the new school year is off to a great start take a look at some highlights from our first day of school  the new school the two students bell computer sounds of high school have been named semifinalists in the end all national merit scholarship program the students are among the elite group of sixteen thousand students from across the nation to earn this honor they now have the opportunity to compete for a national merit scholarships that will be offered next spring semifinalists represent less than one percent of high school seniors across the country the staff at mcmurray elementary have developed a math support website that provides teacher created videos for lessons being taught in the classroom students and parents can use the videos in a variety of ways including flipped classroom homework help test review or help w here township high school students continue to receive national recognition whether outstanding performance on the advanced placement exam not only do the students challenging themselves in taking the exam but one hundred fifty three students have earned a piece color award for their performance in two thousand and fifteen the college board recognizes several levels of achievement based on students performance on these exams the a p exams provide students with the opportunity to earn college credits or advanced placement at the college level in addition to receiving the honor of being an a p scholar with distinction seventeen students have qualified for the prestigious national a piece color award by turning an average score of at least four on all a p exams and scores a four or higher on eight or more of these exams congratulations to the students listed above baron hill is kicked off their new hero program that is designed to reinforce positive decisions each classroom a nominate a hero throughout the school year and then we recognize don't be t v have their photo posted in the hero showcase in the entryway and the student w foundation mark their second annual participation in the washington county community fund day of giving with a huge success in september in just a twelve hour period p t staff and family donated more than forty two hundred dollars to the students about our hill participated in a wellness assembly this month thanks to the grant received from one mark by teachers meghan meyers in to mechanic the assembly was hands on for students as they learned about the benefits of stay active from representatives from the kids of ste marathon and yoga innovations last year the district adopted the alice method of safety training for all of our schools staff members have been trained and discussions with students have begun with the school year underway the district is also providing training for parents who wish to know more about alice each fall to start a new school year we take time to recognize our staff members who are celebrating milestones in their employment with the district take a look ank you at this time is your opportunity for questions and comments from the floor saying one when addressing board ok we did have executive sessions on august thirty first september fourteenth and prior to this for discussing the gauche ation litigation and various personal items it is time to see want to have in all business they would like to bring up does anyone have any new business they would like to bring up award the proposal to replace or repair the garage doors of the main is building to trinity garage door and on ing at a cost of seven thousand two hundred dollars the overhead door submitted a proposal for eight thousand six hundred eighty six this purchase funded from the two thousand and fifteen sixteen capital budget ok and you are making that the motion right yes ok do we have a second leg of the mage and second any board discussion any public discussion all those in favor place ai and oppose no motion care second recommendation consider a motion to award the purchase of a salt spreader to push and pull at a cost of five thousand seventy nine dollars crossroads mower similar to proposal or five thousand six hundred thirty five fifty five this purchase is funded from the two thousand and fifteen sixteen capital budget to have a second second movement second any board discussion any public discussion all those in favor place a i i and oppose no motion kerry number three recommendation consider a motion to approve the change orders submitted by franklin the car for the power hill library at a cost of fifteen thousand nine hundred seventy three dollars this purchase is funded from the fifteen sixteen capital budget state to have a second second and a board discussion in the public discussion all those in favor please say i i i renovation project cost forty nine thousand four hundred seventy three dollars a credit of one thousand four hundred seventy three has been submitted by h h as d r architects engineers to reduce the distress cost of this and change order to thirty thousand second it's been moved and seconded to a board discussion any public discussion all those in favor please say ok i oppose no motion care fifth recommendation consider motion to purchase a two thousand sixteen transit three fifty x l ford van converted for will chair lift from wilson when ford at a cost of forty four thousand seven hundred eighty seven dollars includes a trade in value of four thousand dollars this purchase is through the pennsylvania department of general service costars program contract number twenty six dash one nine is funded by the capital's project budget second move to second any board discussion any public discussion all those in favor please say  six recommendation consider a motion to solicit proposals to conduct an auction for surplus school district equipment second it's been moved and seconded a board discussion and the public discussion all those in favor please say i memory and pleasant valley elementary