order please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states
of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and
justice strong thank you we are very patriotic so we uh... appreciate you all being here this evening
this is the
October 2025 regular school board meeting we will have a couple public hearings along the way As we
go for the roll call, please. Let the reef record reflect that mr. Moss. Mr. Kerr. Mr. Journal, mr.
Jacobs are all present and Are there any visitor comments? No
Then we have the Mustang moment, which is Edgewood High School. And so Mr. Ackerman, would you like
to introduce them? Good evening. I am excited to introduce one of our two primary leadership teams that
we have at Edgewood High School. One is that you're going to learn about is this is just students from
sports. And then we have Leadership Academy, which we've had a long time.
I just decided to make this the Mustang moment just because we do have incredible leaders in the school
and how much we depend on those leaders. We think that Edgewood High School is one of the greatest schools
around. We have a good staff, but what we mostly have are just good students and we need that leadership.
from students just like the ones that are going to come up today. So I'd like to introduce their leader,
Mr. Sam Jones, and he will talk a little bit about it, and then I think he's making them talk a little bit too.
It's always dangerous giving me a microphone and everything. I want to make sure I start with saying
that when Mr. Ackerman was my assistant principal and Mr. Tucker, who unfortunately couldn't be here
tonight, when he was my principal, they had to tell me what the word outspoken meant and when was the
right time to be outspoken and when was the wrong time to be outspoken. And at that time, I know that
whenever I was a student, I'm sure they would have been incredibly nervous to put any student in front
of the school board and have them speak. So it's really exciting to see how much we've grown just in
that I have a whole panel of students here speaking this evening.
Before I get the opportunity to hand it off to them, I want to thank Dr. Sanders, Mrs. Barrett and the
board for continuing to expand opportunities and
all the building projects and things that we have for our students and our staff and our community.
That excitement is felt in the community. It's felt every day in our kids and our staff as we go through
to have a community that embraces growth and embraces the opportunities that we can give to kids so
that they can go out and be productive members of society is just, it's incredible. And it's really
exciting to work in that corporation that puts so much trust into our kids.
Through SAAC, when we see everything that we get the chance to do, tonight's kind of one of those where
we look at all these different things and they kind of feel like little puzzle pieces. So you see a
little piece here, you see the little piece there. Well, tonight is one of those opportunities in which
we kind of get to pull those puzzle pieces together and look at just the beautiful picture that we're
continuing to grow here and build here. And I'm going to start by talking about what the foundation
of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee is.
Student Athlete Advisory Committee is an initiative that was started by the Indiana High School Athletic
Association and it was doing that because the HSA is big on education based athletics. They are pushing
the concept of we want our kids to realize the platform they have to have fundamental change in their
community but also in doing so they are
I use the term planting the seed for the shade tree that they won't get the chance to sit under they're
giving back to the community in hopes that as these things continue to grow. They can look back and
appreciate all of these small seeds they they have planted over time.
When I initially started as assistant athletic director just about four years ago, one of the big things
that Mr. Ackerman talked about right after I started was getting the idea of leadership pushed because
Leadership Academy is an incredible opportunity for about 90 kids every year to really represent the
diverse amount of things we have in our school and let them all make fundamental change. But also, athletics
is an incredibly important part too. So just giving our athletes a chance to change the culture within
their teams and as those
cultures within the teams are changing and growing, so is the athletic department as a whole. So, IJSA,
we won our first grant from the IJSA in 2002, and that allowed for us to start this beautiful journey
that we have right now.
To get onto SAAC, you have coach nominations. Every year they go through and they send us names for
kids that they see as leadership with the leadership skills that will represent us, not only in our
hallways, but also on the athletic fields and in the community in a positive way. And then we turn around
and we go and take that group and we have an annual summer retreat. That summer retreat, we're asking
our kids to give up time during their summer to come back in and talk about not only reflecting on what
we just did and the things we accomplished in the previous year,
kind of laying the roadmap for where we want to go after that. As we go through that retreat we then
say hey let's reflect a little bit more who can we also be bringing into this group that maybe hasn't
made a list yet and it's incredible to see some of the the game changers that have come some of which
are speaking here today that maybe they're a quiet leader maybe they're not someone that's going to
get their name in the paper all the time maybe they're not someone that's going to
be the one that rallies the team together with their voice, but they show up every day, they work hard,
and they believe in growing something and being a part of something that's going to continue to leave
an impact on them long after their four years here at Edgewood High School. So because of that, we have
these bi-monthly meetings, and we've pushed on to these kids that they do become the voice for our athletic
department. While Mr. Bland and I can step up and talk to anyone,
sportsmanship reports that we get from officials, it's rarely about coaches, it's rarely about
the administration, it's about the kids. And so when they realize that they're the ones getting those
recognitions, and they can push these goals that they've come out with, some of which they'll talk about
today, it really I think is empowering for them to feel like, no, just because you're
15 to 18 years old doesn't mean you can't make a significant difference in your four years. And because
of that, you're handing the baton off, there's an athletic pun I can throw in, but you're handing the
baton off to the next group of kids that are coming through and growing with it and making it even better.
One of the things that has been really cool in the years that they have had this IHSA grant, it's $1,500,
doesn't seem like a lot, but it's recognition from the state that
for things the kids are already doing. And so for me, it's been really exciting because we are, to my
knowledge, the first two-time recipient of this IHSA grant, and they only give about five to six each
year for 300-plus schools in the state. So at this time, I'm going to get the chance to take a breath,
take a sip of my Diet Coke, and I'm going to turn around and pass it on to letting our kids show you
the vision of how this started and the domino effect of how all their work has come to work.
I'm gonna start off by talking about the growth in our mindset. We are promoting multi-sport athletes
and encouraging those who only do one sport to try another sport, and our student section numbers have
risen and are continuing to grow as well. The attendance and participation throughout the whole have
gotten so much better, and the environment and the school spirit at games have increased as well. With
that being said, we have created excitement for all sports, not just sports that bring the revenue.
Four years ago, we decided to rebrand our name from the Red Nation to the Stampede, which has just made
a more unique and personal connection to our community. We've had students that are in charge of our
social media and our branding, which just have done a great job with increasing the excitement and engagement
with our sports and our athletics and our athletes. And in SAC, we also have been in charge of organizing
our theme nights, which
just show an increase in our engagement and excitement in the student section, which has grown a lot
in the past years, and just more engagement and excitement for our athletes. All of these things have
helped us create community excitement, not only for our athletes, but for our school corporation in
a whole. And some things that have helped us do this is our involvement in the youth program. We have
started to reach them at an earlier age, so then when they get to high school, they know what it's all about.
Yeah, within this idea, we have been able to branch out and create something like an NIL deal that has
given the proceeds to RBBU sports. And I'm going to give it over to Hank to talk more about Project
Plate Forward. Thank you. So yeah, about a year ago today, I was in class talking. You're good. Keep going.
