- Call this meeting to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
- of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible,
- with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. Please be seated and welcome to the April Pledge.
- 2026 regular school board meeting of the Richland Dean Boswell Community School Corporation Board of
- Trustees. I'm glad you could all be with us this evening. Please let the record reflect that Mr. Tucker
- and Mr. Durnal and Mr. DeMoss and Mr. Kerr are present this evening. And now we have visitor comments.
- Are there any visitors who would like to make comments this evening?
- Seeing none, we'll move on to the Mustang moment, and we have Dr. Sanders wants to make some recognitions.
- Yes, I'm very excited to be able to recognize Edgewood Primary School, Principal Matt Wooden, Assistant
- Principal Elisa Van Dusen, and our wonderful teachers that are here tonight.
- As everybody probably knows, and I say this every time, but a few years ago we started down the path
- of high reliability schools as a way to help us to have a mindset of continuous improvement and utilizing
- data to make that happen.
- We've had several teachers. How many of you have gone to one of the HRS conferences? Yeah. And so we
- take more every year. And so all of our schools have been working towards level one in HRS. And then
- we're starting to work on level two.
- We just got word, how long ago? A few weeks ago, Matt, that EPS was certified level one. And so we want
- to give them a round of applause. And they're, I'm sure, already starting to look towards level two.
- And so it's a lot of hard work. Teaching and being a principal is hard.
- Every day, I mean, your plate is full. You're often working late hours and on weekends. And somebody
- like me comes along and says, hey, we've got a little bit more to do. Sometimes that's something we
- might push back and say, what else do you want me to do? But our staff here at Edgewood schools have
- done an amazing job with this.
- The school board and each of our schools continue to work on this at HRS. And I'm excited about the
- future. And so once again, good job, especially a school that had a transition in leadership.
- just as we were starting that. But EPS is catching up real fast. And so just wanted to recognize them
- tonight. And then I wanted to recognize our Director of Maintenance, Arnold Caldwell. Arnold, can you
- please stand up? And Arnold has been recognized as the IASBO Director of the Year.
- Arnold's family is here, even his granddaughter came to witness the recognition. Now, Arnold is not
- a guy that likes recognition. But, yeah. But. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
- Erin Crook, first grade in DPS. I'm Melissa Drews. I teach kindergarten in DPS. I'm Stacy Peay. I'm
- a Chinese teacher. I'm a pathways teacher. I'm a special teacher. Great April, first grade.
- Jennifer Montal, special education. Lindsay Paulson, first grade. Caleb Barker, computer. Just a second.
- Just a second.
- Thank you so much. Thank you so much for all you do for us. Thank you so much. Right now we're K through
- 12 now at level one across the corporation. Okay. So what's, as far as the next step, is that another
- year or how does that work timewise? You know, level one was probably the biggest challenge because
- it was all brand new to us.
- Trying to figure out, you know, what are we doing here? Because HRS is a little bit different than what
- we've been used to in terms of school improvement plans. So we had to kind of get used to that. It was
- some areas that as teachers, you know, we don't think about as much terms of school safety and things
- like that.
- but level two and level three is more curriculum and instruction and so that's gonna go a lot faster
- because that's the air they breathe. Now I like the view. From there. We put it through
- forward for an additional? Well, the batteries are just out. Oh, the batteries are out on it. I'm sorry.
- So, at any rate, level two and three are going to go much faster because that's their wheelhouse. So,
- yeah, I'd say, I don't know, Matt, I don't want to put you on the spot,
- what would you see would be a reasonable time for like sometime? Probably maybe next year sometime
- definitely, next school year. This whole thing has been like learning a language, right? But when you
- get into curriculum instruction, when you get into teacher efficacy, that's a language we've been speaking
- for a long time. We've been immersed in the PLC model for so long, and the Marshawn model for so long,
- and a lot of that.
- I know I went to, I think Ms. Abe was with me, I went with you guys to Birmingham. That was a lot of
- stuff in two days, that was cross-eyed. So those workshops will continue on for level two and three
- at the same rate? Yes, the conference that they have in January in San Antonio, that's always the year
- that they, the conference that they recognize
- schools and school corporations across the country who have earned another level of certification and
- next January EPS will be recognized as well as the school corporation as a whole because we will now
- have all of our schools at level one and we may even have some schools at level two by then but there's
- no hurry in all this so
- There's no pressure to get this done as soon as possible. We want it to work at the right pace so that
- it's becoming a meaningful process. The old way of school improvement plans were about checking off
- the box. Check this box if you do this, check this box. This is a lot more deeper and meaningful because
- we're all taking a look at ourselves and what we can do to
- Provide a better higher quality education for our students Okay, it just keeps the continuity going
- then. Yep. Okay. All right. Thanks Congrats As well I and again this was you know gonna be a tough year
- we knew that we knew that going in When Mrs. Whitaker left, I mean she was here for a very long time
- and you know, so it's difficult to
- to make that change from one year to the next. And to be able to pull this off during this year of transition
- meant that you all have worked very, very, very hard. And we appreciate that and appreciate all the
- hard work that you put in. And we so much appreciate, you know, leadership getting you through this.
- And we just, again, just celebrate your achievement.
- We'll just take it on up to the next step. So thank you all so much for coming and celebrating.
- And thank you, Arnold, for all you do. Accolades. Too bad your family left. Couldn't hear us go on and
- on more about you, but we do appreciate you and all the hard work you do.
- all the things you do to watch out for our corporations, so we really appreciate you. Anything further?
- Just ditto. Okay. Before we get to the consent agenda, I'd like to keep my questions about position
- and not about people.
- I had a few questions and they got answered ahead of time, but I had some other questions and it's related
- to the school psychologist and training positions. They are not something that I've seen before and
- so I did get a number of questions answered. I understand that these positions are paid for out of a grant.
- that their four-year positions, that the positions will keep, they are considered teacher positions
- with the people that have them, which is one of my questions later, and the people will keep their salary
- schedule as it is now.
- questions I have is do we have these positions on our schedule? Do we have job descriptions? Have the
- board approved those job descriptions? That's a good question. I don't believe that we have the board
- approved the job descriptions. We took the school psychologist position and obviously there are pieces
- of this that these people will not be doing.
- we edited that job description for the positions that we posted on Nimble. Okay, so I mean, because
- usually we don't put anybody in positions until we formally have those positions, and we usually don't
- formally have those positions until the board votes to make that position. And Christine, I'm not sure
- on this. When the board approved to vote for the subaward through the SEEDS grant,
- in that piece being the school psychologist in training, did that approve those positions? We didn't
- approve the job descriptions that approve what that position was. Okay. So that's. Okay. Okay. I don't
- think it included that. Yeah, because I mean, we've created a number of positions through the years
- and this is just, you know, one that I haven't seen.
- I guess that was my fault. I sort of saw this as temporary. This wasn't a position that we would have
- long term. It's something we would approve of through the grant, and I guess that's what I was thinking,
- that if we're approving the grant, we're approving the position.
- That was my misunderstanding. So that's my fault. It is important that if we can provide you those questions
- at a later date, we'd like to get these positions taken care of because it does impact the important
- conversations we're having on staffing. And it impacts that.
