- 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 very much. Please be seated. Our first meeting tonight is a public budget hearing.
- And please let the record reflect.
- that Mr. Tucker, Mr. Durnall, Mr. DeMoss, and Mr. Kerr are present. And so we'll move into consideration
- of the 2026 budget. And to that, we'll turn to Paul Feder. Good evening to everybody. As we advertised,
- this is the public hearing. So I'll be very brief because this is the public's night to talk.
- not mine. You've got your folder and we gave that to you last month and it does reflect the budget.
- It doesn't change a lot. The operations fund is going to go up 4% of the levy. That's what the state
- says we can raise it, so that's what it's advertised. The education budget, we did raise $2 million
- because it's low this year and your revenue will support that.
- So we raised that budget to about 22 million from the 20 million. So that are the two things that I
- wanted to say and at this point then I would just turn this over to the public for any questions or
- anything they might have. Is there any public who would like to comment on the 2026 proposed budget?
- We'll do budget and capital projects budget and then the bus replacement plan.
- So is there any comments on the proposed budget? Seeing none, we'll move on to the capital projects
- plan. It doesn't change a whole lot. It just goes from year to year and those are projects that you
- think might cost more than $10,000. So you put several things in there. One of the things that I've seen
- happen in corporations that are stagnant in what they're doing. In other words, it's the same thing
- every year. So the capital projects plan becomes pretty important. In a corporation that's building
- a lot, moving around with bonds and things like that, the capital projects becomes fluid. It's used
- where it's needed, where maybe a bond didn't cover. But in some cases, corporations, instead of out
- of the bus replacement plan or whatever,
- They don't buy buses there. They buy them out of a bond and things like that. So you've kind of been
- in that mode for a few years. And so that's why the capital projects hasn't changed a lot. OK. Any public
- comment? Seeing none, our last phone is the 2026 budget or bus replacement plan. That plan has two buses
- in it, I believe.
- And again, that's the operations fund that that money comes out of. And if you want to ride next year,
- ride along, because that's the fund that takes the hit. That's the one the state went after for the
- tax levy. We're going to lose probably around $800,000 next year in that fund. So again, schools figure
- out or have to figure out, well, we don't have enough money
- bus replacement plan to buy buses. Where do we buy them and all that? But we do have buses in there,
- two buses to purchase next year, and hopefully we can do that. Doesn't mean we have to, but hopefully
- we can. Thank you. Any public comments on the bus replacement plan? President Carrara, I would like
- to say that all of this information is on our website for the public to review.
- So if you're at home and you want to view it, please go to our website. So if there's no further public
- comment or no comment, I will close the public hearing on the budget and I will open our regular meeting
- of the Richland Bean Boston Community School Corporation Board of Trustees and we have, I'll just bring
- it to order,
- And again, let the record reflect those members present. And were there any visitors tonight who would
- like to make comments? Okay. And now we'll move on to the probably most exciting thing for the evening,
- which is the Mustang moment. And we have Edgewood Junior High School. So Dr. Sanders. So I'd like to
- invite Mr. Rensler and Mrs. Schlummer to come up and
- They're in charge of our presentation. In fact, they were scheduled to be the October presentation,
- but they were so eager they wanted to go first. Sure. Yeah, that's how it went. So just to kind of give
- you a heads up as to what we're doing here, Lead and Learn is the title of our presentation. But this
- is really an idea of how we're bridging the gap from the intermediate school through the junior high
- all the way to the high school and beyond.
- This is how we do a lot of our career career exploration, and I'm going to stop talking and turn it
- over to miss Schlemmer Hi there, so I am Callie Schlemmer. I am a school counselor at the junior high
- and I am it Obviously a month early. I'm that excited to tell you about our lead and learn program And
- can I say just publicly? Thank you Rick Routon for getting us set up last minute so you can see our
- slides here and
- So for a long time we have worked with the success school in a really close partnership and we're so
- lucky to have them on our side to put on these career panels where we have community partners come in
- to tell us about their day to day work. We've done this for a really long time and it helps our students
- get an idea of what's out there just right in our own community. Last year,
- We started a program called Lead and Learn, where we worked with our high school teachers and administrators.
- And they would nominate high school students to come to the junior high. Our high school students lead
- their own career panel the day before the professionals get there. They can talk about their high school
- classes, the pathway that they're on, their future plan. They also talk about extracurriculars that
- they're a part of.
- helping junior high students maybe even see a piece of themselves in what's to come at the high school.
- So that first day, they're leading the panel. The second day, they attend the panel. So they are sitting
- with our junior high students. They are learning from professionals in our community right along with
- the junior high students. Actually, can I show, hold on.
- Maybe I can't. Well, hopefully you saw on that last slide, we have had a year worth of lead and learn
- students come from the high school over to the junior high. It has been an awesome program so far. So
- what we are learning is truly that this program is building a bridge. Our junior high schoolers are listening
- more to the high school students than they are even to us, to our professional panelists. It was really
- hard to see that big picture future when they didn't see that next step. Okay, I understand this career,
- but how do I get there? And so our high schoolers are able to say, this is a class that really motivated
- me in high school, this is something that inspired me, and I was able to run with it in high school
- in this way.
- So they're listening to the high schoolers. They're also getting a taste of what a career panel is.
- So on that second day, they're more confident, they ask more questions, they're engaged more. And I
- really think our high schoolers are showing them that it's okay to be in charge of your own learning.
- It's okay to be involved and it's okay to put yourself out there and learn what you want out of these
- experiences.
- So with that said, I would like to introduce Nevaeh Scott, Mallory Wilkie, and Jude Edmonds to come
- and tell us a little bit from the junior high perspective what it's like to be a part of this program.
- These students were all some who came to our September panel. They were there for both the lead and
- learn high school panel as well as the professional panel day. Nevaeh, go ahead.
- I didn't know what I was going into for high school since I don't really have contact with anyone that
- goes to high school. So I did not know what I was going to be walking into. And the panel really taught
- me that it's not as scary as it looks. There are pathways to get you to where you want to be at the
- end of high school and set you up for college and really
- Going to it really helped put an ease on my nerves and helped me figure out what I was going to do when
- I got to high school. Like her, I didn't really know what high school was gonna be like, but I feel
- like the career panel and being able to talk, especially one-on-one at the end with the high schoolers,
- it taught me a lot about what to,
- expect from high school. Like I didn't know about all the internship opportunities and the pathways,
- which are basically like different roads that you can take to direct you into classes that'll help you
- with your future career instead of like in junior high, there's a lot more exploration on like your
- interests, but high school gets it more direct into what you want to do with your life.
- I've been very excited being able to go to these career panels in the morning and getting to talk to
- the high schoolers and what they do and getting to go do internships and going to go on field trips
- and also learning from the other side, from the professionals and also getting to know what they do
- in their day-to-day lives. And I'm very thankful for being able to go to these career panels and I'm
- very grateful for being able
- to learn what I can do in the future. All right, and now I'd like to invite our high school panelists
- who were the leaders and the learners, Aubrey Lee, Sophia Kaeperman, and Maya Gill. These were our September
- panelists, and we focused on biomedical science. Aubrey, go ahead. I was so excited to be
- in this lead and learn program to help give my experiences from high school to younger kids who will
- be going down that same path as me and talk about my passion of biomedical sciences. I feel like this
- gave me a really good idea that I wanted to go into nursing in the future from learning from
- the professionals and all the opportunities that are within biomedical sciences. And I feel like I made
- a really good impact on the younger kids that someday I'll be out
- to maybe be in classes with next year and see their high school experiences. I really enjoyed being
- a part of the panel for junior high. I was really excited to get to tell them that there's not just
- one job in the biomedical field, there's a whole bunch of different ones.