I was in class and I heard one of my teachers talking to a student in my class about NIL and I kind
of thought about that and we were in the midst of trying to promote our coffee shop in a way. So I thought
about it for a couple days and I thought why not use one of our student athletes to promote this almost
like an NIL deal. So I told Owen McGovern, he was the first person we did it to, I told him about it,
of course he loved it and so the next day I told
Ms. Tucker and Ms. Myers about it, and they were on it quick. And they looked into it. He couldn't take
proceedings because it would be, he'd lose eligibility. So we thought, why not try and give it back
to the youth in our community? And that's what we kind of thought of the name of the project,
Play It Forward. And that's kind of what it is. And we've created drinks for the spring. And we now
have one out for the athletes this year.
One of the ways we're promoting that is social media. It's all student ran. The accounts are student
ran. The graphics are made in school by the students, and it's a great way of promoting it and getting
out to our community. And I'll let Carter talk some more on that. So along with working on these things
as students, we have interns in every single day, usually during sixth and seventh period, working on
these graphics that we can put out to our community. The biggest thing is
victory posts with athlete photos, so these are specified just to our school, just to our teams and
our athletes specifically. And we have social media accounts that are averaging over 100,000 views a
month, and this is important because this isn't just reaching our community, we're reaching other people
around, and we're branching out almost into other states when you look at those analytics. Along with
that, we've got a brand new scoreboard system in our gym.
Students have looked through that and begin to figure out all of the tanks in that, and we've worked
through that and put up graphics that are also student-made. That along with the new sign on Highway
46, we're just continuing to be able to reach our community like that. More importantly though, these
interns are getting career-ready experiences, some that students won't learn until later in college.
All of these graphics are created by students, along with hype videos, theme night promotions, and then
media days for every single sport. This isn't something that happens at every single school. So by reaching
this community, we are able to reach these younger children earlier. And I'm gonna pass it over to Aubrey
here to talk about our youth involvement. I'm gonna be talking a little bit about how we're getting
our youth involved.
in with our high school athletes through SACS. So it's like a full circle. We start by going over as
student athletes in the mornings, and we'll do greetings. We all have assigned teachers, and we get
to go in there and just interact with them and get to know them on a different level. And that leads
us into being able to do a field day for our third graders, which they always love and get a taste of
what all is offered at the high school.
in a different way and our teams are also attending athletic events for the junior high which after
that we get to do youth camps and we have 10 different sports that are offered for our youth to be able
to attend that they learn from our high school athletes and get to see what the high school is all about
when they reach up there and grow their interest and skills.
And our youth nights are offered after that for those who attend the camps to connect with our current
athletes and see them playing in action and get a recognition to see the culture and all of our skills
in action, which just leads to like a domino effect from everything that like the NIL deal and stuff.
Okay, me and Cora are gonna be talking about the domino effect through SAC. And over the past three
years, the Student Athletic Advisory Committee has significantly impacted Edgewood sports, not only
through promotions involvement, but also through the overall growth of Edgewood sports that goes beyond
the court. And 2022 SAAC had a total of 21 members,
Total has skyrocketed to 50 plus members and not only has SAC and grow individually, but it has assisted
in the growth of sports in general. Our total number of athletes in the school has
continue to increase significantly, and that just helps students get involved in sports and really know
what it's like to be on a team and what it takes to be a teammate. And then not only do you have to
be involved in sports to do that, but also our student section, like they previously said, has continued
to grow alongside these sports, allowing students to be involved with sports, cheer on sports, and grow
even if they're playing under the lights or being in the student section.
growing in the influence in student athletic advisory committee. We are being given leadership training
and these skills are being pushed into all of our sports teams through captains who are all members
of student athletic advisory committee.
In addition to that, all of our athletes have access to sports psychology interns from Indiana University.
And with their help, we are able to find ways to manage stress, anxiety, or any other factor that may
impact an athlete on or off the court.
Circling back to growing in influence, we work in subcommittees within Student Athletic Advisory Committee,
which allows us to see effective results and widen our scope in what we are trying to accomplish.
For example, those working in social media are able to create content and feed it out in an efficient
manner, similar to those in the student elementary involvement group who are able to brainstorm new
ways to keep our elementary schools involved.
And then growing in character, this really ties in with the domino effect. In the school year 2021 to
2022, our school was nearly on probation by the Indiana High School Athletic Association due to our
lack of sportsmanship points. And since then, SAC has really brought up our school from rock bottom
to an outstanding high. And I have fortunately been able to not only see that myself, but also be a
part of that.
I am a three-year captain on the girls soccer team. And my first year as captain was when we were nearly
on probation. And our team's culture was really negative. We had zero sportsmanship, interaction between
upper and lower classmen. And we just didn't have any encouragement for our team. And it wasn't until
after one of our games, one of my friends from SAC came up to me and said, hey, I know this is how the
culture is.
you can be more than just a leader. You can lead with a legacy and involve sportsmanship. And they kind
of just told me what SAC is and what they do. And it really gave me a realization and stuck with me.
So the next year, I met with my captains, and we transferred that onto our team. And it was a total
culture shift. And we went from a super negative and losing culture to a positive, encouraging, winning culture.
it wouldn't have been possible without one person like continuing the domino effect and this has only
happened in soccer but also across all sports and even outside of sports and student sections and even
within the classroom.
We've had two students here at Edgewood High School be recognized for their actions through sportsmanship.
First, Andrew Paul. If you know Andrew, he's a really great tennis player. And during his season, he
beat one of his opponents in a very quick match. And with so much time left over, he took that opportunity
to answer questions and actually teach his opponent some of his own skills that he often uses.
He acted out of kindness and it was a true reflection of his character and representation of the culture
that we're trying to build here at Edgewood. Second is a former student of Edgewood High School,
Reese Helms. He was recognized for his actions off the court.
As a student section leader, Reese recognized an underclassman behaving inappropriately during a basketball
game. The student was throwing stuff and disturbing those around him. So Reese went and picked up the
trash that was being thrown and addressed the student, informing him how we act as students in the student
section. And by doing that, he really set the standard for all students, showing that you can have a
good time and support your team while also doing the right thing.
look a little bit brighter, but I'm beaming with pride right now just with listening to these incredible
young adults and talking about all the experiences that we've had. We're really lucky with having the
administrative team back here, how supportive all of our building level administrators are to give freedom
to our students to go and try to make
an impact on people outside of their building. It's very easy to just try to want to focus on what's
going on in your hallways, at your building. But the forward thinking and the sense of trying to build
community and taking care of the future has been incredibly, it's just been really special.