- There are opportunities here for us to save money for the school corporation. We're factoring that in.
- We're trying to. Our goal is to save $500,000 this year. If not more, we have to cut up to a million
- dollars. And so taking some of these individuals out of the classroom will actually save some
- Some a lot of money for the school corporation and it's a big part of saving that five hundred thousand
- dollars And I understand a degree comes with this position Education specialist degree in school psychology.
- Yes. So the grant pays for that schooling and
- So is that a master's? It is a step above a master's. It's an education specialist degree. So a little
- bit below a doctorate, a little bit above a master's. It's about 63 to 67 hours, depending on which
- university you go through. OK. And who pays for the college fees? The SEEDS project does. The grant
- does. That's part of the budget of that grant.
- Will any of the classes be during the day? Some of them can be. It depends on which school we go with.
- This is a hybrid type of program. So some of these will be in the evenings. Some of them will be on
- Saturdays. They could potentially be during the school day if we would go with ISU's program, for example.
- So I know that it gets reimbursed, but so we would be
- paying people to go to school and get their higher education degree, did we advertise this? Yes, this
- was part of the grant and every person that we spoke with when we interviewed, this was part of the
- interview process, yes. I mean, was it put out there corporation-wide? Yes. That anybody in the corporation
- could apply for it? Yes, it's been on Nimble and has been sent out
- usually every Friday Robinson sends an email out to the corporation that says check our postings. We
- ended up having we had eight people who applied for the position. So there was did people know that
- that's degree was part of the package? Yes. Seems like you would have got more than eight people if
- They need to get a higher education degree while they were making the regular salary and getting paid
- to go to school during the day. Not every one of the options is going to school during the day.
- Like I said, one of them is giving up a Saturday once a month to go and do that, or evening classes,
- also going to school during the summer. And we don't pay them to do that during the summer.
- that's what they would be committing to with this grant. We don't pay them a stipend during the summer,
- but they still very much may be taking six hours, seven hours during the summer in order to complete
- this degree on time. Right, but I know other people on the master schedule, they did that on their own
- time too. Sure. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew about this, knew that that was
- opportunity that they had. Yeah, definitely. And I can share that job posting with you so you can see
- exactly what that looked like and was an opportunity for anybody who was interested in that. It's certainly
- not something that we just posted internally either. It was posted on our site for a couple of months
- actually. We interviewed about a month into the position being posted.
- So I believe it was posted either February 12th or 13th and we interviewed for those positions right
- before spring break. In fact, it was right before spring break because we did not know exactly how many
- we could hire going into spring break because we needed to work some budget pieces out there with IU.
- So I was working on that, I remember, over spring break. So it was after that that the hiring decisions
- were made.
- Dr. Sanders, you mentioned that afterwards, the program, that they had three choices. If we had a position
- here for a psychologist, they could have that, or they could go somewhere else, or they could go back
- to the classroom. And my concern is, what if we don't have a position in a classroom for them to go
- back to? And, you know, with a, you know,
- I hate to make somebody a promise four years down the road that we don't know if we can fulfill such
- a promise. Well, they are still employees of RBB. So there's no resignation. They haven't left the school
- corporation. They're still all quality employees.
- I would think we would have to have just cause for not giving them a position when they come back. I
- think all four of these individuals, and by the way, I was not part of the interview process at all.
- But I believe all four are interested in doing this as a future career. So I don't anticipate those
- individuals
- wanting to go back to the classroom. I think they liked the idea of they feel like they bring that valuable
- experience in the classroom to this role of school psychologist. And so they see themselves as being
- more effective support to the teachers because they've walked in their shoes. And that's the whole point
- of the grant.
- I've always believed that the more people you have available for students, the better services we're
- going to be able to provide to them. And the more people you have supporting teachers, the more it helps
- our teachers take just a little bit more off their plate. And so that's why we thought this was a great
- opportunity
- for our school corporation to get, now at the end of the four years, all four of them are not gonna
- get school psychologist positions here. I wish we had that kind of money, but they're not. There's always
- that chance that an individual may say, you know, I really miss the classroom and I wanna go back to
- teaching. And because they've,
- stepped out to take this opportunity, and there still are employees. I don't see how we could not promise
- them a position when they come back. It may not be the exact same position they have right now, but
- they're all highly qualified, highly effective employees, teachers, and I think we would
- jump at the chance to have them back if they would like to. If attrition didn't happen though, it's
- possible they could have to displace somebody in a classroom. In my eight, nine years, that's never
- happened. It seems unlikely. I don't want us to hold us back on
- a possibility that we just never see. What happens if they get halfway through and decide it's not for
- them? They're halfway through the program. Somebody else can't come in because there's not enough time
- left to do it. Then what happens? Yeah, we actually had that happen on a couple of the grants, the TIMS
- and the SMART, where we've had some people leave in the middle.
- We don't have them sign anything that they're going to stay with us for four years. We have had a couple
- that have started their degrees and have dropped out of the program for different reasons. They've either
- left positions to take something else or to move out of state. This one is a little bit different because
- the degree is three or four years, depending on the school that they go with. And it's a four-year grant.
- The TEMS and SMART with the counselors was a two-year degree, but a four-year grant. So in those cases,
- we were able to pick up some people and go ahead and finish paying for schooling. In fact, we just hired
- a teacher, or sorry, a counselor at the beginning of... Goodness. November, December?
- something like that into the smart grant who had already started her counseling license and we would
- have we still had time to help her finish on that and she works for accounts as a counselor for us at
- ECC. So there are.
- It's hard to say because you don't know exactly what the situations are going to be or when they arise.
- But thankfully with these federal grants, we work really closely with our liaison there. And they're
- really good about helping us come up with alternatives. They don't want to take the money back. I know
- that sounds silly, but it's actually more of a hassle for them to take the money back.
- they're bugging me constantly to spend excess cost. And in a lot of ways, it's hard to spend the excess
- cost once it starts to build up. Just for the SEEDS grant alone, we received our first year of funding
- for the SEEDS grant just shortly into January. And that first year, Debbie, you'd have to help me on
- it, that we've received was 750, 800,000.
- That we receive from them in order to go ahead and start the grant Well, what happens on these federal
- grants is when they start on January 1st but we don't start the school year until July 1 August 1 on
- contracts Then we're already seven to eight months behind because we haven't been paying anybody on
- these grants so that's where
- all of these grants that are going out to public schools across the entire country, we're already starting
- to build up excess cost just simply because of timing with it. So that's where we have to, as the government
- says, they don't want us to plan ahead for excess costs, but they want us to plan ahead for excess costs.
- In other words, we want you to think about how you can make modifications to the grant down the road.
- We just don't want to know that you're thinking about how to make modifications.
- So it's an interesting situation to be in because I can't really talk with our federal contractor through
- the grant about how we would do this. And in our case, we were able to hire four instead of three and
- still have an excess cost at the end of this grant of over $200,000. But she does not want to know that
- now. She wants to wait until the grant is up and running and then we put in modifications to the financial,
- the budget side of the grant.