- And I was glad that we were able to give them an idea first before they met the professionals, because
- maybe they might have had a different mindset that there was only one kind of job there was. So I was
- glad I was able to do that. I was glad that the professionals that I met with for the professional side
- of the panel, that they gave me advice that
- I, just because I know what field that I want to go into, like the Medicare field, that doesn't mean
- I have to know what specific position that I want to be in right now. And that was really helpful considering
- that I'm about ready to go into college, about ready to move on to my next stage of life. And like that
- was something I was kind of nervous about, not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. And it just like,
- it basically calmed me down. I was like, I don't need to know. I can figure that out along the way.
- Like it doesn't have to be set in stone my senior year of high school. So that was really nice.
- I was really excited to be a part of this opportunity with the career panels because I love getting
- to talk about the biomedical sciences and my high school experience and my future plans. And I really
- like that there was one day for us to talk to the middle schoolers and hopefully inspire them to also
- think about those things. And then a whole other day for us to learn from professionals in the biomedical field.
- And a lot of those professionals were in careers that I hadn't ever even heard about or thought about.
- So that was really eye-opening for me. And at the end, the three of us talked to them like one-on-one
- and asked them specific questions about our futures. And I thought that was really enjoyable because
- they were able to give very specific advice for us. And that was a great experience for me.
- Okay, and then lastly I'd like to welcome up Christopher M.G. He is the director of the success school.
- He really supports us in our career exploration at the junior high with so many different events and
- opportunities that we're able to give our students, particularly, not particularly, in addition to these
- six career panels that we host each year.
- Well, thank you for that warm reception. This is Christopher Emdrew from the Greater Wilmington Chamber
- of Commerce's Foundation Week, the success school. We've been around about 25 years. And career exploration
- is something we've always done. And as the state has sort of moved to careers being more of a focus
- within education, how is that going to work? And thanks to the innovation of programs like this that
- I wish I had thought of, this is how we're going to do it. This kind of continuum of exploration
- Where you have you sort of build on the previous days? Previous days work and having it with high schoolers
- makes it so much more fun and accessible Lauren Michaels from Senate live used to say with casting when
- in doubt go younger And I've and it's becomes more hip more accessible. We're lowering the barriers
- to that so by the time I
- the professionals come in the next day, that elixir of having the high schoolers sort of talk about
- that has already sort of happened. So what have we seen? We've seen the questions are better. The students
- are more engaged. I have my O'Neill fellow do these panels. And this is Friday morning for a college
- student. They're excited to do it. The panelists, more engaged students. This used to be very
- at least on a middle school level, very passive, just kind of taking it in and you're like, okay, okay.
- But now it's really a game changer within that. And that's something that I think everybody's benefited,
- the volunteers are benefiting from just a much more rewarding experience. I think the high schoolers
- just seeing
- how those professionals are modeling talking to younger students is a big deal. So it works on a lot
- of different levels on that. And we saw it last Friday, and it's great to be a part of this where something
- as simple as career exploration has taken on this sort of innovative look that I think is ready for
- the 21st century, ready for tomorrow's workforce. So I'm excited to be a part of this and help out any
- way we can here at the success school.
- So what we're learning is that our professionals provide this big picture inspiration that our students
- don't have to know exactly what they're doing, but they really should have an idea. They should have
- that path. And it's our high school leaders that really make this feel like it's here. And they're starting
- on that path now, even in middle school. So that has been really, really fun and interesting to watch.
- You all are obviously invited to any of our upcoming Career and Lead the Learn panels. They are here
- for your enjoyment. We're going to do nutrition and culinary arts, business and marketing, agriculture,
- engineering, and the trades. Thank you for having us. And if you have any questions for our high schoolers
- or our junior high students, they are here for it. Or me. Exactly, or Mr. MG.
- have all of you decided on a pathway you want to start to explore in high school? Is it biomedical sciences,
- or is it something else that you've learned about? What are you thinking, Jude?
- So we'll see all three of you next year enrolled in Principles of Biomedical Sciences. Okay,
- sounds good. We'll count those three numbers in. And if you think about putting all the pieces of the
- puzzle together, as you put the pieces together, the picture starts to come to life of what you're trying
- to build there. And if you think about,
- all that Edgewood schools are trying to do in terms of internships, the Innovative Learning Center,
- the student-run businesses, that all this is just providing our students with knowledge and experience
- so that really they're taking the guessing game out of what they want to do someday. They're basing
- their decisions, important decisions, on actual factual information
- And I think it's so cool that we have students talking to students about these important issues.
- So great job, junior high. Thank you so much. When you said something about students directing their
- own education, that's my song all the way. And then when I heard them talking, that's where they're
- going. They're giving themselves directions. And I think that's so much more
- productive than a teacher trying to tell them what to do. Eighth graders actually saying the words pathways
- and Mallory gave a better definition of a pathway than I've heard in three years and I've been trying
- my best to define it for people and when you said you know you gave your definition I looked over at
- Mrs. Schlimmer I'm like that's it that's the definition we should have well we have recorded it.
- So we're going to quote that and say, this is the definition, but it's amazing to hear junior high students
- who can put words to that and understand what we're building for them. It's ready for them, it's waiting
- for them when they get to the high school. They understand the metaphor. Yeah. And I picked up on that
- as well. I thought that definition just rang true and was so understandable.
- That's a great way we appreciate those good words. And yeah, we need to incorporate those. I'm just
- excited that the junior high and high school students are getting together, that they're collaborating,
- they're talking. It's going to make that next step a lot easier, knowing somebody up there that you're
- going to be able to possibly have classes with,
- oversee around the building, so having those interactions are great, but having them in the context
- of career pathways and what you want to do with your life and how you get there is just very exciting.
- I just thank all the students for coming tonight and you, and I appreciate the
- partnership we have with the Chamber of Commerce. I mean, that's been going on forever, and it just
- seems to be stronger all the time. And the Chamber has been so supportive of Edgewood Schools. And so
- we really appreciate the Chamber and all that you do for our students and our corporations. So thank
- you for that. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
- Thanks Chris for coming Now you're welcome to stay the superintendent's report is at the end That's
- the second best thing Thank you all so much for coming
- happens every time. It does. It does. No. And she can't go anyplace. Unfortunately, she can. She drives.
- Oh, that's scary. Scary. OK. Wow. I am just so excited. Very impressed. Yeah, very much, very much.
- So we appreciate them all.
- Okay, unfortunately we gotta get back to business. That was the capstone, so let's dig a little deeper.
- So next is our consent agenda and it's approval of minutes from the August 19th regular board meeting.
- We also has the treasurer's report for August of 2025. And Mr. General, the claims please.
- For gross wages on August 1st, 2025, $648,384.93. For gross wages, many pay on 8-14-2025, $1,327.45.
- For gross wages on August 15th, 2025, $878,530.91. For gross wages, many pay on 8-18-2025, $14,895.73.
- for gross wages on August 29th, 2025 at $834,827.07 for a total of $2,377,966.09. Preclaims
- for 8125 to 831.25, $1,435,221.45 for claims on 916.2025, $1,181,850.49 for $2,617,71.94 for grand total
- of $4,995,038.03. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We also have
- Personnel, resignations, retirements, non-renewals, leaves and terminations, C1 through 15. And D, personnel
- appointments and transfers, D1 through 81. And we have three out of state and overnight field trips,
- the high school show choir to Branson, Missouri in April of 26.
- You have the high school show choir going to Bedford for a retreat and the Edgewood high school sophisticated
- ladies in addition going to Bedford for a retreat. And so do we have a motion on the consent agenda?
- I move approval. I'll say it. Seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
- And Dr. Sanders, you have some comments you'd like to make on a few of these? Yes. So first of all,
- you know, I know we say this quite a bit about retirees, but there's so many times that when I see the
- name of somebody come across my desk that's saying that they're going to retire, my first thought is,
- what are we going to do without them?
- and Becky Pittman is definitely one of those individuals. If I counted right, 29 years with Edgewood
- Schools and she's been our Title I Director at EIS and really making that program work. And so I've
- just, plus I just enjoy her as a person.
