After defeating a motion from school director Carol Allen to postpone a budget vote until later in the month because of uncertainty over the state budget for education, the East Penn School Board members passed the final district budget for 2017-2018 at the June 12 school board meeting.

President Alan Earnshaw, vice president Ken Bacher, Charles H. Ballard, Paul Champagne, Ziad Munson and Rev. Waldemar Vinovskis all voted “aye.” Allen and Chris Donatelli both voted “nay.” Vacationing school director Rebecca Heid sent in a letter voicing her support of the final budget package.

School Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder and business administrator Robert Saul were praised by the directors for their willingness to work with them and for their efforts to keep the tax increase as low as possible without sacrificing the district’s educational needs. Saul was able to comply with the board’s request from the previous meeting to reduce the tax increase from 2.90 percent down to 2.19 percent.

The approved general fund budget for the upcoming school year includes a total balance of $148,587,179. Millage is set at 18.0850 with a tax increase of 2.19 percent.

Schilder and Earnshaw publicly recognized the accomplishments of Emmaus High School students at the International American Computer Science League All-Star Contest. Scoring first place were Senior-S Team members Ian Bowler, Bradley Klemick, Ben Luo, Jie Luo and Nathan Walls.

EHS Intermediate-S Team, with Frankie Hughes, Mitch Machulsky, Phoenix Neas, Arti Schmidt and Bowen Yao took seventh place in the competition.

Assistant superintendent Kristen Campbell led a presentation of “Full Day Kindergarten: Theory to Practice.” Taking turns at the microphone were the rest of her committee, including kindergarten teachers Stacy Confer-Resch, Karen Gennaro and Mary Anne Stella, plus academic support coordinator Dr. Tricia Gutman and Michele James, supervisor of elementary level curriculum. Using PowerPoint, the team members made an impassioned case to the board for expanding kindergarten from a half-day program to full-day as a follow-up to their January 2017 board presentation.

Gutman informed the board “27 percent of East Penn School District students end third grade not reading proficiently,” according to 2016 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment data, adding “Students not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely than proficient readers to drop out of high school.” She said full- day kindergarten could significantly remedy this.

Gennaro, a kindergarten teacher at Lincoln Elementary School, illustrated her experience with working with five-year-olds for a full day of learning with a color wheel showing where literacy, social studies, social/emotional growth, art, technology, math, engineering, science, music, movement and social skills were all tied together through “purposeful play.” Gennaro said studies concluded “strength based student engagement supports academic growth.” She also played a video of one of her students decomposing a number using cups and small stones as a demonstration of this idea.

The board requested the full-day kindergarten team and Schilder have estimated costs for transitioning to fullday kindergarten earlier than the first board meeting for October.

The East Penn School Board welcomed Katherine Kieres, the newly appointed principal of Emmaus High School who begins her tenure in the district July 31. Also greeted by the board were Jacqueline Vogel, the new principal of Shoemaker Elementary School and Michael Ubbens, the new supervisor of middle level special education. Both begin Aug. 14.

The board accepted EHS head boys lacrosse coach Scott Ketcham’s resignation and the retirement request of EHS head softball coach John Eyer for the end of the 2017 season. Shoemaker instructional assistant Arlete Pugliese and Alburtis Elementary School instructional assistant Eugenia Thompson retire in June.

The school board listened to several Emmaus High School sports booster club members express concerns about what the boosters consider outdated sports facilities that are too small for a school the size of EHS. Addressing the school directors were Tom Hexamer, Lee Miller, Craig T. Scott, Christopher DeJohn, Brent Reed and Julie Unger. Hexamer said the consensus of the various sports booster clubs, which have been meeting for the past seven months, was that “Our facilities don’t meet the needs of Emmaus High School, a school the size of Emmaus High School.”

The group is working on a three month comparison study of 18 other area school athletic facilities and requested the board place the boosters club’s report on the agenda for a future meeting.

Allen made a motion to discuss joining the Bangor School Board in demanding an investigation into the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System. Ballard and Bacher said there is enough documentation available that publicly spells out exactly why the legislature failed to fully fund it. Allen’s motion to get it on the board’s agenda failed with two for and six against.

Ballard reported the state government just rushed through legislation for a “pension reform bill,” before anyone could even read it and without public discussion. The bill also does not address the pension fund’s unfunded liability, according to Ballard. The state has yet to approve a budget.

The school board tackled another set of school district property policies from operations policies 800-811. There was no executive session June 12.

The East Penn Board of School Directors meet 7:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Monday of each month. The next meeting is scheduled for June 26 in the board room of the administration building.