In doing that, I got to make sure that I give some credit to Katie Brookman and Brittany Tucker. Those
are two of our other sponsors that aren't able to join us tonight. The ability to have
coaches that are willing to pour in so much time in an unpaid position to just pour into these kids
and to work with them and you hear these kids talk about their dreams and the things they want to do
and it's like it's not necessarily a dream it could be a reality and in just a short amount of time
we've been able to check mark a lot of those boxes and again we continue to push the kids it is not a
We want to win. Like, listen, there's nobody that's more competitive than me. But how we win is incredibly
important. And so to see this domino effect, you can see the photo here. I'd like for, we wanted to
make sure that you guys actually got to see that it wasn't like AI cropped in or anything. So if you
want to go ahead and flip that over. But this sportsmanship banner that they're unraveling, it is given
to the top 20
schools across the state every year for their sportsmanship points. And you earn sportsmanship points
through officials, through other schools, and through community members that are recognizing actions
that are done by coaches and athletes alike during competition. And I can tell you that when we started
talking about this and when we were on probation, you start with 100 points. And for every ejection,
you lose five points. Every ejection from a coach or an administrator, you lose 10.
70-some points in 2022. And once you drop below 70, you go on probation through the IHSA. You have to
talk about an action plan on how you're going to fix those things. Luckily, we didn't go into that point.
And every year, we have gotten just a little bit closer. Last year, we finished with 123 points. We
were gaining points in every season, not just one. And we were in the top, I believe it was the top
seven. We were the seventh out of the state for their total sportsmanship points.
Pretty significant growth. This is that domino effect because not only are we winning, we are winning
conference championships in multiple sports. We are competing at a state level in multiple sports, but
now we have this. It says we're doing it with character.
And really, it kind of goes back to, again, the last thing that I'll finish with is, of all people,
people probably think it's weird that I quote Mother Teresa, but she says, none of us, including me,
ever do great things, but we can all do small things with great love and together we can build something
wonderful.
This is a product of a lot of small things with great love, building something wonderful. And I can't
express my pride that I have in this group and all of those that aren't able to be here tonight for
the work they've done because this is not just a reflection of these kids and our coaches, it's a reflection
of the community and those that you guys get to serve as well. So thank you so much.
Absolutely, yes. So Zinnia Vanegas, Cora Emmons, Ava LaRoche, Ella LaRoche, Hank Ripley, Carter Hayden,
Aubrey Lee, juniors and seniors. And an incredible mix of kids. We have multiple, I think we have at
least 10 or 11 different sports that are represented through here. And so quite a diverse bunch. They've
been having a lot of fun putting this presentation together. So perfect, awesome. Thank you guys so much.
add something to what they were saying, especially some of those last few comments, because culture
is so important to a school and a school corporation. And nobody impacts the culture more than our students.
And I love going to see
Favorite part of my job is going to our athletic events. And of course, I like to see us win, but really
what does my heart the greatest good is when I see good sportsmanship from our athletes out on the field.
And we received, when we played at football, West Vigo, we were beating them
pretty good and we got an email from one of the parents of West Vigo athlete who complimented our football
team on how much they respected the West Vigo players and I was there so I watched our players help
other players up and you know,
It's just the heart of a successful school corporation when you have a great culture. And like I said,
nobody impacts that more than students like what we have here tonight. So thank you. Good job. Appreciate
it. It's always hard to return to business.
I Don't know what this Jerry maybe you need more graphics Okay So moving on we have our consent agenda
and in that we have the approval of minutes and
the September 16th, 2025 public hearing and the September 16th, 2025 regular board meeting. And then
we have our treasurer's report for September of 2025. And Mr. General, our claims please. Thank you,
Mr. President. We have gross wages on September 12th, 2025 of $837,000.
$256.41 for gross wages on mini pay on 9-13 of 2025 for $630. Gross wages on September the 26th of 2025
of $842,158.73 for a total of $1,680,000.
$45.14 for claims prepaid from 9-1 of 25 to 9-30 of 25 is $1,002,110.12 for claims on regular voucher
for October 21, 2025 is $444,163.43 for a total of $1,447,73.55 for a grand total of $3,127,118.69.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. Also, we have personnel, resignations, retirement, non-renewals, leaves and
terminations, C1 through 15, and the personnel appointments and transfers, which is D1 through 34. And
finally, there is one out of state trip. And so, Mr. Ackerman, would you like to
speak about that before we move. First I want to say, Mrs. Ferguson just does an outstanding job with
our ag program with FFA. She just really gets down and dirty with the kids. I think she enjoys it maybe
more than the kids sometimes, but she every year likes to provide this opportunity for some of her best
leaders to get the opportunity to go to Indianapolis to that state conference
This year she struggled a little bit. She was a little bit late, didn't get the hotel room right there
in the hotel, the conferences, but she adjusted to it. Was able to find a hotel for them, but they will
have an outstanding conference for them to attend. And again, for them to grow as leaders in Edgewood
High School as well. So I really highly recommend that you approve the overnight field trip.
I move approval of consent agenda. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next is consideration
of a resolution approving the issuance of bonds and financing documents and we'll turn to Jacob McClellan.
Thank you, Mr. President. So the resolution before you, I know you guys have been through this before.
This is kind of the final step for the issuance of bonds through the building corporation. The building
corporation met just before this meeting and approved a similar resolution. Just as a refresher, this
authorizes bonds not to exceed $40 million. The bonds would be issued pursuant to the parameters provided
by Stiefel.
The resolution authorizes the form of bond documents, the form of offering document, the bond purchase
agreement, and you guys have the opportunity to issue the bonds or the flexibility to issue the bonds
in multiple series should that arise. As far as timing, Stiefel's Council has put together the offering
document for you all already. You guys have received your rating. I think we anticipate pricing early
November with closing kind of late November.
That said, I know that Stiefel will work with Dr. Sanders to kind of determine best timing, because
I know you guys aren't up against any kind of deadlines there. As in the past, once bonds are priced,
we'll put together the closing documents and either get them through Dr. Sanders or get them to Christine
for you all to sign, and they'll be, you know, three weeks probably between pricing and closing.
So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.
let everybody know by issuing these in a series, we can take advantage of not collecting the money before
we need it and being able to keep our interest costs down, correct? Yes, if you guys determined to issue
them in multiple series, you just have the flexibility to do it. Jerry, I don't know what the plan is
right now. Is it to issue the whole 40 million? We're looking to do all 40 million. Yeah, but if something
arises between now and
Kind of when you guys issue, you could always opt to do multiple series. And the projects are spread
out where they can. Yeah. To me, we'll be spending all that at once. We have some definite priorities
in terms of roofing projects, HVAC projects that we would like to get started on. And so as we bid those
projects out,
and then the estimates turn into firm numbers, and then that kind of, as you go from project to project,
and that determines what other projects you could do down the road. Any further questions? It's a bonds
and financing documents. I'll second. Second. Any further discussion?
All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Yeah and I want to thank
Jacob for all he does to make sure we're doing the right thing and obviously I appreciate Christine
for that always but you know I running a school corporation takes a lot of time and when you have somebody
who's making sure you're crossing the T's and dotting the I's that's greatly appreciated.
We appreciate the partnership Okay Now we will have our first public hearing and so this is the public
hearing for additional appropriations and I will call this hearing to order and Offender will provide us
with my glasses will provide us with the proposal. I just want to take a minute to kind of explain what
this is all about. This doesn't happen every year, but it can happen and it's happened here. Typically
you do your budgets and you're doing your budget tonight, an adoption meeting, but last year you adopted
a budget of about 20.5 million.
