Agenda 2021-11-22

York Suburban Board Of School Directors
Regular Monthly Meeting
November 22, 2021 – 7 p.m.
York Suburban High School – Auditorium

Please Note: As per the order of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, masks are required in Pennsylvania’s school buildings. Thank you for your cooperation.

A G E N D A

  1. General Business
    1. Call to Order – Mr. Posenau, Board President
      1. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
      2. Roll Call
      3. A reminder to please silence your cell phone during the meeting.
      4. Public Comments
        1. All comments and questions will be addressed to the President. Board and staff members will not normally respond to comments or questions during the meeting unless recognized by the President for this purpose. Comments will be limited, at the discretion of the President, to five minutes or less.
      5. Discussion and Action on Board Minutes
        1. Approval of the minutes of the Planning Committee meeting of November 8, 2021.  [Approval as submitted/corrected]
      6. The Administration recommends that the Board add item 5B to the agenda [Motion; Roll Call Vote]
  2. Honor Roll of School Board Service Presentation – Will Smeltzer, PSBA
  3. Treasurer’s Report – Mr. Sears
    1. Consent Agenda: [Would any Board member like any of these items considered separately or are there any questions on any of these items? If not, the chair moves approval of the below-mentioned items; Roll Call Vote]
      1. Approval of Financial Reports as of October 31, 2021. [File for audit]
        1. Treasurer’s Reports
        2. General Fund Revenue Report
        3. General Fund Expenditure Report
        4. Summary Reports
          1. Capital Project, Capital Reserve, Food Service
        5. Check Summary Reports
          1. General Fund, Food Service, Capital Project, Capital Reserve
        6. General Input Budget Transfers
        7. Student Activities Fund Revenue Report
        8. Student Activities Fund Expenditure Report
  4. Board President’s Report – Mr. Posenau
    1. The Board met in Executive Session on November 22, 2021, at 6 p.m. as permitted by Section 707 of the Sunshine Act for the purpose of discussing personnel and legal matters. No official action was taken.
  5. Superintendent’s Report – Dr. Williams
    1. Future-Focused Planning Presentation – Dr. Krauser
    2. The Administration recommends Board approval of the settlement agreement between the District and the parents of a student. [Motion; Roll Call Vote]
  6. Business Office Report – Mrs. Ciaciulli
    1. Consent Agenda: [You have before you the Business Office Report. Would any Board member like any of these items considered separately or are there any questions on any of these items? If not, I would ask that a motion be made to approve the below-mentioned items; Roll Call Vote]
      1. The Administration recommends the Board authorize the Business Office to participate in 2022-23 Intermediate Unit 12 joint purchasing consortium bids for paper, general, classroom, art, and custodial bids.  
      2. The Administration recommends the Board adopt the resolution certifying the tax rate for the 2022-2023 budget will not have a tax increase that exceeds the index of 4.0%
      3. The Administration recommends the Board approve the 2021-22 IDEA Section 619 Pass-Through Funds Agreement with Lincoln Intermediate Unit #12 for funds to support kindergarten eligible children, 5 years of age, either receiving special education services through the LEA or remaining an extra year in Early Intervention. The total revenue to the District is $7,854.00. This amount reflects an increase of $ 4,254 from the prior year. 
      4. The Administration recommends Board approval of the 2021-22 IDEA Non-Competitive Method (Sole Source) Agreement as a procurement method for services provided by the Lincoln Intermediate Unit funded by IDEA allocation. 
      5. The Administration recommends the Board approve the Master Service Agreement with Sourcewell Technology for Spring Math software effective July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2025 school year in the amount of $11,457 annually. 
      6. The Administration recommends Board approval of the Memorandum of Understanding with Allegheny Intermediate Unit for telephone voice interpretation services with TransPerfect Remote Interpreting for an annual fee of $120. Actual usage costs are at a rate not to exceed $.90 per minute for all languages. There is no change from the prior year. 
      7. The Administration recommends the Board approve the educational services agreement with Specialized Education of Pennsylvania, Inc. dba High Road School of York.  The term of this agreement is from September 27, 2021, to May 27, 2022. The rate per day is $165 for 157 days for a total of $25,905.
