[music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat. [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> presential school District School Board Committee of the Hall meeting Tuesday, October 28th, 2025. [music] Mrs. Rou, can we have a roll call, please? [clears throat] >> Mrs. Brancado, >> here. >> Mrs. Crossen, >> present. Mr. Ghart, >> here. >> Mr. Godson, >> present. >> Mr. Hartline, >> present. >> Mrs. Lynch, >> Dr. Maguire, >> present. >> Mr. Martin, >> here. >> And Mr. Saddowski, >> here. We have eight members present. >> Thank you. May we stand for the pledge of allegiance. And if we could just stand for a moment of silence for the people dealing with [music] the hurricane in Jamaica. Thank you. I pledged to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God indivisible and justice for all. [music] [music] [music] [music] Thank you. [music] >> Announcements. I don't have any announcements. Um, Dr. Lucall, superintendent report. >> Thank you, Mrs. Branado and members of the board and community. [music] >> Rookie mistake. Thank you, Mrs. Branado, and members of the board and community. As we celebrate principal appreciation month, I want to take a moment to shine a light on some of the most dedicated leaders in the Centennial School District, and that's our principles. And I can tell you that we're incredibly fortunate to have such a talented and committed group of educational leaders here in our district. Every conversation leaves me impressed and appreciative of their work serving our children. Every day, our principles walk through their school doors ready to make a positive impact. They set tone, build relationships, and create spaces where students feel seen, valued, and capable of achieving great things. Our principles shape the culture of their schools, guiding with compassion, leading with vision, and balancing countless challenges with grace and optimism. Their work often happens behind the scenes, but its impact is felt in every classroom. every student success story and every teacher who feels supported and inspired. So tonight, we want to pause and thank our principles for their leadership, commitment, and the care they pour into their school communities every single day. And at this time, we'd like to play a video that celebrates our incredible principles and the difference they make across our district. And as we're queuing up that video, I also want to thank Mr. Sanchez Peralta for his work in putting that video together. And also, while this video features our principles, we have not forgotten about our assistant principles. In April, uh April, there is assistant principal recognition week. And so, we'll be back with some more. So, uh without further ado, um Mr. Sanchez, if you can play the video. [music] >> [music] [music] >> My journey to becoming a principal is a bit unique. Um when I was looking to pursue my master's degree, I originally wanted to go into special education. My principal at the time um really encouraged me to go into educational leadership because he said he saw something in me that he really wanted in me to pursue educational leadership. [music] Um and I'm really glad that I listened to him. I think that leadership is something unique where it's something that other people see that in me. I don't think that leadership or principal ship or supervisory roles are something that um [music] you should do on your own. I don't think that anyone should say, you know, I'm a leader and I'm going to do this. I think it's really something that you see in others and when you see signs of leadership in others, you should really share that with them. You should celebrate that about other people. Um he told me that he saw a light in me, that he saw leadership skills in me, that I was um strong relationships and strong problem solving. Um and I was really glad that I listened to him. Um I've been very fortunate with my [music] um career as a dean of students, as an assistant principal and a principal. Um [music] and I'm really excited to continue my journey um as a leader here. So my path to the principles ship was very different I think than in some principles. Um, I never saw myself when I was in high school, um, wanting to go to more school and, uh, my folks, my parents and I laugh about this now. Um, but, you know, I was the first to go to college in my family. I the first doctorate in my family and, um, I would have probably been the least likely if you had asked back in 1989 when I was in high school that I'd be sitting here today as a principal at Willington High School. So my path I really owe to um many people along the way, especially those that were my supervisors when I was in the classroom. I think they identified um some key leadership abilities and helped me hone those skills uh to become the leader I am today. So I'm very humbled to be able to be um the leader here at William Tennant High School and um I'm very thankful for those that I get to work with every day. [music] So, I decided to become a principal. It was a decision I made as early as my student teaching experience. Um, I've always loved working with students. Of course, that's why I'm in education. Uh, but in my student teaching experience, I worked with a really inspiring principal. Uh, he created an environment in the building that was very kind of [snorts] family type of environment. And that was the kind of principle that I knew that one day I would want to date. [music] Um, so here I am now as my fourth year as principal at McDonald Elementary School. Um, I love education and I love building systems and supporting teaching learning in the broadest way possible. So, uh, becoming a principal naturally made a lot of sense to me. Um, I love the growth we see in students and being able to impact that from my position alongside teachers and staff was a natural [music] fit. My favorite thing about being a principal is spending time with students. [music] One of the greatest things about my job is that I get to spend all day having fun with middle schoolers. So, I'm in classes, I'm in hallways, I'm in cafeteria, I'm games, I'm in events, and just spending time with people. They really despise my horrible dad jokes, but it's so much fun annoying them and being part of their journey through middle school. [music] This time is really difficult for a lot of our students. Uh I think for every student in middle school, they're it's rough times. Working through who you are and becoming who you're going to be, but being part of that is really incredible. Being part of that journey with our students [music] uh is what makes this job so incredible. I like the organizational and communicative part of the job. Uh I'm a planner by nature and I like ensuring that everyone knows what's going on and uh and what's expected of them. Um also as a principal I get to interact with everyone, students, parents, staff, faculty, uh the community, aids, uh everyone that's in touch with the school and and even just on the the outside of it. Uh I get to attend events. I have a lot of say what the events are and how we're going to uh prepare them. uh and what we're going to get out of it. So, I really enjoy that part of it as [music] well. And I learned so much from from everyone that I'm involved with. Uh I get to share this information with others as well. I I've seen so many outstanding lessons in the classroom. Uh and met so many special people in my career. I feel really uh I feel really lucky to have have that opportunity. Uh I'm able to identify strengths that I see in people. I'm able to identify their ideas, their best qualities, and then share this with other people, help them to become [music] better teachers, help students to have um you know, ideas of what they'd like to do and and how to deal with different situations that they find themselves [music] in. Uh and I also pride myself on being very practical and pragmatic and I [music] feel like this position lends itself well to those problems. My favorite part of being a principal is interacting with our staff and students every day. Um, I get to see all the fun things