Welcome to the December meeting of the MCCSE Board of School Trustees. We ask that you please come to
order. Before we move in to honor the excellence of MCCSE's dedicated employees, students, and volunteers
who make a difference, I just want to make a quick motion to amend our agenda for tonight. This would
be an amendment that would fall under district updates at the very top. So this would be 6.01, pushing
everything down by one.
and we'll just call it restatement of district values. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, thanks for
that second and we'll now vote in favor of adding that to the agenda. All those in favor of amending
the agenda to add 6.01 restatement of district values, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Any abstentions? The motion carries and the agenda is amended.
For now though, we will move into our time of excellence. Ms. Harmon. Thank you, President Hennessy,
Dr. Winston, the Board of Trustees and community members. It is my pleasure to share this month's excellent
spotlight. This spotlight is a feature of every regular Board of School Trustees meeting and is a dedicated
time to honor
the excellence occurring every day through the dedication of MCCSE employees, students, and volunteers
who make a difference in our school community and foster environments that reflect the MCCSE mission,
vision, and core values. For December
our student recognition, we're proud to recognize Violet Hall, a senior at Bloomington High School South
for her incredible achievement and inspiring determination. Violet was born without the lower part of
her right arm, yet she continues to break barriers in athletics. She recently completed in the World
Para Championships in New Delhi, India, where she placed fifth in the 200 meter final racing against
athletes with similar disabilities.
Violet's perseverance and success make her an outstanding role model for our community. Congratulations,
Violet, on this remarkable accomplishment. I do not believe she was able to make it tonight. I'm also
honored to recognize Theresa Tish Hammack, custodian at Lakeview Elementary School for the December
Excellence Spotlight. I can't think of it. This is the principal speaking. She can't think of anyone
more deserving of this recognition. She goes above and beyond for students and staff every single day
ensuring that Lakeview's building is always in pristine condition. Her dedication and hard work create
an environment where learning can thrive. Beyond her commitment to cleanliness and organization, Tish
brings a unique talent for decorating that adds a special touch to our school. Her creativity transforms
spaces into warm, welcoming environments that truly make Lakeview feel like home. Thank you, Tish, for
everything you do. And also, Tish was not able to make it tonight. Thank you very much.
Dr. Winston, I think you have some people to recognize as well. I do, I do. We have the Superintendent
Sustaining Excellence Awards. The first award is the 2025 Congressional, excuse me, the Congressional
App Challenge winner for District 9. Jiping Leo and Jean Herr, students at Bloomington High School South,
were winners of the Congressional App Challenge for Indiana District 9 for their app, iFind. Their app
acts like LinkedIn,
for high school internships, connecting local organizations with potential high school interns, as well
as allowing students to document their internship accomplishments for peers and internship supervisors.
I think we could already use this. Their app will be honored by Representative Erin Hoken and displayed
on the House.gov webpage. Congratulations to Ji Ping and Jean.
I would also like to honor you with the Superintendent's Sustaining Excellence Award. So if the two
of you could come forward, please. Go ahead. Can we give them a round of applause? We are going to ask
you to join us right now.
Congratulations. Come on up. They're amazing teacher. The producer of many award winners. It makes it
really easy. Our district is full of awesome students and families and teachers to support them. Come
to the microphone. We'll stand with you. Come on.
First of all, I'd just like to thank Dr. Milks for teaching us in AP Bio. She's a really great teacher
and she also supported us when we were confused along the process for making our app and we saw a lot
of advice from her and she was
really supportive about that. So we want to thank her. And I'd also like to thank the school corporation
for giving us the ability to engage in these STEM opportunities as high schoolers. And I don't think
I would have been able to do it if I was in another school environment. So thank you. Thank you so very much.
And Dr. Milks, we so appreciate you as well. We really do. We have one more award to acknowledge, another
Superintendent Sustaining Excellence Awards for the Riley Champion. On December 2nd, the Riley Children's
Foundation announced its 2026 Riley Champions. The Riley Champions program was created to recognize
and honor remarkable Riley hospital patients who translate their courage during a medical challenge
in the philanthropic action in their community. Tonight,
We want to congratulate our MCCSE champion, but also award the Superintendent's Sustaining Excellence
Award. Bennett Pace is a fourth grade student at Childs Elementary. And I'm not sure, is Bennett here?
Okay, Bennett's unable to be here this evening. But his principal is Steven Marshall at Childs Elementary.
So if we can give Bennett just a round of applause for this amazing accomplishment.
That concludes our Superintendents Sustaining Excellence Awards. Oh, excellent. Thank you very much.
And I did just want to recognize one other individual tonight on our board, actually. So I will just
say that Tiana Berouge, or now Dr. Tiana, has just this past week defended her dissertation.
and has now completed her defense and probably one of the fastest turnarounds of, you know, editing
that maybe has ever happened in the world. Apparently, she'd sent in her edits the very next day or
something like that. Is that true? I will not. I'm a work in progress. Well, we just wanted
to say congratulations to big, big, you know,
endeavor and i've i've known you for a while in this process and so uh happy to see you on the other
side so congratulations thank you we're very proud of you all right we will now proceed to public comments
thank you to all who signed up uh as it is just jenny noble cochera i'm not going to go through the
whole thing i think you know the rules um ding dings all the ding dings you know all right cool
Good evening President Hennessey, Dr. Winston, MCCSE School Board of Trustees, and Monroe County community
members. As April said, my name is Jenny Noble Caccia, and I'm the proud president of MCA, our teachers
union. As you're aware, agenda item 5.02 addresses the desire for MCCSE to eliminate the Title I teacher
supplemental pay stipend of $2,000 per year. Our teachers are fully cognizant
of the myriad shortages in state funding and the financial implications that come as a result of that
shortage. We also recognize the language included in this resolution that, and I quote, the
board acknowledges the need for the federal and state agencies to increase funding to more adequately
permit supplemental teacher compensation for teachers in Title I priority schools and authorizes the
superintendent and her designees
to investigate such possibilities or alternative sources. We have roughly 225 teachers who will no longer
receive the supplemental pay, it will be a decrease for them. And so the question that I'm asking here
on their behalf is what are the alternative sources? It seems to us that the legislature with this just
has one more notch on their belt
of public education dismantlement. So the teacher appreciation grants from the state, they're only going
to go to potentially 13% of our teachers. And that's only if the IDOE deems them eligible. So my question
to our community, to the school board, and to our administration is what then can be done to help retain
the teachers who work hard every day
directly with the population of our most school-dependent kids. Thank you. Thank you very much. As there
are no other public comments, we will now proceed to the consent agenda. Now for our consideration is
the agenda that includes the following, the minutes from the regular board meeting held on November
18th, 2025.
the overnight and out of state field trips, the financial report from November 2025, the appropriation
balance report from November 2025, the register of claims from December 16th, the payroll register and
payroll claims November 2025. Do I have a motion regarding the approval of the consent agenda? So moved.
Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Tiana 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? The motion carries. Next for our consideration are the donations. We have received
nearly $5,000 in donations. We just want to say thank you to all of our donors. Your generosity is always
appreciated. Do I have a motion to accept the donations? So moved. Do I have a second?
It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Asia that we accept the donations as presented. All those in
favor of the motion to approve the donations, 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 Ross and seconded by Ashley that we approve
the personnel report as presented. Dr. Henderson. President Hennessey, Dr. Winston and members of the
Board of School Trustees at this time, I request that you please approve the recommendations as presented
in your board packet in the personnel report. Okay, thank you very much. Do we have any comments from
the board on this? Okay, seeing none, 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.
Next is the recommendation to adopt the resolution 2025-26 supplemental pay for teachers in priority
schools under Title I guidelines. Do I have a motion to adopt the resolution as presented? So moved.
Do I have a second? Second. It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Asia that we accept or that we adopt
the resolution as presented. Dr. Henderson.
President Hennessey, Dr. Winston, members of the Board of School Trustees, it is recommended that the
board adopt resolution 2025-26, supplemental pay for teachers and priority schools under Title I guidelines
as presented in your board packet. I so recommend. Thank you, Dr. Henderson. Do we have any questions
or comments from the board? I just want to say, especially in light of Jenny's comment, that I don't
think that this was an easy decision for any of us and that
Um, I personally, I regret that we are in the position where we have to consider this. Thank you, Aaron.
Anyone else? I just want to second that. Um, just not comfortable with it. I know we have to do it,
but I don't like it. Yeah, I hear that. Still sums it up about as well as you can. Yeah.
And I suppose on the heels of that, just to say that it's a hard decision because we so greatly appreciate
the teachers that serve at our Title I schools, as we appreciate all of our teachers. But we understand
that that comes with special challenges. Indeed. And we implemented this because we understood those
particular challenges, especially in retention. But I do think that we know that at this point,
we are in this spot where we have to make these kinds of fiscal decisions in order to, you know, be
able to make other sorts of, of sort of offerings. And so, yeah, I agree. Uh, any other comments or
a discussion around this particular item? Okay.
All those in favor of the motion to approve resolution 2025-26 supplemental pay for teachers and priority
schools under Title I guidelines signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion
carries. We now move to contracts. Do I have a motion to approve the contracts as presented? So moved.
Do I have a second? Second.
It's been moved by Ross and seconded by Ashley that we approve the contracts as presented. Mr. Irwin,
anything to highlight for us? I just want to highlight one contract that's with Ivy Tech Bloomington.
Just thankful for their partnership. They're providing Shreve Hall at no cost to us in order to do the
commencement ceremony for ASC students. Just thankful for that continued partnership. I recommend all
contracts as presented. All right, thank you. Are there any comments or questions from the board?
All those in favor of the motion to approve the contracts as presented, please signify by saying aye.
Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? The motion carries. We will now move to Policy 3220.01 Teacher
Appreciation Grant, which will be presented to repeal this policy. Ms. Harmon.
Thank you President Hennessy, Dr. Winston, and members of the board. Policy 3220.01 Teacher Appreciation
Grant is first presented for repeal. HEA 1001, Section 19 of this act repeals the former language relating
to the teacher appreciation grants, which removes the requirement for the school board to adopt a policy
concerning distributions of grants to teachers in the school corporation.
Section 198 of HEA 1001 establishes a new teacher appreciation grant program administered by the Indiana
Department of Education. According to our bylaws, policy 3220.01 is presented for the first reading
and will be presented a second time for a recommendation to repeal at the January 27, 2026 board meeting.
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Harmon. So again, just for those listening,
This is a policy, a first reading of a policy for repeal. And this is because the state has issued a
new policy with regard to teacher appreciation grants. And so the other one on file must first be repealed.
And so that is the reason for this sort of action at this moment. Are there any comments or questions
from anybody at this time? Okay. We move on to district updates and now
Number 6.01 is the amended item from earlier in this meeting. And so this is the motion to amend restatement
of district values, number 6.01. And so I'll just take a moment to read this. The social, emotional,
educational, physical and psychological safety of our students is the utmost importance to our board
of school trustees and administration.
As such, we committed at the start of this year, on January 28th, 2025, to upholding the dignity and
rights of all students in our care. Part of that commitment is bolstered by the following. MCCSE does
not ask for or document students' immigration status when students enroll, and MCCSE must educate all
students who reside within MCCSE boundaries, regardless of immigration status. MCCSE complies with all
privacy laws, including FERPA,
which stands for Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which governs the privacy of educational
records of our students. MCCSE complies with laws governing limiting access to school facilities and
educational records, including by federal, state, or local government agents such as U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement or ICE agents. Only agents with appropriate warrants, as verified by administrators
and guided by MCCSE legal counsel, may be permitted to access,
may be permitted access to school buildings or records. But the other part of that commitment on our
part is to provide support and care in our buildings in those moments when our community is impacted
by events that happen on or off our campuses. This kind of support in response to global or national
crises, local disruption, illness and death of our school community members, or threats to the well-being
of our students is part and parcel of what we endeavor to provide whenever possible
as we think about the whole student. The board and the administration always seek to respond with compassion
and transparency whenever possible in the timeliest manner. We can only provide the community with the
information available to us at any given moment. However, when we have access to the information that
would keep our students and community safe, we would provide that information if possible. Now and as
always, MCCSE continues to dedicate itself to being a safe place for students
meaning that the corporation is a place for students to learn, thrive and seek assistance, information
and support when they need it. And that concludes our restatement of our district values as regards
to those issues. And so we can close that item unless there's any just comment or question or anything
from board members at this moment. Okay, seeing none.