    2. The Administration recommends the Board approve the service contract with Sunbelt to acquire a School Psychologist at the per hour rate of $85.00 at 7 hours per day for 114 days. The amount is not to exceed $67,830 for the 2021-22 school year and will be funded through the ESSER II and ESSER III grants. [Motion; Discussion; Roll Call Vote]
    3. Informational
      1. Food Service Dining Report and Sales Report
      2. 601-631 Memory Lane, York, PA 
      3. Substitute Rates 
  7. Student Board Representative Report – Neave Casey
  8. Committee Reports – Mr. Posenau
    1. Personnel Committee Report – Mr. Robinson
      1. Consent Agenda: [You have before you the Personnel Report. Would any Board member like any of these items considered separately or are there any questions on any of these items? If not, the chair moves approval of the below-mentioned items [Roll Call Vote]
        1. Employment
          1. Recommend the Board approve the appointment of Hua “Rachel” Kuang as full-time 7- hour Paraprofessional at York Suburban High School, effective November 29, 2021, at an hourly rate of $13.00 in accordance with the 2021-22 YSESPA Agreement. 
          2. Recommend the Board approve the appointment of Kathryn Mahoney as Elementary Gifted Teacher at York Suburban School District, with a salary of $75,895 representing, Master’s +15, Step 4 of the 2021-22 York Suburban Education Association Collective Bargaining Agreement. The effective date is to be determined.
        2. Transfers
          1. Recommend the Board approve the transfer of Duane Kyle, 2nd Shift Custodian, from Valley View Elementary School to the Education Center, with no change in hourly rate, effective date to be determined. 
        3. Retirements
          1. Recommend the Board accept the retirement of Barry Girling, Director of Facilities, effective March 31, 2022. Mr. Girling will be retiring after serving 41 years with York Suburban School District.
          2. Recommend the Board accept the retirement of David Darrah, Teacher at York Suburban Middle School, effective at the conclusion of the 21-22 School Year. Mr. Darah will be retiring after serving 20 years with York Suburban School District.
        4. Resignations
          1. Recommend the Board accept the resignation of Ryan Bologa, Assistant Baseball Coach #2, effective November 16, 2021.
          2. Recommend the Board accept the resignation of Alison Mak, Part-Time Paraprofessional at Yorkshire Elementary, effective December 3, 2021.
          3. Recommend the Board accept the resignation of Michelle D’Ettorre, Part-Time Paraprofessional at East York Elementary, effective November 19, 2021.
        5. Extracurricular
          1. Recommend the Board accept the following appointments:
            1. Anne Mitzel – HS Assistant Swimming Coach #2, effective for the 2021-22 school year, with a salary of $2,613.00 representing Tier 3, Step 1 of the Extracurricular Salary Schedule.
            2. Darian Doleman – MS Boys Basketball Head Coach, effective November 19, 2021, with a salary of $2,980 representing Tier 4, Step 3 of the Extracurricular Salary Schedule. 
            3. Cody Waltimyer – HS Assistant Boys Basketball Coach, effective November 19, 2021, with a salary of $3,701 representing Tier 3, Step 3 of the Extracurricular Salary Schedule.
        6. Volunteers
          1. Recommend the approval of the following volunteers: 
            1. Brittany Seirgrist
            2. Susan Ness
            3. Holly Weinrich
            4. Lennie Spagnola
        7. Leaves of Absence
          1. Recommend the Board accept the extended leave request for Lauren Arvanites, effective through January 30, 2022.
        8. Substitutes 
          1. Recommend the approval of the STS substitutes teachers as follows: 
            1. Lilian Levan
            2. Emily Hill
            3. Andrea Rider
            4. Martin Lebow
            5. Christina Simons
        9. Recommend the Board approve the MOA for the Maintenance Mechanics effective with the YSESPA contract approved on October 11, 2021. 
    2. Academics Standards & Curriculum Committee – Mr. Scalet
      1. The minutes are presented from the meeting conducted on September 20, 2021.
    3. Additional Committee Reports
  9. Legislative Update – Mr. Robinson
  10. Lincoln Intermediate Unit Report
    1. LIU Joint Operating Authority Report – Mrs. Freireich
  11. York Adams Academy Report – Mrs. Freireich
  12. York Adams Tax Bureau Report – Mrs. Ciaciulli
  13. York County School of Technology Report – Mrs. Schroeder
  14. Recognition of Visitors
  15. Board Meeting & Committee Meeting Schedules
  16. Public Comments
    1. All comments and questions will be addressed to the President. Board and staff members will not normally respond to comments or questions during the meeting unless recognized by the President for this purpose. Comments will be limited, at the discretion of the President, to five minutes or less.
  17. Adjournment

