WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=VtPDsRPZEU8

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: VtPDsRPZEU8):
- 00:14:06: Meeting Call to Order, Pledge, Executive Session Review
- 00:16:25: Approval of Minutes and Current Meeting's Agenda
- 00:18:07: Introduction to Southwest Food Excellence Presentation
- 00:19:39: SF Introductions, Principles, and Operational Focus
- 00:22:45: SF Financial Overview, Participation Increases, Surveys
- 00:24:57: Breakfast Initiatives, Staffing, Marketing Updates, Engagement
- 00:28:10: Flavorfest Video Presentation and Student Feedback
- 00:31:24: Public Comment #1 - Mr. Carter
- 00:32:37: Public Comment #1 Continued, Student Feedback
- 00:33:52: Public Comment #2 - Miss Johnson
- 00:35:47: Public Comment #3 - Mr. Thompson
- 00:42:30: SF Presentation Conclusion and Next Agenda Item Intro
- 00:43:05: Budget Presentation Overview, Process, Pamphlet
- 00:44:45: Revenue Sources: Local, State, Federal Overview
- 00:48:08: Revenue Sources Detailed Breakdown and Assumptions
- 00:53:30: Expenditure Overview: Instruction, Support Services, Activities
- 00:55:42: Instruction, Support Services, Co-curricular Breakdown
- 00:58:18: Debt Service Payments, Capital Reserve, and Budgetary Reserve
- 01:00:46: Property Tax Scenarios, Mill Rate History
- 01:03:51: Impacts of Tax Scenarios with Homestead Exemption
- 01:07:45: Unique Harrisburg Tax Challenges, Exempt Properties Impact
- 01:11:59: Budget Revenue Assumptions and Instructional Purpose Tie-in
- 01:13:35: Special Education, Math Intervention, EL Programs Expansion
- 01:16:35: Board Questions: Revenue Sources and Tax-Exempt Properties
- 01:19:05: Recommendation vs. Index, and Mill Increase History
- 01:22:16: Impact of Past Tax Decisions
- 01:26:44: Board Questions: Line Item Budget and Act One Index
- 01:27:48: Grants vs. Raising Taxes
- 01:30:13: Deficits and Financial Pressures on Harrisburg
- 01:33:52: District and Community Collaboration on Student Advocacy
- 01:37:52: Five-year Budget Summary
- 01:42:21: Budgetary Reserve & District Planning
- 01:44:00: Deeper Budget Details
- 01:46:51: History of Inaction and Future Implications
- 01:51:19: Health Care Costs, Vacancies
- 01:54:12: Capital Reserve Transfers & Salaries
- 01:57:31: General Fund Positions
- 02:00:59: Budgetary Reserve and High Income Households
- 02:06:10: Potential Camp Curtain Budget
- 02:09:26: Projections and PFM Role
- 02:12:10: More Conservative Numbers
- 02:14:38: Exit and Compliance
- 02:15:10: Transitioning to Public Comment
- 02:15:27: Public Comment #4 - Website Information and William Penn
- 02:16:06: General Comment vs SBI
- 02:16:20: Public Comment #5 - SBI General Comment and Website Info
- 02:20:11: SBI, SHAUNA BRUNER - Comment against GenEd Class
- 02:22:57: Sha Bruner's passion for SBI's continued student opportunity
- 02:23:22: Michaela George's Alumni Success: SBI's transformative impact
- 02:25:29: Andreana Jackson: Overcoming fear, finding family in SBI
- 02:28:28: Kayla Mcnesich's personal journey: SBI provides lifeline
- 02:31:25: Israel Doyle: Experiential learning and hand-picked SBI Family
- 02:34:54: Lewis Dillard: Leadership and personal growth through SBI
- 02:37:00: Caroline Valona: SBI fosters leaders and academic success
- 02:39:22: Jad Lauso: Defending SBI's culture and high level courses
- 02:42:10: Kennedy Hold: SBI defends civil rights and opportunities
- 02:45:09: Damir Bullock mayor: SBI provides leadership, confidence
- 02:48:09: Karen Stevens: SBI is a community, blessing, opportunity
- 02:50:12: Jav Garcia: SBI is prestigious and saved my life
- 02:52:09: Briana Embry Banks advocates for SBI's Importance
- 02:55:18: Board acknowledges SBI, plans to gather information
- 02:57:53: Superintendent expresses support and aims for growth
- 03:02:13: Office of Academics: Music therapy agreement approval
- 03:04:39: After School Program All You Can Academy Presentation
- 03:17:39: Summer Program All You Can Academy Agreement
- 03:18:12: Field Trip to Zoo America and additional school updates
- 03:22:50: CTE Program application, SBI program restructuring discussion
- 03:39:42: CTE Program Removed, Continued Business is next
- 03:40:17: Time away requests, labor explosion hearing agreements approved
- 03:43:58: Summer work schedule, internship agreements approved
- 03:46:16: Dental, vision benefits, Spring coach appointments approved
- 03:48:01: Personnel - HA/ASME creation/elimination positions discussion
- 04:03:52: Act 93 creation, job descriptions, budget discussion
- 04:04:58: Personnel agenda approved, new leadership appointed
- 04:10:12: Services approved, athletic program reports requested
- 04:11:18: Building contracts and inspections ratified, reviewed, approved
- 04:14:09: Review and adoption of annual inspection plans approved
- 04:18:35: Delegates for PSBA, Treasurer appointments approved
- 04:25:46: Meeting agenda, public comments, adournment is next


Part: 1

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by Brettie. >> Good evening everyone and welcome to our school board uh committee of the whole meeting. And uh before we start, I always just like to go over the housekeeping rules here. Uh we respect each other. one as board members uh we so respect whether to agree or disagree

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and also as for our administrator administration as well as for our community who's here our students and also the ones who may be also viewing um on Zoom here this evening. So with that

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it is now 6:16 p.m. I call to order the May 12th, 2026 committee of the whole meeting of the Harrisburg City School District Board of School Directors. If we can please rise for the pledge of allegiance to my left. >> Pledge of allegiance to the flag of the

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United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. So, the school board met in the executive session on May 12th, 20 uh 26

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at 5:00 p.m. to discuss student disciplinary uh personnel matters in HA grievance. Uh we are now ready to start roll call. Madam Secretary, can you please call the role? >> Thank you, President Copelan. Miss

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Copelan, >> present. >> Miss Anderson, >> present. Mr. Carter, >> present. >> Miss Hughes, >> present. Miss Johnson, >> present. >> Miss Radcliffe, >> present.

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>> Miss Robinson, >> Mr. Roy >> here. >> Mr. Thompson Leader >> present. >> Dr. Suski, present. and we have a quorum this evening. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. Uh we'll now

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move to the approval of the minutes and agenda for this evening. So, may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the April 28th, 2026 school board general business meeting? >> So moved. Anderson, >> is there a second?

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>> Second. Hughes >> have been decided. All right, Mr. Roy. >> All right, so the motion has been properly moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Anderson? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carter? >> Yes. >> Miss Copelan?

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>> Yes. >> Miss Hughes? >> Yes. >> Miss Johnson? >> Yes. >> Miss Radcliffe? >> Yes. >> Miss R. Mr. Roy? >> Yes. >> Mr. Thompson Leader. >> Yes.

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>> Eight. Yes. Zero. No. Zer abstain. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. Hear majority of yeses. So that motion will carry for approval. Uh we'll now move to the agenda. So may I have a motion to approve the agenda of the May 12th, 2026 committee of the whole meeting as presented in Boardocks?

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>> So move Johnson. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Anderson. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. Uh the motion has been properly moved and seconded. Can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Anderson? >> Yes. Mr. Carter? >> Yes. Miss Copelan, >> yes. >> Miss Hughes,

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>> yes. Miss Johnson, >> yes. >> Miss Radcliffe, >> yes. >> Mr. Roy, >> yes. >> Mr. Thompson, Leader, >> yes. >> Eight. Yes. Zero no zero abstain. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. Hear

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majority of yeses. So that motion will carry for approval. Approval. Now we'll move to the presentations for this evening. Uh Dr. Dr. Henry, do we have any presentations this evening? >> Yes, we have two presentation and the first one, Mr. Reed will be introducing our first presentation for tonight.

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>> Thank you, Dr. Henry and good evening everybody. I would like to thank and welcome Southwest Food Excellence to tonight's meeting. As you know, SF is our food service management company. Also with us is Mrs. Beth King, our food

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service coordinator. This is year four of five of their contract renewal which is on your agenda tonight. We thought that it would be a good idea for them to share some of the exciting things that they're doing within our schools. The one thing that you'll see in tonight's presentation is the increased

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participation of meals with our students. This is a very positive indication of meal quality and interest. You also hear about the surveys that they conduct with students as well as other exciting initiatives going on in food service. So

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SF you are up uh good evening g ladies and gentlemen and members of the board. We are as Mr. had already said, Southwest Food Service Excellence or better known as SF, your food service management company. I will start off with introducing myself and then the rest of team will introduce

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themselves as well. My name is Samar Khan. I'm the resident district manager for the Northeast. >> Hello, I'm Kate Lewis. I am the general manager for of food service for the Harrisburg City School District. And this up here is my team. I have been

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here for seven years. My team is just going to stand up and introduce themselves where they're seated. I'm chef here. I've been 18. I've been here for seven years now.

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>> My name is Bec and I've been here for 11 years as your food service director. >> Yeah. And my name is Diane Johannes. I'm a regional vice president for SF and I spent almost 25 years on your side of the table um as a teacher, principal, district administrator as well as a

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school board member. So, it's an honor to be here tonight speaking to you. We're very proud of the partnership that we've established with your team here and we just want to share some of the highlights first about SF and then some of the great things that have happened in your district. So, SF was founded on four principles. Number one, we're a

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food first company. That means we don't skimp on food. We believe in having quality food for our students. Number two, we have compassionate leadership. We believe the folks that are on the ground every day working deserve respect as well as to be paid well and treated fairly. And then we also have customized

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programs. We don't come in and tell you how your program should be. We sit down, collaborate, and that's how we decide how the program should go. And then we're very innovative. And our ladies are going to share some of that tonight. So, we'll move on then. Okay. So, this is a lot of words. you guys have it in front of you, but and

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we're going to touch on a lot of these coming up in our presentation, but just to touch on a couple of these things. Operationally, we remain focused on using up commodities. We are using um commodities to decrease food cost and we

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are very labor focused here. Um we also work very closely with Beth to recognize opportunities in our kitchens where we can improve equipment efficiency and we've been doing a lot of upgrades throughout the district. Um participation as John spoke on is a highlight. We will cover that in a

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little bit. Um and engagement as Diane mentioned we are very involved with the students. We do a lot of things to um engage the students. Surveys, roving chefs, um a fun event that we'll cover at the end. Again, we'll touch on that in a minute. Um on-site reviews, that is

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a requirement of the Pennsylvania Department of Education that we have to do. Beth, your director, is the one who handles these. we work with her and it is something as a company we are required to do on a monthly basis at all of them. This is what PTE looks for when they um come in and they audit your

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schools. Um so and then speaking of audits, we did have an audit last summer in July. We passed it with no findings and we probably anticipate another one this July. >> Okay. Talk on financials. Okay, I'll be

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quick because there are things to be talking about. Just looking at finances right here. This is a kind of a guesstimation of where we're going to be next year. This is all predicted based on how we've done in the past. Your total revenue that you see there on the top is all the revenues coming straight to Harrisburg schools. Um then you have

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your SFA cost and FSMC. SFA is really where we get our labor district labor and FSMC is all the labors combined. With all of this included, we see a potential profit of 855 for next year. I want to note to that in part of those costs that you see up above, we see an

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increase for our salaries to make sure that we're competitive with the market and we continue to give our employees what's fair. >> Thank you Carol. Okay, so this is our participation over the last three years. As you can see, we've increased in both breakfast and lunch. Even despite, you

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know, steady enrollment numbers, both breakfast and lunch have increased. Um, just to put those numbers into perspective, over the three years for breakfast, we've seen about a 14.6% increase in breakfast and a 11% increase

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in lunch over the last three years. This is an example of some of our surveys. We try to do these midyear, January, February. We do elementary, middle, high. Um, the surveys are for the elementary, as you can see there are

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very we they're paper copies. smiley faces, circle. Sometimes the teachers take them to the classroom, help them with those. That's we base those on like what did you eat for lunch today? How did you feel about it? The um electronic surveys with the Q QR code, we use those

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at the middle school and the high school level. Those the students have a more they have more questions to answer. They do them on their phone. Schools like Camp Curtain who don't allow phones, they have been doing them in the classroom with the teachers, too. So, we've been getting a lot of good feedback from those. Those have proven

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to say that the students love pizza, they love the smoothies, um, and there is a big desire for some more Mexican food. Um, so this year, alongside of Beth King, as this was her smart goal, we have been having a huge push to increase

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breakfast participation and her efforts along with ours have paid off. We have rolled out things that you see in these pictures such as smoothies um at the high schools. We do those on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The students love them. We also just recently brought in waffle

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irons with an approved batter for K12. And we make fresh um waffles on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays at both Scitec and John Harris. And they do blueberry topping, strawberry topping that we just started, but the kids seemed super

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excited. The punny pancake positivity was another one of Beth's rollouts. We did t-shirts on a lucky tray day. So the students that had a lucky tray got a t-shirt with a punny breakfast thing on the back. And then one of our exciting lunch rollouts was more recently too. We

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did the fur. It's a Vietnamesebased soup. And I was nervous about the kids and you know they don't like trying new stuff. But it was a huge success that we're doing it again next week. They they absolutely loved it. And so, you

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know, that was a great success there. Um Whoops. How do I go back? Staffing, just a quick, we currently have 60 SFB employees, seven district employees. >> Um, obviously staffing is difficult. We are constantly hiring. We We're evolve

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like we are constantly trying to fill needs and >> to try to keep employees. We do offer attendance bonuses on a yearly basis for employees who have minimally missed amount of work. We do offer referral bonuses for employees who bring on another friend, somebody they know, and

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they stay for at least 90 days. Um, and as Samara pointed out, we do do competitive wage increases on the yearly basis. We work with John just to try to see what other local districts are paying so we remain competitive. Marketing, these are just some quick

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pictures. We have been working to get all of the schools with our updated marking. So, these are just some examples. Um, currently we have finished steel, John Harris, um, Hamilton and Scitec is is almost done. We'll finish the rest of it this summer. So, this is

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some of our examples of our updated marking. On the left is John Harris or Yeah, on the left is John Harris. On the right is some signage from Hamilton. Um, and this is just like the higher level. We have yet to do a middle school. Camp Curtain will be our first one once we do kitchen renovation and that whole thing.

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will roll in the new marketing for Camp Curtain with the middle school. That will be the first middle school that we've done. Um, some of the engagement activities that we mentioned earlier, our roving chef led here by our chef Steve. He does

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them all the time. Huge success. I think he probably does at least two a month. He works closely with the principles. The principles will pick a small cohort of students based on attendance, based on their grades, based on reading initiatives, how however students Steve

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will work with at the elementary level. They he brings them in. He teaches them about kitchen, you know, sanitary sanitation, how to clean up, how to be safe in the kitchen, and then he presents a recipe. He walks them through the recipe. They do all the steps. We have knives. We have cutting boards.

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They get their chef hats, their aprons, and at the end, they get to take their food home along with their recipe card and a certificate of achievement. And they love it. Principles love it. Yep. Steve does a great job with that. So, you want to talk about this? Okay.

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So, this is one of my favorite things to talk about because we believe that you judge your success in child nutrition by how many students eat, right? So, we're always trying to get input from those students. Our CEO said one time, "It's not rocket science. If you want to know what they like, just ask them. And so we took it to heart. So what you're going

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to see in just a second is a video from one of our school districts in another state that they actually did um showcasing our flavorfest. So we do flavorfest. You want to flip that next? We do flavorfest once a year um sometimes twice a year just depending on the size of the district. And we bring in some of our vendors because they're

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trying to figure out what students want as well. So some of the suppliers that we have like General Mills and you'll see some of them up there, Hershey ice cream. And so we bring them in and then we set up a food show in the cafeteria and the students walk around and they take it very serious because they understand that the results of this

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helps us decide what's going to be on their menu either in the fall depending on if we do it in the spring then it'll come back on the fall or vice versa. So, um, the video that we're going to show is just a couple minutes long, but you'll see that the students were really excited about this. Uh, oh, sorry. Sorry, Adam.

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>> It was just there. Oh, he's working on it. Okay. Yeah. Welcome to Flavor. >> Does this taste like the normal cafeteria food that you guys have? >> It tastes way better. >> Flavorfest is an opportunity for our students to come and taste and try all

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of the different offerings that we are proposing for next year's school menus. >> What are you eating? >> Uh, it's like chickpeas and rice and it's got some sort of vegetable on it. >> So, what was your favorite vegetable that you had? Um, so far I'm actually enjoying the mandarin oranges with the tine. It's really good. >> What are we drinking now?

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>> The mocha. >> The the mocha >> smoothie. >> Smoothie. >> Mocha smoothie. >> We're giving you coffee right now. >> Yes. >> Yeah, I guess so. >> And a smoothie. It gives the students voice. Um, it adds to innovation. Uh, they get a chance to try all of these great items and then tell us if they

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like them or not and we add them to the menu because the menus are driven by their choice. So, we love Flavorfest. >> Initial thoughts. So, it's like a firework that explodes in your mouth. It's amazing. I'd give it a five. >> Excellent.

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>> A five. >> Sometimes with the hustle bustle of a school day, we don't have a whole lot of time for that one-on-one interaction. Here, that's what it's all about. How do you like our food? What does it look like? What do you think we can do to make it better? So on and so forth. So, for that reason, this thing's lights out for us. >> We're here for them. We want to serve

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our students what they want to eat. And so the best way to figure out what they want to eat is to ask them and have them try and let us know. >> What would be the thing? Hey, bring this back. We need to have this. This is what we need to have. >> The ego thing. >> The ego were good. >> The ego with the happy face.

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>> You say Lego. My ego. All right. Anybody have anything for us? >> Yeah, Mr. Carter. >> So, uh, just a quick question. Um, I know you had mentioned that, uh, the high school kids actually take a picture of the QR code, and correct me if I'm

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wrong, our students aren't allowed to have their phones out or have their phones at all during school. Correct me if I'm wrong. So, how are they able to give their feedback for the serving? >> That's she mentioned that sometime they also take it back to the classroom, the teacher guide them on the computer with doing the

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>> No, she was saying for eighth grade, I believe. Yeah, she said for some of the kids if they don't have >> just um the camp curtain this year for camp curtain that was an issue with the phones. So, actually security ended up helping us. They took some of my QR codes to the eighth grade floor and then they went in the classroom and they did

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it. They allowed them to like use their phone and do the QR code and then put it back. >> Now, someone on a high school level, >> the high schoolers had their phones in the cafeteria this year. So, uh if next year we'll probably just do something similar. So, okay. Yeah.

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Um, another thing too, uh, I want to thank the students too for coming out too. We are glad to see you could come out in support of what you believe in and standing on business. Um, I'm a alumni myself, but uh, since you guys are here, how do you guys like the lunch? Cuz it's very rare that we have a lot of students come in here. So what is

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your take on anybody want to talk about it or all right >> is a clown >> um the lunches. Okay. >> Okay. All right. >> I enjoyed them like trying to try new

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food because I was there for the day >> and it was really good and everybody was really excited to try it. So, >> I was happy you guys tried it. I was nervous. >> Right. Thank you, Tuba. Just good to hear from the students since we actually had a lot of you guys here. So, it was good to hear from them, too. Thank you

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too for the presentation. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> U Miss Johnson. >> Yeah, I was just wondering how the nutritional program um has aligned with the new um uh um food pyramid. Um it has

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recently changed and updated after 50 60 years. I just wanted to know has your program aligned with that? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah. Yeah, we have. We have you want to go. We have a lot of nutritional standards that Leanne actually here does all of our menu development and we have

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a whole team at corporate that manages menus. So like Leanne has to submit menus. They have to be completely nutritionally balanced before they're even approved for us to put through. So all that is not only is she very good at it, but it's over like it's overseen at

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a higher level than than we even have here locally. >> Okay. Thank Yeah, it might be important to note that um all of our students are able to take and eat unlimited fruits and vegetables. >> Good to know. >> So that's how we push the fruits and

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vegetables and how we allow them if they're hungrier to eat something that's healthy. >> That's good to know. Thank you. >> Elementary schools, we also set up fresh fruit and vegetable bars for our elementary school students to help themselves as they're going through the

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line. uh we started that u probably eight years ago and we really have seen a greater increase in the number of elementary school students accessing that fresh fruit and vegetables and um it's important at that age to really

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start the healthy eat habits of our students. >> Absolutely. >> So we've seen that now go from the students starting in elementary school to really accessing that as well in middle and high school adults. It's made a big impact on our students for sure. >> Thank you.

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>> Thank you, M. Thompson. And I have just a few. So, uh, one, thank you for this presentation. And I had the pleasure to uh tour a couple of our um buildings. So, I got the um

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the uh privilege to actually uh view and walk through the actual um lunchroom to see the different types of foods. And so, it was really great, really clean, and I think I'm really a cleansy. So, I'm like, how are these? Look at the table. So, you know, great job to that.

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And I just wanted you to speak a little bit because I did see um I know we talk about a lot of food security and things that are happening but I do show there's an increase which is a great thing. So uh can you just speak to that 11% increase like what are you guys doing

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different or you might have shared it? >> Yeah. So, I think for sure the surveys help, right? The surveys and >> I know that like administrators and stuff don't always want to see pizza and chicken patties, but like the kids like them. So, we've also invested in a like

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a whole muscle chicken. We only serve whole muscle chicken here, which is like not you see like some schools they have like the particle chicken. It's kind of brown on the inside. We we do not we don't use any of that chicken here. So, I think a lot of that because those are their favorite foods like chicken nuggets, chicken patty, spicy chicken

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patty. Hands down, they're willing to try new things. But the staples are important. So, I think having consistency in those chicken products has definitely helped the lunch participation as well as the Harrisburg School District gets a lot of DoD funds, which is where our fruit and vegetables

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come from. And with that, we can serve watermelons and blueberries and strawberries. And so, they get a lot of fresh fruit. And I have a lot of kids at the high school level that probably wouldn't be lunch eaters, but like they'll come in just to get some strawberries, you know, and then they'll grab a salad or a slice of pizza, but

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they might just want those strawberries. So, I do think like all those things have contributed to the increase. Yeah. >> Thank you. And then how do you address like your dietary supplements like children that may be allergic to certain food items? How is that?

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>> Schools have a list from the nurse um on what specific kids can and cannot have. We're working with John to get something published, I think, on the website for parents and the community to know on really like how to go about that. As far as us as a food service management

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company, we can only go with whatever comes from the nurse. So, as long as we have something from the nurse stating this child cannot have this, this student cannot have this, we we comply with that and we make sure that they have something available to them. If a student comes then directly to us our

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directive is normally like you have to get you have to go to the nurse have your parents talk to the nurse and then then we we deal with that. >> Okay. And um the additional one um is regarding because I know um when I did

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do a tour um we have a high increase in ESL students um English secondary learners. So, how is that? How are you guys able to implement to students who may not even understand what you guys cuz I don't not that one of you guys

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might have another language, right? But you didn't share that, but I'm just kidding. But just to speak to that cuz I know we have a a you know high percentage of students who are English secondary learners. So for them students, how is that being addressed or is there someone to help translate? What

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does that look like? So that has been something that we've been working through the last couple years. I would say it's super predominant at like Marshall. We notice it a lot. We do again like she mentioned a lot of customized programs. So those schools that have a lot of your ESL that we struggle with, we've kind of just been

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working with their aid and trying to figure out like what these kids will eat. We've started implementing like a homemade hummus recipe with like these power packs to to meet the uh requirement for reimburseable meals. sometimes difficult if all they can eat is the fruit and vegetable and we want

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to like be able to offer them a protein. So we've started we've we've really started targeting those specific Downey has a lot like so we we have some schools that definitely have more than others but we just have to work closely with the aid because it's it is difficult to communicate but Marshall

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does a great job because they have a large group of them >> and are you like tracking do you track or you have a plan in place you're tracking that information like what does that look like? We track all of the meals that we serve every single day. So like if you go to Marshall and you want

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to know like how many of this specific type of food, like category she serves every day, she records that every single day. So like she knows she needs to make x amount of this type of food and x amount of this type of food depending on what's on the menu. Yeah.

