- Welcome to the September meeting of the MCCSC Board of School Trustees. We ask that you please come
- to order. The first item on our agenda is for the board to hold a lease and additional appropriations
- hearing in connection with the proposed projects. If you're interested in speaking at the hearing, please
- make sure that you have completed a comment card and have given the card to Mrs. Butcher. There will
- be an opportunity for the public to make comments about the lease rental to be paid under the lease
- and appropriation of bonds, proceeds,
- of both the lease bonds and the taxable geo bonds. At the hearing, we will ask that each person limit
- their comments to three minutes and that the topic be limited to the lease rental and appropriation
- of funds under consideration. There will be an opportunity for additional public comments on the regular
- agenda items after the hearings. The notices for these hearings were published as legally required.
- And at this time, I will ask that the bond council explain the purpose of these hearings.
- So we're here tonight to hold a lease hearing and an additional appropriation hearing. The reason is
- that under Indiana law, whenever a school corporation intends to enter into a lease with a nonprofit
- building corporation, we have to hold a hearing to see and confirm that the public thinks the rent payable
- under the lease is fair and reasonable.
- The second reason we're here is for an additional appropriation hearing. And as you're familiar with,
- anytime we issue bonds, we do have to have an appropriation of those bond proceeds. So those are the
- two reasons that we're here tonight for this hearing. Thank you, Ms. McClellan. The public hearing is
- now open. However, we do not have any public comments on this particular issue. So I will officially
- close the hearing.
- And we will now reopen the regular meeting with a series of resolutions for our consideration. Next
- for our consideration is resolution 2025-12 authorizing the execution of lease. Do I have a motion to
- adopt resolution 2025-12 as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ross
- and seconded by Ashley that we adopt the resolution 2025-12 as presented.
- As I just mentioned is required under Indiana law after a lease hearing we then have to consider and
- adopt a resolution regarding the execution of that lease and that is what this resolution in your board
- packet contains. Thank you so much. Do I have any comments from the board on this?
- All those in favor of the motion to adopt the resolution 2025-12 authorizing execution of lease, please
- signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. We move to resolution
- 2025-13, which is additional appropriation of 2025 lease bonds. Do I have a motion to adopt this resolution
- as presented? So moved. Do I have a second?
- It has been moved by Ashley and seconded by Tiana that we adopt the resolution as presented. Ms. McClellan.
- The additional appropriation resolution you have in front of you again relates to the appropriation
- of those bond proceeds because we didn't expect to have those during the beginning of the year and that's
- why we adopt a resolution now. Okay, thank you very much. Any comments from the board on this?
- All those in favor of the motion to adopt the resolution 2025-13, additional appropriation, 2025 lease
- bonds, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. Next for
- our consideration is resolution 2025-14, additional appropriation, 2025 taxable geo bonds. Do I have
- a motion to adopt this resolution as presented? So moved.
- Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Tiana that we adopt the resolution
- as presented, Ms. McClellan. The last resolution you considered was the appropriation of the 2025 lease
- proceeds. So same thing here for the 2025 taxable GO proceeds. Again, we have to have a hearing and
- then adopt a resolution regarding that appropriation of those funds. OK. Thank you. Any comments from
- the board on this?
- All those in favor then of the motion to adopt the resolution 2025-14, additional appropriation at 2025
- taxable geo bonds, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries.
- We move on to yet another resolution. I know, this is very fun times here. This is 2025-15.
- assigning construction bids and contracts to the building corporation once received. Do I have a motion
- to adopt this resolution as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ross
- and seconded by Ashley that we adopt resolution 2025-15 as presented. Ms. McClellan. The reason for
- this resolution under consideration tonight is because when we do a lease financing,
- The building corporation is actually going to own a portion of a building and then lease it back to
- the school corporation. So this resolution would allow for the buildings that the building corporation
- owns for the school to assign the contracts you've already entered into for the construction work over
- to the building corporation. Thank you for that explanation. Do we have any comments from the board?
- All those in favor of the motion to adopt resolution 2025-15, assigning construction bids and contracts
- to the building corporation once received, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions?
- The motion carries. We have two more to go, so hang in there. This is 2025-16, authorizing the 10th
- supplement to master continuing disclosure, undertaking, and issuance of bonds.
- Sometimes I just feel like I'm saying word salad. Do I have a motion to adopt this as presented? Do
- I have a second? It has been moved by Ross and seconded by Asia that we adopt the resolution 2025-16
- as presented. Ms. McClellan. This resolution relates to a master continuing disclosure agreement that
- we entered into several years ago. In short, the Securities and Exchange Commission anytime you issue
- bonds requires
- MCCSC to give updates to the bondholders on how you're doing. This document will document the promise
- to give bondholders your audit, your form nine, and things like that. But it's a SEC compliance.
- Thank you. Comments from the board? Okay. All those in favor of the motion to adopt this resolution
- 2025-16, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against?
- Any abstentions? The motion carries. And just kidding, now we have two left. We had three last time.
- So we are at 2025-17 authorizing the issuance of one or more series of bond anticipation notes. Do I
- have a motion to adopt this resolution? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Moved by Ross, seconded
- by Ashley that we adopt the resolution 2025-17 as presented. Ms. McClellan.
- This resolution approves sort of what we would call as homeowners a construction loan. A binding anticipation
- note is the same thing. A construction loan before the bonds are issued. If and when we need one, this
- resolution would allow us to proceed. Thank you. Comments? Okay. All those in favor of the motion to
- adopt resolution 2025-17 authorizing the issuance of one or more of a series of bond anticipation notes
- signify by saying aye.
- Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. And last in the series of resolutions for our
- consideration is resolution 2025-18, final bond resolution. Do I have a motion to adopt this as presented?
- So moved. Do I have a second? It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Asia that we adopt the resolution
- 2025-18 as presented, Ms. McCullen.
- This final bond resolution relates to the issuance of the taxable geo bonds. It allows us the ability
- and set certain maximums with regard to that taxable geo bond. It also in the form of this resolution,
- which was really long as you all saw, it approves the form of the bond and several other agreements.
- That's why it's longer than the others. Excellent. Any questions on this one?
- All those in favor of the motion to adopt the resolution 2025-18, please signify by saying aye. Aye.
- Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. Thank you, Ms. McClellan, for leading us through this
- process. We will now move on to yet another hearing. I declare the 2026 budget hearing open. Have we
- received any comment cards for this? None? Okay, great. Mr. Irwin, you may proceed.
- Okay, well, we'll run you through the 2026 budget again. Not a long list of resolutions again. You're
- just gonna hear me get my presentation on the budget. So we'll go through that. So if you go to the
- next slide, which would be the agenda, I'll kind of walk through what it is that we're gonna talk through
- tonight. Yeah, that's fine. But I'll do it. All right. So first, we'll talk about timeline. I just wanna
- remind you guys that the timeline that we follow as it relates to the adoption
- eventually getting to the adoption of the budget. We wanna talk about the comparison of the 2025 budget
- to the 2026 budget. Talk about the process involved. That's something that I wanted to talk a little
- bit more about in the process of budget building. Kind of give you a peek, so to speak, behind the curtain
- of what it is that we're doing or how we're coming up with those numbers. Give you an example of some
- of the DOGF forms. Again, the DOGF is the Department of Local Government Finance.
- and then talk about just some of the main takeaways for the 2026 budget that we want you to have.
- So again, the timeline reminders, when you look just kind of walking through last month at the board
- meeting, we asked for permission to advertise, which we did receive. We then advertised the budget,
- the bus replacement plan and the capital projects plan on September 2nd. And then tonight we're having
- the hearing. In October, we will actually adopt the budget
- And then in December, it says 1782 notice. 1782 notice is just our budget. So the DOGF, in that time
- between October and December, is when our DOGF rep will work our budget. And then they will return that
- back to us in December, which we will then review, make sure that everything looks the way we want it
- to look, make sure there's not any adjustments we need to make, and then we'll sign off on that and
- send it back. You saw this slide. Oh, I'm sorry. Saw this slide.
- turn the mic up on me there for a second. I saw the slide last month of the comparison of the 2026 budget.