c relocate the emergency generator of the maintenance garage to outside of the building and the repair mason ery at pleasant valley elementary  eight approved parking area near the entrance of the middle school large group instruction area and gymnasium f replace overhead lighting fixtures of the high school auxiliary gymnasium middle school gymnasium pleasant valley gymnasium and in item number he it was my understanding that we were going to do that for the area by the large group instruction room but that the g a o spots were sufficient for the gymnasium and which these going to be discussed at a future buildings and grounds meaning they are they would be ok because i figured they would come back my understanding was that there were several different locations not the this would not be a committee right now rushing out and having larger community group input this is just a pre planning committee to see what what approach will be like to take towards this to thing other thing i ask since i'm assuming that it would fall under policy five which is ad hoc committees or special committee and when they're created it just and we do have  would be appropriate whether it's one or two but but the primary focus is for the administration to come back to the board and say we see the following six things we could do to really enhance our facility o two people or or some place of boards preference if there's a couple others want to go that's that's up to the board just sounds like what you what might work for you is if the ministration can choose the folks that they want to be working on on the plan the board could vote to establish an ad hoc committee there's generally three members to an ad hoc board committee and then those three members could does ignite someone to attend the administrative meetings and at the beginning or however you want to work at and then you could convene as an ad hoc committee of the board under the policy as things get more formalized but that way you establish the committee now you set up a definite time for that committee to exist they don't always have to be meeting with the administrator team i mean the administrative team can be having planning meetings with our outside of the ad hoc committee process i mean that's what administrative teams do and then they bring that to the committee down some things and then they come up with the full proposal for the full which is usually just to cut down on the number of meetings that you would be holding as a as a committee of the whole i just think we may be jumping the gun on the ad hoc committee piece well my feeling is a love to have a committee created to begin doing this because i think it's really important for us to think about the long term facility planning at the high school but i'm just not sure i guess i have to agree with sandy them not sure how involved the board has to be at the beginning but maybe this is not a board committee maybe it's something the administration is going to start with and if we have a board member or two on it that's fine with me i just think is one of my other districts we have a policy committee but i start with the administrative departments on revising the policies based on changed in the law or changes in their practice we present to three members of the board which are the policy committee they again voice their general concerns because they're the policy wonks and they tell me to go back make changes i go changes we maybe do that two or three times and then i present with the policy committee of the board to the full board and there's a workshop and then it's a play that's the public part of the meeting and we go through all the changes rather than everybody involved at every stage of the game and certainly east changes are still made after that so every one of the board members gets their input on what's before them and as the opportunity to go back and look at the work that the committee has done so you start with the administrative meetings you can still create the ad hoc they can keep the ad hoc committee  and mr dan levy is a billion people you can either both come or just one come whatever would work and then that would be the board representation where i went ok with that it was great and then at some point french will be able to give a brief overview of the changes that have happened to the p s it's a themselves last year's p s is a sam's where the first year were the new core standards were fully aware that the exam was fully aligned to the core standards so in essence it was a new assessment at the same time the department of education changed what it means to be basic below basic position in advance and so in their lingo it's changing the cut scores and that's just another way to say that they change the threshold for what it means to be proficiency on an exam so two things happen change the exams a new exam same name but no exam and then change the threshold for what it means to be a profession or advance or basic a low basic on any given examine this this exam particular p s a exam dr french i just want to reiterate that when the parents see the scores they shouldn't blame their child's teacher for having not done a good job addressing the test they shouldn't blame the child for not having worked hard enough on the test the tast has flat out changed it's gotten harder it's been different some of the minor standing is some of the subjects are being tested at a whole grade level lower so it's a whole new  so it's new tests look at them if you have questions ask your teacher but please don't be blaming anyone because everything has changed is that fair yes ok thank you will be useful use it's not of this information was not  gathered in in vain we'll be using information as see what where we need to align to the standards what are the new expectations and work to achieve thank you so much mr macmurray that's the end