- And so I just wanted to recognize her tonight. And then I also wanted to recognize Gracie Turner. Gracie
- is our new business office assistant. And as you know, we made some adjustments to roles and responsibilities
- within our offices. And so some of the duties that were to our assistant superintendent, Matt,
- put some of those duties on to other folks and just kind of readjusted to make sure that we weren't
- missing a beat. And so Gracie is kind of the person who's going to carry up and do those things that
- some of the others aren't going to have time to do. And she's amazing already. Actually, we had three
- amazing people that applied and interviewed for that. We got finished and was like, well, can we hire
- all three?
- But Gracie's amazing. If you go out and look at the TV in the lobby there, we've been wanting to get
- photos up there for a while now, maybe a year, year and a half. And she did it like in 10 minutes. So
- she's already really contributing and taking off the load. The extra work that Susan Shockney has to
- do and Debbie Tate,
- and others, she's picking up the slack there. The other thing she's going to do, if you remember, we
- had Brittany Tucker, who was our marketing coordinator, become a teacher at the high school, and so
- she's going to help Brittany with getting some
- content from the elementary schools and junior high on our website and on a sign down below because
- it's hard for Brittany to get away all the time to go to the other schools. So she's going to help with
- that too. And really running a website is a full-time job. So she's going to help with that work there.
- I really don't have any more to add. You hit all the highlights there.
- I'm a little jealous with going to Branson. My daughter used to clog and we'd go over there and she'd
- clog at a competition then do Silver Dollar City and off. It was a lot of fun. We had a lot of good
- times. So glad they're able to go. And so the supplemental personnel report, there's two appointments,
- Tina Criswell and Sonya Jones. And so Dr. Sanders?
- Yes, so we're recommending these two individuals for hire, but we're required by the state if there
- are certain notations on a background check that we have to hire those folks, but we need to
- do a supplemental personnel report. And so I shared those details with the board and so ask your approval.
- to hire Tina Criswell and sign to John Jones. Personnel report. Any discussion? All those in favor say
- aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Now we're going to move on to our, and I'll open our public
- hearing regarding the financing lease amendments. And for that we have Jacob McClellan
- Here tonight to walk us through this. Thank you. Mr. President Jacob with Bo's McKinney and Evans So
- I know you guys have been through a number of public hearings already The way that this bond is issued
- is similar to how you've issued them in the past through your building corporation since it's not a
- general obligation and So there's maybe a little bit of redundancy in some of these public hearings,
- but they're all statutorily required So we kind of have to go through the process so
- We put out a notice 30 days ago for this public hearing. The building corporation met just before this
- meeting and approved the form of the lease. Assuming, I think your next item on the agenda is a resolution
- related to the lease amendment. Assuming you guys adopt that, we'll put out another notice and there's
- another 30 day period where folks could remonstrate about the lease.
- Timing wise, we get through that. Stiefel will work with Jerry on marketing the bonds. And you guys
- would be looking at a pricing of the bonds potentially in early November with funds available toward
- the end of November. And again, this is the building corporation will issue the bond. You guys are approving
- a form of lease which includes not to exceed parameters provided by Stiefel. When the bonds are actually priced,
- There will be addendums to the lease amendment that will line up your lease payments with the bond payments,
- plus about $1,500 semi-annually to pay trustee fees. So I know you guys have been through this before,
- but with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions before you turn it over to the public. Any questions?
- Hearing none, I will open the public hearing to public comment. Is there any who would like to
- So we typically put out the notice and allow for a little bit of feedback and then we'll be back at
- your next board meeting and that'll be the last one. We'll have forms of bond documents just so we're
- not, I mean we've just historically done it that way so we're not cramming everything and approvals
- all in one meeting. And that'll be the last one. Say that again.
- Yes, yes, they'll be sold early November with funds available kind of 23rd 20 30th around then and I
- mean I guess that's one caveat if the market is Weird or there's some benefit to wait Stiefel will tell
- Jerry and you guys will play it by year then I think so Okay After that discussion any public comment
- I will close the hearing public hearing on
- the financing lease amendment and we will now consider a resolution of an amendment to the lease.
- So yeah, this just authorizes what I mentioned, the amendment to the lease and again, assuming you guys
- approve this resolution, sign that tonight, we'll put out that notice and then we'll be back at your
- next board meeting and the building corporation will meet again as well to approve bond documents.
- Like I said, then we'll look to price probably early November and close late November. Resolution to
- execute fourth amendment to lease. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- Motion carries. Thank you very much.
- Yeah, thank you. Okay, thank you. Good night. Okay, and the next item on the agenda is another public
- hearing. I'll open the public hearing on the superintendent's contract addendum. And for this, I would
- ask our council, Christine Bartlett, to give us kind of just the key points of what the contract entails.
- the existing contract so many times. So we're to the point where we need to do an entirely new contract.
- This is a contract addendum because it's an addendum to the teacher's contract. The proposed terms of
- the contract are that the term will be from July 1, 2025. So retroactive and conclude on June 30th,
- 2028. The base salary will be 155,000.
- The superintendent will receive 13 paid sick leave days, 20 days of paid vacation, two personal business
- leave days and bereavement leave. RBB will pay 80% of the annual cost of health insurance and contributions
- will be made to the superintendent's retirement account in the same amount that are made to the teacher's
- retirement account through the state.
- The other benefits are established by board policy and administrative personnel and the master's teachers
- contract are also incorporated by reference. Thank you very much. Is there any questions by the board?
- If not, I will open it up to public comment. If there's any public who would like to comment, please.
- Define yourself, okay. Seeing none.
- Then I will close the public hearing on the superintendent's contract, which will lead us to the next
- item, which is consideration to approve the superintendent's contract addendum. You have heard what
- that entails. So do we have a motion on the contract addendum? I move approval. I say. Moved, seconded.
- Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- motion carries. Thank you very much and now we're going to move to consideration to approve revisions
- to the Neola policy which drives our corporation policies. So Dr. Sanders. Yes so at the August school
- board meeting I presented a series of revisions to our Neola policies and
- There were, I didn't get any comments about that or questions. So I'm bringing them back to you tonight
- for approval. Of the revisions to the Neola policy. Any discussion? Just a question. I'm anticipating
- that we're going to see another round of Neola updates
- based on what happened in the state legislature this time. Yes, they stay on top of those things. I
- think some of the special update came from this past session, but there'll be additional ones coming.
- I expected, because I was expecting to see some more controversial things that I saw in this batch.
- Yes, I can't wait. All right, anything else?
- All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now is consideration to approve the Child
- and Teen Safety Matters Services Agreement and we'll turn to Jennifer. This agreement is one that I'm
- bringing to you. We implement this program in our junior high and it's one that we pay $2,500 for each year.
- It trains our SEL team as well as pays for materials so that we can use that during our homeroom time
- with all students in junior high. So this is a tier one, meaning that it's a program that we use with
- all students in the junior high. This contract is with
- Suzy's Place, which if you're familiar with Suzy's Place, we use them for other reasons as well. They're
- out of Hendricks County, incredibly reputable, and they put out some really great materials as proactive
- pieces for students. We have a motion? I move approval. All I'll say is that I have a lot of respect
- for Suzy's Place.
- We do incredible work there with kids, for sure. Okay, anything further? All those in favor say aye.
- Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we'll look at the DBT in schools LLC services agreement. This one
- hopefully is an easy one. I brought you the
- provisions for this agreement a couple of months ago as we were working through those. Now I'm bringing
- you the agreement for approval. This is actually a two-day training for all of our SMART mental health
- team members. SMART is the grant that we received the federal grants, so this will be paid for completely
- through that grant. It will train all of our mental health team members, two-day training via Zoom,
- that's $20,000.
- three additional days of training at $895 a person. Right now that's 16 people that we would train using
- these strategies. That's a total of $14,320 for those additional three days. And we're going ahead and
- right now, assuming that we would have
- Roughly 14 hours of consultation. They will actually come back and work with our mental health team.
- Anytime we implement something new in terms of strategies with students, whether it's instructional
- or it's something related to social, emotional, mental health, we're gonna have questions about that.
- So we will have experts that we can go to. The cost for those consultation hours is $395 an hour. So
- we're estimating roughly $4,740. This contract total is not to exceed
- So we're asking for approval for this out of our smart grant funds.