- There's that main takeaway there in the center, which just talks about the overall budget submission.
- The decrease is about 6.2 million from 2025. Again, in comparison to 2025.
- We've made several adjustments as it relates to staffing and other expenses that are a big part of our
- budget on a yearly basis. And so it makes sense with all the pieces that we've been talking about through
- our quarterly updates and regular communications that our overall budget would be down. Again, some
- of the budgets you see pretty similar. Some of them are a lot different. Again, the operations fund
- is the one that you see go down the farthest out of all of those. Some of them remain fairly stable as well.
- This is the piece that I wanted to talk a little bit more to tonight, and it just kind of goes into
- some of the three key areas. And then I just wanted to drive home some points on. One being that this
- is a data-driven approach. So just like if you were building your own budget at home, your best predictor
- of your future expenses are your past expenditures, right? So going back, looking at our past expenditures,
- especially for like the last three years or so, and saying, what have we been spending in this line item?
- Do we expect that to continue? What have we been receiving as far as revenue goes in that line item?
- Do we expect that to continue? What are the trends with what's going on as it relates to those expenses
- or revenue in our current cash flows? And then looking at some of the information that we continue to
- bring in, whether that's a demographic study or the tax-based study that we did.
- facility studies, some of these other pieces, we're bringing in that data or that information we need
- to make really informed decisions about how we're coming up with that number. And so I wanted to drive
- home that point of just what are we looking at when we're coming up with these numbers and determining
- what the need is in any given line item across the budget, whether we're talking about the education
- fund, a referendum fund, the operations fund, and so on. The next piece is just flexibility. When you're
- rebuilding our budget, we don't want to build
- the budget, which I see as guardrails, so tight that anytime something changes for us, it causes us
- to have to come back to you and say, hey, we need to adjust this. We need to adjust that. Just like,
- again, if I'm building my budget at home and I'm looking through my numbers, I don't want to put a number
- to a line item in my own budget that I know that if one little thing changes for me, then all of a sudden
- I need to go back and change that number again. So we try to build those guardrails that allows flexibility.
- when we build out that number. And then the other part that is really important is just anticipating
- variables. There's a lot of things that we can't predict or things that are outside of our control.
- Legislation is a huge variable, right? When we talk about SEA-1 or some of those pieces as it relates
- to the rules that they put in place, that's something that's outside of our control. Student counts,
- that's why we talk about why it's important to monitor what we have going on with enrollment.
- getting those demographic studies and looking at what it is that's going on in our area to make sure
- that we're making educated decisions about what we expect when that's a huge driver in our revenue.
- It's our number one revenue source. The other piece is just talking about cost of goods and services
- or assessed value. Some of those other things, staffing. These are pieces that play a huge role in drivers
- of whether it's revenue or expenses that we continue to try to
- to account for and say, what are those trends? What are those things that we know that help us come
- up with an appropriate number? This is an example of one of the DOGS slides. And I just wanted to point
- out some simplistic things within this. I know this is a bit of a busy slide, but I just wanted to point
- some things out, because it's really an 18-month look. We have to tell the DOGF what we expect to happen
- with revenue.
- in the last six months of any given year, and we have to tell them what we expect for our expenses to
- be in the last six months of the year so that they can determine what they think our ending cash balance
- would be. One of the quirks of the system, though, is that they always assume that you spend every dollar
- of your budget, every dollar of your appropriation. Even though we know locally that's not our plan,
- they always, the input in the system is that it spends every dollar.
- And so later on, when we come back and propose a budget reduction resolution, that will be a connection
- to that later agenda item that we'll talk about. So again, last six months, they wanna know what do
- we expect our revenue to be? What do we expect our expenses to be? Where do you expect your cash balance
- to be at the end of the year? And then that carries over to the next slide where we're gonna say, based
- on that, what revenue do you expect to get in calendar year? In this case, 2026.
- What expenses do you expect to have during that year? And then simply there at the bottom to say, what
- do we expect that cash balance to be? So is this a fundable budget? Is this something that we think
- that the cash that you have on hand, the revenue that you think that you'll receive, and the expenses
- that you expect to have, does that allow for you to fund that? So they come to that arrival.
- And in this case, this is a look at one of the referendum funds, Referendum 2022. And because it's a
- property tax levied fund,
- They come down and they'll say, what is the input of AV times the rate that's there? And so what would
- the rate be in order to fund this budget? We know that what the DLGF does, when I say they're gonna
- go in and work our budget, they're gonna come into that and they're gonna say, this is what AV actually
- was. This is your voter approved rate. Here's the amount of revenue that you can actually produce from
- that. So they'll come in and they'll input those numbers and change some of the revenue.
- The expenses will pull down and they'll say, hey, this still works. Here's your budget. So I wanted
- to walk you through that example. I know those are busy slides, but I think that it's important to kind
- of show you some of those behind the scenes pieces as we work through that process. And then some other
- quick things. You saw this last month as well. This is a redundancy in this slide. Education and operations
- fund. Again, budgets are smaller than last year based on conservative revenue.
- enrollment projections and staffing changes, bus replacement and capital project plans. These are must
- be done in order to expend operations fund dollars on those possible expenditures. Those are not set
- in stone plans. Those are plans of things that we think that are likely to happen and that we are planning
- for that are a possibility.
- Referendum fund one, we do plan on restoring the original voter approved 18 and a half cent rate. That
- was something that we were not able to do last year because of the legislation that was in place. Referendum
- two, continuing on with the voter approved rate of eight and a half cents to support early learning.
- And then again, for debt service, we had the placeholders in there for the bonds that we're talking
- about tonight. We know that those are high placeholders. We expect the payback on those to be lower.
- but again, we set those ceilings to make sure that it's an appropriate amount that we know that will
- come under. And then a quick note on that is we'll make our last two payments on the pension debt and
- then that debt will be retired and fall off for us after 2026. And then a couple more slides and I'm
- almost done here. Budget form four, this is the actual resolution that during October's meeting,
- that will be signed off to say this is the board signing off and adopting our budget. The top of this
- form is just that normal. Every information that every school corporation puts with our information
- at the top with the date of our meeting. And then the bottom again shows those same things that we were
- showing you last month where the adopted tax levy and the rate, those are the ceiling amounts that we
- know that will come under and we'll see a very similar budget
- as what we've seen in years past. So we just set those ceilings and then we'll come down underneath
- that to make sure that we are setting the appropriate ceiling. I'm definitely gonna need a drink of
- water after this after eating these french fries here. And then the key takeaways, I had six key takeaways
- here. Budget equals guardrails. The budget sets the tax levies and rates and spending authority. It
- does not equal the dollar for dollar of actual revenues and expenses. It's the plan that we're working
- It is the guardrails. Budget development is built on past actuals, historical trends, possible outcomes.
- Levy management, it's ongoing oversight of our property tax collection, which the continued community
- support. We're trying to be conscientious of what the actual request is of the community and what it
- is that we're doing to meet the needs of our students. And then again,
- The advertising ceiling, I mentioned that in that prior form, the adoption timeline, we'll adopt next
- month. And again, 1782 notice or the budget comes in in December, so you'll expect an update around
- that time. With that, I'll take any questions when I'm done. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Irwin. Any questions
- from the board on any of this budget information that we've seen tonight?
- Very thorough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Well, then this concludes the budget
- hearing and I will declare it closed. We now move into our regularly scheduled meeting. Tonight, we
- honor the excellence of MCCSE's dedicated employees, students, and volunteers who make a difference
- in our community, Ms. Harmon.
- Thank you, President Hennessey, Dr. Winston, Board of Trustees, and community members. It's my pleasure
- to share this month's Excellence Spotlight. This is a feature of every regular Board of School Trustees
- meeting and a dedicated time to honor the excellence occurring every day through the dedication of our
- employees, students, and volunteers who make a difference in our school community. This month's September
- Excellence Spotlight goes to Rick Ayers, who has served us very well at all board meetings.