and get involved with all the amazing ideas that we [music] get to implement here at Davis. And it's just an amazing part of the job being able to see those um things take shape uh to problem solve alongside our amazing staff [music] and get to make an impact. My favorite part of being a principal is the students. [music] Um, just seeing their smiling faces every day, knowing that they're growing each day, they're learning each day, and seeing how they really thrive. Um, especially now that I've been in education a long time and running into my former students who are now in their 30s, um, and finding out from them what kind of impact I've had in their lives, whether it's as a teacher, as a principal, it's the most rewarding part of the job. I think the thing that I I appreciate and love the most about being the principal here at William Tenner High School is that every day I come to work, it's not pre-planned. Like I I can never say to anybody I know what my day is going to bring. I can surely look at my calendar and say I have a meeting or I'm meeting, you know, with the superintendent or I might have a meeting with some community people. Um but I can't ever share with anybody what my day is really going to be like. And um it's very unpredictable, but at the same time very rewarding. And uh I think I think that's what keeps me really invested and wanting to, you know, get up every day and and come in here and um and work as hard as I can. My favorite part about being in this role at Centennial is that it is new. It's [music] fresh. We have so many great opportunities for new beginnings. Coming to Willowdale, we started with a brand new administration team. We have a brand new superintendent at the central office here in Centennial. Our central office is transforming and changing and that's a positive. We have to look at it through an optimistic lens. It's a great opportunity for us to come together as a district community to make the changes that we want. Um some things need to stay if they were working and if they're not, we need to move [music] forward for the growth of our entire school community. I look at this as a fantastic opportunity to come in and work together with our entire faculty, staff, parents, students, um, administration team to work collaboratively to make the changes that we need to do. >> [music] >> The advice I would give um any new principal is to really get to know people, to take the time to just ask questions and get to that know them not just on a professional level but a a personal level. Um who are they? What type of family do they have? Do they have a dog? Um what are their hobbies? Once you get to make that connection, whether it's with students, parents, colleagues, um it really makes it more of a community feel in the building. [music] So over the course of my career, I I've been very fortunate. I've been able to um mentor um you know, teachers and assistant principles about um their path maybe to a principal ship or to become a building leader. And the one advice I always give them is that it it takes time. Um if you really want to do this well, I think that [music] you need as much experience as possible um in education altogether. So whether that's as a teacher or as an assistant principal. Um but like I say to people all the time like I'm learning still every day. So the advice that I would give people is that you have to acknowledge the fact that you're always learning and you have to accept the fact that you don't know everything and that you need to be vulnerable to the fact that you don't have all the answers all the time. [music] I would remind you and reiterate how challenging and yet rewarding leadership is. Um every day it's problem solving. It's supporting people with what they need most. um and coming with solutions that that makes sense not only for the school more importantly for our students and families. Um the work is hard uh but you know you take an empathetic lens and that's probably the most important lens we take because it's a people business. [music] So uh keeping people first in mind and making sure we're solving [music] problems and that folks u is the number one key. >> All right. So thinking about advice [music] to somebody who wants to become a principal or is just getting into this job is you've chosen [music] the right job. You've chosen the right path. If this is something you're passionate about doing, the work is nothing. Love what you do and you'll love every moment of it. You get to do so many different things with so many different people and you will love every moment of it. So have fun. [music] >> All right. So, I think just watching that um you get a sense of how fortunate we are in our community. And you know, as someone who's who's relatively new to our district, I have been so incredibly impressed with the quality of of our principles in our district. And I I really want the board to know that and and take great confidence in that. Um they care about students, they care about their staff, they are very resultsoriented, but they put people first. And I see this every single day and it's been just incredibly impressive and we're very grateful. I know we have Mr. Osnik here tonight um who's going to be um [clears throat] accepting something from the United uh the United Way, but just thank you to them and uh just rest assured that we have the right people in the right positions and a very very strong team. So, thank you so much. All right, next piece I have for you all. As part of the United Way of Bucks County's Tools for School campaign, the United Way of Bucks County entered donors into a drawing to pick a Bucks County public school of their choice to to donate $500 to and Deborah Burgerer was one of the winners and she has selected Davis Elementary School. And so tonight, um I believe do we have our UR United Way folks coming in? All right, fantastic. Welcome. if you want to come on, come on [applause] over. And we have, I believe, uh, Miss Lisa Matthews and Blair Goff who are here to uh, so take it away. >> You want to say? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, so our tools for school program started as stuff the bus. It was a campaign to collect donations of backpacks, school supplies. But as um we have evolved, we realized that children need more than that to succeed. They need, you know, good fitting clothes. They need um [clears throat] wonderful teachers. They need wonderful principles. Um which, you know, is why we're here tonight. Um so yeah, as part of our drawing, we wanted to present this check um for $500. And that's all. Yeah. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. [applause] So, I I do want to say thank you to the United Way and for um just all of your support for public education. Um we're going to be putting this to good use uh supporting kids through our PBIS program and then supporting teachers through um our initiative this year to support our climate and culture in the building. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. [applause] Thank you. Okay. >> All right. Thank you everyone. All right. Back to Mrs. Bran cuta. >> Y uh the next portion is public comments and we don't have any. Okay. Um Mr. Godson, you're up. >> Thank you. [clears throat] Approval of the agenda. 2.1 October 28th, 2025 committee of the whole agenda as [clears throat] per the attached. Are there any corrections that need to be made that are allowed by PA law? >> Second. >> Second by Mr. Saddowski. Any questions? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Passes. 8 nothing. Moving on to new business. We have seven items. Can we move them all together? This is what I'm hearing. >> 3.6. >> We'll take that, you know, separately. >> All right. >> [clears throat] >> Be it restored that the Centennial School District Board of School Directors 3.1 approves the personnel agenda including resignations, authorization to to employ, leaves of absence, change of status, and co-curriculars, clubs, activities as per attached. 