The Pennridge School Board held its first committee meeting for the 2024-25 school year on Monday that included four committees: Activities, Finance, Facilities, and Policy.
Comments from the public at the beginning of the meeting centered around Policy 903, which was being presented for a second read. An assortment of questions being asked centered on how the First Amendment was being applied by the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA) and the policy being used by the Pennsbury School District.
Pennsbury revised its policy after being sued by four members of the community for violation of their First Amendment rights.
The Activities Committee was next on the agenda and provided information about several upcoming trips including Disney World for the Class of 2025 and a trip to Quebec City in Canada.
Mr. Timothy Keddie & Mr. Scott Hegen, who work in the district, were seeking a resolution in support of active legislation that would establish a mechanism for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), to create separate playoffs for boundary (public) and non-boundary (private) schools in post-season games.
PA HB-1983 does exactly that. A copy of such a resolution on the matter was provided by Northern Lebanon School District and Keddie and Hegen are seeking a similar resolution from the Pennridge board.
The board will take all of the recommendations for school trips and the drafting of a resolution under consideration for an upcoming vote at an action meeting.
Next up was the Finance Committee.
Greg Landis, on behalf of Renew Bible Church, requested the board consider creating a connecting “reunification space.” The project would include a path for people and cars between the church and the school’s parking lot. The proposal would require Pennridge to pay half of the $180,00 proposed fee to create the access.
The district would also be required to obtain a permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as the pedestrian walkway cuts through a wooded area.
Currently the district allows the church to use the district support center parking lot for overflow from the church on Sundays.
The church points out that the church has always been a safe haven for students.
The board will take the matter under consideration.
The Finance Committee presented an array of contracts including: Bucks County Intermediate Unit, New Hope Academy, The Camphill School, The Springtime School, Bayada Home Health Care, Inc., Settlement Agreement for student identified as 2025-4, Settlement Agreement for student identified as 2025-5, Musical Theatre International, Second Amendment to Schools Insurance fund for language clarification to long term disability insurance, Jostens Yearbook Agreements, Class Entertainment, The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc., JH Productions/AVL Services, Epic Tours, The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc., Sponsor-to-Sponsor Agreement between Buxmont Academy and Pennridge School District Nutritional Services Department.
Approval for student activity accounts, including the closure of the High School Class of 2024 account, was also requested.
Copies of most contracts are available on BoardDocs for review.
The board will review and vote on the requests at an upcoming action meeting.
At this point, half the meeting had transpired with the other half devoted to the Policies Committee.
Co-Chair Leah Foster-Rash opened the meeting by asking the board if anyone might have thought about which policies they believe should be addressed. Ron Wurz, board president, suggested Policy 321, Advocacy activities be reviewed.
Adopted by the former board on September 27, 2022, Policy 321 was responsible for removing all sorts of materials from the classroom that had any affiliation outside groups or associations outside of the school district.
“I think it was put in place that hampered all our teachers when there may have been one or two that were abusing the privilege,” Wurz said. “I’d rather not create a rule that handicaps all of our teachers, when 99% of them are doing a successful [job].”
“The intention is that we’re talking about it publicly, getting the initial input around, what are we thinking, why are we doing this, where everyone can hear it,” Foster-Rash said regarding the review of policies.
Policy 903, Public Comment, was up for a second read.
“Some work that has been done since the first read is based on some community feedback on concerns of legality of certain sections,” Foster-Rash said. “We did get solicitor input and made a few updates to some of the wording.”
“When we’ve been discussing this, we understand that Pennsylvania has their policy also, but PSBA did consider Pennsbury’s policy when they updated this, and again, our solicitor has gone through it.”
Community concerns that the Policy will not be applied fairly was reviewed and the board said some of the language that is there will probably never be used but they wanted to include it for emergency situations.
Specific words, such as “disparage,” and “group affiliation,” were discussed to determine if they were appropriate or needed, however the overall consensus of the board was to make sure the public had an opportunity to provide unfettered comments.
Revisions to the policy will be made, including seeking input from the solicitor, before the policy is presented at a future committee meeting.For an in-depth look at proposed changes to Policy 109 regarding library and classroom resources, which had been re-written and abused by the previous Republican board majority to shadow ban books, read: As School Year Starts, Pennridge School District Still Needs to Revise Shadow Banning Book Policy