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>> And I think my last one just um um is adding to uh I I'll thank you for the activity piece. I was with the flavor fest. Awesome. And I just want to say, how do you get, you know, how do you guys um collaborate with like local

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vendors? Like maybe we have someone locally in this area to kind of do a showcase at the Harrisburg School District cuz I know we have a lot of young vendors, you know, entrepreneurs here and I know I've seen some great ones, you know, with the General Mills

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and that's great, but also sometimes to get our students, you know, involved locally or something they know, right? and then you know the back and it may be chefs I I don't mouth but that's something just to kind of get the flavor I mean I would love I mean thank you for sharing that as the next step but I

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would love to see possibly of you guys what that would look like and maybe showcasing >> well one difficulty is that they have to be K12 approved anything we bring in whether it's a snack or the aloc cart for it all has to be K12 approved products so like that's sometimes

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difficult with local vendors But I, you know, Hershey is local. Our bread is actually local. We don't get our bread from Cisco. We get it from like a local Pennsylvania bakery. Um, so they came to the flavorfest. So difficult sometimes to reach out to people locally. We get local produce

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from Kaggles. If we don't use DoD, then we get produce from a local company, too. Milk is local. So I but but outside of those they have to be approved as like K12 approved products when you bring them into the school. So that's sometimes like a difficulty with

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bringing in like people from the community for that. >> Thank you. Well that's good to know cuz I'm not >> I know it. >> Okay. Well, thank you for the presentation. I guess if no one has anything and uh we apologize because I just like to be transparent for the uh

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feedback um to the student one. We apologize. I don't know if it was directed or not, but I'm just a straightforward person. U you know, I know you were speaking, so we respect you as our student and on behalf of our board, um we do apologize for whatever

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that feedback, but other than that, um thank you. And that's all I have. >> Thank you guys. >> All right. Where we transition, uh we bring in uh Dr. Stokes to present the proposed final budget.

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Well, good evening everybody. This is my fifth time, believe it or not, already up here leading you through the proposed final budget and the budget development process. So, it is great to be here this evening. We are not voting on anything this evening. We are here to review and

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discuss the proposed final budget. We will then next meeting look to approve the proposed final budget. It'll then be available for public inspection and we will not be actually adopting the final budget until the end of June. So, lots

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of time to be able to review and to be able to ask questions. Uh, similar to what I've done in the years past, we all have the PowerPoint slides that we're going to review, but all of the nitty-gritty detail of everything is actually in a separate packet. It is

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called a budget pamphlet. And as I go through the slides this evening, I'm going to refer you to the pages. so you can follow along. The budget pamphlet is going to have five years worth of history in there and up on the screen you might only have the current year um and the proposed next year. So, but what

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we hope this presentation does is it gives you a foundation to understand the process that we go through to develop the budget to understand what's included and to make sure that this budget is reflecting the financial investment we want to make in providing our students

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the education and enrichment opportunities that give them the foundation for continued success. So through this evening's presentation, we're going to talk about the budget development process. We're going to go through some overview of the budget as a whole. Then we're going to break down

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and look at our anticipated revenues, and we divide those into local, state, and federal. Then we're going to flip over to the expenditure side of the budget, and we're going to look at those by function and object. And then we're going to spend some time looking at

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property tax details and scenarios. So here at Harrisburg, the budget development process is very, very comprehensive. It is not Marsha Stoke sitting in the office putting numbers into a spreadsheet. We start all the way down at the teacher level. We start with

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zerobased budgeting, meaning every single one of our thousands of budget accounts start at zero and are developed through input from our teachers, our principles, our department heads, and our leaders. This takes a significant amount of time

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and effort, but hopefully the decisions are rooted as close to students as possible. So, as you can see, we started all the way back in September when we looked at what budget parameters and policies do we want to consider as we put um in the priorities for this coming

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year budget. We then did principal training for two different sessions. We then started the people portion of the budget and the people portion of the budget is where we start because we are a people focused entity. That is the majority of our expense and salaries and

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benefits. We evaluate every single position close to a thousand positions here in the Harrisburg School District. They are all reviewed annually. We go into another step further where we actually look at all of the overtime

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down to the hour requested by each of the positions. We look at all of the supplemental positions and then we start analyzing everything in the cabinet process before we go on to the staff portion of the budget which starts in January and February. So, lots

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of meetings, a lot of people involved in the budget development process. That brings us to tonight to look at the first draft of the proposed final budget, and then we will have the next meeting to review it further, approve it, put it up for public inspection, and then approve it right before our

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deadline on June 30th. So, this here is a slide with a bunch of numbers on it, but I want to lead you through if you're following along in the budget pamphlet that's on page five, and you're going to be able to see five years of data in the budget pamphlet.

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But up here, I have two years. The top portion looks at the revenues and those are broken down into local, state, and federal. And then we have the expenditures which are broken down by function. You will also see at the very top that

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it has the tax mill rate and we're going to get into a lot of tax scenarios as we get through going through this process but you will see the increase um that is included in this proposed final budget of 3% or 942

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mills. You will also see that the proposed final budget is about 11.4 4 million or about 5% greater than what we are operating under this current school year. So, as I stated, we're going to start on the revenue side of the budget. And it's

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very important to understand where our money comes from to support our school district. We are heavily heavily reliant on state aid. About 67% of all of our revenues come from the Commonwealth. In 2627 about 6% are going to come from

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the federal government and 27% are coming from local sources. However, I want to make sure to point out that our dependency on state revenues is increasing and our dependency on local revenues is decreasing. This makes us

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even more important that for us that the state adopt an on-time budget because we are so reliant on making assumptions and projections based off of the governor's proposed budget. And we're going to talk about more of those as we go through this presentation.

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I'm going to go one step further and really look at a breakdown of those revenue sources. So, this is found on page six for those of you that are following along in the budget pamphlet. And this breaks down the local, state, and federal at a much uh deeper level.

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Our largest revenue source remains our basic education formula. This is at 39%. Since we don't know what the state budget actually is at this time, we have to make some assumptions. And in working with the board earlier this year, we decided to make some assumptions that

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might be a little more aggressive than what we have in the past, but things that we've seen come to fruition the past few years. So we are estimating that 100% of the governor's proposed budget for BEF and SEF is included in this and we are also including 100% of

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the proposed adequacy supplement and I'm going to provide you greater details on these um as we in an upcoming slide. Our number two revenue source at this point in time is property taxes and that is at 17%. Our number three, which will

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soon replace number two in the future years, is our other state revenues at 14%. And that's where that ready tolearn grant, the block grant is the adequacy supplement that we're getting as a traditionally underfunded school district as part of the fair funding

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lawsuit as well as our tax equity supplement is most likely when I present this next year. That will be our number two revenue source of beating out our property tax revenue. So looking at our local revenues, you can see property taxes out at the top.

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And as I indicated, this is representing a 3% tax increase. You will see overall that local revenues are up about 2.3%. Um, of that 2.3% or $1.4 million, about

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600,000 is what we are able to generate with the 3% property tax increase. And that is because we are seeing a decline in taxable assessed values. So we're starting at a lower figure than we currently are standing. So even though

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we're increasing taxes, we are not getting the full amount that would be earned on a a normal 3% increase. Looking at the state revenues, as I indicated, this is the bulk of our revenues. This comes from the Commonwealth. This is where we have to

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make a lot of assumptions because until the state adopts their budget, we don't technically know what we are going to receive as an individual school district. We are looking at a 6.6% increase in state revenues with a majority of this coming from the adequacy supplement and the ready

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tolearn block grant. As indicated, we are assuming that we will receive 100% of the basic education formula in the governor's proposed budget. 100% of the special education formula increase as well as 100% of the tax equity

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supplement. We are going to continue to monitor the budget de development process down the street in hopes that we continue to have a clear picture of what we're expected to get as we get closer to adopting our budget. But as we know in the past few

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years, we've been faced adopting our budget first with the state ended up not doing an on-time budget. So, we hope that changes this year, but I don't think any of us are going to hold our breath. As we look at our federal revenues, these definitely look different than

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they did during the ESSER period. So, we are back down to what I'll say a normal level is, a pre-assesser level is with our federal revenues. 6% come from the federal government. That equals about $13 million. Now, one thing to know about federal

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revenues is we do not have our title allocations yet. Title allocations are typically released in early June. So, all of our title grants, what we typically do is we use a flat funding, meaning whatever we're getting this year, we're assuming we're getting next

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year. However, please expect that the final budget will look different because fingers crossed we will actually have those actual allocations and be able to make the adjustments in the revenues and expenditures before we bring the final budget before the board.

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So, now that we've got through the revenue section, we're going to flip over and do the expenditures. And these are starting on page 15 of the budget pamphlet if you're following along. And so we are going to go through the $227,749,738 in expenditures.

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And as expected, our largest area of expenditures is our regular instructional program, 84 million or about 37%. Number two is our special education programs and these are growing uh

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tremendously, which we will get through at later in the slides, but these represent about 37.4 4 million or 16%. Our third largest area is our debt service and transfers and those are at 29 million or 13% and there's much

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greater detail of all of those in the budget pamphlet. When we look at our expenditures by object or by type, this is starting on page 14 of the budget pamphlet. You're going to see as expected that salaries and benefits make up the most largest

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expenses of our budget. We are a peoplebased organization. So about 49% or $111 million is supporting our salaries and benefits of our staff. The second largest code is our 500

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codes. And this is where our charter school tuition costs are. And we are estimating to pay charter schools $31.1 million in 2627.

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So, let me just take a minute and put that in perspective. We are generating approximately $37 million of property tax revenue. We are then sending out 31.1 million of that to charter schools

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for tuition. Okay. So, we're going to look at the different areas of expenditures. And the first area we're going to look at is instruction. And for those of you that are continuing to follow along, pages 15 through 17 of the budget pamphlet can

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contain all of our um instructional areas. These include all of our regular ed programs, our special ed programs, the Dolphin County Technical School tuition payments, our summer school and afterchool programs, alt ed, our

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non-public school contributions, the hack sponsorship, our prek programs, and you're going to notice that charter school cost is in here, and that is in that 500 code. And as I mentioned, an estimated 31.1 million in charter school

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tuition for 2627. The next area is our support services and these all start with the 2000 function codes and those are found on pages 18 through 22 of the budget pamphlet. And these include areas such as counseling, social work,

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psychological services, technology, library, staff development, administration, nursing, business operations and maintenance, student transportation, and human resources. The next section of the expenditure

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budget is your 3000s, and these are on pages 22 and 23 of the budget pamphlet. And these are really our extracurricular or co-curricular activities. So those are going to be your um extracurricular

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clubs, your sports as well as our family and community engagement activities. 4,000 section of the budget is an area that's found on page 23 of the budget development pamphlet. I do want to point out that there is a change here. So you

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see $250,000 for this current year and that was really half of the school improvement we grant we received to be able to install the new boiler at Ben Franklin. But you're going to see a $600,000 cost in there. Well, you might have noticed in

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the 2000 sections that actually decreased. This is definitely a budgetary reason. This particular code is excluded from the charter school tuition calculation. So by identifying expenses that might have been in our operations section and being able to

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justify them in facilities, we are keeping more money locally than we are paying out in charter school tuition. So this is definitely a move to try to keep controlling those costs, not increase cost, just reclassification.

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Our 5,000 section is where I do want to take a little bit of time because this is on page 24 of the budget pamphlet and this includes a big area which are our debt service payments. So we're going to make $18.9 million of our bond payments,

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principal and interest. When we make those payments, because some of them are still under plan con, we get subsidy coming back to the district as a revenue source. So it's going to generate about 2.8 8 million from the state and about 590,000 from AR

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debt going back to 2010 that comes from the federal government. We do have some savings that we are projecting that I've already included in this year's budget. We have an upcoming refunding or refinancing of some of one of our serial bonds. We are expected to

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save approximately $600,000 a year in interest by refunding that based at current rates. And I've already incorporated that into the budget. After we make the payments next year, we're going to still have a remaining balance

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of 147.5 million in outstanding debt. Another item included in here is a transfer to the capital reserve fund. This amount is budgeted at $2 million based on this current version of the budget. And the other area is our

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budgetary reserve. And this budgetary reserve is equal to 1.5% of our budget. And this is basically the contingency we have for operating. We also have a portion in

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there for contract settlements. We know that not all all of our labor agreements are settled at this point in time. So, we have some money to make sure we can meet those uh contractual obligations once those negotiations conclude. And then we have 50% of the adequacy because

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we're budgeting 100% in our revenues, we're putting a contingency in here that says if by chance the Commonwealth does not come through with it, we don't have specific salaries and benefits tied to that. so that we do have the flexibility

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to be able to use those funds should they come to fruition. And that is something that the board and I discussed during a work session to say let's take more of an aggressive approach based on the way that we've seen things historically come to fruition with the

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adequacy supplement. Now we're going to get into our property tax section. And when I presented last uh board meeting, we talked a lot about the the cumulative impact of various tax rate scenarios and the board kind of gave some direction to say what do we

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want to come out with our proposed final budget and that direction was somewhere between 2 and 3%. So at this point in time we're coming out with 3%. This does not mean this is our final uh mill increase. It just means this is what we're presenting right now. So what does

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that mean? It means that the mill rate is going to increase to 32.342. We also have an offsetting state revenue. In the past 2 years, this has been extremely beneficial to the school district because even if we did raise property taxes, people who qualified for

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the homestead exemption still saw decreases in their bill. Well, you notice we're not getting new money this year. We're actually losing about $500. So we don't have that same scenario, that positive scenario as we faced the past two years. The other impact is the

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number of properties that actually qualify for the homestead exemption and the number of properties that qualify continue to diminish. So we're down to 5,348. So that all of those different equations fit into how this property tax proposed

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mill increase actually um resonates with the property owners. And we're going to get into some specific details here in a moment. I do want to allude as I stated 3% is just what we're coming out with today. The act one index is 5.4%.

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If you remember PFM when they did the exit report based on the information that was available in March of 2024 which was based on the 2324 school year they had done projections on the data at that time that said 4.81%

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is what the board would need to do. So those different numbers have been thrown around. But the the data that we're dealing with today looks a lot different than the data that we were with a year ago. Why? Because we know what the actuals were for 2526

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or what the budget is. We know what the actuals were for 24 25. We've now been able to see another year of adequacy supplement come to fruition. We've definitely seen changes in assessed values. We've seen changes in fund balance, changes in programming, and

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definitely changes in revenue assumptions as we built this budget. So nothing, no projection is ever static. It is what it is available at that time. So I just wanted to put that into context because I know we talk a lot about different numbers when it comes to

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property taxes. So, the homestead exemption, this is something that provides property owners that are owner occupied properties basically a credit or a decrease on their tax bill.

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This year, we're creating a credit or an exemption value that takes $26,615 of their taxable of their assessed value and makes it not subject to tax. or it gives them a credit of approximately

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$847 on their tax bill. So those property owners that qualify for the homestead exemption will see a lower tax bill than those that do not qualify. So those owner occup owner occupied properties, their tax bill is going to

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be about $848 less. So last time I was here, we looked at different examples and we looked at 1% 2% 3% 4% and the index. So I wanted to now that we know how many homestead properties we have. Now that we know

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what our um gambling fund amount is, we can then say what how do these translate into the actual bills for the property tax owners or for the property owners assuming that they qualify for the homestead exemption? And you're going to

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say, well, okay, where does the number 54,800 come from? Well, 54,800 is the median assessed value of a owner occupied home in Harrisburg. So, we always use that number because

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that is where our median is. And then we look at our $100,000 one. That is just an example number. However, you will be able to basically back into these if you're a property owner using these formulas to determine, hey, how does

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this really impact me? So, you're going to see that if you are a property tax owner or a a property owner and qualify for the Homestead Farmstead exemption. If we went with a 1% increase, you'd pay about $4 less in

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property taxes on your bill. And if you were $100,000 property, about $10. If we then look and say we did a 2% increase, we're going to see that 2% increase

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is going to make that tax bill on that median assessed value home increase by about $13.52. And if you are a $100,000 assessed home is going to increase by about $41.90.

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So that was that 2% scenario. Now, this is the 3% scenario, and this is what we're building our proposed final budget on right now. So, if you are a homeowner and you have a median assessed value home, you would see an

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increase of approximately $31 on your property tax bill. And if you had a $100,000 assessed value home, you'd see an increase of about $7349 um on your property tax bill. 4%. This is not a scenario we're running

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right now, but I did present it last time I spoke, so I wanted to make sure I was consistent. If you did a 4% increase, that median valued home would have an increase of about $48, and that $100,000 property would have an increase

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of about $105 on their tax bill. Now, should the board decide to go up to the act one index, which is 5.4%. So that is our ceiling, the most that we would be able to go. That median assessed value home would have an

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increase in tax bill of about $73. And that $100,000 assessed home would have an increase of about $149. The one year, that's the one-year increase. Now, I also want to look at our mill history.

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So understanding where we are and where we've come is important to know where we're going forward. So you can see that out of the past 10 years, five of those years have been at a 0% increase. Five of those years have been at an

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increase. I do want to point out that back in 1819 and 1920 that 1 mil increase and that 0.98 those were at the act one. So at that point in time, the ward went to the ceiling of what it could uh do at that point in time.

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However, if you look at what have we averaged annually over the past 10 years, it's a 0.45 mil increase. As I stated this year, we're looking right now at a proposed increase of 3%

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which is 2.4% under the ceiling of our act one index of 5.4. So, one of the things that we talk a lot about is what makes it what makes Harrisburg unique when it comes to tax

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revenue. And one of those things is that 52% of the assessed value of properties in the city are exempt from taxes. That is a continually increasing percentage. So when I presented this 5

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years ago, we were at 48 and now we're continuing to creep up 52%. In addition, we have seen declines in assessed values. So last year that big drop 7.5%.

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This year we're looking at trending at 1.3%. On May 15th we're going to get what our certified totals are. So, I'll be able to come back in June and and tell you exactly what percentage those are. The one thing to keep in mind is we

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are trying to operate on assessed values that are less than what they were in 2009. My historic data goes back to 2009 and we are under what we were. So think about your household and how different things were in 2009 and trying to

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operate with those same, you know, say your same salary in 2009 in today's dollars. So that's kind of what the school district is is having to do when it comes to the assessed values. So as I stated, 52%

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of all the properties in Harrisburg are exempt from taxes. What does that really equate to when you look at dollars? So, as I stated, you got the history starting at 48% when I first came here in 2022 all the way up to 52% today. But

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if you looked at the proposed mill rate, so the 32.342, and you took those properties and you put them back on the tax roll, that would generate another $51.3 million of annual revenue for the school

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district. Every year we'd have another $51.4 million. A much different conversation and much different picture than what I'm presenting this evening. So, as I stated, with the decline of assessed value, it's almost like a

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double hit for the school district because if we do raise taxes, alls we're doing is trying to recoup what we already lost. We're not necessarily gaining ahead when it comes to a revenue source. And so the way this points out is when you look at the value of 1 mil

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and you say how much can I generate if I increase taxes by 1 mil. Back in 2022 that was about $1.6 million. Now today that same 1 mil is only worth $1.46 million.

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And that really shows you the impact of our declining assessed values and what we're able to generate. So, as I stated, we had to make some revenue assumptions because we are so heavily reliant on state aid. And even though I've said them, I think twice

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through this presentation, I'm going to go for number three just to make sure we're all aligned on what we have in here. First one is property taxes. This scenario is a 3% increase. So, we're 0.942 mills. It assumes that we're

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getting 100% of what the governor proposed for our basic education funding. It assumes we're getting 100% of what the governor proposed for its special education funding. It also has in there 100% of the add

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adequacy supplement which is about $7.4 million with 50% of that in budgetary reserve. We already do know we're going to have the tax equity supplement because what we get this year we actually have to defer to the following year.

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We included the PCCD health and safety grant. We included title 1 2 34 at CSI at what levels they are today. We know we're getting the 21st century grant. We have the last extension year of the

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stop grant. PreK is at its current funding. idea is something that is diminishing each year, but we have it flatfunded and same with our SIG. So, now that I've gone through all these numbers, I thought it's important to

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really tie this back to what is our purpose. We're here to support and educate kids. So, how do all these numbers tie into what's that 1.4 million increase going to? How is it truly supporting instruction?

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So, one of the areas is our special education. So, our autistic support program is expanding. And what this means is you're going to have a new speech therapist, an occupational therapist, 18 new special education pair positions, nine new autistic support

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teachers. You're also going to have a multi sensory teacher. You're going to have eight more van runs to get these kids to and from school. And you're going to have all the supplies for those classrooms. and all the personnel section uh Miss Lang's going to go over in great detail

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during hers, but I wanted to at least highlight some of these. Another area of focus is our math intervention expansion. So, we just approved a new math curriculum. So, what we're doing is reinvesting in the instructional support for that. So we have now added math

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interventionists and we're going to include those not only at the elementary level but also at camp curtain and marshall math science. Something that we're rolling out with our ready tolearn adequacy funds is understanding that in order for kids to

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want to come to school, there has to be something that makes it exciting for them to come and when they come to school they're going to be prepared to learn. So that should increase achievement as well. And as so we're doing clubs and tutoring. So a significant increase in the number of

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clubs that are going to be offered at our high schools and we're expanding our clubs to all of our middle schools as well. So clubs are going to be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays all year long. And then we're also going to be offering tutoring at all of those secondary

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schools. So if you are not meeting the academic uh uh criteria for your clubs, you can also you can also uh go to tutoring so that then you can get your grades up to meet the academic standards.

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In addition, EL program expansion. So we just talked about our growing ELD population and the continued need to support those students. So you'll actually see five new ELD teachers. Those are going to be at Camp Curtain, John Harris, and Ben Franklin.

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With the expansion of middle school electives, focusing at Camp Curtain since we did Marshall last year, we're looking at adding STEM and Spanish, at least those are the preliminary proposed new electives at the middle school level.

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We are also contracting for behavioral support positions, BCBAs and RBTs and those are going to be at John Harris, Camp Cirten and Ben Franklin. And then we are looking to um revamp our ELA K5 resources, materials, and

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textbooks using our ready tolearn adequacy funds. And so those will be coming from our office of academics for a recommendation next school year. So I bring us back to our final slide and I hope you know I know this

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presentation's lengthy. It's a lot of numbers but hopefully you at least have some picture to understand where we receive our money from where we then invest our money and be a little better prepared to ask the questions between

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now and the final budget approval scheduled for the end of June. So, with that, I'm going to be quiet and be able to ask have the board ask any questions they might have. >> Miss Anderson, >> thank you, President Copelan. Thank you for that presentation, Dr. Stokes. As

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always, it's so easy to digest such complicated material. So, really appreciate you and thank you to the audience for being patient. We're almost a public comment. Um, so could you go back to slide I think it was like four or five? It was the pie chart that

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demonstrates um our sources of revenue. >> That one. >> This one. Yes. Thank you. So, we've talked about this a few times. I've mentioned a few times, but just want to like be clear again. So in Harrisburg, we are in a very unique situation that

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other cities in the state, maybe even many cities in the rest of the country do not experience, which is as you stated, 52% of the properties here in the city are taxexempt. So we do not get money from those properties. So in other

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districts, the local the blue might be higher, right? because they have more properties that they can pull money from. In Harrisburg, we are very reliant on state aid. In addition to that, the 27%

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that we do get from the properties basically crunches the property owners in Harrisburg, right? Because it's like we're putting more of a burden on that 48% of properties that we're pulling money from. So, as a school district,

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when we are deciding whether or not to raise taxes, it's difficult because we need to have a um consistent source of revenue, which could be local taxes, but in doing that, we're also putting more of a tax burden on our local residents that that only

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make up that 48%. Is that >> Yes. >> accurate? >> Yes, that's accurate. >> Okay, great. Um, so I would be curious in thinking about the different tax rates that you presented, the 4.81% that was has also kind of been thrown

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around and maybe Dr. Susky, you could provide a little bit more clarity on this. What what is that percentage and why is that sort of being proposed or recommended versus like the index or the 3%.