 

Submit a Public Comment

Public comments for this meeting may be made in person or submitted electronically using the form at the bottom of this page. Electronic correspondence submitted using a method other than the form on this page will not be considered public comment.

Form submissions will be shown below and automatically shared with the Board of School Directors for its members to read and consider. Submissions will also be included in the meeting’s minutes, but they will not be read aloud at the meeting or shown on screen unless it is necessary to do so in order to accommodate a disability.

Comments submitted after 12:00 p.m. (noon) on the day of a Board meeting might not be seen by all Board members prior to action being taken on agenda-related items. However, they will still be reviewed and considered after the fact. We encourage all comments to be submitted as early as possible to avoid this scenario.

York Suburban School District does not moderate electronically submitted public comments prior to them appearing on this page. However, the District reserves the right to remove any comments that are egregiously offensive.

Posted in SB-Agenda

3 Comments

  1. Tiffany Thomas on November 22, 2021 at 7:07 pm

    603 South Albermarle St.

    School Board Members;

    Our Family has been Deeply Disappointed by this School District for Nearly Two Years Now. We are Currently Homeschooling Mainly Due to the Masking “policies.” It’s Been Nearly Two Years of These Ridiculous, Over the Top, Draconian Measures. That Are Surely Effecting Our Children’s Mental Health, Education, General Health, Being Able to Breath and Overall Wellbeing! We Are Their Parents and It’s Our God Given Right to Choose What’s Best for OUR Children! At Extreme Minimum, It Should be Everyone’s Right to Choose.

    We Also Find it Rather Concerning About the Fact That Your Choosing NOT to Read Your Tax Paying Parents Comments, Concerns and Questions Out Loud!



  2. Jcaquelyn Desai on November 22, 2021 at 5:36 pm

    Dear members of school board,

    My name is Jacquelyn Desai and I reside at 740 Willowbrook Way. I’d like to start by thanking the members who voted to adapt the Health and Safety Plan before the start of the school year. You took the non-partisan, educated route to make some difficult decisions. You did the right thing.

    I would like to just give you some insight on what it has been like as a parent, trying to get a vaccination appointment for my seven year old daughter, who attends Valley View. I stayed on top of the vaccine news as closely as I could. The day the Pfizer vaccine had been approved for emergency use in children ages 5-11, I immediately called our pediatrician’s office to see how I could make an appointment. I was told that Wellspan would be making appointments available through their patient portal as well as through a telephone hotline on a specific date. I called as soon as the hotline opened, because initially there were no appointments available in the portal. I was on hold, disconnected, and on hold again for a long time, but was able to secure an appointment for the following Tuesday. I shared the hotline information on Facebook, as well as the Pennsylvania State website link that lists different sites where the vaccine would be available. Within a couple of hours, I saw parents commenting that they tried calling and the appointments were completely booked. Some secured appointments for late December, and some were left with nothing at all except the hope that more doses would be sent to our local medical centers.

    When I took my daughter for her first dose, the nurse told me that within about one hour of opening appointments across all Wellspan pediatric sites, they were completely booked. She said that our particular office only received 120 doses.