We will move on to 6.02, which will be student supports, literacy, numeracy, foundations, and interventions.
Ms. Harmon.
Good evening again, President Hennessey, Dr. Winston, and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity
to share tonight. This evening's presentation focuses on student support, specifically how literacy
and numeracy and intervention systems work together to support every learner across MCCSE. What you'll
see tonight is not a collection of disconnected initiatives, but a coherent aligned system designed
to meet students where they are and to help them grow.
As you listen, I invite you to keep one thing in mind. Every structure, every decision, every data point
ultimately comes down to one thing, a student sitting in a classroom, learning, trying, and building
confidence. With that in mind, here's tonight's agenda. We're going to begin with what we're calling
Instruction in Action, and it's a brief video just to really highlight what learning looks like in our
classrooms.
Then we want to speak a little bit about coherence and alignment, which explains how our work fits together
across classrooms, buildings, and the corporation. And then we'll move into foundational literacy and
numeracy, highlighting instructional practices, professional learning, and results, and then finally
examine our database decision-making and interventions, showing how data supports not drives the instruction
in our classrooms. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and play a brief video for you.
good when you see it. It just really feels good to see learners out there with their teachers engaging
hands-on with each other and talking to each other and really see how math and reading kind of come
to life for all of our learners. I particularly just love that ending scene with the teacher calling
the students back in. Okay, thank you. So with that in mind,
This slide kind of captures our guiding belief that coherence and alignment are foundational to our
work. Our mission, vision, and goals are not separate from instructional decisions. They drive them.
Every instructional choice, professional learning opportunity, and intervention strategy aligns to one
shared purpose, our mission, which is empowering students to maximize their educational success. And
so we have one mission, one direction, one team, one plan. This shared direction allows us to move forward
together as one team.
while maintaining high expectations for all of our learners. When these systems are aligned, teachers
can focus on what matters most, and that's our students and instruction. When we think about coherence
alignment, what does that really mean? We believe it makes a stronger, more affectionate educational
experience for all, and the research supports that. Aligned systems are increased student achievement,
are crucial for school improvement,
Reinforce shared instructional vision ensures vertical alignment as well. And so for MCCSE coherence
means student experience consistent expectations. Teachers receive targeted support and leaders make
decisions grounded in evidence, not guesswork. And when we look at that in terms of sustaining academic
excellence, this slide captures how our work fits together and highlights that across the corporation
and each of our buildings, these are our shared instructional goals.
and that they are tied back to our mission and vision. At the core are foundational literacy and numeracy.
These are the skills that make all other learning possible. When students can read with confidence and
reason mathematically, they are prepared to access every subject and every opportunity that follows.
By strengthening these foundations early, we set students on a path toward long-term success, including
college and career readiness. The skills students build in our elementary classrooms become the habits
of thinking,
problem-solving, and perseverance they carry forward. This approach allows us to remain focused, aligned,
and intentional, ensuring that our work today continues to pay dividends for students tomorrow. Tonight,
you're going to hear directly from our Director of Elementary Education, Lily Albright, about
how foundational literacy and numeracy come to life in classrooms and how students experience this work
every day.
And then in a future presentation, our director of secondary education, Eric Gilpin, will come back
to share more regarding secondary education in college and career readiness. Before I turn it over to
Ms. Albright, I do want to talk a little bit about how we make sure there's coherence and alignment
is in place. So we have a bidirectional internal system of accountability. It means we have intentional
support, impactful practices, and targeted professional learning.
And this kind of highlights some of those elements, and that it's a shared responsibility between us,
students, teachers, curriculum directors, and even members of the board. We engage in instructional
snapshots, and that's our way of talking about we go into classrooms, we see what's happening, we want
our work to be relevant and founded in that and see real classroom practice. That we look at the building
and district level to monitor data and see what's working well.
We have regular leadership meetings that focus on instruction and our alignment to our vision. And that
one plan monitoring refers to our school improvement plans, which we refer to as one plan to again focus
our intentionality and that aligned vision. These structures ensure that support is intentional,
not reactive, and decisions are made collaboratively with students' outcomes at the center. We also
know that strong instruction begins with strong leadership.
We want to engage our leaders in targeted professional learning focused on data literacy, assessment
literacy, and database decision making to ensure that they can support teachers effectively, asking
the right questions, interpreting data accurately, and guiding instructional next steps. These set the
stage for the work you'll hear about tonight in foundational literacy and numeracy, where aligned instruction
and professional learning come to life in classrooms. I'd now like to invite Lily Albright to the podium
present on foundational supports and MCCSE. Thank you Ms. Harman, President Hennessy, Dr. Winston, members
of the board. I'm Lily Albright, the proud director of elementary education and it is genuinely a joy
to share this next part of our presentation with you. Foundational literacy and numeracy are where our
youngest learners discover what it feels like to crack the code, to play with numbers, and to feel that
spark of confidence when something finally clicks.
It's important to note and remember that behind each chart, each data point, there's a child learning
to believe I can do this. And our educators are building those moments every day. As I walk through
each section, I want you to notice something that was very intentional. You will hear directly from
our students, our teachers, and our principals. Educator voices are woven throughout the presentation
because they tell the story. Their quotes show not only what we're doing,
but how it feels in classrooms. The joy, the momentum, and the pride in learning. I will begin with
a student quote related to our work on foundational literacy. One of our elementary students said, I
am a good reader. My teacher helps me by encouraging me to sound out a word, and then if I still don't
know it, she helps me figure it out. She's a good teacher. When students talk about reading in this
way, feeling supported, confident, and proud,
that tells us our foundational literacy structures are working. In literacy, our focus is on evidence-based
practices, systematic and explicit phonics and phonemic awareness instruction, decoding and word recognition,
rich and meaningful vocabulary instruction, building content knowledge, small group instruction grounded
in data, and use of resources such as UFLY, Morphing Magic, and Quick Reads.
These practices come directly from the science of reading and decades of research on how children learn
to read. To support this work, we provide ongoing job-embedded learning for our teachers, including
coaching cycles and planning, goal setting and modeling, literacy block, structure refinement and guidance,
and a strong partnership with expert Dr. Jamie Peebler, who's developed professional learning focused
on vocabulary and language comprehension.
