- Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks.
- I'm honored to serve as your president this year. I have lots of guests here today, so welcome. Feel
- free to get up and get a dessert or get a second helping while I'm speaking. We're glad all of you are
- here. Please silence your electronic devices. On this day in history, April 7th, 1948,
- The World Health Organization was formed by the United Nations. Michael Shermus would deliver today's
- reflection. About a two-parter. The first is that there is a handout on your table that is
- the Bloomington Rotary Club speaker presentation tips. And if anybody feels the need, they can just
- jot down ideas that they have about what they like when speakers do things, what they don't like when
- speakers do things, and any other suggestions you have at all. I'll collect them afterwards. We're going
- to put it in the roundabout, I hope, and maybe have people who are online also be able to do it just
- to provide information on what we can tell speakers in terms of what people do and don't like. So
- As some of you may know, I direct the Bloomington Monroe County Human Rights Commission for some context.
- So where do you see people caring for each other in our community? That's the question that the Bloomington
- Monroe County Human Rights Commission asked local students in grades K through 6 for.
- our annual arts and essay contest, and over 80 students delivered with thoughtful, creative,
- and compassionate responses. Coming up. Did I pass it? Maybe. There we go.
- I'm going to advance it because it's not, oh, there we go. There's one. All right. OK. Because it is
- not clicking, right? All right, there we go.
- Next slide. Students praised the work of many local organizations. The three winning essays by older
- students focused on Beacon, Habitat for Humanity, and Mother Hubbard's Cupboard. They also highlighted
- service-oriented professions, lots of drawings of doctors and firefighters from younger students. They
- expressed gratitude for friends and family, like in our honorable mention from Thomas, a second grader
- at Grandview. Next slide.
- And sometimes we weren't able to quite sure what they meant, but we're glad to know that McDonald's
- is having such a big impact in Bloomington. Next slide. We really hope that you'll come by and see all
- of the pieces which are on display at City Hall Atrium from now until April 30th. The farmer's market
- is a great opportunity to do so. There you go.
- Thank you, Michael. Randy Saunders will introduce our guests today. Good afternoon. I've got a bunch
- of guests today, so when I read your name, if you'll just stand if you're able or wave at us or something,
- and we'll acknowledge you. First, from my office, Rod Cates with Scouting America is with us. He's been
- here before. He told me not to introduce him, but I did anyway.
- Um, uh, a guest of Dr. Winston's is, uh, Sarah, Sarah morning. Good afternoon. Uh, a guest of Liz Erwin
- is a Gabby Thomas with Duke Energy. Welcome Gabby. Another guest of Dr. Winston's is Gladys Devane.
- Gladys. Hey, glad to have you here today. Uh, a guest of Jim Bright's is, uh, Shane Gibson. Shane, are
- you there in the back? He's Shane. And then, uh, Isabella Fries is a guest of Amy Kindles. Isabella.
- Uh, Elisar Ally is a guest of Art and Danya. Hi. There we go. And then we've got Danya Jabori. Did I
- say that right? Was I close? All right. It's a guest of Art. Omich. Sorry about that. Close. All right.
- All right. I'll get it right next time. All right. And I have a couple of guests of Christopher M.G.
- with us today, Hannah Hutton and
- John Skolak over there on the, over there by the line. So welcome. Glad to have y'all here today. Are
- there any guests online? Hello from Zoom land. I believe that we have a guest who's just entered Frida
- Cruz. Um, and the rest of us are all Rotarians. All right. Well, welcome Frida and thank you everybody.
- Thank you, Randy.
- Also want to mention that we're especially honored that Gladys Devane, our 2022 Rotary Toast winner,
- is here with us today. Birthdays to celebrate. Club members. Tomorrow, Martha Wales. On the 9th,
- Gus Chakalas. On the 11th, Martha Foster, Lexi Walters. On the 12th, John Armstrong. On the 13th,
- Megan Neiss. On the 14th, Sarah Cochran. On the 15th,
- On the 17th, our club secretary Mark Peterson. On the 19th, Whitney Cordova. We have just a couple of
- anniversaries. On the 11th, President-elect Sam Udak, three years with the club. And on the 14th, roundabout
- editor Marilyn Wood, 11 years with the club. Lots of announcements. Not too late to register for the
- Rotary District Conference, May 8th and 9th at the Galt House in Louisville.