- He is our MCCSE technician supervisor. We're proud to recognize Rick Ayers as our September Excellence
- Spotlight honoree. Since joining MCCSE in 1995, Rick has exemplified what it means to be a dedicated
- and compassionate team member. Rick embodies the full spirit of a helping hand, always willing to go
- the extra mile. His caring disposition is on display daily as he supports technicians across every school
- building, offering not only technical expertise,
- but also an empathetic ear delivered with patience and compassion. Whether the task is large or small,
- Rick approaches it with a can-do attitude that inspires those around him. Rick's presence and his signature
- Hawaiian shirts, maybe I should add French fries, will be deeply missed as he prepares to retire at
- the end of this month. His legacy of service, kindness, and excellence will continue to resonate throughout
- the school corporation. Please join us in celebrating Rick's outstanding contributions and wishing him
- all the best in his retirement.
- enough time in the day for us to celebrate you and tell you how much you've meant to everybody.
- We really do appreciate you so much and for all of your work over the years, for smooth board meetings
- and congratulations on your retirement. I hope you have some really fun plans or maybe just some really
- chill plans, but yeah, we really wish you the best on what's next. All right, we now move into public
- comment. Thank you to those who signed up for this evening. Just a reminder that Ms. Butcher will ring
- the bell once to signal you have 30 seconds remaining.
- and five bells to signal that your time has concluded. It looks like we have one speaker tonight, Michael
- Catterlin. Thank you. So I understand that we are in a budget crisis. Last board meeting, it was said
- that teacher rifts are on the table. Classroom sizes are up.
- And there aren't enough support resources such as one on ones to meet the needs of our students and
- our teachers. As a parent I've received emails that the district doesn't have enough resources to replace
- the failing student technology. Given all that and as the budget is being built I'd like to know what
- cuts are being planned at the district admin level so that we are keeping resources in the classroom.
- The district has added roughly 15 new admins in the last five years while also increasing pay.
- Last year, admin payroll was over $5 million. So how do you plan to correct for this so that we are
- prioritizing teacher support and student outcomes? Thank you. Thank you so much for that comment. This
- is the close of our public comments. That was our only one for this evening.
- to thank everyone for their comments tonight and we will now proceed to the consent agenda. For our
- consent agenda tonight, it includes the following minutes from the regular board meeting held on August
- 26th, memorandum from executive session held on September 9th, overnight and out of state field trips,
- the financial report from August 2025, the appropriation balance report from August 2025,
- the register of claims from September 2025, payroll register and payroll claims from August 2025, and
- the request to declare a surplus and authorized disposal of out-of-date items. Do I have a motion regarding
- the approval of the consent agenda? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ross and
- seconded by Ashley that we approve the consent agenda as presented. All those in favor of the motion
- to approve this consent agenda, please say aye. Aye.
- Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. Next, we look at our donations, which are over $2,000.
- We want to thank all of our donors for your generosity. It's appreciated as always. Do I have a motion
- to accept the donations? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ashley, seconded by
- Tiana that we accept the donations as presented. All those in favor of the motion to approve the donations,
- please signify by saying aye.
- Any against? Any abstentions? That carries. We now move to our personnel report. Do I have a motion
- to approve the personnel report as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved
- by Ashley and seconded by Erin Wyatt that we approve the personnel report as presented. Dr. Henderson.
- President Hennessey, Dr. Winston, and members of the Board of School Trustees, at this time I request
- that you please approve the recommendations as presented in the board packet in the personnel report.
- Okay. Any additional comments on this year, this year, this month's personnel report? No. Okay. All
- those in favor of the motion to approve this personnel report signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against?
- Any abstentions? The motion carries.
- We move now to contracts. Do I have a motion to approve the contracts as presented? So moved. Do I have
- a second? Second. It's been moved by Ashley and seconded by Ross that we approve the contracts as presented.
- Mr. Irwin. Would be the contract with BRCJ for the design and management of moving to North projects.
- This is something that will be paid for using the 25 lease rental bonds. Thank you. Thank you. Do we
- have any comments from the board or questions about the contracts? OK. All those in favor of the motion
- to approve the contract signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. Next up.
- is resolution 2025-19 budget reduction. Do I have a motion to adopt 2025-19 as presented? So moved.
- Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ashley and seconded by Tiana that we adopt resolution
- 2025 as presented. Mr. Irwin. Yeah, thank you. So this is the budget reduction resolution that I was
- talking to you about earlier. This is for the operations fund.
- So the budget resolution is something that I've pre-worked through with our DLGF rep to make sure that
- it's acceptable and something that we've done in the past. Again, the assumption in the system is that
- we will spend every dollar for appropriation and we know that we don't need to do that. So in order
- to make things work in the forms there in the DLGF, we need to reduce that budget number in the operations
- fund. Okay, thank you. Any comments from the board?
- All those in favor of the motion to adopt resolution 2025-19 budget reduction signify by saying aye.
- Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. Tonight we have several informative updates that
- will be presented. The first is a health and safety report. Ms. Harmon?
- Thank you President Tennessee, Dr. Winston, and members of the school board for allowing me to come
- and talk to you this evening about health and safety in MCCSC. I wanted to start this evening with this
- quote, the kind of statement that we wrote, a vision about how we see student safety, health and physical
- safety, physical health, and emotional mental health as
- intertwined and connected. And that is our approach. It's why we're presenting safety and health together
- tonight, because we see those things as tied in order to truly create a productive learning environment
- for students. So I'll be joined tonight by Mr. Gilpin, our director of secondary education and school
- safety as well. So I'm going to start, but I'll hand it off to him as well. In looking at that approach,
- the integrated approach, we do kind of
- seek guidance from this model that comes from the Center on Disease Control that's whole school, whole
- community, whole child. And it focuses on these 10 areas. And you'll see these represented
- in our presentation tonight as well. And again, that allows us to have this comprehensive approach to
- thinking about school safety and health for all students. So to begin with that, I'll talk about student
- physical, mental, and behavioral health and wellness, starting with our physical health and health education program.
- So we have PE and health curriculum throughout our pre-K through 12th grade in all classes. It probably
- looks, in some ways, what you would expect in a physical education class or health classroom, but it
- also covers a gamut of injury prevention, healthy choices, and relationships, and alcohol and drug awareness.
- We expand that beyond the classroom as well as we think about how our healthy behavior is connected
- to extracurricular activities and how can we engage families in learning more about healthy choices as well.
- So you may have participated or know about our Family Fun Run that happens at Grandview, or our Health
- a Palooza hosted at South where all sorts of community organizations are there sharing really high quality
- information about health with our community. And we're really grateful to have our IU Health Coordinator
- of School Health that works directly with our schools, each and every one of them, to think strategically
- about their health curriculum, our policies, our programs,
- professional development and seeks resources for us as well as we make sure that we're really offering
- robust offerings in those areas. Thinking more about physical health, our Child Nutrition Department,
- you might remember last month we celebrated that they received the USDA Gold Turnip Beat Award. They
- are the only school district in the state to receive the Gold Award. They served over 10,000 meals this summer.
- families free to family so that's pretty amazing and it's a highlight of what they do all year for our
- schools. In addition we think about nutrition education our kids take trips to farms they see how food
- is produced how it's grown or raised and learn more about food production also our schools have gardens
- and hydroponic systems and kids are growing food and
- quite often eating it as well, which is pretty cool. They're very excited when they get to eat the things
- that they grew. And that's integrated into the curriculum. So it's a science experiment as well.
- And finally, for nutrition, I'd like to highlight our Backpack Buddies program, which is partnership
- with the community kitchen and provides bags of food to families who might be experiencing food insecurity
- over the weekend. When we look at physical health, highlighting our health services
- We have well-staffed health offices. We were actually able to shift some of our model this year to increase
- the number of registered nurses we have serving our schools. We went from 11 nurses to 13 registered
- nurses. Ultimately, this means improved student to RN ratio. Registered nurses are more directly involved
- with student health. They're more directly involved with supporting licensed practical nurses and the
- health aides in our offices as well, and overall means higher quality care for our students.
- All of our buildings are 100% Project Atom Heart Safe, which means they have AED machines in them, people
- are trained to use them, those kinds of things. And those AED machine cabinets house emergency first
- aid kits, stoppably kits, and Narcan to ensure that physical safety aspect.