Teachers are applying these practices with growing confidence and you can feel the momentum. We're excited
to build on this momentum with the adoption of a new evidence-based English language arts curriculum
for the 2026-27 school year. And we'll share more about that in an upcoming board meeting. We're really
proud of our early literacy gains this year. We saw a 3.7 increase in third grade proficiency on iRead.
Three schools reaching 100%, which is remarkable, and half of our second graders who took the test early
last year passed. And that early success gives them a strong head start. These results reflect consistent
instruction, a strong literacy block, and teachers who bring skill and joy to their work. This slide
includes a few comments from principals and teachers about foundational literacy work.
I know it's a lot of text, but their voices matter. They're the ones bringing this work to life for
our students. I won't read everything on the slide, but I want to highlight a few important themes that
come through clearly. The quotes speak to the structures that are in place to analyze data and adjust
instruction. They note how UFLY is empowering students through intentional instruction and the way their
vocabulary instruction has become richer and more meaningful.
These are teachers who feel supported, prepared, and excited, and that energy is reaching students.
That is what we strive for. We know that when teachers feel energized and supported and inspired, our
students feel it too. When asked about foundational numeracy, an elementary student said, I liked subtracting
and adding decimals and fractions.
We do exit tickets to see what we're good at and what we still need help with. My teacher goes through
the slides to help us and she teaches us at the teacher table. This quote highlights three important
parts of our approach. First, students see math as engaging and accessible, something they like doing.
Second, they understand the purpose of exit tickets. Even at a young age, they know that these quick
checks help teachers figure out what they've mastered
and what they still need support with. And third, the student is describing high quality small group
instruction. The teacher table is where targeted teaching happens, where students get the just right
support they need in response to real time data. So in one short quote, this student captured the full
cycle of our foundational numeracy work. Joyful learning, meaningful assessment, and responsive instruction.
It's exactly the kind of experience we want every student to have in every single classroom. Our numeracy
best practices include conceptual understanding supported by manipulatives, explicit instruction and
key skills, strong number sense routines, student-centered exploration, purposeful use of small group
instruction. We're building deep, durable math understanding, not just procedural compliance.
Our professional learning and support in math includes a new reveal math curriculum that's aligned to
Indiana standards, learning labs each semester with instructional coaches and peers where teachers visit
each other's classrooms and collaborate with other teachers in their grade level across MCCSC, coaching
cycles to support planning and modeling, and a partnership with expert Dr. Laurie Ferry to
guide instructional shifts. Our work in math mirrors our work in literacy,
emphasizing explicit instruction, conceptual understanding, aligned curriculum, and job-embedded professional
learning. Our 2025 iLearn math results show progress. Grades three through eight are now 12.9% above
the state average. This is a testament to aligned curriculum, committed teaching, and consistent
research-based instruction. And while we're proud of this growth, we're not satisfied. We know we can
and will do even better for our students.
Teachers are seeing results in their classroom every day. These quotes highlight their commitment to
the use of small group time, their appreciation of the new curriculum, and their acknowledgement of
the power of learning labs and grade level collaboration. The final section of our presentation this
evening focuses on database decision making, a structure that's woven throughout our foundational literacy
and numeracy practices. One of our elementary students said,
I know I'm learning because my brain tells me that we're learning and stuff. When I read this student
quote, I couldn't help but smile. There's something so honest and insightful about it. For students,
learning is often based on how they feel, whether a lesson made sense, whether they had fun, or whether
something finally clicked in their mind. And that feeling matters. It tells us learning is happening.
But for teachers and for our system, that can't be the whole picture. We need to know exactly what students
know and can do. We need to know where they're thriving, where they're struggling, and what specific
skills need attention. And that understanding must be rooted in something more than a feeling. It has
to be rooted in data. To ensure our decisions are rooted in data and that our interventions are effective,
we're collecting data on a regular basis,
collaborating to respond to that data and monitoring student response to our instruction. And to do
this, we focus on improving our data literacy, assessment literacy, and knowledge of the monitoring
cycle. This system has improved our interventions, making them more intentional and more responsive
than ever. The diagram on this slide illustrates how this multi-tiered system of support functions as
a proactive,
and responsive system to support the whole child. It shows the cyclical nature of the process and highlights
the role that data and collaboration play. This process is used across all our elementary buildings,
which gives us a clear common language, a consistent way to identify student needs, and an actionable
structure for implementing, monitoring, and refining supports.
Let's look at how that process plays out in our schools as it relates to foundational literacy specifically.
First, a screener is administered to all students. In this case, we use Dibbles, which stands for dynamic
indicators of basic early literacy skills. We do this three times a year, the gain of year, middle of
year, and end of year. The results will show if a student is below, at, or well below the benchmark.
And using these results, instructional leaders at each school identify groups. Interventions are delivered
based on individual student needs. And students who are identified as performing below or well below
are progress monitored every two to three weeks to determine if our instructional strategies are working.
Then we either stay the course or adjust our instruction. These last two steps are repeated as needed
until the next screener is administered.
This slide indicates how the process continues as the year progresses. It represents the process following
the middle of the year screener, where we anticipate to have fewer students performing below benchmark.
The process remains the same throughout the year, meeting students where they are, depending on their
response to instruction. Finally, the Dibble screener will be administered a third time near the end
of the year and the process continues.
When you talk with teachers and administrators about database decision making, you'll hear things like,
our approach to data has made us more intentional. Progress monitoring is now integral to our work,
and Dibbles is helping us pinpoint exactly what students need. This is what it sounds like when data
moves from being a requirement to a tool that teachers value and trust. This slide features our final quote,
It is one that illustrates one elementary student's perspective about assessments. This young student
said, we're not just learning and then forgetting. We take assessments to see what we remember. Sometimes
the assessments are hard, but if I've already learned it, not so much. This year is really fun. These
words really capture the heart of what intentional assessment can look like through a child's eyes.