Your revenue last year was over 22 million. Usually your budgets match up a little closer than that.
So your budget was low to start out with. Being conservative and all that, you kind of understand that.
The other fly in the ointment here a little bit is that you don't really know what your revenue is until
your count day in October. But your budget is well along the path. And you get to October, it's locked in.
You're not going to change it at that point. And so if your revenue jumps because of that enrollment,
you've got what you've got this year is a revenue up here, budget down here. If you look at the cash
flow that I left on your desk earlier, you'll see in the education funds especially,
that down at the bottom right-hand corner, it shows the remaining appropriation of 491 million in the
red. That means you're short that much in appropriation this year. That's what we're projecting right
now. Might be a little more, might be a little less. We've asked for an additional appropriation from
the public. We've advertised about two weeks ago
this hearing, and we're asking for 600,000 more in appropriation. So that will more than cover that.
But just one, before you go into the public hearing, I want people to understand we're not necessarily
spending it all, but we are covering what we can spend. It's permission to spend it, and that's what
it was. Again, hindsight's better. If we would have known a year ago
we would have gone for a budget maybe of 21 million instead of 20.5 or something like that to cover
this. But the good thing is you got the cash, now we're bringing it more to match up. Thank you. This
hearing being properly noticed and now explained, are there any people from the public who would like
to make comments?
Okay, hearing none, I will close the hearing on additional appropriations. We will return to this towards
the end of the meeting for a resolution. And now we will start with our budget adoption. And so again,
Mr. Frederick.
I thought you were going to do this. There are several processes to the 2026 budget, and they go through
a series of resolutions. So when you look at this, our budget this year, we've advertised a little over
22 million. That's a million and a half jump.
but it gets closer to that revenue match that I was talking about. And when I ran the projection for
2026 in cash flows the other day, it looks good. It comes out pretty good at the end of the year. Doesn't
show you being negative and things like that. So I think we're more in line with that budget. So there's...
I don't know if you want to do these one at a time, but the first resolution would be to adopt the 2026
budget levy and tax rate, which is form four that's in gateway. That's the one you have to sign. So
you'd need an action on that resolution. We need a separate action on that one, would you say? Well,
you can probably do them all. Okay.
We have properly noticed this. We've discussed this. We've had a public hearing on this. So we've been
through this. Is there anyone who would object to taking on as a whole? Okay, so we'll entertain a motion.
I'll move the motion to approve the 2026 budget adoption. And for the record, this is the
2026 budget levy and tax rate form for the adoption of the school bus replacement plan resolution, the
adoption of the capital projects plan resolution, the resolution to approve the last six months of transfer
from education to operations fund, the 2026 budget resolution, and the resolution to authorize
tax anticipation warrants for 2026. That's all included
in the 2026 budget adoption. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
Motion carries. Thank you very much. It's a long process. We appreciate all your hard work in guiding
us through this. Next up, we have consideration of new bleachers for the Edgewood High School gymnasium.
Dr. Sanders.
Last month we asked permission from the board to purchase new bleachers at the junior high and we explained
the condition that these bleachers were in and in needing replaced and at the time we just didn't have
the quote ready for
the bleachers at the high school. They are also showing their age. They don't meet the ADA standards.
And just like at the junior high or high school administrators met with Lee Company representative,
Daris Swanson, and we
pretty much went with the same type of bleachers that we had, that we purchased at the junior high.
Now in the case of the high school, the scope was a little bit larger than the junior high project.
The lower bleachers, all the mechanics, the bleachers themselves will be replaced. And the upper,
level of the bleachers, the second level. The bleachers that move in and out, the mechanics of those
bleachers are still good. So we're just actually replacing the bleacher part in the upper section of
the mobile.
bleachers. As you know on the opposite side is the permanent bleachers and they have, those bleachers
have a wooden plank with a plastic cap and they no longer make those plastic caps. And so what we're
going to be doing is we're going to take the plastic, the old plastic caps off. We're going to paint the
wooden planks the same color of the bleacher seats. And we'll install bleacher seats on those planks.
And also, we've added some other projects to that. While we're painting the wooden planks and the permanent
side of the bleachers, we're going to paint the fluorine up there with epoxy paint to match the gray
in the rest of the gym.
The across the bleachers will have EHS and in your packet of information I provided what those letters
will look like. So the price of the quote for the bleachers itself is $542,538.08. We also need to do
some other projects.
with that and I'm gonna pull that up here if I could find it real quick that while we're doing these
projects we also need to address these other issues and one of them is the painting that I mentioned
and I'm gonna pull up that quote for that here is
Okay. What do you have there? $84,500 from Riggs painting. Yeah. And then the city glass, the city glass,
uh, actually I'm going to hold off on the city glass, uh, because I want, uh, city glasses. They put
the railings in there that are in right now.
But I want to take our time on that and have our architects look at what City Glass is proposing to
make sure it's structurally sound. So since the time that we put the board packet together, I've had
a couple of conversations that just made me think, let's just wait and see about those railings. We
will have to replace the railings because the gates
won't match the new bleachers. But we wanna make sure what we put up there is structurally sound. So
I'm gonna pull the city glass one from that. This will come out of the 2022 geo bonds. Hey, I finally
found it. So the railings will,
that we had from City Glass was quoted a little over $40,000. We're going to take another look at that.
Then there's some other work while we have the bleachers out that we want to upgrade the electric behind
the bleachers and also the networking while they're out. And so that'll be a minimal cost that we will
add to that.
The it'll all be under what I budgeted for that 2022 Geo bond for the bleachers will be well under that
that amount. So I recommend your approval. New bleachers and DHS jump. So will these have the same wood
look to them or you said they'd be painted the planks and the permanent part.
There'll be a plastic seat that will go on top of the wooden planks. So the back part of the bleachers
will still be visible. So you'll have the plastic seat on top of the wood plank, but the plastic seat
doesn't cover the whole wooden plank. So we're gonna paint those the same color as the bleachers.
Okay, and that's in the permanent? That's in the permanent side. And so for the pull-outs? For the pull-outs?
Look, will they have, will they be all wood or? No, they'll be plastic. They'll all be plastic? Yeah.
All plastic. Black with the red EHS across. Okay. And they'll have, they'll, and Dirk, if you want to,
if you think of anything I haven't mentioned, but there'll be a way to be able to
to move on the side where the teams sit, you can actually move a couple rows back to move the teams
back, which would give them more space between the team and the court. And like I said, they'll be ADA
acceptable.
They just had to walk up those steps and even be able to do that. So to have that railing that goes
in between the steps is really important and it's really kind of a big part of that. We had a lot of
people request us to get that. Well, it's too narrow for us to just put in the railing that concedes
that every time. Yeah. Katz, were you able to pick that up, volume wise? No, I wasn't, but it's okay.