- Lots of fun things to do Friday evening, lots of educational and networking opportunities available
- on Saturday. The link will be in the roundabout and it's RotaryAllStars.com. Michelle Cohen is going
- to come up here and talk a little bit about the club service project coming up here in about a week
- and a half. Thank you, Steve. I just wanted to let you know that
- thanks to a grant from the Bloomington Rotary Foundation through the club. The Lake Mineral Water Fund
- got the ability to plant about 33 or so native trees, and we've got signups on all the tables. The date
- is April 18th. That is subject to conditions. Right now, it's a little wet, so we shall see. If you
- cannot make that date, please sign up and just note that, because if we postpone, then I can contact you.
- It's going to be in the Stillwater Marsh area off of State Road 46. And if you sign up, we'll get you
- the details on where to park and those sorts of things. The picture here shows the size of trees. They're
- going to be in about three gallon pots. So they're bigger than a little tiny seedling, but they're not
- so big that you can't manage it. And I would really appreciate it if you can sign up. We're trying to
- get about 20 rotarians, get family, friends, that kind of thing. Thank you.
- Thanks, Michelle. Next quarter, we have plenty of volunteer meeting roles that still need to be filled.
- You should have received an email from Mandy with the sign-up link. You can also find this link in the
- roundabout. Our most immediate need is a Zoom host on April 21st. Sally Gaskell stepped up for today,
- which I appreciate very much. So please see me if you have any interest or go online and sign up on
- Sign Up Genius.
- Community Service Committee will meet immediately after today's meeting. Next Rotary Book Group Gathering
- is on April 15th at 7 p.m. at the home of Judy Schroeder. Please let Judy know if you plan to attend
- so she can plan accordingly. Club Organizational Member My Sister's Closet hosting an evening with Maya
- Angelou Dinner Theater on April 10th and 11th. They've planned an elegant event at the Bloomington Country Club.
- proceeds will benefit the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and the My Sister's Closet Relocation Fund.
- For more information, see club members Sandy Keller or Marcy Hibbard, or go to the My Sister's Closet
- website. You may have noticed I started today's program at 12.02. I plan to continue this in the weeks
- ahead. I'm hoping we have some of our working members that are slipping in right at noon, want to give
- those individuals just a couple more minutes to get their food and sit down.
- So it means that they'll have a little bit more time, and hopefully all of you have more time to socialize,
- and then two minutes less where you'll be hearing from me. Congratulations to Sally Gaskell and Wendell
- St. John, both of whom attended all 13 meetings this past quarter. Election season is in full swing.
- There have already been a number of debates and candidate forums. I saw several club members today with
- stickers indicating that they'd voted already.
- Club organizational member the Monroe County branch of the NAACP is co-hosting a virtual forum for the
- 9th district congressional candidates and that'll be 10 a.m. on April 11th and we'll try to have the
- link in this week's roundabout. Martha Gutman died on March 26. She was the wife of deceased longtime
- club member Bob Gutman. Congratulations to club member Kyla Cox-Deckard
- who is named Executive Director of the IU Center for Rural Engagement, effective April 1st. Well done,
- Tyler. Tyler, can you go ahead and... March is Rotary Maternal and Child Health Month. I'm sorry, this
- is April. Thank you, Judy.
- March was Rotary Water Month. So anyway, we've moved forward, Maternal and Child Health Month.
- Help wanted. We need additional club members to join the membership committee. And specifically, we
- need someone or someones to conduct the induction ceremony for new members coming on board. We need
- some individuals to help review membership applications.
- and we need some help with orientation. So see me or contact our membership chair, Laurie Garrity, if
- you're interested. Okay, next week. Do not come here next week. We will not be here. So it's one of
- the days when the IMU is fully booked with our other events. So our service that day has been replaced
- by our attendance at the Heading Home Regional Housing Summit to be held at the Monroe County Convention
- Center, 830 to 5 p.m. on April 14th. There will be no Zoom option next week. So your specifics. Theme
- of the day is to explore innovative approaches to housing that can be implemented in South Central Indiana.
- There's a link if you want to learn more about the program. I think there are some flyers on your desk
- or desk on your tables where you can learn a little bit more.
- So if you want to join or if you want to register, you can go through a sign-up sheet that Mandy has
- right there. Do you want to hold that up? So when you leave today, just go ahead and sign up. The deadline
- is today. Or Mandy has sent a email with a sign-up genius electronic link. So if you sign up to the
- club, it costs you $15 and includes the program and the lunch. You'll be invoiced for this amount at
- the end of the quarter like you would for any normal meal.