- I can tell you a little bit. I am definitely not a specialist in this area. These are some strategies
- that we have learned about more through our IU team that comes in. They work with our students. So Heather
- Ormiston is our partner there. These strategies are meant to be more on the fly that we would use with
- students. What we tend to do now is more pull out.
- So they may come down to the office, meet with a mental health provider for a certain period of time.
- And so these strategies are about increasing the amount of time that they're actually in the classroom.
- So ways that we can connect with them in passing periods, ways that we can connect with them at lunchtime
- so that we can maybe dig a little deeper in terms of some mental health counseling, but not pulling
- them out of instructional time to do that. So that's really what these strategies are about and the goal that
- comes along with that. It's a lot of language and just how we approach students and the types of students
- who would respond to these strategies, because as we know, it's not gonna fit the bill for every single
- student we have. Your therapy. Thank you very, very much for that, Mr. DeMoss. That's very good. I like
- that concept. I really do.
- education time and but at times where they may be more relaxed to talk. Absolutely. So that's very good.
- Okay. Had a first and second. Any further discussion? It is. We have some rollover funds there and so
- we are looking with those rollover funds to provide as much training as we can to the mental health
- team until that grant runs out.
- so we're doing everything we can to spend every dollar that we get. For sure. Okay, that's okay.
- All right, we're good. We're good. Ready for say aye? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And now we're going
- to look at the 2025 to 2027 Title III Consortium Participation Agreement.
- So for our almost 40 students who are English language learners for the first time across our district,
- the state gives us a whopping $122 to provide additional education for them. But they are only allocating
- us $1,220 for this upcoming year in our Title III grant. So we received that allocation.
- not a lot that you can do with $1,220. But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and say we're
- not going to use that. The best way for us to do this, just like other districts who have a smaller
- number of EL learners, is we take these funds and we become part of a consortium.
- For some of these districts, they get less than $122 if they have one student. For some of these districts,
- we're looking at anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000. Some of the smaller districts who are in our region don't
- even mess with writing this grant because you do have to jump through the red tape and the hoops in
- order to get it.
- This can pay for some of the training that we do with our gen ed teachers who have EL learners in their
- classroom. So my request to you in this agreement is to allow us to participate in the Title III Consortium
- 2025 through 2027 with the Central Indiana Education Service Center. We would do that with our own education
- service center, but all of the schools in this area are so small that it would not be worthwhile for
- them to create a consortium with the amount of money that we have.
- So we have to join one of the bigger education service centers to become a part of that. So we've already
- reached out to them. We've started to look at some additional professional development that we can provide.
- We have Sarah Jalal Azizi who is our full-time EL teacher across the district. But we're really looking
- at providing professional development to general education teachers because the way that they are instructing
- with EL students makes a big difference in whether or not they are able
- to understand the material. So we're asking you to approve this agreement for us to join the consortium.
- The Title III allocation has been released, but the Title III jot form application has not been released
- yet. So by you allowing me to go ahead and sign this agreement, when that jot form opens up, I can sign
- this and submit everything at the same time. I second. Any discussion?
- Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And now we're going to look
- at the McGraw-Hill six-year science adoption for the junior high school. Yeah, this one hurts my stomach
- a little bit. These big contracts are ones that I don't love looking at the total number here. But we
- are in a need situation, not a want situation.
- The Indiana science standards actually changed in 2022, and we've been asking our junior high science
- teachers to teach with books that were written in 2014. As we know, computer science has changed drastically
- in that amount of time. The standards have become much more hands-on in terms of students exploring
- science versus them learning about it in a textbook.
- So this series in particular was written by McGraw-Hill for the new Indiana academic standards. So this
- one is an actual Indiana publication. It's called Inspire Science. We're looking at this being their
- primary resource, which means that I am hopeful we can eliminate maybe some of the additional secondary
- resources that we're paying for, which
- at the time were necessary because we were asking them to teach new standards out of a primary resource
- that at that point in time was 10 years old. So even though I'm asking you to approve a cost of $92,369.16,
- this is a six-year adoption. We are not purchasing any hardback books with this because the cost for
- those hardback books was
- Way too expensive and everything that the teachers need is online all of these teachers at the junior
- high are incredibly tech savvy They've already gone through the platform
- They've started to pull off some modules and things like that that they've already started to try to
- implement just from the free samples. But they are eager to get into this. Their old textbook has expired
- as of September 13, so they no longer have access to it. So right now at this point in time,
- They are doing amazing work with not enough resources to be able to do that. So I'm asking for approval
- of this. It did not make sense for us to do a one-year or three-year adoption financially. I'll talk
- more here in just a little bit about how I've worked this into the adoption schedule over the next six
- years. In addition, I've asked and have been approved by McGraw-Hill to pay for this over three payments
- instead of two.
- we would be paying the initial amount of $46,184.58. It says September 25. It's not going to happen
- in September 25. By the time we actually get an invoice from McGraw-Hill, we're looking at probably
- early November. By the time I bring that to you for payment, or it goes through the board for payment
- in November, that check would be going out in late November, early December. So I'm actually figuring
- the 2025 amount
- and the 2026 amount in fiscal year 2026 in terms of our curriculum payments. So I am not figuring that
- 46,184.58 in 2025 because once it finally comes off the books there, we're gonna see that in 2026. And
- I've already put that over into that estimated cost there. And then we would pay the remainder split
- into two portions, roughly $23,000.
- later on in 2026, in September 2026, and then another payment in September 2027. So again, this would
- be a six-year adoption for grades six, seven, and eight for science. I move approval of the science
- adoption, six-year science adoption for the junior high. Do I second? Yep. First and seconded.
- So when will this be available? I am going to as soon as you approve this, I am ready to hit send on
- a purchase order so that we can get this going ASAP. I've already talked with our rep at McGill Hill. He's
- He's wonderful to work with. He's great with our district. He knows that we are in a rush to get this
- up and going for our teachers. It's gonna be kind of a trial by fire the first few weeks because we
- won't have them training immediately on this new program. But like I said, they are incredibly tech
- savvy. They are ready to dig into this and then we will get them training later on in this school year
- on one of our flex days or something like that where we don't have students present.
- in a week or two? Yes. Yes. Rick and I are ready for it. As soon as they get everything ready on their
- side, and we see it populate through McGraw-Hill, I have the science EJH codes ready to go to Rick.
- He runs his back end on it. So we're prepared to push this through as fast as McGraw-Hill can work on
- it. So I am hoping that they will have access by the end of next week at the latest, the beginning of
- the following week.
- Shout out to the junior high science teachers for working the way they have been working with older
- materials and for this gap and having some materials. So we appreciate them and the hard work that they
- do for our students. For sure. I know as an English teacher, it was always important to have the latest
- update on the comma usage. So science is a little different. Yes. Need a lot of leadership in that section.
- Mr. DeMoss, I'll ask you about that when I make some major purchases of novels like of Mice and Men
- and Romeo and Juliet and they aren't exactly current. So our kids always say, why can't we read things
- that are current? So I'll refer them to you next time. I'll be happy to talk to them. I'll pull out
- my Shakespearean English when I'm talking. Quick question, quick question on this.
- We're paying this all up. Why would we why wouldn't we spread out of six years instead of three? McGraw
- Hill does not allow us to do that. They wanted this in two payments split it in half pay half of it up front.
- and pay the other half next year. Looking at our estimates on what we would be paying out next year,
- I did not feel like that was a good financial decision, so I asked them to space this out over three
- years. Tony Johnson, our rep, told me that this was probably not going to be approved, but I said we
- really don't have much of a choice, and you'll notice in this letter here, I said the spacing out these
- payments over three years will enable us to purchase other resources that are necessary for all the
- teachers in our district.
