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.