- Once you register with the event, then we'll give a firm count to heading home, so you'll be invoiced
- even if you're unable to attend. You can stay all day, or you can pop in just for lunch or some of the
- sessions. Lunch starts at 11.45. Thanks to one of our members, our club is a housing advocate sponsor
- for the event. And the same club member is paying the difference between the $25 event registration
- and our normal 15-11 lunch cost. And parking should be free behind the convention center. And here's
- an agenda which you probably can't read. Once again, you can stay all day. But if you want to just pop
- in for lunch and maybe join in the panel at the end of lunch or stay for the keynote speaker, I've heard
- from another member that this is a really good keynote speaker. You can go ahead and do that.
- So I'm going to stop here, and Connie, I'm not going to need your help with this. Does anyone have any
- questions about next week? Well, good. Please sign up if you're interested, and we'll look forward to
- seeing as many of you as possible. So here's a reminder that Happy Dollar proceeds in March and April
- will be given to the Bloomington Rotary Foundation. And we do plan to have Happy Dollars today.
- And we have a short rotary video. We're having technical problems again this week, so we may not have
- audio. Isn't quite the same without the audio.
- So the theme was vaccines are important. If children live to be five years old, they have their odds
- of surviving to adulthood are twice as good. So Rotary is very supportive of vaccines. And now we're
- ready for happy dollars. Is anyone happy about anything today? Raise your hand and Connie will find you.
- OK, so I had 20 happy dollars because we just bought an electric vehicle. So I was inspired by Dave
- Meyer. I was thinking about it already. And we had pretty good timing because I probably saved $20 already
- on gas. Michelle, is that a pledge that all your future gas savings will be going to the club?
- Okay. Here's some happy dollars. I'm almost 78 years old. And I saw that men lived to about 79, 80,
- maybe women lived to 83, 84, 85. So I'm thinking if I start transitioning right now, just maybe, that's fine.
- We're happy you're very much alive. That's that's a hard one to follow. So. I have twins who are freshmen,
- one of my alma mater, Michigan, and one here at my place of employment and a place that holds obviously
- a very special place in my heart, Indiana. And so this has been an amazing year with Indiana football.
- And then last night being with my kids at the national championship game. So I am very happy and happy
- to contribute, um, 20 bucks for the rotary foundation. So I go ahead.
- Hi, I'm happy because yesterday I received a handwritten card in the mail from Martha Wales. If you
- don't know, Martha Wales is our club's letter writer when someone has a health issue. So the great thing
- about Martha's letter is that she's also a comedian, and I laughed out loud when I read it on my front
- porch. Martha, thank you, and happy birthday this week.
- Okay, I am happy. I'm happy for Amina and Jawed from the Mohammadi family that I was able to help them
- get a small refund on their taxes. So, I'm happy about that. I'm happy that doing Amina's brother's
- taxes, that Shamsul, or Shams for short, did his
- Helped him with his taxes yesterday. So I'm happy to be done with that But sadly he was not happy with
- the results I've learned through this process I learned a lot about what it means to be a gig worker
- and what it means at tax time the complexity and and how you have to Well normally pay a lot at the
- end. So anyway, there's that We have time for one more
- I like to go. I'm happy for a beginning and also for an end. We have actually officially closed out
- worldwide automotive services, our business, and it is now in fully in Paul's hands. But the new part
- is I'd always wanted more children and I was too old by the time it was time for a third one. But my
- second daughter took care of that and I'm going to have a new daughter in law on the 19th. So I've been
- spending the last two months planning a wedding. So
- Happy dollars for a beginning and an end, and we're kind of happy about both of them. Steve, can we
- get Lori Garrity? She has a quick one. Lori, do you have one quickly? Yeah, 20 happy dollars. Last summer,
- my husband was diagnosed with cancer. He's now officially in remission, and we spent a month in Hawaii
- celebrating our 25th anniversary. Thank you all.
- Liz Irwin will introduce today's speaker. Well, good afternoon, everyone. It is my pleasure. Thank you.
- It is my pleasure to introduce today's speaker, fellow Rotarian, Dr. Markay Winston. This
- This topic is really important to everyone in this room, I know, but it's also very timely right now
- as we are seeing an attack on public education. And I know we have such a gem in this community with
- MCCSC, so I'm sure we will all be very, very happy to hear from Dr. Winston. We also know that supporting
- education is a priority area of focus for Rotary International, and our club has a long tradition of
- support for education here in our community.
- And of course, our club founded Teachers' Warehouse and continues to be very involved with that organization.
- Here in Monroe County, we are fortunate to have MCCSE and the leadership of Superintendent Dr.
