction.
So that's basically all teachers who are certified in a number of different, categories will be required to undergo this this training.
The third goal is to implement the recently approved math eureka program at the elementary school involving K through 5 students.
And that will, I believe that's, that's implemented ongoing. And I know I pulled this up to make sure that.
I had it here for the timeframe. Yes, it's ongoing and everyone will, everyone will be engaged in that.
In that program moving forward. And that's replacing, I just lost the name of it.
Every day, math. Hello. All my kids went through that. It's replacing the everyday math program.
How quickly we forget. And then the fourth goal was something I'm very excited about and that's the.
That's to explore systemic elements that may limit student access to advanced learning opportunities. So what that will do, it'll be a systemic approach looking at what our schools policies are for allowing students to take certain subjects, whether the prerequisites are still appropriate for when they were originally designed, would that be?
Grade point averages in a certain subject or achieving certain standards to make sure that we are not preventing kids from taking more challenging courses.
We don't want to set them up for failure, but we don't want to prevent them from excelling beyond what they have been slated into.
So I think that's a great opportunity for students. Especially in the high school years to go beyond the way they may have tested.
When they were younger students. So that's very exciting. And then, so that was the curriculum bowls and then the only other, thing that we discussed was a follow up to the May nineteenth curriculum council meeting when discussions were for the appropriate happiness of the middle school book were discussed.
Purpiness of a middle school meeting when, discussions were for the importance of the middle school book were discussed.
And since that time, just as follow up, I've reviewed several excellent LGB These lists are being shared with Mr. Schumann who was sharing them with the library for librarians to bet and just important to know that this is the consistent with the district's practice that community members can submit suggested topics, books, you know, through the administration or directly to the librarians.
So these are several lists that they will be able to vet. In addition, there was one title in particular that I identified amongst the ones that I that I reviewed and it's called the ABC's of LBGTQ plus and I shared that with Dr.
Schumann and he will share that with the middle school. Librarians specifically because I found that even though there are a number of books in the middle school, Mr. Schumann shared that with me.
There are at least 8 books that are non-fiction as well as a number that are fiction in this category.
This one that I found is specifically for 12 and up so it fits the middle school criteria. And it also is very educational in terms of black and white.
It's more like a more like a textbook than, than any type of. A person's own, bias in it so it's a very I think a very well done book and then I know Lindsey, you would also, I mentioned the book also.
Yes, there was one I had recommended back. June of 2022 it was the every body book and it was a guide so that was that was one that was on your list, I believe.
Yes, exactly. That was for each 10 and up, I believe. Yes. So, so just want to make sure that we did as a curriculum accounts committee.
We did follow up with the, you know, appropriate policy to make sure that. That we have appropriate resources in middle school library.
That's it. Okay. So our next meeting will be on November, and I'm sorry.
I lost in October. 11 however That's a Tuesday. Yes. Thank you.
October eleventh. I think that's Columbus Day. I think it's the 110, this right is moved over the next October.
Okay, anybody have any questions for Dr. Rona? Okay, thank you very much. I'm not sure who wound up sharing the policy committee meeting.
Okay. Dr. Cook, would you, please give a report on the POS committee meeting? Yes, we had a very productive policy meeting this afternoon.
We made some minor revisions to some of the the policies based off PSBA recommendations, there was a meetings policy, supplemental discipline records, and students experiencing homelessness.
Those were just minor PSBA, revisions. We did, table 2 policies that were on our agenda, the interscholastic athletics and the employment of district staff.
Just as we collect some data and get some input from other administrators. And then we finally finished reviewing our 800 policies and all of those went to thirty-day review for full board approval one with very very minor wording revisions but other than that as is.
Okay. Anybody have any questions for Dr. In the next meeting. Oh yeah, yeah, the next meeting is November sixth.
Okay, thank you. Moving on to agenda item 2 H. Student Representatives report.
On behalf of the board, I'd like to welcome our student representatives.