3.2 two accepts the donation of $500 from the United Way of Bucks County through the tools of school campaign to approve the school supplies and essential resources to Davis Elementary School students. As we just heard, uh 3.3 approves the New Hope Academy tuition agreement for the 2025 2026 school year for student 18-7 district cost not to exceed $42,933. 3.4 Four approves the renewal of theou with the Box County Community College to continue offering dual enrollment courses at a reduced tuition rate for the 25 2026 school year. Oaks County Community College will be offered at um will be offered at a cost of $390 per course and will be offered online. 3.5 approves the renewal of the dual enrollment agreement between the Centennial School District and Gwrenet Murcy University to continue offering at courses at a cost of $400 per course and will be offered at William Tennet High School. Skipping 3.6 Six 3.7 approves the memorandum memorandum of understanding with the Centennial Education Association CA to [clears throat] increase the maximum monthly buy up option for long-term disability insurance from 6,000 to 7,000. This is an optional benefit for members of the CA and at no cost no additional cost to the district. Sir second by Mr. Ginhard. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? As is 8 nothing. [clears throat] And lastly, 3.6 approves the revised job description for the safety and security coordinator as per attached. >> Thank you, Saddowski. And Mr. Martin. >> Thank you, Mr. Gener. Uh I I read through this. I I have three questions primarily regarding this. Number one, um why is it necessary uh under the description we got was to focus to attract candidates with a police officer background? Well, we had someone with a police officer background, a very good one I might add, that we attracted with the job description that we currently have. So I don't know one number one why it was necessary to change it. Number two I I have a question of who compiled this whether we wrote this independently or whether it was copied from someone elsewhere. In reading through it there's 28 tasks that this new person is expected to do. Superman couldn't do the 28 tasks that are listed on this job description for someone to do. And it's very unrealistic, I think, to expect someone to accomplish or be able to do all 28 things that are listed for this person to to be able to do. And I further gather since this is budget neutral, we're going to expect whoever it is to do it at the same salary that we were paying Mr. Burns. So there are my three questions regarding this particular uh item. Thank you very much. Sure. >> All right. So, thank you, Mr. Martin. Um, I'm certainly happy to address that and and and if anybody else would would like to to speak to that as well. So, first of all, um, I I'll go in reverse order if that's okay. Um, as far as the bullet points, a lot of our job descriptions, and if you look at our job descriptions in the district, they're very comprehensive, and it lists all the things that a person, you know, might be within the scope of responsibility. So um if you look at existing job descriptions, they are extremely thorough. And that does not mean that that person has to accomplish in every single order all of those things. But those are some of the many things that might fall into the scope of responsibility. And some of those things may be very minor. Um they may be something that a person might do in a matter of minutes. They might be something that could come across their their plate in time. And so the purpose of just adding a comprehensive list is just to try to encompass all the things that may that may fall into someone's job description on any given day of any given week in the year. Um and so it's not something where that person has to have a checklist and say yes, I will be doing all the following 28 things. It's just for that comprehensive nature. And if you look at a lot of our our descriptions, they're they're similarly organized in that in that way. Um, as far as police officer background, um, and I may defer actually to Mr. Ginhard because he has a has a career in law enforcement. Um, one of the things that that, um, we want, and as you can see in the job description, is we do want someone with a law enforcement background, with a criminal justice background or or related degree. [sighs and gasps] Um, often these positions attract uh retired law enforcement or or those who are no longer actively in law enforcement and because of the act 120ert um in or when you retire my understanding is is that act 120ert unless you maintain it goes away and sometimes that act 120ert can be an impediment for a retired person a law enforcement who still wants to work and still wants to serve and still wants to keep students and staff safe from applying ing to a job because of that. And I don't know if Mr. Ginhard if you want to share some some background given your your law enforcement experience. >> Uh yeah, thank you. Um so yeah, um being a retired police officer, um I have some insight into this. When we first did this, you know, the idea was get a police officer into the building. We want to have the ability to defend our students, build from that. Great idea, but it turns out um after having this be in place for a while that as Dr. Luke said this is much more of a management position than a hands-on day-to-day going to every school um operation that can we can hire people to do that. We can hire retired police officers to be in buildings or to go to buildings. We really need someone who is uh very adept and qualified and experienced at basically running a department because we with our security guards and if we want to hire more we basically have a mini department. So we need somebody with experience in running a department, managing personnel, managing safety, knowing the emergency management aspect of it, knowing things like what's required in the job description is the uh NIMS and training and the uh um command structure training. All things that not every police officer has. Typically those things you get good at that you get additional training. You get additional experience. When you get up to the command levels, lieutenant, deputy chief, chief, they're the people that type of person is the person that we want for this job who has that ability to bring all that knowledge and experience to bear. Set up a good emergency management plan, set up a good um defense strategy, manage an entire department of security personnel. The problem we face with our position written the way it is is because it requires it now requires the act 120 which is active police officer certification. You need to be an actively employed police officer and you have to maintain all the continuing education to keep that certification. Once you retire you lose all that. So that narrows considerably narrows our candidate pool to active police officers. The problem is that in this large area that that encompasses our our district and where we draw from, the starting salary of a patrol officer, just the starting base salary is higher than we can afford to pay for this position. You add in street overtime, you add in court overtime, they're making a lot of money. When you get up to the lieutenant deputy chief chief area, they're making so much money, we we can't even begin to compete with that. So, by removing the Act 120 certification requirement, which means all we're doing is saying we want somebody that's more management, more big picture focused, but you don't need to be an active police officer. That doesn't mean we're not going to get retired police officers. And a matter of fact, we're going to attract them because now we can attract somebody who's retired. We can attract a retired lieutenant, a retired battal deputy chief, retired chief, someone who has a wealth of knowledge and experience in doing exactly what we need them to do, but they're retired, so they don't have their 120, but being retired with a pension, the money we're going to pay them is a nice amount of extra money, it's a lot of extra icing on the cake for their retirement. And what police officer is not going to want to take a job defending children? So, I