- have to think about everybody, not just these three grade levels in this subject area. And thankfully,
- this did get approved. I wish that our textbook companies would recognize that we get paid once a year
- for curriculum, and paying for three years upfront is not feasible. But I think when you see the schedule
- that I have and how we have built this in, I think we have a schedule that makes sense for us financially
- so that we are not going to be in a situation
- where we are paying out multiple contracts at the same time. We are seeing a huge payment come out for
- our last reveal math payment. That one is significant, and so I'm hopeful that we are not in that situation
- where those things align, and not only hopeful, but we're being intentional about that not happening.
- We're voting on six through eight tonight. You're voting on six three and everything else is already
- in place K through five and Great question. So K through five. I just don't know if we're gonna keep
- getting bills. That's what I'm curious Yeah, it really depends on the grade level and the curriculum
- that we use K through five we pay for those science
- curriculum and resources annually. So we pay an annual cost for project lead the way. So any of the
- modules that we go ahead and we implement there, we also pay an annual cost for mystery science, which
- we implement in grades three, four, and five. We pay an annual cost for fourth grade materials that
- go along with mystery science. Fourth grade is a tested subject area for science. At the high school level,
- We are all over the place. The good thing is we know exactly what those places are now. And the hard
- part with purchasing those too far in advance is that if it is a dual credit or an AP science course
- and the textbook changes, we are in a situation where even if we have purchased that textbook and we
- have an agreement for three more years, if
- Ivy Tech or IU is changing the textbook, we're required to change the textbook. So I'm very hesitant
- at the high school level to enter into too many commitments there that are long-term, especially in
- those dual credit and AP courses. So we tend to pay for those one year at a time. I have been able with
- a few of our high school materials, I'm looking at Rick as I'm saying this,
- Some that we have gotten through McMillan Holdings and a couple of others we've gone ahead and we have
- entered into three-year agreements with them because the cost savings was so significant. We're talking
- about a textbook that they would charge us $10 more per textbook to enter into a three-year agreement
- than to go ahead and pay for that textbook for one year.
- So there are some of those things that we would do that with. Six through eight is the only one that
- we would be looking at a six-year adoption with, simply because they're the only ones that would fit
- the bill for that. With K-5, we don't have anything that would be a long-term adoption. These are more
- annual costs that we would pay. Okay, but still on the six-year agreement though, the software company's
- gonna change
- They're gonna have updates within that six year time frame. Oh yes, yeah. We would see their platform
- change. That's the nice thing about this. As they are making changes on their platform, we immediately
- see that on our end. Which is really nice when we have those digital copies because we can give feedback
- to those companies and I'm surprised every single time that they take our feedback and they do make
- adjustments to the platform. So unless the state,
- and I feel like I should knock on everything that is wood unless the state changes their Indiana science
- standards between now and 2030, we are in good shape with all of that. Okay, thank you. Yeah.
- Nothing further. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And now consideration to approve
- The EARN Indiana Employer Agreement. This is a fun one I'm asking you to approve. It's not $92,000.
- This one is a good one. This is the first year that we've been able to take advantage of the EARN Indiana
- grant. We've talked about it for a couple of years, but we just have not been able to get our ducks
- in a row to actually make it happen. The EARN Indiana grant is one that
- an employer of interns here in our district, we can apply for 50% reimbursement for the hourly wages
- of our interns. So we have four
- I'm going to say apprentices because there are apprentices. They're in an apprenticeship. We have four
- students who are being paid $14 an hour as apprentices over at EECC. Heather Kinzik, I don't see her
- here this evening, but Heather would tell you that
- They have filled hours that she is incredibly grateful for because they have to meet a teacher to student
- ratio there. And because all of these students are trained, they can be included as a staff member in
- that ratio. Some of these students have picked up additional hours after school is out with latch key,
- and we're able to pay them and ask for 50% reimbursement through the Earn Indiana grant. We also have another
- Apprentice who was working in our mustang marketing program with Brittany Tucker that student is out and about
- Every single evening, taking photos at games, events, the showcase, and then taking that back to our
- marketing team during the day. They're then curating all of that material and getting it spread out,
- whether it's on our website, social media, platforms, whatever that would look like. So Molly does a
- lot of our work after hours to be able to pull that content in and have that ready to go. Prior to Molly
- working with Mustang Marketing, Brittany Tucker,
- was doing all of that work in the evenings on top of teaching all day long. So we're really fortunate
- to have an apprentice in that position. So we have five students this year who are apprentices for us.
- Like I said, they are being paid $14 an hour.
- which goes along with payment, goes along with the classified handbook, and through the Earn Indiana
- grant and allowing us to be a part of this, we can be reimbursed 50% of their hourly wages between 10
- hours and no more than 20 hours a week. If we decided to keep these students on over the summer in some
- capacity, which EECC will be closed, but we may be doing something with marketing, they could actually
- work up to 40 hours and we can be reimbursed for 20 hours
- of that. So it's a win-win. We get work done by students, and we also get help paying them to do this
- work. And I would say a win-win-win, because the students are getting incredible experience working
- in pathways. That means something to them, and it gives them experience of what they may want to do
- after they graduate. I move approval of the earned employee agreement. I'll second.
- Any discussion? Sounds like a great program. Sure does. Hey, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- Motion carries. We'll give Jennifer a short break here and we will move over to Dr. Sanders for purchasing
- of Edgewood Junior High School bleachers. Yeah. So I think it was maybe a year and a half ago, Mr. Rensler
- and I were sitting on the bleachers at Junior High Main Gym and
- And I mentioned to him that the bleachers were really looking rough. And since then, they've really
- started to fail in terms of being able to move them in and out very easily. Sometimes they get stuck
- and someone else has to come in and repair them in order to
- to get them moving again. So it's just, it's time that we replace the bleachers at the junior high.
- So we've been working with Lee Company representative, Derek Swanson, and we work with him, established
- a good relationship with him because when we order furniture, we also go through the Lee Company, and
- they're part of a consortium, so it takes care of all of the
- necessary State Board of Accounts guidelines. The purchase of these bleachers at the junior high is
- $251,979.70 and I'm going to pay these out of the 2010 construction bond and that pretty much takes
- care of that bond will be a little bit left over, but I recommend your approval.
- And we did discuss this in the work session. It's pretty late. So is there any discussion? I talked
- to him yesterday at the conference. He said February. Yes. Originally, we were looking at April because
- we were going to be able to get a better deal. April is one of those months that
- There are not too many schools putting in new bleachers. But we were able to move it up to February
- with the same price. So we went for that. And that will work. Do you going to be able to work around?
- We only have, after that date, we only have five home events. OK. So we'll be able to make that work.
- OK. He said by October, you'd have the high school. Yes, we're working on it. I just got to quote.
- today for the high school and that's gonna involve additional work because we have the permanent bleachers
- and we're going to do some work there. Not replacing the bleachers themselves but we're going to take
- the caps that are on the benches, take those off and put seats there.
- And then also these new set of bleachers for the high school will require us to have different ways
- to get up and go up to the upper level so we're after the railing there we're going to have to replace
- that too so and then some additional work and so Rick and I and Arnold and
- Jerry Bland and Mr. Ackerman, we've met with them and we're trying to work out the financials and so
- we should have that for you for the October board meeting. That'll be a little more, yeah. But that'll
- come from another leftover bond money, right? That'll come out of the 2023 construction bond. Okay,
- yeah, I like what they showed about the one side
- which was replaced 10 years ago, we can still use the underlying equipment, just replace the Beecher
- site. Which is nice. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we'll
- look at purchase of furniture for the renovated offices at the high school. Yeah, so phase nine of the
- renovation at the high school,
- involved, we had two classrooms for the, for facts that we only really need one so we're going to utilize
- that space and one of our phrases we use all over campus is we want to maximize the use of space. So
- in that space we'll have multiple offices, conference room in there and so we want to obviously put
- some furniture in there.
- And we've been working with the same gentleman, Deris Swanson with Lee Company. The purchase of the
- furniture will be $30,652.91 for the furniture. And the cost of receiving, setting up, all the work
- of taking the old furniture, if there is any, out.
- That'll be $3,895. This will come out of the 2023 bond budget for furniture. Do I have a motion? I move
- approval. I second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye.