Well, I'm sorry. It's okay. That was very important.
that we're considering is a new scorers table. And I think Larry would probably say that probably needs
to happen. But we don't have numbers on that yet. Are the electrical stuff behind the scorers table
more important? That's right. What about the seating capacity? Is this going to impact seating capacity?
I think it's about the same, isn't it, Dirk? The seating capacity.
Okay, so we're not losing anybody we're not losing any Okay, okay What's the time frame that's a great
question so We are trying to hustle
And as soon as you give approval tomorrow, we'll be sending the signing the quote and getting them started
because we want them to be able to start in March. So they'll be done by commencement. Oh, OK. So between
basketball season. Right. Right. OK. Any further questions? First and second.
All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And now we are going to look at
accepting a bid for the EECC playground expansion. Yes, so this is really part of the construction project
that we've been
working on throughout the campus. And we are utilizing those funds to build an expanded playground for
the Edgewood Early Childhood Center. And really, we have to, because there's certain requirements of
how many students, preschool students, you can have one playground at one time. And I think I've
provided everybody with a picture of the layout of what it will be. It'll be located behind the current
playground for EECC. It'll have a soft surface. It'll have a track around the edge. And when we went
to visit Westfield,
early childhood center. They had the most amazing playground and they had a track around theirs where
the kids rode their little three-wheelers and it was just really cool. And so to lower the price we
actually made the track a little bit
less wide and smaller. And so it'll have some playground equipment on there, soft surface. And so we
had a bid opening, and we had four quality bids that were presented. And with all of the bids came in
under the estimated cost for the project.
And so the winning bid that we're recommending is from Crider and Crider for $610,325. And this work
will be happening really next spring and summer. I move people to accept the bid for the EECC playground
expansion. I'll second. Moved and second. Any questions? I saw the, they got the,
playground in behind the daycare section yes it looks great and this will be I know I know the teachers
down there looking forward to this so is the current playground there to the south that area to the
south yes okay at what time
Several years back, there were discussions about shades. I'm not even sure if we purchased shades for
like EPS, EIS, or whatever. I was just curious if that was anything that had been discussed. There is
a shaded area at the end of the current playground behind the preschool, if that's what you're talking
about. Yeah, well, previously, there was talk about having
covers at EPS and EIS as well. Kind of like those kite-looking covers or triangles or whatever. I don't
know if that just never panned out. I don't think we were ever able to find what we wanted.
To answer your question, I think that is something we can still consider and be looking for. And I think
it's always good to provide shade for children. When they're out in the hot sun, they'd rather be inside.
So if we could find something that would be last and provide the quality shade that we want, we'll keep
looking. Yeah, I was just curious.
Okay, any further questions? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
Exciting to see the bleachers go in, the playground go in. It's nice to vote on something that you can
see. Next is consideration to approve the United Way Agreement, Dr. Sanders. Oh, that's me too. So this
is an annual
agreement that obviously you know we talk all the time about the important partners that it takes for
a successful school corporation and United Way is certainly part of that. We're getting ready to wrap
up our current United Way campaign across the campus and Jill Cronin does an excellent job of
meeting our students' needs and having those funds available. And it would certainly make her job a
lot harder if she didn't have an organization like United Way to support her efforts. And so I recommend
approval. Do I have a motion? I move approval to United Way agreement. I'll second. Moved and seconded.
Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed? Motion carries. And consideration to approve the Republic Services Agreement. Yes.
And once again, this is an annual agreement with Republic Services to be able to handle the waste that
comes from having a school corporation of almost 2,700 students. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Are
these prices pretty consistent with what they have? Yes. OK.
Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next consideration to approve
the Smart Start Child Care Substitute Service MOA and we'll turn to you.
This one should look pretty familiar to you. We're bringing it back one more time. We went to submit
this, and the attorneys with the community foundation wanted us to add in one more option. So I gave
you a copy of this just so you can see exactly what that is. If you turn to page four, I have H highlighted there.
H is what we have added in as an option. Christine has already looked through that and approved it and
thought we were good to go. So now we meet their criteria and our criteria, and hopefully with this
being approved, then we can start using them for our sub-services for EECC. I'll second. Any discussion?
All those in favor say aye. Aye.
Motion carries. And now we have consideration to approve the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually
Impaired Agreement, and we have Noah for that. Yeah, so this is an agreement basically searching for,
with the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, they do consultative services throughout
the entire state. They have their,
facility campus school in Indy and then they do outreach to other areas. And so with us having kind
of a increased population of students with blind or low vision impairments, we're basically looking
just to consult with them to be able to provide a little bit more expertise in consulting with our school
staff. We do have a
district teacher of students with visual impairments and Kristen Sample, who's fantastic in what she
does. She is also the junior high inclusion teacher. So just trying to open up the door a little bit
to be able to provide a little bit more services for these kids as we aim to meet the needs of all of
our students. So it's essentially looking to basically
consult with them, they can provide training, consultation with school staff, do some observations for
us to kind of give their expertise insight into it, and then also kind of help with educational evaluations,
just adapting for if braille is needing used or adapting those materials as they needed. So essentially
just looking for an agreement to be able to work with them.
to work with me and along with our Kristen sample. I'll second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion?
I'm just happy to provide more services to these students. I should say too, it's paid through Medicaid,
so it comes in on our side. Thank you. Thank you.
All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And I think we ought to give Noah an applause
for his school board debut. Yeah. Awesome. Very good. Very good. Very good. We'll see you back next
time. All right. Next is consideration to approve the amendment to the EECC handbook and Jennifer Barrett.
were tables, just so if you needed to refer back to this. So it's in the same packet right next to the
highlighted section we looked at in the Smart Start agreement. There is a memo there, and I've highlighted
the very last piece. This is what we are asking you to approve as far as an amendment to the EECC handbook.
what we're finding with some of our little guys who are enrolled in full-day kindergarten, it might
just be a little bit too much for them. And we would like to have an opportunity to have something in
our handbook that parents read prior to enrolling them and also understanding that at any point if we
see they just simply don't have the stamina to get through a day where age-appropriate behaviors are
one thing,
But sometimes we see behaviors that aren't necessarily age appropriate. And that's where we would like
that flexibility to be able to stay to parents. We'd like to move to a half day and work on those and
work towards building up towards a full day. So that amendment in there is basically to help us in that
situation. We don't anticipate that happening often, but realize that it's probably something we need
to have in there just in case.
Any discussion These are little guys down at EECC so our threes and fours sometimes, you know, we they
enroll and full day and what we find is that Nap times aren't as long as they're used to and we have
some grumpy little ones by noon one o'clock in the afternoon So they just aren't quite ready for that.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah
It could apply to school board members. It could apply to a lot of adults around here as well, yes.
That could be in our next teacher negotiations, Mrs. Abel. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion?
All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And now we're on to the county services report.
And then we have Susan Chalkman here.