- So you do have to plan ahead, but they don't necessarily want you to start submitting those things right
- away. So to answer your question, Dana, I don't know exactly how that would work out. A lot of it would
- depend on what the government allows us to do with the grant in order to open that position back up,
- and then would they allow us to hire someone with a counseling degree? Would they allow us to hire someone
- with a social work degree? Would it have to be a school psychologist?
- Would we be able to have someone, we actually have someone now who has a license as a school psychologist,
- but she's let that expire. If we were able to pick her up on the grant, if she was interested, would
- we be able to get her relicensed and bring her back in in that capacity? So a lot of different options
- there, and it's just hard to say exactly what would happen until the scenario pops up. But
- we have experienced that with the TIMS grant and the SMART grant, and thankfully,
- we found a lot of flexibility in what we can do with that. In fact, Mr. Dixon's probably tired of me
- talking about what do we do? How do we spend this? Is there anybody else that we can hire? So. Any other
- questions? Well, I was going to just mention, too, on the grants, I talked to Dr. Stewart and Ms. Barrett.
- We've been more than blessed with grants. And when I started seven years ago, my biggest concern was,
- Grant money runs out at some point. And then can we maintain those positions with our internal funding?
- As legislators, guidelines change, this could become tougher and tougher with the education fund. But
- that grant is from the federal government, correct? And I'm guessing there's a big shortage of school
- psychologists is what they're trying to backfill that. So they're providing the funding for it. It takes
- them out of our education fund
- Correct. Including the benefits and everything. Teachers stay on the pay schedule. Okay. They stay on
- turf. Okay. And then in four years, like you said, we may not need four people. We definitely will not
- need four. Need is definitely different than want. Mr. Dixon would say, I would want four school
- psychologists and I would want to hire every single one of them. The budget says we cannot afford to do that.
- We're already looking ahead. We have a school psychologist position open right now. We don't have one
- single applicant for it. And this position opened up back in January, February. We don't have a person
- for this. So we have two school psychologists right now trying to man our entire district. And so we
- are paying contracted services for a net person. That'll come off of our payroll and contract services.
- Yeah, we have to use contracted services. We either use that through the education fund or through Medicaid,
- one or the other, depending on where we are at that time. So we already have a need for a school
- psychologist. Karen Nastrom is never going to retire, and I'm just going to put that out into the universe
- so that we don't see any retirement come from Karen Nastrom anytime soon.
- But I know that she's not gonna be here forever and I do know that there will come a time probably here
- in the near future that Karen will say, I'm done. Probably when she's one of two school psychologists
- in a district of almost 2,700 is when she's gonna say, I'm done. But we have a need, I know our surrounding
- school districts have a need. There will be jobs for these people and the whole point of the grant was to
- have additional school psychologists in the field. That's when we see these jobs pop up on the federal
- grant side of things, it's because there's a need. And so they start pouring money into that to get
- people licensed and get people into these careers. Yes, that makes sense to me. We're getting advantage
- of it. Let's take another education fund as well.
- Oh, eight of them internal. No, we didn't have. I guess I had a question. The four that you're recommending,
- are they internal or was one of those an external, maybe, or two of them? I don't know. They are all
- internal. Okay. We also had two external, and we interviewed one of those external candidates. Okay,
- so we had six internal and two external then? Correct.
- Thank you. You're welcome. policies we have two choices to make and I'll leave it up to my colleagues
- decide which choice they wouldn't do we could table those to the next meeting or we could actually create
- those positions right now the position of psychologists and training
- We don't actually approve job descriptions. We'd be creating it without looking at a job description
- based on what we've heard tonight. So if you're comfortable in doing that, we could move forward that
- way and then fill those positions. Or again, we could table those appointments until they bring the
- position to us.
- Can we take the job description that was in the posting, have Jennifer go print it off and give the
- board that job description and approve that? We've approved before the job description the same night
- we voted the person in. We've done that before. Right. That'll postpone us, because the positions that
- these folks are leaving have to be
- Advertised to and we don't we have another meeting may so it gives us it correct, right? But we're making
- staffing decisions now correct. I get it. I get it. We need to know What positions are going to be available
- or not and they did post the position they did pose this wasn't created. Yeah, okay. All right Are you
- okay with creating it tonight? Yeah, that'd be great
- No, because I won't have time to look through the job description. OK. It's fairly short, but I can
- do either way. Are you OK with moving the board? Yeah. OK, there's a general consensus that we should
- move forward. So is there a motion to create a position of psychologist in training? I will move to
- create the position of school psychologist in training. Yeah, I'll second. Moved and seconded.
- I had lots of discussion, any more discussion? This is all funded through the CSRAM for four years.
- 100%. And we start off with three, but the budget allows us to do four across the board. Yes, and IU
- also made, they did not want their full-time school psychologist to be employed by RBB. They wanted
- to keep her under the IU umbrella. So they actually took her in through contracted services, which allowed
- us a little bit more of a cushion there as well.
- It does, Hannah Kassab. She is. She works with us now on the SMART grant. She will actually continue
- on the SMART grant about a third of the time. She'll be working on the SEEDS grant about a third of
- the time. And she received, IE received another, it's not called SEEDS, but another school psychologist
- grant in a neighboring corporation. And she'll be working in that as well. As an employee through contracted
- services with, as an employee of IU,
- through contracted services with all of these schools. So the sub-award agreement that you all approved
- last month, part of the funds that are going to IU are paying for Hanna's services to us. Mm-hmm. Okay,
- thank you. I'll just make two comments for the vote. One, please bring the first job descriptions and
- positions to us first so that we know what we're looking at. And two,
- position like this comes up before I think extra efforts need to be made in getting that out there.
- You know, yes, getting it posted, you know, Robin putting out there. But if I would have looked and
- saw a psychologist in training as a position, to me, that's not going to sound very exciting, honestly.
- But if I found out that, wow, that in training is going to get me a high level degree,
- and it's gonna be paid for and I'm gonna get my regular salary and regular increases in salary while
- all that's happening, that's a lot different. So I think a really, I hadn't heard anything about it
- until this. So that's why I'm really surprised because I do think there would have been more applicants
- if they'd known what
- the benefits of being a psychologist in training were. So I would like it that when there's those kind
- of extra benefits, that extra efforts be made to make sure that the word gets out there so people know.
- Because again, the wording of what the title, the position doesn't look like it's very much a high paying
- job or high fruitful job.
- Any other comments? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we'll move on to the
- consent agenda. Sorry. We have approval of minutes for March 24th, 2026, the regular board meeting.
- We have the financial report, which is the treasurer's report for March of 2026. Mr. Turner, the claims please.
- Thank you, Mr. President. For gross wages on March the 13th, 2026 is $856,877.57. For gross wages mini
- payroll, March the 26th, 2026 is $1,194.42. For gross wages on March the 27th, 2026 is $729,901.03.
- For total in that area is $1,587,973.02.
- for claims and prepays from 3126 to 33126, $1,154,939.34 for claims regular vouchers for April 21st,
- 2026 at $616,454.79 for total in that area of $1,771,394.13 for a grand total, $3,359,934.
- $367.15, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, sir. We also have personnel, resignations, retirements,
- non-renewals, leaves, and terminations, C1 through 19, and personnel appointments and transfers, D1
- through 23, and we do have a donation this evening, and it is equipment from Boston Scientific.
