as part of the celebration of national poetry month she conducted a writing workshop for the students in shared her writing process from sloppy copies through to the collaboration with the publisher and illustrator sixth grade students learn more about the world we live in this month with the annual spend in the global fund each classroom researched a different country and represented that nation at the opening ceremony for the day throughout the day students rotated through sessions with guest speakers representing many nations from around the world the grand finale of the event was the food festival where students had the opportunity to sample traditional food from the countries they researched third graders in the district with their knowledge of musical talent on display this week with their annual musical production as an alley third graders perform their annual pittsburgh tribute that highlighted what the students learned in their hometown social studies unit a grade performance had a patriotic scene that showcase what the students had learned in the study of the u s government and history township high school students listed above will represent the commonwealth of pennsylvania at the national history day competition in june they took first place in the state competition in a seniors group documentary category is the name of this year's competition was ri responsibilities in history excellence in the arts for two nights this month students from mcmurry elementary shared their talents with the community during their annual talent show for nearly two hours each night the students ang danced share of their instrument town and even a few jokes with the crowd film dinosaur there were women the peters downshift community second graders about our help perform their dying of stars musical earlier this year and in conjunction with their performance the students created paper mach dance orders using recycled materials total thirteen dinosaurs were created by the students under the direction of witches kitchener and this year the dinosaurs roamed into peter sounds a public library is school district administration building and some other local businesses the district's imagination celebration is in full swing last month a high school teacher to student art exhibit in conjunction with the high school and middle school chorus concert event also featured a diversity food festival sponsored by the interact club on tuesday night the high school friends in team earn third place honors this week in the league wide pittsburgh a pay tournament congratulations to the team members listed above our spring fourth season has headed into the playoffs congratulations the boys tennis team who has the name section champions and good luck to the teens listed above who are currently in the playoffs are proud to announce the student athletes listed above who have been named first team all conference players not all boards have selected their all conference teams stay tuned for more names to come these members of the track and field team who have set new school records this season the students and their events are listed above sounds of care to count holders for an awards program in april and twenty nine individuals were recognized for their contributions to our community and outstanding character nominated by staff students and community members awardees are listed above this week in the high school safe club teamed up with the cannon macmillan high school environmental club in cleaned up the area around the cannon for blake the pennsylvania fishing boat commission were also on hand teaching students about water safety as a club also held their annual campus queen update this month remember scour the school grounds from the creek in the front to the back of the athletic field and pleasant valley to help improve our school environment collected items for the humane society and also made blankets for the dogs and cats at the shelter as a classroom project at the completion of the drive local authors susan castro to came in to visit the students with her dog wilson who is the main character in learning elementary student leadership sit in front of me recently organized a support drive for the juvenile diabetes research foundation as kids walk over all those students in grades four five and six raise nine thousand three hundred thirty two dollars and completed their own m walk at the school on may second event was overseen by teacher larn johnson green team at peters township middle school has been busy this spring the group of students took part in the community day clean up in april and worked hard on a saturday to clean up the school grounds and surrounding area led by teachers  charge of the buildings recycling efforts and the flower garden around the flagpole in front of the school doors this month we celebrated staff ratio usually throughout the district in addition to gets given on behalf of the district our staff members were treated to lunch courtesy of the p t a then each building the education foundation also sponsored a pay it forward contest in which parents and colleagues could nominate a staff member who is making a difference in peter's township schools one nominee in each building will win a one hundred dollars gift card for supplies in their classroom for next year last week that murray sixth grade teachers were presented with a check from the tanger outlet grants the money received will be used to purchase i pads for the sixth grade team to use in their classrooms followed by recipe sent home with the students one phylis from each grade level made their snack on the episodes and the overall winner was abby symon l and her mini minion parfait teacher josh elders has the name the national history day patricia embittering teacher of the year for pennsylvania in the junior division the award given for outstanding achievement in education mr elder's is now in the running for the national awards to be run the students learned important as you can take me and walked on increasing their strength and stamina for the big race national history day is an opportunity for teachers and students to engage in real historical research and h d is not a pre determined by the book program but one that is an innovative curriculum that allows kids to research a topic of their choice on a given the in for the year they're allowed to have some sort of historical inquiry and then they are encouraged to go to archives libraries and actually go out and live the history that they're researching mr lerman mr williams