- Additionally, again, we seek out partnerships and ensure that students have access to wider healthcare
- as well. So there's opportunities for students to get vaccinations and screenings and dental care onsite
- when they're at school. Last year, we administered 698 vaccinations, 636 students received dental care,
- and then we have vision screen and hearing screen, you know, while at specific grades.
- Beyond the physical health and nutrition of students, we also want to make sure that we're considering
- their social, emotional, and behavioral health. We're focused on creating safe and welcoming school
- practices. We've talked about some of these things before in other presentations last year. All of our
- schools are 100% PBIS, which stands for Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports. And really what
- that is is a structure for schools to have a system-wide approach to establish
- that positive student culture. It creates clear expectations. Students know what they're supposed to
- do. And beyond student behaviors, it's also about adult behaviors as well to cultivate and create that
- wonderful learning environment for students. Partnered with that is our restorative practices, where
- when we're responding to conflict in a way that builds strong relationships and focuses on a positive
- relationship and repairing respect, responsibility, and
- We want to teach a way to have a safe and welcoming school environment as well. So we use curriculum
- to do that. We have a K through 12 curriculum that builds skills that manage emotions, solve problems,
- prevent bullying, are able to teach school and work life success skills that are really useful as they
- are in our own schools and our own systems. And they go on to college and career as well. And we have
- zones of regulation, which helps kids recognize their feelings
- use strategies to deal with them and manage them as well. And finally, of course, we use common sense
- media to teach digital citizenship that happens at every grade level to teach kids how to responsibly
- be on the internet and use technology and the impacts that it has. And that has also a component where
- it offers resources to families who want to continue that conversation at home. We're really proud of
- our community partnerships. And we couldn't do all the things that we do in this area without them.
- So I just wanted to highlight some of those here tonight. Centerstone is our community mental health
- partner. They provide school-based mental health counseling for students in our buildings. I mentioned
- a little bit about our IU Health School coordinator, but also IU Health and the School of Public Health
- serves on our health council to help us consider the decisions and the infrastructures we're putting
- in place. They provide wonderful
- career exploration opportunities with internships, guest speakers, and job talks and talk to students
- about the opportunities that are out there for them. And they also partner with our extended day programming
- with a program called Goal, which is get on board active learning. My own kid has a little pedometer
- that she got from the Goal program. They're very into counting their steps.
- Boys and Girls Club and Big Brothers and Big Sisters are really partnered with us in terms of being
- mentors for our students and offering that services. The Monroe County Youth Service Bureau, we have
- a specific program called our Truancy Termination Partnership Program, which is focused on looking at
- root causes of attendance or tardiness and working with schools to identify resources that will support
- students getting to school and timely and being at school regularly.
- They also have individual mental health counseling and parenting workshops as well to support families.
- Middleway House partners with us around what is our healthy relationships curriculum, where they talk
- to students about and promote safe and healthy relationships, particularly adolescents. And then Girls
- Incorporated as well. They provide a healthy mind and body education program for many of our students
- in our schools. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Gilpin. Thank you.
- Thank you, Ms. Harmon. As you know, as we look at student safety, it closely relates to their physical,
- emotional, and behavioral health and wellness. So we put an emphasis on students not only being safe,
- but feeling safe. This year, I had the privilege to be able to take on the role of director of school
- safety. And in that first step of that role, I dug deep into our own behavior
- our own safety plan, as well as getting into the national and state guidelines and best practices that
- are out there. And I found overarching that we were right there. In fact, we were ahead of the curve
- in most of those places. So I'm pretty excited about the things that we're doing already for our students
- and our community. One of the first things that I've
- came across that we are doing is this path partner alliance for safer schools and you see this little
- square there looking from the outside in where we look at the district wide plan and the facilities
- and things that we're doing all the way into the classroom and this is a examination of best practices
- for schools and school safety. We actually use this to help inform our safety plans and our SROs will
- go through this audit using this plan
- to audit our schools. They do this every summer. And then at the end of that time, they meet with our
- building principals to be able to go over this and have a discussion about the things that they are
- doing well and maybe some things they might need to address. But most of the time, what we're finding
- is we're right there in having the things that need to be in place. So as we look at the national and
- state guidelines and policies and things that we're doing, I want to really focus on three different
- areas that we at MCCSE
- are really excelling it. And one of the first areas that we want to talk about is our continuous school
- monitoring. Every school has a school-based safety team that regularly monitors the school safety and
- our safety plan. They have at least one person on the team who is a certified state school specialist.
- We have an anonymous reporting site that is 24-7 that are on all of our students' iPads, on their devices,
- and can be also
- access through the internet and it's monitored 24-7. We have some local partnerships and specifically
- I want to speak about our Monroe County Safety Commission. This is a commission that brings in all the
- schools in Monroe County. We sit down with police, fire, and many other agencies to talk about safety
- for all of our students in Monroe County.
- As we go on, a couple other areas that we excel in is preparing and training our staff and those people
- who are working with our students. We have school resource officers, which I think are awesome, getting
- to know them really well this year, the things that they do, as well as our security guard. And as I
- mentioned, every school having a trained safety specialist. We also have plans that we look through
- on a regular basis and they make sure our staff know these plans.
- They go through the drills, the regular drills, the fire drill, the tornado drill, those kind of things.
- I don't know about you, we had the nuclear bomb drill when I was in the 80s. No, you hit underneath
- that desk. It somehow must have been special. I don't know what it was about that desk. It's going to
- save us. But anyways, we have those safety drills that we continually do. And also, I mentioned this
- already, but every building has a certified safety trainer. They are trained through the Indiana School
- of Safety Specialists Academy.
- In there, that academy focuses on national and state recognized best practices. And we receive all kinds
- of resources and ideas of what we need to do to bring back to MCCSC. Finally, as we go through this,
- one of the things that I notice over and over again when they talk about best practices and prevention
- and mitigation is the restriction to building access. And we've been doing this for quite some time
- here in MCCSC.
- All of our exterior doors are locked. You can only get into a building through one entryway, which is
- monitored by either security guard or administrative assistant. The classroom doors are all locked.
- And every employee has an ID badge. In the past, an ID badge was often given to us through the people
- who took pictures.
- But now it has a little more weight to it because that's how you get into your building. So now all
- of our staff are carrying around their badge. So you can recognize that they are staff in this building.
- If you're not a staff, then they have visited our office and they scan their state ID and give us a
- quick criminal background check. And then we print off a little picture with their name on it. And so
- every student staff member ought to see that on one of our visitors.
- A student or a staff member does not see somebody with a badge or a visor. They make sure that we are
- aware of that and we address that person in the building. In addition, in the last couple of years,
- we've added a smart pass. This is a way to be able to, you may recall when you were in school that you
- had, a teacher might write a pass for you to go someplace or they had this, you know, the chalk eraser
- that you had to take with you to go to the bathroom or your locker or something like that. Well, now
- it's digital. You sign out on a digital app
- And then one of the benefits of this is if there were to be an emergency or we needed to get a hold
- of a student, we would know exactly where they're at in the building. So we have a lot of things that
- are put in place at MCCSC that are above what even the National State have often recognized as things
- to do. We're very concerned about our students' well-being, their health, their physical and behavioral
- well-being.
- We put a lot of things in place, and we know that school safety is a thing that really emphasizes that
- aspect of it. So the combination of those things are essential to what we do here at MCCSE. Do you have
- any questions for us? I do. While you're up there, Mr. Gochris, I'll start with you. Does our safety
- plan include a plan for addressing
- a disease outbreak, especially if it were a novel disease or a disease we haven't seen in a while like
- measles? Yes. I don't think it's down to that specific of, you know, hey, but we have, it's amazing
- what's all the way down into our plans from, you know, what happens if there's a flood to an outbreak,
- terrorist attack. I mean, we have it all in that plan. Thank you.
