Tonight, we honor the excellence of MCCSE's dedicated employees, students, and volunteers who make a
difference in our school community. Ms. Harmon. Thank you, President Hennessy, Dr. Winston, Board of
True School Trustees, and community members. It's my pleasure to share this month's excellence spotlight,
which is a feature of every regular Board of School Trustees meeting. It's a dedicated time to honor
the excellence occurring every day through the dedication of MCCSE employees, students, and volunteers.
MCCSE is honored to announce Lisa Snooks for the October Excellence Spotlight Award. Lisa is
the administrative assistant at the MCCSE Adult Education Broadview Learning Center. Lisa is truly the
heart of our program. She consistently greets staff, students, and families with warmth, kindness, and
genuine care, creating a welcoming environment for all. Her dedication goes far beyond her
daily responsibilities. She anticipates needs before they arise and ensures that everything runs smoothly
behind the scenes.
Lisa's unwavering commitment and positive spirit make a meaningful difference every single day. Her
impact is felt by everyone who has had the privilege of working with her, and she exemplifies the excellence
this ward is meant to celebrate. Thank you, Lisa, for everything you do.
Thank you so much for that work on your behalf. And I was supposed to read, this whole thing was scripted
for me that I was supposed to read about us joining you and all this stuff, and I didn't read that,
so apologies. So now, I know, it makes a lot of sense now. I'm like, oh, it was on me. So now it's time
for public comments. We have two cards tonight. Just a reminder that for those who signed up to speak
and acknowledge the guidelines,
Mrs butcher will ring the bell once to signal that you have 30 seconds remaining for your comment and
five bells to signal that your time has concluded, we will begin with Joseph and I cannot the ink is
sort of maybe it's shame.
My name is Joseph Shing and I'm a senior at the Academy. I'm here tonight as a concerned student who
has personally experienced a deep systemic failure in our school system, a failure that undermines the
very values MCCSE stands for. The school district's mission is to nurture and empower every student,
but I am here to tell you that for immigrant and refugee students like me, the current system is doing
the exact opposite. When I first enrolled at Bloomington High School South as a sophomore,
I was automatically placed into English new letters, ENL class for months, despite being fully proficient
in English. I was also placed in Algebra 1, despite having a much stronger math background. It took
months of persistence of advocacy to be moved into courses that reflected my true academic level, and
the process was unnecessarily difficult. Through this experience and through conversations like
With students like myself across Indiana school districts, I learned that my story was not unique. Many
students like myself are being misplaced into classes that don't reflect their true academic capability
because a school admin decided that they are not academically capable. I believe that assuming someone's
academic capability and level based on where they're from, their accent, their background or country
of origin is a form of discrimination.
There are current MCCSE policies, such as Policy 5410 and Policy 5463, which basically mandates that
students be placed in classes that fit them. In practice, this was not implemented for my case. We can
make all the rules we want, but they are meaningless if they're not being implemented. Therefore, tonight
I have two urgent requests for the board. First, I request the creation of a clear, specific policy for new
newly enrolling immigrant and refugee students as there currently isn't one. This policy will ensure
they are properly assessed in core subjects like English and math upon enrollment. So they are placed
in the right classes that reflect their true academic capability from day one. My second request is
for a system to ensure policies are followed. We need a system where all students can provide constructive
feedback on their administrative experiences. This will create a collaboration between students
and school administrators to work hand in hand with the district to identify loopholes, improve policy
implementation, and strengthen the system for everyone. I truly hope that the school board stands with
me in this journey of making MCCSE a better place for every single student. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Sheng, for your courageous comments tonight. Next up, we have Darcy Fawcett.
My name is Darcy Fawcett and I'm here to draw attention to the fact that there is still a need for a
gymnastics coach at North as well as at South. My daughters go to North so I'm here advocating for the
school board, any administrator to advertise as aggressively as possible of the need for a gymnastics coach.
Andrea Smith was the gymnastics coach. She was the coach for over 20 years. During our season last year,
she learned that due to her promotion to an administrator who was her hill, she would not be able to
continue to coach. Even though it's getting close to a year, we are still without a coach. Bloomington
North has placed as high as fifth in the state. They have gone to state competition every year for the
last four years.
My understanding is that there's a policy that administrators cannot be coaches, and I understand at
times the need for that policy, and that it could give that administrator a lot of authority and control
over the teachers that they ultimately supervise, that if a student wasn't perhaps able to participate
in sports due to grades, that they could say, you need to fix these grades so my player can coach. I
understand that. I am asking that whoever has the authority to do so, be it this board, the superintendent,
or even the administrators at North,
grant an exception that would allow Andrea Smith to continue coaching until we do find a replacement
coach. I have spoken with her maybe probably too much to her chagrin. She had indicated that she would
consider doing so but wasn't sure if that was even a possibility. Many of these athletes that have been
gymnasts have been gymnasts as they were three years old. We've got three seniors who started as in
a private club at
Two years the other is three years and the other is four years and they're absolutely devastated that
they may not have a senior a senior season here at North So again, if there's anybody who can grant
that exception allowing coach Smith to resume coaching Capabilities, I would greatly appreciate it.
And if there's any direction as to who
Myself and other gymnastics parents who are here today as well could reach out to you all have my contact
information And I would appreciate any direction. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments tonight
Sure Dr. Anderson, can you speak on the coaching? situation relative to gymnastics at both north and
south in our efforts and
Sure, absolutely. What I can report to you and the board is that the positions have been posted at both
buildings since very, very early in September. The candidate pool for gymnastics coaches is very,
very small. The candidates that have applied have been interviewed. But unfortunately, at this time,
we have been unable to secure a qualified and well-trained coach to assume the role. Thank you. Thank
you so much.
We'd like to thank everyone for their comments tonight. And as always, we will be considering those
in all of the ways that we do through proper channels and appropriate measures. We will now move on
to our collective bargaining tentative agreement. We have a presentation on this collective bargaining
agreement from on the tentative collective bargaining agreement from Dr. Winston. Thank you, President
Hennessy. In terms of the timeline of events, formal bargaining began on September 25,
and a tentative agreement was reached on October 22nd. A few highlights from the tentative agreement
summary include the following, and all of these, this summary is actually posted on our website. Relative
to our performance-based teacher compensation plan, for the next two school years, the corporation will
provide teachers with annual one-time stipends. Eligible teachers, those who are rated either effective
or highly effective,
or receive a total of $1,000 for each of the next two school years. In terms of the state's new early
literacy endorsement, the corporation will provide teachers who update their license to include an early
literacy endorsement with a $200 increase to their base salary. Master's degree attainment, the new
contract continues to recognize salary movement for teachers who earn a master's degree.
For the instruction and supervision of students outside of contracted hours, the corporation will provide
an hourly rate of $30 per hour for any teacher who is assigned and approved to instruct students outside
of the regular contract day and outside of extracurricular activities. And $20 per hour for any teacher
assigned and approved to supervise students outside of the regular contract day and outside
of any extracurricular duties.
The corporation will provide $20 per hour for any teacher assigned and approved to complete professional
development work outside of the regular contract day. In the area of fringe benefits, the corporation
will increase the number of paid parental leave days from 8 to 10 for teachers, regardless of gender,
on rows A to E of the salary schedule. Beginning January 1, 2026,
The corporation will provide a 20% discount on extended day program to teachers with children in MCCSE's
pre-K through sixth grade program. And this discount will apply September through April. Beginning with
the 25-26 school year, the contract updates how leave days are charged before and after major school breaks.
In the area of insurance, the new contract includes agreed upon school corporation contribution amounts
for 2025 and 2026 to account for the increase in insurance costs. Retirement benefits. The new contract
updates the retirement benefit match for teachers in rows A to E on the salary schedule, changing the
matching percentage from 5% to 3.5% and schedules for athletics and co-curricular activities.
Girls wrestling, boys volleyball, and scholastic e-sports were added to the ECA schedule in order to
accurately reflect the current ECA positions and pay rates. Additional details can be found on our website.
I just want to take a point of privilege to extend my deep appreciation and gratitude to MCEA President
Jenny Noble-Kachera and her leadership team for a very collaborative and genuine process.
I would also like to thank our assistant superintendents Alexis Harmon and Dr. Jeffrey Henderson along
with our CFO Matt Irwin for their leadership throughout the bargaining process. Thank you very much
for the collaborative spirit and effort during the challenging times that all public schools are facing
presently. So I just want to say thank you and that concludes my presentation. Thank you Dr. Winston.
Are there any comments from the board?
I just want to echo Dr. Winston's gratitude for the entire team that was at the table for this collective
bargaining. I know that it was not a great year for any of us. We think about all of the budget cuts
and sort of fiscal realities that we're facing at this moment. We always want to do more for our teachers.
We always want to do the very best that we can do. And we have been extraordinarily limited this year.
in what we're able to offer as a result of some of the cuts that are coming and the cuts that we've
already seen. And so just my sort of ongoing sort of despair at that, at the state of things, and also
my gratitude for you all continuing to work through this in the most collaborative way possible. I'm
just really grateful for that. So thank you very much.
We will ratify the MCEA agreement at the November 18th board meeting. And that closes this portion of
the meeting. We will now move on to SEA presentation. So this is an update on the Senate Enrolled Act
1. Dr. Winston, will you introduce our guest? Absolutely. So it's my pleasure to introduce to you all
Mr. Barry Gardner. He's the Director of School Services at Policy Analytics. And we have established
a partnership with
Mr. Gardner and his company because of their knowledge base and extensive expertise around school finance
and property tax issues. As everyone is aware, SCA 1 introduces some very significant legislation that
is impacting school districts throughout the state of Indiana. And I thought it would be helpful in
talking with the school board. We wanted to be able to bring to the public what those impacts are and
how that's going to affect our school corporation
from a financial standpoint. So it's again, it's my pleasure to welcome Mr. Gardner. Thank you. Appreciate
the opportunity to be here tonight. Dr. Winston and the rest of the board to talk a little bit in more
detail about Senate Enrolled Act 1 and what it means for the school district here in Monroe County.
As Dr. Winston alluded to, policy analytics works with school districts across the state and
We're now engaged with a little over 100 districts across the state in this work around Senate Enrolled
Act 1 because of the implications. And we're going to walk through that tonight, kind of localize that
of what we're hearing across the state, but also what it means for all of you in terms of consideration,
not just today, but really over the next several years, because Senate Enrolled Act 1 and the way it
was implemented is really phased in over the next six years.
And so we kind of have this churning of the legislation that's going to continue to come for the next
few years. I won't go through really all of this. It's outlined in the presentation. This is really
the impacts that are outlined in Senate Enrollment Act 1. This was sweeping property tax reform. And
they pulled many levers at the end of the day in an effort to try to curtail
the impact of property taxes specifically on homeowners, but on some of the other areas in terms of
farmers in the business sector as well. And so what has really come in is what we call deductions, right?
