- meeting to order, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Welcome to the August
- the 2025 regular school board meeting of the school corporation and let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Brad Tucker. And are there any visitor comments? No, okay. Then we have the consent agenda. There's approval of minutes.
- On July 15th, we had three meetings, the regular board meeting, the second preliminary determination hearing, and the public hearing on the bonds. And for financial, we have the treasurer's report for July of 2025. And Mr. Durnall, the claim, please. Thank you, Mr. President. For gross wages on 7-4, 2025, $631,282.66.
- Gross wages on July 18th, 2025, $593,221.71 for total $1,224,504.37. For prepays on through 7-1 through 7-31, $3,401,365.13. For regular vouchers, 8-19, 2025, for 613,296.
- The total of $4,014,661.97 for a grand total of $5,239,166.34. Thank you, sir. We have personnel resignations.
- Right, retirements, non-renewals, leaves, and terminations, C1 through 30. And D, personnel appointments, transfers, one through 54. You can tell where to start school. And for donations, we have several supplies to Mrs. Truax's class room from the project Birthday Surprises from Donors Choose. There was $100 to the Edgewood Foodies
- from the exceptional gate, gateaways? Gateaways. Gateaways, oh, sorry. Gateaways for Foodies program. A $100 to the Edgewood Foodies from the Positive Progression LLC for the Foodies program and $500 to Edgewood Foodies from Milestone Contractors LP for the Foodies program. There is also one out of state overnight field trip and so,
- Dr. Sanders, would you like to explain that one? Sure. We have our German students going to Germany next summer. Amy Norris is here. Amy, you want to come up and say anything about the trip? Sure. It's been a long time.
- It's been three years since I've been to a board meeting. I don't remember if this is my seventh or eighth trip with students.
- but we've had a partnership with the Gymnasium Georgianum in Lingen in Germany, which is in northwestern Germany, and that partnership has been going on since long before I was here. It started in the 80s, and I've just continued that. We will travel there for two weeks, stay with host families. I've already been in contact with the teacher that I work with. I plan kind of everything on this end, and she helps me to plan everything on that end.
- She helps organize the buses, any of the field trips that we take while we're there, and the host families. So we sort of, you know, vet the host families. They're all families that those teachers, that the English teachers know that we're placing kids with. I organize the airfare. And then we also, so we spend like nine days with families and Lingen doing day trips.
- with buses and then we will spend the last three nights in Berlin at a hostel that's close to the train station. Nothing like any murder mystery movies you may have seen. And then we'll fly back from Berlin. So I've done this trip several times. It will be sophomores through seniors and they have to still
- be continuing to take German, but the seniors are able to go after they graduate. They just still have to follow all of the normal school rules. So I haven't had any major trouble in all of my trips, knock on wood. And I anticipate, actually I just heard from the teacher this week, that they will then come back and visit not next fall, not in the fall of 26, but in the fall of 27. So probably September of 27 that they'll be coming back this way and then we reciprocate. I plan field trips for them here, sort of same thing.
- It's a great benefit for the students. As far as trips go, it is relatively low in cost when you compare it to some of the other trips that people take when using a travel company. I do have travel insurance. I take out travel insurance actually with a German company so that it's a lot easier to deal with if we have any issues in Germany. It's easier not to have to deal with our insurance and try to make it work, but we have travel insurance that the kids pay for while we're there.
- If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. How many students do you have going this? Well, I haven't put it out there yet. In fact, I heard just today a senior was like, well, we don't know if we're going for it. Norris hasn't said anything about the trip. But I was waiting to make sure that everything was a go. I cannot take any more than 25. Last time, I had 21. And I know a lot of kids who want to go and whose families have kind of planned for it the past few years. So I would expect that I will be pretty close to 25, any more than that. I mean, even 25 is a lot to
- heard through spaces, but I'll have some chaperones going with me. I'm really glad that Amy came tonight to talk about this because it gives me an opportunity to brag on her as a teacher at Edgewood High School. She's one of our best and not just in teaching her content area, but the impact she has throughout the whole high school. So thank you. Thank you, Amy. I appreciate that. Thank you.
- As for motion on the consent agenda. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Dr. Sanders have two supplemental personnel reports. Yes, so we are recommending Justin Barger tonight to be a special educational
- instructional assistant at Edgewood Junior High School and also seventh grade boys basketball coach. Indiana code 20-26-5-11.2 requires any school personnel hired after June 30th, 2023 who have certain offenses on their background check to be voted on and approved
- by the school board in a separate agenda item. Justin has worked with us before and so we recommend your approval. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And now we are going to get a construction update.
- from Skillman, and he has a really good report for us tonight. These are the fun ones, the construction update, when we can come in and say, we made it. So we got done in time. I'd really like to, Vicki was real instrumental getting the kitchen
- stuff pulled together, and of course, Heather was driving all her certifications and all that type of thing. So they're real important in getting this all pulled together. Starting at the beginning. I couldn't get it. It was frozen. It won't go forward. Uh-oh. We have to go through this backwards. There we go.
- In the report, I kind of go through and maybe let you guys at your leisure kind of go through the individual pieces that we talk about. But this is our chance from Skillman to brag about it. We did get it done, and we got it done on time, and we got everybody moved in. So I wasn't real sure about that in January, so I feel pretty good about it. This is a really nice building.
- I think most of you have been through it, but we took some pictures just to show it off anyway. And kind of give kudos to Lancer and Misha and his crew, because they did a really nice job of designing this thing. And Dan Drews did the murals. They're beautiful. Awesome work. Yeah, they're striking murals. The one on the left is the main corridor as you come in,
- One on the right is next to the gymnasium, which those have to be really fun for the kids. What we're calling the gymnasium is the east side of the big community room. So we have the gym. They've got equipment set up in there. Lots of colors. The cafeteria on the other side, what you're seeing in the camera did kind of a weird thing with the picture.
- That's actually just a regular grill in the background into the kitchen. But you can see the kitchen tables set up lots and lots and lots of daylight in the space. The kitchen, all the stainless steel, again, Vicki was out there with the Board of Health a couple times and they approved it, really no issues at all. So that's already an up and going.
