| NPSD Board Members |
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President
Tina Stoll
Vice President
Christian D. Fusco
Members
Edward Diasio
Elisha K. Gee
Jonathan M. Kassa
Timothy MacBain
Jenna A. Ott
Theresa Prykowski
Juliane Ramić
The NPSD Board of School Directors welcomes questions and comments from the community. To that end, community members may email the entire school board at
_npschoolboard@npenn.org.
If you would like to contact a specific board member via email or phone, please
click here for a list of contact information.
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NPSD School Calendars Approved for 2019-2020 School Year
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| Attending Action and Work Session Meetings |
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The NPSD Board of School Directors Action Meetings are held on the third Thursday of every month. These meetings give students, parents and community members an opportunity to address the board and speak on any topic for five minutes. The Work Session, another monthly meeting is held one week preceding the Action Meeting on Tuesday. Here, attendees are also given five minutes to express their views, but are limited to speak on the topics of the evening's agenda.
Both the Action Meeting and the Work Session meeting begin at 7:30 pm and are held in the NPSD Educational Services Center (ESC) located at 401 E. Hancock St., Lansdale, PA 19446. However, if you are unable to attend in person, intimidated by the televised setting or by the requirements, community members should feel free to call or email the members of the board, either individually or as a whole. For a list of contact information, click here. The televised board meetings are available for private viewing on local Comcast Cable Channel 28
and Verizon Cable Channel 29 as well as www.youtube.com/nptv within several days of the original meeting.
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| Meetings in Review |
NPSD Board of School Directors Meeting
To view agenda attachments and minutes from past meetings, please click here.
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| Important Weather Related Information from NPSD Regarding Delayed Openings |
As part of ongoing efforts to keep our students and staff safe on winter mornings, the North Penn School District has added a three-hour delay option to our established one-hour and two-hour late arrivals due to inclement weather.
Please
click here to view late arrival times and details.
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| Full-Day Kindergarten Registration for 2019-2020 School Year |
Students must be 5 years old on or before September 1, 2019 to enter Kindergarten for the 2019-2020 school year. Our school policy does not allow exceptions to this date.
Beginning the 2019-2020 school year, NPSD will be implementing FDK in all of its 13 elementary schools. For more information about FDK at North Penn,
click here.
Centralized kindergarten registration for the 2019-2020 school year will begin the week of February 25, 2019. Appointments fill up fast, so please do not wait. Click the link below to learn more and schedule your appointment today!
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Upcoming Meetings
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January 22, 6:00 pm, ESC
Safe Schools Committee Meeting
January 22, 6:30 pm, ESC
ECP Committee Meeting
January 28, 6:00 pm, ESC
Support Services Committee Meeting
February 4, 6:00 pm, ESC
Special Finance Committee Meeting
February 12, 6:00 pm, ESC
Finance Committee Meeting
February 12, 7:30 pm, ESC
Worksession Meeting
February 21, 7:30 pm, ESC
Action Meeting
To access the list of
meeting dates scheduled for 2019, please click here.
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Dear Community,
On behalf of the North Penn School District (NPSD) Board of School Directors, I'd like to wish everyone a happy new year!
Seven of us have just completed our first full year as North Penn School Board (NPSB) Directors. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience getting to know our administrators, teachers and staff throughout the district and learning the business of NPSD. We're so fortunate to have such dedicated professionals working to make sure NPSD is the best it can be for our students and has truly been an honor to be part of it.
My fellow school board director, Tim MacBain, gave an excellent recap of 2018 in the December newsletter, so I will focus on what our plans are for 2019.
First up, we will be working on the 2019-2020 budget. For those that might be interested in attending, we have changed our monthly finance meetings from the last Monday of every month to the second Tuesday every month. The purpose of this is twofold. First, it enables us to hold the meeting on the same night as our worksession meetings (click here for a list of new meeting dates). Second, it will also allow us to televise the meeting, which helps us in reaching our goal of increasing transparency with the community. A small sample of some of the topics that will be coming before the finance committee are the financing of upcoming construction projects, i.e. Knapp Elementary school renovation; the possibility of expanding the Property Tax Rebate Program that we started last year for our most vulnerable senior citizens; and continuing our grant application process for new propane buses that will help replace our aging fleet of diesel-fueled buses. I can't promise that it will be exciting television but it will certainly be informational, so I hope you will consider tuning in from time to time.