of my report ok thank you under finance i don't have any report from dr harvey does anyone have anything else they would like to just like to point out that the commonwealth continues to not have a budget and that is impacting school districts dramatically because they're not receiving their funding but i would also point out that all of the districts in the commonwealth thanks to the planning and i can't take any credit for it thanks to the planning of previous  solid financial approaches that we've taken we are not in danger of closing our doors it's true that's huge ok mr bill's if you don't have the news that you've heard  input i have not heard anything new with regard to the state budget to add to this is bowman's comments about the district in  because the district does receive seventy five percent of the funding for the overall programs or operation district from local effort that is what's keeping us ahead at the game as well other words are real estate taxes are earning income case been moved and seconded is there a board discussion that the district is hosting their policies in front format on our website so if you go onto the school board policies page on the web i'll come up with every policy that really has the word boost in it so i think it's going to actually really help everyone on looking wanted to pass how that would work is they have a survey that we would all i would open it up for about two or three we all independently at home and anonymously first meeting will be this coming thursday and so i don't have a report at this time at this time will go on to the superintendent's agenda so i'm a cresting action on certificated personnel items number on professional conferences and trips one item only so much to move to second any board discussion i do have a question even though i already know the answer i'm just going to ask dr french to explain why the same person is going to training for modules seven through nine at two different times the first one in september and the last on this page in november if you would please so anyone else who has the question will  find a roommate and a carpool mate going to be a conference and nobody wanted to thank me thank you we thank you for your time because that's quite a bit of time and and i am also thankful that you are have mrs barnes has the opportunity to stay put out a request for teachers in grades three through eight who wanted to learn how the state assesses scoring items in writing math and science and she was selected as one of those people to get some information and bring it back to questing action on educational programs and student activities items number one through three the moved and seconded any board discussion i have under number two right since the the backup documents says the music department i'm guessing it is the music department are we ok whether it's music fartman or the band as it's presented ok with mr i have another question i can understand what a reader thought on is and i can understand how a car wash in a serious can order what is a designer purse bingo yes document he does know what that is i just thought i'd ask whenever there's any requests that comes in all the facilitators have been alerted to the policy and so the any time that any employer or any solicitation goes out there you go over what the requirements are and they're being really good about letting us know well in advance prior to actually i think that's important just because i do know the policy discussion and i had asked parents who had gone to a any other board discussion ok this motion will be for item seven one through three all those in favor place ai and oppose no motion  have a preference the twelfth i think that will give us enough time mr gault will not give us enough time to get a decent ability to get the changes that have taken place and the things that we're looking forward in the second part of make murray elementary ok because that's likely ten days or twelve days after they will be shifting over i'd like to have it on the meeting to go over some of the standardized testing but i think we don't have all the testing we need yet it's a not released to us so i don't think we can set of the meeting yet already  yes now i it's on the history of standardized testing and why they're right so could it be incorporated by i guess when we present those stacks they tend to be quite a long meeting i would i would like to hear it just because standardized testing and the pros and cons and things like that are are in the forefront and you know all the news articles  are you suggesting we incorporate in an education committee meeting instead of the regular meeting i think that would be a great idea you know because i think those meetings in the past mostly ended eyes testing have tended to be exceptionally long but the last year or so we've been trying to cut them down so mrs beaumont if you'd be willing to hold that often do we have the education committee meeting i'd love to h york and as we all know very very hard ok at this time is the opportunity for questions and answers will an agenda items does anyone have any idea like to bring up from the public no ok does anyone have any correspondent say we like to bring forth ok under announcements we have the regular board meeting on october nineteenth and we have the week prior to that on the twelfth building's grounds at six thirty is there any other announcements that he would like to make yes mr murray i'd like to once again thank dr french and dr murphy and mr fisher for the newsweek grading system that put us in the top one tenth of one percent of all high schools in the country and that's not counting the ten thousand procul or private schools that are in the high schools so when you look at that figure we're at the top top top so once again i want to thank you all for the job you've done thank you thank you for bringing out