- Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for
- which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very
- much. You may be seated. OK, please let the record reflect
- Mr. Tucker, Mr. Moss, and Mr. Kerr are here for this special board meeting of the Richland Bean Blossom
- Community School Corporation. And there are no visitors in the audience today, so we can move right
- into business. And we're going to consider a revision to policy 5136, which is on personnel communication
- devices. Dr. Sanders.
- So, you know, we've talked about this for the last three board meetings, I think. And I had in mind
- intentions to extend the cell phone policy to the school bus. Just worries about students being able
- to access their phones on the bus.
- with not as much supervision because the bus driver will be focusing on the road. But in listening to
- parents, listening to you guys, and we had a really good discussion with our school administrators last
- Friday, we decided that it was probably logistically impossible to implement
- that extension of the law where we expanded it to the school bus. So basically we're going back to,
- as far as the school bus goes, going back to the policy we've already had, which is K5 students are
- not supposed to use their personal communication devices riding to and from school on the bus, but K12 students
- may use their cell phones while riding the bus to and from school. And that's basically, the only difference
- I should clarify is before it was a practice in the transportation department to leave that six to 12
- grade question about cell phones, it was at the discretion of the bus driver. I felt like that was a
- little inconsistent, so,
- the new practice, new policy is K to 12, or six to 12, they can use their funds on the busts. That's
- the change. I move approval of the revision of policy 5136. I second. Moon, second. Any discussion?
- So I presume that the bus driver would still have discretion that if a problem arose, they could address it. Yeah.
- talked to the bus drivers at the back to school transportation meeting and told them that we don't expect
- them to be the cell phone police. Their main job is the safety of the students. But if they do find
- a student who's abusing their use of the phone, then they would write a referral to the principal.
- I appreciate all the thought and consideration. I really do understand your considerations for what
- you were hoping to achieve with it as well. And I understand the parents. And I'm just glad that we're
- a community that can talk these things out. And so it still may change more as we try things out. So
- who knows?
- I really appreciate all the discussions that has gone into it. And again, the fact that as a community,
- we can talk these things out. And it's an honor to be part of that. I presume about 300 other school
- districts are doing the same thing around the state, too. I hope they're doing it as amicably as we
- are. Any further? All those in favor say aye.
- And that will be communicated to parents tomorrow. Okay. Just say bell to bell then. Whatever the state
- law, we're doing exactly what the state law says. Okay. Perfect. I've found the bell to bell to be pretty
- easy to explain. It is, yeah. The exemptions are pretty easy to explain. You need language conversion,
- of course.
- only when you need language conversion. If you need it for checking for diabetes or things like that,
- of course, but only when you need to be doing that. So it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty easy
- to comprehend. So I think it's laid out well. We did get a little chuckle as administrators. We were
- talking about the first week or so of school
- Because bell to bell means that the kids can take them out after seventh period. And as they're walking
- out to the bus or walking out to the car, can you imagine the zombies all walking out holding their
- cell phones up because they haven't seen them all day? It's going to be a sight to see for sure. It's
- going to be a learning curve. Every time I think about it, I laugh.
- They have to be, once you get into the vehicle, you're going home and you can get out. So you're not
- walking out. Mrs. Clark did say, I am not monitoring them in the comments on the way to their car. She
- said there are just some things that are going to be way too hard to tackle. Okay. We do have a few
- other items. We have consideration to approve an MOU with Rita.
- Yes, this is one for EECC. We've participated with Lena before. Basically, it is a demographic study
- with some procedures and protocols that we put in place at EECC using some of their products, and we
- don't identify any of the students, families, anything like that, but we do give them
- information back about their product, and it brings about $1,800 in for EECC for the work that they
- put into it. What we found is that we really like the Lena, they're like little vests that the kids
- wear, and it's a great product, and it's an easy way for them to make a little extra money at the same
- time. So we're asking you guys to approve the MOU. Christine reviewed it, and everything looked good
- on it. I'll move approval of the MOU and Lena. I'll second.
- executive any discussion for clarification can we state what the the acronyms are MLU memorandum of
- understanding Lena give me a minute I got you on this I know what Cass is Lena is good night they don't
- even put it on their own stuff
- That's a good point. Give me just a second. Well, I should have seen it There it is It is Lena grow
- in Indiana and There is it does not appear to be an acronym and
- It appears that Lena is the name of their company. Lena is in receipt of funds from Early Learning Indiana
- to support the evaluation of Lena Grow in Indiana. Sometime there was a Lena. Was there? I'm sure there
- was. I do not see anything in here that that is an acronym, but simply the name of their company, yes.