- Opposed? Motion carries.
- Okay, and our last action item is consideration to approve the Smart Start Child Care Substitute Service.
- This one is actually with the Community Foundation of Bloomington Monroe County. They have a program
- called Smart Start Child Care. Basically, this is a pool of substitutes who already have training
- to go into daycare settings, preschool settings, and provide substitute services for the teachers and
- the assistants in those buildings. Once we started exploring the EECC substitutes with Kelly Services,
- we realized that we would have to create a whole new pool of applicants there. We would have to provide
- training for all of those applicants because being that our preschool is
- highly certified, anybody who works there including a substitute also has to have that training. Thankfully,
- the Smart Start child care pool of substitutes already has this training under their belts. So we have
- worked that out with Kelly. They are more than happy to not have to do that training with an additional
- pool of substitutes there. And what we're asking for you to do is,
- approve this agreement. I'm asking you to do it with the red line edits in it. We had not heard from
- Tina Peterson who oversees, who is the president and CEO of Community Foundation. We'd received an email
- back from her saying that she was out of the office for a period of time. I have since heard back from
- her and she said the red line edits are fine. So I'm asking you to approve it with Christine's red line
- edits in it and give me permission to go ahead and remove those and send that over to the Community
- Foundation for a signature.
- so that we can get that up and running as soon as possible for Heather and EECC. I move approval.
- I'll second. Any discussion?
- Yes, it is not 300,000 it is a point zero zero zero And definitely a typo that is not a comma there.
- You are not misreading that The $300 is for the registration fee and
- And that pays for the childcare matters platform, which we would use to enter in any absences. It also
- pays for their marketing and onboarding costs.
- We would be paying $17 an hour for those substitutes. Basically, what that looks like is we prepay those
- services. So if you look a little bit further down, you would see things like placement packages. The
- platinum would cost us $672. As we are bringing in substitutes, they would just reduce our balance and
- pay those substitutes out of that. So we would be paying a lump sum just to keep money in that account.
- And then we just continue to replenish that be billed for that. It is not a reimbursement. It is not
- a Bill us later. It is upfront and then they pay them from there We would start probably with the platinum
- it's the it's the biggest savings and given the amount of staff that we CC that makes the most amount
- of sense for us and
- 48 daily placements, yes. Yes. So it makes sense for us to go that route. And then we would continue
- to replenish that as needed. It's kind of like Kelly, they're going to do all the background checks.
- They do all the background checks, all of the training. They already have a pool of people.
- And they pay them. We just reimburse them. Yes. We pay upfront.
- and then they pay out of what we have paid them, and we make sure that we always have a balance in there
- to pay our substitutes. Same concept as Kelly, except we don't pay up from a Kelly. Correct. Okay,
- got it. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Perfect. Now we move on
- to the business manager's report, and we have Paul Ferrer.
- Dr. Sanders and I have kind of spent the day talking about money, one of my favorite topics in schools.
- He's coming to work tomorrow and I'm playing golf, so that's good news. I wanted to point out to you
- on the education fund, not a lot to say about the cash flows. They're going the way we thought they
- would go and doing okay. But on the first page under the education fund,
- Looking at the very bottom right hand side, in remaining appropriation, you'll see the 325,000 that's
- negative down there in the corner. At the October meeting, you will be given a series of resolutions
- to sign for the budget. One of those resolutions you'll get will be also for an additional appropriation
- in this fund.
- We have to cover that $325,000. It's likely to grow because there's a few things that aren't in here
- yet and the expenses and that. So don't be surprised that you don't see a $600,000, $700,000 additional
- appropriation. That's appropriation. You've got the cash. That's not a problem. You just need the permission
- now to spend it. So I just wanted to point that out to you. The operations fund is moving along fine.
- There's no problems there, so just wanted you to know that that additional appropriation is coming.
- Increases will be reflected in the next lineup on the farm. That was one of the reasons for increasing
- the education budget, two million dollars, because this budget's a little short, and that's not anybody's
- fault. It's simply when your enrollment's growing,
- and the state's kicking in more money per child, you're gonna get more money, but you don't always budget
- all of that, because you don't know that until October 1st, and your budget's almost done. So it's kind
- of backwards, but it's the way we operate. We also have before you a revised fund balance report that
- we caught an error
- the one that was included in the board packet. So we had $17,041 from the formative assessment grant
- that was returned to the state and it was mistakenly taken out of the education fund and instead of
- taking the formative assessment fund to zero and so the
- The revised report here reflects those changes. Why did that revert back to the state? Because the state,
- we apply for the formal assessment grant, but they are very restrictive in what assessments that you
- could purchase with those dollars. Those assessments didn't meet
- the needs of our school corporation, our students, and so we could not find a way to spend those dollars.
- Jennifer, do you have anything you wanna add to that? That's the frustrating part. I've sent a couple
- of emails to the state because they are so restrictive. For example, they will only reimburse our reading
- assessments, our benchmark assessments, K through two. We give those assessments all the way up through
- sixth grade.
- because we know there are students who still have deficits in reading and we need to be able to screen
- those kids and find out exactly where those skill gaps are. My biggest concern with the state in the
- formative assessment grant is we are testing the kids iREAD3 in third grade and that's a high target
- year, but yet we're not paying for any reading assessments to actually screen those students. So the
- K2 does not make sense with that. We also buy screeners for math.
- provide anything for that. So we're doing what is best for students and we're providing our teachers
- with the data that they need to be able to teach the students.
- But the frustrating part is that this grant is so restrictive that what we can ask for in terms
- of reimbursement is very minimal. In fact, we can't ask for anything in reimbursement grades three through
- eight. The next grade level that we can ask for reimbursement on is the PSAT, which we give in nine
- and 10, and we can ask for reimbursement on that.
- For the past several years, we've been using the remainder of the formative assessment grant from the
- previous year to purchase what we need for the current year. And Debbie and I made the decision that
- instead of continuing to be in arrears with those purchases and those funds, we would go ahead and this
- year we would send back the remainder and start fresh with this year's formative assessment grant and
- get back on track.
- So it kills me to send a check back to them of that enormous amount. But unfortunately, until they start
- to open those funds up to allow us to buy some different things, that's the situation that we're in.
- Do something that makes sense. We should do something that makes sense there, Mr. Demos. Yeah.
- I'm not expecting I'm not expecting to see that $17,000 come back in any other way But we have certainly
- spent that on assessments. Like I said, we're doing what's right by our kids I just would like to see
- some of those things change at the state level so that we see some of that reimbursement actually matter
- there We've already been approved for this year's formative assessment grant and we were able to put
- in what we do use
- And that was when I provided my feedback to the state at the end of that grant as far as where the deficits
- are in the funding. Okay, some quick updates and it's all on one page.
- Excited to say we have 43 staff members. That number does not include the bus drivers because all of
- our bus drivers completed TBRI training. That is trust-based relational interventions. Before school
- started, we've added 43 more staff members who completed the training in September. The next two days
- will be the second training that we're offering.
- TBRI is a practice that we use across the board with all of our students. The way that I describe it
- to new employees is it allows us to think through the lens with students, not about what's wrong with
- you, not about how can I punish you for what you're doing, but thinking more through the lens of what's
- happened to you.
- How can I approach this with care instead of approaching it with a punitive response? And so it really
- shifts the way that we think about our students when we see behaviors that are less than desirable.
- The M-Class Dibbles assessments, talking about formative assessment there, those have been completed
- in K-5. Intervention groups are up and running. For those skill gaps in reading, we are finishing up
- all of our dyslexia screeners as well, and then that notification will go out to parents if we are seeing
- some red flags related to dyslexia.
- The title grant pre-application's been approved. That's a big deal. So now we're starting to work on
- budgets and applications for Title I, Title II, and Title IV. Title III, not much we can do there. Budget's
- already that big, hefty $1,220. So not a lot I can do there except submit the application for it.