For students,
Assessments aren't about scores or pressure. They're about noticing their own growth. They help students
see what they remember, what they can do, and what they're getting better at. The joy this student feels
comes from a sense of progress and understanding that learning builds over time. This student's commitment
reflects something powerful. Students feel the difference when assessment is used well. It makes learning clearer.
more purposeful, and yes, more fun. And for teachers, that same information allows them to
be more intentional and more responsive. It's the combination of the student experience and teacher
decision making that makes our database decision system work. I hope that what you've seen tonight is
the power of coherence, strong instruction, and a committed team of educators. I'm so appreciative of
your continued support of this work,
and of our incredible educators who bring it to life. We're proud of where we are and even more excited
about where we're going. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions or comments from the board? I've
got a quick one. When you do the breakdown in groups based on at below or substantially below, is there
also something for the kids that are substantially above? Yes. OK. Yeah. So I noticed that was missing
in the slide. Yeah. When you're planning for groups, that's part of it. OK.
those who are at grade level and those who are performing above and what's the best instructional match.
That's right. Great. You got it. Other questions? I just have a comment. Thank you so much. I am in
the unique position that happens
occasionally on the board where I'm experiencing the same thing as a parent as what I'm learning about
on the board. So I have a kindergartner this year who's going through this and learning to read. And
I've also been talking to parents of other kindergartners from outside of MCCSC. And I am just always
so amazed by how much more data I have as a parent, how much more data my kids' teachers have, and how
well, they use that to help our students read, especially as compared to other schools. And I'm so grateful
for it. And my little guy, Emmett, is so proud of himself because he is learning to read. And honestly,
his teacher works some kind of magic that we could never do at home. And the data is a big part of that.
So I think it's amazing. Love that. Anything else? Comments, questions? All right.
Well thank you very much for that update. We appreciate it and thank you Ms. Harmon as well. Next we
will move on to Dr. Dowling who will present an update on the work of the Redistricting Commission.
Thank you President Hennessy, Dr. Winston and members of the Board of School Trustees. Thank you for
this opportunity to provide a redistricting study update.
As always, I start with a project charter. I'm not gonna go into further detail here because I'll actually
be talking a lot about the project charter later when I talk about the commission's report. Here's our
timeline for our redistricting study for the work we've had so far. The board passed a resolution in
February 2024 to study redistricting. In November of 2024, our demographer Preston Smith from Business
Information Services, he presented on
information about our school corporation, including 14 scenarios for redistricting. In the December,
2024 board meeting, the board identified two priorities for redistricting. These priorities are to balance
socioeconomic status and to review cost effectiveness. In March of 2025, the commission was formed.
The commission's work began in April of 2025. We began by looking at our project charter. We've had
nine commission meetings from April
from 2025 to December of 2025. During that work, there was discussion, there was review of research
connected to the board priorities and our community considerations, which I'll highlight in a second.
We studied 50 different scenarios, including the 14 from our demographer, Preston Smith. Here I'd like
to highlight the considerations that helped guide our work. These came directly from public input and
from selection from our commission members. These public considerations
that were incorporated into our redistricting study include capacity, resource allocation, class sizes,
minimizing student reassignment, transportation, and the concept of community schools. For tonight's
agenda, I will be highlighting three different topics. First, I want to talk about the last commission
meeting in December where we focused on secondary redistricting scenarios. I'd like to give an important
thank you to our commission members as we've had our last commission meeting.
when I will highlight from December. And I also like to get into a little bit more detail about what
the reducing study commission report will look like. First, looking at our December 3rd commission meeting,
we focused on secondary scenarios. We studied eight middle school scenarios. We studied eight high school
scenarios. These scenarios were taken directly from our elementary scenarios, which we previously studied
in October and November. All these scenarios are being built at the census block level.
And most importantly, the insights and findings from commission members on these secondary scenarios
will be included in our commission report. At this time, I'd like to give a thank you to our commission
members. It's really hard to articulate in words how grateful we are for their work. They attended nine
meetings. They give up nine evenings of their life to spend their evening to study redistricting with
us and share their insights. As I mentioned earlier, we've looked at 50 different redistricting scenarios.
And that's really just a sampling of the number we could have looked at, but it's quite a number. We
know that at least 25 hours of work they've given to our commission, and most importantly, they provided
critical insights in our study about redistricting. They've also really been instrumental in helping
us to identify our top considerations, again, which came directly from public input. During our commission
meetings, we discussed research, engaged in dialogue about redistricting, and as I mentioned, we looked
at a number of scenarios. And we are really grateful for their work.
and their insights. Now I'm going to spend some time talking about what our commission report will look
like. And I'm going to go back to our project charter because that's really helped guide our work. I'm
going to read our purpose here because I think it helps define it. Directly from our project charter,
our purpose of the project is to study redistricting as a mechanism to balance the socioeconomic status
within the school corporation schools while simultaneously considering the cost effectiveness of the
current model and any potential changes.
Looking at the goals and metrics of our commission, these are within the scope of our study, were to
study potential redistricting considerations to achieve improved socioeconomic status balance across
schools, to study factors that inform cost effectiveness of MCCSE buildings, to study potential impacts
of redistricting on students and families, to study potential impacts of inter-district and inter-district
transfer policies on school populations and demographics,
And finally, to study building utilization rates and potential strategies for managing building usage
for at least the next 10 years based on predicted demographic trends. Looking at the expected deliverables
of our commission, these are again what were defined within the scope of our study. Deliverables include
a study and analysis of district-wide maps of catchment zones, including the redistricting scenarios
I highlighted earlier, along with the scenarios from our demographer.
with a focus on studying maps that balance socioeconomic status across schools with an acceptable variance,
includes a review of factors that impact cost effectiveness of redistricting efforts, and a review of
a consolidated district overview of building usage and capacity. Getting into some details about our
end product, which will be an informational report for the board's further consideration, the report
will include an evaluation of redistricting scenarios and their impacts, factors that inform
cost effectiveness, and a corporation-wide analysis of building use and capacity. Getting into a little
bit more specifics about the board report, excuse me, the commission report, which will be for the board's
consideration. The first section will be an introduction. It'll really detail the purpose of the commission.
The second section will be a review of research, the research that the commission has studied, which
are directly tied to the two boards' priorities, along with the community's four considerations. The
third section will be our methodology. It'll outline
how the scenarios were created, how they were evaluated and studied by our commission members. Our fourth
section will be the results. It will be a review of each commission meeting and how each meeting was
built upon the previous meeting and it will detail what we studied and reviewed at each of the meetings.