- We're excited, very excited about that. Dr. Sanders, would you give our field trips report on those?
- Absolutely. We have four field trips for your approval tonight. The first one is a high school concert
- band to Decatur Central High School for a performance. They'll perform on April 24th.
- And then on April 25th, they will be going to Kings Island. And then the second one is the band camp
- for our state championship band going to Vincennes University. And that'll be July 19th through the
- 24th. The high school senior class trip to Kentucky Kingdom is May 28th.
- The high school drama club is going to Kings Island on Saturday, May 9th. Thank you. Do we have a motion
- on the consent agenda? I move approval of consent agenda. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Can I
- address Mr. Ackerman? He loves that.
- I'm just curious, I've never heard this term Odyssey Students from choir. What's Odyssey mean? Is that
- local Odyssey? It's one of the choirs. Is that a new name? Yeah. Okay, I had never heard that name before.
- I didn't know if it was like a hybrid. It's the choir, it's a singing choir, it's not a performing choir.
- Okay, okay, but they're gonna be going with the band to do this, okay. Yeah, it's just a new term, I'm
- just curious about it on that one.
- I had a quick question on the drama club that was not during the school day that's that's on a Saturday
- correct yes that trip to Kings Island okay all right perfect leadership of the senior class that they
- decided to do the senior trip after
- all the class days were over so that everybody could participate. I just think that's terrific, that
- they wanted to make sure everybody could participate. So I'm just so. Yeah. And yeah, that's just so
- mature and so inclusive. I was blown away. And I want to congratulate Ms. Waterford for a great career
- at the high school. And Ms. Cowden, 36 years?
- Mr. Show, is that right? Yeah, I liked her resignation letter. Retirement letter is pretty good.
- And Ms. Pittman is going to retire this year as well. And I hired Payne way back in the day and I know
- she's done a great job in the guidance department. So, congrats to those two on those great careers.
- And Mr. Brewer says that
- The deja vu of having him and Berta Slinkard in the hallways again is a little bit otherworldly. Any
- further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Dr. Sanders. Yes, Brad
- just mentioned Pam Waterford, one of the nicest people I've ever met. Absolutely.
- And she will definitely be missed. I haven't asked her what she's doing, but I hopefully, I hope it's
- singing. You will be. And Christina Cowden, 36 years as a teacher. Now, I knew her husband and Craig
- Cowden from Martinsville for a long time. So I've had the pleasure of working with both of them.
- Let's love them both. They're great people, and I wish Christina and Pam the very best luck. I would
- like to recognize Brian Paulson. I love that man to death. He's a great man, a wonderful man. He helped
- all three of my children through show choir, taught them a great amount.
- Some of you know that he's basically like family to me. When, after he moved here from the Boston area,
- Waltham, it ended up, I think my son John was the second class he had. But we got really close. I ended
- up being head dad for him for many years. And it was one year as head dad for Virta and him.
- Anyway, he was spectacular with the students. They all learned so much. He taught all my kids so much.
- We got really close. He started coming over to our house about every night watching Will and Jeopardy.
- We watched Lost together. And we'd always have to watch the previous seasons where we started doing it.
- So we're really close. We are really close. I love that man. He's great. He's outstanding. I just really
- respect him. All my kids love him. They learn so much from him. I've learned so much from him. And I
- know there's a lot of kids out there that have. I saw my nephew in here earlier. He left. He's probably sad.
- Soft-hearted kid, strong boy, but soft-hearted kid. But there's a lot of us that's gonna miss Brian
- in the schools. Again, he's a wonderful guy, and we're sorry that he's not with us in the schools, but
- he's a great man, wonderful man, and just breaks my heart to accept his resignation tonight.
- But just couldn't do it without telling how much I love you. But I must carry on with business.
- That's my job. So next, we have consideration to approve latch key fees for the 26-27 school year. Dr.
- Sanders. Yes.
- We've always tried at Edgewood schools to support our families, not only with obviously an excellent
- education, but before and after school childcare. And we try to keep those costs,
- down as much as possible. We're so lucky to have the Boys and Girls Club to provide that service at
- a very minimal cost. We have continued to provide latch key before and after school child care on our
- campus in order to give parents options. But as I mentioned earlier in the meeting, with the financial
- position the state of Indiana has put school corporations in,
- We're trying to find every penny we can in order to continue to provide that quality education. So we
- have increased the fees for latch key and that information was provided to you in the board packet.
- I think we have, well we have,
- Right now this year we have 85 students in the morning and 65 in the afternoon, so we still have a good
- number of families who participate and utilize that. I tell you what, the increased costs also I think
- will enable us to put that money into reaching, trying to pay a
- competitive salary to these folks that, you know, this is kind of a job where you come in early in the
- morning, you work in the morning, and then you have to come back in the afternoon. And there's not that
- many people out there that will do that for what we were paying them. And so we are recommending that
- we increase these fees.
- It's not something we'd like to ever do, but we're still cheaper than most opportunities around us.
- Do we have a motion? I move approval for a last key for school year 2026-2027. I'll second. Any discussion?
- Quick question, Dr. Shainer. So last key in the morning, there's 85 right now. Does it start at six?
- What time does it start in the morning?
- Six thirty. Okay. And then in the afternoon to, I don't know what our participation is, the Boys and
- Girls Club. Is that, do they go from the same time frame in the afternoon as the Boys and Girls Club?
- I think Boys and Girls Club might go later. I think about an hour later. Heather can speak to that,
- yeah. I don't know what time it is. Okay. I'm pretty sure it's six o'clock. It may be as late as six thirty.
- But it is open. So the Boys and Girls Club, they get on a bus here. We take you over there. And transport
- them down there. And that Boys and Girls Club is just in the afternoon. We would be interested in partnering
- with the Boys and Girls Club maybe someday in the future for morning. Right. But I think the last key
- enables parents to be able to where they would just stay right here on campus.
- Right. I didn't know if a lot of the younger kids stayed on campus and the older ones went to Boys and
- Girls Club, that's what. I'd like to know a little bit more about that for the future. Because I know
- they've kept their costs at $25 a year, but they've got a lot of private donations too. Yeah. Boys and
- Girls Club, they're just a great partner. They are. As you'll see later, we're partnering with them
- for summer school somewhat. OK. And we're hoping maybe we can expand that.
- partnership down the road. So we're always working together, meeting with Boys and Girls Club leaders
- and trying to find ways to just enhance what we do for our students. Okay. I'm getting a little bit
- ahead of myself, but is the latch key self-funded or are we supplementing it from the education fund?
- We've always supplemented it. Okay. Yes. Okay. Then with summer school, would it be
- would pay for itself through state reimbursement? We never get enough from the state to fully fund summer
- school. We get some back, but not nearly enough. Yeah. OK, that's something over the time we may have
- to look at. I mean, I don't want to give up summer school, but with the restraints the state's putting
- on us. Yeah, we're looking at that in terms of,
- conversations we've had this year has been really on transportation of, we're gonna try to, in the past
- we, well we used to not provide transportation at all. A few years ago we started it and we take students
- right to their home. We're going to look into the possibility
- of having some group stops so we could reduce the number of buses. Because fuel for buses right now
- is extremely high. And so we're, and that's kind of the mindset we have right now is where can we save
- some money? Okay, all right, thank you. I know you'll be shocked by this Mr. Tucker, but they've continued
- to add requirements for summer school, but they have not upped the reimbursement for summer school.