- Toilet rooms, that's the main toilet room at the main entry, so that would be the one your public would probably use most of the time. Again, what's really impressive is the amount of daylighting in there. The room on the right is one of the three daycare rooms. The one on the, I'm sorry, on the left. The one on the right is a typical classroom.
- So we've got lots of chairs, tables, and again, lots of daylight. I'm not gonna go through each one of these. The main thing we've gotta do is finish the punch. One thing I did wanna bring up is we ran into a little bitty snag at the playground. When they're installing the playground, the area, once they got the curb around it, it was holding water, so we had to go back in and put drainage in.
- I talked to the playground installer today and he expected to finish today and the only caveat is it needs to set a couple days because it's a poured surface before they actually start using it. I think he said, I think he said Monday. But that's one of the last things that are ready to go. Our guy Dale on site worked a lot with the town of Ellisville
- to get through the permitting and occupancy, and that all worked just fine. As we expected, it was the last couple weeks we're getting permits and occupancies and all that type of thing, but it all worked out. Early Childhood Center, we still need to fine tune the heating and cooling. It's working. The last I knew there was still,
- one piece of countertop equipment that needed lighting, and complete installation of room signage. So that was a real fun one. This was also a fun one. The Edward High School, I guess we're now calling it the Field House. And you can see in the early rendering, there was a lot of color to it, a lot of bright,
- red to it, and in the next slide, you will see. Those horses are gonna be up on top. Way up high. So you see the start, we're starting to put the color on the building. That's kind of from the northwest corner. What we've done in the last few days, or a few days, few weeks,
- is we did get the speed humps in, bollard covers, pretty much complete on the site work. The building, it's all flashed in and dried in. We did put the storefront at the pool and we're continuing to work on interior drywall. Next 60 days,
- Complete the interior hallway. We've still gotta put the sock duct, the cloth duct in. Water's all tied in, electrical rough ends in. And that's what it looks like now. So you're seeing, that's all our multiple bollards we have on the west side where you're coming in from the west. And you're starting to see some of the red color in it.
- Inside, you're seeing the colored panels next to the windows, so some color coming into it. The basketball goals, all that type of thing are in. The last thing we're gonna do is put the flooring in. So right now you don't see the duct sock, you don't see the cloth ventilation. That'll go in, all the lights will go in, all that type of thing.
- and then we'll put the floor in last. I think this slide, the main thing we're trying to do is I understand it's important to try to have it ready to go for the hilly 100. So we're pushing in that direction. Renovations, move the temporary fence. We've got all the phase work I believe through
- Phase eight at this point, starting on phase nine. Yeah, and phase nine is the area up by the office, so it's not classroom space. Still has some work to do with the choir room. The band room is complete. Always like to show the chaos of construction. Kitchen is one of our main thrusts right now.
- I don't know that we're going to have that ready by the Hill 800, but that's kind of the window we're looking for. We are, and I always like to say this, we are ahead of schedule at this point. So you start to see the kitchen and the kitchen duct work going in. One of the challenging parts is getting the concrete risers out of the choir room so you can see
- what a chaotic mess that is. But the choir room floor is in at this point. I'm sorry, the band room floor is in at this point. And I wanted an updated shot of that, but Dale didn't get that for me. Band room is now occupied. Next 30 days, we need to finish the exterior finishes. We need to finish the
- coiling grills at the cafeteria. We've still got some detailing to do, a print shop. We've got the flooring in at the cafeteria, except for the area where that's gonna be demoed as we demo the kitchen. We need to finish the finishes at choir, and then of course we've gotta do the kitchen mechanical and electrical.
- Main gym, sound system's closed. And we're starting to frame the phase nine rooms as soon as the demo's done. And that phase nine will go pretty quickly. Edgewood Primary Schools, pretty minimal slides on these, completed the phased work and turned over for use. So that's done and turned over.
- One of our challenges at the primary school is we had put all of the toilet rooms into the summer because they didn't want to be without toilet rooms. We're done except for we have a little bit of tile work to do in one of the toilet rooms, but it's usable. So all the toilet rooms are usable. Again, pretty minimal slide here.
- At the primary school, we have to complete the walk-off carpet at the entries and our punch list items. Intermediate school's gonna look pretty close to the primary school. It's completed and turned over for use. Again, we have punch list items. And here's some typical classrooms, or atypical classroom. So you can see the new finishes and they're all
- moved in and have everything up on the walls. We do need to complete the walk off carpet and we'll complete punch work. Dale, our field guy will be out in the trailer. Jerry, I think we decided we're gonna try to leave the trailer there on the site. He'll be out in the trailer as we finish the high school work. So with that, he'll be able to
- Monitor the punch list and make sure the punch list gets done and kind of brag on him. He's a he's a pretty hard driver So we should have everything done as soon as we can turn over the new kitchen We'll take the old kitchen and we'll do demo in the old kitchen So obviously we've got to have new kitchen up and running Able to serve out of it before we do the demo that'll be sometime in October and
- We'd like to have it for Hilly 100, but I think that's maybe wishful thinking. Probably work out of the old kitchen for the Hilly 100. Yeah. So what has been determined to be done about the crayon floor or the floor in the crayon hallway at EPS that was damaged? I'm sorry? The floor in the crayon hallway at the EPS that was damaged?
- That'll be repaired, and it'll be back charged to the contractor. I didn't know if they had a schedule or plan. I imagine Dale does, but frankly, I don't know. Yeah, so I think the plan is fall break, I think. They put the wax on it in order to go on and have school. And I think the plan is to come back over fall break and finish it. OK. Yeah, I didn't know if it was. They'll have to take it all the way down.
- grind the floor, and we've been told that it could be done within a week. Yeah, we're not sure if it could be done then or if it had to be done over Christmas break or what, winter break? Well, the bottom line is we've been assured that in the end it's going to be fixed to our satisfaction.