I think by doing this, it's going to greatly expand our potential candidate pool. We're going to get the best possible people. Now, if someone who's an active police officer wants to do this job and they fit the criteria and they're great, we can hire them. It doesn't say they can't be a police officer. It just says that it's not required to be actively certified. So, we're going to get to pick from a much broader range. And the pool, the talent pool we're going to pull from is going to be immense. Does that answer your question? >> No. Okay. What what if what if what if the person doesn't have a bachelor's degree in one of those subjects or a master's degree? I I was very happy with the gentleman we had and moved on unfortunately from I we hired him under the existing uh job description and the fact that we have detailed job descriptions. This one is just you're not [laughter] I don't know who you're going to find at this. >> Well, typically when when people move up through the chain of command and they get that rank, they they uh start going to school, they get the advanced degrees, they go to the FBI school, they get all kinds of advanced training. So, a lot of people will have these advanced degrees. >> This says they have to have >> it's it's preferred. It's preferred. They don't have to have it. It's it's preferred if that person happens to have it, but as Mr. Ginhard did say, you know, obviously if we if we >> master's degree is preferred if you read it. >> No, I'm reading it and it >> says master's preferred preferred doesn't say the others preferred. >> Final page page two. Is that where you're looking? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. >> Under education. >> Yep. You see >> says master's preferred. That's what it says. >> There's a period after field. So, it doesn't say the other is preferred. It just says that's a requirement. >> Well, if we haven't >> plus experience 5 to seven years plus supervising school personnel, whatever. It's just I don't know the reason we have to change it. That's all period. And and I don't know about the sal we're keeping the salary the same and asking somebody it's going to be >> good. I have a job. >> Okay. >> Well, no. Somebody No, it's it's a it's an excellent it's a good question, Mr. Martin. and it it's it doesn't preclude someone from being hired if they don't have that. Those are preferred degrees obviously because that that brings experience and and expertise to the district. But what this does do to Mr. Ginhard's point is it deepens our pool of applicants. uh as an example with the existing position there were some excellent excellent candidates out here who were retired police officers who were very interested in the position but because they weren't actively certified because of their retirement they weren't able to apply for the job as it existed and so in order to expand that candidate pool I wanted to slightly adjust that job description and bring it in front in front of the board for approval for the the the point of process um I do believe that this will actually attract a very diverse pool of candidates and it will position the district not only to continue the excellent service that Mr. Burns provided, but it will also um allow for that strategic leadership for our drill preparedness and our emergency preparedness to increase and to have that oversight. >> Just a question because I genuinely don't know. Kevin was able to carry a weapon. Was that because he's an active police officer? Would the Would a retired police officer also be able to do that on a school premises? I just don't know. >> Yeah. Um yeah, he was um a sworn police officer, right? Retired officer could get um Act 235 certification which would allow him to carry a firearm. Anyone that's [clears throat] approved by the superintendent carry [snorts] >> Gotcha. If we wanted them to. >> Yeah. No, >> more of a supervisory position to hire the guys to do that. >> No, I remember Yeah, that was part of the the conversation last time. We wanted to that there were some folks who didn't want the I guess the SRO whatever his title ended up being to be armed but he was so it would be a change potentially there in responding to >> the kinds of >> could go through the training and >> okay >> Mr. Martin, if you look at the job description where it says education level, >> right? Right next to it, it you all the way at the end it says required or preferred. There's an X for preferred. So, it's not required. >> I see what he's looking at. It just said related field and then period preferred. >> Yeah. But then if you look at the end it says >> Yeah. >> If you look at the end, it just says preferred not required. Is this a Pasers um position? >> Mr. Green, would that be pasers eligible? I'm assuming yes. If you're employed, it is eligible for piecers. >> Okay. >> Why would you say parent wanted to take out the one little piece that's offensive to everybody to having a certain certification? Just leave it the way it is. Remove that one little thing and you're done. >> Well, the the certification I wouldn't I wouldn't say it's offensive. I think what it is, it's just a barrier to attracting more applicants. >> That could just be removed from what we currently have. >> Well, there's the other piece and that is is that the the position as authored originally didn't have some of the the leadership and and training aspects of it. And one of the things that we would like in this position to include is that strategic oversight. um the ability to do safety audits of our district, the ability to provide leadership training for our security staff, the ability to um do emergency preparedness and training. We want to make sure that all of our buildings, all of our staff, all of our students are as well versed in our protocols, that liaison with law enforcement and first responders and also just building up um the resources and the training, the collaboration with those drills, hazard preparedness, all of those things. And so to add a little bit more strategic oversight and then just make sure that our job description matches the expectations that we have for that. There was nothing that was offensive. It was just more of increasing the ability for great candidates to be eligible to apply. >> I would think that these um the candidates have all this already in their background. So it's nothing more difficult than is was where they were coming from except it's a supervisory position like they are capable or they may have been management positions before they retired etc. So you know all that training etc. I think it would it's in their background already but >> thank you. >> Can we move on to a vote then? All in favor? >> I >> I >> Any opposed? >> Opposed. >> Any abstensions? Passes. 62. Um before we move on, I would like to welcome Dr. Sacran, you know, as our new super assistant superintendent. So, he is now working for us. Welcome. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Going on to presentations. Uh we have two of them. Uh first the K summer reading take-home book pack. This is mely. >> Hello. >> Thanks Chris. Am I able to then click through here? Yeah, perfect. Excellent. So, we are going to get right to it. Uh, as you know, each year, uh, over the past several years, we have been sending home book packs for our K5 students to support summer reading. And so, each year, we also bring to you the results of the optout survey that was shared before the book packs are sent home. as well as the thought exchange results that we collect to improve this process for future uh years. As you also know, this is not part of the budget for this coming school year. So, we are here just to present the results and ensure you that we are looking into other options for funding this so that we can still continue to build home libraries because we do believe it's crucial and and critical for our students. >> [snorts] >> And so the opt out survey that we sent in uh I guess that was May before we sent home the book packs, we had uh seven students total out of 2,472 elementary students. Seven were opted out less than way less than even a half of a percent. 