- So second grade, third grade, any kid who has not passed, I read. Second grade is still not mandatory,
- but any kid after third grade that hasn't passed, I read, it does become mandatory. If not, there are
- pieces that we have to put in place for them during the school year. And then of course, as Mr. Ackerman
- would attest to, the high school students for credit recovery, that's such a big piece there with our
- summer school programming. So Matt and Andy are,
- not really reducing our numbers, but we're probably a little bit more choosy about who we do take in
- summer school, simply because we can't take everybody, we just can't afford to, but the mandates are
- coming. Well, they're there, the mandates are there, but we have not seen an increase in that. Okay,
- and we're still gonna do the food truck in the summertime? Ms. Coffey's gonna take care of that? That
- is for the summer school students? Yeah, I know she would go out
- stops in the summer, which I've gotten a lot of good comments from people. That's really helpful for
- folks. I don't know if she's going to continue that this summer. I haven't heard. That is a good Mrs.
- Coffee question that I don't know an answer to. Is she continuing it out in the community for summer
- feedings? I'm pretty sure that it's covered. Like, it's free for the kids. Correct. Breakfast and lunch.
- Right. Are you talking about the food truck?
- Yes. Obviously for our students participating in summer school, we are definitely having free breakfast
- and lunch. But we're hoping to continue what we did last year, which was we provided food, meals for
- families to come pick up. Correct. And we haven't received approval, official approval on that yet,
- but that's in the works.
- Perfect. Okay. Yeah, I know a lot of people really appreciate that in the community. Thank you Now on
- to that summer school program, yes So we are once again doing summer school and really the program that
- I shared with you is a
- Similar to what we've done in the last several years. The difference is we're going to partner with
- the Boys and Girls Club for kindergarten and first grade. They have an excellent remediation program.
- Andy Scholl and Matt Wooden have been talking with the Boys and Girls Club. And we're going to dip our
- toe into that partnership by working
- having our kindergarten first graders go to the Boys and Girls Club for summer school. What that will
- do will enable EPS then to focus on iREAD3 remediation and helping get those students past the finish
- line. And I like that idea of having that focus and
- with iREAD 3 carrying so much weight more than ever, we want to make sure these kids pass. And I believe,
- isn't it true, I'm glad we have our EPS teachers here, isn't this the first, the best year we've had
- in terms of percentage of students passing iREAD 3? At second grade. And how did EIS do? Okay.
- So that those dates will be June 1st through the 18th for EPS EIS and the high school will be June 1st
- through the 19th and then junior high has more of a jumpstart program that is July 20th through the
- 30th and the hours are all similar to that I recommend your approval
- I'll second. I didn't second it. Any discussion? I just had a question for the administrators. You guys
- have all worked this out as far as summer cleaning? Because they have to be out by July. They'll be
- done, right, Mr. Mitchell? Mine will start instead of where they have a couple weeks where they have
- kids still in the building. Mine will start the day that kids are out of the building and we start cleaning
- lockers out. OK, so I didn't know if you guys tagged team.
- Like, your custodians would go help out EIS and vice versa while summer school is going on. OK. Arnold?
- Arnold's the director of the year, so that's good pressure, Arnold. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure Arnold has
- it under control. Thanks. So second grade was the highest percentage passed? I believe so. Wow. Do we
- have a second grade teacher? Congratulations on second grade. That's great. That was great.
- So we love to hear. Awesome growth, awesome growth, thank you. Any further? All those in favor say aye.
- Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next is consideration to approve sub for insurance pay for administrators.
- We've done this for teachers, now administrators. Yeah, you know, it's really worked out well for us
- to implement this program.
- It benefits our retiring teachers and you know anytime we can do that it's a good day. It also benefits
- the school corporation and so it's worked out so well. We explored the idea of expanding it to retiring
- administrators and obviously it will include
- the opportunity to sub in the classroom. But it'll also benefit the school corporation in so many other
- ways. And so in the agreement, I list several different ways that they can sub or support the school
- corporation. One of them is to serve as the expulsion examiner. That really will help us to have somebody
- who truly does have a neutral
- position to expulsions transportation support there are some times where Our director of transportation,
- you know life happens and sometimes she might have surgery or her parents She might have to help her
- parents out and she can't be here and when she's not here then I
- man the radio and support the drivers. And sometimes that's a challenge with my other duties. I'll often
- be sitting in a meeting with a parent or with administrators or teachers and have one eye on the person
- I'm talking to and then my ear on the radio and trying to listen to both. So I would love to have somebody
- like that who could sub in that position
- or on those days where we're short bus drivers, where this person can come in and drive a school bus.
- Sometimes administrators, principals, assistant principals have to be out of the building for a variety
- of reasons. And I would see this as if there's a lengthy time that somebody might be out that we might have this
- retired administrator come in and support the building and support the other administrator. Event assistance
- if we would need that.
- construction project assistance that takes up a lot of our time and addressing the construction projects
- we have so I could see that person helping in some way and then serving as a substitute teacher and
- really board it would be under my discretion my leadership to determine how this person would be used.
- Your motion. Is there a second? He moved approval. Okay, I second. Questions? And this is very, the
- way I read it, Dr. Chen is very comparable to what we do with our teachers, correct? What's that? It's
- very comparable financially to the school as we do the sub-teachers. Yeah. Okay. Sounds like
- the administrator though is gonna end up working a lot more. Correct. It sounds like he just created
- a position.
- All right, thank you. Anything else? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next
- consideration to approve declaration of surplus items. Yes, so I don't know if everybody knows this,
- but the farmhouse and the barns and silos
- We purchased that years ago and the gentleman who farms the land out here lived there for a while and
- he has since moved into his own place and the house and the barns are in very bad shape. One of the
- barns is basically standing because it's leaning against a tree. And so we have plans to take down the
- farmhouse,
- barns and right now we're in the process of trying to get the asbestos removed before we can move on
- to actually taking those structures down. The silos up there are still in good shape and we would like
- to declare them a surplus in order to
- Anybody that's interested, I don't know who goes around buying silos, but make them available. One of
- them is 24 feet by six rings, whatever the heck that means, 6,500 bushels. The other is 18 feet by six
- rings, or 2,750 bushels. So I recommend your approval. I move approval to approve the declaration for
- surplus items. I second.
- Any discussion? Do we have a contract for the demo, Dr. Sanders? Was that voted on at the last meeting?
- I wasn't, I was not here at the last, is there a contract to demo the? No. Okay, but that'll come at
- a next, another board meeting? Yeah, what we've been working on recently is getting with a company to,
- first of all, to determine if we had asbestos and we do. So now we're gonna have to get rid of that
- before we can start tearing it down. So one step at a time.
- Okay, yeah, that's because it is a liability that building it's. All right. All those in favor say aye.
- Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now consideration to approve replacement of the Edward High School
- pool deck. Yeah, we this is
- It is unfortunate because it hasn't been really that long ago that we replaced the pool deck tiles.
- But immediately, while it was under warranty, we had issues with the tile becoming loose, rusting, bulging.
- There's puddles, so the surface wasn't level.
- And it's really become a safety hazard. Our own maintenance department, once the warranty was out, tried
- to keep it up, and it's just continued to cause problems. So we're recommending to, and we had quotes
- done on this, and we're gonna have Jack, Jack Laurie Group had the lowest quote of 120,000
- $105 to Replace the tile with an epoxy type flooring that will have like a it'll be rough, you know,
- so Resist slipping And so if we can get that approved tonight, we'll have that work done this summer
- Any discussion and I understand this coming out of the
- Oh, yes, thank you. Thank you, Larry. It's coming out of the 2022 General Obligation Law. Okay, and
- then I'm gonna put Martin on the spot. Who vetted this lorry outfit? Well, this is a company that we've
- been using in a number of our projects, current projects that we just finished. They've been in the
- elementary schools quite a bit. And we're not, if I read it, maybe I misread it.
- and maybe Arnold could fill this in. We're not replacing the tile, we're putting this. The epoxy's gonna
- cover the existing, and it's just on the deck, not down in the pool, it's on the deck. Correct, okay.
- Right, so our warranty is gone for the previous contractor. And that was under VPS? Yes.
- Thank you. So what if the tile underneath that epoxy breaks loose? Will it still be held by the epoxy
- in place or would it? How long to guarantee it for? Yeah, I like forever. I like it. Okay.
- But it won't be really, when you says epoxy, I don't want to be like super slick. It's gonna have some.
- Okay, that makes sense then. It's got a little grit to it then, okay. That's what pools are going to
- now. Okay, all right, got it. Any further questions? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
- Next is consideration to approve the Ready 2.0 resolution. Yeah, so as you know, the school corporation
- received a $500,000 grant through regional opportunity initiatives. The organization that supervises
- that whole
- grant process, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation has asked for specific documentation that
- the construction bond dollars that we approved in the fall, that there's been $2,255,500 of that set
- aside for the biomedical life sciences project. I sent them
- The documentation I sent them was all the documents that we approved as far as the bonding process.
- But they wanted something very specific. So I asked Christine, what can we do? And she suggested
- a resolution. And we checked with IEDC. And they said that would be acceptable.
- I'll move to approve the ready 2.0 resolution. Did they give us any kind of timeline on this as far
- as making sure we get our, we can receive our half a million? Yes, well we just. We've got the contracts
- in place to move forward. Yes, yeah. And we're in the process, we just met today talking about, with
- our architect talking about the Bain and Quire expansion out here and also the biomedical life sciences
- and we have until 2028 to spend that grant money. We'll be, unless there's a big setback that we don't
- expect, but we should be good on that timeline. Okay, move and seconded, any further? All those in favor
- say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next is consideration to approve the career coaching grant
- a sub-award agreement, Jennifer Barrett. Yes, this is one, the Career Coaching Grant is a sub-award
- that we're receiving through ROI. ROI receives the grant through the state. The Career Coaching Grant
- essentially pays for the salary and benefits of Susan Harrington, who works as our career coach at the
- high school. The grant runs from January 1st through June 30th of 2027.
- The total amount of that grant is $112,476. I move approval of the Career Coaching Grant Subaward Agreement.
- I second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Did we get the first installment already, Ms. Barrett?
- This is a reimbursement grant.
- So what Mrs. Tate does is about every quarter or so, she'll submit a reimbursement to ROI. She'll show
- what we've paid Mrs. Harrington during that time. They send us the reimbursement for her salary and
- benefits. It started January 1 of 26, but she didn't sign it until March of 26. Correct. That's why
- I was a little nervous. I'll make sure we got our money. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
- That's pretty typical with these types of grants that the money is already there in ROI funding from
- the state It just takes them a little bit longer to get the sub awards out and in this case This career
- coaching grant as an extension of the first career coaching grant that we've had Mr. Ackerman left a
- year and a half two years in place so
- from ROI's perspective, they're basically extending all of these grants that they already had in place
- with the neighboring counties and school districts. Okay, perfect, thank you. Anything further? All
- those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We are tabling item number 14, and so consideration
- to award bid for the softball and baseball turf projects, Dr. Sanders.
- Yes, this is, I think, a really exciting night for us. We strive very hard in our school corporation
- to provide our students and staff with the highest quality facilities. And it really, people don't always
- understand this, but we are in competition.
- students the state has put us in that position where we have to compete and believe me parents take
- advantage of that and particularly in this case if they have a softball or baseball player and they
- they will look at neighboring school corporations that see what kind of facilities that they have
- and exercise their options. So not only does it provide us with a safer facility, having turf, it helps
- with the maintenance of the fields. When, and I've been there, I think it was a few years ago, we had
- a sectional, we were hosting a sectional, but we had a lot of rain. And even though we were hosting
- a sectional,
- In order to play the games, we had to go over and use the turf field at North High School. And so with
- the turf, we won't have to do that anymore. We obviously went through all the requirements of advertising
- for bids. And last Wednesday, we opened the bids
- Skillman looks and the architect Lancer architect they vet the the bids and So the the company that
- had the lowest bid And really there was I Think the person works for Lancer right Martin that that is
- the expert and field turf Okay, and so she will look at the
- the products that these companies are offering and making sure that they're quality. So the base bid
- came in at $2,603,221.
- I didn't get that right yet, did I? $2,603,221 and we had two alternatives. The chain link fence will
- be $51,977 and then alternative two is a sidewalk that will go from the junior high across the field
- by the baseball field
- and provide our students with a walking, an area to walk if they're walking down towards the high school.
- That's just part of the project. Eventually we're gonna have a walking path right along the baseball
- and football field complexes and to provide some safety for our students who are walking after school.
- So that alternative, too, was $80,685. And so the total bid was $2,735,856. And that came in under the
- estimated cost. So we're in good shape. And the work will start this summer. Old turf project.
- I'll second. Martin, do you want to say anything?
- Well, you came all this way. I didn't mean to steal your thunder. Can I ask Martin a question? Sure.
- So this is going to take care of all the backstops, both also correct. The softball into baseball. OK,
- and I'm a little concerned. I just want to make sure that we're going to get this done, Dr. Sanders.
- The safety going from the junior high to the high school
- I just hate to see those kids walking along that road. This isn't gonna take it all the way, it's just
- gonna take a part way? This is the first part. Right, we're in the process right now of getting measurements
- for that part of the project. Okay. And once we get those measurements, then we'll go through the same
- process and tag that right along with this. In the end, it'll probably be happening all about the same
- thing. That's what, yeah,
- Scares me to death all the time there. Still. We're just approving this part of the project now. I'd
- really like to see it once we get all these connections made. I've always wanted to see it where we
- had a true walking path, where it was measured out, and a start here.
- and maybe something along the way of history or something about the school corporation, something to,
- you know, and now you've gone a tenth of a mile or whatever. I think it would be, that would really
- be helpful for the community too, you know, and then so I would really like to see eventually that we
- add that. I don't think it'd be very expensive once the trail is made to,
- Right. To market. Several years ago, I wrote a grant. It was a grant for $30,000 and another community.