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>> So I can lead off and then Dr. Susky can follow. So when we did our exit plan, which would have been developed back in the winter to early spring of 2025, the most data that they could most up-to-date data was the actuals from the

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23 24 school year. And so when PFM had to prepare a 5-year projection that said we can still be in the black 5 years out, they had to make some assumptions. One of them was state aid. they couldn't

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rely on the adequacy supplement continuing. So that was a big that's $7.4 million annually. The other thing that they uh did did not have is they didn't have actuals from the 2425 school year and we know we had a very good

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fiscal year and we were able to increase fund balance. So that fund balance increase isn't reflective either. So it is from that particular snapshot of data that they had back on that particular day that said this is how much Harrisburg school district would have to

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increase taxes so that 5 years out at the end of this monitoring we were still in the black. Dr. Suski >> everything you said is 100% accurate. Uh the only thing that I would add there is that it is a moving target uh

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considering the fact that whatever data you were using for the projections even the data I would go back to the data that was presented to the board at the retreat in January that data again was based on 2526

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as we knew it. So if PFM had access to the 2627 file, they would be able to update the projections and they may come back with a very different number than the 4.81%. So going back to um Autumn's question

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about the actual uh tax increase to the index though, the 4.81 81 was really reflective of going to the index at the particular time, but this year's index is 5.4. So that's where it's always a

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moving target. So just a few uh points on that. Um, PFM's review of the long-term projections, as I said, used the 2526 budget, showed that if no corrective action was taken, the

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district would face a negative operating result that would grow an average of 4.5 million every year between 2728 and the 203031 school year. which is why it's imperative that whatever decisions the

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board makes are not just a moment in time decision but looking long-term and I'll get into some more of that later but I want to let the board ask their questions. That is very helpful. Thank you Dr. Sesi. Could you go to the slide that shows the year um by year mill

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increases? I don't know what number that was. Yeah, this one. >> So, in thinking about like how our current decisions impact the future, could you speak a little to this? Right. Because there's like really not any

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increase that was done in the past, right? And so now it's kind of like kicking the can down the road, kicking the can down the road and now the board and district are faced with having a bit of a spike with a tax increase. Could you speak to that? >> Yeah. So where you see the 18/19 school

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year that is all the way up to the index. So the 1 mil was as high as they could go at that point in time. But you notice the year before they went zero. So most likely their zero caused hey I need to go all the way to the index. The next year 1920 we know that was

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basically entering receiverhip one all the way to the index. And then you see 20 2122 0%. Well, why do you think we would have gone 0%. And that would have been the influx of esser and co 19. So it's hard

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to come here and say, hey, we're going to raise taxes when we just got $83 million worth of federal aid through the various ESSER funds. In 22 23, we knew, hey, ESSER is going to end. we need to

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start doing some type of incremental increases and this was under receiverhip. So we did go with a windmill which is under the act one. Um and then 23 24 25 once again we still

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went with zero. Could you look back and say maybe we should have gone with incremental increases those years? Yes, perhaps 25 26 that is when we did a 2% increase and then 26 27 that 0.94 is

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equal to a 3% increase. So I know one thing I've kind of said right along is I'd love to see small incremental increases every year because once you don't get that money, you can never make it up. Um and so looking at whether we

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absolutely need it today might not be the question to ask. Do we need it five years out? Do we need it 3 years out? What is the cumulative impact of not doing it today? And I think that's where we have a unique situation. We have the

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unique situation because you you're right, our tax burden uh falls on that 48% that's remaining. We also know that we're a historically underfunded school district, but the way the lawsuit was addressed

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through the adequacy funding states that it has to be authorized annually. So $7.4 million we can't count on 2 3 4 years out because we don't know politically that we're going to get it.

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Now we could sit here and say all of us they better keep funding it. that's what's keeping them out of court, right? Is to keep this up. But how do we bank on that 2 3 4 years out? So that

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adequacy I've always said can make or break the projections. And that is where you know PFM being very conservative and following the direction of PTE says I can't count on that. When I do my projections, I don't know that's a real

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revenue that you're going to get two, three, four, five years out. Same alert. We don't we're sitting here today and we don't know if we're going to get it July 1. So that is puts us in a very difficult situation because it might end up that

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if all of that revenue comes to fruition, then maybe we tax more than we absolutely needed to. But if it doesn't come to fruition, we're putting oursel in a financial bind that we don't want to get into again. And so it's definitely a delicate

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situation that the board has to weigh is how risk averse do I want to be or how conservative do I want to think about ensuring that that money is predictable into the future. >> Thank you, Dr. Stokes. I have a couple more questions, but I'm going to pause.

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Just quick followup. Is there any way we could get a line item budget before the meeting on the 26th? So, yes, absolutely. There's an Excel file that I'll be able to give you guys. It's probably 10,000 lines long, so you know, I don't know how much value you're going

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to get at it, but by all means, you're welcome to it. But the PTE 2028, which is attached to the agenda, that is the standard form that all districts across the Commonwealth have to use. And that is a way to be able to compare us to

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other school districts um to be able to uh actually kind of see what what that total budget is. But yes, if the board requests the Excel file, by all means, you are more than welcome to it. Just don't know how much value you're going to get out of trying to skim through

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that. >> Thank you, Miss Anderson. So I just want to just trying to find a way cuz again this is not my expertise. So it seems like from the 10 years

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over the average of the last 10 years we only uh raise taxes 1%. 1.4%. So why are we not raising it at the act one index? >> So I can only speak to the time that

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I've been here. Um, I can't tell you why historically the board hasn't raised to the index. Obviously, it's a very, you know, you have constituents. Every board member has constituents and you always want to balance. I don't want to overt tax, but I also want to make sure

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the district is in a a solid financial footing. So, one of the things that definitely impact us during receiverhip was the influx of the ESSER money from COVID. If we wouldn't have received that 83 plus million dollars, this would look

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completely different than it is on the screen right now. I think most districts across the Commonwealth said with everything going on with the shutdown, all the hardships people are doing with COVID now, this influx of money, I'm going to kick that can down the cur the

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road a little bit and not burden more than I absolutely have to during these trying times. And and that's basically the conversations that we had. um under Dr. Susky's leadership as receiver is we have this federal money. Let's make sure

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that we don't you know do more than we absolutely have to during these years. But you we didn't do that every year. We still had increases where we needed to. But if you remember the original I'm going to say the original the amended recovery planner said that we were

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supposed to raise to the act in one index. Then it got amended to say up to the act one index based on the recommendations of the CFO andor receiver board. And that's what we're under today is yes the act one index is

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our ceiling but we know that every single data endpoint uh input changes. So we can't just go out there with a blanket statement that says every year we're raising to the index because we may not need that. And so that's why it definitely has to be evaluated every

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year, not just on that one year, but what does that impact years 2, three, four, five, and down the road. >> Yeah. And thank you for that. And only why I was asking because um um I don't know if everybody else is aware, but a lot of school districts are raising it to the act one index. And I know I am a

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homeowner, so this will affect me. But I just wanted to share that. And a lot of them are raising it because there's and I don't want to speak into existence right but you know I've heard of a lot of deficits

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and unfortunately I know Harrisburg school district currently I've been asking this question like are we in that boat because one thing is uh we fought to get out of receiverhip not to go back

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and I know financial financial is a big monitoring piece that we're looking at but I say just to share you know for the community again and again we're looking towards your recommendation and I'm just curious of like cuz when I looked at

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some of the budgeting um you use the the medium rate versus locally like a local rate and now is that we're meeting yes so all the properties within the city that is what ours is yes >> right so is there what other ways like

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there. I know you showed a little bit of the grants and funding like what what other ways can we like I seen a lot of the grants which besides trying to raise taxes because I

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see um a lot of raising taxes was really towards um and understand there's an increase uh academically with a autis um autism classes and that's you know I get it. However,

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um since I've been here, it's it's even hard to um find the right words to say. There's been hard to even um place positions, >> correct? >> To fill the position and we're directing

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this right back towards >> which I understand right of how you're sharing it, but then it's like, you know, did we talk about rebuilding a school? um what other ways do you know can you kind of address it and maybe you may not have that right now but as that

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something you can kind of you know come back because as a homeowner I would like if I'm going to raise my taxes and I know it's going to impact our students to say hey we can build that vote or that school right here locally then hey

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I know I'm giving back where I understand when it comes to trying to position or you know put other job descriptions when we're, you know, just being honestly it's been rarely rarely we we can hardly get positions filled at

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this time. So, how do we kind of, you know, share that sentiment with our community? And I know they, you know, finding a way or looking locally. And I know I've been out advocates, you know, I went out for advocacy day and that is

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one of the things I spoke about, we spoke about to the legislators like, you know, we, you know, we elect you. want we need more funding and our children our our students here are underfunded and it affects their learning their education and we got great students so

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you know finding that is so important and I'll be continuing to advocate and I also spoke to I think it was uh Mr. Doug, was it Brown? Um, Patty Kim's uh chief staff and I spoke to, you know, just how

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do we come together to collaborate um when you're out there advocating for our students to make sure you guys also show up at our board meetings because this is important to know. It it plays hand in hand. It's just not the school district does all these great things is the

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people that we put out. And I just wanted to kind of share that piece of why, you know, it affects the students because they're the next ones who take our seat. So we I thank you guys for being here because this is what we need to see. Not that we're just doing it here, but in our schools and SBI, CTE,

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like that's important. And I came up graduate from Harrisburg High, had honor student, you know, I was an honor student, got children in the district, and all of the above. But I wanted to be able to give back right here to my city and how can I be a support and advocate

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and fight until that takes place. So I guess just trying to bring back something more um besides the uh budgeting with jobs like where is the educational components? What what can we talk about and helping? And I know there's a lot of talk about schools and

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things happening, but we do a lot of partnerships outside of the district. >> Yeah. I would definitely encourage the board because when you're looking at programmatic things like yeah I can tell you all about numbers but you probably don't want to hear about the programs

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from your CFO necessarily but you really have strong cabinet members over here that can tell you like yeah I give you the people and I give you the numbers but behind those people and numbers are all of those things that you're talking about Miss Copelan and being able to see

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so when I talk about autistic support expans expansion. Yeah, I'm telling you about the teach the teachers and everything we need to know, but Miss Palmer can actually tell you what's going on in those classrooms. Similar when we're talking about expansion of math interventionist, yeah, I'm talking about people, but the people are just

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one piece of the puzzle. Miss Folks can tell you exactly what we intend on doing programmatically with those math interventionists and what impact they expect to have. So definitely I would like to make sure that those other members of cabinet can really speak in

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their areas of expertise because I'm not going to do it justice. >> Yeah. But no, but thank you for that cuz that, you know, shared a lot and also I spoke about like when we talk about autistic that is big here and I'm a part of you know our business partners out here in early childhood education and

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that was something I talked to the legislators like it's beyond school. Some of these childrens can't even get into a daycare center. So where you take the weight on of surpassing the daycare because they can't verbal or do x y and z and then you just send them to a school and they can't read, they can't

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write and then we're like oh we can work a miracle but I believe in God right? Sorry but had to say it but you know there's other ways around it but I think early childhood and I know we have partners and we're working. So thank you to the admin team. I I can again this is

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not my expertise. Yeah, I do other great work, but this is just helps me to speak to not just it from a schoolboard level or district. I'm talking to him about what are you guys, you know, and I think the governor has something on the budget line talk speaking to uh increasing more

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um funding towards early childhood because early childhood people don't know they're very underpaid and you don't have no strict, you know, strict our certification degree level, you know, teachers and aids that are teaching your children early on and you

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just, you know, come that babysitting and we're like, wait a minute, where's the curriculum? What's happening? And I think that's what we talked about trying to collaborate. What is the school doing and I think that is you know we're doing I just wanted to share that too so I don't just start here is like these

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children come in and a lot of them come in and really just don't have the capacity and supports and then we have to extend it out with the bare you know minimum that we are getting but I wanted to share that and thank you for the presentation was great and I can go on and on and on. I'm sorry Miss Hughes.

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>> Thank you very much. Thanks for the presentation and for all the information. Thank you for rigging out the different mill rates and um the impacts to the bills. That's really appreciated. Um I also Oh, could we maybe go back to the slide real quick? Just a summary of the budget, the 5-year comparison. It was at the very

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beginning. >> Yeah, I I just was remembering um I mean it looks like you fit this revenue model and you picked the mill rate 3% to fit the budget, right, of the 227 million. >> Yeah. Not necessarily. >> Okay.

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>> So, um, if you remember last time I was here, I said, "What would the board like to see? Kind of give me some feedback." It was 2 to 3%, I was then directed by the superintendent. Let's go with three. So, typically what I do is I then plug that in. And typically where I have to

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make adjustments is in the budgetary reserve. >> I see. >> So, budgetary reserve historically has been about 2% of the budget >> and I'm down to 1.5%. >> Okay. And the other area that we would consider is the transfer to capital

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reserve fund and that has been greatly diminished down to $2 million. We obviously know we just approved a capital uh budget of like 13 to6 million depending on the grant. So 2 million is not going to make up that. But we also

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know I have that other $3.4 million give or take from the adequacy that is still in that budgetary reserve. So that kind of gives me the wiggle room. Basically, what I'm trying to do is not have to come back to you when the board or when the Commonwealth adopts a budget to redo our budget for the third

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time. >> Yeah, sure. >> Um and to to try to make it a little easier on the board and the community to follow. >> Okay. I mean, you had said earlier too about recommending kind of incremental um increases. So I I assume like three if it's I don't know what it's going to

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be this year, but let's say it's 3% but like a higher percentage uh the next year. I because I I when you say we're we're kind of using the the capital reserve as a or not the capital reserve, I'm sorry, the budgetary reserve as um the balancing side of it.

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>> Okay. Yeah. Um do do you anticipate needing to continue to do that if we're at a similar rate kind of year-over-year? >> So there's the budgetary reserve is a very important line item in the budget that I think sometimes goes a little bit unnoticed or not quite sure what it's for. It serves a purpose of you can

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never tell what you need today when you actually need it. You don't know what's coming down the pike. You so it is give you that contingency. The other important factor is it is not part of the PTE 363 that determines our charter school tuition. So if I was to put that

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money into the budget, I'm just inflating the amount of money we're sending out to charter schools. So it definitely it plays that two-fold approach. um it's technically not an expenditure. It really is a reserve line. Um and like I said, historically

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we've been give or take about 2% of the budget, which if you think about it, that's not very much contingency. If you had your household budget and you said, "I got 2% for contingency." You know, that makes it pretty tight. Um so that's where I have to balance right now

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typically. Now, we could go back and the board could give direction to say, you know, I want to cut this, I want to rep prioritize that. And I think that's why it's so important at the beginning of budget that we really sit and have a good conversation and a good work session to say what is the board's

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priorities because if you tell me music program is our priority this year based on XYZ or our comprehensive plan is attendance or career and technical education by all means we want the financial investment

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to reflect what the priorities of the board and the comprehensive plan are. So I think you know as we work together more between a board and an administration, we can start developing better conversations to take that comprehensive plan and then say how does

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this really lay out in priorities? Because if we truly are trying to increase achievement and attendance, then what do we need in place to be able to actually meet those goals and making sure that we are targeting those areas when it comes to the budget. Now there

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there's definitely more needs and wants than we have funds for. So we always have to prioritize and making sure we all are aligned on what those priorities are at the beginning of the budget helps me drive all the people that are inputting their data and their requests

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to make sure we're all aligned. We're all charging in the same direction. >> Okay. Yeah. Thanks for explaining that um about the reserve. Um, uh, I I echo, uh, President Copeland's sentiments, too. Like, I mean, thinking about like the the so-called like savings we had in previous years. That's cuz we didn't have a full staff, right? Like we were

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under, which is not a good thing. >> No. >> So, yeah. I um I I just want to be cognizant of that, too. Like, we're still not, you know, we're still looking to hire and retain people, and it's very difficult. It's very difficult in this industry uh right now. So, I have one more quick question for Dr. Susky, then I'll be quiet. Um, I think last time I

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had asked based on some conversation the uh board members had about the um potential implications to um residency population over time um as um as uh school as property taxes increase and I

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think I think you had a a source in mind. Did anything come through for that that the board can review? Um does that ring a bell? No, >> I'm not sure I understand. Okay. Exactly what you're asking. >> Yeah. Last time um we had asked what's the risk to um population of Harrisburg

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over time um and home ownership over time if uh property taxes raise and I think you said it was either um PSBA or um another organization might have data on that um does anyone remember I I do remember that I I do remember that and

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that's something perhaps PFM could pull >> okay for us >> yes that would be >> great I think just understanding high risk medium risk low risk like and I know It probably varies obviously by the situation in the particular city, but um that would be helpful. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Hughes.

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>> Madame President, >> yes, Dr. Suski, >> I I want to piggyback on something that uh Miss Hughes just mentioned. So I think to avoid the uncertainty for the future that the district needs to look at adopting a tighter timeline for the

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budget development process so that the board has time to fully analyze a preliminary draft budget and really provide input before they're being asked to vote on a tax increase because I think that's what I was hearing you say Miss Hughes that you know where where'

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we come up with a 3%. And again, in a perfect scenario, best practice is that you would determine a tax increase once the board has already received a detailed draft of the budget's revenue and expenditures for the budget year has an opportunity to look at the long-term

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imple implications through the projections, excuse me. And that part we didn't get to see uh this year. Another point that I would like to make is that we've already talked about the decline in the assessed value. So we know that that is

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a concern for us moving forward and it has a cumulative impact on the district. The charter school enrollment, we already mentioned that that is going to be a significant drain on the general fund moving forward. And then we also have already talked about the 10

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additional autistic support classes for this coming school year. The net fiscal impact is $3 million annually in staffing and transportation and there may be need to increase the number of those classrooms again in the future. So

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all of these things are what we would call budget stressors. And so even though we may be okay at the moment, it's that long-term planning. And I think someone had asked the question before about what would it take for the district to go back into

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receiverhip. And I had shared with you that with Harrisburg being the first district to exit receiverhip, there's really been no precedent set for that. But what I can tell you is that it's the long term, the

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long game. So really the board in in issuing their tax levy this year is playing the long game because you may be good this year, next year. Um if you looked at the projections that were presented to you by PFM, it was the 27

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28 year where we started to have a net negative operating result. So it may be five six years down the line. Some of you may not even be on the board at that time. And that's when we could hit that bottom again where we get into trouble.

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So it's it's that need to really look at the cumulative impact of deviating from the exit report because of the fact that there are long-term implications for the district's financial solveny moving forward.

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>> And also just to add on to what uh Dr. Sesi was saying, I'm glad that Dr. Stokes had went over the mill rate history because uh when I had came onto the board in 2017 even prior to that taxes was not being raised because we didn't want to leave that burden on the residents and also we had accumulated a

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$20 million surplus. So we thought that we were in good standing where we didn't have to raise taxes but here in 20 2018 2019 we was in the burden of possibly filing for bankruptcy. So we don't want to hit that milestone again. So moving forward right here, I think we do need to consider looking at that uh mil rate

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increase that was presented to us at that 4 4.81. >> Thank you. And and just to add to that, I had to put my final in there because if we think about it, um the district was under receiverhip when these increments were not being taken place.

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So it looks like since we have came out of receiverhip, we have been taking the recommendations and we have been doing the increments because when you go back and if you go to that slide when I did the 10-year kind of um you go there. Yeah. There.

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Yep. When you look at the 10-year time frame because what we hit receiverhip was that 201819 >> 19 >> 19. So if you look at the one one mil rate no tax increase and then if you go on down right and then once you get to

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the 25 24 25 I guess coming out is when you seen the 0.62 so we the the increments started as we were in back to kind of make that but I think too not to not to take back from what Dr. Susan, we

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still as a board had the right to vote on taxes under receiverhip. However, we were being led by our, you know, that leadership we were under on what we needed to do to get here. So, I just wanted to put that on the record. And

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Madame President, if I may, and I fully understand that the board is very sensitive to the fact that we're out of receiverhip, and so the constituents are going to be looking at you, and I fully understand that. But Dr. Stokes stated it very clearly that in 1920

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when the district went into receiverhip, that was the COVID time that started right after that. So when we started to get the infusion of the federal $83 million, I remember we had to go I had to go to the judge and ask if we could

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amend the recovery plan and he granted it based on the fact that we had all of this federal money and I went and asked if we could possibly go against the plan and raising taxes to the index because I was sensitive to the fact that we were

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raising them on a community that was struggling financially in some cases. is so he granted that approval and as Dr. Stokes stated the amended plan states that you can go up to the index but there is the latitude based on the

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recommendation of the CFO and at the time the receiver and Dr. Stokes and I were aligned at the time that with all of the money that we were sitting on and the district really had to work to spend that money because it was very explicit what you could spend that money on.

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there were, you know, strings attached to it. It wasn't like you just had this money and you could put it anywhere. It was very direct in what you could spend the money on. And at that time, we agreed that we didn't want to overly burden the taxpayers. So, I'm fully

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cognizant of the fact that the board is feeling the pressure to do this. The other thing again is that as the chief recovery officer who is you know acting on behalf of the department of education, I can recommend, I can suggest, I can strongly encourage, but

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at the end of the day, even during receiverhip, the board had the ability to levy taxes. Now, during receiverhip, could I have overridden your desire to not raise taxes? Yes, I could have done that. But we were all aligned with what

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we believed what was best for the district at that time. In this particular case, I mentioned the 4.81% because I keep going back to the exit report that is a year old. The one thing that I would suggest is that in my conversations with PFM, Public Financial

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Management, they are willing to take Dr. Stokes's Exile file and dump it into the model. And they said they can probably turn that around pretty quickly. So, if you would like to see what that number is, and maybe it's not going to be 4.81%

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and that would give you a little bit more comfort in whatever tax increase you eventually arrive at, we certainly can make that happen for you. But I do have a few questions and these are not necessarily for Dr. Stokes, although she

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may have the answers to these. But in reviewing the budget from a line item perspective, which I did for most of the day today, I just wanted to clarify open enrollment for employees. So, do we have all of the open enrollment elections at

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this point to know who is single coverage for healthcare versus spousal and um family coverage? >> Open enrollment will be closing at the end of this week. So, we don't have current like the the file >> is not updated. Okay. So, these are some of the things I'm throwing out to the

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board for your consideration because again, usually what happens is the first draft of the of the final proposed budget is not the last draft and there's usually changes. So, there right there is an example. So, open enrollment hasn't closed yet. So, we really don't

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know what level of health care our employees are elected electing until we have all of that finalized. Um, we already know we don't know what our state funding is. That's a given. Grant allocations. Um Dr. Stokes did share the ones that she is aware of as of this

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point, but we know we do not have the title 1 2 3 4 federally allocated grants known at this time. Um how are vacancies being budgeted? Because when I was looking at the line items, I know this was a a point of contention um with uh

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the department as well as with PFM about putting in all of the vacant positions into the budget for salaries and benefits in the one and 200s as opposed to putting them in the 300s for contracted services. So, as an example, when I was looking through the line

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items today, there is a plethora of vacant positions and a lot of them say special education paraprofessional. So, there is I'm just going to pull a number out of my head. I think it was like $26,000 salary associated with that. So, if you

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were to multiply that by the number of vacancies I saw, that's a $3.3 million expenditure right there. So the question is, are we budgeting for those in salaries and benefits or are we budgeting for those vacancies that we

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haven't been able to filled through Kelly services as part of contracted services? Because this is this is a big issue. And the reason it's an issue is because over the past few years, we've ended up with a significant surplus at the end of the year because we haven't

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filled those positions. And that is what resulted in all of that money being transferred into capital reserve. And from a transparency perspective, if we know we're not going to fill positions, then we really need to consider, do we want to budget for all of those

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positions. So I'm I'm just opening that question to the administration. So I'm happy to start off with this. So we have made um we right now know we're in ask me negotiations. Okay. So we have to follow the contract that we have in place right now. Uh we have made

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adjustments to the way we budget for those paras knowing the fact that probably most likely more of them will end up contracted than necessarily in-house employees and we've made that adjustment by now only budgeting single coverage for health care. So we have

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pretty much uh basically eliminated the gap of the net expense if we hire somebody inside versus if we contract them. So with the difference that we're doing in our healthc care coverage, we have eliminated that differential. Now

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what does that mean? Well, if I do get lucky enough to hire 10 of those and they all have family coverage, I'm I don't have I don't have enough in the budget. But based on history, we've made that adjustment. So, as Dr. Suski was reviewing those, for example, those 18

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new positions. Right now, contractually, I have to budget those as a person because they are included in the creations and eliminations that Miss Lang is going to go through. But I'm assuming to make sure that net salaries, benefits, and those Paser subsidies and

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FICA subsidies that are in the revenue side basically come out to what I'd be paying a marriage, GHR, or Kelly services. So the risk in this is if we can't fill the positions at all that is

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where the surplus comes from when it comes to those contracted paras. So if by chance we can't fill those positions no matter what then yes technically you're going to end up with surplus. Obviously all those positions are needed with most of them all being in our

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special education classrooms. Similarly with teachers. So teachers, we budget for vacancies at bachelor's step five. So you can look at the agenda as we go through here. You're going to see teachers hired much higher. You're going

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to see teachers perhaps hired lower. We don't know exactly what they're going to be at. The one thing that's different though with teachers is that there's not typically as much of a differential when we end up having to contract out with Kelly Services. Because when we do

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contract out with Kelly Services, uh we typically pay a I'll say a higher paid teacher because our rates go from non-certified to retired and we pay them at a a different rate when they're long-term than versus when they're

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daily. But once again, the same risk is what happens if I can't get a long-term sub in that position and I end up with a vacancy. and we have vacancies today that are not covered by long-term subs. So, the board really needs to say, and

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we went through this exercise to say if we haven't filled the position in a year or two, it's gone. And that's what we've typically said. Like, for example, the uh BCBAS, we had those in the budget because we knew we needed those behavioral positions.