28%. Those seven students came from six families and um they were actually all from McDonald Elementary. You can see the response breakdown by grade level. And so from our thought exchange again, we posed the question, reflecting on the book packs circulated this past summer, what are some of the ways it added value to your child's summer experience? If we were to provide books to students again in the future, what would you like for us to consider? [snorts] We had a total of 76 participants that wrote in 42 thoughts. Uh we had a very high increase in the number of ratings even from last year. A 76% increase in the amount of times someone who participated in the survey rated another thought as something that they agreed with. >> [snorts] >> We also have had an increase, a steady increase over the past three years that I've been involved with presenting the results of this for those family members or families in our district who used the translation services that are built into the thought exchange. So, it's gone up steadily uh 3% each year, I believe, or or so we have up to four languages, three in addition to English now being used in that survey. and they if you can't see them are Ukrainian, Russian and Spanish. [snorts] This breaks down then the participation for this survey by the buildings and grade level. And then overall we like to show the satisfaction. So we do have in there overall how satisfied were you as the parent with the topics, content and or themes of the books in the book packs. We had 79% of parents and guardians who answered and responded to this survey that were satisfied or somewhat satisfied, very or somewhat satisfied, leaving uh 21% that were not. Overall, how satisfied were your students? As we know, we are not able to survey minors. So, we asked their parents, how satisfied were your students with the topics, contents, and/or themes of the books? 72% of parents or guardians who responded said that their children were satisfied with the summer book packs. We like to break down the top three key thoughts for both successes and areas for opportunity. So, the top three are listed here. Very thoughtful to get these books. uh keeps kids interested in reading new books that a student didn't already have and books that were geared towards that comment in the middle there is kind of an area for opportunity as well geared towards the reading level and that the student could read by themselves would be helpful and then we love finding new books, authors, series to read. We read together every night and it's nice to have new options. The next several slides break down then those key areas or themes that came out of. So, uh, you have had a chance to read through this. If there's anything you would like to ask questions about, you're welcome to, but one of the thoughts was just books. It's nice to have books for our students at home, which is the purpose of our summer book packs to build that home library and ensure that every student has access to it. Another was another theme was that it keeps kids engaged. Another theme, it keeps kids reading over the summer. One uh parent commenting and having very high likes to that comment was reading makes a great person or makes a person great. And then the idea that it's nice to continue that learning over the summer. So our overall summary again, 76 participants, 53 who actually took home the book packs. So some of the parents are incoming kindergarteners parents who completed the survey and they were not here to receive those book packs. 79% again were very or somewhat satisfied leaving 21% of the participants somewhat or very dissatisfied. Strengths overall this initiative was valued as a resource that maintained reading interests and reinforced skills over the summer break. It promoted discover the discovery of new books, authors, and series which engaged students and motivated them to read throughout the summer. And the content inspired additional activities like trips to the zoo. Opportunity areas for the future increase the levels of interest and also multicultural representation. And we have a note there in blue just to remind you that the office of teaching and learning does not solely choose these books. They are chosen by a representative groups of students from the student advisory councils, parents from the parent advisory council, teachers, administrators, and schoolboard members. And another area for opportunity was some parents expressed regret for not receiving the book pack and a note that that's likely those incoming kindergarten parents. >> Thank you. >> Any questions for Mrs. Millie? >> If I might. Uh Mr. Now I used to spar Mr. Gabriel. So now [laughter] am I interpreting this right? That >> we gave out 2400 packets of books to students. >> Correct. Five. >> Am I also correct that 53 parents out of 2472 took the time and chose to respond. Those who responded responded well, but 53 out of 2472 by my William Tenant math is about 2%. >> 70. >> So any survey and any project that spends 40ome,000 and 2% of the parents chose to respond to it, although those 2% 79% of them liked it. So that's one and a half% liked it. That doesn't seem to me and I'm all for reading. Trust me. I love to have people doesn't seem to be a very successful program that I would be interested in continuing based on that response level of interested parents. So, and I will respectfully just point out again that seven students out of those 2500 almost students were opted out saying that they did not want to receive the summer book packs. >> All right. I I got I get that. >> So, it's free. Everybody wants something that's free. If it's free, they're going to take it. where they want it, use it, and don't care to res. They liked it so much they didn't want to take 2 minutes to respond to the to the survey. >> So, and I will also say we have sent this out at different times of the year. If you might recall last year, we did not send we sent the survey in October. We have sent the survey in October. Busy time of year. And we also know the human element element of completing surveys. We usually complete a survey when we're dissatisfied with something. At least that's how I usually I try. I try I am a positive person. I try to to to do it when I'm really happy too. Actually, I just got a a email today saying that I had three Google surveys that I completed and they were all positive. [laughter] >> Thank you for not putting budget. Appreciate that. Let let me just say in this process we pretty much had the same [snorts] conversation during our education committee. It is a concern you know but it is also valuable to see these books go home. Um but it is a concern and and we also kind of poured with how we're going to move forward. We don't really have a plan yet. Uh Mike or hardline. >> Okay. So, [snorts] how does this translate into our next presentation with the summer slide that we see? Are we seeing a return on our investment by sending these books home? And are we historically seeing that since we have been doing this that the summer slide seems to be plateauing or lessening? You will I don't want to to ruin it, but spoiler alert, you will see that our returning students are coming in at an above the national benchmarks in age grade level aside from kindergarten who are incoming and we're not supplying book packs to >> but I'm not so much concerned about national trademark as I'm concerned about year over year over year for our children. Now that we have been doing this for several years, are we seeing a significant bump or have we plateaued in that response? >> So we and we're seeing both and again another spoiler, but we're seeing both growth and achievement in different areas and and maybe a spoiler for November when we see those state scores as well. We are seeing do we have direct correlation to this is it this is certainly a contributing factor. Are we having any of our teachers plan lessons around some of the books that were sent home to see whether or not the students actually read them or whether or not they just became book father. >> So