- But we put exercise equipment along the path also. And it was for the community. OK. I've seen that.
- And wearing my tennis shirt, it just makes me think we need to be looking at the tennis courts before
- too long. Yep.
- We put a patch on quite a few years ago to get us back a couple years, and it's been way past that.
- I'd really like to see something happen. We're always looking ahead. We're wrapping up some projects,
- getting ready to start some others, and then we have others that are kind of out in the near future,
- and then we want to be prepared. There's always a need, but we want to be prepared
- for when we qualify for additional bond dollars. Okay, any further discussion? All those in favor say
- aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now we move to our business manager's report and we have an update.
- Good evening. So looking at the projections in front of you,
- with the education fund and the operations fund. Right now, we have been on target with our projections
- actually under, which has been really good and positive. I'm still making sure to move as much money
- over to trust Indiana as possible. Anytime I see a balance that I can move, I move it over and then
- I only pull it over when needed. So I just wanna make sure you guys are always aware that that's a constant
- in my process. We are working so hard as a team with all these changes that are happening with funding
- and everything, and we're meeting weekly, if not more than that, in very detailed conversations, like
- we are speaking names, we are speaking positions, we are speaking
- all kinds of things because we care so deeply about everything in this corporation. So the details are
- very important to us. So we have a really good team, and I know I mentioned that last time, but those
- are some things we are working on, new procedures, new processes, just so everybody's spending properly,
- too. And nobody's just overspending just to overspend, just to make sure we're staying as low as we
- can with everything.
- And then one of the other things, I know Brad had mentioned this before with the seek money, I wanted
- to make sure we do have that money coming in now. So that is something that has been, Noah and I have
- been working on that. And so that funding is coming in at this point. So it's helping build up those
- balances that were really high from those students, so.
- Yeah, they were pretty excessive, but we got, I think the last month we had like 400,000 come in,
- so we are, we're, yep, so they're reimbursing, we're on target with everything, so I wanted to let you
- know that, because I don't think you were here last month, so I wanted to make sure you were aware of
- that, so. So our cost will be 30,000 for our portion correct per student. Yeah.
- As far as the transfers, are we up? Is our goal to get to 15% of transferring from the operational education?
- We are staying under that right now. Well, I didn't know what percent we were at. We're at 250 per month
- is what we're, I don't remember the exact percentage that it is right now. I don't know if I have that.
- Because we can go up to 15%. But we can go up to 15% if we're still staying under that right now. Okay.
- So. All right, thank you. Do you guys have any questions? Okay. Okay, thank you very much.
- of our funds. Okay. Next we have the assistant superintendent's report. Just an update. Our first Edgewood
- Ready magazine is going to be available at our next board meeting. We just got the preview of that today
- from the printer, so I'm excited to bring that to you guys next month. We'll have them sitting out front
- for anybody who attends. Information
- The K-12 accountability is going to start taking place in 26, 27. You may remember back in 2018, that
- was the last year that we received a letter grade as a district, as schools. It's starting again. And
- I kind of cringe when I say it because all the things that we didn't love about it are kind of back
- in place again, so starting in,
- at the end of 2026, we're gonna see our first letter grade scores across the state come out. 2025-26,
- I'm missing a five there, is considered year zero. What they mean by year zero is that we're going to
- receive an accountability grade as a district and by school, but this is not necessarily going to count
- for us or against us. It's to give us information
- from year zero, so we kind of have a starting point, and then we can assess where we are. We can look
- at our report card, if you will, and use that information to make decisions about where we can just
- simply do better. What are we doing great? What can we do better? That's the type of information this
- is gonna give. I gave you, if you really want to dig into this more, this is the future of K-12 accountability.
- It really breaks it down into kindergarten through grade three. With all of these pieces, you're going
- to see three areas, academic mastery, growth, and career readiness. So you'll see with kindergarten
- through third grade, we're focusing on ELA and math. That's the academic mastery for iLearn. And then
- the students can earn additional points for passing iRead.
- Accelerated literacy, that's basically their growth on iRead. School attendance, and then for our students
- who are English language learners, they can earn additional points when they pass their WIDA exam. So
- we basically receive points by student. So each student, depending upon their
- Individual goals, depending upon their individual progress, is how they earn points for their school
- and their district. If you go on down grades four through eight, there are additional pieces in there.
- You'll start to see that's where the growth comes in on iLearn. That's also where you will see the coursework
- coming in for
- high school level, so students who are taking high school classes, you'll see things in there like completing
- a graduation plan. These things that Callie Schlummer has been doing for years now are a part of additional
- ways that students can earn points by being a student at Edgewood Junior High School. So a lot of these
- pieces, I would even say at this point, all of these pieces we already have in place and our students
- can begin earning these points
- ASAP. What's interesting with this, the high school piece actually started with last year's graduates.
- So every school district across the state is going to their high school score is going to be based on
- last year's high school graduates, not this year's. It will be one year behind. We are really sure how
- this is going to look.
- And there are a lot of pieces out there that we're still trying to figure out. Everybody across the
- state is trying to figure out. But if you're interested in watching any of the webinars on it, I do
- have a couple of recordings. They're about two, two and a half hours, but they are really interesting
- and go into more depth with all of this. Also, you'll see a list of enrollment.
- close to where we're going to be starting out 26-27. You can see what's happening in some of these pathways
- that we've been talking about for the past few years. I'm excited to see that our biomedical pathway,
- 52 kids signed up for that Principles of Biomed.
- anatomy physiology, which is a dual credit Ivy Tech course. We have 69 kids signed up for that next
- year. That's going to be an interesting one for sure. Medical interventions is the third course there.
- We have 22 kids. You may wonder what happened to those 54 kids in anatomy and physiology. A lot of those
- kids are seniors. We did not get that
- pathway completely built out and time for them to be able to take the third course, which was medical
- interventions. So we graduated several of them, but we're keeping several of those juniors and medical
- interventions. I don't know what the other Mr. Kerr is doing, but look at the growth there in those
- engineering classes. The intro to engineering is the only pathway that starts with intro instead of
- principles. I always have to keep that in mind.
- 50 kids taking intro to engineering next year, 19 continuing on to that second course after taking the
- first one. Marketing fundamentals continues to grow. Digital marketing is our third class there. We
- had six kids take it this year, 11 who will be taking it next year. Those are our dynamos who do most
- of our work across the district on our website, all of our flyers, social media, all of those things.
- So it's exciting to see that, that principal's a computing class, which is a computer science class,
- also growing up to 25. So it goes to show that the work that we're doing
- down at the junior high level, down at EIS, down at EPS, where we're starting to build these pathways,
- you know, even just through things that, Earth Fair, you think it's just a one-day thing, you know,
- the Earth Day is a one-day thing, but it starts getting them excited, starts to build their passions
- for what is coming down the road. And, you know, we used to just hear from our little guys, I wanna
- be a police officer, I wanna be a fireman, I wanna be a teacher, because this is what they saw in their
- community, and now it's, I wanna be an engineer, I wanna do, you know, all of these different things.
