East Allegheny School District board meeting, Sep 8, 2026
59 min
This board doesn’t post agenda times. Click a board member to jump to where they first speak; we list only members whose voice our check named. Video length 59 min.
- Who spoke · first speaks at
What happened
What happened at this meeting
East Allegheny board discusses classroom cell phone use, staff suggests ad hoc committee 47:35
- Robert Trout said kindergarten teachers reported being overwhelmed by larger class sizes, and staff members described screening and intervention plans under the MTSS process. 9:39
- A staff member said $27,000 of this year's $50,000 CSI allocation would go to IXL, and Erik Meredith said this would expand it down to 3 to 6. 32:07
- Board members also asked about staff conference requests, and Robert Trout said many of the requests did not list dates. 44:00
- Board member Erik Meredith raised classroom cell phone use after seeing a posted photo, and a staff member recommended no sweeping action that night and suggested an ad hoc committee. 47:35
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Item by item (9)
- Photographer bids and senior banners 0:00
- Erik Meredith asked whether senior banners could be standardized so every sport and activity used the same template. 0:08
- A staff member said sponsorship money from recent sponsorship agreements could support that. 0:30
- One board member said that if the district is not paying for the banners, the board does not have any say in the matter. 1:37
- Facility usage policy and concession stand 2:36
- A staff member asked whether the review of the facility usage policy stemmed from a specific request. 2:36
- Robert Trout said soccer is not participating in the concession stand after a request for storage space near the field house was denied. 3:42
- A staff member said storage would have come at significant cost and offered to take the space request back to Buildings and Grounds. 4:25
- Vendor process for school events 6:26
- Kindergarten intervention and MTSS process 9:29
- Robert Trout said teachers reported being overwhelmed with larger class sizes and a lack of pulling students out for help in kindergarten. 9:39
- A staff member said the goal is not to get kids out of the classroom and that students are being assessed. 10:40
- Another staff member said screening in math and ELA is under way and Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions would begin by the end of the month. 16:06
- Charter school student extracurricular participation 19:40
- A staff member said Policy 140 allows charter school students to join district extracurricular activities their charter school does not offer. 19:40
- The staff member said charter schools must pay an extracurricular fee and the district is communicating with charter schools about payments. 20:55
- A staff member said administrative regulation 140.1 says shall, which the district interprets as will, while the general policy says may. 22:30
- Administrative reports and outside visits 23:21
- The superintendent said a U.S. congresswoman visited the district and toured both buildings, including facilities issues with ceilings and water. 23:36
- The superintendent said the district tried for a $5 million state grant but could not front the $2.5 million local portion. 24:53
- The superintendent asked for the board's support to send a busload of students to an AI event at Bakery Square on September 17th or September 18th. 28:48
- Federal program funding and IXL 29:54
- Erik Meredith asked about motions for IXL, the Casita program and the Portrait Navigator pilot, and a staff member said they are budgeted with federal funds. 30:36
- A staff member said $27,000 of the $50,000 CSI allocation goes to IXL, with $12,000 for intervention and $10,000 for attendance efforts. 32:15
- Erik Meredith asked to see lessons passed data in January, and a staff member said the data would be ready for the January board meeting. 36:10
- Staff conference requests 39:05
- A speaker said several staff members were listed for conferences multiple times and called it a lot of time away. 39:23
- A staff member said MTSS facilitators would be out of the building only for the AIU Coaches Network, and another staff member said items 10 and 11 were duplicates. 41:04
- Robert Trout said many requests lacked dates and that October 23rd is a day off of school, and a staff member said the requests would be updated for next week. 44:00
- Cell phone policy 47:11
- Erik Meredith said a posted classroom photo showed no less than 3 cell phones on desks and asked whether that was indicative of classrooms. 47:35
- A staff member said 7th and 8th graders use phones only at breakfast and lunch, 9th graders store them and teachers in grades 10 to 12 have more discretion. 51:02
- A staff member recommended further conversation and monitoring rather than sweeping action, and one board member said the issue could be discussed rather than solved that night. 57:20
Written by software from the meeting's transcript and checked sentence by sentence against it.
What was said
What board members said, in order
I know when we had discussed cutting our teachers down by one in each age group, it was so we could have one teacher in reserve to pull kids out, to still leave it at the same number of kids in the class they're teaching. And at least in kindergarten, that does not seem to be the case right now.Robert Trout · Board member9:39
Other meetings
Other meetings of this board
Video: posted by the district as “September 8, 2026 School Board agenda meeting”