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We couldn't f we couldn't find anybody. Same with our home to school visitors. We knew we need those positions. We can't find anybody. those are no longer in the budget. However, in the stop grant, we're going to get a one-year extension and we're going to try to contract for three of those positions.

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Now, what that's going to mean is that's a one-year stop gap. So if we find those positions are very valuable and they've made an impact, we've measured them and they made an impact, then that might be a million dollars between the BCBAS and

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the RBTs that we might need to look to say we need to continue that after the grant ends. So it's one of those things that we have to always consider when we do grant-f funded positions is if it works, we don't want to get rid of it. We want to make sure those services

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stay. So what does that mean? We have to absorb them in the general fund most likely moving forward, but we're not going to not do it, you know, because we have this money available through the grant. So those are just some of the things, but our biggest differences when it comes to salaries and benefits are

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when those positions go unfilled completely. >> And I'm glad you because that's what I was speaking to a little bit earlier. So that's why I understand you said it's a negotiation and we ain't going to go there, right? However, that's I mean I would want to see budget into what you have, right? Because we're taken from

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positions that are just not there, right? Is is best to say who do you have? How do you budget and pour back into the the ones that are, you know, on the front line sometimes and I understand, you know, but that's why we see that high surplus. And then we're like, wait a minute. And I was looking

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on the budget line. So, thank you, Dr. sus cuz I was like why is the employee benefits so like there's a decrease. >> So some of some of that is because appeasers rate actually fell. >> So it went down a half a percent. >> It did.

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>> Um and we adjust for what people actually have for healthc care coverage each year. So um one of the things that you'll notice is typically when you go to a qualified highdeductible health plan, people opt to not necessarily have your coverage anymore. So when we've

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implemented those plans, what we do is we actually look at what people have. Do you have family? Do you have two party? Do you have single? And we budget after that. So sometimes you're going to see decreases because I don't want to pay that spousal search charge. So I'm not going to have that family coverage or I

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find it more beneficial for me to get on my spouse's coverage than to necessarily maintain in the district. So there is a significant swing in in those types of areas. Um and and what we can do is once the file gets done on or about hopefully

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June 1st from HR, we can reddo those and say is there any material difference between what people have this year and what will they elect next year and see if there are you know any increases or decreases in that coverage. But that

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doesn't mean that I'm not gonna have a baby or I'm not gonna get a divorce or I'm not gonna have a change, right? You know, because we we see changes daily. >> Thank you. Uh Miss Anderson. >> Thank you, President Copeland. Um just a couple more questions and then a

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comment. Um so the budgetary reserve, you said right now we're around 1.5%. Typically we're around 2%. Could you talk through like what why would we be comfortable with only 1.5% and then like what are other districts doing for their

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budgetary reserve? So one of the things that makes me more comfortable with the 1.5% is the fact that we also have that adequacy that 50% of the adequacy in there. Um so that makes me feel more comfortable with

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saying that. Now, the way districts use budgetary reserves differ. There's 500 districts and there's 500 different philosophies of how they use it. Some don't have it at all. Some will push the limits on what's allowable to try to

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keep their charter school tuition rate down. Many of them say, "I like between 2 and 4% in there." So it definitely it differs by community and it differs basically by how many knowns and unknowns each district is facing each

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year, what their fund balance is, what their capital reserve balance is, what other contingency strategies do they have in place for that. So there is not onesizefits-all when it comes to budgetary reserve. >> Thank you. And then can we use our

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budgetary reserve for like human capital expenses like salaries and positions or no? >> So yeah, you can use your budgetary reserve to transfer into any line item that's in your budget. So yeah, so for example, you might say, I need, you

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know, we've had a an influx of kindergarteners and I need to add a kindergartener class to Ben Franklin. I didn't know it at the time, but now I need to add a teacher. That's what we could use at budgetary reserve is to be able to pull that say $130,000 to fund that position out of

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there to be able to create that. We also know that we could have water mane breaks and we could have electrical issues and we could have a whole bunch of unknowns and that's anything that's in your budget you can then transfer out of the budgetary reserve to cover.

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>> Great. Thank you. Um so just a couple comments. one the schedule that you had pulled up. Um I love that we did the sessions in the beginning of the year. I think it would also be helpful if we did something maybe like January, February with the budget just to kind of like prep and we get like a followup from

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what was presented in the fall. Um >> and we did this in February this year when we looked at what assumptions we kind of studied the governor's budget. So yes, it'd be great to incorporate something keep that as an ongoing topic. >> Yes. And then even if there's maybe even like a little followup with where we've

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sort of landed with things, um I think that would be helpful. And then two other comments. Um I um echo Mr. Carter's sentiment that I think that we should be looking at increasing to the 4.81% or the index and we should be

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considering that. So given that I would be interested to see what PFM is able to provide as an updated index and then if we can maybe include that as part of if there's consensus among the board um if we're interested in seeing that at the

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next meeting I would be interested in that as a board member. Does anyone have strong feelings against that or >> I I just want to be caut be aware that if our next meeting is one week from today >> it's um we're going to talk about that later but I don't I don't I don't know that it's I think it's going to be at

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the end of the month. >> Okay. Uh I just don't know how fast we'd be able to turn everything around and then also be able to incorporate that back into everything. So, but absolutely and the biggest change would be if the board doesn't give any other directive

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would be do you want to see that in budgetary reserve? Do you want to see that in capital reserve fund? Where would you like to see that additional couple hundred,000 of potential revenue? Great. I would love to hear from my fellow board members. I just had a quick thought um which is why I was asking

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about the human capital. Um, obviously this is not like a policy decision that's being made, but we had folks who came and spoke about Camp Curtain. I know Mr. Carter has been um very passionate and wanting to learn more about what that looks like. And I am wondering if there is an investment that

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could be made there with having teacher aids um and thinking about just getting more help in the classroom if we're going to increase taxes and have a little bit of a more money for the budgetary reserve. Yeah, I do think that hopefully some of those questions will come out when Miss Lane goes through her

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human capital portion because you're going to see an influx of positions um going into Camp Curtain Academy um anywhere from safety monitors to um teachers um and other things. So, I think some of that will show as Miss Lane goes through her creations and

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eliminations, but there is an investment into people going into Camp Curtain next year. >> Great. Thank you. I guess board president, do we need to get a consensus? Do we want to get a consensus from the board about the index increasing to the index? I don't think we're voting tonight, but just does does

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anyone feel strongly against that? >> Well, I would like I I go with real numbers. So when you bring back the real time cuz you want, you know, I say I know you got some more time to look into it because I just believe there's other ways to

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find funding and work. But again, you're doing a great job at what you're presented, but I don't want to feel like you just take it to the highest whatever act one index and then next year um you don't have the same board members and they had this great recommend, you know,

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and we didn't really need to use it. So, I mean, I do appreciate the um feedback to it. >> I I just want to make sure I catch your uh board member Anderson uh question. And so, what you're asking is for PFM to run their projection and provide that

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information so we could compare what their projection was since they asked provided that 4.81 in the essay report. Has that number changed? >> Yes. >> So, y'all want the real time number? So hopefully we could be able to get the information before our next board meeting so we could share that

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information with you all. >> Yeah. And and if we're doing that then we will need to know what the fees will be to do that report cuz when people are running the report I'm sure >> that's part of that's part of our technical assistance part of our technical assistance through the department of ed. So there's no charge for that.

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>> Okay. Great. Madam, Madam President, before you answer or get your straw poll on that, the other thing that I would recommend, and this is just for the board's consideration, and I know Miss Lang is going to go through creation and elimination, but considering that

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salaries and benefits takes up the most portion of your overall budget, it would probably be in the board's best interest to look at total FTE, full-time equivalent for the 2627 school year compared to the current school year. And

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I would do it for HA, I would do it for ASME, and I would do it for ACT 93. >> Yeah, we have that data. So that's that's very easy. >> We could pull that that they would be able to see that because again, when we say we're adding all these positions or

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we're eliminating some, adding others. I think it's important to look at the bottom line. How much are we incre how many positions are we really increasing? what is the net FTE effect? And remember that we're also supposed to be very cognizant about being netneutral

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uh when we add positions or subtract positions. That's that's also part of the recovery plan. So I think that's data that the board really needs to see and so that they can make a a good judgment call on that. That's just my recommendation and especially because of

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the fact that I keep hearing that we still don't have a finalized master schedule at the high school and so how do we know the number of teaching positions we really need when we really don't even have a schedule finalized. So

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this is another piece of the puzzle that I think is very important for the board to have before it makes any final decisions. Thank you. Thank you. And and with that, I think I don't my own suggestion and board can support or not is we don't need to move

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forward with the straw pool until you probably have a little bit more, you know, updates with the other >> for the act that do that run the report. We just want to make sure everyone want PFM to run >> a report. Okay.

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>> With the updated numbers. >> Yeah. So, they're going to take Dr. Stokes's information. and PFM is going to take that and then come up with another number for that. >> Yeah, I have my own projections, but I never like to be in conflict with PFM. So, the decision was made years ago to

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let PFM take that role. So, you could ask me today, Marcia, what are your projections six years out if we do 3%, I'd be able to tell you. But once again, that's PFM's role at this point in time. So, it's probably better just to rely on

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them running the numbers. And I think there I mean I would be very curious to see Dr. Stokes's projections to be very honest, but I think the thing the board needs to remember is that hers are not going to be as conservative as PFM. PFM is never going to assume state

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revenue. So just like the assumptions that the board agreed to was that you're getting 100% of the governor's proposed budget for BEF and adequacy, PFM is never going to put that in. they are far too conservative. So you are going to

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see a very marketked difference between PFM's projections that they share with you versus Dr. Stokes. But again to do a balanced approach, I see no issue with Dr. Stokes putting her projections before you as well. Um, I just think that in previous years we talked about

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not wanting to confuse matters and especially as we were looking to exit receiverhip. We had no choice but to go with PFM's projections because that was the only way the state would even consider it. >> Yeah. So it just comes back to what does a board feel comfortable from a risk

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tolerance perspective? Do we want extra conservative? Do we want to say two years of adequacy? Like what do you want to do? And those are going to dramatically um make different numbers as they come. >> And I want to add it's not that I don't

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agree with to agree to it but then it's it's like later on right I can just sometimes foresee then this will be presented um this was recommended and this is what the board did and it just didn't match up right but again it's I don't want to correct say that but I mean if the board is okay with it I'm

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okay with it. I'm personally in favor of conservative estimates, but I think the PFM is a level of conservative uh that doesn't feel helpful to me because it it's so far to the conservative side. So, I'm all for conservative assumptions, but I'd like to see something that's a

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little bit more realistic. I know that's a guess, but no. Does there all right? So Mr. Anderson, did you get you're clear on that? >> Yeah, we didn't get your consens.

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>> So our consensus will Dr. Sesy will go ahead that's okay with the PFM um to use your projections and come back to the board. >> Would anyone object to object to it? >> Wait, what I thought I what I thought I

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heard was that you wanted PFM to take Dr. Stokes's Excel file for this budget and dump it into the model so that you can update the exit reports recommendation of an annual 4.81. >> Correct. And also include the FTE tool as well >> and the with the FTE piece. But you

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still would like to see Dr. Stokes's projections in addition to what PFM puts together. Is that what I'm hearing? >> Correct. >> Yes. I just want to clarify though, maybe I misunderstood. I thought earlier you had mentioned that the um 4.81% 1%

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was based on a snapshot in time that might be outdated >> and that is correct. So, so I'm I think what I'm asking for is like >> what is that updated snapshot and then what is the what is the their budget? >> They're only going to be able to give

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you the updated snapshot by taking her current Excel file for this budget and dumping it into the >> Okay. >> And that's what you want to see. Correct. >> Yeah. Basically, they're going to update the actuals from the audit that the board approved. um and cuz that that wasn't even known in January at the time. And then they're also going to

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take the proposed final budget in this form that we reviewed tonight and put that in and basically use their same assumptions which their assumptions might be different than the assumptions that the board would want to make such

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as adequacy SEF BEF and so forth. >> And and from the board I want to make sure I heard correctly you also want to see M Dr. those projections as well so we can see a side byside comparison. Okay. >> If I could just make a comment. I think

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the comment about assumptions and what the board like the board assumptions absolutely accurate. I think that there's a piece that we haven't talked about which is the other part of it is making sure that we're aligning with the exit report and that we are in compliance with what PTE wants us to do

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even though those expectations are not super clear I think in terms of like what we need to abide by but that's the piece that's more so why I'm asking for PFM's projections is to make sure that we're in compliance with that. Um, so I think that's the thing that we need to

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be thinking about going into the next meeting would be my thought. >> Yep. Thank you, Miss Anderson. All right. Well, thank you, Dr. Stokes, for your presentation. We appreciate it. >> You are welcome.

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>> All right. And we are now uh ready to move to the public comment period. Okay. So, Madam Secretary, uh we are ready to begin the public comment period

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of the agenda for agendum items only. >> Ready? >> Okay, >> Madam Secretary. Okay, one second. So, as far sorry, it's the agenda item com versus the general item. So,

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>> everything seems to be about SBI tonight. I didn't see anything per se on the agenda, but that's we're just going to go ahead and go. Okay. Go ahead. ready. >> Yes. Thank you.

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>> Okay. Good evening, board. Uh, both of my questions that I comments I was going to raise were addressed before the board meeting, but I'm going to address them anyway. Um, question I had was is that um, this

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concerns policies and procedures from the board and I spoke with Dr. Susky earlier and she informed me that that information is available on your website. Okay. And again, since we're not internal, um it's it's

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nice to know what rules, what your policies and procedures that you hold yourselves to and the employees. Okay? And that should be public information. Okay? And it should be against on the website. Some people may not be computer literate. You know, maybe a suggestion I

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may make is that could you make as a PDF or something? So somebody can take it have it a little booklet something you keep in the your back in your hip pocket so when you look something to reference it you can reference it but thank you Dr. sus you basically answered that part of the question. So the second part of

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my question is William Penn and I use the word it was I used demolition. Um what the concern I had is that I know you voted to basically demolish the building. There's hazardous material in that

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building that when you demolish it, it's going to leech back into the community whether it's a whether it's the camp uh camp curtain area and I'm really speaking about the children, okay, in asbestous

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uh that can become airborne. I spoke with Dr. Rey on this. We had a good talk on this, okay? He gave you an idea his presentation he made up a month ago or at your last meeting and he's going to get access to that to look it over. But

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again, my concern um is that you're going to do this. Was there you know the D study for this? Okay. I again what's going to be the impact of the community air you know an airborne contaminant. I know it's nothing's going to be 100%. It can't be

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perfect, but I'm thinking more of the children and Camp Curtain. And I would basically say if you're going to do this or you want to do this, wait until after the wait until the school year's over. So they don't have

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to be part of it and trample back and forth through whatever contamination and we use word miss that comes up in that envir in that environment. I know you're going to have to do something for that that land. Um you're going to have to basically go

451
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down and remediate the land. You're going to have to remediate a lot of different areas. You know, you don't want the kids running walking around with masks on if you're doing this in real time. But that was my concern. How is going to affect children? And we need to basically wait until after the school

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year is over before you do anything and then afterwards review it. go back and those those studies make those studies available to the public and make them available to the city. Thank you. >> And I'm sorry before you we can you state your name and your address for the record.

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>> Claude Fipps, my address is 2307 Swat Terra Street, Harrisburg. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Almost everybody knows you. So, >> no, I just want to stay on point with the policy. No, I'm kidding. I was just kidding. You're >> in front of me. I will do the same

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thing. Okay. So before we begin with the students in SBI, we just want you guys all to know that your name will appear up on the board. So be ready. You're allotted 3 minutes. Once the sound comes on, that is your 3 minutes. And just state your name and

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address for the record. Thank you. Sorry, am I waiting for the noise now or Yeah. >> Um, hello. My name is Shauna Bruner. My address is 2135 Kensington Street. Um, I am an SBI alumni as well as the previous 2025 senior class vice president. Um, if

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you turn SBI into a general education class, it is not going to go, excuse me, it is not going to do anything. In fact, it will take from opportunities that um honor students are being presented because

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it's going to take from opportunities that students are being presented as well as take away the rewards that they're receiving compared to them being taken away and not having anything due to the behavior of other students. SBI stands for School of Business and

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Industry and it is a honors prep program for college and entrepreneurship. This class originated in um Florida AM and M University and is taught on a college level. This class will not be able to be replicated in a general ed um classroom

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because this is meant for a college level student to understand. We write 10page papers. We handle money in our school store. We do so many things that a general education class would not be able to do. And if this class were to be turned into a general education class,

460
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it would unfortunately have to be I don't want this to sound like offens offensive or anything, but it would have to be dumbed down. Um, I have been in the program since 9th grade. My sister was in the program before I was. It is a very challenging class, but it helps your it helps the students progress and

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it helps them build confidence. Be um when I joined the class, I was not able to write a two-page paper. It was not very well. But thankfully in this class I'm able to write 10 pages plus of business plans. I can present myself formally as I am presenting myself to uh

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people today and I'm I'm able to do it well way better than I was in the past. Um also as a student who was not really guided much as a child, I didn't even think about college at all. And now I am at York College of Pennsylvania as a

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nursing student and I'm still helping my SBI um community today because at the end of the day we are a family and I've been in this program for so long with these students that they genuinely feel like the closest people I have with me. I don't want to see students miss out on

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this opportunity that I was able to have. And I would really like this to be continued to the students under me and for it to continue for it to continue for as long as it can. That is all I have to say and I thank you for your time.

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>> Thank you, Miss Sha Bruner. Um, hello. Good afternoon. My name is Michaela George. I live at 2478 Rudy Road. Um I'm an SBI alumni of I was only in the program for one year during my senior year. I currently attend Cheney

466
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University on a full ride scholarship. Originally I never thought too much about going into college before I came into SBI, but SBI has pushed me to just try. And so

467
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this SBI prepared me for college and it supported me academically with mentorship and it gave me the confidence confidence confidence that I needed to succeed. Most importantly, it gave me a family in a community. I still keep in contact

468
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with my SBI family and you know they're coming to college now, so I still keep in contact with them. It gave me great networking opportunities for college. Keeping this program is it is important because students in our community do need guidance and this is a great

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program that has guidance, resources, offers mentorship and opportunities that a normal student wouldn't get. SBI does more than just like academics. This is like life. Like it's more than academics. This this goes beyond the

470
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school. Miss Banks and all of my like SBI um classmates and students, they show up for me constantly. This is not something that can be rec replicated by simply making it a general education class. Th this the

471
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personalized mentorship, community, and intentional support that SBI provides is what makes it transformative. And these elements cannot be captured in a standard classroom. I'm living proof of this impact that the program has with and without and I would not be where I

472
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am today. And I would like to say that this program if it is turned into a general education class, it does take a lot from students that want to go in the field of entrepreneurship with the amount of competitions and things that we already do um with this program. And

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you know, even as a SBI alumni, I still have I'm I'm a currently a mentor for most of the students here and I talk to them constantly and daily. And SBI is just not academics, it's family. And that's all I have to say today. Thank you.

474
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>> Thank you, Michaela George. Miss Andreana Jackson. Good evening everyone. My name is Adriana Jackson. I live on 1330 1331 Derry Street. Um, being a part of SBI, I did not know anything about it till I

475
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had some friends that were in there. Basically, when I was in high school, I just wanted to get through it. I wanted to finish. But when I was sponsored into the program, it taught me a lot. Um, getting over my fear of public speaking

476
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is one of the main things SBI has helped me out with. Uh, because today I would not be able to stand in front of you all and say one word without freezing. Um, as my friend stated, yes, SBI is a

477
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family. It's my I call it my second home because without it I would genuinely be lost. I am a SBI alumni. I also attend Cheney University on a full ride and thanks to SBI that was doing getting

478
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into college was something I never really thought about until Miss Banks and the rest of my other peers here uh told me that it's a good idea. It's It's fun. It's challenging. SBI is a challenging class, but it's easy at the

479
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same time if you get your work done. Um, and if you know what you're doing. But turning it into a general education class like what was said uh stated previously most people's most people

480
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would not understand like the level college level when if they want to go into college if they want to do something that doesn't involve college college things sorry um but being in

481
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this program has taught me that I can speak I and speak louder than anything cuz using my voice it's really good. Um, SBI is a family. My family. Everyone

482
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here who is in the program is my family. Even if I don't know you, I'm so sorry. Um, no, seriously, they're my family. And as my friend stated, Michaela, uh, she said that she still mentors and I also mentor them as well.

483
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Um, and honestly, it's an amazing it's an amazing course and I love it. I had a really good time in it and yeah, that's all I have to say. >> Thank you, Miss Kayla.