All right, so I was thinking that the best way, what you have in front of you is just our current year,
but as I'm delving into this and getting more familiar with the Kelly services or Kelly education, I
thought the best way was to present just a concise review of the last year, and then it also has a few
other details in there.
So that just as a reminder at Kelly education provides our substitute teachers the one piece that I
wanted to highlight on that circle was that orientation and onboarding and as you well know after the
last couple of months of approvals.
on the personnel reports and the hirings and the resignations and all that. I'm not sure that we could
have onboarded anybody else this summer. I'm not sure there were enough hours in the day. And so to
have Kelly Services there doing the orientation and onboarding and training was very helpful.
They recruit for us. We have them up on our website. In addition, I wanted to highlight that they're
going to be coming. We're bringing out some reps to the RBB Showcase this year because who better than
to sub for our schools and the people that are interested in our district and our parents. And so if
we can recruit some of those parents, if we can recruit some of the people that have interest in our
school, those are the best people because they're going to be most committed to being here. So we're
bringing them out.
They get up at five 30 when the rest of us are crawling out of bed or whatever, exercising, maybe somebody's
exercising, but they get up at five 30 and they start.
having the phone calls. I was a secretary with Dirk for several years and I remember coming in and the
moment I got there pushing buttons or making phone calls trying to get subs to come and fill a spot
or can you just get here by 11? Can you just get here? And so it's great that we have people there.
They're also sending out those school cancellation notices so we're not getting there. In the morning
the secretaries can focus on other priorities other than coming in and
trying to call substitute teachers and getting classrooms filled. Again, one of the main things that
I wanted to point out on this page, these are all the things they do, the legal and compliance. I was
at the in-person seminar, the Indiana Public Retirement System, and they were talking about some of
the, when it comes to TERF and substitute teachers, if they
Sub for 60 days and 60 days here or 120 days and counting and all these things and when we're when we
need to Provide turf benefits for them with Kelly services. We don't have to do that counting they take
care of that and so That's one less detail along with all of the other details. They take care of Another
thing with benefits and administration on that bottom right corner there. That's that's one of the
key factors for their recruiting. We have people and substitute teachers that are coming in and they
need benefits, and Kelly Services provides an option for that. If they came through our school, we may
not have that option for them, but when they go through Kelly Services, they do have an option to get
some benefits that maybe they can't get from somewhere else. So there's that. Just an overall view,
we averaged about 19 daily requests in the past school year.
That was a total of 2,825 assignments that were filled at a fill rate of 83%, about 83%. Also note that
over the last year that increased 5.39%.
Over the last five years, they've maintained an average fill rate of about 72%, which if you look at
that very first year was 2020, 2021, and that was a tough year for anybody to fill substitute teachers.
So if you consider the fill rate even in that year, that's a pretty good average there of filling classrooms
so that we're not doubling up or sending kids to study hall or sending them to a conference room in
the office for a teacher to manage there or something.
The reports that you have in front of you, you have the monthly report for August, and you can see that
they had 82 in the current sub poll at that point, and they had some candidates that were in the onboarding
process, and there was 87% fill rate in August. September, that number dropped just a little bit to
76%, but the number of subs is increasing. They then had 89.
went one too far. And then lastly I wanted to just to give you a reminder of the the rates and what
we pay for our substitute teachers and what was approved like last November 2024. So I know that that
long-term teacher rate I gave that to someone today as an incentive of hey this is how much they're
going to make they have a
They have a teaching license, and this is how much they're going to make if they can come and fill this
so that we can have a solid teacher in the classroom and the kids don't have a disruption in their learning.
Any questions? Thank you. No, glad to. He does an awesome job of managing, well, everything related to HR.
I like to compliment people, you know, as we've taken on different roles here in the office. I just
appreciate the conversations I have with Susan. She will come into my office with a question on an applicant
and she'll present me all the facts.
and we have a conversation about what decision we ought to make and 99% of the time we come to an agreement
on that. And I was just thinking about it today that when she comes into my office and it just really
helps me as superintendent to have somebody like that who can make sure that we're successful.
Thank you. Now we have the business manager's report. Paul, you're back up. And with this, we will consider
to approve the resolution for additional appropriations for which we had the public hearing earlier
in the meeting. My report is really about this additional appropriation resolution.
It's interesting when you have the hearing the same night as you have the resolution. But when I looked
at the website, their example is the same day. And when you think about it, it does make some sense
because you've had the hearing. You had it earlier. No one spoke to it, but even if they did, it was
their opportunity to do that. Now you come back to the resolution and pass it. The real advantage to that is
We don't have to wait till the November meeting to pass it and then try to get it into the state and
okay cleared before the end of the year. That's the key. So the DLGF appreciates the fact that we're
doing this as quick as we can. So this additional appropriation resolution is typical of resolutions.
The whereas and the whereas and the whereas. I won't read it all, but that's what it says.
The funds that we are doing an additional appropriation in. One, the education fund, and we've asked
for $600,000. And the rainy day fund, we've asked for $600,000 because we really don't have a rainy
day budget. That was not included in the 2025 budgets. It just didn't do it, which is fine. So we're
going to request an amount there in case we want to spend that in certain areas in that.
But that was what was advertised. That's what the hearing was about earlier. And so I'd ask you now
to pass this additional resolution and we can get this thing on down the road to the DLGF tomorrow.
I'll second. Okay, moved and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion
carried. Thank you very much.
And now we have the assistant superintendent's report I believe last time we celebrated EJHS turned
everything in for their HRS level one certification EIS joins them in the last week two weeks mr. Scholl
finished up EIS and we're waiting to hear back
He made his goal of before fall break. Yes, EHS, I believe we have submitted as well. So we are just
waiting to hear back from our evaluators at Marzano. And the final check off there will be Dr. Marzano
himself, who will read all of our submitted documents and let us know if we are hitting the mark in
terms of meeting those level one criterion.
You'll also see on here just some fun updates. Susan Harrington, she's our college career coach at EHS.
She received some funds through ROI and has been taking our EHS students on several college industry
tours. The list just continues to grow every time she sends it out to teachers. And they're taking a
trip to IU Health this Friday. So where we were so impressed by seeing their sim lab, I can't wait to
see some of these kids' faces when they see
a sim lab and opportunities for them there. They have visited IU DePaul. We had to sneak in a visit
to ISU for all of us Sycamore people in the room. They've also gone to the Skilled Trade Showcase down
in Bedford. And in addition to that, they have a trip coming up next Friday to Boston Scientific. So
all of this has been paid through ROI, transportation.
It's not something that we're going to get too used to because we know that we're kind of getting spoiled
with that money right now. But man, it has been a great opportunity for our students to be able to go
and see some of these campuses and also these industry partners.
We're writing another mental health grant with Indiana University. The focus for this grant is being
proactive in terms of EECC all the way up through second grade. The focus here is school psychologists.
One of the things I do want to mention and make sure that I highlight is that there are no sustainability
requirements in this grant. So basically what it means is
At the end of this grant, we are not required. We are not bound to anything to hire these employees.