we have a very robust rigorous curriculum at at K5 in Whiten Wisdom. So we are using our instructional time to build our our knowledge and our learning through those. So, no, we are not going back. And and one of the reasons that we brought in the summer book packs as the summer reading was because we gained feedback from parents and insight and input that they don't want to be tied to having to do this and then being checked on it when they come back. They want the option, right? And yes, everyone likes something that's free, but we're we're getting it in there anyway. We're sneaking it in. We're sneaking in that summer reading and it's it is benefiting. Books make great people, right? [laughter] It's it's helping to build and it's building the libraries of our children at home, which [clears throat] we know helps with we I the article last year, every child needs a home library. It really helps to build even if their parents are not parents that went through full education, it helps to build that child's make it a level playing field for them. >> So to build on the what is next? What can we possibly do next? seeing that more and more children are becoming digitalbased. Is there a cheaper alternative to this by doing it on a digital platform that we can then also track to see how these students actually log on? How many of them really are doing it and we can get some more hardcore data other than simply a participary feedback. >> So we are exploring other options that being one of them. Yes. Um and we will bring back to you what we find. >> Do they have their devices through the summer? >> They do have the option to take they they have the option to not take it home really. So yes, they're all sent home unless parents opted out of taking home. >> So it's interesting. I I mean I you know I I agree with the goals the statistics that are here. They always look nice, but I think it's the this we keep looping the conversation because I if there's a better way to get more substantive data [clears throat] out of the impact of the program, great. It's just the sample size is so small compared to the student population that it may look good, but it's not really it's not entirely convincing that it's representative of the experience or the impact that it's having. I agree with the sentiment of the article that you mentioned. I agree with a lot of the different things, but it ultimately adds up to something circumstantial. And I think we're we're looking for something, you know, four or five, however many years in. Is there something we can really hang our hat on and go we can show is there a better way to measure it? Can we have a, you know, direct conversations with, you know, with some of the students or parents or something? I know it's it's more work uh than sending the survey, but just something to try to get more raw data out of the the district to see if we can really show the impact in a in a more realistic way. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> I know how difficult it was to get AP children to do summer work, [cough and clears throat] let alone elementary school children, you know, to read or to to do something as opposed to playing. So I'm sure that this is going to drive to more and further discussions in our education committee. Um if nothing else, we're going to move on to >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Fall 2025 local data assessment. >> You're welcome. Thank >> I think No, I don't Mr. >> Watts. Oh, that was Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. All right. Um waiting for the next There we go. presentation to queue up. All right. Hi everybody. It's good to see you. Lagging a little bit from last night's 18 inning baseball game. Sorry. Um but I wanted to share our our local our local data. Uh this is remember back to last year's we're going to kind of bookend some data um in October and November. I'm here tonight to share the fall local assessment data in Dibbles I Ready and Il and uh Mr. heartline. A more fuller picture uh will present itself in November when we share the state data uh PES growth and achievement with that. But this is going to focus on our local data. [clears throat and cough] I'm going to get to the heart of the presentation here for time. Again, we're going to look at Dibbles, I Ready, and Il. We'll start with Dibbles, which is K3. Uh some things going on here. Uh we've got kindergarten 1, 2, and three. Um, we have the beginning of the year benchmark. That's the gold line. In the highlighted box is the number. We wanted to put a number to that and I'll explain that in a moment. Uh, the blue bar represents our students uh, benchmark score on the fall benchmark of dibbles and the green diamond that you see above the blue bar will be the middle of the year benchmark goal. And that that assessment window is between December 1st and December 22nd. So, that's when we'll be taking that. Um, a note here. I'm going to break this down by grade level. We'll now break this was big picture, K1, two, three. I'm going to go grade by grade. Now, I do want to add a note here. Uh, what the benchmark is. You'll see the uh narrative box on the right side. Just wanted to clarify that the composite score is not a percentage. It's a scaled score. Um, I wish I had a better way to explain it to you. It's an algorithm that Dibbles uses by taking some of the underlying scores, uh, reading fluency, oral reading fluency, letter naming, and they bibbidity bop it into an algorithm and spit out a scaled score, and that's the number you see here. Our national benchmark score for this year was 306. It's a national benchmark. So, you can see where kindergarten is falling with that. And the note at the bottom um that I have here uh is that you can see that kindergarten for two of the last three years our kindergarters are coming in um under the national benchmark. Um one year was above and this has been a a trend that we are watching um that we're seeing nationally and we're now seeing it uh we're also seeing it here in Centennial. Uh for first grade the uh beginning of the year national benchmark is 330. Uh we have three-year trend line of first grade um with students all three different grade one cohorts being above the beginning of the year national benchmark. Again this is uh evidence that our um our supports are having a positive impact on student outcomes. Uh grade two the national benchmark was a 329. You can see where we are for this year. Um and we're above again the national benchmark for second grade. Three years running and 332 here for grade three. Um again three-year trend line um that we are third graders are above the national benchmark um for dibbles. I'm not going to read all this at you. Okay. Um but just want to emphasize the evidence-based supports that we started putting in in 2019 2020 continued putting in for several years and continue to maintain these supports which supports the growth that we are seeing. I am now going to turn to I uh in both ELA and math and the lovely triangle that we've seen for years. This is NTSS the tiers of support. Um, again, just a refresher, this is a rule of thumb. Uh, tier three is two or more grade levels below. It usually encompasses 5 to 10% of students in a school district. Tier 2, one grade level below, anywhere between 15 and 20%. And tier one at or above grade level, which usually encompasses 75 to 80% of students. Again, this is a rule of thumb, um, guidelines, uh, guard rails for these numbers. uh for K8 reading. This is where we fell in for our fall assessment in tiers three, two, and one. The graphic, the triangle shows that 75% of our KA students are in tier 1 or two and two for reading with 25% in tier three as reflected on their beginning of the year benchmark, their diagnostic assessment. Um also added a a narrative box to the right of the screen of the chart that you see here. wanted to make clear to everyone here and watching at home. Please allow me to read this out loud. Uh the reading the I Ready assessment is aligned to the Pennsylvania State Standards. All of our assessments are um which outline