When we look at paying our property taxes, we have what's called our gross assessed value, what our
homes roughly value that, and then they provide deductions that get us down to our net assessed value,
which we're taxed upon. And anytime you increase deductions, you're going to have impact on
net assessed value, which impacts tax rates, which impacts revenues. And that's what we're going to
talk about tonight. So a lot of this in there. I don't know if it's a good example, but I said it's
almost like you have a slot machine, except of only having one lever, you have four levers. And they've
pulled four different levers all at once. And that's the kind of combination of difficulty this legislation
has is in terms of how it comes out for each district.
So I think to really start out and kind of frame a little bit of this conversation, I think there's
some considerations for the district as you look at some future pieces. And we'll outline this in a
little more detail in the slides. And please, if there's something we come across and there's a question,
I'm more than happy to take it either during the presentation or after. But really overall, the mechanics
of Senate Enrolled Act 1 are going to increase tax rates, regardless of what the school district does.
And this is not just Monroe County schools. This is all school districts across the state. This is our
county units. These are city units. This is the mechanics of the bill. And so that's often tough, right?
And so we highlight here that we may have to rethink our messaging or our thoughts of how we talk about
tax rates because oftentimes we may think increasing rates may mean increasing revenues. And that's
not the case in this legislation.
Rates are rising regardless of revenues at the end of the day. And so oftentimes that may cause us to
think a little bit more about levy. Revenue is what we often, levy is revenue. And what do we need in
order to support the students in the school district at the end of the day? And that's also going to
play into some considerations. We'll talk a little bit about the referendum in this report. From a debt
service perspective, again,
this is going to impact that debt service rate at the end of the day. And it starts to have our focus
around levy or needs really versus a rate. And that's really different because a lot of times across
the state, school districts have been very rate focused in terms of their overall tax rate or their
debt service rate and managing to a rate as we sometimes call it. And that's just not going to be possible
without giving up millions of dollars in revenue at the end of the day to keep the tax rate the same.
That's also what would have to be done. When we look at the referendum, because it is driving down net
assessed value, referendum revenue will decline over the next several years to the tune of approximately
three to four million dollars annually in terms of fewer referendum dollars for the district. And that's
just in terms of where you stand today. We're very used to revenue in the referendum increasing or expenses
associated with what
in the referendum increasing. So the gap in some ways can be thought of even larger in that in terms
of the end of the day for the district. And then the operations fund has some additional impact. It's
going to grow at a much slower rate. But also they established that districts now that have at least
100 students and 2% of their population attending charter schools will have to share charter school
dollars beginning in 2028. And it ramps up over a four year period.
at the end of the day that's 1.8 million dollars as we stand today that the district would have to share
on an annual basis. So that's revenue that you would no longer collect that you're collecting today.
So again a lot of hits in terms of our revenues that I think are going to cause some just things for
the district to think about and how you navigate moving forward you know in terms of you know those
referendum and operations fund dollars changing while still trying to maintain
the level of services for students across the district that you are used to in many ways. So really
when we look at your tax base, this is really what drives this. We really, I won't spend a ton of time
on a few of these slides, but we really highlight in detail down to what we often call is the parcel
level. And a parcel is a piece of property that can be a home, piece of farmland, an apartment, a business.
And we play those out in terms of this.
One of the things that the district does have going in its favor is your low overall tax rates. And
because you have a low overall tax rate, comparative to some places in the state, you don't have what
we often refer to as circuit breaker issues, which is when a homeowner hits their 1% cap and can pay
no more in property taxes and any dollars above that aren't collected. What that bottom right chart
shows that really you have very few parcels that are at the caps. That's very, very unusual.
that is a positive for the district in terms of a revenue piece to start. Doesn't mean it's still not
impacted, but it's not an issue that we sometimes see in some places. The other piece that we look at
is the makeup of your assessed value because this often drives some of the changes that we see. So these
are the different tax classifications, residential, apartments, commercial,
You do have what's called personal. It's business personal property. And this all really kind of tells
the story of Monroe County in terms of the revenue at the end of the day. We often say sometimes this
is the wallet, right? So it drives the revenue in terms of the assessed value. And having a diverse
property tax base has typically been a positive, because the only group in the past that has gotten
deductions has been the 1% homeowners. Well, now we're adding deductions to the 2%.
and we're changing the rules around the business personal property. And that's going to begin to shrink
this pie at the end of the day. And this pie really represents revenue. So what's happening over the
next several years is reducing the AV base, which is reducing the revenue. And that's not just, again,
for the town. That's also for the city and for the county here around the community as well. So one
of the things that we do for districts is we look at what assessed value may do in the future.
and having that assessed value outlook, again, because as assessed value goes, that impacts your tax
rates and that impacts your revenues for us. And we saw a really unique change this year. And this is
some of the diverse piece that we dive into is how your assessed value changed from 25 to 26. Overall,
this is gross assessed value. This is before any deductions. And it grew by really kind of a moderate 3.2%
overall.
We see some pretty big jumps in the apartments, the commercial and industrial in a percentage basis,
10, 11%. But they're smaller pieces of the pie. So they often don't drive the issue at the end of the
day. The other challenge with those from a long-term perspective is that there was a change by the Department
of Local Government Finance. They had not changed their assessment of those types of properties since
2019 prior to the pandemic.
They did a reset of what we call their cost tables. It's kind of a one-year reset. Moving forward, we
want to expect to see those kind of growth in those areas. So that kind of helped a little bit. The
other challenging piece is that residential assessed value really didn't grow. And that's kind of an
interesting piece because when we look at this next chart, what we know about our assessment system
is that it's what we call market-based.
defined by a Supreme Court case that says our assessed values have to be market based, which means roughly
what they're sold for on the open market. So as home prices go, typically the assessed value follows
that. And so the last several years, we have seen home prices across the state, across the country,
really climb over after the pandemic. And assessed values have kind of followed those. So that's what's
driven a lot of the assessed value growth.
What we see is we look at, you had some pretty steady changes from year to year. What's a little bit
surprising in the data is that in 2024, it says the median sales price that year grew by 3.8%. That
is home sales that happened in 24 are assessed in 25 and a part of your 26 budget. Your 26 residential
didn't grow. It grew by a much smaller amount.
We're hopeful a little bit that as we see 2025 sales data that we might have a little bit better assessed
value growth moving forward. But I think it's a little bit something to watch. Moving forward, we have
residential growing by about 3.8%. Why is that so important? Because we have all these new deductions
that are going to pull down against that. So if you don't have some of that residential growth, which
you did not have this year, what happens in terms of assessed value?
You saw that decline. It says value went down this year. Why? Because residential didn't grow for you.
So we really are kind of hopeful we'll see some of that residential growth. The data would support that
we might see it, but the deductions get larger and larger and larger, which are going to make it more
difficult moving forward. Yes, sir. Am I correct that this legislation and this round of deductions
was triggered by the growth in AV across the state
concerned about property tax? Correct. Some data we've done for some other places is over the last several
years assessed value has grown annually by about 7.2% statewide, which has caused residential tax bills
to grow by about actually 8% annually. And what we've seen is the tax burden has actually shifted towards
homeowners and away from the businesses
and apartments in some of those areas because they have grown so much so fast where the other sectors
didn't see the growth. And so this legislation was spurred by these growing assessed values and a chance
to try to temper maybe some of that property tax liability at the end of the day what people are paying
in terms of their home bills.
This next slide then projects out assessed value. This is a really key slide that's going to set up
our revenues and rate conversation. Let me walk you through, just briefly, the top chart on the left
with the lines. The green line is gross assessed value. And you can see that continues to grow. Why?
They did not change our assessment system. They can't. Supreme Court case-driven. It's market-based.
So we still project gross assessed value to grow, meaning a home worth $200,000
They moved to be worth 210,000 to 220,000 from an assessed value standpoint. What they can change are
the deductions. And when you increase the deductions, you drive down the blue and teal lines, which
is the net assessed value. And that's what we actually tax on to generate revenue. And you can see that
kind of downward slope. And we had a negative this year. Our assessed value actually went down by 1.1%.
And we project in our data the next five years it will decline by 3.4% annually as we see things today.
Why? We kind of shift our eyes to the bottom two charts. The bottom left shows the homestead deductions.
And you can see from 2025, they grow from 3.6 billion to almost 6.3 billion in 2031. It's almost doubling
the amount of deductions. So if we increase deductions,
We're driving down that net assessed value, which is what we're seeing in the data. The bottom right
is representative of the 2% class, and apartments would fall into that. You can see 2025 is blank. There
were no deductions for this class in 2025. The legislation brought on new deductions for this class.
They start in 26. Again, these are phased in. They kind of cap out in 2031 in terms of the percentage.
But that again now creates $2 billion in deductions that weren't there before. And that again is going
to drag on your assessed value growth. And so that negative assessed value now is going to impact. We're
going to talk about some revenues and pieces. This is how it looks like just in individual years. We
often talk in a percentage piece. You can see 2027 is a little bit larger. That's because they created
for the 3% class, which is business personal property, a new exemption.
Used to be businesses did not have to report equipment under $80,000 for taxable purposes. That now
goes up to an investment value of $2 million that they don't have to report. We're just pulling assessed
value out of the system, and that's why 27 is a larger kind of negative decline in that particular situation.
They flip back, if you notice, in 2032. That's because all the deductions are fully in place in 2031.
We kind of move back. As gross assessed value grows,
net assessed value would start to follow. But we've got six years here where that's not the case. We're
kind of moving into this new place. If you look on the left-hand side of that chart, we've seen growth
in assessed value every year since I believe it's 2015, 2016 on this chart. And now we're moving into
a new world in terms of declining net assessed values, not something we're used to. So what's that mean?
Well, there's a lot of impact on your revenues that we have to consider.
This first one is probably the most complicated. I apologize, but I did not write the legislation. So
please don't shoot the messenger. This is a new piece of legislation that was introduced, which is a
10% homestead credit. So the way this works is a homeowner, if they're paying $2,000 in property taxes,
they're going to get 10% off, up to $300. So in this case, 10% of that $200 is
$200 off their tax bill. So they're only going to pay $1,800. Well, that $200 they're not paying is
now revenue that the school and the city and the other local units will not collect. It's a benefit
for the homeowner, but it creates a revenue issue on the school district. And that's what's detailed
out here in this chart. So you can see from in 2025, it's a really small bar because you really didn't
have any circuit breaker or what we might call unfunded credits.
unfunded credit meaning revenue you don't collect, it spikes in 2026. Why? Because this new legislation
comes on to the tune of almost 2.1 million dollars in revenue that the district will not collect in
2026 through this legislation. It's split between the blue and the orange. That is because right now
the legislation allows it to be applied to both the operations fund and the debt service fund.
There is an issue with the debt service fund that's already started to come out, because if you don't
have enough money coming into your debt service fund, it makes it hard to make your debt payments. And
you may have to eventually move into other funds like your rainy day to make your debt payments. I've
drawn a line to it. Why? Because we believe in the legislation session, maybe even this spring in 2026,
they may come back and do what they call protect the debt service, meaning all of the impact would hit
the operations fund. So what's that mean?