Would we like to? When we see positive results, always. But we also understand that sometimes that just
isn't in the budget to be able to do those things. So we don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth
in case we are lucky enough to attain this grant. It's roughly $3 to $4 million over the course of four
years. And when we're looking at really servicing our youngest kids
in the district, we do think that that would make a significant impact there. So these school psychologists
would be focusing on interventions. We're not looking at evaluation, which is what people typically
think of for a school psychologist. And in addition to that, our schools, just like they typically are,
would become training sites for practicum students, intern students from IU to come over. We found that
those students have been highly trained and highly effective with our students.
So we'll see what happens. It's due next week, and we usually hear on these grants sometime around January,
February. So really just kind of keeping you in the loop with this one and what that's going to look
like. Upcoming items.
We are finishing up the iLearn checkpoints. This is the very first one that we give. We give this in
grades three through eight in reading and math. The way to think about this is these are kind of like
the regular season games. There are three of them throughout the year before we take the championship
tournament on. That's your iLearn summative assessment that comes up in April every year.
I really like the way that the state is redesigning this assessment as kind of a through assessment,
through the year assessment, because it gives us a measure of how kids are doing before we get to a
point kind of like the autopsy at the end of the year. So we're still working with our teachers. It's
a training moment. It's a lot to take on. They can't actually give the checkpoint until they've taught
the material. So before where we would shut down the building and we would give an
I learned practice test or we would give an I ready exam. It looks very different now because what we
do is maybe eighth grade math is ready to give their checkpoints over their first checkpoint over a
couple of days. But eighth grade ELA might be for a couple more might not be for a couple more weeks.
We're trying to make sure that we're waiting until we've taught all of that material so that the reports
that we're getting back are accurate and they give us good data on what do the students know, what do
they not know, so that we can use that to turn around and reteach those students and we have time to
do that before we get to the end of that school year.
So like I said, we are still trying to understand everything that comes along with this. We have a training
coming up here in the next week or two with third grade through eighth grade representatives from each
of those buildings and administrator from each of those buildings. It's not going to be an overnight
piece that we're going to understand this and know how to work this from day one. It's probably going
to take a year or two for us to really understand and use this type of test really well.
In addition to that, the next checkpoint will be late first semester, early second semester. It's hard
to give a good window there because, again, it really depends on when the teachers finish teaching the
content so that we can determine the level of mastery that the students have after that.
PSAT day is coming up October 29th at the high school. So that's a big day that we prep for there. What
I love about what Edgewood High School does with PSAT day is their seniors actually use that day to
go and visit a college, go and visit a community partner, see what they're doing in their jobs. And
this staff there does a really good job of partnering students up if they don't have an idea about what
they may want to do.
But they have a plan for every single one of those students because they don't come to school on PSAT
day And it's not just a free-for-all. It's not just to stay at home There's a plan of action for every
single one of those students So I love the approach that they take to that and I think our seniors really
appreciate that as well
We have a group of 17 participants heading out to Denver. This is an HRS mental health conference, which
might sound really odd. We've talked about HRS a lot. And it's usually associated with instruction.
It's associated with culture and environment. Really what we're talking about here and why we're taking
our SEL team out there is because we're going to not only introduce them to HRS so they fully understand
what we're doing in the buildings,
What does it mean to create a system and monitor a system? But day two is how do we make sure that our
SEL team understands their part in that important piece of how our schools operate? Some of it they're
probably going to be pretty familiar with. Our team is well-trained, so when it comes to brain science
and things like that,
This is going to be old hat to them. But I love that we are actually taking a team out there. And we
are designing the conference specifically for our team. We are the only school that's going to be out
there. And they are working with us to make sure that the content matches what we want our team to walk
away with from this. So this is not something that
Marzano does on a regular basis. We approached them with this idea and it was going to be cheaper for
our district to do this and they were gung-ho about it. So we're excited about it as well. This team
is actually going to go to Marzano's
Oh, help me here, Dr. Sanders, the Marzano Institute for Research in Colorado. So they're going to be
on site, get a tour of that site as well. So it's going to be a big one that we're excited to take that
team to November 12th and 13th. And that is all being paid through those rollover funds through the
SMART grant. We're trying to find good use of those. And we felt like this team, this is a good way
to bring them into the other initiatives that we have going on across the district.
we have the superintendent's report. Dr. Sanders. Sure. I'm going to give you a quick overview of our
construction projects and this whole slideshow I'm going to send an email to you because there are details
that I'm just going to
go through a little quicker. But the early childhood center is complete and occupied as you know. And
there's a couple of great pictures. I love this picture right here of the EECC. Everything's going very
well there. And the students and parents love the school. And I'm gonna be referring to the showcase
a number of times during this
part of the report because we're trying to really highlight the new facility for our preschool and daycare
students for our showcase. And that'll be one of the stops available Thursday night. And this is the
view if you're inside the preschool, that's the view across the street, which is pretty cool.
The other projects, the field house is coming right along. You could see now that we have signage on
the outside of the field house and up in the upper left-hand corner, you'll see that if you go through,
if you leave tonight and go around the field house, you'll see that sign all lit up and it looks just
really, really amazing. And next,
when you're at a football game, you're gonna be able to have a great view of the field house from our
home side of the bleachers. Here's another view of that. Here are a couple of the slides I'm gonna go
through. This is just some of the work over the last 60 days that if Martin was here, he would go probably
in a little more detail with.
about a lot of those things, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I'm just gonna go past some
of those technical construction progress points. So this picture on the right side is not necessarily
a picture of what you would see if you walked through there today, which I did.
And right there in that picture, the red section there, they had to redo. But if you walk through there
today, you'll see all that nice and clean, and there's flooring down that hallway. As you walk into
the area, the field house and the natatorium area, you walk into that,
there's some red, I don't know, clouds or whatever they call it from up in the ceiling that just really
adds a nice touch to that. So at the showcase then, we're going to have this part of the field house
open and also the inside. So on the left-hand side of the picture, you'll see
The gray area, that is now, that's the track area, and it's now painted red. It's gonna get another
coat Friday. So when you walk through there Thursday night, you might look down and say, well, this
needs another coat, and it does. But,
So we're going to have people come into that one entrance that I mentioned and walk down this side of
the track. They're not going to walk on the actual basketball court. We're going to have some cones
out there, but they'll be able to walk through one door and go clear to the other end and out the other
door. And then they'll be able to walk down the hallway where the new kitchen is. You won't be able
to go into the kitchen, but they'll be able to look and see
what that's looking like and see how there are doors from the cafeteria that's going to go over to the
kitchen and the serving lines and get a good picture of how it's going to look like. So the picture
on the left, you see something missing? One of the Mustangs is there.
But unfortunately they used the color that pretty much matched the wall. So they're going to come back
and put a deeper color on that and make it stand out. But you'll swear there isn't a Mustang. But if
you walk up real close, there is.
So right now today, and I think we're gonna finish up tomorrow, the bleachers are being put together
that will be on the opposite side of this picture here. Let's see here. It'll be over to your left.
