Watch Board Meetings Online Now

I asked the East Penn school board and district administration last August to begin taping meetings and making them available to the public online (you can read my rationale and formal motion here). And I’m pleased to report that the district is now doing so!

You can access last night’s board meeting– the first of the year– as well as all future meeting recordings at the EPSD board’s dedicated YouTube channel. YouTube makes it easy to access the recordings from any device, and also allows you to subscribe and get automatic email alerts when new recordings are available.

And because I know we’re all busy and don’t necessarily have the time or inkling to watch the full recording, here is my guide to the main topics of discussion at our January 14th meeting. The links below will bring you immediately to the appropriate segments of the meeting.

Viewers Guide to January 14, 2019 Board Meeting

  • District Branding: A presentation on the need for the district to standardize and unify the district logo and colors in order to better communicate the its educational mission. Watch here.
  • Proposed Preliminary Budget: A broad overview of the proposed preliminary budget for the 2019-2020 school year. The current proposal calls for the district to keep taxes below the current rate of inflation (as measured by something called the adjusted Act 1 Index). Watch here.
  • Flood Restoration: An update on the repairs to Emmaus High School after last fall’s flooding. The building is now almost 100% back to normal operations. Watch here.
  • Safe2Say Safety Hotline: Information on a safety system that just went live on Monday to help students, school staff, and community members report school safety concerns of all kinds in a way that they can be properly addressed. Watch here.
  • School Calendar Adjustments: The district has had to change three half-days to full days for students and staff at the high school in order to comply with state requirements for the minimum number of instructional hours in a school year (this partially restores hours lost because of the flood). Watch here.
  • Legislative Update: Board member Chuck Ballard updates the public on the goings-on in Harrisburg that impact our schools. Watch here.
  • Pedestrian Safety: A board discussion of what the district might do to improve the safety of students walking to and from school, in the aftermath of a student being hit by a car earlier this month. Watch here.

2 thoughts on “Watch Board Meetings Online Now”

  1. Hi there! I’m on lunch lady at Lower Macungie Middle school and I was just wondering how do I go about bringing up the topic of more pay for the new lunch ladies. We cannot keep staff and we are running 2 to 3 short everyday! So are all the other schools. It’s come to the point we are shutting down stations and I’m tired of hearing kids complaining and doing 2 jobs! 10.00 an hour does not cut it for the amount of work they do!! Please help as it is so bad and we are tired…. I would ask the school board to please re-open negotiations just for this one topic. Please show that we are not at the bottom of the barrel and you do care about us! Thank you and any information would be helpful!

    Reply
  2. Thank you for raising this important issue, Sonia. I know that the lunch staff work extremely hard at all our schools. It isn’t an easy job! I also don’t think the school board as a whole is aware that our cafeterias are shutting down stations because of lack of staff, so your note is helpful in educating us about that problem. I agree with you that it is tough to keep good people with the current pay levels. Re-opening negotiations on contracts can be complicated and tough for a lot of reasons, but I do hope something can be done to improve things for our dedicated lunch staff. Thanks again.

    Reply

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