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Who's next? I think Kayla, >> good afternoon. My name is Kayla Mcnesich and I live at 2659 Jefferson Street. Uh today I'll be taking a bit more of a personal approach. Back during my sophomore year, I was having a bit more personal problems at home and was

485
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later kicked out by my mother and was all on my own. And during that year, my grades took a tremendous step. I was averaging D's, C's, and very low B's. But um I was later in Miss Banks's financial

486
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literacy class. And it was then that she saw my potential. And whether I wanted to her to or not, she snatched me up and said, "Get your grades together and we could get you an SBI." And that was one of the first times in so long where I found someone that actually believed in me and gave me purpose. So I fought hard

487
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and I average around A's and B's my final I think the final two mark periods. And since joining SBI, I've been pushed. I've been challenged. But never once have I ever felt to give up. But um later in November of last year, my

488
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mental health took a tremendous dip and I ended up in the hospital and I was hospitalized for around 3 days. But in my crisis, I didn't know who to call. I didn't think I could call my mother. I didn't think there was any family members for me to call. And my first

489
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thought was for me to call Miss Banks because I knew that no matter what the crisis was or what this whatever the situation was, she would find a way to get something fixed. And throughout that time, my mother was then trying to fight to get me back. She was trying to take me all the way to I

490
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had no idea where. I was terrified. I was scared. And again, I called Miss Banks. And throughout those three days, she was on the phone with CPS. She was on the phone with police officers. She was on the phone with the hospital to fight to get me back. And it was then that I was later taken to New York. and

491
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she was still constantly fighting to get me back because she didn't want me to lose all the opportunities that I had fought so hard to get and for me to lose the places that I have fought so hard to get into. And after all that fighting, I was finally able to come back home. But it's

492
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not just that. After all the work that she put in to get me back, it's my SBI family that tied it all together. Because even though I was so scared to come back, and coming back was such a shock because so much had changed. My SBI family welcomed me back with open

493
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arms and they made me feel like I was truly at home. And since coming back, SBI has provided me with housing. Um, I currently live with my best friend, who I call my sister, and her mother, who I call mom as well. They have provided me with all kinds of opportunities, and I have gotten over hundreds of thousands

494
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of dollars in scholarships. I've won awards. I have won checks. I have truly opened up many doors for myself that I didn't know I could because Miss Bank saw my potential and SBI saw my potential and pushed me to fight for it. And that's all I have to say.

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>> Thank you. >> Next is Israel Doyle. Good evening. My name is Israel Doyle. I live at 200beck Street, Harrisburg, PA17102. I am an SBI3 as a 12th grade honor

496
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student. I am also currently the SBI school store manager. Um, I was forced here. Michaela and Shauna were some of the only friends I had in my 11th grade school in my 11th grade year when I

497
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first got here cuz I have lived in five different states and this is my fifth. And I met Michaela at work and she saw my schedule. She seen my grades and she said, "You got to get an SBI like immediately." Um, what I wanted to touch on is that this

498
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is not just a class that teaches these entrepreneurship skills and has these 10-page papers. Um, but it is also hands-on experience. We sell our merchandise at vendor stands. We um work at the school store, obviously. We

499
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handle money. We pick out the merchandise that we sell at the school store. We go on uh college trips. Um, and it's this is specifically for honor students. Um, some of our SPI family has

500
02:33:01.920 --> 02:33:18.880
quit um because it is not an easy program to be in. It is not for everyone. This is not a one-sizefits-all kind of classroom. Um, it's a commitment. You know, we choose this. We choose to be in this program. We choose to be around these people that we're

501
02:33:18.880 --> 02:33:37.520
around. Um, it's extremely rigorous. Um, we're not all able to get up at 7:00 a.m. to do a random vendor stand. We're not all able to randomly get dressed business casual for a guest speaker. It is something that again is very

502
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specific. Um SBI family is chosen. Miss Banks hand selects every single SBI student that comes in and because she can see the potential and she can see what each student is capable of. I was never a strong like public speaker. Um

503
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and actually she chose me to be store manager because I have a problem with speaking up for myself and advocating for myself. So, she saw that potential in me and chose to invest. And when I recently got

504
02:34:10.319 --> 02:34:28.000
hit by a car a few months ago, she was the first person who came to the hospital besides my parents and bought me donuts. Miss Kayla Mcnish bought me matcha. You know what I mean? Like, my SBI family were there for me. And I believe the foundation of SBI is

505
02:34:28.000 --> 02:34:54.080
family, responsibility, integrity, intelligence, dedication, and most importantly, discipline. And that's what I have to say. >> Thank you. >> Next is Lewis Dillard. >> Good evening everyone.

506
02:34:54.080 --> 02:35:10.240
My name is Louis Diller and I live at 41 Ivy Lane. What I really have to say about SBI is it's really a family. Like I really feel like it's really like an honors program. It's not meant for everybody around the school. But really taught me is like leadership. I really can't like I have

507
02:35:10.240 --> 02:35:29.120
like sometimes I strugg struggle with public speaking. But it's also taught me like stand up for yourself. You have a voice. Like this can help you. It's not everybody don't have like the strength to do it. A little bit about me is I'm the senior class president of 2026. Um I'm the SBI

508
02:35:29.120 --> 02:35:49.200
program president as well as SBI 3 which is a 12th grade pres class president. Um I've been at SBI for 4 years. Um I also have a little over $600,000 in scholarships. Um I also had a full ride to Cheney

509
02:35:49.200 --> 02:36:04.319
University. So um also I am a student athlete, track, football, basketball, a little bit sports. Um I am also a mentor to special needs kids. Um I really just feel like the SBA program push you to do things that you

510
02:36:04.319 --> 02:36:21.359
don't want to like 10page papers like those aren't easy and not a lot of people do those things on a regular like we do. We do them two three times a year. So I really feel like like this program really helps pushes you to do things you don't want to do. Um, as my classmates know, they know Miss Bings

511
02:36:21.359 --> 02:36:37.840
called me the golden egg. They know that she puts me in everything. Even though she she come to me and say, "Oh, you want to do this?" I'll probably say, "I maybe not. I don't know. I don't think so." She's like, "Too late. You're already in it." Like, but it really like helps you. Like, it's

512
02:36:37.840 --> 02:36:54.439
a family. It's a like an honors family. It like it helps you. Like I don't want to get emotional, but it's like this is a family. Like I hurt I will hurt to see this go. Like

513
02:37:00.720 --> 02:37:36.720
I feel like this program is not for everybody. Like Let's give them a round of applause everybody. Next we have uh Carolyn Vona Valona. All right. Good afternoon everyone. For those who

514
02:37:36.720 --> 02:37:52.399
don't know me, my name is Caroline. I live on 17 North 20th Street and I am the 11th grade president of SBI and I'm here to tell you my personal opinion on the recent proposal to turn SBI into a general ed course. SBI has helped me in

515
02:37:52.399 --> 02:38:08.560
ways I didn't even know I could be helped. I formed bonds. I've gotten help academically. I was once someone who didn't have a strict goal. Now I have so many. But because of SBI, I believe this program produces great leaders, academics, and overall people. As you

516
02:38:08.560 --> 02:38:24.560
can see over here, my classmates, they're all great people. They earn so much, and I hope to be like that one day, too. If it weren't for this program, I don't think I'll be as successful as I am now. When I first came here, I wanted to switch to Scitec because there aren't that many honors

517
02:38:24.560 --> 02:38:40.080
course offerings at John Harris. But when my counselor offered SBI as a course, I immediately took up the opportunity because I thought I was going to be challenged and I was completely right. I wrote um a 23page paper in December

518
02:38:40.080 --> 02:38:58.080
and I think that's one of my greatest accomplishments so far. I believe that getting rid of SBI will be a grave mistake on your part. Not only are you going to lose your top students, but you're going to prevent creating even more top students to represent your district.

519
02:38:58.080 --> 02:39:22.240
Hopefully, you would consider my words in your choice. SBI is an important program for many students, including myself. You take this program away from us is like taking away family. Thank you for your consideration and listening. >> Thank you. Um, before I start, can I take this off?

520
02:39:22.240 --> 02:39:39.040
Okay, let me just Sorry, just Oh, don't move. >> Oh, we're good. Okay. Um, you guys are probably sick of me. I'm Jad Lauso. I always come to these schoolboard meetings. I am a senior John Harris and

521
02:39:39.040 --> 02:39:54.560
a SBI student. Obviously, I'm here representing the SBI program. And I would like to ask for the undivided attention of all of the board members, please. >> And what's your address? Can you state your address for the record? >> I live on 2475 Harris Terrace, uh, Harrisburg, BA.

522
02:39:54.560 --> 02:40:13.200
>> Thank you. >> As you heard from all of my peers, SBI is an incredibly important program to our school culture. It's an important program to a lot of our alumni. It's an important program to our community as a whole. and taking that away and replacing it with what I believe is the CTE program would be a would be

523
02:40:13.200 --> 02:40:28.319
detrimental to many of the students that are seeking higher level opportunities across the district or not across the district across our school SBI. You know, I was recruited by my my friend. She,

524
02:40:28.319 --> 02:40:44.560
you know, I I used to be really lazy, honestly. She saw that potential in me was like, "Hey, you should join SBI. You're kind of always doing all these things. You're always procrastinating because nothing's really that interesting or challenging." and I joined the program and oh my god it's like it's it's it was it's so it's so different. Nothing in this district

525
02:40:44.560 --> 02:41:00.560
across my 12 years in this education system has challenged me the same way SBI has. And props to Brianna Embry Banks for giving me these opportunities. Props to the SBI family for giving me these opportunities. It is so unfair to the generations of students that came before and the generations of students

526
02:41:00.560 --> 02:41:16.160
that are coming after from the 9th to 11th grade uh population. It's unfair to take away that opportunity and take away this highle course from them. Without SBI, I wouldn't have nearly as many networking opportunities. I probably wouldn't have been in college

527
02:41:16.160 --> 02:41:32.399
right now because, as I said, I procrastinate a lot. I there just so much that I would have missed out on and so much I wouldn't have learned. So many business opportunities, so many trips, so many places I could have gone to and so many people I met that I would have never seen without, you know, the

528
02:41:32.399 --> 02:41:51.120
program. Please just consider the word of the students. Consider the culture that you are tearing away from us. Tearing away from the generations, the 11th graders, the 10th graders, the children of the community. Consider what they're losing when you turn this course into a general education course. You turn this course

529
02:41:51.120 --> 02:42:10.240
into a course that's more accessible and more easy for the average student. It's unfair. Well, it's not unfair. It's more fair, but it's not fair enough. >> Thank you for your time. Have a good night. Toodles.

530
02:42:10.240 --> 02:42:36.080
>> Thank you. >> Make sure this is okay. We're good. >> Hi everybody. Kennedy hold 253 Duke Street. Um, anytime a white man in America says, "Give me liberty or give me death," the entire world applauds. Anytime a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he is judged a criminal or treated like one, and everything possible is done to make an

531
02:42:36.080 --> 02:42:52.080
example out of this bad so there won't be any more like him. James Baldwin. As we all know, freedom, justice, equity, democracy, civil rights protection, access, and so forth are being threatened for selected groups at the federal level. But unfortunately, that does not stop at the Washington DC, but also has navigated to that of our

532
02:42:52.080 --> 02:43:07.439
school districts. And as we begin to interrogate these multifaceted and interconnected systems of violence, oppression, and colonialism, this requires us to remove ourselves from that of respectability, politics, and white rage. And to our white counterparts who sit on this board, please remain mindful in knowing that

533
02:43:07.439 --> 02:43:23.439
when folks exempt themselves from these conversations, these environments, and movements, this further protects and oppose the very roles of white supremacy, whilst falsely maintaining racial innocence. So let us all be reminded to liberate all people not allowing our works to be contingent upon racism, capitalistic views,

534
02:43:23.439 --> 02:43:38.800
interests, and games only further engendering that of education with equality. And as we know this, taking away this program would mean one less teacher of color. And as research has shown, even if we just have one black teacher during elementary grades and throughout academic endeavors, this reduces a black student's probability of

535
02:43:38.800 --> 02:43:55.600
dropping out of school by at least 29%. And we need to stop with that at the language of superficial diversity. And we have to realize that we will not niggerize that of a people, therefore inciting that affair into our communities. Our black and brown students are not inferior and we shall and we shall stop delegitimizing our black students in our in that of their

536
02:43:55.600 --> 02:44:10.720
abilities. Whomever proposed the removal of SBI andor to turn it into a general education course, please ask yourself, have you entered and or immersed yourself into that of our communities, our neighborhoods? Have you had conversations with our students, faculties, parents, and so forth? Have

537
02:44:10.720 --> 02:44:25.920
you been intentional upon cultivating more building those interpersonal relationships with folks at John Harris, our security monitors and so forth? You are not our savior. You don't need we don't need saving. What we need is advocacy, active listening, and collective liberation. At least an opportunity to succeed in funding. And

538
02:44:25.920 --> 02:44:41.520
to our students at SBI, the illustrious John Harris High School campus, we know that we are no longer the the monopoly, but rather the exceeding expectation of what intelligent, incomparable, faith- abiding, servant, leading, ambitious, competent, and intellectually curious black and brown young folks and young

539
02:44:41.520 --> 02:45:09.560
scholars look like. SBI speaks life over us, prepares us for college and professional development. And that is the School of Business Industry Honors Prep Program. Thank you to Miss Spencer, Miss Dunton, and Miss Banks for all that you do and for instilling purpose into us. Damir Bullock

540
02:45:09.920 --> 02:45:26.160
mayor. >> Hello, my name is Samir Bulock. I'm SBI1 scholar and I'm a vice president of SBI. This is my second year SBI trying to experience my whole career. try to feel what SBI really is. SBI, I learned how

541
02:45:26.160 --> 02:45:41.840
to be a leader. SBI, I learned how to be confident. SBI learn actually speak fluently. I did other, but I we can change that. But I can speak a little more um feeling. Oh,

542
02:45:41.840 --> 02:45:56.399
because before I walk up here, my teacher, Miss Bang, said don't act like a preacher, like don't be like a minister because I do talk a lot. So, this is my second year being SBI, showing me how to be a leader, be more

543
02:45:56.399 --> 02:46:14.640
confident, and be who I am present. I'm currently at SBI1. Like I said again, a 10th grader. I might look like a senior, but I'm definitely a 10th grader. Um, because being a vice president is not just luck. is being trusted by my

544
02:46:14.640 --> 02:46:30.800
own teacher so I can be who I am, where I'm become, and how can I become better to show my other peers who where I can become where I supposed to be. >> Yep. This program teaching me how to work,

545
02:46:30.800 --> 02:46:47.200
how to budget. This program teach me to use MLA format. How to make how to make and talk for a presentation because all these skills would never buy SBI. SBI actually helped me feel like a

546
02:46:47.200 --> 02:47:03.279
family. These are the family I always met. Seniors I've seen like seen past like year already in college I already miss already. This is like family. Even I'm missing the friends I already made. Some of my friends actually kicked off by SBI because they wasn't that

547
02:47:03.279 --> 02:47:31.640
confident of theirel and actually challenge yourself to be greater who they already are. Miss Banks helped to identify exactly who you was and let it shine. >> Yes, sir. Because I also made a logo for SBI.

548
02:47:33.040 --> 02:47:50.520
It was a competition of who can make a great example of a logo describe who is SBI and how XY explained about myself and my other peers. It was a major prep appal and I was and I was the winner

549
02:47:51.200 --> 02:48:09.359
and I was inspired by what my peers said program means to them. The thing they said was family. What they said was breaking their own walls. What they said is being more confident. My logo incorporated these ideas and led

550
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me winning a competition. I also Okay, >> thank you. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Karen Stevens. I am the 11th grade vice president of SBI. Id like to start off by saying that when I was in nth grade, I wasn't aware what SBI was and what it

551
02:48:41.600 --> 02:48:56.960
meant. And now that I'm close to the end of my second year SBI, it means a lot. Not only are we a family, we're a community and not everyone can do the things we do. I've known since my two years we've been here, a lot of us have done 10 to 20 plus page essays. We've parttook in Rotary speech contests.

552
02:48:56.960 --> 02:49:13.359
We've done leadership roles and many more things I can't even name. Last year, seniors, they raised almost $3 million in scholarships. This year they've raised around 2 million if I'm correct. And like not everyone can do that. Like it's just a really important

553
02:49:13.359 --> 02:49:29.920
thing to stick with family. you can't even though we can't choose who we want to be with or how we do things like we still love each other like not everyone can do the things not everyone can do the opportunities like not only is it a blessing to be a part of SBI it's honestly like it I can't even find the

554
02:49:29.920 --> 02:49:44.479
word for it it's just a really good thing we have who who's here today and I really hope that the board really hears our words and hear what we have to say about the program and do what you will thank

555
02:49:44.479 --> 02:50:12.640
Thank you. Evening everyone. Um I'm Jav Garcia. Uh I live on 2400 Market Street, apartment D84. Um I am the vice president of the school board. I'm vice president of SBI. I'm a varsity wrestler and I'm also EXO in

556
02:50:12.640 --> 02:50:28.560
NGRTC at Harrisburg High School. Um, as an SBI student who's been here in the program since freshman year, which is four years, I don't believe that it's fair that such a prestigious program can simply be pushed aside and lose its place, credibility, and value within the

557
02:50:28.560 --> 02:50:43.760
district. This program has given me and so many of my fellow colleagues more opportunities than we could have imagined. It shaped us, challenged us, and opened doors that many of us have may not have otherwise. Taking that opportunity away from the small, dedicated group of

558
02:50:43.760 --> 02:50:58.800
students at John Harris would mean taking something away truly meaningful. This program has saved my life in ways that they don't understand. Um, I was going through a a big slump.

559
02:50:58.800 --> 02:51:13.680
uh was thinking a lot of dark thoughts and I came to these guys and you know they kind of saved my life at that too as as well as Miss Banks but everybody else. Um don't want to get emotional as well but

560
02:51:13.680 --> 02:51:30.160
um it's it hits home to see that to have something so special and so meaningful to me um be at jeopardy at stake. It would like it would make such an impact and make my heart be overlooked or

561
02:51:30.160 --> 02:52:09.439
dismiss dismissed if this program is terminated to be a gened. Thank you for your time. Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Briana Embry Banks, 392 Wyatt Road. My name is Briana

562
02:52:09.439 --> 02:52:24.319
Embry Banks and I have been the SBI instructor and adviser for the past three years. I stand for you today not just as an educator but as someone who has witnessed firsthand what the SBI program means to this community and to the students who are often overlooked,

563
02:52:24.319 --> 02:52:41.600
underestimated, and disconnected from the school. At John Harris, SBI is not just another program. It is a bridge, a bridge between students and opportunities, between education in the real world, and between survival and success.

564
02:52:41.600 --> 02:52:58.160
Every day we ask students to believe that school matters. But for many young people, especially in urban communities where trauma, poverty, instability, and systemic inequalities and realities that carry with them in the classroom, that belief does not come easily.

565
02:52:58.160 --> 02:53:14.720
Students need more than textbooks and test scores. They need connection. They need purpose. And they need people that see them beyond their mistakes, their attendance records, and behind behavior referrals and statistics. That is what exactly SBI does.

566
02:53:14.720 --> 02:53:30.479
The SBI program creates meaningful pathways for students that lead handon learning, mentorship, career exposure, community partnerships, and relationship building. It reaches students who may not thrive in traditional education settings and reminds them that they are

567
02:53:30.479 --> 02:53:46.479
capable, valuable, and needed. It gives students the opportunity to develop life skills, professional skills, confidence, and a sense of belonging. And I have firsthand witnessed students who once struggled to engage in school, and become leaders

568
02:53:46.479 --> 02:54:03.040
because someone finally gave them a reason to care. I've watched students learn how to communicate professionally, network with local businesses, prepare for careers, and envision futures they have never imagined themselves in before. These outcomes cannot always be measured by the standardized testing

569
02:54:03.040 --> 02:54:19.200
data, but they are life-changing nonetheless. And the truth is, programs like SBI are often the very thing that keeps some students at school at all. And when students feel seen, they show up. When students feel valued, they participate. When students are given opportunities to

570
02:54:19.200 --> 02:54:35.040
succeed outside of traditional academic measures, they begin believing that they can succeed as well. And eliminating SBI would not simply remove a program. It would remove a support system, mentorship opportunities, community partners, and career readiness, and safe

571
02:54:35.040 --> 02:54:51.359
speed for students who desperately need them. Personally, I believe CTE is an amazing opportunity for students. However, I do not believe that SBI needs to shut down in order to do that. I believe that with my own drafted proposal, if the board like to hear at a later time, SBI can serve as the honors

572
02:54:51.359 --> 02:55:18.640
route to CTE and can assist in fading away. That draft is already written and ready to be shared at any point. Thank you so much. >> Yeah. So, um we normally thank you first all to the students to all you know the administrative as well. Um we normally

573
02:55:18.640 --> 02:55:34.319
do not comment on public comments. However, um we will need more information on this and we'll be getting back to you as a um board because we we're not aware that

574
02:55:34.319 --> 02:55:51.439
SBI is going away. And I I got my hands up. I was a I didn't I didn't have SBI, but I was in a pack program and it was a honors class and you had to write it and it was a way of a pathway. So, thank you. And this is what it looks like community. this is what advocacy looked

575
02:55:51.439 --> 02:56:08.319
like. So you guys did just that, you know, because again, this is your education and this is why we're here. So thank you to all that shared and we will be getting back out with more information. Thank you. >> Okay. And Mr. Carter, >> so just to add on to what she was saying

576
02:56:08.319 --> 02:56:23.760
too, like I said, when you when I seen you guys sitting in here, I commend you for coming to here 10 toes down. SBI wasn't the only business program that we had at John Harris. We had the PAT program, too, which was a business program in which you had to get an interview. you had to get accepted to be in there. You had to be dedicated and you had to be determined. So, we fully

577
02:56:23.760 --> 02:56:39.200
understand what you guys are talking about and we're staying with you. So, in the same sense, like Miss Copeland said, we're going to take that initiative to take that back and look into some more consideration. But, I commend each and every one of y'all to come up here because our instructor retired. So, our program went away. SBI, our instructor,

578
02:56:39.200 --> 02:56:54.080
Miss Ernestine Hunter retired around the same time Clarice Dunson retired, but somebody was able to step in her place and our program sees. So, we didn't have a chance to stand up to save anything. But you guys are here and you're doing it and we appreciate y'all and we I love that y'all share sentiments that we can

579
02:56:54.080 --> 02:57:11.200
uh definitely um share similarities to. Continue to keep your head up and keep pushing. The sky is the limit and I'm talking to you too. And that's what each and every one of y'all. But with your heart, you are not your hardship. You will never be your hardship and you got endless possibilities and opportunities that wait ahead of you, you know. And I commend you for continue to grind and

580
02:57:11.200 --> 02:57:28.640
continue to keep pushing. Um Miss Copeland, I'm glad you shared them sentiments and like I said, we're we're on board with each and every each and every one of y'all. Thank you for your sentiments. Uh Bana could keep doing your thing, Miss Banks. We appreciate you. We commend you and keep doing a great job. Commence you. >> Thank you, Mr. Carter.

581
02:57:28.640 --> 02:57:44.880
>> I've been sitting here listening to all of you speak this evening and I'm so incredibly proud. I got to see several of you the other night at National Honor Society when some of you inducted my daughter in with you. So, your leadership, I want that to rub off on

582
02:57:44.880 --> 02:58:00.319
her. I want that to rub off on all of your fellow students. This is really, really awesome to see. That said, I'm quite bothered by the information behind this. SBI and CTE are programs and there's no

583
02:58:00.319 --> 02:58:16.240
programmatic change going to happen. It's not been in front of the board. It's not on the board. That would have to come before us. And as you're hearing, we don't want what you're doing to go away. We've seen it. We've seen the the result of it. We hope that, you know, I like seeing that there's a young

584
02:58:16.240 --> 02:58:31.680
teacher in charge, but I want to see that for years and years, but CTE is not to replace what you guys are doing at all. And to advocate a little bit on the CTE side, my frustration is we have so many kids going to DC Tech who don't get

585
02:58:31.680 --> 02:58:48.240
their first choice, but they're worried because there's not anything at John Harris for them. That's what we're trying to fill the gap in. We don't want to take anything away from you. We want to provide more similar opportunities for students with this

586
02:58:48.240 --> 02:59:04.479
expansion of a program that they're not already getting. Like I constantly ask, why would you go to DC Tech if you didn't get your first choice? If your first choice is contracting, you go out there and they put you in drafting and you have no skills in art or whatever, like what are you getting out of that?