- Any other questions? Oh, just the preschool, it was so exciting and the kids were just the ones that were coming in saying that they loved it. We do a lot of work in high schools and to walk in there and there's some guys in there, it's fun to watch them. And we had, they were certainly dressed the thing. I think we had a pair of twins at the ribbon cutting. So that was kind of,
- It's real different from working with older kids. Well, the Andrews that did the murals was in my sophomore English class a few years ago. And he was one of those students that, even though it was an English class, he was constantly drawing. And I figured out early on, I just needed to let him draw. And I guess it worked out OK. Amazing how quickly he pulled those together.
- Thank you so much. Appreciate the report. I think we're making good progress. So very good. Thank you. Well, Dr. Natives, if there aren't any other questions, I may try to beat the storms. That's fine. Good luck. Oh, did we want to talk about playground, or is that later in the agenda? Yeah, I've got an agenda later on, but I think we'll be OK. OK. All right. Well, I appreciate it. Have a good evening. Yeah. We will see you.
- Drive carefully. Thank you. Okay, really good, good update. That's preschool is just amazing. Consideration to approve advertisement of the 2026 budget. We have Paul Fetter here to walk us through.
- You have a folder in front of you that has the budget forms that are on Gateway, and they're printed out, and I'm sure you've seen these before, and so try not to spend too much time on those. In the left hand inside cover, I wanted you to see some forms that I printed off separately. And the one on top that has 225 on it, 2025,
- The one under it has 2026. Pull those out of your folder a minute. That's form three. And it is very important because it's the only one that's advertised on Gateway. It's the only one we advertise as pertaining to the budget. But it does give you a good feel for a couple of things that have happened here. And right towards the middle of each one of them,
- There's a box that says estimated school operations maximum levy. And next to that in 2026, you see $5,847,000. And in the other one, you see 5,623,000. That's the 4% increase that the state is giving us this year for operations. You've heard me say, I think probably that
- In 27 and 28, that's been zeroed away. So we'll have to keep an eye on that because you may not see that 4% again. But that is allowed in 26, which helps us a little bit because the box right under that says property tax cap credit estimate. Compare those two numbers. You look at 2025, you're looking at $220,000.
- I think the actual number was about 226,000. This year, the estimated tax credit is 1,426,000. I think from what I gather, when I looked at the website today, and they just released some things yesterday about this, that about 600,000 of that 1.4 is from property tax caps.
- So last year it was a little over 200,000. This year that number would have been 600,000. And on top of that now, you have what the taxpayers are getting back in the new legislation or not paying is an additional 800,000. And that's factored into that gives you the 1.4 million. Now, that's gonna be a little hard to swallow. That's a lot of money.
- And when you look at our budget and operations, and most of that's going to come from operations, there isn't any other place really to take it. You're looking at over a million dollars and it'll easy, this is an estimate, but it'll easily be over a million dollars somewhere in there. They're probably pretty accurate with that note.
- They know who pays taxes, they know how much money they get, they know what that 10% is gonna do, and so they're not very far off. Wanted to point that out to you, and that's why I gave you these two forms. It does show you the striking difference now between 25 and 26 with that legislation. The other sheet I gave you, I wanted you to see, is kind of a duplicate of those two.
- But it's sometimes easier to wrap your head around a budget if you can look at history. And I'm a big fan of history. I never do a budget unless I thoroughly look at the previous year or two because budgets don't change a lot. They'll grow some. Maybe you flatline one once in a while.
- but they don't change much. So as I look at debt service, education, and operations, and those are the three big ones that you have, if I looked at the two, I think it's interesting to see the advertising, and that's the top portion, 2025 compared to 2026, there's not a lot of difference in debt service. Matt had in the debt service fund
- a $4 million placeholder, if you want to call it that, because he didn't know what the new debt was going to be in that anticipated new debt that was coming. So he put that number in there as a maximum number, and somewhere below that and zero, you're going to take on possibility of new debt. But that gives you the flexibility to do that. So the debt service budget
- in 2000 advertised budget, they're about the same. The education fund is very different. And I want to talk a little bit about that. Your education fund, when you look back at your cash flows, you see the education fund is going to miss the appropriation. It's in the red now. If you look, you've got to understand cash is one thing, permission to spend it's another.
- So you got cash here and you're okay there, but your appropriation is short in the general fund. It's about 20 million and it looks like you're gonna spend maybe 20.7, 20.8 by the end of the year. It shows right now that your several hundred thousand dollars in the red in appropriation, it'll get worse before the end of the year. So what you're gonna face in the fall, sometime probably in October,
- is an additional appropriation to get that permission to spend the education money. Not a problem. You've got the cash. So that's kind of a formality at this point. But I upped the 2026 budget by $2 million because I think that's closer to what you're going to spend in 2026 than 21 million or anything less than 22 million.
- You have the revenue to support that. I would be shocked if they say you can't have that budget. I think it'll be right there. Because I think your revenue's gonna be around 23 million. So we're okay there. But I wanted to point out why that jumped two million. You're short this year, we wanna try to fix that in 2026, okay? Then I put down the certified budget of 2025.
- You advertised 11.3 in the debt service fund, but your certified budget was only 10 point, a little over 10 million. Again, that's because he had that placeholder in there that gives you the flexibility to set your debt where you decide it's going to be. And it came out to be much shorter than you advertised, which is a good thing for the taxpayer. But that's that flexibility.
- The 2026 is still estimated at 11.6. That would be if you bonded out an additional 4 million, if you went the full max, you're looking at 11.5 million, something like that, which is a real increase. If you do that percent, I think it shows on Form 3.
- If you go back to Form 3 in 2026, it shows a 17% increase. And that's about right, 18%. If you went the full 4 million in debt service, you would increase the levy by 18%. That's a pretty big number. So you want to remember that. Your certified levy, if you took the 4 million and you said, we're going to do that,
- Okay? Once you understand that your old levy in debt service was 9.8 million, your new levy would be 11.5. So there's a huge jump there. So that's kind of what you're focused on is where do you want that number to be? And again, if you didn't do anything, you didn't increase it at all, that levy would drop down to about 7.5 million.
- So there you are with that portion of it, too. So somewhere in here, probably where you're going to end up. I can't give you that number. That's y'all's decision. But I just want you to understand how all that plays together. And we've advertised the budget to cover whatever you want to do. And you won't have any problems with that. But you're the one that's going to set the number.
