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?