She's Assad, Natalie. Colerasi and Lucy Bartow. It's their first meeting.
With us for the 2,02324 academic year and before I ask you for your report. I did want to briefly explain how you were selected.
Student board representatives were selected through a process outlined in board policy. O 4.1, which includes the following.
First, in order to be considered, interested students completed the form where they highlighted both their school based as well as their community based activities.
Next, the applicants were screened to ensure that they met the qualifications related to academic performance as well as the code of conduct.
Following the review of the applications, students then participated in an interview with a team made up. Of high school and district staff.
The current school board president I was there for all the interviews. And the current class president. After each interview, student responses were rated on a rubric and upon the completion of the interviews the top 3 candidates were selected.
Lucy, Natalie. And Chizza were selected from among 15 of their peers.
So if you would at this point. Give your report, we'd appreciate it.
Hello, my name is Natalie Colerasi and I'll be reporting about the high school.
So our Hershey High School football team is 3 and 0 after their latest win against Dallas Town on Friday.
This week we play a home game on Thursday night. So don't forget to come out and support the team, band, and the cheerleaders if you can.
Also, our boys soccer team has a home game this Friday against our rival lower dolphin.
We hope to see you there. Many thought are selling gold out t-shirts and hosting gold out sports games in honor of September being childhood cancer awareness month.
Gold-out games are field hockey this Wednesday. Football this Thursday, and volleyball September 20 fifth.
We kicked off our first few weeks of school on a community period schedule where we went over building expectations while also connecting with our peers and teachers to promote a supportive community in Hershey High School.
The cocoa beam bowl hosted by the Hershey Rotary will take place on September 20 third at 1 30 pm.
I'm Mon Hershey Stadium. That's all.
My name is Shad and I'm going to be reporting on the middle school. On August sixteenth, incoming sixth graders were welcomed by all staff and were introduced to students.
WEB or where everybody belongs leaders who let the sixth graders do activities and took them on a tour of the building.
The activities were designed to have students and the leaders get to know each other. Begin to build teamwork concepts and create a sense of community at the middle school.
On September fourteenth, the middle school will have their back to school night where parents have the opportunity to meet their child's teachers, tour the school, and learn more about the plans that the middle school has for the upcoming year. That's all.
Thank you.
And then good evening. My name is Lucy. I'll be touching on the elementary school today.
So DTSD staff created their annual first day of school video at the whole district showcasing the students in our community.
This can be found on either the district's Facebook or Instagram page at DTSD News or the schools district website.
They also have their back-to-school night on September seventh, which allowed families to see a glimpse into their child's classroom and some of the projects they've accomplished so far.
Also on September seventh, Ms. Clark's first grade class placed painted rocks created during the PDIS community fun night in wooden letters constructed by the ground staff that spells out HES in front of the elementary school's main office.
And then one thing that happened in our community recently that we wanted to highlight was Ben and Tim Day had one of its largest turnouts with 800 plus runners and it had some of the fastest fivek times that it's ever seen.
Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Again, welcome.
Congratulations on your selection. And we we look forward to hearing your perspectives and your insights throughout the 2223 24 school year.
So thank you again. Moving on to agenda item 2 I. The list of items are on the anticipated September 20 fifth 2,023 board of directors meeting agenda.
Which you can see up on the screen there.
Thank you. Moving on to agenda item 3, there is no one finished. Business this evening. Agenda item 4, the consent agenda contains routinely adopted items and items that normally do not require public deliberations on the part of the board.
Hey, board member may pull items which will then be discussed in voted on separately. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items as listed.
So, Moses, yeah.
Is there any discussion? This is a standard voice vote. All those in favor, please say aye.
Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Motion passes.
Thank you.
Moving on to. Item 5, new business 5 A personnel resignations, Dr. Winslow.
The administration recommends the approval of the personnel resignations. I have a motion to improve the personnel resignations.
So move, Donna Cronin, second, Graham, I mean. Is there any discussion?