And finally, our last section will be our key findings and summary. It won't be recommendations, rather
it will be what insights we have learned throughout the commission process
and gained from our commission members that they studied these redistricting scenarios. Talking about
next steps. Commission leadership has begun writing, summarizing the commission's work. The next step
will be to share that draft of that commission report with the school board and the public sometime
this spring. And finally, the school board will consider the report and provide further direction to MCCSE.
Thank you. At this time, I'd be happy to take any questions. Thank you, Dr. Dowling. Do we have any
questions or comments? Thank you for all your work. Okay. Nope. All right. Great. Thank you so much.
Our final presentation is a facilities report. Dr. Henderson?
Dr. Winston and members of the Board of School Trustees, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
this evening about facilities management and many of the unseen heroes that make it possible for us
to deliver excellent educational experiences to our students in clean, well-maintained and safe buildings.
Tonight I'm going to provide you with a high-level overview of facilities management, highlighting the
complexity and scope within MCCSC.
I'll also speak to our current practices and weave in some information and interesting facts about who
does this important work. I'll also discuss why we need to continue to support these efforts and provide
you with a few examples of the kinds of upgrades and improvements that we make here in the MCC SC. When
teachers, staff and students are in clean, well maintained buildings, they're in a better position to
focus on teaching and learning
and more likely to have positive experiences every day. Effective facilities management directly supports
student learning, teacher productivity, school pride and perception, as well as the opinion of our community
members when they make use of our school spaces. Managing 2.47 million square feet of buildings, three
million square feet of parking lots and drives,
and 533.4 total acres district wide is a large undertaking. This includes 76,982 linear feet of sidewalks
and 19,907 linear feet of tracks and walking trails. These statistics underscore the vast scope of work
that our team handles daily. These tasks become even more demanding during times of inclement weather
like we have recently experienced. On average, we go through 39,200 pounds of sidewalk ice melt per
year, along with 250 tons of parking lot road salt. If you notice on this slide, that's basically the
equivalent of maintaining 15 Walmart super centers, plus their parking lots and grounds with a school
district's team and budget.
not Sam Walton's budget. As you can see from the statistics on this slide, we have a wide range of age
when it comes to our facilities. You'll notice our newest is four years old and our oldest is 102 years
old with an average of 47 years old. Ensuring ongoing functionality of our infrastructure in the midst
of budget constraints means that we have to develop
a long-range plan to ensure that we manage our facilities needs efficiently over time and within our
financial realities. To introduce this next section, let's start by defining what we mean when we utilize
the term facilities management and define the core components we'll cover in each of these six areas
in the next slides. Facilities management is the comprehensive process of planning, maintaining,
and improving school buildings and grounds to support education. The six core components we focus on
are structural and mechanical systems, interior and exterior maintenance, safety and compliance,
sustainability efforts, utilities management, and asset lifecycle management. Heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning systems ensure that our staff and students have comfortable classrooms despite
the outside temperature.
and that we are exchanging outside air at rates that ensure excellent air quality inside our buildings.
Our plumbing systems serve to supply water fountains, restrooms, kitchens, and lab spaces, while our
electrical systems not only ensure light in classrooms and hallways, but it also powers the technological
infrastructure that keeps our teachers and students connected to valuable Internet resources.
Additionally, those same electrical infrastructure systems also power the control systems for our security
and fire alarm systems, as well as our HVAC systems. Additionally, our teams are responsible for oversight
of our roofing systems, including roof drains, gutters and downspouts, as well as the structural integrity
of our buildings to include both doors and windows.
Many of our routine upgrades, as well as repairs to our interior and exterior finishes, are performed
by our own staff. They not only work on the buildings, but they also help care for landscaping, grounds
and athletic facilities, as well as all of the lots and walks around our buildings. Our staff, along
with local and state regulatory agencies, inspect our fire alarm and fire suppression systems on regularly
scheduled intervals.
We take proactive measures to ensure air quality and safety by replacing 1728 air filters annually.
And we respond to over 4,000 work orders from topics relating to lights, locks, leaks, and HVAC systems.
MCCSC is a leader among public
public school corporations in the state of Indiana and the nation in the installation of solar panels
to reduce energy consumption. And we are constantly evaluating the savings that can be gained from replacing
old fluorescent lighting with higher efficiency and longer lasting LED lighting as we make improvements
to our facilities. We actively pursue opportunities to recycle and are investigating ways to potentially
incorporate composting to reduce food waste.
We also monitor the life cycle of our equipment, including repair and replacement parts availability
to ensure that we are not continuing to keep outdated, inefficient equipment in service. Our maintenance
and building operations staff consists of 20 skilled maintenance staff members and 101 custodians. Much
of the work these individuals do is completed when our staff and students are not present in the building,
starting oftentimes early in the morning,
or extending late into the evening. Some interesting statistics to consider. We go through 16,297,800
feet of toilet paper per year in our buildings. That's 3,080 miles, or roughly a trip from Bloomington
to Phoenix, Arizona and back. Paper towels, 14,763,000
beat per year. 2249 diluted gallons of disinfectant, 2600 gallons of glass cleaner and 42,405 gallons
of neutral floor cleaner are consumed every year in the MCC SC to make sure our buildings are safe and
clean. Quality facilities support quality instruction. The operations staff is the backbone of our school system.
These hidden heroes take care of daily tasks that keep our buildings safe, clean, and maintained so
that our teachers can concentrate on providing our students with excellent educational experiences.
The director of building operations and the director of construction facilities and safety, along with
our skilled maintenance staff, monitor the uptime rates of our HVAC systems, our pool filtration systems,
our fire alarm systems, our plumbing systems, and our electrical systems.
They respond quickly when any problems arise. They also monitor the quantity of work orders received
and how long it takes us to resolve the issues identified by staff. The directors and I frequently visit
schools and when we're there, we take the opportunity to speak to staff members and principals about
any concerns or needs that they have with regard to their buildings. In conclusion this evening, I'd
like to again share why this work matters.
