School Board Meeting Highlights
6-27-17
Agenda:
For a complete agenda, please visit us at:http://www.boarddocs.com/pa/parkland/Board.nsf/Public
All motions were approved.
Student and Staff Recognition
1. PHS Principal Jim Moniz called forth Christopher Gahman (Science Teacher and Science Fair Advisor) and the PHS STEM Competition winners: Nur Bookwala, Tilman Guenther, Sumedha Kanthamneni, Vikram Pandian, and Sahas Veera.
2. Jim Moniz then recognized PHS Delaware Valley Science Fair Winners Vidhyasai Annem, Punya Bhasin, Priyanka Hanumaihgari, Aryaman Khandelwal, Aditi Pallod, Maya Parekh, Farid Shahid, and Neela Talwar.
He also noted that Farid Shahid won a silver medal which qualified him for the ISEF International Competition, held in Los Angeles, where he won a third place special award from the Arconic Foundation and a $1,000 cash prize.
3. Jim Moniz recognized the PHS PJAS Perfect Score Award winners: Minahil Chaudhry, Priyanka Hanumaihgari, Aryaman Khandelwal, Maya Parekh, Maya Paul, Alex Son and Sriyaa Suresh.
4. Next, Rich Sniscak introduced OMS Principal Todd Gombos to introduce Dianne Caspersen (Science Teacher and Science Fair Advisor) and OMS Delaware Valley Science Fair Winners Adrian Guenther, Lily Mayer, Tanya Mehta and Sonia Sandhu.
5. Todd Gombos recognized OMS Perfect Score Award winners: Matthew Barraco, Eric Colangelo, Julianne Dee, and Prathysha Kothare.
6. Next, Rich Sniscak introduced SMS Principal Michelle Minotti to recognize Daniel Christman (Science Teacher and Science Fair Advisor) and SMS Delaware Valley Science Fair Winners Udit Garg and Rahul Inaganti.
7. Michelle Minotti continued to recognize SMS PJAS Perfect Score Award winners: Taran Anantasagar, Hope Broadhurst, Vedavyas Jampanaboyana, Vaishnavi Joshi, Aditi Maheshwari, Ee-Ning Ooi and Ronak Singh.
8. Michelle Minotti then introduced the SMS Science Olympiad team and commend them for winning 9th Place at Nationals this year: Taran Anantasagar, Vidya Annem, Pranav Balabhadra, Kriti Baru, Varsha Borkar, Purva Gupta, Rahul Inaganti, Vedavyas Jampanaboyana, Vani Kamra, Teja Kanthamneni, Ee-Ning Ooi, Gokul Perugu, Rishika Rohatgi, Meghna Sequeira, Ronak Singh, Devina Tavathia, and Dharshan Tharumia. Coaches are Dr. Sam and Zubeda Ghosh.
9. Michelle Minotti recognized Jen Karetsky, 7th grade teacher, and Kate Kocsis, 8th grade teacher, for working with students in the Challenge 24 Math Competition. She recognized Shlok Dholakia, who won silver and gold state medals in the Challenge 24 Math Competition.
Business Meeting
The School Board approved the 2017-2018 General Fund Budget unanimously with a vote of 8-0. The budget contains a 1.89% tax increase. View the Budget overview here. PDE official budget document can be viewed here. Board President David M. Kennedy expressed appreciation for all that Mr. Vignone and the team did to put the budget document and annual presentations together. The press release can be viewed here.
Roundtable
Foundation Update
This month, the Foundation awarded funding to 47 grant applicants for a total of $104,381 for the upcoming school year. Click here to view a complete list of the grants.
Roundtable
Rich stated that someone caused extensive damage to the athletic practice fields at PHS on Friday night when they drove their car on the wet fields which left deep tracks on the fields. He urged anyone who had information about the incident to contact David Keppel, Director of School Services at 610-351-5503.
The School Board enjoyed the student recognition ceremony, highlighting that it was nice to see so many achievements, especially as the Board was approving next year's budget. They thanked the Administration for putting together a responsible budget and the Administration thanked the Board for their oversight and care in asking many questions throughout the budget process and ultimately unanimous approval of the budget.
Rich stated that the budget process is truly a collaborative effort and thanked everyone for their hard work and for keeping the students, staff, and community at heart in balancing the budget.
Everyone wished each other an enjoyable summer.