That $700,000 that's currently in the debt would now move to ops, and that would be an additional $700,000
you would not collect in the operations fund. And that's something we have to keep aware of, something
we've kind of talked, obviously, with Mr. Irwin in terms of his modeling of cash flow moving forward,
because we do think that's something that is going to happen. There's precedent for it.
There's already a standard and poor S&P who rates school districts have already written an article with
concerns about this issue in terms of SEA 1. So we do believe that's going to happen. And that's going
to be a negative impact, unfortunately, in terms of some revenue for the district. The second piece
here within this, this is the referendum, the operating referendum revenue. As we currently stand, we've
kind of called out the last year
of a full revenue source from the referendum. And what you see again is this decline overall in terms
of referendum revenue. And that is because we're increasing deductions, which is driving down the net
assessed value. So that rate times net assessed value at a lower amount is gonna generate fewer dollars.
And this is a real challenge. I think there was some projections that all school districts had in terms
of referendum revenue. Typically in our past history is,
As assessed value went up, so did the referendum revenue. So it had an inflationary component to it
to help with salaries, to help with utility costs, or those kind of pieces that referendums might support
across the district. Well, not only does it not have the inflationary piece to it, it's actually going
to go down in revenue, which again is what I alluded to, creates that larger gap in terms of what it
would have supported. This is a challenge.
a number of school districts that are dealing with this across the state. And I think in a few different
ways. One is you have fewer dollars, so you can't support as many things across the school district.
You have to look for cost reductions. It's one of the natural pieces of having fewer dollars. The other,
in terms of a referendum, is districts are considering going out for, in this case, when you already
have a referendum, renewals sooner than what they originally intended.
There's a number of roughly 55 school districts across the state that are currently considering operating
referendums in calendar year 2026. What percent of those are looking at renewing a current active referendum
and which are looking at new? Great question. I don't have the data source on that. Anecdotally, I would
say over 50% of renewals. And is that
somehow related to the charter dollar sharing? So there's a couple of components with this. It's a great
question. One, yes, if you run the new legislation requires referendums in the future to also have to
share the referendum revenue with charter schools like you are in your operations fund that will outline.
However, if you run the operating referendum in 2026,
Your revenue first starts coming in 27, and it predates that new language, which means you would not
have to share with charter schools if you ran in 2026. So that's one of the reasons districts are looking
at 26. The other reason is now you can only run referendums in even years in November. We used to be
able to do every year, and we had May or November that we could choose. So now it's 26, 28.
and I'm having to do it in November which from a school perspective in a school budget situation is
school years already started and any adjustments we might make if a referendum passed or didn't we have
to absorb in that that case not knowing if we're going to have that referendum pass so we have districts
that reason the 26 numbers so high you have districts that were scheduled to go in 26 for referendum
districts that were scheduled to go in 27 that can't anymore and have to come forward. And districts
that were supposed to go in 28, but have said, you know what? We want to go in 26 because of maybe the
charter situation. Or if it doesn't pass, we can still come back in 28 because now it's November when
we would have done it in May. So there's just a lot of thoughts around this because of this legislation.
And oh, by the way, right now it's creating a declining revenue. And so one of the other reasons is
to try to level out that revenue source, at least during an attempt, so it doesn't maybe impact as much
in terms of the revenue versus expenditures when it comes to the school district piece, right? So there's
a lot in two minutes that a lot of districts are thinking about right now because of this chart. This
follow-up question to that. So if we were to run one in 26, a renewal,
Then for the entirety of that referendum, we wouldn't share any of those dollars. The referendum, correct.
Okay. So you went and renewed it following in the next eight years or whatever it was. The other question
is, if that renewal doesn't pass, do we maintain the current levy? Okay. Yes. So the way, typically,
my understanding with your bond council or local council, when you submit to DLGF is you would say we
are for districts that are doing this, right? So if they are coming and renewing new,
early, I should say. If this passes, the LGF, we want the old one to go away, and we're going to just
take the new one. If it doesn't pass, then we want to take the remainder of the years that we have under
the current referendum. So that's the other reason is, again, if it doesn't pass and I can still come
back in like a 28, I still have those dollars flowing that's not as impactful. And last question, we
have two referendums right now. We have the family focused and then our typical operating
Can we bundle those? In essence, so probably a little bit of a legal question. In essence, you potentially
could in terms of running one new that would represent both, stating that both would go away. If the
new would pass would be my understanding. But it's a legal question. We probably want to dive through
in that piece. But that would be my understanding of it. OK, thank you. And just can you remind us,
or maybe somebody else can, what we have to do
have another referendum vote in 2028? Is that right? Is that when the teacher-focused referendum expires?
I believe it's 2030. Yeah, 2030. OK, yeah. Thank you. The family-friendly one expires in 2030, and the
early childhood one expires in 2031. And I have not thrown enough good news at you already, especially
in terms of the referendum. The challenge, as you can see, is
with the rates, because net assessed value is going down, that 25, 26 cent rate will generate fewer
dollars. So if I need to generate the 28 or 29 million dollars it is today, I can't ask for 26 or 27
cents. I may need to ask for 32 or 34 cents, because 34 cents times the lowest point of assessed value
in 2031 may get me the revenue I need.
And so that's a whole other piece of districts. We have six districts that are going this fall, November.
We worked with four of those in planning. And the rates have gone from the district had a 17 cent rate
currently, it went to 26 cents. District had a 22 cent referendum, it went to 36 cents. And so those
are the times that jumps you're seeing in rates.
because they need that, otherwise it doesn't generate the revenue in 2031 that's necessary. So again,
all kind of moving parts to think, and that's why we put that up, is just some considerations, right?
There's a lot to process. But at the end of the day, what you have to process is if the status quo is
fewer dollars in the referendum revenue moving forward. I highlight this page. There's a lot of numbers.
I just want to focus on the middle line. And that says the charter share.
because this is what's going to impact your operations fund starting in 2028. The legislation was written
that, again, if you have at least 2% or 100 students, we currently had you at 5.4% and 573. So well
above that piece in terms of that threshold, that would say you would need to share a charter starting
in 2028. It starts out as 25%. Think of it as a per-stude amount of your operations fund dollars. You
take your operations fund dollars on a per-stude amount,
2028 they're going to get 25% then 50 and 75 and 100 and that's where it builds up as you can see in
2031 as it stood today would be that 1.8 million and so that is dollars that is coming out of your operations
fund at the end of the day that you would not receive question say we say a school district falls below
the threshold at some point how does does it does the
Sharing continue or does it shut off? I don't know how well defined the process is yet on this calculation.
It's a DOE piece that would come out each spring. They provide that to the auditor's office. So my assumption
would be is if you didn't hit that threshold then they wouldn't provide that information to the auditor's
office and you would not share for that following calendar year. But the timing all this is so new that's
a great question to kind of
That's really the point within this piece. Again, this is some of the modeling we do. The board is aware.
We do 10-year projections on all these pieces down to that granular level to really give you the best
case information we can in terms of your property tax revenues. This is a little bit of the summary
pieces here. I want to highlight a few slides, and then I'll wrap up. The top left represents the operations
fund. And this really falls in line with what you heard from legislators.
in that they kept talking about your operations vandalism. You're not going to get less dollars. You're
going to get less of more. And what they mean is your revenue is not going to go down. You're just not
going to get as much as what you would have before. And that's kind of what their message was. We all
need to tighten our belts. We all need to have some sort of constraint. And that's how the legislation
was written in that piece. And that is true, because as you see, at least for Monroe County,
Your operations revenue grows by about 2.5%. Much of that is due, especially towards the tail end of
that charter share. Operations fund revenue typically would grow around 4% annually. So it is about a 1.5%
kind of decline, so to speak, in terms of growth in your operations fund revenue. So that's a challenge
when we know expenses
Some of our expenses are outside of our actual property, casual insurance, utilities. All those kind
of things can grow at a much higher inflationary pace. And we're going to have some curtailed revenue
definitely in the piece. Again, something the district's going to have to work themselves through. I
just want to show this is the tax rate slide. And really, for all intents and purposes, no matter the
scenario, really no matter what you do in terms of your debt service or your overall rate,
even if you do not ask for any additional dollars for so to speak in your debt service fund your rates
are going to increase and that is the intentional mechanics of the bill so it's not a surprise in seeing
that we're increasing deductions that drives down that assessed value which at the end of day increases
tax rates and again this is not just a Monroe County school situation I say this chart looks the same
for just about every district we work with it's just the numbers are different
of where you're starting from and where you end up. And you can see there's some statewide averages.
Again, one of the benefits for you in terms of your operations fund is that you have been well below
that state average in terms of a total tax rate, which means you've not had that circuit breaker issue.
So real positive for the district and kudos in terms of being able to manage to a lower overall tax
rate at the end of the day. And then the last piece is just one of the things we take a look at.
in terms of impact on the homeowner. So this is just pulling Bloomington City. It's Perry Township.
It's a median homeowner. And what we project in terms of their tax bill over the next several years.
This is gross. This would include the referendum as well. You do see a decline from 25 to 26 in terms
of their tax liability. That is
kind of played out in that chart at the bottom in the math, that is that new 10% homestead credit, right
up to that $300. It's going to reduce the liability. I do see their bill come down. And then it slightly
continues to rise up, though it is, I will say, fairly flat compared to some other places and other
districts that we work with. So a little more stable tax rate here, probably, than what I'd say holistically
across the state. But just a general sense of what we might see in terms of
tax liability, we often, again, talk tax rates, but then they also, it's how much is the homeowner paying,
right? And what's that look like? And so they will see a reduction that really over the next, call it
six years, their tax bill is either less or the same as it is in 2025, which I think is a positive the
other day for a homeowner. Last few pieces, I'll kind of, again, just reiterate some summaries and then
more happy to take any questions, but we know again, we just talked tax rates are going to rise,
Those additional deductions is really what's causing it. It's the mechanics of Senate Enrolled Act 1.
That declining net assessed value is going to have impact on your referendum revenue and that's going
to generate fewer dollars. You may know that your operations fund is going to grow at a more muted pace.
That's really driven again by that last point, which is the charter share dollars increase starting
in 2028 and increasing over the next four years to a fairly significant amount of that 1.8 million.
really what's happening locally for Monroe County as the mechanics, which I think kind of takes us back
to this future decisions, considerations for the district is navigating us, right? And this is a conversation
we're having with school districts across the state is that we are seeing a reduction or a constraint
in revenue. It varies from place to place. Obviously the referendum, if you have a referendum,
There's a digital layer there that other places who do not have a referendum may have in terms of that
revenue change. But that's just going to force the district to actually have to make some considerations
in terms of how you operate, how you move forward, and what you think about the referendums kind of
in future years. So I think that's, yes, my last slide. Within this, I know that's a lot. I'm more than
happy to answer any additional questions
So as you've talked about tax rates increasing, but tax liabilities on the individuals remaining flat
or increasing at a much lower rate is not the right word because we're talking about tax rates. So one
way maybe to understand that is due to the fact that it's done by deductions
homeowner while they may see their tax rate go up, their tax bill will remain relatively flat, but yet
they're going to see the equity advantage in their property of the increased value. Correct. The overall
value of the property, the gross assessed value, which is that market base would still continue to climb,
but the additional deductions would pull down on that impact and negate what they would have paid in
increasing taxes moving forward.