- Is the SmartPass only utilized at the secondary level or? That's correct. OK. Any other questions? I
- have some more, but I'm happy to add. Go ahead. Ask away. I also want to say, Ms. Harmon, I really enjoyed
- that presentation. Big fan of the whole CHOI Outhold School community model. And I'm happy to hear that
- we've added more nurses. I'm also a big fan of the IU-coordinated school health
- program, and Healthapalooza. Healthapalooza is amazing. If you haven't been to it, you should definitely
- check it out. I think it's an amazing resource, and I really appreciate the amount of time people put
- into putting that together. And these questions might be too granular, so forgive me. Erin might know
- the answer to this, too. I know that it was recently announced that IU Health is going to stop contracting
- with the Monroe County Health Department for some services they previously provided.
- Do you know if that's gonna hinder our ability to offer things like vaccine clinics? I think we don't
- have specifics on that, but I think that we still have a strong partnership with IU Health through our
- coordinated school health, and so we're in discussion with her to ensure that a lot of those things
- would try to not be disrupted. I'm happy to hear that.
- And I know that there were some changes in the legislature around sexual and reproductive health curriculum.
- Did we have to make any changes to our curriculum as a result of that legislation? No, the only thing
- that we had to change was how we have always informed parents and provided them with if they wanted
- to review the curriculum provided with them a way to do that.
- The legislation requires that we publish that on the website. And so now that's there, it's just a different
- way for them to access it. That was really the only change we had to make. Actually, one correction,
- there are two specific videos that we added as well that was in there as well around reproductive health.
- Thank you. That's it for me. That's it. Any other questions?
- All right, thank you very much for your time. Our next presentation is on school attendance.
- Back to Ms. Harmon. Thank you again. I'm excited to come and speak to you about attendance. So really
- just want to highlight why attendance matters, right? Every single day counts for a student.
- We want them to, we want to build learning, confidence, and connection. We can do that when they're
- in our buildings.
- We know that students who attend regularly are more likely to read proficiency by third grade, stay
- on track in middle school, and graduate on time. And we want that success. And sometimes we think like,
- oh, I think there might be some misconceptions about it's just one day or something like that. But missing
- just two days a month is 10% of the school year. And that 10% is 18 or more days. Our school year is
- 180 days. So that hits that definition of chronic absence. And we see it as a significant impact.
- Really then the question is, what do we do? What do we have in place to support positive attendance?
- To start, our attendance policy defines a student's attendance when they're physically there or participating
- in a school educational program. As a school, we commit to making sure we have good attendance records
- so that both us and families can make sure that they stay on top of that, that students have a chance
- to make up missed work.
- If they are absent, investigate why they're absent, offer to help, and share those policies with families
- as well. Of course, there are times when students need to be absent for very good reason. Here on the
- right, it's listing out what our policy says are excused reasons. Illness, recovering from accidents,
- college visits, those kinds of things are all excused. In addition, I mentioned our partnership with the
- Youth Services Bureau around truancy prevention, again, that helps us to focus on looking at these root
- causes of poor attendance. We know that understanding why students are absent is that first step in
- ensuring they can come to school and in providing supports to help that. So if there are health-related
- challenges, ensuring that they have good access to health care, if there's transportation is an issue,
- we can connect with them with our department and make sure that those are happening.
- school avoidance that focuses on earlier in the other presentation talking about a positive school culture
- that's encouraging kids to come to school, giving them skills to deal with social challenges, helping
- them manage their emotions and their anxiety, those kinds of things so they can be there and they can learn.
- things in place to support that good attendance as well. I've already started to mention them, that
- positive school culture, focusing on relationships and relationship building, understanding what the
- causes are, reaching out early when we see those patterns emerge and becoming partners with families
- and students. Our schools have staff focused on attendance and trying to solve those barriers with families.
- I mentioned our truancy termination partnership program again, and again, we're just
- really looking at what are those wraparound supports that we might need to help students feel ready
- to come to school and prepared to learn. Thinking about what families can do to ensure, really we want
- to emphasize that families need to communicate the reason for every absence. So again, we can stand
- top of it, we can put things in place if they are needed to, you know, helping their child get to school
- on time, scheduling appointments outside of school time when possible, and letting us know if there
- are barriers, because quite often we have resources that can help support.
- There was recent changes to Indiana Tenants Law. There's SEA 282, which was put in place last school
- year, and then 482 this school year. Really the difference between 282 and 482 is the grade bands. 282
- focused in elementary, and 482 extends that into the secondary schools. And it puts this policy in place.
- It is designed to support students and families early and get help and support in place. And so what
- it does is,
- If a student has five unexcused absences in a 10-week period, and I want to just emphasize the unexcused
- here. So earlier when I talked about excused absences, they're ill, they have a college visit, they
- have a doctor's appointment, those things don't count. These are when they are unexcused absences. Once
- they hit five, the school notifies the parents of writing, implements truancy prevention, whatever that
- might look like, and has to hold an attendance meeting
- within 10 school days of that absence. The parents or guardians must be in attendance at that meeting.
- And then at that meeting, a plan is created with families to improve attendance. Here's what we're gonna
- put in place, transportation was it, whatever it might be, right? And then after that, if a student
- has 10 unexcused absence, that hits the definition of habitual truancy.
- the school must provide written notice to the family and requires us to notify the prosecutor's office.
- So that is a new part that's in law as well. When we're thinking about what does that attendance plan
- look like, so after that five unexcused absences the plan's created, it would identify any help or services
- the student needs, what behaviors are expected, put clear expectations for both the student and family
- if that applies. What happens if things don't improve?
- So if there would be disciplinary steps, we would obviously clarify what the law required us to do as
- well. Whether the parent will be involved in the extra support. These plans may last up to 45 school
- days. They don't necessarily do that, but they cannot last beyond 45 school days. They would need a
- new plan. They would be saying it was not effective. Really just in summation, right, we know that every
- single day counts.
- families, individuals to ask questions, share, partner with us, let us know what's going on so we can
- support it. We know that those small changes make a big difference to put it in support services and
- that's just gonna help our students be successful engaging in school. I have to give a shout out to
- attendanceworks.org. We take a lot of resources from them. They are tremendous and you'll see their
- things reflected in the things that we do around attendance in schools. Thank you very much. Any questions?
- The change to having to report after 10 days, that was made, was that made in the last legislative session?
- That was in 482, it was this year. That was not in place last year. Interesting. But the notification
- and the meeting and the attendance plan was all in previous legislation. Right, totally. But so you
- have to report to the prosecutor's office? And as a follow up to that,
- Unexcused versus excused absence, is that a state defined or is it, so instance, a kid's sick, parent
- calls the child in sick, but doesn't go to the doctor. Is that still considered an excused absence?
- Yes. OK. After, yeah. There is, after a certain point in time, it would be recorded to our attendance policy
- you would be required to provide a doctor's note, but it would be after a certain number. A number of
- days out? Yeah. But not a cumulative, so if they're sick in June? Right, not a cumulative. OK. I think
- there's a lot of public confusion on this piece, particularly. I've seen a lot of things on social media
- with regards to the new law that was put in.
- I think a lot of people now feel like they have to have a doctor's note no matter what or it's considered
- unexcused. So I'm glad we're having this conversation because I have seen it repeatedly where people
- have been upset by that, don't even know it's a thing, didn't even know it was a thing the year prior
- with the changes. So I was going to ask that question myself. And I think some of the verbiage in our
- that we send to families is somewhat vague on that and can kind of insinuate it the other way. I will
- check the, we did modify the letter this year with new legislation. So I'll double check to make sure
- that if some of it is vague, that if it is, or referring to last year's letter or this year's letter,
- but we'll make sure we look at that. And one of the reasons for an excused absence was section seven,
- article something what what is that just related to special education services 505 or four yeah okay
- um i knew that it had to be reported i guess i didn't realize it was to the prosecutor's office prior
- to last year and you may not know but maybe you do what was the reporting structure and who like at
- what point would it get reported and to whom same um if i understand your
- Question I mean prior to last year even in years before Chronic absences and the schools got to reach
- out and notify parents right and do a lot of the attendance plan kind of thing is formalized and so
- So that would be happening schools are monitoring that it would get Reported it could it would still
- have been if there were issues with truancy Really at that level. I think you're still working with local
- services to notify them. I was pretty sure that when it was first introduced two years ago, the prosecutor
- was involved at that moment. If you had so many absences, it would go there and then the prosecutor's
- office would have the choice to do something about it or not. Right. But I think there was more flexibility.