along with we're number this is a moment created a documentary decided to go with a right of sovereignty in taking control of the high seas air space antarctica outer space and the moon and throughout the entire ten minute documentary we basically covered all five of those aspects and talked can run movie now joining over thirty five hundred students expected to compete in the u s competition of national history day june fifteenth through the nineteenth encompassing all fifty states the district of columbia american samoa china korea self in the department of defen thank everyone thank you for having us here tonight i have the privilege of recognizing four of our high school students here here with me today so if i could have me up here i see matt roy nick and backs and if i could just take a minute to tell you all what these four gentlemen have done that is so extraordinary because they definitely have proven to be extraordinary and they've received quite a bit of recognition for it if you've read the newspapers lately nick and roy have both achieved perfect scores on the s a t and for anyone who's taken the s a t you know how outstanding that is there are about one point six million students each year who take the s a t and out of that less than five hundred score a perfect add to that that these two gentlemen took it for the first time and so it was first attempt a perfect score fifty points away from perfect on the safety he was teetering on taking it but he scored a perfect on the a c t the statistics are about the same for the eighty it's also one point six million who take it and roughly less than five hundred students worldwide who get a perfect score on it same exact scenario first time test taker did you crack a book now and  thank these gentlemen these three gentlemen here are truly an inspiration i think to the underclassmen as well because they really are setting a standard for us in terms of  making it really cool to be really smart and so we're really appreciative of that so these are juniors and we're very excited too for them to be a part of peter's township  so mad and addition to being one of our senior leaders here because he is a national merit finalist right now and that's a huge honor because the statistics are also one point five million students who try for that distinction and now he's down to a poll of about eight thousand students nationwide who are in the running as national merit finalist and so we're still waiting to hear what the results are every year township high school we get a couple of students who become commended students or semifinalists but very rarely we get finalists and so we're very excited for max and we're very honored to have him he's also an exceptional student also setting the bar extremely high for us at peter's township so one last time round of applause for these come back and we have a couple of students who couldn't be here tonight but we also wanted to recognize them these are students that are seniors and graduating this year they attend western area for us and they've been recently recognize our western area students just recently had their graduation from their program the students were recognized by the pennsylvania department of education for meeting their criteria for receiving their certification at the advanced level so that's the highest level that they can achieve and i just wanted to take a minute we wanted to take a minute to recognize those four students so let me tell you who they are and what their advanced level was in carpentry vincent mistery and cosmetology kiley all over and health assistant rachel  petri and brittany torres so unfortunately none of those students could be with us tonight but we're also very excited for those students as well so if we can give them around applause and the dr french and members of the school board thank you for hearing me tonight i'm here to express my twofold disappointment first i'd like other parents i'm shocked that make murray's only solution to scheduling and low test score issues is to demote chorus and string ensembles to an extracurricular status yes mcmurry will still teach general music an individual instrument lessons during the day but the desire of our districts children to sing and play instruments will diminish as access ensembles becomes more difficult i was prepared to cite statistics that link music and test scores but i know you've all been shown information already some of it that was shown last week at an education committee meeting by sa a respected musician and community member time and again the research speaks for itself that students involved in music have higher test scores in a sports center culture ensembles are where young singers and musicians reinforce who they are and who they want to be relegating ensembles to after school hours will create transportation headaches for parents and still time away from children's home lives not to mention homework many families will find themselves reluctant opting out of music entirely so much for harnessing the benefits of music education this scenario is more than mere speculation a few years ago upper st clair pulled ensemble instruction from their opera a mentoring program and their band enrollment in subsequent grades through the high school level has diminished it's taken several years for the full effect of a lack in music ensemble instruction to decimate st clair's band but it has happened so much so that they are of the lower level grade ensemble instruction into their schedules the upper st clair dition of and community magazine even recently ran an article recruiting kids why it's a good thing to jointly and they are desperate but i am more upset by the administration's vague communications regarding these changes parents of children already involved in make mary's ensemble instruction and parents of third graders in power hill and pleasant valley have been left uninformed about just what will be lacking next year at mcnairy i heard about these changes through the rumor mill the only official indication that this was happening was in a vague p t a agenda reminder emails from the public relations office in april saying come to hear about the proposed changes in the curriculum it did not mention music or ensembles and to make matters worse attendance at that particular p t a meeting like many meetings in the spring was low information that did not reach the target audience by a long shot and ministration should have communicated directly and honestly with parents we should have received