what students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade. This means that when students take the I Ready assessment in September, they're actually being measured against the endofear expectations. So, as teachers, we know this that whenever we get our standards, when I was teaching nth grade English and I'm looking at my English standards for my students, their endofear expectations where the state expects students what they expect them to know and be able to do when they get to the end of the school year. I just wanted to point that out for everyone. Um, our trend line for I Ready reading over the last three-year window, our tier three numbers continue to decrease, which is good news. We're moving kids into tier 2 and our tier one numbers, there's been some fluctuation but have generally stayed steady. For K8 math, we have 77% of our K8 students are in tiers one and two for math with 23% in tier three as reflected in their beginning of year diagnostic. The narrative note is to the right of the chart. Again, students are being measured against endofear expectations. This has been our trend line for the last three years for K8 math. Our tier three numbers continue to decrease. Tier 2 has remained somewhat steady and tier one numbers have increased over the last several years. Again, I'm not going to read this at you, but this is a very comprehensive list of the evidence-based supports that we continue to put in and support. I want to move on to which will cover reading, language arts, and also mathematics. And I have a special note about that in a moment. This is looking at reading for grade 9 only. This is a three-year trend. Uh to your left, you'll see a box in blue just to clarify that a score of 900 within the platform equals on grade level for 9th grade. So think of 9th grade as 900. Um also the note to the right is very similar to the note I shared about I Ready. Il diagnostic is a line of state standards and they provide what's called a working grade level. I have that in quotes. Again, the expectations are endofear expectations. So students in nth and tth grade hop on get assessed in reading language arts. They're being assessed on state standards with the endofear expectation. And this is where we fell. Um you can see that across uh that this year's grade nine cohort um all of their beginning of the year uh categories assessment scores all increased in comparison to last year's nth grade cohort. Uh 10th grade this is 10th grade only a score of 1,000 uh would equal on grade level for grade 10. Um again we had similar increase in all areas except for writing. writing had a small dip uh for this year's cohort, 10th grade cohort as opposed to last year's cohort. Uh for mathematics, we have both of them on the same screen. Um for algebraic thinking was only grade nine. Um we had an increase in the algebraic thinking score from last year's cohort to this. Grade 10 in geometry had a slight decrease from last year's cohort into this year's cohort for geometry. Again, these are the evidence-based supports. I did want to make one note that first bullet under assessment. This was the first year that we've had ninth and tth grade only. Um, we are not assessing after 10th grade. So, no 11th or 12th grade. Uh, we've had very open and honest conversations both in ed committee and with the full board. um over the last several years of data showing the decrease once students enter 11th grade post keystone testing uh motivation engagement. Um some difficulty, some challenges in capturing data because once students hit 11th grade, they're exposed more to a number of electives. You remember us sharing last year that we were not capturing every student because they weren't in a core class, they were in electives, especially in ELA. So, I just wanted to share that with the group. Um we continue to strength strengthen our assessment systems. Uh PSSA and Keystone exam in data will be shared in November. Um we just shared our dibbles I rating and I excel and in progress under construction. We continue to build out our common assessments, our classroom curriculum based assessments. That work continues. Just some takeaways and trends just to summarize tonight's presentation. The data reveals that districts steadily improving in academic growth and instructional consistency. Some reasons for that, positive impact of evidence-based supports, especially in K3 reading, our tier 2 growth and instructional focus, our decreasing need for intensive intervention. It's often said that when you're increasing your core tier one instruction, the need for tier three intervention starts to decrease. And our curricular coherence continues to drive gains. our remote our robust supports especially our coaches our reading and math specialists and the personnel that we have OTL and student services I did add this in here because many of you picked this up we've talked about this at ed committee an area for further exploration the decline in kindergarten readiness these are external factors but the team both in OTL and student services are looking for opportunities that we can move forward in strengthening that early learning readiness for students coming into the district. Thank you. >> Any questions? >> Thank you. >> I think you summarized it well, you know, and and you know, I can almost like move right on into, you know, [clears throat] the education committee report and really the two items that we talked about was these two presentations. >> Yes. and and then finally you know the uh discussion about the world history you know program. So >> that was really what took place in the education committee [clears throat] plus we uh recommended the six items for approval tonight that's on the agenda. That's the education committee report. >> Thank you Mr. R. Thank you. >> All right. Um, turn my mic on here. All right. Uh, education or education finance committee was a little late this month, but we still had a meeting anyway. Um the couple things on the um for presentation tonight are the budgetary timeline which is obviously based upon the uh election calendar as as it is every year. Um the act one index there's a report of that. There are some school districts that actually have a higher act one ability than other school districts in the county based upon some external factors. Uh we also went over the monthly Pennsylvania state liquid asset fund. Um we're still getting an average of about 4% on our investments. Uh we did talk about the state budget that is still non-existent. Um additionally, I had a conference call with Heather Briggs from Clifton Larson and Allen. They are our auditing firm. as a followup to the presentation that was made the previous month and some auditing questions etc. They are currently actively working on the next audit so that should be forthcoming as well. They apologized once again for the last one being um tardy. And one of the things that did come out of our discussion was the possibility or the concept of setting up some type of a um hotline or email address for fraud or inconsistencies that might be being seen in the district. It's something I've already talked to administration about and we're trying to mle over some ideas about how we can possibly do that. some other school districts in the area already doing it. So, you know, let's not reinvent the wheel here. Let's look at what they're doing. Um, but it is something that they had suggested that they are seeing trends across the state and across the country with setting up those types of information networks and it's something that they would like us to consider. And that's it. >> Thank you, Mr. Hardline. Mr. Ginhard, operations. >> Okay, >> operations met on October 17th. Uh, Mr. Orman gave us an update on projects um underway. The biggest one being that the uh controller boards for the HVAC and McDonald are in service. The systems are solid and working well. The other big thing was uh we got a presentation on the uh need to uh purchase new school buses which is down lower in the operations committee section. Um like to compliment Mr. and given us a really detailed quality presentation laid out very well what we needed what we need to look at and while we're on the subject of the buses um also like to compliment Mr. Wartman because just like with the backhoe when he got the initial bids he looked at him and went, "Nope, don't like it. Not doing it too high." So, we bid it and got us some lower prices on the buses. So, we're going to be, you know, looking at saving money on things that we need. And the next meeting is November 14th at 11:00. >> Thank you, Mr. Godson. >> All right. Um back to the education committee. Um we have um just had the presentation so there are no more presentations. We have uh six items for approval and we move them all together. Seeing so it resolved that the Centennial School District Board of School Directors 6.2A approves the purchase of books for the reading Olympics and the Daves Elementary Library. district cost not to exceed $428.83. 