    When you, the school board, voted to update the Health and Safety Plan to allow parents who wished to have their children fully vaccinated do so, I believe everyone was under the assumption that enough doses of the vaccine would be immediately available. Since this is not the case, I ask that you please extend the mask policy until the spring, when it can be re-evaluated. Health experts are expecting a high increase in Covid cases this winter, and our local community is still not at a safe level to provide any kind of herd immunity. I urge you to make a motion to protect our students, staff, and community. Please require masks in all buildings.

    I would personally like to see even more layered protections in the schools. I don’t feel what is being done now is enough. Did you know that when students remove their masks to eat lunch, they are packed in, sitting elbow to elbow? They are not staggered or distanced at all! What other layered protections are in place? When I asked the principal about using part of the gym at Valley View for lunch – maybe packers- he said they had done that last year, but not this year. Why? The numbers don’t lie. There are many cases. My daughter has now received TWO separate CLOSE CONTACT notifications in the past two weeks! More needs to be added to the health and safety plan to prevent transmission. Desks should not be grouped with students facing each other and they should absolutely be distanced at lunch time. Please take this under consideration. I know that the measures are not working, because my first grader came home with a virus. She was sick with a fever over 103 degrees. She was tested and, luckily, it was not Covid. However, our four year old daughter then caught what her sister brought home and developed even more severe symptoms and complications. Her fever was over 104 degrees and she ended up developing pneumonia. It was a very scary and difficult time for our family. We mask everywhere and we do not take our children out in public places. If this virus was able to pass so easily from school to home, so can Covid. Please, please take additional measures to keep our children safe. I am grateful for your service to our YSSD community and trust that you will continue to make appropriate decisions concerning this ever changing pandemic.

    Thank you,
    Jacquelyn Desai



  3. Cortney Hendrickson on November 22, 2021 at 11:48 am

    I’m Cortney Hendrickson. I am at 1585 Wyndham Dr.

    Mr. Posenau, I wanted to first start by specifically thanking Joel Sears and Scott Krauser for taking time to answer my questions in a recent email, regarding concerns on behalf of many parents. As I explained in my email many parents were eager to see YS as district change their policy to optional masking for ALL as of 12/4/2021 (more specifically 12/6/21 due to the 4th falling on the weekend). However, my email was largely dismissed by most of you. One has to wonder, if I was speaking on behalf of parents who are proponents of forced/mandatory masking would I have had the respect of a reply by you ?

    I wish I could submit a comment tonight that thanked all of you for your transparency and willingness to work with your community. I truly do. The truth is though that some of you even ran your recent school board campaign on “transparency” and yet, I must ask, what is transparent about NOT replying to a concerned parent and tax paying resident ? Please remember my husband and I had two school age children at YS schools until YS went with hybrid learning plans and mandatory masking. How exactly do you see dismissing direct questions as being transparent and people we can “trust”?

    It’s deeply concerning to me and my husband, who have chosen to bring our girls home and to education them at home while all of this gets figured out. However, it’s also troubling to many parents who have tried to hang in there with YS for a variety of reasons. I like to believe that transparency is something that we all can agree on, regardless of where we land on mandatory masking verses optional masking.

    The continued lack of transparency, on top of the new policy regarding public comment during school board meetings is a BIG issue! Yes, I and many parents asked for a detailed policy to be voted on and put in place after you decided to deny my public comment and opted to not read it when it was still submitted 10 minutes prior to the start of a 7pm meeting. There was no policy saying that was not allowed. Never did we expect you would make a restrictive policy. I for one, sincerely thought Mr Posenau that when you say at the close of every meeting that you appreciate hearing from the YS community that you meant it. Many feel this new policy says otherwise. The concern is that this board decided to no longer read public comment out loud for those who can’t be in person. Also, it says it won’t be shown on the screen unless a person has a disability for either of these scenarios. Why is that ? Why does your policy state that you would only read aloud or post on a screen if a person has a disability that prevents them from being in person ? Perhaps, it’s a work commitment, a sick child or individual illness, or even a personal belief about masking that warrants why a person can’t be in person but still wishes for their comment to be read aloud. People still desire and deserve to be HEARD and part of the conversation. If you are going to create a policy that denies public comments from being read aloud after all that people have been through these last 20 months I am deeply concerned. I also respectfully ask if you all perhaps are the ones with a new disability ? If you can’t read out loud do you perhaps need a 504 plan of your own ? I say this respectfully, but to point out the absurdity of it all.