- eventually. That's really kind of... I don't want to spend an hour going through all these forms. They're very formal. They haven't changed in years. Form 1, Form 2, Form 3, you know, I gave you Form 3. That's the one that's advertised. Your bus replacement plan, I've met with Audrey.
- The capital projects plan, I've met with Rick and Arnold and I've explained to them what could happen to the operations fund. I mean, folks, you tell me in operations what goes down in cost every year. What goes down? I sat down today for about 20 minutes and I just went through that fund and I wrote down things that go up.
- And it's all of it. Utilities, insurance, you name it, the price of buses, transportation costs, it all goes up practically every year. And so here's a fund that we're gonna get into. So it's gonna be a challenge going forward, how to handle that. And we're gonna get started right away. It's why the meeting with everybody is happening.
- I want people to start thinking about where they can save, how we can save, because we're going to be forced to do that, and what kind of cuts can we make. I don't have any other comments about this budget. I think I've kind of hit the highlights on what could happen to debt service.
- and why we increased the general fund $2 million. And those are the two big changes. That's it. The rest of it is pretty neutral to whatever you've done in the past. So with the operations fund dropping with the changes that we're going to be receiving, part of that is going to possibly be
- transferring more from the education fund to the operations fund? You know, I didn't run the number, but you're only allowed to transfer 15%. You probably are under the 15%, but not by much. Not by much, right. I think you transfer about 2.7 million now. So, you know, it's a nice thought.
- I don't worry about 2026. I'll be honest with you. I think that with that 4% increase that they're allowing, that offsets some of that hit. You also have a cash reserve that's good in that fund. You're most likely going to get into that. And we'll kind of play that scenario the rest of this year looking at 2026 and 2027 and what
- what that does every month and when do we start getting into that cash reserve? And what's that look like in December 31st of 2026? Because I've told Jerry, I worry about 2027. That's what I'm really worried about. Where do we zero out? But maybe we can offset some of that with
- I think Audrey understands that we're not buying buses next year. I think she knows that. And then we'll survive that for a while. I've been through that before. But we'll look for stuff like that. So we need the board to approve advertising for this budget on Gateway.
- appropriate documents will be put on our website. I'll move approval of the Advertising 2026 budget. I'll second. Any discussion? I'm sure there will be as we're going forward, but at this point I think we see what we're up against. It's just disheartening. It is. As hard as we've worked at it. Let's hope that they figure out what is happening to us and make some changes.
- So, okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Next is consideration to approve the adjunct teacher permit. Yes, so this has been really an annual request to approve a
- Adjunct Teacher Permit for Ken Gryle. Ken teaches the media production program at Edgewood Junior High School. It does an amazing job. We submit the request for an Adjunct Teacher Permit because
- Ken comes into this with expertise in this area and he's done an amazing job, like I said, and so it's up to us to approve this, up to you to approve this request for adjunct teacher permit for Ken Gryle. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? He does do a terrific job.
- What the kids are able to do is just amazing. And it also feeds well into our high school program that's growing. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now it's consideration to approve a nutrition service student worker. Yes, so the nutrition services department, Vicki Coffey, is requesting to hire a student worker.
- to assist with vending machine duties. This position was previously covered by a staff member in the nutrition services department and we would like to move to having a student do that. The pay rate will be similar to other student workers like we have in the coffee corral or the ILC and so we recommend your approval. I'll move approval. I'll second. Moved and seconded.
- Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we're going to do the first reading for revisions to the Neola policies. Right, so what we're asking the board to consider over the next month is revisions to Neola policies, volume 37, number two.
- And then Neola put out a special update in July. And so we would just ask the board to review those policies. Christine has already done that and Jennifer Barrett has already done that. We did make some adjustments after the board packet went out. So those were sent to you and I believe you have a copy here tonight.
- Over the next few weeks, if you read through those and you have a concern or question, let me know and we'll make those whatever adjustments need to be made before the September school board meeting. So tonight, this is just FYI for your information. Okay, thank you. The next is consideration to approve the purchase of two school buses
- which may be the last ones for a while. So as Paul said, we had a conversation with Audrey Meyer, given the financial, what's going on financially across the state and trying to prepare for the future. We've talked to Audrey about,
- buy buses now or do we wait? And we made a decision to go ahead and recommend two buses to the board tonight with the idea that we might not be able to buy them down the road. So basically we have these two quotes for you that came from the Central Indiana Education Service Center Cooperative and it meets all bid requirements.
- The two buses that we would like to purchase, one is a 78 passenger IC Collins bus and the other is a 66 passenger IC Collins bus from Midwest Transit Equipment. The 78 passenger bus will be a cost of $147,062 and the cost of the 66 passenger bus will be 145.
- $1,613 and these buses will be purchased out of the general obligation bond, not operation, but out of the GEO bond to help further protect the operations fund. We went with I.C. Collins buses mainly. They were
- They're able to be delivered in six to eight months. The Bluebird buses had a window of 12 to 18 months, and the Thomas buses were two years out. And not only that, but Audrey Myers, our Director of Transportation, she has greater confidence in I.C. Collins buses.
- and reported to me that the parts, if we do have any repairs, that the parts for the I.C. Collins buses come to us at a cheaper rate. These two buses do fall in line with the bus replacement plan. And so I recommend your approval. I move approval of the two buses. I'll second. Thank you. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- Motion carries. Now that we got buses, let's look at bus routes. Yeah, so this is basically a task that is completed every year, obviously, when we find out what students are not coming and the students who are coming. Audrey has to make adjustments to the bus routes and she maximizes the
- that the bus routes so that we're being as efficient as possible, yet making sure that the buses aren't overcrowded. And so all these suggested or recommended bus routes were in your board packet and we recommend your approval. I'll move approval. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Thanks for all the work that goes into that.
- That's a job to make sure it works out right. It's always fun reading. Yeah, and making sure you have picking them up on the right side as safe as possible. So very good work. Hearing nothing further, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And now it's a medical services agreement with IU Health.