- So it's work that we're doing
- all the way down, I would even say go as far as to say all the way down into EECC and the exposure that
- we have there. Touch of Truck is coming up with those little guys here pretty soon. So it's definitely
- showing the proof is in the pudding here with all of that. On the back side, you'll see a couple of
- upcoming items. We are doing a second round of mentor training, March 12th, 13th, and 14th. So we'll
- have another
- 9 to 10 mentors who will be trained across the district on those three days and then this year's a little
- different at the end of the year instead of One or two end of the year teacher days. We have three so
- the 22nd 26th and 27th I Did pretty well you have a minute 27 seconds
- Dr. Sanders? Well, Mr. Durnall, I just want to point out that my report is only on the front page.
- I tried, really. I almost just cut it off completely. I'll deal with that after the meeting. OK,
- all right. I'll make this quick. A couple more congratulations that I'd like to shout out to. And EIS
- ambassadors, they collected 319 boxes of cereal. Is that going to pantry 279?
- And so that's always exciting. Did they have the, where you put the boxes down in the? Yes, it went
- almost halfway around the front of the building. It was about twice as long as last year, so. Oh, wow.
- Very exciting. And then I attended the National Honor Society induction. And I tell you, if you haven't
- gone to that, you need to, because it sets a nice,
- program and it's all run by the students and they, I mean, they did an excellent job. I was so impressed.
- And then the theater arts team, the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, once again, just a great performance.
- I was just in awe of not only the
- the set and the props, but the acting. And I don't know if you haven't seen it, the lion was a puppet,
- a huge puppet. And it was created and built right in our ILC. That's pretty cool. I wanted to let you
- know that Alec and I attended the Monroe County School Safety Commission meeting. That's held twice a year.
- which basically we go over to MCC, they host it. They're required to host it as being the larger school
- corporation in the area. And there are law enforcement there, police department, Bloomington, Ellsville,
- sheriff's department. And then we just talk about school safety. And I really value that because we're
- sitting around a table of experts
- And those experts are informing school leaders on what we can do to keep our schools safe. And so I
- appreciate that. Alec, he's a shining star for not only the school corporation, but for the Ellsville
- Police Department. Once again, for the fifth time, we've sent students down to Brown County for the
- annual student-run business conference.
- we go down there, we go down as leaders in this area. Of course, we want to learn, but more importantly,
- people are coming to our students and asking them what they're doing that's working out so well. I want
- to give you the dates. I know it's hard
- to believe I'm sharing this, but end of the year awards ceremony and dates and times. I just wanted
- as a board for you to have that. And we invite you to any and all of those. And then we're in the middle
- of iLearn testing. And the prom is coming up on May 2nd. And we have students going to Bradford Woods
- May 4th through the 6th.
- Six through the eighth we have such a big group. They've divided us into two groups. That's my report
- tonight three minutes And now we have our BBEA comments Every every month I feel like there's something that just
- makes me feel just awe for our corporation, and those pathways are just so exciting. I mean, it just
- is amazing how our high school continues to evolve like that. In addition to the names mentioned, I
- just wanna wish Katie Brookman, Micah Mobley, and Rachel Mathias the best. I can echo Mr. Kerr,
- you know, all three of my children went through this corporation, and just lasting memories with so
- many of the people on this list this evening. And speaking of recognizing someone, I think it,
- You know, we can attest EPS teachers to paying our retirees for subbing because we have Vicki here this
- evening and I think we're all always fighting for her to be in our room. So it's just a great program.
- We love her and it just is working for us and probably other schools too.
- you know, when I think of these lists, I'm gonna be giving our building reps just things to give out
- trying to recruit new people. So they'll be seeing some things too to see if we can get some membership
- before the end of the year. And then finally, I just, you know, I'm so appreciative of
- all these wonderful colleagues that I have here to recognize our HRS level one and we know how hard
- Matt and Elisa worked as well as all the other administrators. A very, very time consuming task and
- we just appreciate all of you and just wishing everybody the best in these last few weeks. And Brandy,
- we're good for the meeting on Thursday. We're good, we can be at your meeting.
- Now for our board member comments, we'll start with Mr. Durnall. Well thank you, I appreciate that.
- I'm really excited about the pool deck and of course the turf for the softball and baseball. Arnold,
- thank you for keeping track of that. Thank you for helping with that, appreciate it Mr. Schruestel.
- And I'm really impressed tonight that all the EPS teachers stayed through this whole meeting. I really
- want to pat you on the back, thank you.
- Vicki says it's a good example. She didn't even move when it was all over. Thank you. So appreciate
- you being here. Good seeing you all. I was just gonna add, I think this is the largest audience that
- Dr. Sanders has ever had for his report. So I was wondering if they were coerced. I don't know.
- Congratulations to the EPS teachers and the administration for the level one accomplishment. Congratulations, Arnold.
- really cool and well-deserved. And some thanks, thanks to everybody for expressing sympathy with my
- family loss. It was, thank you. I also want to thank the volunteers, speaking of National Honor Society,
- some of them showed up for, I was the race director for the MAG-7 kickoff and I had some volunteers
- and they were outstanding and it was just, made my day so much better. Thanks to
- Boston Scientific for the donations. And just want to encourage all the students to finish the year
- strong. Mr. Tucker. To Mr. DeMoss and Mr. Dornal, thanks to the EPS folks for coming out tonight.
- And Ms. Hardy, I hope you still have the energy to put up your Halloween decorations. Because I do have
- to go by there.
- Yeah, I have. I have to go to your house. So thanks for getting me out of my house. And I don't want
- to bite any of your stuff at a yard sale, though. So thank you again, Kress, on the HRS designation.
- It's kind of neat, my little trip down here with, I think a lot of EPS teachers are there at night.
- It's kind of neat to see what all goes on. And the Marzano thing's been around Mr. DeMoss a long time.
- He's kind of reinvented the wheel, but it just helps you reflect what you're doing. So thank you for
- doing that, and kudos to all with that. And best of luck to all of spring sports, and everybody be safe
- this spring. It's coming. I mean, the end of May is going to come fast. So thanks. Thank you. Back on
- Thursday, it was supposed to be here tonight. It's not.
- We checked the delivery. It's supposed to be here Thursday, so put it up proudly. We will hand-deliver
- it when it comes. Didn't catch that, but hearing they died like five minutes ago. Mrs. Hardy, your husband's
- name's Bo, right? Yes. You never know what influence you teachers have on kids. I'll tell you this,
- because my daughter had a son, and because of Mrs. Hardy,
- She always loved the name Bo. And so she named her son Bo. So you touch so many lives in so many ways
- that you just never realize
- So I'm glad that one came back around so you could find out about it. But I appreciate everybody coming
- tonight. And I believe that we can get through everything together. And again, just because we're so
- close, I am sorry for Mr. Paulson to go. And I love him. He's an outstanding man.
- an upright man, and, but, you know, again, he's great, and I love him, and I know there's many out there
- that do as well, and I get to say that because I can. I'm sitting up here. So, to you, I wish you all
- very well, and I hope you have a wonderful evening, and this meeting is adjourned.