- We're excited in a couple of months for you to see the Edgewood Career Readiness Magazine. This will
- be, I said emailed, but it will actually be mailed out to our families. They will get a print copy of
- that. It is being created by our Mustang marketing team.
- as well as members of our admin and staff members across all five of our buildings working on that so
- that we can try to put into words what you saw tonight with these junior high and high school students.
- I still can't figure out how to put it into words. Mallory Wilkie did a much better job with that than
- I ever could, but we're hoping that we can really define this and what we're doing here at Edgewood
- and why it's different from what's happening across our county, even really across our region. I didn't
- wanna ask Mr. Emgy and put him on the spot to say that Edgewood is innovating here, but I think we all
- heard Edgewood is innovating in terms of how we are getting students into our pathway
- and the pathways that we're providing. We had an amazing meeting this morning with our junior high and
- our high school team. We sat around a table and we had counselors, we had administrators, and we were
- talking about the pathways that we're offering. And we said when we started this journey a couple of
- years ago, if we start offering certain pathways, if you build it, they will come.
- They are coming, thanks to the work that the junior high is doing by providing exploration through electives.
- We now are looking at adding third courses onto our engineering pathway, our IT operations pathway.
- We're looking at expanding the pathway that would work with Boston Scientific and Cook. That's a smart
- manufacturing pathway.
- And we're really hoping we can get some exercise science in there. We have a huge program here at Edgewood
- related to sports performance, which tends to see more of our students interested in physical therapy,
- athletic training, those occupations after they leave high school. We have the biomedical pathway, which
- is where we tend to direct most of those students into. But there is a very specific pathway that is
- just for that group of careers down the road, that cluster.
- So it was an amazing meeting. It was probably one of my favorite meetings I've had here at Edgewood,
- just the collaboration between those two buildings and thinking about how we are building this for our students.
- A curriculum update there, we made the final payment to McGraw-Hill, just like Paul was saying, we're
- going to see that increase, $125,692.93 for the final reveal math purchase. We are in our third year
- with reveal math, which means we have three more years with that curriculum K through 12.
- We are adjusting purchases for the following years to account for payment plans that we've already committed
- to. So Amplify CKLA, that's the K-5 reading program that we're using. We will have two more payments
- coming out for that in June 2026. So I've already figured that into an estimated budget there. Again,
- in June 2028, working off an estimated budget and including that in there. And then I included
- the McGraw-Hill Science, which you improved
- approved this evening. Again, I'm adjusting those purchases so that I can make sure that we are well
- within our budget for curriculum in terms of what the state gives us and making sure that we are not
- putting too many of these larger payments into one year. So if you see below there,
- You can see date for new adoption. Next year, we will have to look at ELA 6 through 8. We will get a
- break 27 and 28 for adoption. 28 and 29, we'll be looking at social studies again for 6 through 8.
- 29 and 30, that's going to be math adoption again.
- 20, 31, and 31, we'll be coming back to that reading adoption for K through five, and then we're coming
- full circle after that six year adoption back into social studies at the high school, science six through eight.
- The reason you don't see every grade level or every subject in there goes back to Brad's question earlier.
- We don't put all of these into multi-year adoptions. A lot of these are annual costs that we
- can't necessarily pay out. In addition, some of these are costs that we don't want to put into multi-year
- adoptions not knowing exactly what the
- universities that we partner with would do with some of those higher level courses. So I feel good about
- where we are with our curriculum budget moving forward.
- And I am very hopeful that the state now after getting two years worth of data, we will see an increase
- in the amount of money that we get per student. I know that every district I've talked to is spending
- more in curriculum than the state is giving them. So I'm hopeful that the state will maybe take our
- $17,000 and other districts money that they also sent back and maybe allocate that back through curriculum
- in some way. Hopeful, but I'm not keeping my fingers too tightly crossed
- So we will receive another payment from the state in December, and that will be our allocation for fiscal
- year 2026. So I'm already looking ahead to those payments and starting to estimate those into fiscal
- year 2026's budget. Thank you very much. And now I believe we're out of time. We can't go. Yeah.
- Are you finished now Jen? Okay, now onto the superintendent's report Stuff to talk about so This will
- hopefully go fast for you last Thursday night. We participated in the Bloomington area Chamber of Commerce
- awards dinner, and we had two teachers who were recognized for educator of the year, Dee Minick, who's
- a special education teacher at EPS, and Christina Cowden, who's a fifth grade teacher at EIS, and we
- have a video that was presented that night in their honor, so we're gonna watch it.
- a senior in high school. It was one of my classes and I got to see Mrs. O and interact with students
- and wanted to be in that role and wanted to be able to inspire kids. I feel like I always knew that
- I wanted to be a teacher just from the time I started school. I liked going to school. I had teachers
- who I really feel like connected with students. I think being a kid is hard.
- and just having someone who gets it and makes those connections and helps you to be successful and be
- confident and want to do it. And so I just always thought that's what I want to do. I chose education
- because I have a lot of really awesome teachers growing up that really inspired me and they were really
- fun, really creative. I really enjoyed being in their class
- I really enjoy the challenges every day and every day something new. I don't get bored. Working with
- kids, watching them grow, watching them develop into the people they were meant to be. My mom was a
- teacher for many, many years and I spent several hours in the summer there helping her in her classroom
- and it was really, really fun. I realized that I really liked doing those things and organizing classrooms.
- I saw all the joy on Holmkin's faces whenever they would see her out in the public. And I've been able
- to watch her develop lifelong friends across her career and the people that she worked with and collaborated
- with. It's just really special. What I would say to someone entering the field of education today is
- to not give up. It can be really challenging. You find your coworkers that you can count on, that you
- can learn from.
- and hang in there, you have to just remember that we need passionate teachers, we need dedicated teachers
- more than ever right now, so keep going, keep trying, and you have to remember that every child that
- steps foot in your classroom is someone's whole world, and you're in charge of their growth and development.
- First of all, do it. Join education. Don't be afraid to come into the field of education because it's
- really rewarding.
- I would also say never forget what it's like to be a learner, what it's like to be a student. And then
- as a principal, never forget what it's like to be a teacher. Keep those perspectives in mind whenever
- you're making decisions. I would say patience. Patience is very important with colleagues, with the
- education system, with the students. The decisions that we make are so important you don't want to
- before you think about it. I also would say setting boundaries. It's very easy as a teacher to just
- get overwhelmed with the workload. Things aren't getting done. There's not enough time in the day. So
- you want to take everything home with you and work at home. Just set boundaries. Don't work 24 hours
- a day. You can't get by like that. And you're going to run out. You're going to be exhausted and overwhelmed.
- If it doesn't get done right now, it's okay. You'll get done when you need to get done. I would tell
- younger teachers coming into the field at this time that all kids have some good in them and to work
- and find what they can be successful with. The most rewarding part of my profession is seeing the light
- bulb come on for kids when they are learning and you see it happen and when former students come back
- and tell you how much it meant to them.
- We certainly want... All right, very good. So we congratulate Dee and Christina and also the educators
- of the year from MCC. It was just a great night celebrating education. The Edgewood community involvement,
- I'd like to share a little bit about that. The Monroe County Fall Festival was a great success.
- all the volunteers who put on the festival. RBB had a tremendous presence in the opening ceremony with
- our choir singing. We had the booth that had got a lot of visitors and we were well represented in the
- parade. And so just very proud time for our school corporation. I'd like to recognize all those people
- who helped with the dollars for scholars race.
- We raised over $16,000 for the Edgewood scholarships. And that's just amazing. And then I just wanted
- to inform the board that our school safety grant was approved and it went up a little bit. So that was
- good up to 92,500. And of course that helps pay for two of our school resource officers. We have three.
- as you know, but the 92,500 goes a long way for paying for two of them. So we appreciate that grant.
- Coming up on September 25th, I'm going to have our soup with the soup. And we sent out an invitation
- to our parents. We have 27 who responded, who are gonna come to the High School Commons that night.
- And at 530 we'll have soup and enjoy dinner together and then move into the auditorium and just have
- a discussion. We asked the parents in the sign up form to list some topics they would like to talk about.