- Mark K. Winston. And today we will hear directly from Dr. Winston as she shares her perspective on strong
- schools, strong community, and strong future. Dr. Mark K. Winston was appointed Superintendent of MCCSE
- in January of 2025.
- Dr. Winston is a career educator and has served at the executive level for the past two decades. She
- has a track record of successfully leading and executing large-scale strategic initiatives. Her leadership
- has prioritized two-way communications, strengthened the corporation's financial stability, elevated
- student success, and fostered meaningful connections throughout the community. Through transparent budgeting
- and careful stewardship,
- Dr. Winston is leading MCCSE toward financial balance while protecting educational quality. She has
- increased financial transparency through a new online portal and continues to honor the corporation's
- referendum promises. Under her leadership, referendum funds have expanded student access to high quality
- programs, more than doubled family access to preschool and pre-K, waived AP and CTE course fees,
- and ensured families no longer need to purchase school supplies. She has also strengthened
- MCCSE communications through regular digital updates and accessible community forums. For Dr. Winston,
- achieving financial balance is essential to sustaining the high quality programs, supports and opportunities
- that help every student thrive. Students are at the center of every decision she makes and student excellence
- is the driving force behind each strategic priority.
- strengthening health and safety, accelerating learning for everybody's children, expanding early learning,
- ensuring state-of-the-art facilities, and strengthening fiscal and operational health. Please help me
- welcome MCC SC Superintendent Dr. Markay Winston.
- Oh, I got tired just listening to that. I'm like, wow, I thought I was kind of busy. Thank you, Liz,
- for those very kind remarks and such a generous introduction. Appreciate it. Fellow Rotarians, it's
- a pleasure to be here today. The last time I was here speaking in front of you, I was here in the capacity
- of the interim superintendent.
- As Liz shared, in January of 25, I was appointed as the superintendent. What a difference a few months
- makes, right? So I was about a six month stint as interim, and I guess they thought I was doing all
- right. So they've given me more responsibilities. So today, I really just want to highlight a few things.
- The title of my remarks have to do with strong schools, strong communities, and our strong future.
- Yes, public education is at a crossroads in so many different ways today. The funding for public schools
- is different and much lower than it's ever been in the last couple of decades. Across the country, we
- see declining enrollment in public schools, along with that declining revenue. And we also recognize
- that birth rates across the country are also impacting that. So there are a lot of factors
- that are causing the crossroads that make it a little bit more challenging, but nonetheless satisfying
- to be able to stick to our priorities, which are excellent instruction, excellent outcomes, and excellent
- kinds of experiences for our children. So today I'm going to talk about three key things. Strong student
- opportunities, strong student outcomes, and strong fiscal stewardship. I think it's important that the
- combination of those three things
- strengthens us in having a strong community. So let me start by just talking about the children that
- we serve. It's most important for you to know we serve everyone. We serve every child that walks through
- our doors and our priorities have to do with providing the highest quality of education for everybody's
- children. We serve 10,000 children pre-K through 12th grade.
- Approximately 40% of our students are on free or reduced lunch. We have students that represent over
- 80 countries and speak over 90 different languages in our schools. That's pretty massive if you stopped
- just for five seconds and think about the magnitude. Our English language learner population represents
- a growing percentage, almost 12% of our students as well. Excuse me, 4% of our students as well. And
- so I want you to understand the diversity of
- who we serve, and the various needs that they bring forward. In terms of the services that we provide,
- we have 23 schools. We have five STEM-certified schools. We have a performing arts academy, project-based
- learning school, early college-certified high school, a state-of-the-art career center. We offer three
- IB programs, working on a fourth. Over 300-plus extracurricular offerings.
- and we continue to increase our college and career pathway opportunities. No small feat. We offer everything
- for every child and we want to continue to grow that. In terms of our student experiences, world languages,
- we offer a number of world languages. I've mentioned already our IB International Baccalaureate schools.
- We have expanded our dual language immersion program from Summit Elementary
- through bachelor middle school, and this is our second year offering that program at South High School.
- I know that when our children who had been at Summit matriculated through middle school and into high
- school, some of the conversations were like, well, they're pretty fluent already. What else are we going
- to teach them in high school? That's the strength of the program that we offer at Summit Elementary.
- And outdoor education continues to be a cornerstone of the educational experiences that we offer.
- No one offers the variety and the diversity of extracurricular opportunities. We believe very strongly
- that every child should have an opportunity to be engaged in those things that are of interest to them.
- And we strongly would like to see every child select and have that kind of additional connection to
- the school. STEAM education is very rich within our schools. We have several STEM certified schools.