- So you, I was wondering if you were gonna have any questions about this because you might think, well, wait, back in June, we approved an agreement with IU Health to provide an athletic trainer for Edgewood schools. But we decided to move forward with another agreement because the first agreement provided us with one athletic trainer. So if we have multiple events on a given night,
- especially both high school and junior high, the athletic trainer, just one cannot get to all places. And we want to make sure that we provide adequate care for our athletes. And so this is a second agreement. This agreement is specifically with the Edgewood Junior High School.
- at the same rate as the agreement you approved back in June. This, however, is a one-year agreement and it's $45 per hour for services. So I recommend your approval. I'll move approval. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? I'm glad we're doing this.
- All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion carries. Now we'll look at an agreement with the Monroe Fire Protection District. So IU Health previously provided ambulance services for our football games. However, they are no longer doing that, not only just for us, but I believe it's for
- even IU football games. So at any rate, we approached the Ellisville Fire Department and they appointed us towards the Monroe Fire Protection District to provide ambulance services. And so we are recommending that you approve this agreement with the Monroe Fire Protection District. The agreement, the rates for this agreement, basic life support team,
- and a basic life support equipped ambulance is $100 per hour. A second rate is to have a BLS person and a BLS equipped vehicle, but this would be a non-transport vehicle. If that is the service we would use, it would be $65 per hour. Any additional medical personnel if requested would be
- $45 per hour and it's a four-hour minimum. I recommend your approval. I'll move approval of the agreement with the Monroe Fire Protection District. Second. Moved, second. Any discussion? I mean, I think it's, it is a necessity this day and age and so I think we have to do this or something similar, so I'll go for it. Definitely.
- a lot of chances for injuries out there. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We'll let you have a rest there, Dr. Sanders, for a moment, and we're gonna turn to Jennifer Barrett for the three-year EJHS adoption of the McGraw-Hill social studies textbooks. Yes, in your packet you will see
- Cost in here $56,375.87, so obviously we're over that $50,000 mark. We are asking the board to approve a three-year adoption for our junior high social studies students. The initial investment of about $15,600 comes from actual hardback text. These are 2023, 2024 editions, so we're gonna hold on to these for a while. That brings it to about $83.46 a book.
- that we can use over the course of a six, seven year adoption. And then it would bring the e-copy that we would buy for each student down to about $21 a year. So we're paying upfront for these three years, also the initial investment with the hardbacks. And then after that point, we would be paying $21 per student for an e-copy to continue beyond those three years. What we were finding is that a one year adoption was
- Nickel and diming us to pieces and it was quite expensive So I think that our best route here is to go ahead make the initial investment upfront with the three-year Knowing that three years after that We'll bring this down quite a bit and we're trying to balance this with other
- larger curriculum payments that we would have coming up. We know that math is gonna come around again in another two to three years. We know that science is going to be needing some additional options, especially at the junior high, so we're trying to get these on a good schedule so we're not getting hit with everything all at once. I move approval of the adoption of McGraw-Hill Social Studies Tax. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? What is the, this is,
- may require you to do some research and get back to me, but how's it looking as far as the repayment from, and the state isn't covering? They just rolled that into our overall budget, right? Yeah, so when we picked up the curriculum budget according to the state in our 101, our education fund, anything excess that we spend above what the state gives us does,
- come out of that fund. There is no balance besides that. I'm really proud of the work that Rick and I have been able to do alongside the principals and the teachers. I will have a full report for you related to curriculum in our next meeting. We're finishing up some final purchases, but we look to be well below.
- thousands of dollars below what the state appropriated to us back in December of 2024. So just to give you an idea of where we're looking at, the state appropriated to us and sent us a payment of $422,000. We look to be well below that $400,000 mark with things that we can still continue to do. So we're still looking at these pieces. We're still trying to renegotiate contracts. We understand that this could impact the education fund if we don't make this happen.
- And so.
- I anticipate us bringing this down. Rick and I even talked about bringing this down to a point that not only are our teachers still receiving all of the high quality materials that they need and they want, but also being able to have a cushion there so that we can put that back for Chromebook replacements, because we know that's such a huge cost every five to six years. So we're working on a long term plan with this, but in the short term we're looking really good.
- Anything further? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now back to Dr. Sanders for the advertisement for bids on the expansion of the EECC playground. Yes, so with the expansion of the Edgewood Early Childhood Center, we obviously have to expand the size of the playground.
- and there are regulations for how many students can be on, preschool students can be on a playground at one time. So this is really a have to for us. We focused more on the Childhood Center itself and getting that done first and then decided to focus now on
- expanding the playground. And so Heather Kensick and her staff have provided valuable input. We've been working with Lancer Architect and Skillman Construction Management to work on the design of the playground. And so we're asking permission tonight for the board to, so that we can advertise for bids. And I put a drawing in front of you tonight.
- Because I wanted to point out that you could see the equipment that's going to go in to the design, and then you see a track around those pieces of equipment. I am recommending that we put the track as an alternate bid so that when we get the numbers back,
- We obviously would like to put a track in there. Mainly it's just a place when we went to visit the preschool in Westfield and we kind of used them as an example. They had a really nice playground for the children and they had a place for the kids to ride
- their little toys around, and that's mainly what the track area is for. But I want to make sure that not really knowing what the bids will come in at, I think it would give us options if we bid this in terms of the track being an alternate bid. I'll second. First and second, any discussion?
- This and this is to the north of the current. Yes, playground is it will be expanding the area. What are the? So right now I presume kids are able to go to the playground, but maybe we have stagger out or. Yes, OK, yeah, yeah, we'll have to monitor who's who's out there and utilize our indoor space to so it'll take some some coordination sure.
- And this will come out of the GEO bond, the 2022 GEO bond. And so I recommend your approval. I believe we had a first and a second already. So any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we're going to approve the South Central Community Action Program.
- I think that's what that stands for, with Head Start contract. Dr. Sanders? This is a contract we have with Head Start. They pay our nutrition department funds to be able to provide food for 200 children each day, and these meals are obviously healthy school meals.