- You weren't required. You weren't required. Yeah.
- So it does seem like a conscious choice to pursue it as a crime instead of going through children's
- services. Yeah, that to me is like the sort of biggest or most egregious thing. And I do. It does seem
- interesting to me that it coincides with a lot of the other legislation happening, especially around
- marginalized populations. And anyway, I was just curious. So just a point of curiosity. Any other questions
- about school attendance? I have one more. I was just curious.
- Any conversation has occurred. I know we're still early in the school year with this piece, but foreseeing
- this being any issue for our schools in terms of monitoring it in this new way, more burden. So I think
- really a lot of that plan that was done last year when
- 282 required a certain kind of level of notification around unexcused absences. And it's where we really
- were able to leverage parent square, which allows us, it actually, we again, for a long, we've sent
- attendance letters for a long time, right? We've notified, we've done this. And in the past, it had
- been pretty cumbersome, right? It was about writing a report, it was about printing letters, it was
- stumping envelopes, it was doing all of these things.
- Parent Square has really allowed us to automate a lot of that and actually make it more effective and
- efficient. We set up a template, we've trained individuals to do it. It's still a task to do, of course,
- but I think it's better communication, it's more immediate, and there have been some good outcomes in
- terms of last year around conversations, around intervening and getting those attendance plans in place,
- for sure. I do wanna also mention that some of the information from the attendance came directly from
- presentations that our schools created for family, for back to school nights that they wanted to go
- over. So I looked at, I reviewed those as well to kind of think about what would be most relevant to
- present here tonight as well. Cool. I mean, the benefit of parent square too is that parents can get
- it in language as well. So if, you know, previously they would have gotten a letter emailed to them
- or mailed to them and it was just in English,
- they now have the option to translate that. So I guess that's an added benefit, I suppose, of ParentSquare.
- So yeah, thank you very much. Anyone else? OK, then on to our last presentation, which is an update
- on technology. Ms. Harmon, you're up again. This one actually starts with Mr. Cope first, but then I'll
- be on the second.
- Hello. There we are. Good evening. Thank you, Board President Hennessy. And thank you, Dr. Winston and
- members of the board for allowing me to speak with you tonight. My name is Andy Cope, and I am the Director
- of Technology for MCCSC. I know many of you, but to those that I don't, hello. I am also here tonight.
- as a parent of MCCSE students. I know I look incredibly young, but I'm actually the parent of an MCCSE
- grad as well as a seventh grader. So I'm here speaking as a parent as well. I'll be addressing
- the information services department. As the director of information technology, I oversee that department.
- And so I'll be speaking to security data tools and support.
- And then I'll be handing off the presentation to Alexis Harmon, who will talk about the enhancement
- of teaching and learning via technology. So as a parent, I know that security is at the forefront of
- our minds. When we say goodbye to our students every single day and they head out the door, we want
- to make sure that our babies are safe. So I'd like to start out by talking about security and data.
- On your students' devices, we do have endpoint protection. On staff devices as well, endpoint protection
- protects devices from viruses and malware. So you can be certain that when their device comes back home
- that it is safe and free from malware and viruses. We also have a security operations center, otherwise
- known as a SOC, which enables us to have the remote monitoring of security events.
- When you think about all the different accounts that your student has, we would get notifications if
- there is any funny business out there on the internet. We will be notified by our security operations
- center. We also engage in email filtering to safeguard against phishing and impersonation attacks. We
- have a vendor specifically for that. This is a layer in between our
- our internet and those who would do us harm via phishing and scams of that nature. We have a secure
- wired and wireless network in our schools, which allows you to travel throughout our buildings and be
- connected to the internet anywhere you go. We have a industry standard firewall to protect our network.
- We also have battery backups to minimize the impact of a single outage, whether that be a power outage
- or an internet outage.
- Our network is throughout the entire corporation. We make all efforts to make sure that a single outage
- doesn't impact the entire corporation. We also do a great deal to safeguard student digital activity
- via content filtering. We do follow federal and state laws such as FERPA,
- APA, SEPA, and PPRA. When we filter content, we have a centralized appliance that does filter traffic
- based on categories. So if your students go to a specific website that isn't categorized at all, they
- would just get a block page. And that's because legally, we have to filter this content. We also,
- I mean, we're interested in making sure that they make the right choices and that they're only going
- to educational sites. So you can see here in the list here
- they would be able to go to a news site, for example, or a politics site, or an investment site, but
- not a dating site or a gambling site, right? So we filter by category in this way. It also allows us
- to customize, you know, if a teacher comes to us and says, hey, I wanna use this website, you know,
- in my class and it's blocked, we're able to, you know, through a help desk ticket, go in and make those
- changes. We also filter by grade. So our younger students have more restrictions than our older students.
- Our high schoolers get to explore a little bit more, do more research, and so it's scalable, basically,
- by student age and grade. Moving on to the next slide. Change. Somebody got to see about that.
- Up next, I'm talking about managing and protecting our student data. And that all starts in our student
- information system, Skyward. That's where we ensure accurate student and family information. That's
- the basis for timely family communication. Families can go in at any time and do Skyward family access
- and actually update email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers. That's also where our state reporting
- information is housed, our academic records, and we have real-time role-based secure access for students
- and teachers within Skyward, and then also out in our learning applications that are fed by Skyward.
- We only share essential data to our application vendors. We make sure that we're not sharing any information to
- vendors that would do marketing to our students or families or anything like that. Let's talk about
- our technology tools. We have a wide array of technology tools in the corporation to ensure access and
- connectivity for teachers and students. We are a one-to-one district, which means typically one device
- per student for K-12. Our K-6 students use iPads and utilize touch screen typing.
- and our middle school students use iPads with a keyboard case, so they can take that iPad home and type
- on a keyboard, allowing them to do longer form essays and things of that nature. Our high school students
- have Windows laptops, and that's so that they can experience a different platform. During their time
- with us, they get to use Windows rather than Mac the entire time. We also have a robust wireless network
- in every building, as I mentioned before. So no matter where you are, you can be connected.
- We have screen sharing technology for flexible integrative teaching practices and assistive technology
- for individualized student supports for our students with IEPs and 504s. Our technology tools across
- the corporation, applications that we have for students, families, teachers, and staff. You might have
- wondered when your student brings home a device, what are all these apps on here? How do these apps get here?
- Don't worry, we do have a rigorous process for identifying and reviewing learning applications in partnership
- with the curriculum and instruction department. So we review every application to make sure that it
- abides by our privacy policies and that we're being fiscally responsible when we're purchasing additional
- applications. And we also just want to make sure that the applications are pedagogically sound. So if
- you see an application on your student's device, it's because it was either
- register and curriculum adoption, or it was approved by the IS department and the curriculum department
- on demand. We also provide grade-level content from a variety of textbook platforms and learning
- applications. As you can see in the right, sort of my cloud of applications there. We also have essential
- communication tools such as ParentSquare, which was previously mentioned, and our enrollment and registration
- and report cards all happen in Skyward.
- We try to be very coordinated in our support. We have support out in our buildings, but we also have
- centralized support. We do that in our help desk ticketing system. We use Zendesk in this corporation.
- This allows us to centralize support requests and support requests to appropriate IS staff. So that
- means if you're sitting at home and you have a technology issue, you do have the option of putting in
- a help desk ticket
- And the nice thing is you don't have to know who to contact. You can just put in a ticket and then we
- will route your request to an available expert. Building techs and computer coordinators are on hand
- in school buildings for onsite support, but support can be quickly escalated to the corporation level
- as needed. Oh, and sorry, go back one slide there. At any time you can click on the question mark icon
- on our website, that little help button.
- And that does open up a window to put in a ticket. Just closing out here, these are our ticket supports
- by the numbers. As of September 12th, we have solved 27,082 help desk tickets over the past year. An
- equally important number is 51,321. That's the number of support articles that have been viewed. Overall,
- our goal is to provide so much helpful information, you don't have to ever put in a ticket at all.