Our Educational/Community/Policy (ECP) Committee is continuing the process of implementing Full-Day Kindergarten (FDK) for the upcoming 2019-2020 school year. At their next meeting they will be reviewing the social and emotional programing for FDK and give an overview of the Positive Behavior Intervention supports.
The Safe Schools Committee will be exploring safe school needs and discussing budget development for the upcoming year. There will also be information regarding the state's new PA Safe2Say Something Anonymous reporting system. The Safe2Say Something program is the result of a partnership between the PA State Attorney General's office and Sandy Hook Promise. It will allow tips regarding unsafe or harmful behaviors to be submitted via an app, online or a dedicated hotline.
Our Support Services Committee will be focusing on a comprehensive, multi-year plan to address our infrastructure needs. Board members recently took a tour of North Penn High School (NPHS) with our Director of Facilities and Operations, Scott Kennedy, leading the way. We were able to see firsthand the many updates the 48-year-old facility desperately needs to its electrical, mechanical and HVAC systems. We've also received a great deal of feedback from our facilities community forum that was held this past November. The modulars located at many school buildings throughout the district are a concern as is the lack of air conditioning at the middle schools.
This month, we also shared information about the proposal to change the grade structure in NPSD to elementary schools being grades kindergarten through five, middle schools grades six through eight, and the ninth grade being moved to the high school with an addition being built on during a renovation. This plan could have the potential to solve quite a few of our infrastructure needs. The ninth graders would have access to high school counselors in planning for their post high school careers, courses that are not offered at the middle school level, easier access to North Montco Technical Career Center (NMTCC) and its many programs, as well as extracurricular activities that they currently have to take a bus to the high school to participate in. Additionally, many of the modular units around the district could be removed. There are many moving pieces to this "Rubik's Cube" and we are extremely impressed with our administrations' willingness to think outside the box in coming up with potential solutions for our infrastructure needs.
As you can see, there are a lot of exciting projects going on in 2019 and we are looking forward to keeping you informed as these projects progress.
Sincerely,
Tina Stoll
President, NPSD Board of Schools
Term Expiration: 2021
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Please note that school board committees did not meet during the month of December, so there are no committee reports for this month's issue of the Bulletin Board E-Newsletter.
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At the recent action meeting, the NPSD Board of School Directors recognized students in the district for their outstanding achievements by awarding them proclamations of excellence.
Introduced by director and NPHS teacher Ted Heller, the North Penn Marching Knights were honored for taking first place at the US Bands PA State Championships at West Chester University and for winning Caption Awards for Best Music and Best Color Guard.
Congratulations to these remarkable students and their advisors on these outstanding achievements!
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A quality public education is a key that can open doors of opportunity for many students. Providing that education takes a team of committed people from teachers, administrators, support staff, parents, and, very importantly school board members. The nine members of the North Penn School Board are an important part of this team, making informed decisions that direct the course of our public schools.
Every January, we take time to celebrate and recognize the challenging and vital work school board members do on behalf of our students, families and community. School directors volunteer an average of 10 hours each month to board work, which includes adopting policy, voting on budgets, approving curriculum changes and textbooks and reviewing hiring decisions to name a few. They take time to learn about the issues affecting public education and to seek innovative solutions.
As unpaid, locally elected officials, school directors are invested in their communities. They are our neighbors, friends, and local leaders. During this month of recognition, please take a moment and show your gratitude for school directors' time, dedication and effort. The job they do is necessary to ensure our schools remain a pathway to a promising future. We thank them for advocating on behalf of our collective interest, and most importantly, for making the success of our children their priority.
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