- and that are appealing and familiar to the students. So the students are going to be more inclined to eat those lunches. And so this contract helps our budget in the Nutrition Services Department and enables our school corporation to provide free lunches K through five. I'll second.
- Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we're going to look at approving technical adjustments to contracts for a number of different individuals listed. Yeah, so we asked the board on the July 15th school board meeting to approve
- the contracts for the people listed in the memo. But we discovered after the fact, unfortunately, that we needed to make some adjustments in terms of actual beginning dates of the contracts, the prorated salaries, and we wanted to make sure the paid leave days were in alignment with the classified handbook. And we also made some technical changes to
- the contracts for Megan Scott Jackson and Mariah Bruce. And so we're just asking the board to approve these contracts with the technical adjustments made. I move approval of the technical adjustments to the contracts. I'll second. Moved, second. Any discussion? Again, these are listed on the agenda, 14 individuals and their positions.
- So all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Now we have the assistant superintendent's report. Well, I'm happy to say I have more celebrations in my report than Paul had in his report. So I win. No, a lot of good things here to celebrate. You'll see on the very front page, these are the released score reports for I Learn.
- Definitely some celebrations here. I've put the scores back to 2021 so you can see some trends as far as where we've been, where we're going. We are at or above the state average in nine of 12 categories. So when we're looking at six tested grade levels in both math and ELA, I'm really pleased to see that. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you're referring to. I don't know that I got that report. We did not give you a copy of this. I don't have it.
- Uh-huh, thank you. Thank you so much, Larry. They're out in the, you don't have an idea about the good celebrations we're talking about. Ken's grabbing those for us. Start celebrating. I have one, yes, thank you. I appreciate it. I apologize, we didn't get those on the table for you guys. It's my fault.
- So taking a look at that front page there, you will see the 2025 state average. What you see in the blue font are the nine areas that we are at or above the state average. Some highlights here that I want to point out, and of course, you know, when we point these out, we also think about the good work that those teachers are doing to go above and beyond.
- Third grade math is 9.7% above the state average. Fourth grade math, 12.5% above the state average. And seventh grade ELA came in at 10.9% above the state average. I think that really goes to show to the work that those grade levels are doing in terms of professional learning communities, really looking at their data.
- figuring out where those students are, meeting them where they are and using those tiered supports to make sure that our students are growing.
- We also had some significant growth from 2024 to 2025, and that was in seventh grade math in ELA. So seventh grade team is just rockin' and rollin' there. And we had two watch areas over the last couple of years, and that was fifth grade and eighth grade math. And it was good to see that both of those areas did increase from the 24 to 25 year. I know that Mr. Rinchler and Mr. Scholl both have been working in those two areas
- some additional measures in place.
- working with those teaching teams, and so we did see growth there, which was good to see. Not as much as we'd like. We know that those percentages actually equate down to students at or above proficiency, and it's not high enough yet. We still have work to do there. In addition, you'll see areas for improvement, and this is a piece that we're seeing across the state. This is not new or unique to Edgewood schools. We are still losing students in the same cohort from one grade
- to the next. So what I mean by that is if you look where I have those shaded and you look where they were in 2022 and then you go on down to that same cohort in 2023 and 2024, we are losing those students from grade level to grade level. And that's a piece that we have to come back to and we have to address because something is happening where students are at or above proficiency and that following year, they're falling below. So this is a piece that we're continuing to talk about
- our teachers were continuing to put measures in place related to tier two and tier three interventions. And also, while we're still above the state average in ELA, we did see a drop this year in all grade levels but one.
- The one thing that we have to remember here is we did put a new reading curriculum in place last year in K through five. One thing that I know as a teacher is that when you ask me to teach a new curriculum for the first year, it is a learning curve. And so I'm not surprised to see this drop in third, fourth and fifth grade. I talked with Mrs. Key about it. She also has some ideas about how we're gonna use that curriculum maybe a little differently this year and also how we're gonna come into that tier two time, which is a reteaching time and spend more
- more purposeful interventions during that time. So, like I said, not surprised, but still it's a piece there for improvement that we want to come back stronger next year in those areas. I can't speak highly enough. The next part is a celebration. We know
- that third grade and literacy go hand in hand with so many factors down the road when students become adults. We know that, and this is sad to say, but prisons look at third grade literacy scores, look at third grade literacy percentages to determine how many projections they can make in terms of adults that they need to plan for 10, 15 years down the road. This is a percentage that
- impacts kids beyond just being nine years old. And the work that K-2 and third grade are doing in our Etchwood schools is phenomenal. The state of Indiana has set a goal of 2,027 that 95% of our third graders are at that benchmark being able to read at a third grade level. They're passing iREAD3.
- If you look at the trend for EIS over the last several years, you'll notice we can call it a COVID drop. We can call it whatever you want. But we had a drop in 2022. We started building that back up in 2023. 2024, we went up another 2%. 2025,
- 92.6%. We are just under 2.5% from reaching that goal, that statewide goal. Given our demographics, I couldn't be happier with this percentage.
- And what I mean by those demographics, I'm gonna give you underneath of that just one demographic. This doesn't talk about our free and reduced versus our paid. This is looking at students with disabilities, students who have every reason why they shouldn't be reading at a third grade level. We know it takes more time for them to process and get to that point. But what I want you to see is the work that our third grade teachers have done and our third grade inclusion teachers specifically with interventions have done.
- In 2023, we had 33.3% of our special education students passing Ivory 3, a third of them. In 2024, we went up to a half of them, 51.5%. This year, 69.4% of our students with disabilities are reading at a third grade level when they get through third grade. That is huge.
- And I think that goes to show that our teachers and the work that they're doing, this is making a true impact on these students. I'm excited to see what this is gonna look like in five to 10 years when this group of students and the work that we have made adjustments and we're seeing the positive impact, what this looks like when they're in junior high and high school and beyond. Because we know this will just continue to steamroll and the gains will just continue to increase there.
- huge celebrations at that K-3 level and still making changes to our K-2 and our 3-5 interventions at Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 because we know this still isn't good enough until we reach 100%. It's great, but it's not good enough yet.