- We just continue to try to find ways to be transparent and provide the best information that we can
- for students, staff, faculty, and families. And with that, I will turn the presentation over to our
- assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and assessment, Alexis Harmon, to talk about enhancing
- teaching and learning. Thank you so much. New technology. I appreciate it.
- It's really nice to be able to come after that so you can see the comprehensive technology department
- that we have that really does allow us to enhance teaching and learning and use it in that way. So just
- to start off with, I wanted to highlight this prime case of students as innovators, what we hope technology
- will do for all of our students. You might remember last year we celebrated these students who created
- a product called Storm Shield.
- They is assistive technology for increasing how students can engage in sports, particularly students
- who are experiencing deafness. And they know much more about it than I do. But this is the kind of thing
- we'd like to see, technology enabling students to problem solve real world, create solutions. And so
- we just wanted to highlight that this. But here's what we need to put in place in order for that to
- happen, right?
- We need a learning environment that transforms student learning through technology, and it enhances
- how teachers teach and how students learn. We think about that in three ways, building future-ready
- skills, enhancing access, and increasing engagement. So when we look at it in that way, we think about
- those future-ready schools, we see technology as a tool for helping us develop critical thinking, digital
- literacy, and problem solving, right? Students
- have so much access to information with internet, with technology. So it's our job to make sure that
- they can analyze that information, make sure that it's verifiable, that it's correct, that they can
- use it in a way that's useful for them, that they have the tools. You saw the listing of apps, right?
- There are all of these tools out there as well. Do we know how to use them responsibly? How to still
- show our own learning and knowledge by doing that?
- We want them to be able to use technology to design, prototype, and test. And we see that as done with
- such excellence with Storm Shield, who, again, were at the edge end of their career. That's years of
- education coming up. So also, we think the use of technology is going to prepare students to be in the
- workforce and in college, right? It's developing them to be collaborative and agile. And that's what
- employers are saying that's need. That's what's going to be expected with them at college.
- We regularly also survey graduates to say, how did we prepare you for life after high school? And that
- technology piece was a big part of that, knowing the tools that are available, being able to use it
- to demonstrate their knowledge and their skills, and having access to laptops, to both having experienced
- an Apple environment and a Microsoft environment, and knowing how to navigate those two and use them
- productively in the classroom. So that's been really important to their development as well.
- Also, technology is key for collaboration and communication, as we all know as we use them. So we want
- students to be able to communicate across modalities. Literacy is no longer just written, right? It's
- also visual, it's also digital, and it comes through in those ways. And we want them to be able to use
- those various tech tools. I just like this picture. I just want to show an example of students using
- coding blocks to sequence steps and debug simple programs. Sometimes when we say technology in the classroom,
- We imagine kids behind a screen. But this is technology in the classroom, right? These are students
- together, collaboratively talking about it. That little BeBot, that's what it's called. It's basically
- a tool that they code. I actually had a similar toy when I was five, and it had these buttons. Maybe
- some of you had it, too. But that's essentially what this does, too. They teach it to do. They program
- it to do something. They will be given an instruction to go to a certain location. And it works.
- or it doesn't, and they debug it and try it again. So it's teaching logic, problem solving as well.
- Great skills for math. Enhancing access to learn. Again, also, technology reduces barriers, right? We
- can standardize access to textbooks, to resources, to tools, to the internet. It's protected. It's a
- safe way to access it, of course, through the work of our IAS department.
- It gives them multiple ways they can demonstrate what they know and the way that fits them best. They
- have different tools to use. If they want to record themselves speaking, if they want to do digital
- design, if they want to code, any of these things. When I was a student and I had a question that came
- up in class, my parent had to take me to the library, I had to know how to look through the card catalog,
- all of these things.
- kids have a question now, it's immediate that they could get an answer. And again, so our goal as teachers
- is to teach them how to do that and know that when they get the answer, it's the right answer, and then
- how to use that information. It's not just about having it. So also, technology has given us real strength
- in differentiation and inclusion. President Hennessy, you mentioned parent square's ability to translate.
- Those kinds of accessibility tools are throughout as well, speech to text translation.
- text magnification screen readers. I don't know that we're utilizing in the classroom yet, but I was
- just reading an article about how now with AirPods, it can automatically translate as somebody speaks
- to them. Wow, right? So the kinds of connections and accessibility that people can have. And we're able
- to personalize, right? We have programs where teachers can input information about a student and give
- them some personalized learning. Right there, they can do some kind of independently.
- It's not everything, it's enhancement, right? So it's about enhancing what we have. And we do see increased
- engagement, right? We have interactive tools, active participation. Kids are highly engaged by them.
- We can simulate real world problems and we do and you can see some students over here to the side in
- a virtual simulation. And again, yeah, there's a screen, but they're also sitting there working with
- their hands, talking to each other.
- It's not zoning out. That's not what technology in the classroom looks like. We want that classroom
- learning to connect with authentic problem solving. And again, technology frequently lets us kind of
- simulate an environment in a pretty authentic way. Students see relevance, which increases motivation.
- They can enable creation. And it moves them from consumers to producers of knowledge and solutions.
- It's pretty exciting.
- I think just to finish off, we don't want to see technology as an add-on or a replacement. We want it
- to transform how students learn, how teachers teach, how we prepare graduates for college careers and
- life, and to be in the society that's heavily integrated into technology. So our role as educators is
- to ensure that they have access to these opportunities, and we're teaching them to be critical thinkers
- as they use it. Thank you so much. Are there any questions? Thank you. I do have a question, actually,
- and I'm just curious.
- What have we started to do or how have we started to think about AI in a classroom? So, and Andy, if
- you want to type it, I mean, we have had lots of professional conversations amongst ourselves. We have,
- we talk to our colleagues in different school corporations to kind of just keep in mind. You cannot
- go to a professional development opportunity these days without that being a topic and something you
- can explore.
- We have used it minimally in the classroom, but we've allowed really teachers implementation to be able
- to kind of explore AI and think about it. So we have through a grant with a DOE access to a program
- called Magic School AI, which is a learning platform that uses AI, but it allows you as a teacher to
- create really
- focus lessons so that you're kind of teaching them how to use AI as they may also be using AI to also
- demonstrate, you know, a standard or skill in your subject area. It can help teachers themselves with
- creating lesson plans. And so we're excited about that. It's very new for us and we're exploring it.
- Very interesting. You're right. You can't go anywhere really these days without someone asking the question
- or having a conversation. And, you know, I work in the corporate space and even organizations, they
- come to us all the time. They're like, well,
- We need AI. And I'm like, OK, well, let's talk about what are you trying to solve for? Because they're
- just like, I don't know. My boss told me we need to have a product with AI. So there are just these
- sort of asks and questions out there. I have this friend who teaches at the Kelly School of Business,
- and she's a brilliant educator. And one of the things that she's having her class do this semester is to
- I mean, she's really teaching critical thinking skills, but also management skills and other things
- like that. So she has all of her students essentially writing a really detailed scope of work and hiring
- an AI assistant. So they are essentially writing this detailed scope of work for what they need the
- assistant to do. And then they have several checkpoints where they have to write performance reviews
- for that AI bot and all of these other things. And it's really teaching them to like,
- be critical about what it is they need the AI tool to do and then evaluating whether or not it's doing
- it well. And I just think there are the ethical questions about AI in general and how it's probably
- gonna eat up all our water supplies, but whatever. Aside from that, right? There are the really interesting
- things that it can potentially do, and I'm also not sure that we're going to get away from it anytime
- soon. So just, I was at the ISBA conference and
- some of the districts were saying they have really hard policies on AI and what they allow their district
- to do or not to do with it and we haven't done that or talked about that yet. I just think you know
- it's an interesting something to begin maybe thinking about but yeah. I would agree I think when our
- teachers are thinking about it it's a really interesting opportunity
- to teach kids, like, metacognition. How are you thinking about thinking? And we know when kids are able
- to do that, that it's going to empower them in their learning. And so I think there's certainly opportunity
- right in reaching it. Any other questions or comments? No, thank you. Thank you. I definitely think,
- I mean, working at IU and get some of the students to come from our district, we definitely prepare
- our students well how to use technology. And I work in a tech school, so it's really good.
- So thank you. Thank you.