587
02:59:04.479 --> 02:59:21.680
But if we can provide additional slots for that. So that's what I'm looking at seeing happen. SBI has not come in front of us curricularly to change in any way. So I just wanted to say thank you though. The advocacy that you're showing, the

588
02:59:21.680 --> 02:59:37.439
leadership that you're showing, absolutely awesome. Thank you very much for taking the time and staying so late. >> So I wanted to make one final statement about this. Um again, uh I appreciate each one of you all coming out. I'm

589
02:59:37.439 --> 02:59:54.240
seeing some kids I haven't seen in a year. How you doing? Good. I'm happy to see you back guys. At the end of the day, I would tell you as a superintendent, this part of my job is to listen. And but the other part of it is I would share with you all the SBI is personal me. Um like I've shared before,

590
02:59:54.240 --> 03:00:09.120
I have family member that went through this program. I know how impactful this program is. I also understand that what you all have, I want more kids to have opportunity to have exposure to it. So, how do we find the the fine the fine line? Will we continue to have SBI like

591
03:00:09.120 --> 03:00:23.920
we have it on honor track? Yes, we can still have honor track. And like I told Miss Bank, I'm willing to work to find a happy medium because I want to get more kids to have exposure to what you all are having. I think what this program have done to you, it can save more kids.

592
03:00:23.920 --> 03:00:40.720
So, how do we get more kids involved? So, again, to be able to provide a CT offering to our kids, also provide an honoring track, we can still do that. But I want to work together and I will continue to say this is not going to be done in isolation. We'll work together to find the pathway to make this work

593
03:00:40.720 --> 03:00:55.920
for all. But the biggest part of it is how can we grow this? Give more kids opportunity to experience everything you all experience. How do we provide a kids opportunity to get those hands hands-on opportunity you have? How do we give kids more opportunity to have college

594
03:00:55.920 --> 03:01:11.680
talks that you all having in your class? Again, it's about opportunity. I want to be able to provide more opportunity for all our kids to have the same exposure you all to have it. And so again, I want to work with you all. So I'll be coming out, we'll talk. Again, guys, I want us

595
03:01:11.680 --> 03:01:28.399
to develop something together. I always say I want to make it Harrisburg because this place is very unique for a reason. And so everything we do, we have to make it unique. So as we continue to grow SBI, I want to reimagine. I want to make sure that we have resources so you

596
03:01:28.399 --> 03:01:43.760
all can move forward with this from years from now. So again, if Miss Bank decide to win the lottery and leave us, this program is still here because we invested in the program. So, I will continue to work with you all, but I want you I want to thank you all for coming out because again, it's late and

597
03:01:43.760 --> 03:01:59.200
you all probably wasn't ready for a long board meeting, but this is why you here. And again, this is the reason why I want to continue to grow this program because what it showed me tonight is when you put a strong program, strong teacher, and strong people in front of kids, the world is theirs, and I want to make sure

598
03:01:59.200 --> 03:02:13.920
that we provide that opportunity for all of our student moving forward. >> Thank you. anyone. >> So, I don't got the final call, but I don't think it's going away. >> So, so for the sake of time, I know you

599
03:02:13.920 --> 03:02:30.160
all got school tomorrow and we still got a lot of more meeting to go. You all able to stick around or if y'all want to leave now before we move on to the rest of the meeting, that's perfectly fine, but we probably going to be here for a little while. >> Thank you for our public comments. And again, thank you to all the students,

600
03:02:30.160 --> 03:02:50.800
the support, and everybody who came out, your parents and all. We appreciate it. So now we're move you're going to move to our office of academics for new business. >> I know you are.

601
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We do have but uh the meeting. >> Yeah. >> At the very end. >> Yeah. I do it when we get the follow. I bring it up. >> After which one? >> We get down the policies. >> We need to get through a lot of this stuff. You ready?

602
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>> Yes. >> Right. So, we'll now move to the office of academics for new business. Uh, Dr. Henry, next item. First item. >> All right. The administration has recommended approve agreement between the Harrisburg School District and Living Unlimited to provide music

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therapy for extended school year program for special education student in amount of $1,750. This item will appear on the May 19 board agenda for approval. >> You said 1,000 or one >> $1,750.

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Is this for 5.1? Oh, well, mine's okay. Well, all right. Because I got a different amount here. All right. Mine's saying 175th 175 1750. >> That's fine. Well, you're at 5 point. Is

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that the right one? >> 5.1. >> All right. Let me Yeah, I'm at 5.1 >> up here. You're looking at the wrong part. >> Okay. So, it's 175 the rate. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, is there any discussion on the motion item?

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All right. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting consent agenda for approval. Uh, Dr. Henry, next item. The administration recommended to approve an agreement between the Harrisburg school district and all you can leadership academy for

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after school program to provide student with structure program focus on social emotional learning at amount of 51,500. Design will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion?

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Well, I did want to acknowledge um I think we have our um Mr. Ralph Rodriguez who is here this evening. Thank you for coming and I know um my main concern was just to share I don't know if this is the time if you can just share a little

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bit about how the program is going and um just give them the feedback but I know you do a lot in the community. We appreciate you. I'm sure your wife and I've heard of you know we we know each other. We went all the way back in school. So yes, we was in them programs.

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But uh if you don't mind just speaking to the mic a little just to share just for the community. I like it to just get that transparency cuz you know but thank you for coming. >> Thank you assistant superintendent Dr. Craig uh Dr. Suski the esteemed board

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and all of our cabinet members here. Um so the leadership academy we're in so we have over 10 years of experience. Um we helped with the Katherine Hershey school both facilities open up. We've also had program in the Milton Hershey's school. But our pride and joy um you probably known us all you can from the larger

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community events annually. We're on our 13th annual. We usually do Christmas at the farm show every year. Have about 5200 in attendance. 11,000 gifts distributed every year. Easter events at the Civil War Museum. Well, the secret is that those events are studentled as a

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part of our community service for the leadership academy. What the leadership academy is our afterchool and our summer camp that provide social emotional learning and life skills by way of a comprehensive mechanism. So when you look at the price tag maybe 51,000 when

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you look at let's say a compre something comparable um just the directors alone would be within the 40 50,000 range. So, let's say if the board approves it, you're just paying for staff. The program would be free. Our program actually was just certified junior EMTs by UPMC last Monday. That's a

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partnership I came across with UPMC. Um, we drafted and said, "Hey, we want to get these students real life life skills that they can take post-graduation. We know my sons were bene beneficial enough to get a full ride, right? All American wrestlers, they did amazing. I'm a

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cougar, they're cougars, but that's not in the cards for everyone, right? Realistically, our kids are going to really have to figure out those that didn't really meet certain standards or requirements postgraduation. That's where the leadership academy kicks in. So, every year we guarantee a certification in a real life entity. Two

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years ago, Renewal by Anderson partnered with us and we had a uh window installer program, a junior window installer program where we have a ninth graders now certified to install windows through Renewal by Anderson. And this is all legitimate. We have a junior carpenter program starting this summer. Um we

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partner with fish and boat commission. Uh Andy owes me a kayaking trip, but we partner with fish and boat commission where we're actually facilitating the YMCA's curriculum. So although we're the small guys on the totem pole, our ex experience is extensive and we really

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reach out to the larger entities coming down like, "Hey, we need all you Ken's help." So we just had actually two weeks ago with uh the fishing boat commission. we sat in facilitated the YMCA's program where we'll be partnering on our fishing, kayaking, and archery program just this summer. So, we're highly

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extensive and I mean it's so diverse. I can go on for years. But then we have a guest speaker service where when we're not on field trips when we're just kind of in in service right after school from the first hour we usually have a guest speaker which it could be anywhere from the governor's office the lieutenant

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governor himself mayor uh mayor still in it could be the board I in all the other districts we're in I encourage the school board that it's our program it's not all you can and you guys have a lot of you know uh knowledge that you can share but it's usually by mentorship we

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usually have the state police stop by, you know, give some experience. And I can't I can't count on two hands how many connections we've made by way of career opportunities where we walked our ninth, 10th graders into jobs right away where they're kind of balancing the program. And also another benefit of the

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program is the youngsters we get, right? So if you're in a program fifth and sixth grade, you're doing well. I like to use Elijah Simpson. Uh we just were at advocacy day madame president you and I shared last year where our program was actually awarded the afterchool out of school time impact award statewide for

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the impact that we're making. Um community service as I mentioned huge part of the program we encourage students on Saturday mornings they're giving out presents around Christmas. Um, not only that, through our partnership with the Marines Corps, they are going on shopping sprees to the alleys, buying out aliies with the

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Marines, getting a budget allocated to them, and those go the Dolphin County Toys for Tots. So, they're seeing it's not really about what I can get, it's what I can give, the buyback into my community, what it means more, right? Home ownership. I can go on and on through Mnt financial education. They're

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getting real seminars. The field trips 100% free. And by the way, our programs are always free for the families. After school and summer camp, summer camps 4 days a week, 100% free. Once again, we take most of the overhead. So that small price tag you see, most of that is just

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for operations and fuel. You know, we do have passenger vans. We do have seven passenger vehicles where we load them up and we take them. Um, we've been doing it so long that, uh, we understand the Harrisburg school district has small inu windows that we'll have to relate to and get used to. But we utilize the aloom

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app where you had mentioned dietary restrictions earlier by way of partnership with um the uh I'm excuse me it's a little late. By way of partnership with the central Pennsylvania food bank our so our meals get dropped off and delivered to our fridge twice a week. We actually can

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cater to dietary restrictions. We have supplemental meals. This way when they find fill out the Google form, we know if they can't eat pork, if they can't have gelatin, if they can if they're only pescatarian and we can cater to that because all of our staff are not only Dolphin County drug and alcohol and life coaches certified through the

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county, we also get um it's mandatory every year we get our food handler safety surf save. So, you know, we go all through it and extensive um the life skills they get and the social emotional learning comes by way of evidence-based learning. So we use Mendes, we use Bocket, Bot Vin, Positive Action, and

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we're all certified to facilitate these courses and that comes at no additional charge to the Harrisburg School District, right? Um that is just within our parameters, things that we could just pull out the toolkit and you know, not every day is like all right, field trip. Some days it is guest speaker, gym time, wreck time, we're going to feed

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you, send you home. But we also think about how the student can sustain over the weekend. So we partner with Hershey Cocoa Packs. Then we ensure that they get a nice cocoa pack to sustain them over the weekend with some healthy meals, some nutritional snacks. Um, but I can't tell you how many times the

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program has really changed and developed lives. We had children that come to us antisocial. Don't really speak up as they work their way through the program. Actually, Elijah Simpson was one of them. Mr. uh Contrella invited him to speak at the Lieutenant Governor's office last week because of how well the

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program is adapting. the boost we applied for and they're in talks with us to learn, you know, where where the ball was dropped and how we could reapply last year. But there is interest in the program. So along with that, the small price tag with one year of proven concept in the Harrisburg school district that can come free of charge by

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way of grants with PCCD, but we just need the metrics in the Harrisburg school district. But we do have over 1,200 students throughout our doors, a 72% efficacy rate. I mean, students come to school now just to make sure they can meet the mandates of the program. We have grade mandates. We have attendance

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mandates. So, we really take what we're doing with these kiddos serious, you know. Um, this Monday, actually, so with that, we have the Keep PA award. These students removed over 200 tons of illegal waste throughout the city of Harrisburg. Keep PA said, "Who's these guys doing all these cleanups?" The All

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You Can Crew actually was awarded the Keep PA award. So, I mean, we've we've received and achieved almost every accommodation from the governor's award all the way down. But what does that really mean but a plaque on the wall, what really means is the testaments and the stories. When I take a child kayaking and he's never been kayaking

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before and after a while starts finding their stride and the confidence you see in their face, right? You know the old moniker, you teach someone to fish, right? Or you can give someone a fish. But what about when they catch the fish, right? And then they go home and they cook that fish and the two hours they spend with their family about how the

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day was casting and reeling and pulling it in and yelling ecstatically and you know the parents reaching out, "Mr. Ruff, I just want to thank you. I never thought you know Malachi or Malik would be a fisherman. This is all they could talk about now, right?" Um, but the younger ones that are coming along, they act, we actually have a junior mentor

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program where now the junior mentors are getting paid to work the after school and summer camp programs with us. Right now we have two paid junior mentors helping running the running the ship and they get every certification that I do. The fishing instruction certifications are mandate all of the normal

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certifications you got to have to work in the school district. Um but it's our way to give back and say hey you know you can do something and you don't have to wait too much longer. Plus it's also meeting the students where they are. We just started the roller podcast where students are learning the whole backse

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of what it is to produce a podcast. Camera work the script work. I like to bring the Cougar podcast here in the district, right? Student led, student ran. I can go on forever. >> Say we but thank you. Thank you because that's a little bit what I wanted. Sometimes we want to see that

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presentation sometimes just prior but just so everybody we're being transparent about it and I think I'm thank you for you know sharing and one thing you said major about the afterchool network and that is one of the funding or grants that we um ran and you know we did get awarded here and

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that's why I was questioning like okay why is the afterchool you know I guess we can talk about that why is the afterchool network funding not being applied because you know again, that could be more students, that could be more funding, more funding. So, how do

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we get back to that, right? Making sure the money is accounting to, you know, that. So, we we're coming back to have that return of investment. But thank you for that. And hopefully that's something we're going to work on in the near future because I know how grants are. They're aged out. They have certain things, but you talked about the

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younger. So, hopefully um, you know, we can move this forward and, you know, have a discussion at the time. But, thank you. >> Thank you for the time. We have so many videos and different things we could have, you know, provided, but I really appreciate, you know, the few moments on the microphone. Thank you all. Absolutely.

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>> Thank you. >> And to your question, uh, Miss, um, um, what President Copelan, one of the thing we wanted to do with Mr. Rodriguez, we really wanted to be very intentional with this program. Um, and so we now open up to our kids. We are really identifying 30 kids of our uprising

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middle school student that's going to camp curtain to see if we could try something different with these kids, provide some mentoring, provide some additional support. Um, and one of the thing that I also want to comment about Mr. Rodriguez, the one reason that drew me to it is um, often I get to go down

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to Stilton for the act 141 meeting and often I get to see Mr. Rodriguez working with kids. That tell me a lot cuz after hours and he's there with those kids working with them being what those those kids needs in the moment. And so to be able to see what he's doing in Stilton,

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I say, "How dare we have something like this in Harrisburg?" And we do need it and we do need support for some of our uprising middle school students. So again, this is something that we want to invest to see if we could put third of our students in this program and see if we can elicit some change. um because we

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do understand that many of our kids that we're identifying with this program are kids that normally hanging out after school um and they're not finding the best of of trouble. They found trouble from time to time. Um especially during the summer. I know that's one of the thing I've heard when I arrive here is what do we do for many of our students

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over this over the summer? Again, we want to put these kids in a program, a designated program that we can see a return on investment that we can get Mr. Rodriguez to come back and give us update on how these students are doing. Are we seeing kids that been repeater with behavior? Are we seeing an

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improvement in grades? Are we seeing a reduction in in suspension in some of these students? So again, we really want to be intentional with the student we're identifying for this program and we are using and don't get me wrong some grant money to um do this program as well.

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>> All right. Thank you. So hearing no further discussion on the motion, we'll move this forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. >> Right. >> And this is the the second half of it. This administration has approved an agreement between the Harrisburg School

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District and All You Can Academy for the summer program that'll be for the following summer uh for the amount of 24,000. This item will appear on the May 19th, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. So, is there any discussion

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on this motion? >> All right. So hearing no further discussion on the motion, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item. Okay. The administration has recommended ratification agreement between the Harrisburg School District and the

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Hershey Entertainment and Resort for field trip to Zoo America in a total amount of $3,280. This item will appear on the May 19th, 2026 board agenda. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion item?

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Miss Johnson. >> Um, who goes on the field trip? >> If you look below, we have Steel Elementary, Cougar Academy, Maro, Ben Franklin, Lincoln Elementary, and Downey. >> Oh, I see. Thank you.

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>> Thank you, Miss Johnson. Is there any further discussion on the motion? >> All right. So hearing no further discussion on the motion, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Um Dr. Henry, next item. >> Administration recommended approval of

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the order form for drift for teacher subition as a supplement instruction resource to support multilingual learner within the Harrisburg school district language instruction education program L E in amount of $8,640.

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This item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you, Dr. Henry. Is there any discussion on this motion item? >> Okay, so hearing no discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19, 2026 meeting for the consent

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agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration is recommending approval of the great reconfiguration at Ben Franklin Down and Merro to submit to the PDA. uh PD design will appear on the May 19th, 2026 board of agenda for approval.

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>> Thank you, Dr. Henry. Is there any discussion on this motion item? >> And if you can just um I have a discussion. Can you talk just give us a little bit of information on it? >> So, as we continue to to increase our uh special education need around the district, one of the thing we have to

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look at is where do we put those program? And so, we identified classroom at those following schools. And so with us moving those special ed classes in, we are going to be removing our prek classes and putting them all at the Scott building for this year um in order

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for us to be able to um support our growing special education needs. >> Okay. And now with that, um so are you taking prek out of these schools? >> PreK would be housed at Scots. So the

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prek that would normally at been Franklin Downing and um will be now housed at the Scott building. >> Okay. And if that is also how how was this information I guess today? But >> we'll be sending out communication out to everyone to families around this

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move. >> Okay. Yeah. because I would recommend at least having a little bit more information with that because if you're talking about changing prek and doing a reconfiguration, you know, what does transportation look like and you know what the attendance and things like that

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and you know, will it work or not? Because we're already in um you know, doing okay, I'll pause. >> We'll we'll send out to we'll send out communication >> because we're we're in the process of another one. So, I just want to make sure that we get, you know, pass a few.

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But if no other discussions on the motion, we can move it forward to the May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. I would just add to um please make sure we get some type of um feedback from the communication before this is brought back.

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>> Okay. >> Before our um next meeting. So, Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration has recommended approval of the update course of study for the Harrisburg High School. This item will appear on the May 19th board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on

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the motion item? >> Okay. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 uh board agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next >> the administration recommend approval of the scope and sequence and curriculum for the newly required personal finance

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course affect the 2026 27 school year. This item will appear on the May 19th, 2026 board of agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion item? >> Okay. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it

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forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh, Dr. Henry, next item. The administration has recommended approval to submit the Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Curriculum and Technical Education a new program application for the SIP 52.0701

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entrepreneur study as a three-year CTE program. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion, Miss Anderson? >> Um, thank you, President Copeland. So I just have a question because we had a

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lot of comment tonight from the SBI program. Is this the item that they're referring to the 5.9 and then is it related to the SBI program and are we planning to combine because I see that this is like an entrepreneurship CTE program. So is so could you just

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like explain this and then how it connects to SBI if it does connect to SBI. >> So currently at at John Hair we have two trikes of business class. We have a current track of SBI which is our school of business industry and then we have our regular business classes. And so essentially we have two pathway for kids

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to take business classes. And so what we are trying to do because we have we're looking at our numbers as well. So one of the thing you'll hear me talk about is a full load. So when a teacher teach a full load they should teach anywhere between 125 to about 150 kids per day. And so in order for us to maximize what

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we want to do is say we don't need two pathway for business. So we can have one pathway for business which could be our CT pathway which could also bring in entrepreneurship which is being taught currently with SBI. Again one of the thing that we're talking about is we could create a track where we have kids

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that still take honor classes in CTE but they also if you have kids that's not interested in doing C uh honor classes but they want CTE credit they can still take CTE classes. Again it's how do we grow it and give kids opportunity to get uh certification in the program. So what

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would that So I'm kind of following that thread. What what then would that look like specifically for the SBI program? >> So for next year, one of the thing that we just talked about before was the finance personal finance class. That's a requirement for all kids to take. And so what we're going to do is use that as an

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intro for to see if kids interested in CTE or business classes. So as everyone have to take this class, this is opportunity for us to really expose them to say, hey, there's another pathway for some of our kids. Again, one of the thing you heard many of our kids spoke spoken about tonight is they didn't know

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about the program unless someone else told them about it. So, how can we get ahead of that and give them that information while they in this personal finance class and tell them about opportunity and CT? Again, there's a pathway where we can still do both, but we also have to realize we want to provide these opportunity for our

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student. So, what this allow us to do is to apply for the ASHA program. what it would look like for next year. All kids regardless will be taking this ninth grade academy class will be taking the personal finance. So again, that will give us opportunity to start building out what this program look like.

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>> Okay. I'm still not totally clear on like what so like the SBI program as it currently exists, >> will it be the same next year given this program or will it look different? >> So for 11th and 12th grader, they will still be in SBI like they currently in.

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The only kids that would be a little different in their program is a 10th grader. If I'm not mistaken, I think it's 10 kids, 12 kids, but it's less than 20 kids that and and so we would ask those kids, do you want to continue? What path you want to do?

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So with those kids, we would talk to them and their parent to see what path they want to go because that their path for the temporary will be the only one that's different because normally they would be taking SBI 2. >> Okay. So, I guess walk me through I'm sorry. I'm

687
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I'm still I'm still not following how maybe maybe someone else is. So, walk me through what the SBI pathway looks like for someone. They they come into the school nth grade. What does that process look like to get them through the SBI program? And then explain to me how that

688
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is going to look different. >> So, currently right now at John Harris, we have three SBI class. SBI 1, SBI 2, SBI 3. And from my thinking, make sure I'm saying this right, SBI 1 is typically done in the 10th grade and SBI

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is in the 11th and SBI 3 is in their senior year. And so again, what we're looking at is saying, okay, how can we bring this in ninth grade to start giving kids opportunity to learn about SBI or CTE. So every kid is going to be required to take their personal finance class. So for our ninth grade next year,

690
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it's not going to look any different because they normally don't get an SBI. So what we normally do in ninth grade, they look at any kid that got a 3.0 or better to identify those kids for SBI. But I'm saying maybe we look at a two or five and see can we put them in this program and provide them additional

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support. Can they grow their academics? I believe so. We heard that evidence today when we put that group of kids around them how they was able to grow. So for our 10th graders, our current 10th graders for next year, the kid that's in ninth grade that want to be in SBI, those kids are the only kids that will have a change in their schedule

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because we won't have SBI one like we currently have. They'll have for those kid in two years they'll be taking CTE classes if we go down that pathway to continue to do CT like we're doing. So they won't have SBI one, but then are you saying that they also wouldn't have

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SBI 2 or >> at that point because what we noticed is a lot of the classes of what they're teaching in SBI 2 and three is already been we could teach it in CTE. So a lot of the work when we we uh spoke to Miss Bank, she said, "Well, we already do this." Well, we could easily kind of

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transition that into one of the CTE approved classes. So the kids still get the same opportunity, the same work that they were doing because they have standard that they have to cover as well as CTE. So it might not be called SBI too. It might be called entrepreneurship too. >> Uhhuh. >> How is this CTE?

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>> How is the CT? Because it still be a CT course work. It'll be a CT class. >> Well, so my >> Sorry, Doug. I wasn't done asking questions and please wait until the board president calls upon you. I'm I'm not done grilling him here.

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>> So yes. So I guess what I'm trying to understand is like SP1, SP, SP2, SP3. It sounds like though in the future that's not going to exist. So like there were kernels of truth of what of the sentiment spoken to. So I'm just I'm just like the that's where I say the

697
03:29:02.080 --> 03:29:16.720
biggest thing that they're talking about is they want to continue to have an honor track and what I'm saying we could still do an honor track with CTE. So the kids that's in SBI in the honor track we can still do that. We could create a pathway if you want to be, let's say you want to go to the class and you say,

698
03:29:16.720 --> 03:29:34.160
"No, I don't want to take uh honor English." Well, you might take regular English, but you can still have access to CTE courses. But now, let's say you do want to take honor class because you do want to go to college. Well, you can still take that pathway. And so, dub for you with CT, it'll still be a double section of a class because with the CT,

699
03:29:34.160 --> 03:29:53.840
they have to complete the hours in order to complete um to get the certification. So they'll still be able to sit for certification test at the end of those classes. >> So >> well it'll be called SBI honors CTE. >> Yeah. And that and that's what I'm sorry

700
03:29:53.840 --> 03:30:09.920
Autumn and Duck because because it sounds like the 10th graders from SBI1 want to move to the 11th grade SBI 2 three. If you're telling me you're taking it away, first of all, just it's just a lot because first do do is it needed right? If it's needed, where is

701
03:30:09.920 --> 03:30:26.560
the data? Where is the program before you present? You know, uh uh well, I guess you're presenting the uh what is this? Jesus. >> So, so if you recall right now currently in SBI, we have less than 50 kids in the program. >> Oh, FBI. That's why I'm trying to expand

702
03:30:26.560 --> 03:30:41.680
it with trying to get >> gift small group because even >> I was about to say hold on. >> Yeah, because I was about to say after that like it's I think we need to um hold on this and get some more information because we're just going to

703
03:30:41.680 --> 03:30:58.560
keep going around. But I do want Miss Hughes to speak to it because again from what the students and what you're just explaining, it definitely sounds like the the programs are going away. But go ahead. Um Miss >> Thank you. What I heard from the students is it's not just the honors track and it's not just the con it's not

704
03:30:58.560 --> 03:31:14.399
just the content of the um of of the course, it's also the small cohort. >> So they they they um are bonding in a in a deep way and they're rising to the occasion. So we want to make sure that's not disrupted. That would be devastating, right? So um it's not just

705
03:31:14.399 --> 03:31:30.479
the honors track. So I I can see I I can understand that there's this is met with fear. This idea is met with fear because there's an idea that something really precious is going to be lost. So um my question is for this motion are we committing to any particular design?