- Additional updates just from the Ready School side of things. We submitted the formative assessment grant, high ability grant, and STEM integration grants last week. All of these grants together bring in potentially about $100,000 worth of state funds to pay for things that would come out of education or RDC grant or some of those other items.
- We're going to be rolling out SmartPass soon at both the EHS and EJHS buildings. I've included a letter here for you to see how we're being proactive in this. SmartPass is replacing a program that we've used called FlexTime.
- Flex time is a program that we've used at both the junior high and the high school, which allows students to sign up to go and spend time with a teacher for reteaching, for remediation. It might be they need to retake a test. Not only can students sign up,
- but teachers can pull students and assign them. You failed a math test, you're coming to me for a few days because I'm gonna reteach this and we're gonna work on this. So it's taking that remediation and that reteaching that we do so well at K through five and moving it up into six through 12. We found another program this year to replace FlexTime, it's called SmartPass, and not only does it have the features that FlexTime has, but it also has an additional feature
- that students can sign up for passes, teachers approve those passes, and those passes allow them to circulate through the building during periods where they should be in class. So what I mean by that is we're bringing in a safety feature. We don't have anything other than maybe a paper pass that when students need to use the restroom, they need to go to the office, they need to see another teacher, that paper pass is filled out and students take off where they need to go. The problem is,
- Office doesn't know where they are. If there's an emergency in the building, we don't know who's out of class, who's in class, all of those pieces. This will allow us to track that. We're getting ahead of this a little bit because we do recognize that this is a change.
- any change to any procedure and limiting the flow of movement in a building can definitely bring about concerns. It brings about concerns from students, it brings about concerns from parents. And so one of the things that you'll see in here is that the Smart Pass will allow up to two passes per day per student to come out of one of their seven classes or two of their seven class periods. This is in addition to their passing periods that we encourage them to use
- bathroom. We encourage them to stop by the office if you need to pick up a form. So it's giving them two out of their seven periods every single day that if they have a need that they need to take care of they can go and do that.
- In addition to that, we wanted to make sure parents understood that any student with an IEP, a 504, a health plan, where we have accommodations written in that are individualized, you know, a student with a kidney disorder who may need to go to the bathroom more frequently than two or three times a day, those are gonna be written in and those allowances, of course, would be given for those students. So this is gonna go out to our high school students and parents on Friday, this letter that you have in front of you, Kent and his team
- follow up with that in a few weeks when they roll out the same program at the junior high. So this program cost us $9,153 total, which is about $4,500 per building. And we did save a considerable amount. Again, it goes back to Rick and the admin looking at the programs we're using. How can we find something to do it either the same or and hopefully with less cost? And this was one of those programs that met both of those.
- So we'll be rolling that out here in the next week and several weeks at both buildings.
- We have 79 students this year participating in work-based learning opportunities at EHS. Some of these students are in other buildings working with teachers who may want to go into education. We have four students working as paid apprentices at EECC who want to go into early education. We have students out in insurance companies, banks. We have another one getting ready to work with the Monroe County Prosecutor's Office. She's interested in law enforcement and will be working with them on
- daily basis. Just a lot of exciting opportunities for our high school students there and to see seventy nine of them taking advantage of that it's it's a pretty cool thing to see. The evaluation plan is rolling out in each building. We already have sent out the beginning of the year self assessment for every teacher.
- We do have some tweaks to it this year based on feedback from the teachers and administrators. And I've put a little snapshot down there. One thing that we received feedback on is that 43 elements in NASOT, the new art and science of teaching is a lot to look at. So we worked with our admin team during the admin retreat to narrow that down to nine elements that are important across all
- all five of our buildings. These include things like tracking student progress, chunking content when we're teaching it so it's manageable for students, using structured practice sessions, using verbal and nonverbal behaviors that indicate care for students. So these are the types of things that we're communicating to our teachers are important to us as Edgewood schools and what we expect from you when you're in the classroom.
- Do you guys have any questions for me? I have a parent ask me about the SmartPass. Yeah. That if the teacher was working with other students or something like that and they put in a request, how's that? Sure.
- approve it if they're busy with something else. That's a great question. Those are procedures that we'll have to develop with teachers. It's no different than a student raising their hand now when a teacher is over here working with a group of students or in the middle of direct instruction to say, I really need to use the restroom right now. Most teachers I think will follow the same procedures that they already use in terms of
- how do you get my attention when you need to go to the restroom? I don't see that changing with this program. What will have to happen is the teacher will have to take a moment, they'll have to go over to their computer and approve that pass so that that student is out in the hallway. I think one of the issues that we might see is that teachers will get into a habit of saying go ahead, go ahead. And then what happens is the program doesn't work the way it's supposed to because we have a student now out in the hallway
- but we don't have that approval from the teacher for them to be out there. So there's definitely gonna have to be systems and procedures created around this. It's gonna be a learning curve for everybody. And I think that the feedback that we get from teachers, from parents, and from students will allow us to tweak this as we go. We know that anytime we roll something out, as pretty as it looks on paper, as many hours we've put into the thought process, there's still going to be things that we need to talk about and figure out. And so those are things
- that I know the admin teams have already started those conversations. Jenna Clark is leading a session tomorrow morning with the high school teachers just with SmartPass. So they'll be spending over an hour tomorrow just going through the program talking about these things right here. How do we handle this when it comes up and creating procedures around that. So they're front loading all of this with teacher professional development before we ever roll it out with students and families. Thank you.
- Anything further? No, this is really exciting. I love seeing these numbers. It's incredible. It's good stuff. It's really, really good stuff. And just knowing the work that we're continuing to put in, the adjustments that we're continuing to make, I anticipate this trend with Edgewood continuing. I want to keep seeing this blue. I want to keep seeing us 10 plus percentage of points above the state average.
- I think that we are on a track here that's gonna prove to be very successful for our schools and ultimately for our students. Dr. Sanders, before you start, I got a question for you. What happens to those students that always sit in the back of the class? They become principals and administrators. Okay, go ahead.