a letter particularly those of us who have children who are deeply vested in music who were already involved in these programs we should have had a chance to give our input but we will not be left out of this discussion we will be monitoring the situation and you can bet that we're going to compare music and roman this year with subsequent years down the road because i do feel that you are all well informed well intentioned pro education cation individuals i do feel that we can hold you accountable for this future of music education here and with your sound chip because i feel that one change like this to the feeder program for the entire music program for the district can seriously decimate the music program for years to come if the ensemble time is indeed moved and i have been told by several individuals within the district that this is a done deal for next year and this law is on this room shoulders we will be watching what happens and i'm afraid to see the effect this will have on what is now a wonderful vibrant and active program for the whole district thank you good evening i want to start off by talking about my experience serving on the literature committee i joined in response to an e mail those sent by the district during my first year of the school year as a literature committee member there have been three meetings the third resulted in my exclusion two to play planning of the meeting by the district and inflexible meeting time by the district potentially questionable material was not presented by the teachers piloting an approval process and how it works was not discussed i was not told that two of the books would be presented at an education committee meeting nor was i told about the education committee meeting i haven't been shown copies of the textbook adoption form that was submitted to the board in february for the pilot i can now see why problematic materials end up being approved the school board members can't be expected to read everything the burden to prove that proposed curriculum is worthy of being approved lies squarely on the teachers and director of curriculum the teachers ask parents to trust them in regards to novels they suggest to get approved and use in the classroom how can parents be expected to trust when potentially objectionable content continues to be deliberately head and from parents and teachers keep saying that they are the experts well even experts disagree each every person has a different perspective of what's appropriate some some parents say it's ok for my son or daughter to read material with questionable content some parents would say it's ok but i'm going to discuss it with my son or daughter and some parents will say that they do not want their son or daughter reading material with questionable content it's arrogant for anyone to assume that they know what is best or appropriate for someone else's children is it too much to ask for the teachers to proactively reveal content that some parents make may be concerned about is it because they don't it is that because they want to limit objections that is not trustworthy no one in the school district should claim to know how any child will respond to the material being presented nor how parents should respond to the material being presented to their children many children and families struggle privately with things that no one knows about i'm here tonight to offer suggestions and recommendations for the functioning of the literature committee and textbook approval process i do want to thank you for putting the for adding controversial website a protected novel list to the district's website core body of knowledge many parents rely on this list and these to be accurate not to date in order to be used as a reliable source of information teachers should not be allowed to use novels movies film clips supplemental materials etc unless they are on a protected approved novel list it is to my understanding that the in car serang pilot approval paperwork did not list the potentially objectional material i still haven't seen the listing of potential objectionable content from carson on or tuesdays with morrie due to my absence at thursday may fifteenth later committee meeting because of a schedule conflict i had with a mother's day event of our hill elementary school dr cronin because stated that i could forward her my agenda items that they could be discussed i requested that all potentially questionable but you know be identified in writing and discussed as a committee member why haven't i seen this list at nine and this morning i requested that a finalized textbook adoption form be forwarded to me via email that request was still not fulfilled either i would like to see the finalized textbook adoption form and reference to the summary of meeting notes from dr cronin because it was my understanding that a pair parental consent form was to be sent out for them carcer on pilot not a pilot not a pilot parent letter it was also stated on the summary of meeting notes from dr carter because that the pilot parent letter gave websites that parents could go to to review and car common sense media dot org the scholastic website and the good reads website a reader blogs not book analysis reviews therefore the websites referred to for parents perry view are useless because they did not fulfill policy six one six one and it does that a fine all potentially questionable material this is a violation of school policy as a school board as a school board committee and as parents we cannot be expected to read every novel pruett their full full disclosure of all potentially questionable material needs to be identified in all novels supplemental materials being suggested for piloting and for an adoption full written disclosure of all potentially question let's hear all discussion on it and general consensus for piloting an adoption should begin at the literature committee meetings policy six one six one states that potentially questionable material be identified teachers suggesting the novel material for pilot or adoption need to identify these items on the textbook supplemental materials adoption form page numbers of the here all need to be included for literature committee meet meeting members and school board members who do not have the time to read the books in their entirety is it is a policy violation of potentially of question of materials not identified on the adoption form i don't know how to use a board can be expected to make a good decision if you are not getting all the information to make a