This is a standard voice phone. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
No.
Thank you. The motion passes. Agenda item 5 B personnel general Dr. Winslow.
The administration recommends the approval of the listed personnel and recognition of any listed transfers. I have a motion to approve the listed personnel and recognition of any listed transfers.
So move, Lindsey Drew. Second, Maria Memmy. Is there any discussion? This is a standard voice vote.
Oh, no paper, please say I. Okay, the motion carries. Agenda item 6.
There are no delegate reports this evening. Agenda items 7 special reports. Are there any board members who would like to give a report?
Mister Singer, this is Lindsay Drew. I just wanted to take a moment to welcome the student representatives as well.
I know that this is a long night with a lot of information at the front end that is not always typical for you to sit there.
So welcome through that. But just want to reiterate what was said, I think the student reps on our board have just always been an incredible representation of the student body in the senior class.
At Hershey High School and you're here for a reason and I hope that you will feel a part of this and have a great experience and be open to participating and really providing feedback.
Because you are sitting here as a part of the sport. So welcome. Thank you. Mr. Singer, I'd also like to say something.
I, we only have a few board meetings left for some of us on the board here and often I went I went to a memorial service this week and one of the things they talked about was time is often described from year to year.
And when I think back, I've been on the board from 2,006 to 2,023.
That's 2,006. Dash 2,023 intermittently during that time, 14 years during that time.
But what I've, I've heard was that the dash is the most important thing, not the start in the finish, but what happens in between.
So with only 5 meetings left, there are 6 of us who's terms and 4 of us are not running again.
So I'm one of them. So my my term is coming to an end. So this in reflection and not waiting to the very last meeting.
I just think about this a lot this weekend for a number of reasons, but so I want to I hope to make the most of what's left of the of the time of the dash that's remaining on my time on the board.
I want to focus on positivity and respect and all from my commitment to the board of the district to do this.
And also I want to make sure that not only the students that are here, because probably no one else is listening, but all of our district students know that I and my fellow board members want all students to feel supported.
Whether that be with resources, opportunities, respect, regardless of race. Regardless of religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomics, and where their passion is academics, athletics, art, STEM, etc.
I believe all score, school board members here and around the country feel this way because you don't take on this volunteer responsibility unless you really care about students.
First and foremost. And I think my colleagues would agree to that. So I just want to say they look forward to making the most of the You remaining meetings that I have left and thank you all for let me be a part.
Thank you, Dr. Cronin. Any other board members have a report?
Okay, Dr. Winslow, do you have a superintendents report? I do. My first one to say I misspoke on these special education numbers at the elementary school.
It's 15%. 19 about 19% of that 15% that has an autism diagnosis. Not my 19 and fifteenth mixed up there.
So I wanted to clarify that. So onto my actual report. We are going to launch our redesign website early next week.
So please keep an eye out for that exciting update. We're very excited about it. It's going to be streamlined.
It looks great. Very thankful for all the input. And the folks that have helped Miss Carpel get that off the ground.
And should see that. Early next week. And some of you might see it before others do, feel like it'll, it's gonna kind of roll.
So give it a minute if you're not quite seeing it yet. The website's never gonna go down though.
I just wanna clarify. It will be no downtime. Okay. That was a bold statement.
Yeah, We're gonna go with that. I did wanna remind everyone that fall sports and activities are back in full swing.
I did wanna remind everyone that fall sports and activities are back in full swing. As you heard from our student representatives, please come out and support our Trojans.
They're like, it's so fun to watch the kids doing the things that they love and it's one of my favorite parts of the job to to be out there.
I also wanted to make a statement for our special education department. Last last board meeting there were.
There was a community member who made some. Made some statements that I just wanted to address and I want to emphasize that our special education department is a highly trained, extremely dedicated team of individuals who care deeply about children.
I also want to clarify that from time to time it's necessary for a student school team to communicate with providers outside of the district, including medical institution and treating physicians.