It's muted that it stays fairly level. And then the rates are somewhat arbitrary because they're going
to go up, but it really doesn't have an impact on the actual liability at the end of the day because
of the deductions. OK. In the spirit of shifting my focus from tax rate to total levy generated, is
there any chance that new construction in Monroe County could increase our total levy generated?
So potentially, this is one that's always hard because of the size of your assessed value base already.
So we often hear this that, OK, I've got a business coming in or a commercial situation coming in. It
has to be a fairly significant value to drive a whole lot of impact because your tax base is fairly
large to begin with.
That being said, yes, new homes coming in, new businesses coming in are obviously positives in terms
of that assessed value, which would help maybe push back against the negative decline a little bit.
But it's going to have to be somewhat significant to really have some impact. Thank you. Would that
be? I just see a lot of construction. Would that benefit be nullified if those are in TIF districts?
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Not necessarily for you.
It's a great question. So obviously a TIF district, the debt service fund and the operations fund do
not have access to that assessed value of those that we call increment those dollars in the TIF. However,
your referendum does. So you do have the benefit that if businesses do develop inside of TIF districts,
you are going to see that benefit in terms of maybe some additional dollars inside of that referendum. Okay.
So one of your pieces of consideration as you're speaking with school corporations is to transition
away from a focus on tax rate and focus more on how much revenue do you need to generate to be able
to operate your school corporation. That's really the conversation. That's the essence of the decision
making of a superintendent and a school board and the community. Yes.
believe I think in our conversations rates are going to increase regardless no matter what right and
it kind of goes back to that that referendum piece right we can move the rate to 32 cents but it's going
to generate the same amount of dollars so the rate yeah really doesn't matter it's really the levy and
what we often say to to have in consideration is
Levy is revenue, right? So what is the revenue needed to support the school district and what your goals
are? And what do you need that to be at the end of the day? And I think that's really the question.
It becomes really levy-focused, revenue-focused, and rates become a little bit of a side story. And
that's very different, because everything used to be completely on rates, because rates drove the revenue
much more than they do today. Can you talk also a little bit more
in a little bit more detail around existing referenda and the way in which this new legislation
is automatically and immediately going to decrease our revenue as soon as 2026. And I think you said
by about 1.8 million. So charter shares the 1.8 million. You look, sorry the years are a little bit,
Do you see a slight bump in revenue in 26 with your referendum? Because I know your net assessed value
went down. This is the TIF question. But the referendum revenue went up just slightly, at least for
26. We don't expect that to continue. So you can see, starting in 27 and 28, that revenue began to decline.
That's where we say, in totality, when we get to around 2030, 2031, it's about 3 to 4 million less in
revenue. And again, annually.
And the reason for that, the referendums are a pretty simple math problem for property taxes. It's your
rate times the net assessed value gives you the revenue. Well, if my net assessed value is going down,
my rate times a lower assessed value is going to generate fewer dollars. That's what's happening. Why
is that happening? Because we're increasing the deductions, which gets into the liability kind of questions.
And so that is the challenge within that is
Again, it's outside of your control. You don't control the assessed value. You can only take your rate
to a certain place because it's a maximum approved rate. And so that is what's going to cause the ultimate
decline in revenue. So just to clarify or to be clear, and this is mostly, I think, for people listening
too, right? So when you think about the ways in which we are losing money, there is the decline in revenue.
There is also
the loss of the growth of that revenue, right? So there's the loss of the growth and there's the decline.
And then on top of that, there's the charter school sharing, which is additional. So it's like at least
three, well you said four lovers, but yeah, I mean, I know what you mean. But it does feel like this
little tug toy I bought for my two puppies and they're like both tugging at the same thing. And it's
just like, yeah. So we're losing from all kinds of angles.
You are. You're being impacted in multiple ways. Biggest one, biggest two, I would say, is the referendum
revenue and the charter share dollars at the end of the day. Those are the two biggest nominally and
I think biggest impactful wise in terms of revenue for the district. The only issue, and this is not
an issue for you to solve, obviously, with talking in revenue versus rates is that when our voters go
in to vote,
they're going to see a rate and not a dollar amount, not like a revenue amount, right? We can't write
it in such a way that they would see. So in a new ballot question, it's going to show the rate being
requested, the impact on a median homeowner in terms of the dollar figure, 200, 300, whatever that dollar
figure is, and the maximum amount of revenue that you would generate under that in an annual year. OK.
And so those three things are listed on the ballot.
The bigger challenge I would say in that question is if we looked at 2031, and let's say you need to,
I'm gonna use some round numbers, 35 cents to generate the same amount of revenue as you are today.
You went out and approved that. Well, in 2026, 35 cents is actually gonna generate more revenue than
you need, because right now, it only takes 26 cents. And so that's the challenge that all these districts
are facing, is they're having to approve this higher rate
right and say but we're only going to take the levy in which we need which is 26 cents this year and
then 27 and 28 is going to grow and that's where we often some of the work we do with the district is
to show them that liability impact on homeowners because often what we're seeing in that situation is
the referendum liability stays the same and sometimes goes slightly down because of the legislation
even though the rates going up right and so that's where the messaging comes it's just a complicated
piece right to your point they're going to see a rate they're going to see a dollar figure and it may
not actually speak to the change in what they're paying in taxes from one year to the next in actuality.
Right. So that that valid question reads something to the effect of a levy of 37 cents up to a total
collection of x number of dollars so a levy not to exceed x cents to a total collection of
to an annual collection. So the $0.35 and maybe $29 million in an annual piece. And those are your two
kind of limits within that piece. Again, it's just a complicated question. Any other questions? Well,
yeah. So first, I think in your analogy, we are the tug toy. Is that how that works out?
I just want to make sure that I understand the pros and cons of running a referendum in 2026 versus
2020-2030. We'd be 2030. Oh, we'd be 2030. We are 2030. But the thing is, we're 2030 and 2031. So we'd
have to figure out, we can't run the 2031. So you'd have to renew either earlier, or you'd have to lose
a year. But whatever. Yeah.
But no, that's OK. I think that was helpful. Now I have another question. Do we have to run them both
at the same time? We could do one in 2026 and one in 2030, right? Can I just? Because I have a build
on clarifying question. Because actually, when we ran the family friendly referendum, I think the ideal
was always that.
it would eventually be incorporated into the primary operating referendum. So I think that that was
always the plan. So I don't think we would have continued to run to. So I think I understand that the
main pros of running our referendum, in my mind, four years earlier than we would have to, than the deadline.
would be that we would avoid the charter sharing issue. And what was the other one? That's the main
benefit. And if it doesn't pass, then you have that time to come back within that section a couple of
times, you know, potentially given your setup, because you aren't pulling it forward pretty far. And
the main risk is that we either won't ask for enough in 2026 to cover our expenses in 2030,
Or we ask for what seems like an astronomical amount in 2026, but is enough for 2030? The risk that
is there in 2026 is kind of to your point. You have to work to really establish, what does that need
in that delta over those eight years? And again, that might mean 35 cents, 37 cents. It might be a big
jump, right? And that's all the issues we just talked about.
versus a running in 2031, you really have that, excuse me, 2030, you really have that one year decline
and then the deductions are fully in place and AV starts to go up and kind of return to our old mechanics.
So that's kind of off the top of my head as it's the first time it has this question. So forgive me,
but that's the bonus I would say of running in a 2030 is that you kind of get away from this
situation of a declining net assessed value for all these next six years. The challenge, though, again,
though, of waiting until 2026 is the declining revenue source. The challenge in waiting until 2030.
Wait until 2030, yes. Wait until 2030 is the declining revenue situation. And can you adjust within
those pieces? And I don't know if it's a pro or not, but there's going to be a number of districts going
out in 2026.
and I don't know again, some people might think that's a positive because it speaks to the needs that
are there for schools and we're talking about the impact of this legislation and we're having to make
adjustments and lots of people are having to do that. I don't know in terms of that piece. I'm sure
November 30th of 2026, we'll have a better answer to that question if it was pros or cons, right? But
there has been conversation around that. There's a lot of districts going out and what's that mean in terms of
overall situation. Thank you. I'd like to also offer the opportunity for any member of my executive
team, if you have a question or a comment that you would like to share during this moment, please feel
free to jump in. Well, I appreciate the analogy of the tug toy. We're doing cash flows to kind of feel
that a little bit. But the data is invaluable. It's not a ton of great news, right? It's not a lot of
fun to hear some of this news.
this data is invaluable in order for us to be able to plan appropriately as it relates to the projections
and the things that we're doing on a year to year basis so that we're not just planning for what happens
at the end of 2025 or in 2026. We're looking out five, six, seven years in advance to say, where are
we going? And policy analytics, they bring that data that helps us to make the types of educated decisions
to do what's best for kids. And so I think that I just,
have appreciation for as I look at this, I'm looking at all these numbers. These numbers are included
into the projections that I do as far as losses or revenues or AV and some of those pieces, which are
incredibly helpful in us planning in the right way. So I thank you for that. And I would say that Barry's
numbers are the things that keep me awake at night. That's my number.
the numbers that you are bringing to us from our legislature thank you we're just even the projections
of av they were you know when we got the initial report it was very accurate as far as just the projections
of av so when you're talking about making plans year over year about declining av and that impact on
revenue it brings a little bit more certainty of saying what i'm seeing on this page
likely is it to occur based on what it is that we've seen or the data that they provided in the past
and so that's immensely helpful for that. Dr. Henderson or Mrs. Harmon any comments or questions that
you would like to ask? Well I think the comment that I would have is that obviously the implications
are heavy in the operations fund and as the assistant superintendent for human resources and operations
it certainly raises the eyebrows to
How can we work within our operations team to find efficiencies and to save dollars? And those things
are going to create significant challenges for us. But along with, obviously, Mr. Irwin, I want to echo
our thanks for being able to provide long-range projections for us to be able to begin to make plans
around how we manage that. And it will certainly have an impact, I'm sure,
the board's decision with regard to whether or not we choose to go early for a referendum when we think
about that declining enrollment. I think I'd be repeating most of what people have said, but I will
say thank you again for the information. I think it's informative. I think we know referendums are essential
to public schooling these days, and so to have good information about
when to run it, what the impact will be is really essential. Thank you. Thank you so much. I just want
to echo all of that. You've been an invaluable advisor to us on this matter and others as well. And
being able to provide key decision points that we need to give consideration to is essential for us
to be able to be good stewards of our taxpayers' dollars.
and to make sure that we are well positioned to continue to be fiscally sound and to be able to deliver
on our promise to our community in terms of excellence in our classrooms and excellence in our programs
and excellence in our supports and services. And so it is exceedingly helpful to me. In spite of the
heartburn, it is exceedingly helpful to be able to have this kind of information at our fingertips to
be able to inform decision-making. And I cannot overstate
my appreciation for how this does, in fact, guide the conversations that Mr. Irwin and I have on a daily
basis about cash flows. And every decision, we go back and look to see what's the short-term impact
and what's the long-term impact. And we could not do that without this information. So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's given us a lot to think about. I mean, it's really a difficult
time to think about asking people for more money, right?