good decision teachers are telling you what's good and not fully disclosing the negative teachers have the responsibility to tell a potentially questionable material there is  policy of six one six one a guideline for what is commonly considered potentially questionable material needs to be implemented otherwise what is considered questionable or vary based on one's own personal opinion we need to be objective not subjective and i have some guidelines that i can just give you quickly and i can also forward this another date or this is a guideline for potentially questionable material identification and i found this online on the compass book ratings for fantasy language violence gore sex nudity mature themes drug alcohol use so those are some in some areas that we can consider questionable serial if a novel textbook supplemental material becomes school board approved after all potentially question materials are then a fide and reviewed by the board members it should be required the parents have access to it via parental consent form an order they can make a or not usurping that authority in addition you will not have to worry about having an incident like the recent one in new hampshire where parents were upset about the graphic sex in the novels and the novel nineteen minutes by jodi picoult that their ninth grade children reading a father was at a school board meeting in regards to a novel containing graphic sex being used in one thread in which literature class many parents were not given a can sprint a consent form and those who were said the waiver was useless because it did not give full disclosure of objectionable content the district protected approved novels list needs to flag all material containing potentially questionable content the list contains books that were approved with paperwork that was not in compliance that the list flex material for character education already so this will not take much effort to do this either all material with potentially questionable content needs to be flagged prior to the end of the school year red flag material could be noted as meaning these novels contain potentially question material see the textbook adoption forms on the dish web site for more information apprentice consent form needs to go go out for all material flagged on the protected approved novel less prior to class use for each school year parents who do not give consent need to have an alter alternate novel that is academically equivalent to their child's needs as well as one that warrants parental consent the parent should be able to choose a book from the protected approved novel list per the grade level pertaining to their child it would be most wise to select novels and other supplemental materials that are all inclusive in order to avoid parental jackson when potentially questionable material is suppressed it appears the district is not does so to avoid parental objection parents are the primary educators of their children all questionable material needs to be disclosed that is the right just and moral thing to do that is operating a school district with integrity thank you good evening my name is walter michalski one twenty nine robin hood lane i'm an educator i've been a resident here for our number of years i'm here to address the music curriculum issue but murray elementary all of my children have participated in that their past mcmurry elementary but it's an important program and when you if you make the kind of changes described earlier it will impact supply and they need that ensemble instruction and if you take that and make that master school extracurricular activity it is going to diminish the program and diminish it as it moves forward and i think that will be devastating to the music program and harmful to the chill so i know there are other concerns you're trying to deal with here in making these decisions this isn't a decision just made to hurt the music program but it's in consideration of other lights but i think there are other ways to schedule structure  day so that these things can still be accomplished thank you that's what they start out so they're going to need more instruction they're going to need more f t's per child to start in that program so when you compare against russia the district i don't really think that adds up for m quite frankly and i'm not sure in a math class or an english class you have the same ratio as you do in any case through sex that you do in a high school is that fair to say i mean i'm not an educator i'm a businessman and but i when you're teaching people to do something and learn and stretch their minds you're going to do that with much more care and much more different ratios than you're going to be where kids are at the higher end of the scale and they are when they hit high school you know i think this issue here to me is a couple things similar to what was already said is clearly we've made a decision and we haven't communicated this to the to the so the community i mean we're hearing about this in the room and i'm very concerned that our kids are not going to get the education that they deserve and they need to get stretched out to go to all these universities around here to get scholarships to be in that's what builds a community you know it's everything combined and i get the balance i really do get a balance but to make it the situation and i'm not suggestion you made you guys made a decision wrongfully lack of communication lack of communication to the to the parents that are involved to the parents that have kids in these programs are going to wind up dying because you've seen it elsewhere i'm very concerned so why are you so why tell us why has there been a lack of communication intently or non grade who plays and i have not gotten anything home about the subject i got to be honest with you i have not seen it my wife hasn't seen it and that's what's disturbing to us all due respect if you don't mom i have three children  constantly so she's she's part of the school system as a volunteer we've not heard of this until after the fact so maybe i'm wrong i'm all wet here but i don't think i'm not suggesting we know what's best i don't know but the transparency is not there that's that's the issue in my in my mind that's the issue i could not tell you again i'm a business person i've not been educated my wife's an educator however i don't understand why the transparency wasn't there i don't know i think that's the issue with anybody and if it was clearly articulated here's what we're doing here is why and