- Good question. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye.
- motion carries Next consideration to add before and after school care for I leads to the current pay
- scale I Put a lot of this information into the memo that we sent out to the board what we're asking
- is to restructure a
- or before and after school care program. What we were doing in the past is we would have a director
- for that program and we paid them a flat salary of $20,000 for the year. That director left last January,
- February, she was continuing her education and Heather Kinzig picked that up for the remainder of the year.
- And talking with Heather, she really started to kind of talk about some ideas about how we could restructure
- that would make the whole program run more smoothly. And one of the pieces that we had talked about
- is actually with the IAs who are working with the students, what we tend to find is that some of those
- IAs, a lot of those IAs are actually going into education. They're college students in education. And
- so not only does it give them an opportunity to lesson plan, but they're really creative.
- So instead of the director who isn't necessarily always engaged in the hands-on pieces with the kids
- planning the programming, we really talked about a lead IA stepping into that role and creating the
- lesson plans.
- training the other staff, implementing that day in and day out, whether that's a craft activity, a physical
- activity, and having those things organized for each morning and afternoon. And then what that would
- do is it would take down the number of hours that the director would be involved. So the director would
- go down to about 10 to 12 hours a week. And then those lead IAs, there would be an increase of about
- $3 to $4 an hour because we are asking them to do additional work
- not just overseeing the kiddos when they're there. So I knew that Brad would want to know what this
- would look like financially, so I ran some numbers just to be sure that we had everything worked out
- there. This actually ends up saving the corporation about $5,000. The current director, the previous
- director, is making $20,000 a year.
- The 10 to 12 hours for the director would be about $7,500 for the year. And then by increasing the $3
- to $4, I counted about $3.50 for each of those two leads. That would work out to about $3,700 a year
- extra to turn them from a regular IA into a lead IA, which would be about $7,500 total for those two.
- So we would be looking at a savings here of about $5,000 simply by
- adding that layer of responsibility and additional pay-in for the two IA leads, and then reducing the
- director's hours down a little bit. So I'm asking you to approve that.
- I think you'll see Susan and I are working on streamlining a lot of the pay scale pieces. We have some
- one-off positions and things like that, and we really want to get everybody in a position where we can
- see exactly where the scale's going to take them versus, you know, this position not necessarily having
- something. So as Susan's going through and she's doing some of those audits, we may be bringing more
- of those pieces to you. And this is one where, again, it would be a new position technically because
- it's an IA lead, but we would be high
- hiring two of our current IAs and move them into these roles. So we're not asking for additional funds.
- We're looking to just reallocate the funds that we already have, and actually it'll cost us less overall.
- And at the same time, make the latchkey program meet our high expectations. And we felt like over the
- last couple of years, it hasn't been what it used to be.
- This will help us to make it parents and trust their children to us at that time of the day. And we
- wanna make sure we're providing the best program for them. I move to approve the addition of the before
- and after school AI leads or AI leads. I second that. Is this 15 hours a week? It says, so I'm reading
- here. Is that 15 hours a week per position?
- 15 hours a week director. I wrote up to 15 hours for the director. We already had somebody apply for
- director, so I'm gonna bring you that placement at the next board meeting. She's actually only going
- to be able to work about 10 and a half hours. On top of what she normally works? On top of what she
- normally works because she's a part-time. So it's not gonna put her in an overtime situation? No. Okay.
- No. Is it gonna put her in a position we have to give benefits? She is gonna cost us benefits.
- And you have calculated that in? Yeah. That's another $20,000 a year. Yep. Okay. And it's still,
- as Dr. Sanders says, this is a wash? It is. Actually, it's a little bit of a savings. What'd you say?
- As your famous term, this is a wash, I don't know if I... If we're paying benefits, we weren't paying
- benefits before, though. Correct. Well...
- I don't think I should probably talk about that individual's needs for certain benefits or lack of needs
- for certain benefits, if that makes sense. Is it this person paid for most of their salary paid for
- by a grant? Yeah, most of their salary is paid out of the Monroe County Foundation grant, and then the
- additional 10 and a half hours would be paid out of the education fund in addition to the benefits.
- Well, who's paying the benefits, the grant or the
- No, we would be so in other words if this employee was taking family insurance, then yes, we would be
- paying for that So we're talking about one person or two people one person one person You're saying
- that this additional hours we push this one person into the benefits Those benefits are gonna be an
- additional problem guessing $20,000
- If that person would take benefits. Okay, but I see what I see what you're saying, right? Yeah, yeah.