On this slide, you can see several recent examples of the investment that MCCSC makes in a variety of
spaces. Maintaining high quality facilities allows us to uphold our board's priority to sustain excellence
in our schools. As such, ensuring the state of the art academic, athletic and performing arts facilities
continues to be one of Dr. Winston's top priorities. We see every day
that our facilities directly support our students by providing high quality educational spaces where
our children can learn and grow. Again, thank you for the opportunity to highlight the often unseen
but critically important work of our operations team. Thank you, Dr. Henderson, for that. Wow, I just
keep wanting to call it a performance tonight, but it's not. What are they? Presentations. My god.
All right. Thank you for that presentation. Any comments or questions?
We will move on then to comments and committee reports. Does the board have any comments or reports
that you would like to share? Okay. Going once, going twice. No comments or reports. All right. Well,
thank you everyone for your silence. We appreciate it. And finally, Dr. Winston, do you have any additional
information to share with us?
I do not have any silence. Oh. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, I'm kidding. I just have a couple of things
I briefly want to share. I really want to take a moment just to acknowledge our deep, deep appreciation
and recognition of our facilities team. The last couple of weeks, we've had inclement weather
unexpected in great levels with freezing, thawing, refreezing, and very unsafe conditions for our buses,
for our employees, and for our students. And what many people don't know and what Dr. Henderson was
really alluding to is the fact that while many of you are sleeping, they are out getting business taken
care of. And so I definitely want to just begin with just that acknowledgment of appreciation.
when he talked about the number of tons, how many tons of ice melt did you say? 250 tons or something
like that? Yeah, that's just unbelievable. And yet they do it quickly, they do it without complaint,
and probably not as much appreciation as our entire community should share with them. I say that because
I do recognize
that we've had three days of weather in December when, generally speaking, we don't get those days in
December. We usually get them after the holiday break. So there's been a lot of unexpected aspects.
And there's been a lot of frustration, quite frankly, in our community. There are family members who
don't quite understand the decisions that have been made, the factors that go into that decision making,
and the painstaking
hours and time that it takes to kind of get to that point in time. I can assure you that Dr. Henderson
and I and other members of our facilities team are up at 2.33 o'clock every one of these days that we've
had to have conversations and discussions around what are we hearing from our meteorologists? What are
the roads looking like? Are directors in our facilities and maintenance and construction departments
and transportation, they're out driving the roads while you all are sleeping. They're driving the roads
in the country. And many times, I know that I get lots of inquiries and questions about, I look out
my window and I can see the streets. Why are we closed? Why are we having e-learning? And I can look
out my window too. And if I use that as the only metric for determining whether or not we have in-person school,
We would have in-person school every day of the week because I happen to live in town. I happen to live
within the city limits. But I do think sometimes it's easy to overlook the fact that we have hundreds
and thousands of children who don't live within the city limits. And we have country roads that are
not paved and that are full of snow and full of ice. It may melt during the day.
where it gets up to 31 degrees, 32 degrees and it melts. But guess what? When that temperature goes
back down to single digits, it freezes again. And it would be irresponsible of me as a superintendent
and irresponsible of our entire team to put our children in harm's way because looking out my window,
the roads look clear, but I've got staff
riding in the country from Lakeview to Unionville, around the lake. We have children there, and we have
over 10,000 children that we transport every day. Well, we have over 10,000 children that we educate
every day, and most of them are transported. But we also have 2,000 employees, many of whom live in
the country, outside of the city limits,
And so I share this with you because I want everyone to understand that it's one of the hardest decisions
that a superintendent has to ever make. You would think it's the budget. I kind of thought it was the
budget too. But it's about the safety and security and well-being of the individuals employed here and
that we educate. And so I want to just take a moment to kind of highlight a few aspects
of that decision making. I have responded to many emails over the last few days and I welcome every
one of those emails because I do recognize that families have been upended, they have been inconvenienced
by the decisions and the choices that our corporation has needed to make and frustrated. Many of the
emails that I received show a sense of frustration, some anger,
some confusion. And so I do think that it's a great opportunity to highlight those pieces of information
that we already have on our website. How we go about making our decisions, the factors that are part
of that, that's consistently been posted on our website. But I thought it would be helpful to provide
some additional guidance to folks. And so it is not our desire to disrupt your families and the routines.
I've already said that we don't take these decisions lightly. The numerous factors that we do take into
consideration, it includes what's been forecast and what's actually happening out there. We are also
looking at what are the meteorologists telling us? We have a direct line to meteorologists that tell
us what's happening now and what's going to happen in six hours, what's going to happen in the next 24 hours.
We have to weigh that out, and we have to balance that out. We're not just looking at temperature, because
some folks were like, well, it's only one degree. It's only two degrees. Why are kids not in school?
Well, the other piece that we have to pay attention to is the windshield. I don't know if you recognize
it, but the windshield got down to 10 and 11 degrees below zero. I will not have children standing and
waiting for a bus in that kind of temperature. And if it means I get 100 more
Frustrated and angry emails then I would say bring those on that would be irresponsible. I don't want
my child You don't want your child standing in those kinds of conditions But we also have to pay very
close attention to what our local law enforcement individuals are sharing with us. We're Very much in
communication with them with city and county highway officials. I know yesterday It was our understanding
and what actually did happen is that the country roads were not going to begin being cloud until 7 a.m.
Our buses are already out of the lot well before 7 AM because we have schools that start at 7 45. And
so we've got to give consideration to that. Our transportation staff, they've got to be able to get
here to get to the buses to then drive them. And we also are in very close communication with our surrounding
school districts. In most instances, there's a lot of consistency from one school corporation to the
next corporation.
And that is not by happenstance. And so I took a few extra minutes to kind of share these things with
you because I do think it's important that our entire community understands the factors that go into
this decision making. We are always gonna be looking at the needs of all of our children, particularly
those that are in the county roads and in the country. My responsibility is every one of them. And so
as I said,
the roads in town may clear pretty quickly and the recognition is that the county roads can in fact
and are often hazardous. I even have had my team members send me video footage of where you are in the
country and I've had them drive me around to show me what our road coverage looks like within the city limits,
and outside of the city limits because I didn't want to just go based on what folks were telling me.
I wanted to be able to see it firsthand as well. That's how seriously we take these decisions. And let's
talk about timing. It is always our desire to give as much forewarning and notice to our families as
we possibly can. When we can, we will tell you the day before. We were pretty fortunate back in January
when we had four consecutive days of horrendous weather, which I think people may have forgotten.