- All right, well, thank you both for your presentations this evening. We are moving along. I guess this
- is time for comments and committee reports. So any board members have anything you'd like to share?
- I guess I will say that a few of the board members did go to the ISBA, the Indiana School Board Association
- Conference last week.
- You know, it's an annual conference that's held, I think, almost all schools in Indiana, public schools
- are part of ISBA. And, you know, I think it's one of the few times that boards have official sort of
- professional development. I think it's really important as often as we can sort of attend events like
- that to sort of, one, see what other districts in the state are doing.
- And two, to just be in a space where you get to learn about the issues on the table from a board perspective
- because I think that there aren't very many spaces for boards like that. I was the official delegate
- this year for ISBA and essentially the, you know, so each district can appoint a delegate and the delegate votes
- on a variety of issues, anything from budget to what the new legislative priorities will be for the
- ISBA. So the ISBA works very closely with the legislature to try and influence the sort of legislation
- that might be on the table that affects or impacts public schools. And so sometimes you can't change
- the legislation, but you might be able to
- work in such a way with a legislator to have them add or remove or edit or adopt something slightly
- different, right? And so being able to sort of have a hand in determining what those priorities will
- be, I think is important. Any time that we can sort of have any influence in that space, I think it's
- a good thing. And then, you know, as the president, I went to the president's breakfast
- And I did say, only in education do things start at 7 a.m. Never in the corporate world would you get
- people in a room at 7 a.m. Because in education, they're used to having teachers and educators who start
- really early. This president's breakfast started at 7 a.m. And I went and it was really interesting
- to be in a room with board presidents from all over the state
- who are dealing to varying degrees with the same issues that we're dealing with and to hear how they
- are working their way through them completely at a loss or just sort of hearing districts being in that
- struggle alongside us in many ways and being able to really sort of direct a lot of that energy and
- attention toward how will we as
- presidents as districts begin to sort of speak to our legislators and for our districts, you know, anything
- and topics on the table, anything from the sort of tag money or the grants to having to cut, you know,
- district cuts that they're having. Many districts are having to cut programming. It's just
- really dire across the state, especially when you get into districts that are very small. So I think
- it was a good thing for us to be able to be there and to just hear what's going on. And also not really
- reassuring, but sort of like just knowing you're in the, I don't really like the in the trenches metaphor,
- but that you are sort of in the trenches with other people, I think is good.
- Um, so lots of work on the table to be done. A lot of things that are outside of our control. But,
- you know, I did hear several times, like, well, what if every single district agreed to do blank? What
- would they do? Right. And it's a curious question. Like, if you could get every district to agree on
- a course of action in resistance to the legislation, what would happen?
- I think there are power in numbers, right? And so just being able to be in the room and have some of
- those conversations I think was really valuable. Anybody else who was at the conference, anything you
- gleaned, you learned, you discovered or appreciated about that? I have a question for those that were
- able to make it. And maybe it was more for where you were in April, but did they give any foreshadowing
- on expectations for the next legislative session?
- and what we might be seeing as potential bills? It was more about where the ISBA anticipated sort of
- needing to put pressure or, you know, where it's a short session, so I think it's going to run mid-January
- through mid-March, but we know that they can cram a lot in in those
- short three months, right? To say short is, I think, sometimes misleading. So just, you know, I think
- accounting for some of the things that were on the table last year, thinking some of those bills might
- come back around. So I don't know. You know, I guess we'll see. It would be nice to not play defense.
- It would be nice. But they want us to play defense, right? They're not going to show their hand too
- early, because then people would be able to prepare earlier. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. Any other
- questions or comments? One thing I did hear is that one of the sessions I attended was about planning
- for capital projects. It's nice to see that we're
- ahead of the curve and planning ahead rather than having to be reactionary because a lot of districts
- are in that situation. Yes, we did hear there are lots of districts in the state who have never run
- a referendum or have run them and failed and are in this sort of situation now of having to decide if
- they should and when they should and how. And so, you know, I'm always grateful to our community that
- by whatever margin, we have referendum that have passed. And I think we're lucky in that sense. And
- as we're planning for these capital projects too, all of those wonderful resolutions we went through
- earlier in the meeting. Yes. Doing that planning ahead has been very important. Yes. And that one session
- was about capital projects sooner rather than later, trying to get them ahead of some of the potential
- legislation that
- other? I can't even think of the name but the school is on Valley the Patriots that it was good to go
- to a session and hear how the students were I mean running a business at the school and it was cool
- to have a conversation to compare the coffee shop that we have I like one of sessions where you can
- still talk about the cool things your district's doing too and take something from it so that was really
- good to hear what the students were doing another session is learning how to be a good board member
- And a lot of things that they implemented is like things that we're doing as a board. We could always
- do better, but at least we get along really well. Because some boards do not get along. I learned that.
- And I'm like, whoa. But it was really good to hear that and how supportive. It was good being there
- with Markay because some superintendents were there along too. So that's telling as well. So it was
- good. I learned a lot from the vendors in the session.
- You don't have to talk, but if you want to. No, it was a really good experience. Obviously, it was my
- first ISPA conference. And I learned a lot. I also felt it was a great team building experience and
- getting to know some of the fellow board members a little better. And I kind of stayed on the track
- that was community engagement based. And I did learn a lot.
- Yeah I mean it is interesting because I did see there are so many things in those presentations that
- we're already doing right and I do just want to note that our district and I don't say this to like
- just sort of to our horn not recognize that there are always things that we can do differently or better
- but I think this district really is ahead of the game in many ways whether it is from the school safety
- plan to the communications to
- know the way that the district has made some concerted efforts to engage the community and students
- in you know the fact that we have a 92 person redistricting committee is not i mean it's an anomaly
- that is not something that happens in very many places um and it doesn't mean that we can't continue
- to look at what we're doing and think about how to do it better right we can always there's always room
- for improvement
- I was like that terrible teacher who rarely gave out a hundred because I was like, isn't there always
- something we can do like a little better? Like you can get a 99. I don't know. Maybe it's terrible.
- Sorry. Anyway. Yeah. So I think I'm really grateful to the work that the people in the district and
- our administrators and teachers and staff members and every single person from top to bottom, including
- our janitorial staff, like every single level of
- employees are doing like the very best at what they do and I'm just appreciative of that. All right
- if no other comments we will finally move to superintendent comments and reports. Do you have any additional
- information for us? Just a couple of items I want to just take a quick moment to celebrate and give
- a shout out to one of our students. At Bloomington North we have a student Fiona O'Connor
- who placed fifth in the state at the Special Olympics Golf Tournament. And I just want to acknowledge
- her principal in the back. And I just want to congratulate Fiona on her spectacular finish. If we could
- give her just a round of applause. That's just amazing. And I was so excited to learn about that from
- Mr. Stark. In addition, at North,
- We have Catherine Edmonds, who's a teacher there. And she was recently selected as a Place Nobel Educator
- of Distinction by the National Society of High School Scholars. Ms. Edmonds was nominated by one of
- her students for outstanding dedication and commitment to excellence in the profession. And just want
- to say congratulations to Ms. Edmonds on this most excellent honor. So if we could also just celebrate
- her momentarily.
- I don't think either of them are here tonight, but thank you so much for sharing that. And then just
- two additional items. The Success School is a part of the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
- The event connects businesses and local schools and introduces students to potential career options.
- And we're so appreciative of this partnership. Yesterday, North High School, seems like it's about North
- tonight. North High School hosted the Success School
- career intern and employment fair for students. And then on Thursday of this week, South will be the
- same and they will host the career fair. So we're very excited and we are so appreciative of the support
- that we get consistently throughout the school year from the chamber. And I just wanted to acknowledge
- that. And then my final comment is just a friendly reminder for those of you for whom this may not be
- on your radar, but fall break is around the corner.
- And that would be on October 16th and 17th. And I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows that
- the schools and offices will be closed on fall break and that we all take the time to enjoy this time
- away from our busy work lives and celebrate it and relax a little bit. So just in a few short weeks,
- fall break. That concludes my remarks. Excellent. All right.
- Well, the next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 28th, 2025, and we
- are adjourned.