- We have robotics, maker spaces, project lead the way.
- It would go without saying that we have one of the strongest visual and performing arts programs in
- our schools and we want to continue to grow and expand upon that. I think there are additional opportunities
- there that are of benefit for our students. And I've already mentioned our college and career pathway
- opportunities. The people who support our children are second to none in so many different ways. We
- are the fifth largest employer.
- In our county, in our community, we employ over 1,700 adults in our schools, anywhere from teachers
- to instructional assistants to bus drivers to custodians to librarians. I mean, you name it
- to administrators. We offer so many different areas to nurses, nursing assistants. The number of schools
- that we maintain, 53 schools covering over 500 acres.
- of land throughout our community. Almost 60% of our teachers have a master's or a PhD. Did you hear
- what I said? Almost 60% of our teachers have a master's or a PhD. Our kids in our schools are getting
- the best that education can offer. We serve over a million meals every year. Over a million meals.
- I mean, I don't think there's a single restaurant in town that does that.
- And let me talk about our fleet, our transportation fleet. We have over 166 buses. Probably about 60
- of them are EV vehicles. We've been growing that over the last few years. And our 166 buses travel almost
- 8,000 miles a day. I think that our transportation system mirrors a lot that you see in larger cities.
- So I think it's important for folks to understand
- the magnitude of what we do each and every day. And then, of course, in terms of facilities, over 2.5
- million square feet are maintained each and every day on behalf of our folks. And so all of that certainly
- contributes to us being the fifth largest employer in our community, and we're very proud of that fact.
- The people who support our children, we have
- teachers who win awards. We have teachers who publish books. We had one of our science teachers at South
- High School, Dr. Kirsten Milks. One, she was just named the Woman of the Year a few weeks ago. Two,
- she published a textbook on how to teach science appropriately, and she did that
- you know, in her spare time back in December. And then prior to that, she had several of her students
- win some national awards that I'm gonna talk about momentarily. So that's just one example of one teacher
- significantly contributing to the benefit of our students. We've had our teachers who've also won awards
- in terms of quality teaching and learning. And we also had our Principal of the Year for Region 9.
- Mr. Matt Starks is the principal at Bloomington North High School. And then you also see several of
- our teachers who were acknowledged and celebrated. And so it's so exciting to stand before you and just
- talk about all of the wonderful individuals, the work that is done on behalf of our children. And I
- could probably spend the rest of my 14 minutes speaking exactly about what they do. But let me talk
- about the kinds of outcomes that these adults are generating on behalf of our children. When you think about
- Where we stand in the state, we meet or exceed and generally exceed every other metric across the state
- in terms of being above the state average. And we're not satisfied. 95% graduation rate, we think that's
- excellent, but we're still focusing on that other 5%. What do we need to do differently to make sure
- that they're getting their needs met? 86% post-secondary employment and enrollment. Our iREAD scores
- are amazing.
- I read as a test that's given to third graders, but two years ago they began giving it to second graders.
- And so more than 50% of our second graders passed the third grade reading test in second grade. And
- so we're very, very excited about that. And quite frankly, we want to get that to 100%.
- So that way they don't even have to take the third grade tests in third grade because they will have
- already passed that. And we're making great strides in that regard. And so you continue to see great,
- great outcomes for our children. But let me talk a little bit more about what the benefit of our most
- recent 2023 referendum has done for the children in our community. Our pre-K students, our four year
- olds, preparing for kindergarten. When they enrolled with us in the fall of 2024, approximately 19%
- of them were actually ready for kindergarten.
- By the time they left us, 83% of them were kindergarten ready. That's a significant improvement. And
- as we look at this year, 14% of our pre-K students
- came to us in the fall of 2025, ready for kindergarten. And we'll be assessing them in the next few
- weeks to see how many of them are actually ready. But more importantly than the test scores is the testimony
- that we hear from our teachers in kindergarten. They speak very, very clearly and very eloquently about
- their ability to teach our children because they come with such a degree of readiness. That's not by
- chance. That's because of the commitment of our community to invest in early learning.
- Locally, our student robotics team has gone to the world championships. Now that doesn't happen in every
- community across the state of Indiana or across the country. The world championships in robotics, we
- continue to invest in robotics and STEAM education. And we see students from South, North, the Academy,
- Tri-North Middle School, Bachelor, and Jackson Creek participating.