I have not. It was pretty pivotal for me those first few days. And we were able to let families know
pretty soon. The last few incidents of inclement weather, it wasn't as clear cut. And it was pretty
complicated and pretty complex.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to make the decisions as quickly as we wanted because the storm was moving.
The meteorologists are telling us, well, we think you're in this line, but it could vary. And so I want
you to know that our desire is to tell you as quickly as possible. I would rather not be up at 3 o'clock
in the morning because you don't go back to sleep after that. And then the other piece that I think
is oftentimes missed is that there are requirements in the state of Indiana
that we must have 180 instructional days. And so there's been a lot of questions about e-learning. And
why are we doing e-learning? Why are we doing a delay? We will fulfill our requirement and our obligation
to meet our instructional days. And e-learning is a tool and is an option that we haven't always had.
But we do have that available to us. And we don't take those days lightly either. We much prefer our
children in classrooms because we know they're safe.
They're going to be well-educated. They're going to get the highest quality of instruction with in-person
learning. Everybody knows that. And yet, we also know that our teachers are so talented. They can,
in fact, provide high-quality instruction virtually, but it is not our preference. We only do so when
we don't have better options available to keep our children safe. When we do call an e-learning day,
families can be confident that their children will continue to receive meaningful instruction.
we will recognize that our e-learning days do, in fact, meet the Indiana Department of Education standards
for instructional time. We are not going to compromise on our commitment and our requirement to ensure
that our children stay on track academically and that they have access to learning. So while we do know
that weather-related delays and closures can be an inconvenience for all of us, and some of us can be
sleep deprived as a result of that,
We appreciate the patience and the trust that our families have placed in us as we work to keep every
student and every staff member safe during these days. And in closing, we recognize that January is
not here yet. We have built in some snow days. We've built in two snow days. And we've not used them
last week or this week for very obvious reasons, because we know
The best or the worst is probably yet to come. So I just wanted to share that information. And before
I give my final, final comment, I wanted to see if any board members have any questions, comments regarding
the decision making. I mean, they get updates from me early in the morning, too. Now, they may not.
Well, I'm not going to say what they do or don't do at 3 o'clock in the morning in terms. But I usually
get feedback from them.
at an appropriate time regarding their acknowledgement of the recommendation. Is that fair? No,
it is fair. And I will say, I mean, you know, I always, it's painful for me to think about you all doing
this stuff in the middle of the night. It's, you know, I responded to emails as well saying many of
the same things, you know, that we have people out there driving, our teams are working hard. These
are not decisions that anyone makes lightly or flippantly.
for all sorts of reasons, but no one also wants to field these emails, too, right? I think the decisions
are always made with safety in mind, always. And so if the decision's been made, it's because it's been
determined to be the most safe sort of call in that moment. So I, too, just appreciate all of our facilities
and the work that they do, the work that you all have done this past week. I don't have any questions
about it. Dr. Anderson, is there anything
I think oh no I was just gonna say basically the same thing that I can tell that a lot of thought and
consideration goes into it and I appreciate that and I missed April's last call for comments on the
facilities update so I did also just want to say that I can't say enough how much I appreciate all of
the work our facilities crew does and I don't want to make a whole meeting about my kids but I
Do you just want to say also that there are custodial staff at my kid's school that are such an important
part of their day that even, again, Emmett is having a hard time at lunch. And the way I get him to
go to school is by saying, remember, you get to see this custodial staff at lunch. And he gets really
excited about that. So not only are they out there before school starts, but they're also such an integral
part of the community throughout the day. I really appreciate that.
Dr. Peterson is there anything you would like to add that I haven't addressed? Well the only thing that
I would like to remind the board and the community of is harking back to the presentation that we had
last school year on transportation and that's a statistic that I didn't really share in the facilities
presentation tonight because it's really more transportation related than it was building maintenance
related but
to remind the community that our district spans approximately 350 square miles. And our buses travel
8,267 miles every single day, not counting deadhead mileage, right, when they're unladen with students
on board, not counting field trips and extracurricular trips during the day. And last year's extracurricular
trips amounted to
an additional 92,187 miles traveled. So we're not only giving consideration to the school day, but we're
also giving consideration to events that are scheduled in the evening, transporting students frequently
long distance outside of our district into areas where snow may be worse than what it is here. So there's
a lot of factors that go into those decisions, but
That's just a little addition to the scope of the work that we do on a daily basis. I am going to need
you to convert that number of miles we travel every day to how many times back and forth to Phoenix.
I can do that. No. I actually wanted to say, I really appreciate that aspect of your presentation and
delivery. I always love knowing the data, but I do like that the toilet paper can go to Phoenix and
back. That's going to stay in my mind forever. I'm never going to forget.
how much toilet paper we use in a year, right? Okay, anything else, Dr. Winston? On the weather, no,
but I just wanna reiterate to our families, thank you for your feedback, thank you for your questions,
it allows us to continue to keep you informed as to how we make our decisions. As we wrap up the semester
and look toward the close of 2025, my heart is full. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to our incredible
staff, our students and our families,
for making this semester such a meaningful and successful one. To our parents and guardians, thank you
for your unwavering support that you show our teachers, our staff, and our entire school community.
Your partnership is truly appreciated and we are honored to educate the most precious resource that
we have in our community, your children. To our students, you are absolutely extraordinary and we are
so excited to be able to celebrate you every time we can.
Each of you bring your own strengths, your own talents, and beautiful uniqueness to our schools. You
are the reason we grow, the reason why we improve, and the reason why we strive for excellence. Together,
we continue to sustain excellence, one moment, one act of kindness, one day at a time. I want to wish
everyone a peaceful, joy-filled, and restorative break. Happy holidays. And we can't wait to welcome you back
in the new year, January 5th, 2026. That concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Winston. And we do so appreciate
all of our staff, all of our students, all of our families that make this district what it is and all
of our community members who continue to contribute, whether or not they have kids in this district,
whether or not they're employed by this district. We do have such a great community here.
So we have had a very patient and probably very bored and tired reindeer in our audience tonight. So
I think the next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 27th, 2026. Our
reorganizational meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 6th. And with that, this meeting is adjourned.