- Just yeah, as well. Make sure you factor in all the different parts. Yes. Yeah, that's a tough one,
- but I think, you know, that's. That's hard because when people take benefits, it's up to them. And there's
- always that option.
- You know, even if somebody says I'm not going to take benefits at this time, my spouse, you know, has
- the health insurance. There's always that that piece of it's available to them. Yeah. Yeah. And that's
- always something that we have to consider and factor in. In this case, this person would not be accepting
- the health insurance benefits at this time unless something strange would happen. So there is not that
- additional factor
- coming in with this employee taking on these additional hours for the director's position. And this
- is a hard to fill position. It's a really hard to fill position. Because of the hours. Again, whether
- I think they take benefits or not is their decision and I think we just roll with what it is. Right,
- and we would never hire or
- release someone based on whether or not they take benefits or not. So I want to make sure that I stress
- that. But after talking with this person and her expressing her interest in the director's position,
- knowing that that would push her into full time. Of course, that was one of the things that I had asked
- her and we had looked at to figure into how much additional this would cost us. And so that conversation
- has already happened there. And I wouldn't
- have no problem if there was a change of mind and they wouldn't benefit. And she needed it for some
- reason, absolutely. She's a wonderful employee in our district and I really appreciated her being willing
- to take on the additional responsibility. The work that she does now is incredible. Like I said,
- she's just, she's a really fantastic employee and in this situation, the additional hours, additional
- pay is the most important piece to her, not the
- benefit side of it that's not necessarily what her family needs right now. So we're basically creating
- a new position correct with with what's like a one-off one position. Yeah we have the directors position.
- Lowering the number of hours.
- She was overseeing the last three months of school to get us through last school year. I got you. Yeah.
- So the previous director was about $20,000 at about 10 to 12 hours a week. This format will put us at
- about $7,500 for that director. Plus benefits. Plus the perf and all of those pieces in there. And then
- the two leads would be about a $7,500 increase for us as well.
- So we're looking at 20,000 is where we used to be. And so when you break that down, it'd be about 15,000
- plus that person's benefits with perf and life insurance and those kinds of things. And like you said,
- if she chooses to take health insurance down the road, then yeah, that gives her an option to be able
- to do that as well.
- All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next in our last action item is consideration
- to approve the revised ready 2.0 resolution. Okay. This one's an easy one. I'm actually asking for less
- money from all of you.
- In the previous resolution that Dana and Larry signed for the Ready 2.0 grant, this is a process. Not
- only are we working through ROI, but ROI is working through IEDC. So every step that we take then goes
- to the next level and then comes back down the scale again. And so Julie, well, Marin Harris, who has
- worked with us at ROI for several years,
- She went on maternity leave, and so in the midst of all of these things, her replacement had sent us
- the amount that we would need to put into the resolution. And then she ran that back up the ladder,
- and guess what? When it came back down, and Victor adjusted the amount that we were going to be spending
- on the renovation versus building,
- The good thing is, what I'm asking you to sign is the resolution saying that instead of $2,255,500 being
- set aside out of the bond for the life sciences training facility, I'm asking you to set aside $1,233,171.
- So about a million dollars less. The $1,233,171 is our portion.
- And the additional $500,000 then to complete the project is coming from Ready 2.0. I think that Dr.
- Sanders explained to you guys in the last board meeting that we were gifted about $150,000, $175,000
- in this project because with Ready 2.0 funds, it looks at that match across the entire umbrella of Ready
- 2.0 projects.
- And so even though we don't meet the match exactly, ROI and IEDC wanted us to use the entire $500,000.
- And so that's why you've seen a couple of these adjustments come through as we've been adjusting numbers.
- We are thrilled with it.
- It's $150,000 that was going to come off of our side, which is now coming out of the grant money. And
- then in addition to that, being able to reduce that amount down based on Victor's cost and his estimates,
- I feel really good about that. So that's good news. I'm coming to you and asking you to give us less
- money. I approve the revised rate 2.0 resolution. I second.
- No comment this time. I wish I could do that more. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, any
- board member comments? Mr. Tucker? No, I just want to start. Excited for school to start.
- I just want to thank Katz for coming out for our special meeting. I appreciate that. And we really appreciate
- you. And with that, this meeting is adjourned. And have a lovely afternoon.