here's the test or all those things then we can make a much more informed decision we're here as upset parents because we don't we can't make an informed decision quite frankly can't do it don't have the ability to make an informed decision so that's m a's one of the most common comments we have to remind kids is to be specific i think the communications regarding this issue they gly worded and were not specific they did not say in plain english we are thinking of taking the ensembles and putting it after school that's the only language that is clear the second thing i think everybody should think about is you're right holing kids out of their corps for music is wrong having ensemble after school is wrong so i think the brain trust here we've got a lot of smart people can take those two things and reconcile them both are wrong so come up with the answer the scheduling at mcmurry that will avoid both of those  put i leave it to all the smart people in the specific to come up with the answer that's it what stage are you going to get involved to remedy that or is it going to be prior to were what we talked about earlier a percent clare's that's made at this point are you going to make the changes  we don't decimate our program ok good because i want to know how proactive you're going to be if you see a downturn in this program me i am so lucky my oldest son is been accepted by if a college sought after to go into their opera department my son is not the smartest kid in school when he was he never will be no matter what happened stephen found a place in music you can put him in math for two hours a day it would not happened stephen found music one thing you've been saying ninety nine percent participation yet only fifty percent of the class is walking out that i'm not a mathematician but ninety nine percent is participating and then you said fifty percent got up and walked out yes there is going to be drop between fourth and sixth grade when you're in fourth grade and you're a kid and you're getting to play that instrument for the first time it's really exciting you're going to be in courts for the first time god bless children everywhere but not everybody in this room is a musician they're going to start off with great enthusiasm by sixth grade yes it is going to stop it's going to drop because of ventura lee you can want to sing with all your heart but if you're my husband you're tone deaf and you can't sing so it's not going to make a difference by sixth grade the real the kids who really are into this and really want to go forward will continue and the other ones are going to drop by the wayside it has nothing to do with the end structures the instructors or the courses it's the natural it's those with that you are those with the talent are going to continue you're going to lose a good portion going and sixth grade and then from there seventh grade by the time you hit seventh grade i think you've got the kids who are going to be dedicated and are going to go on into the music field i had a fabulous fabulous vent at ithaca college where the dean of ethic a stood up in front of us and said parents why music i know you're scared your kids are going into music why music do you know you will get more jobs in the music industry and in any other industry going forward he said i t forget it you're not going to get a job a music there's plenty of them i'm not saying steve's going to become the next stephen could run a sound studio steven could there are just so many options out there he could teach right now he's working with young people in choruses helping them just to get out there and perform and have some fun music it's a sure thing music isn't going anywhere it is not going anywhere it's going to be with us forever and it's one of the most beautiful things that we will take out of life as i always say to people you know when you graduate you're on the football team you're may not become a pittsburgh steeler but you can always sing in the church choir so i just really want you know don't be upset about the fact that you're going to lose kids going into sixth grade that's going to happen the good ones are going to keep going then the ones not so good are going to drop out so honestly don't worry about that yes it would be great to have that ninety nine percent of kids continue on it's not gonna happen so like i said i'm fifty two years old i've been singing all my life and i love my life i have a wonderful life do not make the kids choose no they shouldn't have to choose music is a very very important i'm am concerned i'm a fortunate individual i will make sure my kid gets to that music class no matter what happens unfortunately there's a lot of people who are not as fortunate as i how are they going to get their kids home you know bethel park has an activity bus i don't know if that's something that could possibly be considered i don't know why no peters is spread out a lot more than bethel but you know it's a thought we've got to think of the parents whose you know we have celine dion out there and she may not be able to continue right now in music because her mom has to work in downtown pittsburgh and doesn't get home till six pm so think about that how are we going to get these kids back and forth it's very important thank you like i said i know you want to go home and everything and i'm really hungry i didn't have dinner yet so all right thank you very much about that where there were ninety eight being trained for certain things and thirty being trained for other things and that's ok so they get the extra training and pass it on ok you just so they could hear you on the tape math curriculum that's being instituted in mcnairy and probably in some of the other schools as well how many minutes a day is that going to take on the school day so it's a lot more time committee met may fifteenth with five recommendations coming out of it first consider a motion to adopt the proposed final general fund budget for the two thousand and fourteen fifteen school year in the amount of fifty six million five hundred forty thousand nine hundred fifty eight dollars has second considering motion to adopt a tentative technology budget in the amount of one million thirty eight thousand five hundred and fifty two dollars and this would exclude salaries and benefits that have been incorporated into the general fund budget adopt a tentative curriculum budget in the amount of three hundred seventy five thousand three hundred one thousand dollars again excluding salary and benefits that have been