706
03:31:30.479 --> 03:31:47.520
>> No. So with this motion yeah to a certain degree because this going to allow us to put in the entrepreneurship study course of study for the next three years. >> Does this does that mandate a change to SBI? So, what this allow us to do is at least put this in and and allow allow me

707
03:31:47.520 --> 03:32:02.640
and the team to continue to work with Miss Banks on creating what this might look like for our 10th and 11th and 12th graders. >> It would it be an option to maintain SBI as it is along with this model under this motion or no? >> So, what this motion allow us to do is

708
03:32:02.640 --> 03:32:18.720
to put in an application. So, again, for next year, all ninth grader would be taking the personal finance class. So, they wouldn't have any they wouldn't be taking SBI class. So they continue would take the fin the personal finance class because that's what's required against all your 10th and 11th graders. They

709
03:32:18.720 --> 03:32:38.640
will continue to take SBI 2 and three. Now what we can say is if you want me to say for SBI one, we could put that on hold for the 10th grader. Then that what we could look at doing for the 10th grader for next year. >> Miss Anderson, thank you. Um I yeah I think actually President Copelan maybe

710
03:32:38.640 --> 03:32:54.720
you already stated I I don't necessarily feel comfortable moving this forward um as is I guess one question that I would follow up on how is there a timeline where you have to submit a new SIP? >> Yes by the end of the month. >> Okay. And is that like a yearly is that

711
03:32:54.720 --> 03:33:11.040
like a yearly situation >> that's for that's a yearly situation. Correct. >> That is correct. So, this would be a new application for us and it is due May 31st. >> Sorry, could you repeat that? >> This would be a new application for us

712
03:33:11.040 --> 03:33:32.319
and it is due May 31st. >> Okay. Is it Is this an annual >> I believe so. Yes. >> Okay. >> Sorry about that, Mr. Thompson leader. >> So, essentially this is just trying to find a different way of paying for something. And so we have to change the

713
03:33:32.319 --> 03:33:49.600
name of it. Let's be a little bit more honest about what's going on here. CTE when you say that in the community they are not thinking entrepreneur business starters. That's what SBI is about. That's what the whole program started at the university level for it is not for

714
03:33:49.600 --> 03:34:06.000
trades and entrepreneurship in the trades which there are plenty of those. But first you got to be the plumber before you own your plumbing company. CTE is received by our community as trades. So that's part of the communication problem here.

715
03:34:06.000 --> 03:34:21.279
The other problem is we have a successful program in SBI. Why would we ever change it? >> Okay. So far as entrepreneurship and CT, that's one of the courses you can do in CT is entrepreneurship. And the reason why we want

716
03:34:21.279 --> 03:34:36.800
>> but that's not one that we need. We already have SBI. What we need are are kids getting the classes that they want. they already have this opportunity. >> So one of the reason why we wanted to start with the school of business is because again we want to invest into this program and to make sure it lasts

717
03:34:36.800 --> 03:34:52.960
and also we want to make sure that we give kids opportunity to get some type of certification once they complete the FBI program. >> What certification is there in this and is it actually useful in the business cuz becoming a journeyman plumber is way more useful than having a piece of paper that says I ran the school store. That'd

718
03:34:52.960 --> 03:35:07.120
be great if you're going to college, but you know what? Having on your resume that you ran the school store >> and having SBI out of the University of&M in Florida, way more important. >> So, some of the background and miss for you can kind of look at that document. I

719
03:35:07.120 --> 03:35:24.080
know they could get a HR certification, they get bookkeeping, it was some other ones they also get as well. There are there are a couple of credentials and I'll get you a list of the credentials. >> They have to be legitimate credentials. >> No, they are because we have to apply

720
03:35:24.080 --> 03:35:40.000
for this. So there they are there are credentials that they can get at the end of the program if they serve the so the >> and and the credential that you can get at at DCT tech for medical professional the C whatever is nothing in the line of becoming a nurse or a doctor or

721
03:35:40.000 --> 03:35:56.880
anything. So saying that there's a credential in it actually being one recognized in an industry are two different things. There's not an entrepreneurial industry. You don't go out and get a job >> as an entrepreneur. You are one. There's no like >> So that's part of the problem that I'm

722
03:35:56.880 --> 03:36:12.720
having with this. The SBI program is established and it does do what it does. It is an honors program. So maybe what we are looking to do is provide a nonhonors program. But then the question is why? And is there a different program

723
03:36:12.720 --> 03:36:29.600
that maybe we should be offering since we already have this? >> And you remember um um Thompson leader that Mr. Thompson leader that one of the goal is that we're going to continue to try to grow and add additional CTE. So we we're going to continue to do the EMT. uh we're looking at computer um

724
03:36:29.600 --> 03:36:47.520
cyber security as well as uh tra um pre- pre- entrepreneurship >> but the entrepreneurship part seems to be redundant to what we already have and we have limited funds. I know that this is all about applying to get possible

725
03:36:47.520 --> 03:37:03.439
CTE funding for it. How is SBI currently paid? Is that not covered by anything? >> No, that's coming out of the general. >> Right. But we have it. Could we apply for some other CTE program? >> Well, we will be applying for other CTE

726
03:37:03.439 --> 03:37:20.080
program. That's why I was saying remember we're doing a cyber security. >> Sure. Yeah. I I saw those, too. And I'm not disputing those at all. Those make sense. >> There's other programs that we should be looking into. If we already have a successful program

727
03:37:20.080 --> 03:37:37.600
in this space, the only argument to not keep SBI and to move to this CTE platform is because it's going to be paid for by more money from the state. And if that's the case, say that and then we can talk about having that be

728
03:37:37.600 --> 03:37:53.120
the program, but there being an honors SBI component to it. that makes it a little bit more clear to the parents and the students looking at this as a program. >> Well, with CTE, anytime you do any CT coursework, there's additional funds

729
03:37:53.120 --> 03:38:08.880
that go along that could support the program and support it with more curriculum with resources. >> And I'm saying we have to make these kind of decisions, but how we communicate that and what it actually means does matter. I am in no way saying we shouldn't

730
03:38:08.880 --> 03:38:25.040
pursue that funding, but we should make sure that the community and our students understand that we do want to keep an honors program. >> Thank you, Mr. Thompson Leader. I think Miss uh Anderson just had a comment so

731
03:38:25.040 --> 03:38:40.720
we can uh move forward. >> Um thank you, President Copelan. Yes. So, I guess two comments. I think one it's important that if we're making a change like this we have the buy in of the program leadership right so um I

732
03:38:40.720 --> 03:38:55.279
don't know when the discussion happened with Miss Banks but it ha having them show up here and then this being on the agenda it feels like um maybe more discussion could have been had with her to sort of like sort out the details of what this looks like. So I don't exactly

733
03:38:55.279 --> 03:39:10.720
know what that process looks like but um would just request for that in the future. And then I think another thing that would be helpful, I know that you have shared with us the um like some of the CTE plans. I do wonder if maybe we could get a little presentation whether it's at the board meeting or one of our

734
03:39:10.720 --> 03:39:26.560
future retreats to understand like the different CTE pathways and then what that means for some of our existing programming. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> The justification for dismantling the program is already working. Why are you

735
03:39:26.560 --> 03:39:42.720
knocking down a building that was that was designated for CTA? I mean, it's it's it's doesn't make any sense. >> Sir, we're gonna we're have to we can address at the end of the meeting. Not a problem. You're fine. But at this time, um we're not going to move forward with this item. So, we're going to remove

736
03:39:42.720 --> 03:39:59.680
this and I think it'll just take majority of the board if they're all in agreement. I guess if you can raise your hand or something to say if you're in agreement with removing the item. Okay. Okay. So, seeing majority, we're going to just remove this item. The 5.9

737
03:39:59.680 --> 03:40:17.359
looks like 5.10 as well. And I don't know if I need to take another additional Okay, great. Awesome. So, we're going to remove 5.9 and 5.10 for a little bit more discussion. All right. So, um we're going to move to the next item, Dr. Henry. 5.11.

738
03:40:17.359 --> 03:40:31.840
>> All right. >> Just had a quick question. So, I know that we removed this off of the agenda for further discussion. When would that uh discussion take place? a later time once I get more information >> because I know she said the 31st would be the deadline with us moving forward with anything. So even if the entrepreneur portion of that was an

739
03:40:31.840 --> 03:40:47.760
issue, are we able to meet before the 31st to try to move the other? >> We have a we have a board meeting on the 26th if we able to bring that back as a item at that time. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So we'll wait for discussion. >> If not, we probably won't make the deadline at this year. >> Yeah. To bring it back. But if it's something that we would consider, it

740
03:40:47.760 --> 03:41:03.600
would be like an immediate be action item. You can have a um we can have it and correct me if I'm wrong, we can have a uh emergency work session. Correct me if I'm wrong. Um Dr. Sun or Dr. Henry. >> Yeah. But >> as long as it's advertised. >> As long as it's advertised. >> Yeah. >> Well, I think you want to have it with

741
03:41:03.600 --> 03:41:19.200
your administrator because they're the one, you know, with the students and everybody came. I think it's better you guys get on the same page and then bring it back >> because I know the entrepreneur was just one aspect of that. So quite it was a few more things that our kids can engage in aside from that. So I think if we can

742
03:41:19.200 --> 03:41:34.800
get a uh something put for put together soon before that next meeting. >> But um thank you and um Mr. Carter. Dr. Henry, next item please. >> All right. The administration has recommended ratification and approval of the time away from work request for the professional development as attached to

743
03:41:34.800 --> 03:41:53.520
the agenda. This item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion item? All right. So hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026

744
03:41:53.520 --> 03:42:11.359
board agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. >> All right. The administration recommend approval of waiver exposure for the hearing agreement for the following student except for number one, number 23. Um the immediate action item will be for uh cases 24 and 25. We will bring

745
03:42:11.359 --> 03:42:30.080
back 23 at the next board meeting. >> Okay. So, we're going to be um voting >> removing item one, the two 2025-2026-23. And can somebody just speak to why or you know an update on why this is being removed?

746
03:42:30.080 --> 03:42:45.200
>> We are looking at the paperwork the the paperwork for this one to uh to make sure that we have everything correct. >> Thank you. So, with that again, we're going to remove item one. So, do I have a motion to approve the labor explosion hearing agreements as an immediate

747
03:42:45.200 --> 03:43:04.160
action item for two and three? >> So, move to use. >> Is there a second? >> Second, Anderson. >> Thank you. The motion has been properly moved and second. Madam Secretary, can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Anderson? >> Yes.

748
03:43:04.160 --> 03:43:27.359
>> Mr. Carter? >> Yes. >> Miss Copelan? >> Yes. >> Miss Hughes? >> Yes. Miss Johnson. >> Yes. >> Miss Radcliffe. >> Yes. >> Mr. Roy. >> Mr. Roy, are you there?

749
03:43:27.359 --> 03:43:42.479
>> Yes. >> Is your answer yes or yes that you're there? >> Yes, my answer is yes. >> Thank you, Mr. Thompson leader. Yes. >> Eight. Yes. Zero no zero abstain.

750
03:43:42.479 --> 03:43:58.239
>> Thank you madam secretary. So hearing a majority of yeses. So that motion will carry for approval item two and three. Uh we will now move to the office of human resources. Dr. Henry. Next item. >> The administration recommend approval of

751
03:43:58.239 --> 03:44:20.720
the act 93 alternative summer work schedule for the 2026. This item will appear on the May 19th 2026 board agenda for approval. Thank you Dr. Is there any discussion on the motion? >> If you can just give some content on

752
03:44:20.720 --> 03:44:38.439
what is the act 93 uh just give a little content to our >> during the summer uh employee work 4 day work week. They have to rotate between out of Monday or Friday off. Um but they that's a a typical summer thing for most school district work 4 day work week.

753
03:44:38.720 --> 03:44:57.040
>> All right. So, is there any further discussion on the motion? All right. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move this forward uh to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. The

754
03:44:57.040 --> 03:45:12.880
administration has recommended approval of the agreement renewal between the Harrisburg School District and the Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania to provide supervised student teacher internship practical and field study placement within the district at no cost to the district. This item will appear on the May 19th board of agenda for

755
03:45:12.880 --> 03:45:29.120
approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion item? >> Uh yes, not of discussion, just more so can you just provide more clarity about what this renewal contract consists of and the scope of work that they do. Um do you want me to speak to it? >> Yeah, can you speak to it? Thank you for

756
03:45:29.120 --> 03:45:43.439
pushing. >> So um so these agreements there are agreements like this that you will see throughout time and they're with institutions of higher education that have normally it's for they're for people going through certification programs. >> Okay.

757
03:45:43.439 --> 03:46:00.000
>> And um and to student teach in a school district and this is also in board policy with student teachers. They have to have an agreement with us. And this actually breaks it all down. All right. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on the

758
03:46:00.000 --> 03:46:16.880
motion item? Okay. So, hearing no further discussion on motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. The administration is recommended approval of administrative services only ASO agreement between the

759
03:46:16.880 --> 03:46:33.680
Harrisburg School District and the Pennsylvania State Education Associated with Health and Welfare Fund to provide dental and vision benefit for eligible employee. Effective July 1st, 2026 through June 30, 2027. Uh the agreement is pending solicitor review. The item

760
03:46:33.680 --> 03:46:52.960
will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you Dr. Is there any discussion on this motion item? So my only um question would be as for the agreement was it was there increase

761
03:46:52.960 --> 03:47:10.560
cuz I see there's different like dental I guess more dental and family plan on this agreement. Did we see an increase? Is there a savings for the um agreement with the dent and visual uh vision agreement? Um we are as like like it says it is

762
03:47:10.560 --> 03:47:26.640
being currently reviewed but there is minimal change >> and would what do you have the or I guess I'll wait till the solicitor reviews it to provide us what the minimal changes are. Okay. Thank you. So hearing no further discussion on the motion we'll move it forward to our May

763
03:47:26.640 --> 03:47:42.640
19th 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry next item. The administration has recommend approval of the attached spring coach appointment for the 2526 spring season as attached. This item will appear on the May 19th, 2026 board agenda for approval.

764
03:47:42.640 --> 03:48:01.199
>> Thank you, Dr. Henry. Is there any discussion on the motion item? All right. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry. Next item.

765
03:48:01.199 --> 03:48:15.359
>> The administration has recommended approval of the attach HA as me creation elimination of position per board policy 301. This item will appear on the May 19th board of agenda for approval. Thank you Dr. Henry. Is there any

766
03:48:15.359 --> 03:48:35.520
discussion on the motion item? Now can you just give us a little content like the feedback regarding >> some of I I will definitely jump into this. Um so the first thing uh is to refer back to of course Dr. Stokes's

767
03:48:35.520 --> 03:48:50.640
presentation related to the budget today. These are staffing changes um that are reflected in that budget. Some of them are of course due to the Roland school closing and shifting those staff

768
03:48:50.640 --> 03:49:07.359
members over to Camp Curtain. We also have the creation of positions for special education both in HA as well as ASME. We did need to acknowledge the need to increase our ELD

769
03:49:07.359 --> 03:49:23.840
staff to support our ELD population. And as we review the schedules of both John Harris and Camp Curtain, we noted that we had to of course adjust some of the programming and that includes in increasing the number of elective

770
03:49:23.840 --> 03:50:01.600
offerings and adjusting the assignment titles of some of our positions there. I also um I thought it might be helpful. I did bring an FTE breakdown that I wanted to share. This is a summary sheet of position

771
03:50:01.600 --> 03:50:16.960
control. Um, obviously what we look at, we look at a lot more data, but this breaks it down by building. And the total FTE numbers you see is for the current school year. where it says new FTE for 2627

772
03:50:16.960 --> 03:50:38.800
that is based on the proposed budget and the proposed creation and elimination of positions which is for the 2627 school year. The end column it reflects the total FTE the changes

773
03:50:38.800 --> 03:51:06.640
related to that. So you will see predominantly an increase in FTEES. However, there is one decrease and that would be within the administrative numbers. I'm sorry. I'm still >> So what's the the total? What's the FT?

774
03:51:06.640 --> 03:51:22.640
Okay. the change it's what it was total this is a new one for next year so this is on each group so this is for your a teacher administrator >> I should emphasize that you were seeing

775
03:51:22.640 --> 03:51:38.800
an increase overall in FTEES within the organization however those FTEES are to support students directly in the classroom >> okay my only concerns is um I thought we

776
03:51:38.800 --> 03:51:54.239
were still I know this was included in um Dr. Stokes's um budget presentation, but it's still under a negotiation at this time. And um now we're looking to eliminate and

777
03:51:54.239 --> 03:52:10.000
create when um these contract agreements have not yet been finalized. >> Do you mean when it comes to contract agreements, are you refering to um when she did when Dr. Stokes did the budget

778
03:52:10.000 --> 03:52:27.520
presentation regarding the ask me negotiations, she stated that according to cuz I guess we were adding additional positions and things of that and that is still being negotiated and now you're bringing before us position creation and elimination when

779
03:52:27.520 --> 03:52:44.399
it's still and you can help me understand. I'm just trying >> I'm I'm understanding now. So okay um we can we can still move forward and create positions within APSME um and we also can eliminate them within APSME we still must comply with the content with the

780
03:52:44.399 --> 03:52:59.760
content of those collective bargaining agreements um be and that's what we are doing >> but so does that affect the budgeting that is already >> this would be an increase in FTEES but the increases that you see are

781
03:52:59.760 --> 03:53:21.840
predominantly for compliance purposes within the appsme bargaining unit. This is due to the number of special education aids that we need to provide for our autistic support classrooms. Miss Copelan, if it's helpful, all the

782
03:53:21.840 --> 03:53:38.319
changes that Miss Lang has outlined on this sheet are reflective in the budget presentation that I did this evening. Okay. That's what >> So I think maybe that's our missing link. Yeah, it's already done. >> Okay. Because I was that's what I was trying to make sure like was already added into your budget presentation per

783
03:53:38.319 --> 03:53:53.199
se. Okay. >> Yeah. So for example, how we talked about the um pair of professionals for autistic support. You're going to see those additions in here based on where the classroom locations are going to be. I've already budgeted for those salaries and benefits.

784
03:53:53.199 --> 03:54:09.680
>> Correct. Um, we don't know if they're going to be filled by a district employee or if they're going to be filled by a contractor, but right now I have to contractually add those as an FTE to comply with board policy and our collective bargain agreement. If in

785
03:54:09.680 --> 03:54:26.000
successor negotiations we add language in there that would allow us to subcontract out certain positions, we can then adjust how we budget. But right now our language for pair professionals requires them to be district. Uh

786
03:54:26.000 --> 03:54:40.960
>> that is correct. Yeah. >> And only and then that's another thing because we're are these positions already filled. >> No, because we don't have the kids yet. Um so they're going to be coming most of them are incoming kindergarteners, right? >> So we are through early intervention

787
03:54:40.960 --> 03:54:57.840
guessing how many students we're going to have. Well, we know those students not guessing. What we don't know is how many students are not identified through early intervention that might show up on day one of kindergarten and need to go through a process of being identified. So there might be a chance like when we

788
03:54:57.840 --> 03:55:12.560
talked about budgetary reserve I might need another autistic support classroom meaning I need a teacher and two more paras that we don't know about today because we don't realize those students are planning to come to us in the fall yet. >> Okay. So these pretty much these

789
03:55:12.560 --> 03:55:30.000
positions then would fill the extended I guess the um classrooms or where these um jobs would be needed or positions would be needed. >> Yes. >> Versus Okay. Cuz that's what I'm trying to like kind of visualize like okay are we taking away and putting it somewhere

790
03:55:30.000 --> 03:55:47.040
or are they not being filled and then we're putting it into there. But if you're taking it, okay, >> our full intention is to hopefully fill all of these positions because they have been identified um as needs um through the budget development process. And so

791
03:55:47.040 --> 03:56:03.840
that is our ultimate goal is that human resources is be able to find a bunch of talent and get all these positions filled. >> Right. So do and I don't know if we got get this information or not. Do we know the numbers now current what position what uh pair of professions positions

792
03:56:03.840 --> 03:56:20.720
are actually fil currently open are I would say vacant not being filled >> if you give me a minute I'll I'll get it for you I count them up >> and Mr. Thompson leader. Um, some of the positions being created seem to be tied

793
03:56:20.720 --> 03:56:37.600
to positions we don't currently have and I don't even know that there's curriculum at the middle school level for are we going to like see like theater and stuff like that. I'm all for it. >> I'm excited about the idea, but we have to see the curriculum too and we haven't seen that.

794
03:56:37.600 --> 03:56:53.840
>> That is correct. Um, yes, that is one of our options and we are looking um into curriculum. We're working with the um high school person who has a theater course or class um and working with them to develop the curriculum and when we do decide on if this is the way we're

795
03:56:53.840 --> 03:57:09.120
moving forward, we will absolutely be presenting it to the school board. >> Why would we create a position if we don't know if we're moving forward with it? >> We are, but I mean moving forward with whatever the curriculum is. There's a couple of different options that we have with the pro with the um with what it

796
03:57:09.120 --> 03:57:24.399
would look like at the middle school as an elective. So, we just we're just working through that right now, but we wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to get it in front of you um to get it approved so that we can like

797
03:57:24.399 --> 03:57:41.199
look at all of our different options on how we can offer this to our students. >> Thank you, uh Dr. Suski. >> Madame President, I think this kind of goes back to what Mr. Carter was saying before. The board has not seen what Camp Curtain is going to look like next year

798
03:57:41.199 --> 03:57:57.359
in terms of all of these students there, what a schedule looks like, what the curriculum is going to look like. So, all of these positions are being put on here and it's like putting the cart before the horse because, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think the board has seen anything with this. And I think

799
03:57:57.359 --> 03:58:19.359
that's what Mr. Carter was suggesting by needing to have a work session. Am I correct, Mr. Carter? >> Yeah, that's correct. Thank you. So, I guess that >> So, I guess we can um go ahead.

800
03:58:19.359 --> 03:58:35.920
>> I I just need clarity. So, does that mean you're pulling this for now? Because it does affect some other staffing pieces for me. the the one thing I think we just want to make sure is we can't advertise to fill the positions until we have that.