    Also, did this newly created public comment policy not need discussion by the members of the board ? Did it not need voted on for approval ? In the name of transparency can one of you please bring this to the discussion tonight and provide clear answers for our community ?

    Lastly, many of you might have wondered what’s with all the emails ? What’s the big deal with masking remaining mandatory for the buildings with 5-11 year olds until 12/11/2021 while the high school will be optional masking on the day the “Stay” is lifted on 12/04/2021. I will tell you what’s wrong, it’s that it is wrong !! If the Secretary of Health and Governor Wolf were put in check and the Commonwealth Courts sided with the parents that the Secretary didn’t have the authority under The Disease Prevention and Control Law, why does YS still believe it has the authority to go one more day beyond when the “Stay” is lifted on the Secretary’s mandatory masking order ? There is NO state of emergency in PA and the order was deemed “illegal” from start to finish and is VOID so why would YS continue one second longer than when the “Stay” is lifted ? Your health and safety plan for mandatory masking also stood on shaky legal ground to begin with. You were advised the even the most recent order was legal and now we know that was false. Districts were following an illegal order!!! So, why do you continue to believe that your legal counsel is correct that you have the “bros authority” to mask as you see fit? Many other legal counsel disagree and say you have no liability protection if you go beyond 12/04/21 and you do not have authority to mask under the public school code due to also no state of emergency. To be clear, it’s not about “it’s only 7 more days, what’s the big deal ?” The big deal is that it already went ALL of this time since early September I believe it was…. All of those days following an ILLEGAL order! It shouldn’t go one second longer for all grades/ages/buildings.

    There are families who will undoubtedly mask their children after you go fully optional and I respect that choice. I also, took the time to write this because of the children who have suffered by being forced to mask all of this time. This has changed the way they learned, the way they interacted with teachers, peers etc… It also did exacerbate breathing difficulties and anxiety and mental health challenges to name a few and yet those real health concerns fell on deaf ears. Exemptions were denied without a 504 plan. It was hoop after hoop for parents who were telling you their children were really struggling and some even suffering. I urge you to consider reversing this decision and go completely optional on 12/4/2021 for ALL. Make a motion tonight and show your community that you really do care about the law and that you realize you are not above it !

    Additionally, please make a motion tonight to reconsider the restrictive public comment policy, so people can be literally heard and so people can trust that when you say, Mr Posenau that you appreciate how many people are engaging and showing up (both in person and virtually ) that we believe you. Reading out loud public comment is such a simple request, to literally allow people’s voices to be heard when they can’t physically be present. Why do we need a qualifying disability to have you simply read the comment on our behalf ? I ask that one or two of you bring this to the floor tonight for an honest and important discussion and a vote . If you would rather not read public comments out loud I respectfully ask you to be honest about why you don’t ? If you don’t have a reading disability that prevents you from reading it , should this even be an option to not read it IF a community member requests it and profanity is not being used? What is it really that is behind this restrictive new policy ?

    In closing, I wanted to remind you, me and our community that parents questioned the legality of the Secretary of Health’s masking order and they won !!! The order was in fact illegal. Parents took action and ultimately created change. Let this be something we all learn from ! It is my sincere hope that YS will act lawfully and begin to lead with real boldness and true transparency that benefits us all. I firmly believe if one or two of you step up tonight we can course correct and make masking optional for all as of 12/4/21. What’s 7 days sooner to all of you ?! Why not ? Do it because it’s the right and lawful thing to do. Also, please step up and discuss and make a motion to allow public comments to once again be read aloud when a person can’t be present.

    Finally, please remember who you took an oath to serve when you were elected to the position you hold. I hope you will strongly consider this and allow it to guide your decisions tonight.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.