incorporated into the general fund budget sic i have a question also by voting yes on this you're not tell me if i'm wrong you can take one capital project out and replace it work for another so we're not voting on the particular there yeah i just know that there were so many more projects that we had to go through in our binder projects to go through and there have been some times where something that was originally proposed to be later on and pm peter's times of school districts solicitor to take such actions as necessary to enable peter's township school district to incur non electoral debt and an amount not to exceed seven million dollars yes i agree and i don't think well i don't want to speak for mr bell slick but i don't think that her amendment necessarily would derail that timeframe but i think it certainly would put it under pressure but again i don't think it would motion i'm not personally i'm not against that i want to make sure we get the best deal for the dollar but i also know that p and c has been providing us funds since the one nine hundred eighty eight just about six somewhere around there and public's knowledge of all the capital projects that you see those capital projects are pricing somewhere between thirteen and sixteen million dollars to do all of those capital projects currently on hand in our fund balance we have roughly six point three million dollars for capital projects this would give us about thirteen point five million dollars for capital projects which would find at least seventy five percent of given projects identified one of the things that you can just turn and see on the wall over the course of two thousand and fourteen and two thousand and fifteen are substantial number of projects that really need to get done district wide and we want to provide mr gold and the district the ability to move quickly to get those issues handled in a proactive way as well as taking well put it this way the lowest cost of funds exists today to borrow money and to lock that money in at the finance committee meeting we had evidence of what our money is doing which is very little in terms of a return and so the best use for this it's money right now would be investing into our buildings we don't want to wait two to three years see the interest rates rise and then the district have to pay more for its borrowing power right now the district is is in such a position of strength that it makes sense to do that now and then to get these capital projects done a s a p and for to put a lot of pressure on mr gove to get some of these things done and i think both as a parent of the district as well as a board member i think it's most proofing for us to do and dr hardy i think talent tell and i think it's important to also say that was the fact that it will extend their repayment first is raising our debt payments right so one of the key factors in us at the committee meeting decided to do this was when we looked at the cost of funds and extending the debt out a little bit the amount we budget for debt service does not change so to pick up an additional seven million dollars to our that and keep the payments that we have currently today would be like on your home mortgage be able to extend it out of the five years and not change and get more money back for yourself and not change the value of your payment and for us the district just for the public's knowledge we just had such a press of payment schedule that within three years we would have the capabilities of refinancing again another bond issue to save the same kind of dollars and so what needs to be known from the public is especially in the recent past i would say the district has been the fiscal st and provided the previous boards have been critical stewards providing this are currently today with the ability to borrow funds at low rates and to do the things necessary to take care of our children and to pay for those capital projects that just continue to add up and one of the things that i will also add finally is it is the philosophy of the committee and i speak of myself personally i think this to mcmurdo an agreement that we not use every single dollar that we have a reserve member which we have not really reached yet so if a project comes up in the middle of the year  leaking that we have funds on hand that we don't have to go and borrow and we keep that number rotate the course of the bond issues so that we keep ourselves healthy in a physical way and as a financial one few yes a policy committee meeting was held on may fair and for members of the public we are rewriting all of our policies in the district along with the s which is pennsylvania school board association policy service so in i'd say by it will probably take us but by january of next year redo all over two hundred policies back in september we went over the policies in this o o section and that included that many policies it was the intent tonight to put this on for first reading however the intent is not to go to a second reading until we have a chance to have all two hundred policies the problem with going to a second reading on this policy is all the numbers are changing and there are going to be policies that we have not yet revised to refer to a number that has been changed and to try and resolve or prevent that ambiguity and confusion we felt that it was bass to go to a second reading on everything all together having said that it would be too long a period of time to go between the committee meeting then the first reading to see if we don't do that for six months or nine months so what we figured on doing is going to night to a first reading with policies that are fairly fresh in our mind and we'll do that on a regular basis as we go through and then next january february or march when you see two hundred policies on for a second reading don't think we're crazy we're just trying to make it  but we're just trying to make it more manageable so that you can see them piecemeal hopefully get the any issues that you have with any particular policy and then you still have the opportunity to talk to about them at the second reading but it gives us a chance to look at it piecemeal closer to the committee having said that this is the first reading of the policies the only thing that i want to bring to the board's attention is with policy zero six which is meetings and there was a change from the time that we discussed at committee meeting until now at the first reading i wanted to bring that up it's on page seven so in our blunt package we got a no