At this particular moment, we're thinking about SNAP benefits going away and people not getting paychecks
at this moment with shutdowns. And I mean, all sorts of things, right? So to think about going and asking
for more dollars, it feels really daunting. And there's always this sort of juggle. I mean,
someone once said, oh, you'd be great at development. Would you like a development job? And I was like,
heck no, because my least favorite thing in the whole world is asking people for money. Like, I never
want to do it.
It's just one of those things that like, as a member of this board, our job is really to think about
this district and its well-being, fiscal well-being among other things. And so I think there's a lot
for us to sort of discuss and talk about and think about in the coming months for sure. Appreciate it.
I have one final question. Yeah. This is a newer development.
but I am curious if any of the school districts that you're working with that are currently looking
at their referendums early in 26, are expressing concerns or how to tackle the fact that the Lieutenant
Governor is actively going out and canvassing neighborhoods to stop the referendum from passing in those
areas. I wasn't gonna bring it up, but when you talked about concerns about what could happen,
if we asked early that cropped back up into my mind. And so I didn't know if anyone has brought that
to your attention or asked what the ramifications could be concerning that. I know your numbers, but
I don't know how it changes the dynamic of the numbers for a pass. No, it's a relatively new development
within the last week in terms of that piece.
And so I don't know that anyone at this point has any sense on what that means. There's honest concern
from a lot of constituents across the state about property tax liability. And that, unfortunately, back
to this analogy, pushes up against what services are we providing for our students or not. And so I
think it's just another wrinkle to a complicated story.
Well, thank you so much for your time and energy. We appreciate you as always. Thank you. Appreciate
the partnership. Absolutely. OK. We move on to something a little bit easier, which is our consent agenda.
And that includes the following. The memorandum from the executive session and minutes from the hearings
and regular board meeting held on September 23rd, 2025. The memorandum from executive session held on
October 21st, 2025.
ECA expenditures overnight and out-of-state field trips, financial report from September, appropriation
balance report from September, register of claims from October 28th, 2025, payroll and payroll claims
September 2025, 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. Second? Second.
been moved by Ashley and seconded by Asia that we approve the consent agenda as presented. All those
in favor of the motion to approve the consent agenda signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against?
Any abstentions? Yes, because I wasn't at the executive session. It's all abstained. Ah, OK.
That's fine. So let it be known that we have six. Nope. Yes, we have six ayes and one abstention. Ross Grimes.
But with that, the motion does carry. Next for our consideration are donations. We have received donations
of over $9,000. As always, we thank our donors. Your generosity is greatly appreciated. Do I have a
motion to accept our donations? Do I have a second? It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Aaron Wyatt
that we accept the donations as presented.
All those in favor of the motion to approve, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions?
The motion carries. Next for our consideration is the 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 Ross that we approve the personnel report as presented. Dr. Henderson.
President Hennessey, Dr. Winston, and members of the Board of School Trustees, this evening, I'd like
to call your attention to the following administrative appointments. I'll give a slight pause to allow
those administrators to address the board, and then we'll discuss some retirements. So first up this
evening is Marty Koglazier being recommended to the board this evening to serve as the interim principal
of the Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship. Marty returns to MCCSE.
After serving as the principal at Fairview Elementary School for five years, Marty holds a master's
degree in elementary education from the University of Indianapolis. Marty? Thank you so much. I'm very
happy to serve the district as the interim principal at the Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship
Most importantly, I'm happy to serve the students and to be there for them and to be there for the faculty
at the Academy and for my friend Mrs. Evans. And I really wish her a very speedy recovery and to hurry
up and get back to her school. And anyway, I'm just really happy to be there and to serve in this capacity.
And I appreciate your willingness.
And mainly the last reason that I am willing and able at this point to serve in this capacity is that
I heard that the district was opening a retirement and a nursing home for retired administrators, and
I wanted to be the first one in line. So thank you very much.
I think we're good. I'd like to hear more about that retirement program, but yeah. Up next this evening,
I'd like to introduce Hattie Johnson. She is returning to MCCSE to serve in the capacity of interim
director of our child nutrition department. Hattie returns after serving the MCCSE as director of child
nutrition for 14 years. Hattie holds a master's degree in counseling from Valparaiso University.
Dr. Winston, members of the board. I am really happy to be here. I didn't think I would be this happy,
but it feels like really great to be home. I'm appreciative that y'all thought about me when you needed
somebody to step in for a little while. I didn't come to stay. I didn't come to stay. I came to be helpful
and of service to the students and families at MCCSC. I am really looking forward to getting started
Monday, so thank you.
We appreciate you both being willing to come back and to serve again in the district. I would like to
just echo that. We are so grateful and indebted to both of you for just your tireless years of service.
And the fact that you're really ready to step out of retirement and come back and serve, we appreciate
that. And our children are only going to benefit. So thank you both for your immediate yes responses.
I do want to reiterate that one of the very first things that Ms. Johnson said to me on the phone when
I was speaking with her about this opportunity was, you are talking about a short-term step, right?
She was very clear. Again, this evening I'd also like to draw your attention to two retirements in the
board packet this evening. We have one administrator retirement, Tim Hudson, who has been serving
with MCCSE for the last 16 and a half years as an assistant principal at Bloomington High School North.
This was actually Mr. Hudson's second stint with MCCSE, having previously served as assistant principal
at Jackson Creek Middle School for three years prior to leaving the district for a little while and
then coming back at Bloomington High School North. In addition to that, we have a certified staff retirement,
Karen Papadopoulos,
She's been with MCCSE for the last 29 years, serving most recently as a Title I teacher at Grandview
Elementary School. On behalf of MCCSE, I would certainly like to extend a special thanks to these retirees
for their many years of dedicated service and wish them well in their next adventures. And at this time,
I request that you please approve the recommendations presented in your board packet in the personnel
report. Thank you, Dr. Henderson. Any other comments from the board?
Well, I want to wish our retirees all the best. And for Tim Hudson, we used to go Pokemon hunting together.
When his grandson was about the same age as my son, we would go catch Pokemon on these hot summer days,
because that's what you could do. That's what you could do to get these boys to walk. So that's what
we did. But anyway, so best wishes to all of those retiring.
All those in favor of the motion to approve the personnel report, please signify by saying aye. Aye.
Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. We'll now move to contracts. Do I have a motion to
approve the contracts and a quote as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved
by Ashley and seconded by Tiana that we approve the contracts and quote as presented, Mr. Irwin.
Thank you, President Hennessy, Dr. Winston, and members of the board.
particular agreements that I would like to call to your attention of just kind of that feel-good nature.
One is with Big Brothers Big Sisters. They provide mentoring services to students at no cost to the
corporation. So that is an example of a great partnership we have in the community that come in and
directly support our students. And then another one is with Stone Belt Freight. They provide a semi
to help Bloomington North Band get their equipment to competitions and
And again, that contract is for not to exceed $10. So I just wanted to call attention to both of those
agreements as prime examples of the way that our community rallies around the school corporation to
support our students and just say thank you. That's awesome. Thank you, Mr. Irwin. Anything else?
You're good? That's it. I recommend us. OK, cool. Any comments from the board? I don't know if we can
afford it. $10. That's a lot.
pushing it. All those in favor of the motion to approve the contracts in quote, please signify by saying
aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? Motion carries. We now move to budget resolutions. Next is the
recommendation to adopt the 2026 budget resolution. Resolution 2025-20, which is appropriations and
tax rates for the 2026 budget.
Resolution 2025-21 is for the 2026 capital projects plan. Resolution 2025-22 for the 2026 bus replacement
plan. Resolution 2025-23, anticipated transfers. And resolution 2025-24, the budget resolution. Do I
have a motion to adopt these budget resolutions as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? Second.
It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Tiana that we adopt the twenty twenty six budget resolutions
as presented. As you mentioned, there are five separate resolutions that you are approving. We talked
about this throughout the process dating back to August when we asked for permission to advertise September.
We did our hearing and then this month we do adoption and then
With you all's approval, then we will submit that up in Gateway to the DOGF for them to work the budget.
So again, everything has been submitted. We followed the plan as far as what the state's requirements
are. The form for that, like I said, that's the resolution that shows the proposed levies and rates.
Again, we said that has the fluff in it. We know, and I think many of you have been through this a few
times, some of you not as much, but we talked about this throughout the process, that it has that fluff
in there. That is the ceiling.
DLGF comes in and works that budget. They put in actual AV. They put in the actual levies that we'll
use and as it relates to what it is that we have in there. And then they come back and work that. We
know that AV and we talked about some of these things in Barry's presentation that our AV this year
did decline slightly, about a little over 1% in our non-referendum AV. And then our referendum AV declined
about a little under half a percent.
is that first form, that's the same form that every school corporation in the state approves. That's
the one that's a part of the process. And then you saw the backup forms that feed up into it. It's the
same things again, that we show during August and September. And then the capital projects resolution,
that's for the capital projects plan that again, that's been advertised since September 2nd. The same
thing would be for the bus replacement plan. Again, it's the resolution that flows along with the bus
replacement plan that again, has been posted since September 2nd.
And then the other two resolution one is the transfer amount for the last six months between education
and operations. That just clarifies, I know at the beginning of the year you pass a resolution that's
an up to amount for the entire year. This is just solidifying through the budget process what we expect
to do during the last six months of the calendar year. It helps our DOGF rep and it backs up to what
it is that we have in our budget in the individual sheets. And then the last one is one
and that's a little bit newer that I'm accustomed to doing, but it's the resolution that gives Dr. Winston
and I the ability to make any adjustments to the 1782 notice when it comes in from the DOGF in December,
sometimes as late as January, hopefully not, but typically in December when that 1782 or the budget
order, when the DOGF rep has worked our budget, they'll send that back and they'll say, you have a 10
day period to make any adjustments to this that you wish to make. That allows her and I to talk that over
make those adjustments to make sure that we meet the goals of the board. So with that, I'm recommending
your approval of all five of the different pieces for the budget adoption. Thank you, Mr. Erwin. Do
we have any comments from the board? OK. Yeah, I think we have done lots of discussion and meeting on
these things in prior months at these board meetings. So all those in favor of the motion to approve
the 2026 budget resolutions,
As noted, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. We now
have a policy that is presented for first reading, new policy 5111, eligibility of resident or non-resident
students. Dr. Winston. Yes, thank you, President Hennessy. Yes, policy 5111 has to do with revisions
being made to update the current language.