- additional student success. I was talking about Dr. Milks a moment ago. These are her students, and
- her students won the national Samsung STEM competition. That resulted in $125,000. $125,000. What schools
- do you know that are bringing in that kind of revenue to support science education? And so they came
- up with something that was
- just unbelievable and amazing. Storm Shield, it's a headband that you can wear and it's specifically
- targeted for individuals who might have hearing loss to still be able to participate without worrying
- about water and things like that and sweat impacting their ability to hear. I think the other thing
- that's important that I recently learned is you may not have known, but their prototype Storm Shield
- was featured
- at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Can I get an amen? Amen. Amen. That's what the children in our schools
- are doing every day. These are just a few examples of the accomplishments that are happening. Two students,
- again, I hate to say it, but it's Dr. Milk's class,
- Two students won the Congressional App Challenge for District 9, and this was where they created an
- internship app.
- where students can identify the kinds of experiences that they're having based upon community-based
- internship and apprenticeship opportunities within our community. We're ecstatic about that because
- as we look at the new high school diploma requirements, I see a direct one-to-one correlation between
- the things that we're already working on within our community to give our students more of these kinds
- of opportunities and experiences. I'm not gonna ask for an amen on that one.
- and additional student success. About three or four weeks ago, one of our high school seniors, I'm kind
- of watching my time, one of our high school seniors won the Indiana High School Press Association 2026
- Journalists of the Year Award. Kelton O'Connell has been working with the B Square, and he's been publishing
- articles throughout town, throughout the school system. And I have to tell you, about a year or so ago
- when I first became superintendent,
- He asked if he could do a podcast with me. And I said, Kelton, I've never done a podcast. I don't know
- what that's about. And he says, well, neither have I, Dr. Winston, but will you try it? And I was like,
- oh my, I have to tell you, those are the hardest questions I've ever been asked. Um, and he's not even
- an official graduated journalist yet. And so, but I have, I also have to say that it was quite a pleasure.
- And as a result of Kelton's influence, I'm going to start my own podcast.
- Amen. Oh, I got another amen. Okay. Our outstanding leaders of tomorrow, the city's commission on the
- status of black males celebrated Maya Coleman and Michael and Marty. Um, Maya is a senior at North High
- School and uh, Michael is a senior at South High School and both of them were celebrated last this past
- February. So we're very excited. Both of them have amazing, uh,
- futures ahead of them in terms of what they want to focus on. So those are just a few examples of the
- kinds of students and the outcomes that we're producing. But let me talk to you momentarily about what
- it means to have strong fiscal stewardship, what that looks like and why it's important, and
- most importantly, why it should matter to you.
- In public education, we have two main funding sources. We have state tuition support, which is generated
- based upon the number of children that are enrolled in your schools. So if you have a lot of students,
- you get more money. If you have fewer students, you get less money. And local property taxes. That's
- when we come to the voters and say what we would like to utilize the dollars for and voters either vote
- that up or they vote that down.
- Pretty straightforward. There are five buckets. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on school finance
- because it's very complex, complicated, and often misunderstood. But I do think it's important for you
- to know that there are five key funding sources. The education fund is the source of funding that provides
- dollars for us to hire teachers and individuals in the building that support instruction. That comes
- based as a result of the number of students enrolled in your school.
- The operations fund, the referendum fund, the debt service fund, those dollars come to us from property
- taxes. And as you know, there have been changes to the state of Indiana's property tax reform. And so
- those changes certainly have a direct impact on what's happening in our city government, our
- local government, but more significantly even within our schools.
- We have $179 million operating budget. Sounds like a lot of money until you think about all the supports,
- the services, and the number of employees that are on our books. But it's important for you to know
- that you too can go to our website and look at how we spend the money. You can look to see every dollar
- that we receive.
- You can look to see how we spend every dollar that we receive, but more importantly I would ask you
- to look at the impact and I would ask you to look at the outcomes for children to understand the significance
- of the dollars that we receive and the kinds of citizens that we're trying to produce. Terms of achieving
- financial balance. That has been my number one priority since taking over this position. That was the
- number one thing that the board directed me to focus my attention on.
- Walking into this role, we had structural imbalance, and I needed to focus on that. The first thing
- that we did was to align our staffing levels to the number of children that we had in our schools. At
- one point in time, we had approximately 11,000 children. Right now, we're at 9,832. Yeah, I do know
- the exact number. On any given day of the week, I'm gonna tell you what the number is. But our staffing
- levels hadn't changed to align with our enrollment.
- So that's one of the things that we've worked on. I'm very proud of that fact. We've prioritized
- non-classroom efficiencies. In other words, where can I make reductions outside of the classroom to
- the degree possible so that it doesn't impact children as much? We had several positions that were created
- during the early days of COVID that were still on the books when I took over this role. It was essential
- for us to make an assessment as to whether or not we still needed those positions. In many cases, we did not.