zero six with a page savin that differs from the zero zero six page seven that you've got tonight because i did call the administrators office today and said that i was going to make this recommended change to change if you have the the policy that was in your board package that you received on friday is in section thirteen and it is the second paragraph which is owned sentence that says a majority of the total membership of a committee shall constitute a quorum and since we had our first reading i read through all the policies and i thought this wasn't brought up at the committee meeting but i felt that it should be eliminated because we've all felt that because we are operating as a committee of the whole yet we're not voting on anything at our committees and our committee meetings that we should not require of war a majority of the board members to be there so rather than establish a quorum i felt like we should just a limb unaided and make it silent and we can make our own choice as it goes along for instance the last policy committee meeting that was called it just so happened schedules changed and only three people would be able to attend and so we decided you know on executive basis just to cancel there because we wanted feedback on the policies so i felt that it was better to be silent and then is there any out there or comments or changes that you anyone would like to see for when it comes to the second reading yes  ok i don't have any problem with that does anybody have any problem making that change for the second week ok so we'll make sure that that change gets made and when it comes for second reading it will come out any other comments i don't think we have to make a recommendation because these will just hang in limbo and till the second reading good evening my name is darcy creek drive in vic mary i want to comment on the policy that mrs anderson was just discussing around meetings and i think this is what you were addressing me said but it says under committee meetings that  all board members notice of committee meetings in order to attend at their discretion i'm wondering why we don't require attendance at committee meetings by a majority of board members and or at least i understand conflicts came occur with many of us in our busy lifestyles but the committee meetings are so that's where the discussion occurs so when you come to vote you have a good understanding of the issues i know as a member of the public i find them the most interesting is that i can understand the issues at hand and i find it very fresh rating when there is four board members or five board members or three board members missing and especially ones that miss consistently so is there anything in here or propose to address encouraging attendance by board members and not regular meetings but also contributing i mean i don't think there's any policy that addresses encourage them and i think everyone does a really good job or you know of attending and again i think it's just people schedules that you know really we have had a meeting every monday and then sometimes monday and thursday we've had to for our meetings on saturday and is it to end it doesn't necessarily mean because they're not very that they're not getting in the information or they're not getting feedback i know mrs smith couldn't come to a policy meeting before our committee meeting and so we called me and for two hours she said here's what i would say and i wrote down the notes and then it got cancelled but anyway so i will say that i think everybody is me makes a great effort but policy wise i don't think i don't really know the school code issue whether there is that sat there but i don't think it's that way either so i would have to fly demand i'd say i don't know if the community realizes tomic worries on the are you bored i'm on the western area board we've got at least two meetings a week so we  really do try to make everything we've got like so many meetings are our board goes to you of all people know that and most of us attend all of these meetings so i just want to tell you and i go step further in true policy based governance you can't call committee work committee work if the whole board is attending in the sense in the sense that if we were all required to attend every committee meeting then i would say that there should be a policy we can vote in every committee meeting because that's the case but let me just say this one of the things about doing committee work that's supposed to happen in good effective boards is committees do all that crunching of the information presented to the board then the  takes action on it and you can not expect the whole board to do all of those activities i said on another board that's one hundred thirty five million dollars and we have fourteen standing committees right and those committees go to work doing all the stuff they present to the eighteen member parent board and we make decisions and good board work is done in committee and it's not done by the whole in fact in a lot of boards only a small group of three to five of the full number of board members do that committee work i get your point and i understand where you're coming from but please understand to ask the board to make a requirement would be almost impossible to put make a policy it would be almost impossible to require us to be at each meeting as mr anderson has already told you in the month of april we met every single that's where you learn about the issues having gauging discussion on it because you cannot go into that depth at discussion at a regular board meeting so my question is more around if you have one or two board members that consistently miss is there like a limit that you put in there because i do in the building and grounds so you have to have that understanding and that that's just why i'm saying it and i just wanted to say one more i know we want to go quickly but one thing that i think if you if we did do that true committee work you might find a little bit more discussion at a regular meeting what's difficult for us when we are already discussed it time and time again for hours and hours hours at the committee of the whole you feel like you're repeating yourself you've already set it so you don't want to say it again because you don't want to take up anybody's time so i do think if we evolved into that you'd see much more because you'd see a president presentation this is my recommendation and this is why when you don't see that because it happened at that committee m mr merrill i only know you