HEA 1064 amends Indiana Code 20-26-11-30 and 20-26-11-32, which addresses the transfer of students to
a corporation outside of the student's legal settlement, ultimately to primarily eliminate the athletic
reason prohibition when a student is transferring.
to another Indiana school corporation. The elimination of this prohibition was in response to the new
IHSAA ruling, which allows a student to transfer one time for athletic reasons to another member's school
and maintain eligibility for athletics at that school. So this policy is presented for the first reading
and will be presented for the second and final reading at the November 18th board meeting. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
As this is a first reading, there is no action that's required. If you have any questions or concerns
about the policy as it's written, please do let Dr. Winston know. Thank you, Dr. Winston. And we will
now move on to district updates. Tonight we have several informative updates to be presented. The first
is the human resources update, Dr. Henderson.
Dr. Winston and members of the Board of School Trustees like to thank you for the opportunity to share
an update from the Human Resources Department with you this evening. I'd like to spend a little time
this evening
spend a little time this evening providing the board with and the public with a staffing update, share
some more information about the review and analysis process that we engage in on a weekly basis, and
discuss some of the current openings that we are hiring for and how members of the community can apply
for those opportunities. At a previous board meeting I shared some data with you regarding how we started
the school year and I just want to remind you of a few key items.
98% of our allocated positions were filled when school began. I wanna remind you that this is a typical
percentage as we often learn of resignations from existing staff just before they're scheduled to return
from summer break. And filling those late vacancies takes a little bit of time. I shared that
our certificated staff to student ratio saw a minimal increase this year and I'll remind you of that
number in a future slide.
And as we analyze ways in which we could increase the quality of services we provided to students in
the midst of this, one example of how we were able to do that comes directly from our Director of Health
Services. She developed a plan that was not only fiscal responsible and saved the corporation money,
but that also increased the number of registered nurses in our corporation from 11 to 13, ensuring that
our students are receiving high quality care in our buildings on a daily basis.
Every position in the school corporation is evaluated based on student needs and corporate operational
functioning needs. So just to remind you of how we manage that process. So as I just shared, we've been
strategic and measured in our staffing decisions across all areas. And this brings me to an important
point about transparency and how our community accesses staffing information.
like to take a moment to help everyone better understand how to interpret some publicly reported staffing
data on the state's public dashboard, the Indiana Gateway. As a public school corporation, we're required
to publicly report employee data, including employee positions and wages. It's important for everyone
to fully understand how the data is reported so that it can be accurately interpreted.
The first point I would like to make is that this data is reported on a calendar year basis, not on
a school year basis. I'll talk about how that, what implications that has as we work through this slide.
But before we begin, I wanted to find some standard human resources terminology that's widely accepted
across organizations.
The term administrator is commonly defined as someone who holds a leadership position and who
has decision-making authority for that organization. At MCCSC, a few examples of administrators include
the superintendent, the assistant superintendent positions, central office directors, and school principals
and assistant principals.
In contrast, an administrative position is a support position that performs administrative support tasks.
A few examples of those positions within MCCSC could include human resources, staff, and payroll personnel,
administrative assistants, or secretaries. It's not accurate to use those two terms interchangeably.
Next, I'd like to outline how positions may appear on the dashboard.
and how to interpret a listing of positions correctly. There are various reports in the Indiana Gateway,
so I want to really share this general context that can be applied across those reports. The most important
thing to know is that a position listed does not necessarily translate to an employee working during
that particular school year, as we typically think of it.
The way payroll works in a public school corporation, contracts for teachers and administrators encompass
portions of two calendar years. So their payroll records span across those two calendar years. When
looking at data in Gateway, an employee who left the corporation at the conclusion of school year 2022-23
and is listed in the 2022 Gateway Report, still appears on a 2023 Gateway Report
even though they are technically not employed during the 23-24 school year. As a result, people who
have left the organization appear in both annual reports, but they're not actually serving students
during the second school year. To get an accurate count of employees serving students in a given year,
this overlap needs to be accounted for, and that is not evident in a Gateway Report. A perfect example
of this would be myself.
I appeared in the 2024 Gateway Report and so did my predecessor. However, I was the only one who worked
for MCCSE during the 2024-2025 school year. That same situation occurs every time there's a transition
during the summer between school years. So it's critically important that you understand that context
as you're reading those reports.
One example is that MCCSE has seen a net increase of 5.5 administrator positions in the last five years.
However, during the 24-25 school year, when we began our two-year strategy to achieve financial balance,
we applied the same process of leveraging attrition to administrators as we did with other certified
staff members.
This resulted in a reduction of four administrative positions for the 2025-2026 school year. But those
individuals would still be listed on the 25 gateway report because they would have received pay during
the 2025 calendar year. We continue to evaluate staffing levels across every employee group as we seek
balance with our enrollment numbers and our available revenue.
Viewing an Indiana Gateway data report without this context could easily result in inflated numbers
of positions. So my goal in sharing this important information is to ensure our community members have
the context of how corporation data is reported and some of the nuances that need to be considered when
evaluating those reports. As student enrollment declined as shown on the slide above,
numbers of teachers remained unchanged from the 2019-2020 to the 2024-2025 school year. With no certified
staff reductions other than voluntary retirements and resignations in the 25-26 school year, our ratio
is nearly unchanged. The ratio is, oops, sorry, transitioned twice there. The ratio went from 12.9
to 13.4 certificated staff
So a half a percent of change. This particular number doesn't necessarily relate to what teachers see
in their classrooms with regard to actual class size. So I wanna talk to you a little bit about the
process that we've gone through to analyze class size across the corporation. All schools submitted
weekly enrollment counts every Wednesday, starting before school even started,
and continuing all the way up through our ADM count day. Members of the human resources and curriculum
instruction assessment teams went out and visited schools and physically counted students in classrooms.
And we have weekly meetings with directors of special education that include reviews of caseloads, class
sizes, pending evaluations and enrollments of students with special needs.
So let's look specifically at class size averages across the district. Our early learning class sizes
average 14 per classroom. Our kindergarten through sixth grade classes across the district average 23.
At our secondary schools, counting all content areas, electives, everything that we offer, the average
class size
is 22 across all of our secondary schools. This includes the Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship
as well as Bloomington Graduation School. This is not just our larger comprehensive middle schools and
high schools. When we dig a little deeper and we start talking about those content area classes that
are really required for things like that honors seal that is new, if you look at English, math,
science and social studies along with world language, the class size average is 23. So I want to point
out that this data does not include the Hoosier Hills Career Center because that serves not only MCCSC
schools, but five surrounding school corporations as well. So we didn't include that data in this analysis.
We do recognize that there are outliers. There are classes that are smaller than this.
And there are classes that are larger than this, depending upon the offerings and the content area at
play. But at the secondary level, one of the things that we try really hard to do as a corporation is
offer a diverse range of classes to meet the needs and the interests of the students that we serve.
So that's why you see that reflected in those class sizes. When we begin to offer very discrete and
very specific course offerings that are tailored to
the interests and talents of our students, sometimes we see that impact the overall class average. I
want to speak a little bit this evening to how the HR team works in collaboration with departments and
directors, as well as the business office and the curriculum instruction office on a weekly basis. We
conduct weekly meetings in my department, the HR department,
with the directors of each department to review their current staffing levels, the metrics that we use
to determine appropriate staffing, and establish context for a weekly staffing analysis meeting. These
weekly meetings with directors really provide an opportunity to gain additional insight to each department's
individual needs as well as the student needs at any given point in time.
We then take that context from those weekly meetings with directors to a collaborative analysis meeting
where leaders from HR curriculum and the business departments meet every Friday to review those staffing
numbers and to make recommendations about filling positions. Our goal is always to meet the needs of
our students while ensuring financial sustainability
and meeting our operational requirements as an organization. I'd like to share a little bit about current
openings that exist within MCCSC that are currently posted and highlight the fact that we have postings
out for guest teachers, operations staff positions, a special education teaching position, instructional
support staff positions, and our extended day staff positions as well.
Some folks may be asking in the community, how in the midst of budgetary constraints can MCCSE still
be hiring? So the positions that are being hired are as a result of new openings that result when employees
leave MCCSE for a variety of reasons. Staff members don't just leave this organization during the summer
months. It's important to know that that turnover happens all year long.
These positions are student facing or operationally essential roles that must be replaced when a staff
member has left a position. So as previously mentioned, these positions have all gone through a rigorous
analysis process where HR curriculum in the business office leadership position members review these
positions weekly to determine which vacancies meet the criteria for being refilled,
and to ensure that we're remaining fiscally responsible to the community. As a reminder and a thank
you to our community, in 2022, we passed a referendum that continues to support MCCSE employees, teachers,
and staff members. That 2022 referendum funding continues to support a portion of all employees' wages
and benefits. In our referendum impact report that we published in May of 2025,
We reported $34.5 million of the 2022 referendum had been invested to date in teachers and staff through
hourly and base salary increases. These significant investments have allowed MCCSC to continue to attract
and retain highly qualified educators and staff in a very competitive job market. As always, I'd like
to express a thank you to all of our employees, teachers and staff for everything that they do every day
to make MCCSC a great place to learn and work. And a special thank you to our community for your support
of our referendum. Thank you for the opportunity to present this evening. Thank you, Dr. Henderson.
Are there any comments from the board? I really appreciate that you highlighted how to properly look
inside of the database.
because of the large inflation of numbers. Agree. I think it's really important. I mean, not only have
I seen it be misreported in at least one of our local papers, I've heard people use numbers inaccurately
as well. And I think it's very important for people to understand
how to read those numbers and how those, the impact of those numbers will occur on that report.
And I, you know, I think it's one of those interesting things because I think we stressed it too when
we were beginning the, I don't want to say reduction, but the attrition process, right? And sort of
reducing through attrition, we were very clear that, and actually the first round of that sort of
attrition was at the administrative level, right? Both administrators and administrative and in this
building and any, and that's the other thing that I just want to say. Like when you think about who
is housed under the sort of main administrative office or the MCCSC main office, it isn't just the people
who work in that building. There are other people who sort of get housed under that payroll because
they don't have, for instance, like a homeschool.
So I just, I think there are all of these sort of nuances and variables that people don't quite understand
when they begin to look at that data and use those numbers to make points. So I really appreciate the
clarity with which you delivered that. Yeah, I was gonna, well, I was gonna say everything that April
said, but I definitely appreciated that. But I was gonna say, I appreciate you saying that you got those
positions open and why.
what that means, so thank you. Any other comments? Then it looks like our next presentation is an early
learning update from Dr. Dowling. Good evening. Thank you, Dr. Winston, President Hennessy, members
of the Board of School Trustees for this opportunity to provide an early learning update.