- So obviously we're not gonna be able to get to all of those. So we're gonna create a handout to capture
- most of them and then have a conversation about some of the major topics. So the board, you're welcome
- to come to that if you would like, September 25th at 5.30. And then on October 23rd, 5.30 is our Edgewood
- showcase and we'll have these yard signs.
- that will be placed around town, trying to invite the community to come to our Edgewood Showcase. And
- of course, we do that because we want to show off our awesome students and facilities and programs.
- In the last two years, it's been a great success. This year, we want to focus on the field house, which
- will be finished enough
- uh... for us to have uh... have the uh... group in there that night and also our preschool uh... will
- have a bus stop uh... specifically down there for people to tour our new edgewood showcase uh... I mean
- sorry our new uh... preschool uh... couple other things real quick uh... the uh... enrollment uh...
- continues to hold steady. As of today, we have 2,693 students enrolled. I think that's up a few students
- from last time I shared that with you. So as far as comparing it to last year, last year's February
- ADM, we're up 21 from that and up 18 from last fall's.
- So as long as we stay up, I went over to the high school and told Mrs. Waterford, don't let anybody
- else withdraw. We like this number. And I just want to thank Rick for all he does and for being here
- tonight and all of our principals. It's good to see Mr. Key here. He's a busy guide.
- making great things happen over at the high school, and Brandy, and Ty, and Noah. Just appreciate you
- guys actually stay for my report, so thank you. Governor Sanders, do you want to share the news coming
- from EJHS? Oh, about the certification? Yeah, so yeah, I should have put that on here. So the junior
- high was the first to the finish line in terms of
- uh... submitting uh... for level one certification and uh... high school is not far behind and and the
- i s is not far far behind them and and so uh... they they're all working super hard on this we have
- some great meetings uh... this weekend and uh... all the the school improvement teams and the the administrators
- are making things happen and I didn't mean to leave out EPS. If I did, they're all doing a great job
- and we're hoping to take some people down to San Antonio in January and accept that level one certification. So.
- First, I'd like to introduce Ty McGinnis, my co-president. I just have appreciated working with him
- in this role as we were in the trenches navigating these new roles and I think we're working very well
- together. Bargaining starts next week. Talk about another new role. So we have a pretty much brand new
- bargaining team.
- We have a new unit serve director Christy Billings she was president in Brown County and then has served
- in many different roles at the ISTA so she's taken over for Nancy we met with her yesterday and we've
- got a good plan I feel like this year you know our goal was really just.
- Making sure we were communicating with our members and and I feel like we've got a really good we've
- gotten a lot of feedback from our members through face to face meetings and surveys and I feel like
- going into this session we know what members want.
- And then the other hot topic, this is the one night I don't think I really want to follow you, Dr. Sanders,
- because TAG Teacher Appreciation Grant has been a hot topic. And that came up in our association meeting
- with Dr. Sanders and Mrs. Barrett last week. We sent a memo to our members. And then, of course, Friday,
- they gave us the updates. And thank you, Mr. Tucker. Ty and I were looking at those updates before the
- meeting started.
- Indiana does not want to appreciate all teachers anymore. They've made their process very selective,
- and they want to know by October 3rd what schools are doing, what corporations are doing. So we have
- already sent an email to our members letting them know we need to meet ASAP to get their feedback,
- because Dr. Sanders and Mrs. Barrett would like that.
- Uh, yeah, they're, they're wanting to give it to 20% of the teachers in the corporation and very, very,
- um, you know, just kind of box checking. So to be continued of where that will take us. And not only
- that, we were supposed to get these guidelines, uh, September 1st and we just got them and we only have
- a couple weeks to decide what we want to do. That's not a good way to make good decisions.
- So yeah, that's all we have. Do you have anything? Just to continue on the TAG grant, the general, I
- don't know, reasoning or logic behind ISTA's opposition to accepting the money is that because it is
- limited to 20% of teachers, we believe that this will create an environment of competition
- rather than collaboration. And we know that the counter argument to that would be, well, why do we want
- to leave this money on the table? And it's just kind of a monkey's paw situation where we believe that
- it's more trouble than it's worth. Yes. It's definitely so counterintuitive. I just don't understand
- it. Don't understand it.
- Okay, for board member comments, we'll start with Mr. Goss. Well, just to pile on, I'm afraid I do understand
- why they're doing it. It's not to help teachers or schools, but that's my own take on it. Welcome, Ty.
- I'm glad you've joined us and another voice
- I've been in that position, so I know how you feel. And also welcome to Christy. I haven't had a chance
- to meet her yet, but I had heard the name a couple of times. So congratulations to Dee and Chris on
- their award, and we are gonna miss Becky Pittman. She's been just a rock for a number of years, and
- I really appreciate everything she's done.
- I was at the ISBA convention last fall conference the last couple of days and among other things I got
- a lot out of it but one of the things I kept hearing over and over was what other schools are doing
- with graduation pathways and it made me feel good because I feel that we're ahead of the curve on a
- lot of that stuff and hearing the kids tonight just really reinforced that so I'm just very thankful for that.
- congratulate Coach Fisher for the best start to a football season we've had in a number of years. And
- I did get a chance to go to the Fall Festival and had a great time. Got to see a lot of former students
- who were bringing their children along with them. And their children all knew Mrs. Barrett,
- but the parents, they recognized me. So it was a good time. Thank you for attending the ISB.
- It was definitely worthwhile. And Mr. Tucker? I'll just reiterate what Mr. DeMoss said. I was with him
- yesterday at the ISBA conference. And we're pretty blasted here right now from talking to some of our
- colleagues around the state. And we just have to continue to work together. The TAG grant has me concerned
- after reading some of the guidelines behind it. And basically, like Mr. McGinnis said, you're trying
- to segregate
- 20, 80 rule, that's gonna be tough. So I hope that the ISTA could work with the Dr. Sanders administration
- and to catch 22, do you leave it on the table or do you take it? But if you don't take it, I gotta feel
- I know where that money's gonna go and I don't like that option either, but I'll leave that for another
- day. But good luck with getting it together.
- Welcome, Ty, most meetings are four and a half hours, so. I've got a short meeting tonight. Kudos, kudos
- to Mr. Richler and his crew, if they are indeed ahead of the high school, which, wow. No pressure, okay,
- all right, wait a minute. But congrats to Chris, yeah, Miss Cowden and to Miss Minick, two great teachers.
- And yeah, when I saw that about Miss Pittman, she was one of the first people I met in 1999, she was
- my neighbor.
- And she has a love for kids. And she's transitioned her career and extended it. And I wish her the best.
- So thank you. Thank you. Yes, surely congratulations to Coach Fisher. What a great South Putnam game.
- It was probably the most exciting game I'd ever been to. So really great. Never ceases to amaze me how
- our students carry themselves, how they speak, and how they present themselves. What a great showcase
- they had there.
- I'm just thankful and like Brad, I'm just thankful for what we've got. I don't mean that in a negative
- way. I mean that in a positive way. I think we're way ahead of the curve. I think our guidance and our
- leadership has been the best we've had in the 25 years I've been here. So on the board anyway. So again,
- thank you. Everybody says everything before it gets to me. So I agree with everything that's been said so far.
- I will say on the TAG grant, I do not want to pit teachers against each other. And I want there to be
- collaboration. I want them to work together, because that's what's best for kids. And so the junior
- high, they did a great job in high school. Students did a great job tonight, and it was
- It was eye-opening. I didn't realize, I knew that there would be speakers coming in and things like
- that. I did not know about the collaboration between the junior high and high school. So to learn that
- tonight was just very powerful. So I really appreciate all that. And as we're giving thank yous out,
- I'm gonna thank Christine. And she worked so hard. We have so many agreements and other things and policies
- going on. And she's always right there
- lead us in the right direction and we appreciate her. We appreciate our friends at Katz and coming out
- and taking good care of us and keeping us out there in the public's eye and so that they know what we're
- doing. So appreciate all you and this meeting is adjourned. Have a good night.