- And we needed to really think about class size ratios. We had room to increase our class sizes, but
- we didn't increase them significantly. We only increased them by maybe one or two students across the
- board. And ultimately, that resulted in the elimination of several positions, a couple hundred to be
- perfectly honest with you, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. It was essential in right sizing
- the corporation and addressing the structural imbalance in order for us to be able to have a strong
- fiscal future to be perfectly honest. Our MCCSE financial dashboard wanted you to be able to know how
- every dollar is being used to serve every student each and every day. You can go and look at our website
- and you can understand exactly where the dollars are going. You will also see information about how
- we are financing our capital projects. The title of our capital projects is Designing and Building to
- Sustain Excellence. It's about bond funded
- projects to make sure that we are maintaining quality facilities and classrooms and fields and athletic
- and the arts so that our students have the same types of experiences that students and other school
- corporations do. As I prepare to close, I just want to highlight a few additional things. I mentioned
- the 23 referendum. We currently are operating under two referenda.
- We had a 2022 referenda that was focusing on salaries and wages for teachers and support staff. And
- our 2023 referenda was focusing on early childhood, school supplies, access to college courses at the
- cost of our community. There are four key areas, early learning, teaching and staff, curricular enrichment,
- and student school supplies. I'm very pleased to share with you that we have held and our commitment
- to our community
- because of the very generosity of making sure that these dollars were available to our children. A couple
- of highlights talked about early learning. We have more than doubled what we're doing in terms of the
- number of children that have access to early learning and why that matters so much in Indiana. The state
- of Indiana has reduced on my way pre-k.
- dollars. They've reduced CCDF dollars and there are school superintendents across the state of Indiana
- that are closing early childhood programs because they no longer have the dollars. Our community and
- our commitment to early learning is profound. I'm not in the same position as some of my
- peer superintendents in closing our programs. If we didn't have our current referenda from 2023, we
- would be in a very different position. I'd be having very different remarks to with you today. School
- supplies families no longer buy our school supply by school supplies. The school corporation manages
- that and we try to get very good pricing in making those purchases. I've talked about the fourth
- $4,500 base pay increase that was provided in 2022 across the board for all employees. Our support staff
- also received an hourly raise and a 1.5% raise that went into effect. Raises benefited every employee
- group throughout our corporation. Curricular enrichment and student support, performing arts,
- IB, outdoor education, continuing, college course fees are covered by the school corporation. Career
- and technical education costs are covered by the school corporation. And on your tables, you'll see
- a couple pieces of information. We released our first ever referendum impact report. This report details
- exactly how much money is being generated as a result of the 2022 and the 2023 referendum. And it also
- shows you where those dollars are going. The most important piece of that report
- that should be of interest to you is how is it impacting our children? How is it impacting our children?
- Talked about the fact that more than 500 children in three and four year olds are having access. 100%
- of our four year olds attend for free and the majority of our three year olds attend for free. At the
- end of the day, the stronger our schools are,
- the stronger our community is going to be. And we are not confused about the connection there. And so
- we're continuing to think about and focus on strong schools, strong community, bringing together folks
- from across many walks of life to help talk with us around what does our new normal look like? The funding
- challenges in public education today are unlike they've ever been before. We have fewer dollars to do
- more things. And we're going to continue to focus on what we need to do.
- I need to have folks from our community speaking and giving their voice as to how do we prioritize our
- new normal. Financial discipline is part of the focus of what we're doing. Sustaining excellence is
- non-negotiable. We will continue to provide excellence instruction. We will provide excellent opportunities
- and we will provide excellent experiences. It may look different, but we will absolutely do so.
- If you are interested in learning more about MCCSC, I encourage you to go to any of these three websites.
- We have our own news website, our Every Dollar, Every Student financial portal tells you anything you
- want to know about our finances, even as it relates to our latest audit report. And then our bond funded
- building and renovation. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. And I will also say
- I've left a couple of these on the table for you as well. Our first ever MCCSC newspaper.
- And so I'm happy to close, and if there are any questions, I'm happy to entertain them. Thank you. So
- this is more of a comment. When you were talking about all the wonderful achievements, I felt like there
- was a part that I wanted to emphasize too, which is kids in special education. So I feel
- Sorry, I think MCCSE has done a great job with special education. And I want to highlight that, that
- those kids aren't necessarily winning awards, but. But they are. We're doing a lot of great things on
- behalf of our students with disabilities. No doubt about that. And, you know, it's it's frequently I
- hear from families who have specifically moved to our community because they want to have access to
- the special education supports and services that we provide. So thank you.