weren't here because i didn't see what the course content i had there and you were at almost every meeting and this is not  before yes i just wanted to bring to the board's attention to weapon ours on many twenty two which is this thursday at ten am there is a weapon are on board docks i am going to  look at that weapon our because that is something near and dear to my heart it's a way to upload documents so that the public and board members can see that very easily the so that  we don't have five million pieces of paper and somebody scanning them and then realizing that it was double sided in the scan the first one and not the second line but i would like to i am going to attend that and i wore back about so it could be a personal one from your home i will be here because there's an area council meeting so i figured i was going to just trying to work out here at ten so if you'd like to come i have my computer and then maybe the conference room would be available and i should have the link available so that's ten am on thursday and then another one which i'm hoping that the district has registered for is may twenty eighth at one pm and that is how the accounting changes will affect school districts reporting on kenshin obligations and that's exactly what we talked about last time at the finance meeting so they'll have a revenue are on that i may twenty eighth at one p  on may thirteenth i attended the western near your graduation ceremony and i want you to know i am carpentry vincent in the series graduated cosmetology kiley all of her as a health assistant we had rachel tree and brittany tours and i also wanted to let you know on may second back of boman i was kind enough because i could not attend the national honor society  they graduate from high school and he's on your  the only question i have is i had i had contacted dr french today and asked like some of these i have no idea what the description would be and if there were by appointing that them in this position if after we get that information and i we felt as a board that you know this position isn't justified as an extra duty position or whatever are we are not committing to having a position for the entire year two thousand and fourteen two thousand and fifteen by appointing someone would be correct or you would like for instance i have no idea what large group area ordination or the you know those coordinators faculty managers you know all of these things i am not familiar with what they are i'd know could you do it analysis to ensure that the person doing this job actually spends hours doing the job and it's justified based upon their pay and at some point when you had time to do that to do that would you be committing to having this position for the next year in the event that you found a position that they were really having to do a lot of work mean i think quite honestly it's difficult to because most of these or many of them i should say are booster groups and you are dealing with volunteers who have other lives and try and follow the rules too so i think you know maybe you know talking to them and telling them to see you know what the rules are with perspective but everybody's probably trying to do a thousand things to get all the respect i think there needs to be a line at which we draw that saying if you don't get it in by this date and i'm not proposing it happens tomorrow but that we have now it's our intention to be serious about these deadlines because i to mr merrill very comfortable voting for something that's already taken place i don't know any of the circumstances surrounding it and i would like to work towards a culture that says if it's late it will not be even presented because once again if we're voting on things that have already transpired in my lot and quite frankly i don't know if that is accurate one hundred percent i'm i'm not sure because well well because here's what happens is i have talked to  insurance agent he said the booster groups come under our our insurance but see the booster groups have had to provide say a preliminary at the beginning of the year to mr guy these are our fund raisers if that was listed on there as their fund raisers we approve the band boosters i don't necessarily know that you have to go to the further effort of actually if you get forms and you have to provide to mr guy or a list of your pro your tentative fund raising activities and then as they come through then you do the student got injured students are never covered for personal injury and our insurance anyway it goes to parental insurance that was one interesting thing that i found out by talking to that insurance agent  person rationale but all due respect i'm simply asking you administration to make it clear that going forward there is going to be a more stringent requirement to follow the timeframes it's unfair for us to be asked to vote on activities that or some other malicious person concealed part objects and i do think that the school is probably going to create the pockets which further you know has the chances less chance of that happening  and i would like to thank the peters township p t a area council for their donations for my quick calculation that's probably not right but it looks like almost fifteen thousand dollars in  been donated to pleasant valley power hill and mcmurray elementary so i thank you very much for that college of allegheny county summer school program is there any way that that can be increased who you mean there for you mean it's it was the worst hour of my life trying to get my son i was on line and i mean i had four telephones going at the same time and i think that their online system shut down and i know a lot of students did not get in who wanted to get in and since we're paying for it ourselves is there a reason why that can't be increased increase opportunity for students or can that be explored fortunately personally speaking my son did get in but i was on the phone i was on the phone for an hour and a half before i was actually on for telephones when i went out because the system kept shutting down you would get on and it would just be silent and i was like am i on hold in my not so in their online like i mean  ance they're they're using our you know facilities to just maybe some reinforcement from township that ensuring that the online program is functioning for registration or something but the stuff  policy i hate going out as far as is it would be june sick sixteenth but it might be what we have to do in saying that in the whole scheme of things and