The main topics I'll be talking about this evening are student and family impact, enrollment with a
focus on increased access due to the 2023 referendum, academic outcomes, and then talk about our infant
and toddler programs. First, again, I'm gonna talk about our early learning impact on both our students
and families. In May of 2025, Dr. Henderson highlighted this. We shared a referendum impact report.
In that report, we've shared in detail how we've spent the money
particularly in the aspect of early learning. In that report, you can also see lots of feedback from
our community members, from our families who have taken advantage of our early learning programs. I
encourage everybody to look at it. It'll brighten your day if you read those comments. It certainly
brightens mine when I read them. Just to share one on student impact, this is a quote from one of our
families. My child has shown significant growth across all areas, academically, emotionally, and socially.
has become more confident in his learning, more emotionally aware and resilient, and has built strong,
positive relationships with peers and adults alike. We know that this has had a huge impact on not just
our children, not just on our students, but also on our families. This is a quote from one of our families
about the impact on the whole family. We love the Pre-K program. The program is full day, which has
enabled me to keep a steady work schedule. It has also learned values we practice at home, like inclusivity
and tolerance, which are of utmost importance.
And I think this quote highlights among the student quote as well about this is not just an investment
in our students, but an investment in our families and our community. Really happy to share some of
these enrollment numbers to show how access to early learning has increased thanks to the 2023 referendum.
MCCSE family access to early learning has more than doubled since we've expanded our programs courtesy
of the referendum. Our three-year-old preschool and four-year-old pre-K numbers
have increased from 262 to 526 students, more than doubling. We know for our pre-K program, 100% of
our students either attend for free or half cost or less. And with our expansion of our three-year-old
preschool program this year, we know that 75% of our students are attending for free, thanks to the
referendum. I always like to take time to highlight our curriculum that we use. We do use a play-based
curriculum because we know that's what's best for kids and how students best learn in early learning.
We use a program called CRETA curriculum. We know that it improves kindergarten readiness. We know that
it supports the whole child. We know that it's aligned to Indiana's early learning standards, and that
it's in alignment with our desire to have a play-based curriculum. I wanted to circle back to our enrollment
numbers, because I really think it shows how this referendum has had a direct impact on increased access
to early learning in our corporation. These are our four-year-old pre-K number enrollment numbers earlier
this year from September 10.
Really just wanna highlight how we have a four-year-old pre-K program in all our elementary schools.
As of September 10th, we had 322 students, which is higher than what we started with last school year,
so we know our program continues to grow. We also have six community partners where students are accessing
pre-K through the support of the 2023 referendum. Our numbers went from 46 last year at our six community
providers to 62 this year, so we know that is also continuing to grow, which we're really pleased to see.
Just highlighting some increased access, we know that our pre-K numbers more than doubled from 23-24
to 24-25 when we increased with the referendum funds. And we know that our enrollment from this year
in pre-K is higher than it was to start last school year. Looking at our three-year-old preschool program,
which is what we've been able to expand this year courtesy of the referendum, we have 115 students in
our three-year-old preschool programs across our six elementary schools and our two early learning centers.
We have 27 students at our community partners who are accessing these programs using MCCSE referendum
funds. So to highlight some increase in three-year-old preschool enrollment because of the referendum,
in MCCSE-based programs, our preschool enrollment is increased by 47.4%. When you include the students
that we're supporting in our community providers, access in three-year-old preschool is increased by
82% due to the referendum.
What we know, what we know that increased access means more of our students are school ready. I'm going
to talk a little bit more about that now. We use an assessment in early learning and in our early learning
programs, iSprout is a commonly used assessment used in Indiana. It's an observational test so teachers
are observing their students and then recording data. The goal of that assessment is really to see how
our students, particularly for our pre-k students, is how they are measuring up in kindergarten readiness.
At the beginning of last school year, 19% of our students were demonstrated to be kindergarten ready.
By the end of last school year, it was now 83%, an increase of 64% of our pre-K students now
being kindergarten ready for this year. We're really pleased by that data. I want to just dig into the
data a little bit more to show that this data is more than just these important early literacy and early
math skills. It also is about social foundations,
physical well-being and motor development, science and fine arts, it's really a perspective of the whole
child. So that red bar is a three, and the dark blue is at the end of school year. And you can see at
the end of school year that our students were above that 3.0 line, showing that they were ready, not
just one of the domains, but all six domains, that they were kindergarten ready. We know that that data
is really important, but we know is equally valuable as our feedback from our kindergarten teachers.
And since the very beginning of the year, as I was visiting schools, as I'm visiting classrooms, we're
hearing from our kindergarten teachers that this year is different, that they can see that our students
are more ready for kindergarten than they've ever been. Our students are feeling more confident, feeling
more prepared, feeling more comfortable, whether it's classroom discussions or attending specials with
their specials teachers. This is the feedback we're hearing across the corporation from our kindergarten
teachers. We know that our students feel more prepared to know what's expected of them.
It's just been a really positive experience for them to start this year. I want to conclude by highlighting
our really important infant and toddler programs that serve children in our community. We have programs
for our infants and toddlers that are two early learning centers, early learning center south and early
learning center north. Some key takeaways I want to finish with is that just sharing that access to
early learning in our corporation is more than double, courtesy of the referendum.
Want to point out how amazing this is, especially in light of what's unfortunately happening across
the state. In the state right now, we have over 25,000 students who are on a wait list for CCDF who
are unable to access early learning programs because of these cuts that are happening across the state.
We are protected and blessed to have this referendum. So we are having very different outcomes for our
children because of this referendum. And for that, I'm eternally grateful.
I'm eternally grateful for our teachers and our staff who are providing the high quality programs that
is demonstrating exceptional student growth. So I guess I will just conclude by giving one more thank
you to the community for this referendum, because we know the impact it's having on our students and
our families. At that time, I'll say thank you and then see if there are any questions. I've got one
quick question. Do we know what percent of our pre-K four-year-olds last year matriculated into MCCSE
kindergarten?
We do. It's about, I don't remember exactly what it is, between 85% and 95% of our students have continued
with us moving from pre-K to kindergarten. The ones that didn't, did they go somewhere else within our
community or did they move? Some of them actually chose to, they really enjoyed early learning, but
they wanted to be homeschooled for kindergarten or they moved. But most of them, the ones I've talked
with, continued on with us. Great question. Thank you. Any other questions or comments?
Thank you, Dr. Dowling. Oh, you're up again. You're just going to stay. OK, I'm like, you're staying?
Is there something you'd like to say? I'm looking. I'm reading my notes. What's next? OK, take it away.
We are now on our last redistricting. Here we go. Yeah, so I'm excited to provide an update
on our redistricting study and our commission. Nice topics. I'm going to talk about a commission dashboard
that we've been using.
and I'll talk about Dr. Baten who created that dashboard with our commission and how we've been using
that. I'll talk about how we continue to study redistricting scenarios and we've had an even more robust
data to our approach. Now those are things I want to highlight including next steps. I always like to
talk about our project charter because it defines the scope of our work. Our project charter purpose
is to study redistricting as a mechanism to balance socioeconomic status across our schools when considering
cost effectiveness of both current and redistricted models. Our charter includes our goals and metrics
and how we define success. Our commission is focused on finding considerations to achieve improved
socioeconomic status balance to get a better understanding of that. We wanna get a better understanding
of the factors that inform cost effectiveness of our buildings.
We, of course, want to have a primary focus on the impact of these things that we're studying on our
students and our families. And, of course, there's important data that we continue to study, including
building utilization rates and demographic trends and those impacts they will have on our building
utilization. The redistricting study timeline, we continue to study at this time elementary scenarios
to see what insights we can get about the board considerations in our community
priorities and community considerations. We will then shift to looking at secondary scenarios including
at the middle and high school level and then in spring we anticipate sharing a board a report with the
board in the community that will summarize the insights that we have gained through throughout
the commission's work. Just really wanted to kind of share get into the details a little about
the commission's work. We were working on
evaluating reducing scenarios using some really important data that we got from a demographer,
Preston Smith, that was really helpful in getting us started. The data that we had from him included
enrollment, building capacities, we added some geographic proximity, and we were really focused on looking
at socioeconomic status through using free and reduced lunch rates. We found that really helpful, but
from the very beginning, we were working with commission members, they wanted more data, they wanted
more robust data, and I think that was a really important ask, so we've been able to
With the work of Dr. Beighton, who I will introduce shortly, we were able to add some data to our approach.
That included US Census data and county survey data. So now that we had the data we're using and with
the data dashboard created by Dr. Beighton, we've been able to have an even more robust approach to
studying maps. We have an interactive tool that we now are using to study reducing scenarios, to gain
those insights that we're seeking.
At this time, I'd like to introduce Dr. Baten. He will talk more about the data dashboard that he has
created. He is a GIS coordinator and, very importantly, a commission member. And he's been working with
myself and Dr. Garmin McLean to create those maps that we've been studying as a commission. Thanks,
Tim. Thanks, everybody. Yeah, so I'm John Baten. I work in the Monroe County Surveyor's Office, GIS
coordinator from Monroe County. Yeah, this has been like a really fulfilling
process to be part of. I have kids in MCCSC and so public schools are a foundation of our democracy
and I also think for our community. So whatever is good for MCCSC is also good for Monroe County at
large. There we go, yeah. So Tim mentioned that I've been creating this but it's been a collaborative
effort between Tim, Blaine, myself and the rest of the commission to actually create these dashboards.
As Tim mentioned, some of the data we were looking at
to begin with for SCS was looking mainly at free and reduced lunch rates. What we brought in were some
different metrics and some of this was parcel data. So looking at kind of the average assessed value
of parcels, number of address points within parcels to get a better idea of kind of what would
the composition of current attendance zones are. There's a QR code on here that you can access to
look at the dashboard. This is configured for both mobile and desktop. I would say that the desktop
functionality is a little bit more robust with some more kind of bells and whistles. So the parcel analysis
gives us a good idea of the current kind of attendance zones, those ones that currently we're using
for MCCSC. And again, it's kind of that compensation of the residential use type, thinking
that a single-family parcel probably equates to a higher SES metric than, say, an apartment complex
or a commercial housing, which would be a rental unit.
We also brought in data from the U.S. Census, and now the census occurs in every decade, but there's
also something that comes out that's called the American Community Survey, and what this is is almost
like an aggregate value of kind of more in-depth qualitative questions that might be asked to census
takers. The 2020 census, as I'm assuming a lot of you know, was wrought with errors and issues. There
were questions in the census that were
An appropriate initiative has been asked in the first place. It also took place during COVID. So there
was a lower kind of count that we'd be getting. The ACS data, however, is a kind of a composition of
data from 2019 to 2023. So it's a five-year average. And this has information about things like access
to vehicles, educational attainment at a census block group level or a census track level.