801
03:58:35.920 --> 03:58:52.640
And I know that um we're we're late to the game, I'll say, in trying to recruit for some of these positions. Miss Lang, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I want to make sure that we have the best opportunity to get talent um that we can. So, if there's certain ones we want

802
03:58:52.640 --> 03:59:07.920
to pull, perhaps maybe a conversation about certain ones versus the entire list. Well, and and that is what I'm I'm actually going to recommend that we do. And I will need to lean a little bit on Miss Folks for this because of the camp

803
03:59:07.920 --> 03:59:23.040
curtain schedule. We have some positions where on paper it looks like we are eliminating them and we are creating other positions but it simply it clearly defines what our electives are within

804
03:59:23.040 --> 03:59:43.199
the camp curtain schedule and those are positions where that we're putting Roland transfers over into and we are also looking for people with unique certification areas. That is correct. Yes. Um, one of the

805
03:59:43.199 --> 03:59:59.199
things that we're looking at and and um, Mr. Thompson leader, this might help you a little bit. We did create a schedule for Camp Curtain, uh, a pretty robust schedule, a very intentional schedule, but we also are just now getting new leadership, too. and we want new

806
03:59:59.199 --> 04:00:14.080
leadership to have that opportunity to look at the schedule and making sure that these courses that that we had proposed that we were looking at um is is the direct the direction that that he would like to take the school in. So

807
04:00:14.080 --> 04:00:31.040
that's why I I don't want to not have that opportunity. That's why I said with the theater class, those were one of the things that we talked about. Um, but we wanted to make sure that the the the principal, whoever was taking over the school, had the opportunity to look at those things as well because they will

808
04:00:31.040 --> 04:00:46.880
be leading the school in this direction. Is this the direction that you wanted to go in? So, we want we want to put it out there so that we if we're if we are going to go in that direction, it's already approved. We'll look at the curriculum. We'll make sure that we get the curriculum in front of you. But we

809
04:00:46.880 --> 04:01:09.359
really do um want the the building leader um to have some say so in this schedule that that we had created. >> Thank you. Um Miss Anderson. Um, so I'm kind of coming into this conversation part way, but I just want

810
04:01:09.359 --> 04:01:26.000
to make a general statement about the pattern in which the board receives information and maybe the perception of the board by the administration or others. So I think if we think about this district as a

811
04:01:26.000 --> 04:01:42.080
company, right? We have the CEO right here and then we have the cabinet members, the folks, the the CFO, the folks who are sort of doing the work and then you have um a board that in a company right is sort of like kept a

812
04:01:42.080 --> 04:01:57.359
breast of things. uh we all have this shared vision of you know in the case of a company it would be profits in the case of here it's having better academics and I think what sometimes what it feels like is that the board is

813
04:01:57.359 --> 04:02:14.000
viewed as a barricade or a barrier to accomplishing the things that you all want to accomplish instead of a thought partner um someone who needs that needs to be able to provide buy in. And so what continues to happen at a lot of these board members at least a lot of

814
04:02:14.000 --> 04:02:29.439
these board meetings at least since I have been on the board is that it's no limited information is shared and then it's well we have to vote on this tonight because we have a deadline in two weeks or we have to vote on this tonight because we have to be able to share this information with the incoming

815
04:02:29.439 --> 04:02:45.040
leadership. It's like we want to be able to help the district and the administration be able to achieve meet meet those deadlines, but it can't be here's the information. There's limited information. It's being thrown at us last minute and then we're being asked

816
04:02:45.040 --> 04:03:01.359
to make a decision. And this is not a one-time situation. This has been almost every board meeting since I have been on the board. And I feel like we have been kind about it and patient and saying we would like more information. We want to

817
04:03:01.359 --> 04:03:15.760
have a working session about Camp Curtain. And I don't know if those requests are ignored if if it's not understood, but we do not want to make decisions that are rushed and that feel irresponsible about things. And I think

818
04:03:15.760 --> 04:03:31.199
like we have expressed that. And so I just I want to say that sentiment out loud um here as it's like somewhat relevant to what we're discussing, but just as like a general sentiment. I think there have been a couple things that have come up

819
04:03:31.199 --> 04:03:48.399
tonight that have demonstrated that. So I know we're all tired and probably hungry and want to get home. Um but yeah, so thank you. >> Yep. Thank you, uh Miss Anderson. So, um, with that,

820
04:03:48.399 --> 04:04:04.960
we're going to go ahead. If there's no further discussion, we can, u move this forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Um, Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration's recommend approval for the following act 93 creation

821
04:04:04.960 --> 04:04:26.239
elimination of position per board policy 301. This item will appear on May 19, 2026 board agenda. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion items? All right. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May

822
04:04:26.239 --> 04:04:42.720
19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh, Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration has recommended approval of the following job description. This item will appear on the May 19th board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion?

823
04:04:42.720 --> 04:04:58.160
So hearing none, we'll move it forward to the May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. >> Administration recommend approval of the attached May 12th, 2026 personnel agenda as a muted action item.

824
04:04:58.160 --> 04:05:14.960
>> Thank you. So do I have a motion to approve the item attached for the May 12, 2026 personnel agenda as an immediate action item? >> So move Thompson leader. Is there a second? >> Second, Johnson.

825
04:05:14.960 --> 04:05:42.399
>> The motion has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? And um >> All right. So, I know there's a new um item here. So if you can just share a little bit uh sentiments on the update.

826
04:05:42.399 --> 04:05:57.279
>> Okay. >> Uh one of the update that uh that once we u go through this agenda is approving a new principal for camp curtain. Um that we are um naming or submitting the name of Ryan Joan who's the current principal at Marshall Math Science to be

827
04:05:57.279 --> 04:06:14.160
the new leader of Camp Curtain. That's one of the personnel agenda item. >> Thank you. So, is there any further discussion on the motion? All right. So, hearing no further

828
04:06:14.160 --> 04:06:31.279
discussion on the motion item, Madam Secretary, can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Anderson, >> yes. >> Mr. Carter, >> no. >> Miss Copelan, >> yes. >> Miss Hughes, >> yes. >> Miss Johnson,

829
04:06:31.279 --> 04:06:50.239
>> yes. Miss Radcliffe. >> Now, can you What are we voting on again? His his being um he's him being the principal at Camp Curtain. Is that what we're voting on? >> This all the personnel agenda for the

830
04:06:50.239 --> 04:07:12.640
item, but that's one of the item that's in there. It's item 6.8. >> Okay, I see it. Um, >> yes, >> Mr. Roy. >> Yes,

831
04:07:12.640 --> 04:07:44.640
>> Mr. >> Mr. Thompson. Leader. >> Yes. >> Seven. Yes. One. No. Zero. Abstain. Yes, it's on the >> All right. So, hearing majority of the yeses, that motion will carry for

832
04:07:44.640 --> 04:08:02.319
approval. And um thank you uh Mr. Ryan Jones for accepting um that position. And I know a lot we don't talk about it, but we have to have strong leaders to lead our children. And I think he's done a great job at the um

833
04:08:02.319 --> 04:08:18.319
Marshall mapping science just to share that cuz I had my son actually went there and he was one of the children I would say that was separated, bullied and once he went there he felt you know that comfort. So the hope is to see that

834
04:08:18.319 --> 04:08:33.920
we really, you know, with accepting this that we really get the right supports and to see that moving forward. So I just wanted to share that comment. All right. Uh Dr. Henry, next item.

835
04:08:33.920 --> 04:08:48.319
>> The administration is recommending approval of the attached consent with demotion for employee 17280 effective May 4th, 2026 as an immediate action item. >> Thank you. Um, do I have a motion to approve the consentual demotion for

836
04:08:48.319 --> 04:09:05.479
employee number 17280 as an immediate action item? >> So, move Johnson. >> Is there a second? >> Second, Anderson. >> Thank you. The motion has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion?

837
04:09:06.720 --> 04:09:22.080
And I just want to add Dr. Henry, if you can just give us a little bit of know how much we can talk about it just to >> I I can give some background. Um this is this is actually a request for voluntary

838
04:09:22.080 --> 04:09:38.960
transfer. However, because of the act 93 agreement, the ranges are different, the compensation ranges. So per PA code, we automatically it it it's designated as a demotion. So, we just wanted to make sure we documented that this is

839
04:09:38.960 --> 04:09:55.359
something he absolutely wanted to do. He wanted to join the camp the camp curtain leadership team. >> Thank you. And that's pretty much what I was looking for just to let it be known that transparency is not a take down. Someone accepted it. >> Right. Right. >> So, thank you for that. So, hearing

840
04:09:55.359 --> 04:10:12.239
hearing no further discussion on the motion, Madam Secretary. Can I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Anderson? >> Yes. Mr. Carter? >> No. Miss. >> Yes. >> Miss Hughes. Yes. Miss Johnson. >> Yes.

841
04:10:12.239 --> 04:10:32.080
>> Miss Radcliffe. >> Yes. >> Mr. Roy. >> Yes. >> Mr. Thompson Leader. >> Yes. >> Seven. Yes. One no. Zero abstain. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. Hear majority yeses. So that motion will

842
04:10:32.080 --> 04:10:48.160
carry for approval. We'll now move to the office of operations. Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration recommend approval of the food service management company cost reimburseable contract with the Southwest food service excellent SF for the 26 27th school year. This renewal

843
04:10:48.160 --> 04:11:03.439
has been reviewed and approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and represent a contract year four or five. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion? All right. So hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll

844
04:11:03.439 --> 04:11:18.160
move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration has recommended approval of the agreement with Barry Isa and associate to conduct a compassion testing during the de demolish of the

845
04:11:18.160 --> 04:11:35.840
William Penn. The total cost is $25,15. This item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion item? I do. >> Miss Johnson. >> Thank you. I was just wondering um was

846
04:11:35.840 --> 04:11:52.160
this not in consideration with the total dem demolition cost that we've already discussed? >> Yes, this was included in the presentation that um I gave last month. So, this is included in the total cost for demolition. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. Okay. So, no

847
04:11:52.160 --> 04:12:09.520
further. Um the agreement is with this particular company, >> correct? Okay. Okay. Thank you, Miss Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Brady. Is there any further discussion on the motion item? All right. So, hearing no further

848
04:12:09.520 --> 04:12:25.920
discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh, Dr. Henry, next item. Administration's recommend approval of the intent to proceed with the Shiva business solution as a selected vendor for the district upcoming 60-month managed print service agreements

849
04:12:25.920 --> 04:12:42.920
beginning August 30th, 2026. The final contract and agreement term pendant solicitor review and approval. Uh this item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board of agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion item?

850
04:12:45.120 --> 04:13:01.279
>> Okay. Hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Uh Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration recommend approval of the attached use of facility. These item will appear on the May 19th, 2026 board of agenda for approval.

851
04:13:01.279 --> 04:13:19.600
>> Thank you. Is there any discussion on these motion on the motion? All right. Okay, hearing no further discussion on the motion items, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. We're now ready to move to the office of business services for new

852
04:13:19.600 --> 04:13:34.239
business items. Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration has recommended approval of the ratification of the following payroll total for April 2026. These item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on

853
04:13:34.239 --> 04:13:51.120
the motion? Okay. Okay, hearing no further discussion on the motion, we will move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item. >> The administration has recommended ratification of the following check register for April 2026. These item will

854
04:13:51.120 --> 04:14:09.520
appear on the May 19th, 2026 board of agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion items? All right. Hearing no further discussion on motion items, we'll move them all forward to our May 19th meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item.

855
04:14:09.520 --> 04:14:25.439
>> The administration recommend approval of the master survey agreement for go for healthc care for athletic training service for the period from July 1st, 2026 to June 30, 2027 at a rate of $67 per hour for a regular time of $100.50

856
04:14:25.439 --> 04:14:42.359
per hour for overtime. The agreement is for two athletic training each for a minimum of 1500 hour. This item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board agenda for approval. Thank you, Dr. Is there any discussion on the motion item.

857
04:14:44.640 --> 04:15:01.120
Okay. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our uh May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. And this is only the increase rate for the rate. Okay. The hourly rate.

858
04:15:01.120 --> 04:15:24.960
>> Yeah. >> All right. On the contract agreement. >> Dr. Henry. Next item. >> The administration recommend approval of the treasury report for the period ended March 31st, 2026 in amount of 71,62,9223. This sign will appear on the May 19,

859
04:15:24.960 --> 04:15:44.399
2026 board agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion? >> All right. So hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th 26 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item.

860
04:15:44.399 --> 04:16:04.399
administration has recommend adoption for the PL inspection of the proposed final budget for the 20 26 2027 school year in an amount of $227,749,738 as shared under the presentation section of the agenda. The proposed final budget

861
04:16:04.399 --> 04:16:22.199
repair on the state form PTE 2028 will be available for public inspection on the district website for 30 days before the final adoption on June 30th, 2026. >> Thank you, Dr. Rain. Is there any discussion on this motion item?

862
04:16:23.920 --> 04:16:39.040
All right. So, hearing no further discussion on motion, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item. The administration has recommended ratification of the following fundraiser for the 2025 2026 school year. This item will appear on

863
04:16:39.040 --> 04:16:56.479
the May 19, 2026 board of agenda for approval. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing no further discussion on the motion, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. Henry, next item. Administration's recommend

864
04:16:56.479 --> 04:17:12.479
approval of the 25 the 2025 2026 budget transfer for April 2026 in the amount of 750,000 514.92. This item will appear on the May 19, 2026 board of agenda for approval. Thank

865
04:17:12.479 --> 04:17:29.760
you. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting for the consent agenda for approval. Dr. He next item. >> The administration recommend approval of attach insurance proposal for the district student and athletic accident

866
04:17:29.760 --> 04:17:46.239
insurance broker AJ Administrator LLC for the district student and athleta accident insurance program from August 1st 26 to July 31st 2027. The cost of this insurance will be $16,200

867
04:17:46.239 --> 04:18:01.760
for class one and class 2. Class one, it intercolastic sports band cheerleader sports time field trip non-sport extracurricular activity school to work program volunteer responsibility as related to cover activity. Class two is

868
04:18:01.760 --> 04:18:18.560
intercolastic sports cheerleading uh student manager and trainers. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion item? >> Okay. So, hearing no further discussion on the motion item, we'll move it forward to our May 19th, 2026 meeting

869
04:18:18.560 --> 04:18:35.199
for consent agenda for approval. Um, now we will move to our appointments for this evening. So, may I have a motion to appoint myself, Roslin Copelan, Jamie Johnson,

870
04:18:35.199 --> 04:18:53.600
and Brian Carter to serve as the voting delegates for the 2026 PSBA delegate assembly. So moved. Anderson. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Hughes. >> Thank you. The motion has been properly

871
04:18:53.600 --> 04:19:12.720
moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? Go ahead. Um Miss Anderson, if you can give a little bit permission. And just for the record, um the the board agenda just does come out and I think when you come in, they should be able to provide you one just

872
04:19:12.720 --> 04:19:28.560
to share. So if you following it, it'll show you on there. But just want to share that and we can follow up at the end of the meeting. No, you're fine. I just want we just want to get through the meeting cuz it's almost 10:30 and um but we thank you and we'll get back. But just I hope we can

873
04:19:28.560 --> 04:19:43.120
give you some more information so next time you'll be well equipped. Yeah, that's everything that we print out. Yes, it's all is public. Yep. Okay, Miss uh Anderson, real quick, thank you guys for taking the time to go and be

874
04:19:43.120 --> 04:20:00.560
our representatives and delegates, >> and that's for the Pennsylvania State Board Association. So, if you're not aware, the PSBA is the Pennsylvania State Board Association. So, they help write policy for the state of Pennsylvania. and us as the board members, we would go and we do like a

875
04:20:00.560 --> 04:20:16.960
vote and if it's something that's changing, but it's for all school districts. So, we all come together, but we're we represent Harrisburg School District. So, you're aware >> called a vote. >> Yes. Every Yeah. Every school district. So, we come and we kind of do like a

876
04:20:16.960 --> 04:20:31.439
stroll. We'll do a vote and then if say if the law or something has changed, it goes through the PSBA or the Pennsylvania State Board Association. So they're the ones that we have to abide by as a board. So we get our trainings, everything is there, but just to give

877
04:20:31.439 --> 04:20:48.399
you some content. No problem. So with that being said, it looks like there's no further discussion. So Madam Secretary, can I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Anderson? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carter? >> Yes. >> Miss Copelan? >> Yes. >> Miss Hughes? >> Yes. >> Miss Johnson?

878
04:20:48.399 --> 04:21:03.520
>> Yes. >> Miss Radcliffe? >> Yes. >> Mr. Roy? Yes, >> Mr. Thompson Leader. >> Yes. >> Eight yes, zero no, zero abstain. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. Here, majority of yeses, so that motion will

879
04:21:03.520 --> 04:21:25.600
carry for approval. And congratulations to all the appointed delegates. And thank you for representing the district. >> All right. So, we will move to the um next item. It's for the appointment. Okay. Well, may I have a motion? Well,

880
04:21:25.600 --> 04:21:41.760
the next item is appointing our school board treasurer. So, may I have a motion to appoint Dr. Marshia Stokes as the school board treasurer effective July 1st, 2026 through July, excuse me, June 30th, 2027. >> So, move Johnson.

881
04:21:41.760 --> 04:21:57.600
>> Second, Roy. >> All right, Mr. Roy, come on down. Is there any discuss? The motion has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, Mr. Carter, hearing no further discussion on the motion. All right,

882
04:21:57.600 --> 04:22:13.359
>> Madam Secretary, can I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Anderson, >> yes. >> Mr. Carter, >> yes. >> Miss Copelan, >> yes. >> Miss Hughes, >> yes. >> Miss Johnson, >> yes. >> Miss Radcliffe, >> yes. >> Mr. Roy,

883
04:22:13.359 --> 04:22:30.000
>> yes. >> Mr. Thompson, Leader, >> yes. >> Eight yes, zero no, zero abstain. >> Thank you, Madam Secretary. hearing majority of yeses. So we would like to um move that well that motion carries for approval. So congratulations to appointing our delegate to Dr. Stokes

884
04:22:30.000 --> 04:22:46.720
and thank you for representing the district. Everybody getting tired. Wake up guys. Now we're moving to our policy updates. I'm getting excited. Next I Dr. Henry. Oh before we start Dr. Henry I think you wanted to share something.

885
04:22:46.720 --> 04:23:04.319
>> Okay. uh board. Uh one of the thing that we need to discuss um and and get a uh vote um um president uh board secretary, maybe you could do a vote for us. Um so we have a option for changing our meeting for next week from um May 19th

886
04:23:04.319 --> 04:23:19.680
to the 26th. Um I know it's been discussion with the board around changing that date and so we wanted to take it to a vote. >> We're just going to take a straw vote. >> Okay. Just in vote. >> Yes. That's fine with me >> because it's not an action item on the agenda. So, we can't take a formal bit.

887
04:23:19.680 --> 04:23:33.760
We can take a consensus. >> Okay. How how can we conduct that? Just >> if you're in favor of doing it, you know, May 19, >> say I >> Yeah. >> And just to give a little background on it, this is uh we're we're Yeah, we're

888
04:23:33.760 --> 04:23:49.840
requesting to change our May 19th um board meeting to May 26 because May 19th is uh election day. And as an elected official, I definitely want to be out there, but it's going to take the straw votes with that. No, I'm just But I just

889
04:23:49.840 --> 04:24:04.960
wanted to share the um sentiments because I've got a lot of feedback. It's an election day. I understand everybody has their own sentiment about that. But again, your vote matters. So with that, I think we can take a straw poll on um

890
04:24:04.960 --> 04:24:23.040
who would like to keep it the same. If you can just raise your right hand. >> So if you would like to keep May 19, raise your hand. Is there is there anyone online? Okay. All right. So, we'll go with the next date. Looks like we have one. So, if we

891
04:24:23.040 --> 04:24:41.760
can >> for May 26. >> We have one for May 19th. Okay. Now, we're going to do May 26. If we can raise our right hands. >> Forward to 26. >> All right. One, two, three, four, five.

892
04:24:41.760 --> 04:24:58.479
Miss R. Oh, I see your hand up. That's six. >> So, >> we will still have that. We will still have the function for the retirees next week. We will move forward with moving the meeting to the 26th. So, we'll go ahead and advertise that in the paper

893
04:24:58.479 --> 04:25:15.439
for May 26th, but we will still meet next week um to honor our retirees um with the dinner and the celebration that we already had planned. >> Thank you. And I don't know is that something they can do. I know we I don't want to uh I'm thinking about presentations because I know we used to honor our retirees. Is that a

894
04:25:15.439 --> 04:25:31.760
presentation that you can got to be totally separated? >> Well, we already had sent invitation out for next week to a lot of individuals. >> We did invitations. We've already ordered the food. Cupcakes are coming from New York. So for me to like >> reach out to everyone. >> No, no, no. We want to have it. We want

895
04:25:31.760 --> 04:25:46.960
to see if we can have some cupcakes and we can eat on you on the 19th. All right. But it sounds like the majority has moved to the 26. So with that straw pull, we will now is there any other discussion before we go to Well, I think

896
04:25:46.960 --> 04:26:05.439
that concludes the discussion and now we'll go to our policy updates. Dr. Henry, >> Dr. Craig, >> good evening everyone. Say the best for last tonight. Um the following um our

897
04:26:05.439 --> 04:26:20.800
recommended policy revisions are presented for first read or I'm sorry the following recommended policy revisions are presented for first read and have been vetted by the solicitor. We have 10 policies on the board agenda tonight. Um summaries were

898
04:26:20.800 --> 04:26:36.479
provided um but I will quickly go through u them. 128 early childhood education. The policy was updated to adjust language that states that early childhood program is um changing from

899
04:26:36.479 --> 04:26:53.920
prek 3 through third grade to prek 3 through 2 grade. That was the only change in the language. Oh no, I'm lying. And also they added emphasized play as part of as one of the five areas of development for young children. So,

900
04:26:53.920 --> 04:27:09.600
those were the two changes in that in that policy. >> And I'm sorry, I'm sorry before you move because your the policy doesn't state the same thing that you're like the policy says the to first it says to first grade and to first to second grade and then on there you're saying third

901
04:27:09.600 --> 04:27:24.479
grade. So, I was just in the policy. >> Yes. like the policy 128 I was going through and I was trying to get it together but I said you probably would have a better like when you when it talks about um the community programs I

902
04:27:24.479 --> 04:27:42.239
guess the last um item under the purpose and you're saying the early childhood education program provides the se seamless transitions of children and families from the district preschool and community programs to kindergarten and kindergarten to first grade and first to second grade I apologize. Yes, you are

903
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correct. Yes. >> All right. I was just >> the to three. Yep. To second grade. Yep. And first to second. Yes. >> Okay. >> You are correct. >> So I guess we'll get that. >> I'll update that. >> Okay. Great. >> Thank you. Thank you. No problem. You're welcome. Um policies 140 charter school

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and uh 810 uh both have updated language related to our responsibilities around providing uh transportation to charter schools. Uh but 140 also has additional language that was added to clarify the process for charter renewal and the process to update the renewal

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application as needed to reflect any changes per the law. Um attendance policy 204 just has updated language that defines um how absences shall be treated um and when they are unlawful.

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um 308.1 332 336 339 330 341 and 350 sorry there's a gnat around me all have um language updates that clarify

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procedures guidelines and parameters for employees under those specific topics. Thank you. So, all right. So, you went through everything. Don't worry about it. I'm getting there. >> Yeah. 810. 810 and 140 I did together cuz it got to do with transportation for

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charter school. >> All right. And these all have been vetted by the solicitor. >> Yes. >> All right. So, again, thank you Dr. Craig for that. So, again, as the first reading, no formal action will be taken tonight. The board members are encouraged to review the policies and

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submit any questions to the administration prior to the second reading. The policies will be brought back to the May um 19, 2026 board meeting for possible adoption. And are there any questions from the board this

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evening? All right. So hearing no questions, we will go ahead and move to well I know we didn't have any public comment period for non-aggenda items and I think you didn't talk about the discussion regarding the William Penn tour though

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we were supposed to talk or we >> said we wasn't doing a tour. >> Okay, we weren't talking about that. Okay, >> well we already did the public comments for N. Did you put a public comment? Oh, there for non-aggenda items. So, we talked about that at the beginning like

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when the uh students came to speak. So, if it's on the agenda items only, you can speak to it. But we did not have any agenda items only. So, they spoke to the well the SBI portion of it. But we we'll educate you as soon as we get out of here. I cannot wait. So, at this time,

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we are ready to adjourn the meeting. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting this evening? >> So sec. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. I.

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Those opposed meeting is adjourned.