- Well, you stole my joke. Yeah, so that happens at the staff meeting, back to school staff meeting. And I tried
- this year to walk back towards the people in the back, but I got feedback on my mic, but yeah. No, I'm glad these guys are here. I really appreciate them. Paul's gonna get back up and real quick go through the cash flows for you tonight. I heard that real quick comment. There isn't a lot to say. July is a relatively easy month.
- But if you look at the education fund, I did want to point out the basic grant went from about 1.78 million to 1.84 million. And so that'll be the new number or very close to the new number going forward for the last six months. Then it'll reset again based on your October 1 count for the first six months of next year.
- But everything stayed relatively the same. You look at that remaining appropriation, still negative. And I don't think it's gonna change much. So I was pointing that out earlier. Operations fund looks good. Carrying a good cash balance and kind of in and out. So you're okay. All right. Thanks, Paul.
- So I just want to give a brief report in terms of we're just off to a great start so far with the school year, and this is really this week, kind of last week too, we really start to get into the activities that the students get involved in. We had a scrimmage last Friday night with the football team on Saturday. I know that our
- soccer team had a game and won. The Edgewood Theater group were at Bender Lumber on Saturday trying to raise some funds. And so I enjoyed going to meet them. So I'm going to try to work a little harder to get our community out to our sporting events and to support our kids.
- It's always exciting when you when you're an athlete and you look in the stands and you see a lot of people there. And so I'm going to try to do a little better job this year encouraging the community our parents even if they don't have kids in that
- or that theater group or dance group that they come out and support our kids. So I put a link on here for our fall sports schedules. The Little Mermaid production with the theater department will be performing in November. And we're gonna have our Edgewood showcase October 23rd, which is a little bit later, but we wanted to make sure the field house was done.
- to be able to showcase that wonderful facility. I wanted to give you some preliminary enrollment numbers, especially I want you to be cautious with the K-12 numbers, but I kind of want to let you know where we are and how that compares
- to last ADM and this time last year. But back up to our preschool, right now we have 17 children in the daycare, 161 preschool students for a total of 178.
- boys and girls enjoying our wonderful new facility. If you look at the K-12 numbers, last ADM, the one that we had in February, the spring ADM, we had 2,672 students. And then this time last year, we had 2,669 students.
- And as of yesterday, our count was 2696. So we're up around 25, 27 students. And every time I get an email with a withdrawal now, I cringe because I like being up and I want to stay there. And so I'll try to keep the board updated on this as we get closer.
- to October 1st. We've got a ways to go but really the big flood of enrollments and withdraws should be over and this should be here or there an enrollment or withdrawal. And the last thing I wanted to share with the board is I did something before COVID called Soup with the Soup and so we had an evening where we provided dinner
- uh soup uh for our parents who came in and uh and we enjoyed dinner and then we had a period of time where I talked about a few uh pre-selected topics and got the the input of parents and and uh back then we did we only had like about a dozen parents involved and
- One of the things that I wanted to do better was to try to get more parents involved. So I hope to have reach out and I hope to have 50 parents for this soup with the soup. And right now we're looking to September 25th. And the way it'll work is that parents will come in. First of all, they'll pre-register and whoever wants to come, the first 50,
- So they won't be pre-selected. It's whoever wants to come, up to 50 people. And as they walk in, they'll get a card and they can write their questions down on the card. While they're eating their soup, someone will be kind of organizing the cards. And so we could speak to the topics that are on their mind. And it'll just be a, I'm hoping it'll be a fun evening.
- of conversation. We have great parents and I think I have a good relationship with them and I think they'll appreciate that they're being asked their thoughts on different matters. So we're looking at September 25th for that event. Once again, also I really was going to thank all the guys in the back there for being here tonight and the principals and Rick come every month and
- So I really appreciate that. It's time away from their families and they do a fantastic job leading our schools. There's no RBBEA comments this evening. So we'll start with board member comments and we'll start with Mr. Durham. I know.
- Well, I want to welcome Jennifer to the head table. Glad you're here. And thank you all you guys for being here. And Paul, thank you for your hard work on the budget. I'm sure it was, I know I'm going through the same thing with the town right now. We've been cut so much. We're losing things we took for granted for so long. Jerry, thank you for your leadership. Appreciate it.
- Thank you, Jimmy. I thought you were going to say something to Jennifer about a one-page report. Oh, well, every time I come in, I look at the back of his. Yes, I will work on that. Definitely. I'll start doing that. OK, one page. It took him several board meetings to get me to that. Take the header off. There are a lot of things. We're going to go tiny on. You guys are in trouble. I'll also give you a few hints how to get by with it. Good point. Thank you.
- No, Mr. DeMonts. Yeah, I just, the beginning of the school year is always an exciting time and the opening of the new building is just a delightful period. I just had, it was great. I ran into former students who have children in the preschool and also in upper grades. And it's just great to see the continuity in our school system, but the growth is so exciting.
- building looks great, and I appreciate everything that everybody involved has done in getting us off to a good start this year. So I look forward to the school year. Mr. Jacobs. I agree with all of that. I'm really excited, you know, the numbers that we're talking about, the growth that our students are achieving, and it's
- It's all to our dedicated teachers. I mean, they are just phenomenal. We really do have an amazing group of people that we work with. And it just, you know, I know that the next few years is gonna be a little bit rough on us. You know, we're gonna do everything in our power to keep the schools running, you know, and budget the way we need to, to keep everything moving forward for our students.
- know that we're gonna try very hard to do that. Donations, any donations that comes through for our students is very much appreciated by everybody. Excited about all the buildings coming together. They all look great. I know that I still have one student left. He's a senior this year and he has made comments on how cool the school looks. So it's pretty neat hearing it from him.
- I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. I as always want to thank everyone for coming tonight. I thought it was a really good meeting. We covered a lot of important things. The progress we're making with the buildings, the fact that we're being very proactive with funding and trying
- trying to hit it head on. And so I just appreciate you all. And I think it did get off to a really good start at school. And I'm just excited that we look like we're doing a really good job. And I just hope that the funding issue doesn't change that. But I don't think it will because I think we're resourceful.
- All right, with that, this meeting is adjourned and have a wonderful evening.