So we're able to bring that in as well. Now some of the challenges that we encountered with this is
that the current intended zones were drawn, I believe, around 2006, 2005, and when they were drawn they
weren't really following any type of authoritative geography. What I mean by an authoritative geography
is actually using a established reference point to build off of.
We're now beginning to look at using census data, census block data, or that geometry of the census
to shape kind of these attendance zones to give us a better idea of who is there and also moving forward,
who's going to be there in the future. So those are some of the things that we're kind of looking at.
I think I've probably already gotten into some of these limitations. Again, these census tracts are
not aligning with the attendance zones. And so what we might have here would be, I believe that's Lakeview
attendance zone.
it crosses something like four or five different census tracts. And so you get these kind of weird values
when you're trying to get an actual number of what's going on within these different groups. Again,
what we're doing today now is looking at
using census block group geometry as that authoritative data moving forward to shape these new attendance
zones. And it's like I said, it's been a really fulfilling exercise and a process working with
the commission, working with Tim and Blaine throughout this. I think that's probably all I have. Yeah.
So yeah, just to conclude, as John mentioned, we've been able to create these example scenarios for study.
at the census block level and we have our data with the data that John has brought has allowed us to
really bring a lot of robust table to these scenarios that we're studying and allowing us as a commission
to gain insights about what we can learn about the board priorities and the community considerations
through studying these example scenarios. Just to finish talking about our timeline, we're continuing
studying these elementary scenarios to see what we can learn. We'll then certainly look at the secondary
scenarios and what insights we can gain by
studying those maps as a commission. And then we will conclude the commission by sharing a
report, summarizing the things that we've learned and share with the board for consideration and with
the public. Thank you. And are there any questions? I'm sure Dr. Bain would be happy to take questions.
He can certainly handle the technical ones because I'll definitely defer to him on those ones, yeah.
Questions from the board or comments? I have a couple of questions. Go ahead.
Thank you, Dr. Payton. This sounds like really valuable in this process. So thanks for your help with
this. This question might be premature, but has adding in those other considerations beyond free and
reduced lunch changed, significantly changed your understanding of the socioeconomic balance between
our elementary schools? I don't know if it's changed that. It's helped us. For example, one of the community
considerations is about building utilization
So that is something that I'd see kind of goes together. And thus, it allows us to study that one alongside
balancing SES. So I wouldn't say that. I would just say it just allowed us to get more insight about
a variety of things at the same time by adding the community considerations. Does that answer your question?
It does. Yeah, it does. Sorry, that was loud. Thank you. It does. I'm enthusiastic. My other question is,
is maybe sadder. So as you're considering cost-effectiveness, has your team at all looked to see whether
other school districts that have gone through redistricting have had a significant loss in attendance
or whether it might impact our ability to pass a referendum? Well, the first one I can address. The
second one we haven't looked at. So I couldn't give that a truthful answer because we haven't studied
that one. But as a commission, we looked at Dr. Carmen-McClain has shared
research with both me and we've shared with the commission that it's a very low percentage rate of students
who do choose. I know it's talked about, but a lot of the research we show is that you retain between
98% and 99% of your students. Thank you. That's great news. I think that's really good news and sort
of what I had seen as well. Or sometimes you see a little dip and then a bounce back in subsequent years.
I do just want to say thank you so much, Dr. Bing, for this amazing work. I think that this is an example
of the best kind of collaboration between community and a school corporation or an entity like this,
an organization. And I'm just really grateful, Dr. Dowling, for your leadership in this work and for
the commission that's made up of so many community individuals who've invested so much time in this.
I think we started this process
It's been a while now, right? And it's gone through multiple iterations of how to proceed, when to proceed,
what is the answer? And I think that, you know, this too is an answer of... Okay, I'm gonna say this.
So where I work, at Blanchard, it's a leadership development company, and our CEO, Scott Blanchard,
has sort of coined this first pancake term.
And his notion is that the first pancake is always the crappy pancake. It's like you have to test it
and it's burnt or it's not cooked enough or it's a shape in. There's always something wrong with the
first pancake, but the first pancake is necessary for every other pancake after it. And so I think this
is a really, really good example of a first pancake that came before the board or that the board put
out there. I think it was actually brought to us in a particular way.
we've moved beyond the first pancake, right? And the testament, I think, here is that not only did we
have a board that was willing to come back to the drawing table over and over and actually did listen
to its public and its commenters and say, okay, we're hearing you, let's do this, let's try this, let's
move here, let's investigate this. And I think we've landed in this really beautiful process now, right,
of this amazing collaboration that is obviously
enriching the process and I think the people in it. And so I'm just want to say thank you to all of
you for that work. Yeah, I'll just add my thank you to we have nearly 92 commission members who signed
up who attended now seven meetings with more meetings planned and they continue to come and they continue
to offer their input. And we have commission members like John who's at the level of expertise that's
brought so much with his dashboard and with interactive tool that we're using for these maps that we're
studying it's been
It's been a really amazing experience, and I really appreciate all the commission members' time that
they've given to the commission. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. No, I'm a step ahead. I have final thoughts.
Oh, yeah. Any other questions, comments? All right, take away final thoughts. Oh, OK. Do you need a
stall for you? No, no. I think I have them collected. I just, you know, I've
It's easy to get down in public education right now because of all the challenges, especially in our
state at the moment. But I've been just reflecting on all of the other ways in which our corporation
is so rich. We talked earlier about the partnership with MCEA, the retired administrators who are willing
to come back and fill in when we need them.
the partnerships Mr. Irwin mentioned when we were talking about contracts, the partnerships that we
have with community organizations, and then community members who will step forward and help us answer
questions, as well as the thank you that we keep repeating because it's so important to our voters for
supporting our referendum. And so even though I, like I said, we've had so many meetings with hard conversations,
I think I'm leaving here tonight just really grateful for how fortunate we are in this corporation to
have so much support. Thank you, Dr. Dowling. We appreciate it. We now move on to comments and committee
reports. Does the board have any comments or reports you'd like to share? Seeing none, we will move
right along to the superintendent comments and report, Dr. Winston.
Yes, I just have a couple to share. First of all, I just want to mention and friendly reminder that
Friday is October 31st. And I want to remind those that are driving during that time period that during
trick or treat hours to be aware of our children who are walking and crossing the roads. We want to
make sure that everyone has a safe and enjoyable time. I also want to make sure that our families are
aware that on Tuesday, November 4th, we do not have school. It's generally
closed for election day on that day, whether there's election held or not held, but for us
it is a professional learning day for our educators and it's a very important time and our students
will return on Wednesday, November the 5th. I'm very excited to share with you that Pat Wilson, a retired
teacher from Bloomington High School North, is going to be honored at the Rotary Toast.
She's a longtime MCCSE teacher and she is the founder of the Bloomington High School North Habitat for
Humanity student affiliate and she's going to be honored next Friday, November 7th at the 11th Annual
Rotary Toast at Ivy Tech's Shreve Hall. Ms. Wilson's contributions to the Bloomington community, MCCSE,
and IU have been widely recognized at the national, the state, as well as the local levels.
Tickets for this event are still available at RotaryToast.com. 50% of the proceeds will benefit the
Bloomington North Habitat for Humanity chapter, while the other 50% will benefit Rotary Club efforts
for nonprofits in Monroe County. So please, if you are available, make sure to take a moment to honor
and help us celebrate Pat Wilson.
I think one of the main topics of conversations from early, early this morning or late last night, depending
upon your perspective, has to do with Wilmington High School North graduate Will Klein. What an amazing,
amazing opportunity and experience. In his 2025 World Series debut, Wilmington High School North graduate
Will Klein pitched four scoreless innings in the World Series.
He recorded five strikeouts and he was credited with the win after the Dodgers secured a walk-off victory
in the 18th inning of game three. His performance was a career-long outing and came in a high-pressure
situation with the bullpen bullpen depleted. His mother teaches for us here at Fairview Elementary for
those of you who did not know. But he pitched four innings, five strikeouts, two hits, one walk,
0.0 ERA, and he got the win. So anyway, so just a celebration for another continued example of excellence
at MCCSC, which is what we all recognize. So can we just give Will a round of applause? Thank you. And
of course, I would be remiss if I didn't say that Dr. Henderson was his principal.
A couple other things I just want to mention. Fall sports are winding down. We have a number of fall
sporting events, too many to go through, but on Friday we have our football sectionals. South plays
at home against Terre Haute South, and North plays at home against Terre Haute North. Okay, yes, they
coordinated that. On Saturday, November 1st,
our cross country state finals for boys and girls. North and South will both have student representatives
participating. And last night, Hoosier Hills Career Center hosted its College and Career Pathway Fair.
It was standing room only. I couldn't even find a place to park. And someone said, couldn't you just
park illegally? And I said, yeah, I probably could have, but I didn't want to get towed. But it was
a wonderful event and a shout out.
to Christine Reitzman and her team for hosting that. And this past Saturday at the community farmers
market, a celebrating friendship event was held where the musical event was held on the steps of Bloomington
City Hall. And it features singers from several MCCSE elementary schools, including Binford, Clear Creek,
Fairview, Marlin, Summit, Templeton, and University Elementary. Very exciting. In the area of musical
and performing arts,
There are too many events to highlight for you, but hopefully you saw the newsletter that came out on
Friday from our communications department highlighting all of the performances across our high schools,
across elementary and middle schools, our winter performances, our coral festivals, everything. And
so I think it's really important to continue to celebrate the arts. That's something that we also do
exceedingly well.
and want to give a shout out. And I would like to just kind of conclude by making sure that everybody
had a chance to receive our inaugural MCCSE newspaper. I think we might have some in the back that would
be available for folks if you didn't get one. Personally, I have not yet received mine in the mail yet.
So I'm hoping that I will get one, but in the case I don't, I've got this one. And I just want to say
a shout out to all of our schools that are represented in here. Our effort, our hope, and part of the
goal and priority of our board has been to make sure that we are telling our stories, that we are celebrating
the excellence that we have been accustomed to day in and day out. And this is just one example of our attempt
to celebrate the excellence of our students and to celebrate the excellence of our staff members and
hopefully you found it to be good reading and informative and certainly share a copy with a friend of
yours and I would just conclude by saying
We could not have done this without the direction, the leadership, the guidance, and the expertise of
Mrs. Sarah DeWeese. And so thank you so much, Sarah, for all of the time and energy and effort that
you've put into this over the last several months in helping us to tell our own stories. That concludes
my report. Thank you, Dr. Winston. And yes, thank you, Sarah, very much for your work on this. But also,
I think on so many other pieces of communication in this district, I think a lot of times people think about
the communication as the crisis communication and the sort of weekly letters that go out just saying,
like, here's what's coming or whatever. But I think it really is so important to tell our stories. And
I think that we have seen a really beautiful uptick in the way that our students' stories get told since
you've been in the district. So I appreciate that so much. All right.
Our next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 and we are adjourned.