To seek clarification. And they and to assess the vodility. I'm sorry, validity of information provided pertaining to necessary supports in school.
This is particularly true in the accuracy of information could impact programming or the overall well-being of a child.
Such communications are always conducted in accordance with applicable law, including requirements under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, otherwise known as FERPA.
This practice is not unique to Derry Township School District and helps to ensure that schools are best positioned to meet individual student needs.
Such requests for information do not violate the privacy rights of our students and families. And we will continue this practice when it is the best interest of a child to do so.
So today is also Patriot Day as Mr. Singer so eloquently discussed at the beginning of the meeting.
When we honor and remember those the attacks on 9 11 Throughout the day today classes from the high school and the middle school went out to the stadium to hear a presentation given by Doug Jones.
Taps was played at 903 a. M. This is the time that the second plane that Michael Horox was the co-pilot of.
Hit the Trade Center. None of our students. That are in school right now, we're alive.
When these attacks took place. So it is. Extremely important that we continue to remember and to share the history of what had happened because this is both an American story.
And a Hershey story that we must never forget. So and I thank them for coming out year after year to provide that experience for our students.
It's really meaningful. It's it's really powerful and they do a great job with it.
And that was the end of my report. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Winslow.
Agenda item 7 C board presidents report I do not have a report agenda item 8 recognition of citizens.
This is an opportunity for residents and taxpayers to address. The board on matters related to the agenda or matters of district governance not on the agenda.
There was a speaker has to follow the same guidelines outlined at the initial public comment portion of our meeting.
I'll ask for Treasury Mr. Rizzo to please keep time. Mr. Ailes, anyone online who is interested in commenting.
At this time there are no hands raised. Okay, thank you. Dr. Rifstadter, do we have any anyone wishing to comment?
We do.
Leave us ladies, a very sad day for the girls softball. Since no changes are going to be made.
That's item one. Item 2. Over 2 months ago, I found out JV coaches were not coming back.
As of today, I looked on the site. No jobs for opening were posted. That should be done immediately.
Most of your schools have already hired coaches. Hopefully you hire 2 good ones and not 2 bodies.
Also, I just wanna make you make you aware. Your AD had no clue what was going on in Softball.
Okay, no clue. Just wanna be careful with. Personal attacks that you might level at individuals. And I've lived in Hershey for 33 years and let me tell you.
As far as I'm concerned, you lost one of the best AEDs that you had in Scott Governor.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Dr. Rice, that or anyone else?
Yes.
Good evening. Thank you. I just wanted to offer a suggestion. Maybe it would be possible to put another monitor system here so people can follow along with you guys in the crowd.
It's kind of hard to see and I felt bad asking Ms. Carpel for the information whenever that happens.
It would just be great if we could keep up with what's going on at home. Or I'm sorry, in person.
And I also wanted to thank Dr. Cronin for bringing up the status and the information about the book at staying curriculum committee.
I had. As Lindsey had suggested, reviewed the New York Times list and their, the book that she had mentioned previously back in, I believe it was March.
Was rated and recommended by the New York Times. I did purchase it. I'm happy to donate it, to make sure that our kids and every community in the LGBT community have.
Adequate resources so I can turn that into Dr. Schumann if that's okay.
Thanks. Okay, thank you.
Okay, does not look like anyone else is going to be commenting tonight. So we'll close out the second comment period.
Is there anything else for the good of the order?
Actually, you know what, Dr. Schumann, the book I gave you all donate that to the middle school.
I didn't even think I assumed you knew that, but I didn't make that clear. Thank you, okay.
Thank you. This brings us to item gender item 9 adjournment. The next public report of directors meeting will be held September 20 fifth, 2,023 starting at 7 p.
M. Please refer to the district website to register for virtual attendance as the meeting draws closer. I have a motion to adjourn this meeting.
So move, Lindsey. All that was in favor, please say aye. Aye. And he opposed no.
Meeting