- I'm very impressed. And in this club, we're able to brag about our children and grandchildren. My grandson
- was recently selected as an outstanding member of the child's school. And he went to a program at South
- High School, which you engineered, in which you had musical groups and other people being recognized.
- Can you tell me your vision for that and how it worked out?
- Absolutely. So it's the Superintendent's Student Excellence Awards is what you're referring to. And
- it's something that we started about a year or so ago to really celebrate and honor the amazing
- accomplishments of our children from every walk of life, from every area that you can imagine. We had
- well over 100 students who were celebrated and honored.
- back in February of this year. And so first of all, kudos and congratulations to your grandchild for
- that. But we want to be able to make sure that our students know that we see them, we hear them, and
- we celebrate them. And the vision for that really is to continue to do so, to continue to make sure
- that we are bringing to the forefront the amazing accomplishments of the children that we serve every
- day and the children that we get to serve. It's a privilege to be in these roles. Thank you.
- Hey, Dr. Winston, my friend, how are you? Very good, thank you. I have a comment and a question.
- First of all, you'll get some questions today, but if it wasn't for you and your administration that
- have had so many different committees and reaching out to the community and just working in a transparent
- manner, you'd have five times the questions today. So I think you all have done a real good job on educating
- the community and involving us. Thank you.
- Now, my question. In lieu of the forecast for declining enrollment, you mentioned having over 500 acres
- of property, and I'm sure some of that includes brick and mortar schools, actually. What has been some
- of the discussions with regard to those buildings? And also, if there's a forecast for down or a decrease,
- do you foresee an increase in the future?
- it seems to me if we get rid of schools now and then it gets back up what would we do then
- so just interesting to hear your thoughts on that oh i've got some thoughts how much time do i have
- so one of the things that we embarked upon in march of 2025 was a redistricting study commission we
- asked for community members and 92 people
- signed up to be a part of that commission. And the focus of that work was really to study and to look
- at our enrollment. The fact that our enrollment has been declining, we were at a high of almost 11,000
- students the year before COVID. And you heard me say we're under 10,000 K through 12 students now. 23
- buildings is a lot of buildings covering a lot of area.
- to serve the number of children that we have. And so some hard choices are going to have to be made
- going into the future in terms of should we continue to have that many buildings? What might that potentially
- look like? So no decision has been made at this moment in time. I'm also about to embark on a facility
- study. I'll be putting out an RFP in the very near future to hire some folks to help us take a look
- at the number of buildings that we have
- both school buildings as well as office buildings and other facilities throughout the school corporation.
- So it's a difficult thing to say, but it's a difficult thing to kind of predict because the demographer
- that did a study on us in the fall of 24 predicted that we're going to continue to lose children because
- of the population in this community and economic factors that are contributing to that.
- as well as the fact that there are just fewer children being born. So we will have to make
- some determinations as to should we continue to have and maintain 23 buildings. That is a significant
- expenditure, so I would anticipate some very tough decisions in the next several months regarding what
- does that look like over the next five to 10 years. Does that answer your question? Nor did I.
- Thank you everyone for your time and attention and your support of our schools. Dr. Winston, thank you
- very much for your leadership of our wonderful community resource. Nice to know we're producing future
- world-class journalists, scientists, community leaders, so a lot to be proud of. We all do.
- In honor of your talk, a donation will be made this quarter to Wheeler Mission. I'd like to thank today's
- volunteers, Winston Schindel, Randy Saunders, Liz Erwin, Sally Gaskell, Michael Shermas, Marilyn Wood,
- Konnish Kalas, Dave Meyer. Also like to recognize our staff, Mandy Stewart and Tyler Martin Nichols
- who are really hustling today. Our next regular meeting will be in two weeks on April 21st.
- will be here in the Georgian Room. Jill Bolte-Taylor will speak to us about Whole Brain Living. Please
- join us. And don't forget, do not come here next week. No Zoom program, no regular meeting. You can
- still sign up today if you want to participate at our club activity at Heading Home at the Convention
- Center. Mandy has a hard copy sign up sheet, and you should have received an email with the Sign Up
- Genius link.
- Tyler, if you could go ahead and put up the graphic for the four-way test, and please stand if you're
- able. Of the things we think, say or do, first, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned?
- Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will it be beneficial to all concerned?
- And fifth, is it fun?