There'll be bleachers that will be movable in and out. And then they're finishing that up today.
They're working on finishing up the flooring, painting that. And it's really coming along and I walked
through there with Dale Flick this morning and he's gonna have it looking really nice for us Thursday
night. And we're anxious to use it. We've already got dates booked in there. So we're really pushing
them to finish up and they're working hard to do that.
So as you know, we have some renovations done, some offices that we've been building next to the fax
room. And so that will not be open to the public tomorrow night, but if you would like to take a look
at it, just let me know.
kitchen, they're finishing up installing the equipment for that. And so here's some pictures of the,
the picture on the left is a conference room. That's going to be a nice size conference room for high
school staff to use for like special education conferences, meeting with parents, a small group of teachers
being able to use that room.
The picture on the right is the entrance into that area where the new bookstore will be. That window
there will be the window into the bookstore. This is the kitchen. And like I said, these are kind of
little updated pictures because it looks a lot better in there today. The equipment is more in place
and you'll be able to get a good picture of that Thursday night.
Um, so we're, we're on the home stretch, uh, uh, of these, uh, projects, uh, at the field house and
the, uh, at the high school, the kitchen area. And, uh, as you know, the primary school and the intermediate
school, those projects are, uh, complete, maybe a couple outline, uh, work that we're trying to catch
up on. But, um,
So I will send you this and you can see study those slides a little bit more on your own. So yeah, big
news is a showcase is Thursday night and we have had a lot of people working really hard to be ready
for that. I think
I don't want to jinx this, but I think we're going to have good weather Thursday night. There's going
to be so much to do, people won't be able to do it all. There's going to be a lot of activities in the
high school gym. Of course, our show choirs will be performing. Our theater group will be doing a snippet
of their upcoming play.
And we'll have the health fair at the junior high PTOs will be all over the place will be activities
at every school to do Thursday night and we're trying to get the word out to get.
Definitely want to get our parents from the elementary and preschool ages to come up and see what they
could do at the junior high and high school. But I'm also I was on the radio not too long ago and I
really invited the whole community so people in the community could see that our tax dollars are being
well spent for the benefit of our students. And so it'll be a really fun night.
Also chamber commerce educator of the year I don't I don't really don't know if I'm jumping the gun
here, but I'm just gonna do it Danielle Butler kindergarten teacher at EPS is Going to be the educator
of the year and that will be November 28th at 6 o'clock I have that date right Jennifer don't I Know
it's next week. It's next week. It's a
It's October. Oh, did I get that? Did I hear you wrong? We were just talking about it. It's October
28th. October 28th. Yes, October 28th. This is what happens when we yell back and forth as we're sitting
at our desks.
weird it happens at home too. I'll blame it on my hearing aids. I heard 28th but I thought you meant
November. Okay so that makes sense. The Edgewood business leaders advisory team luncheon and meeting
is November 19th at 1130 and so that's always a great opportunity to connect our local business leaders
with our students and looking forward to that and then I
I hear our enrollment numbers for the fall of 2025. And as you can see, we're 2,690 students. And so
that's 15 more than last fall. And I'd just love to see that positive trend from fall of 2018 to fall of 2025.
You know, we shouldn't take that for granted because 80% of school corporations in the state of Indiana
are in declining enrollment. And it's nice to see that Edgewoods is increasing. And a couple other things
I want to shout out to our marching Mustangs. They're going to be in the Bands of America this coming
weekend. And then the next weekend is semi-state. So we want to wish them the very best of luck.
And our football team plays at Scottsburg Friday night. And I lived in Scottsburg. I was telling my
wife, I really want to go to that because we used to live down by Scottsburg. But that was like 1982.
And she kind of thought maybe those folks wouldn't be at the football games.
I think like around here, it wouldn't look the same. No. At all. Okay, thank you very much. Now we have
RBBEA comments and we have Brandy Abel. This evening? Still. Still. No, yes. Keep it brief. Well,
as you know, we ratified the contract before break. And then last month, Ty and I addressed the new
updates with the tag grant and since then Jennifer Barrett and Megan Scott took time to create a proposal
that they have they shared with all teachers starting with members and and there was just a lot of
opportunities for teachers to discuss and give input, and I just, you know, speaking for myself, but
I just feel like there was a sense of, you know, a lot of communication between both parties of finding
a way to, they've proposed a plan that meets the criteria the state has given, but giving opportunities
to everyone to apply on a rotating basis. This plan
It appears to be one of the first because I'm in contact with Monroe County's association president
and she requested a copy of that, which I was given permission along with Christie Billings, our director,
also wanted to see the copy. So really kind of the first
document in writing of possibilities for this grant. So right before break, there was a vote. We were
given a vote of whether or not we approved of this proposal or needed changes. And those results are
forthcomings, and next steps are forthcoming. But again, I just feel like there was a lot of
good communication between administration and teachers. And so we'll see where that takes us. That's
all I have tonight.
I love to hear good communication. Luckily, I hear that a lot around here, so that's great. So we have
board member comments, and we'll start with Ms. Jacobs. Well, I'm really excited about all the happenings
that's going on across our corporation. I love seeing the improvements across
across the board, across all the schools. And it's just super exciting when you come here and you get
to see the students every time to talk about their skills and stuff that they're learning and growing
into young adults. It just really hits you in the heart, in the right place. And it makes everything
that we do worth every moment.
Thank you. Sam Jones, what a great young man. Seen him mature over the last few years and what a great
asset he is to us. Good luck to the football team and thank you so much for your leadership.
All you here, I'm including that Jennifer, Jerry and everybody here. Thank you much for your leadership.
It shows what things we're doing and things are happening here. Thank you so much. Mr. Demos. Yeah,
just to echo what they're saying. I think the group that was here
reflects the positivity in the school corporation as a whole. I was so impressed with them. I got the
opportunity to go on one of Susan Harrington's field trips today to IU, and I couldn't have been more
proud. There were 74 juniors and seniors, and they just represented Edgewood High School really well.
It just made me proud as a board member, but also as a former teacher to see the improvement over time,
and I credit the administration as you did. And Brandy, I'll tell you that I do.
I understand what you're going through, and at the same time, I had, when we talked about negotiations,
I had one colleague, every time we'd open them, she said she didn't really care about anything except
she wanted an afternoon pastry cart to come around to the classroom. So just consider that for the next
time. She's no longer with us. She has retired. Thank you.
As always, I appreciate everybody coming tonight. It's been a long evening, but we've got a lot of really
great things done. I, too, just love it when the students come and they present what they're doing in
our buildings and across the sports fields and across the community. We do have a great group of people.
When I talk to other people about RBB, a lot of what I talk about is the culture. That we've got a good
culture, we've got good people. We all want what's best for the kids, for the community, and we just
work to that end. People are surprised at how well our school board gets along. But I'm not, because
they're great people. So I appreciate.
you all and I appreciate Katz and his long evening and thank you all very much and have a wonderful night.