6.2B approves the purchase of books for the Cllinger Middle School library district cost not to exceed $94.99. 6.2C 2C approves the purchase of books for the reading Olympics and the McDonald Elementary Library District cost not to exceed $63162. 6.2D approves the purchase of books for the reading Olympics and the Willowdale Elementary Library District cost not to exceed $1,460.39. 6.2E 2E approves the overnight conference request for the instructional coaches and Mrs. Kleti to attend and present at the standard aligned aligned systems institute conference December 8th and 9th 2025 in Hershey PA district cost not to exceed $1,4395 6.2F 2F approves the William Tennant World History Lessons Pilot Study. No cost to the district. >> Second. >> Second. >> Second by Mr. Ginard. >> Any further discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? As is 8 nothing. All right. Uh finance committee. Does anybody have any questions regarding the three items that are on for presentation? Seeing not um 7.2. Does anybody wish to have either one pulled or can I group them together? All right, I'll group them together. It resolved that the Centennial School District Board of School Directors 7.2A 2A approves the attendance of the foods and nutrition manager at the Pasbo food service conference and exhibition November 18th 19th 2025 Mannheim PA district cost not to exceed $525 7.2B 2B approves the agreement with the Bucks County Intermediate Unit number 22 to coordinate the district's required homestead exclusion notice in December 2025 at an estimated cost of 1,78 $1 and $17.8 per parcel. Estimated cost to the district is $4,05. >> Second. >> Second by Mr. Saddowski. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. 800 Z. >> Mr. Artline. >> Okay. Um items presented for information. None. Um 8.2. Does anybody want anything pulled? >> 8.2 B and 8.2 C. Okay. Okay. How about we just take these one by one then? >> Okay. Um 8.2A approves the rejection of bid 2026-01 for two 30 passenger buses. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion passes. 8.2B 2B approves the purchase of two 2025 MicroBird 30 passenger buses from Breitbuild Bodyworks. District cost not to exceed [clears throat] 29,990. Pricing is per the source well contract 102115 BBB. >> My question is this. We've talked about how much money we don't have. Where is this money coming from to pay for these buses? And that would be the same as for 2D or 8.2D. Um, we're in such a in a deficit now. You're >> I understand. So, just like uh capital projects, this money was approved in the budget. It was actually $650,000 was approved in the budget that you all approved. It's in the capital plan, so it can't be brought back into operations. So, it just sits there if we don't, you know, we do need buses. We have buses that are extremely old and we have some that we say are usable now that aren't going to be usable for much longer because they're going to at some point soon they're rusting and the the bus is going to pull away from the frame and they won't be able to be used again. So, that money has already been approved in in this year's budget and it's sitting there. >> So, >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> So 8.2. Can I get a second? >> No. 8.2B. Did I get a second? [clears throat] >> Yes. >> I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. Um, all in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? I'm opposed. Any abstensions? Motion passes. >> Oh my [snorts] goodness. >> Thank you. 71. Um 8.2C 2C approves the rejection of bid 2026-02 for 172 passenger bus. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Saddowski. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion passes 8 to one. I mean 80, I'm sorry. Um 8.2D 2D approves the purchase of one 2025 Bluebird Vision 72 passenger bus from Breakville Bodyworks district cost not to exceed 121,600 pricing is per the source well contract 063 020BB. >> Thank thank you Mr. Sowski. All those in favor >> hey can I ask a question? Um you said that the the funding for this is already allocated towards this and it can't be brought back into the general fund. Is that >> that's correct fund part of our refreshment plan? >> Yep. >> Yeah. This is this is part of that like ongoing we're refurbishing we're replenishing the bus supply as we can rather than get hit with all four of our buses broke down and we have to suddenly buy eight in one year kind of plan. We we've been working on it for the past several years. It's just that we're getting to the point with two of the buses that >> and we are and we're required once we move money into certain funds that it it allocated towards whatever those funds are dedicated towards capital improvements um you know [snorts] operations whatever have you. >> So it stays there until we put it >> it's in that that savings for that and it is something that we use on a reoccurring basis as as well. >> Thank you. question. Are they will they become equipped with the radio and all? >> Yes, they'll be fully equipped. They'll be full. They'll put on the be list to put uh the bus patrol in it and everything. They'll be outfitted just like our current buses. >> And what would be your um timeline if this is approved now to go? >> These are buses that are readily available. It won't be January, February, March when we get them like we would if we went to a lot of the bids. These are these are buses that are sitting on the lot that they're ready to move. So we will they they will outfit them and we'll get them probably within a month. >> And they're coming in under bid from the original bids. >> Yes. Yes. Yep. >> The second one ju just going back out and asking other questions and finding other sources cost are saving us almost $3,000 on that bus. And the other two is $3,300 combined. So >> great job. >> These was it the propane buses we were going to? >> No, these are not >> regular. These are regular. Okay, thank you. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> All those opposed? Me. >> Any abstensions? Motion passes 71. Um 8.2E awards bid 2026-03. Oh my gosh. for two 2025 ninep passenger Ford F350 vans to Sans Ford district cost not to exceed $123,800. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> I. >> All those opposed me. Any abstensions? Motion passes 71 8.2F. 2F awards bid 2026-04 for one Ford gosh T350 HD transit van to Sans Ford district cost not to exceed $54,720 >> second by Mrs. Crossen. All those in favor? >> I. >> All those opposed? Me. Any object? Any abstensions? Motion passes. 71. Um, are there any board comments? Mr. Hartline? >> Just that Friday is Halloween, so watch out for all the uh kitties and others that are out on the streets. >> Yep. And if a kid comes to your door, even if they don't have a costume, keep in mind that they're still being a kid instead of maybe some other things they could be doing. And some kids can't afford a costume or some kids um can't handle wearing a costume. So, please be kind and just give them the candy. Sorry, >> we're giving out the good >> we're giving out the fullsize bars at our house. Mr. Brancado is praying that we don't get a lot of trick-or-treaters. >> Um motion to adjurnn. >> So moved.