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.