- All of us move in order. Thank you for standing. Start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance
- to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under
- God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. Please be seated. I'd like
- to welcome you to the
- first school board meeting of the 2026-2027 regular school year, the school year, wow. So I thank you
- all for being here for our meeting tonight for the Richland B. Boston Community School Corporation regular
- meeting. And please let the record reflect that all board members are present this evening.
- And do we have any visitors like to comment? Nicole O'Neill. We ask that you please come up to the podium.
- Please note that the microphones are for the cats recording and so they do not project your voice. So
- if you could project your voice. Well, my name is Nicole O'Neill.
- and I'm the mother of a child in the Journeys program at EPS. Journeys is a self-contained special education
- classroom serving students with some of the highest support needs in our district. Historically, families
- have viewed the program as appropriately staffed and stable. That is why what we encountered at our
- back-to-school night was so concerning. We were informed that approximately 14 to 15 students would
- be placed in Journeys with only one teacher of record.
- We also learned that much of the staff was not only new to my son, but to EPS. In other words, a high
- needs program was beginning the year with limited staff and little continuity. Our seven-year-old son
- is autistic, nonverbal, and has high support needs. He has no reliable way to communicate what happens
- to him during a school day. And as his mother, that is terrifying. I cannot ask him what happened, whether
- he is safe,
- or whether his needs were met. We were also concerned by the relocation of the Journey's classroom.
- The prior room had an in-class bathroom to support student needs, reflecting a significant district
- investment that was just made a year before, that was just put in. The new classroom did not include
- that feature, so there was no bathroom to the room that they were moved to.
- We were told the former classroom was being used as an adult space, which was kind of an odd decision,
- which raised further questions for families about how program decisions were being made. And at that
- point, we organized as parents, multiple families independently raised concerns. I believe it was eight
- children, parents of eight children were concerned. And we came together and submitted a joint letter
- to district administration.
- and the district did respond, a second teacher and additional classroom was ultimately provided and
- we appreciate the corrective action. However, those changes occurred only after families escalated concerns.
- Parents should not have to organize and advocate in order for a high needs program to be appropriately
- staffed and supported at the start of the school year. Our children require consistent specialized support
- and they deserve that from day one. While we recognize the district's response and the circumstances
- at the beginning of the year have really impacted our family's trust. The question now is what systems,
- oversight, and safeguards will be put in place to ensure this does not happen again and to restore that
- trust going forward? Thank you.
- Hi, I'm Samantha Parker, in part speaking in behalf on the SPED parent community within the RBP school
- systems. I have a few concerns regarding documentation, parent notification and physical safeguards
- for our children. Moreover, on topics including medical events, incidents and accountability. To begin,
- I would like to acknowledge the district's commitment to document applicable health related matters
- in harmony and email when appropriate.
- We as SPED parents have further requested that the safeguards and documentation systems are broader
- than health documentation alone. Our children, your students, require additional accommodations that
- children in gen ed classes may not need such as routine, consistency, and additional security or reporting
- of incidences and injuries. This for us may include but does not limit to aforementioned incidents and
- injuries, medical or safety events,
- required parent notifications, follow-up and corrective actions, and other defined safeguards, which
- may require more physical tangent means. One major concern we immediately noticed and are still actively
- addressing with the primary school are on staffing, coverage, and documenting relevance when noting
- significant events. What constitutes per legal guarantee an incident requiring documentation? Who determines
- whether parents are notified
- and within what timeframe? How are these conflicting accounts of an incident involved and what actions
- will be taken to prevent this feed of miscommunication moving forward? It is detrimental for us to have
- you, the board, understand that informal safeguards are difficult for parents, staff members, administrators,
- and the board to audit or verify. For example, my child, for whom I can directly advocate for,
- like several children in the journeys class elopes. This means they run out. She's also nonverbal and
- has other essential needs that she requires throughout the day. The previous year, 2025, 2026 journeys
- classroom, as mentioned before, had a bathroom installed as well as alarms that set off if a student
- runs from the class. The secondary classroom to my present knowledge does not have either safeguard
- in place and likely will not unless we speak further approval.
- Another question I myself have asked the assistant superintendent why we do not have fencing around
- the perimeter of the elementary grounds, much like we see in MCCSE or local school systems. The answers
- that were given to me are one, what would the defined perimeter be as it would two, affect the games
- played in recess or during outdoor games or additionally during outdoor gym or field days and three,
- that there are teachers who stand out by the edge of the playground
- Please be mindful that if a student, the school knowingly elopes and may not listen to verbal efforts
- to halt the child like stop may not be effective and cause further safety and liability strife. One
- thing parents requested for the school to include cameras within the classrooms to have such review
- in case safety event were to occur in the instance you are unaware some behaviors are just so big that
- the child may need additional assistance by an aid or teacher
- could result in accidental injury. Cameras could then provide a safeguard for teachers, aides, and students
- to support a case in which this may apply and aid supporting the school's liability and of which applies
- in this scenario. For every safeguard, the family's written proposal can the district identify whether
- it accepts it, rejects it, or has an alternative and identify what system creates an auditable record
- for the safeguards occurred. The same need for
- Objective information is one reason families propose cameras. Thank you Jeremiah O'Neill My name is
- Jeremiah O'Neill father of a student the EPS journeys room You've heard tonight
- how we got here, and you've heard some of the specific safeguards families have requested. I want to
- focus my time on one question. Do we want a system that reacts when something goes wrong or one that's
- designed to prevent them? I want to acknowledge that the district has responded to some of our concerns.
- Changes have been made, and we appreciate that. But those changes also raise an important question.
- Why did families have to identify these problems and organize before significant action occurred? These
- are children.
- with some sort of, they need the highest support needs in our district. Some cannot reliably come home
- and tell their parents what happened to school. That makes objective accountability more important,
- not less. We've seen serious allegations involving special education students in Indiana schools. I
- want to be very clear, I'm not suggesting that that's happening here, but it does happen. The point
- is that safeguards shouldn't be created after something terrible happens.
- any of us families want to see something happen to our kids. That's why families have proposed two forms
- of objective accountability. The cameras, if there's an injury, behavioral event, allegation, or conflicting
- account, an objective record can protect the student, the teacher, the aid, the administration, and
- the district. Digital communication and documentation. If an IEP safety plan, medical need, accommodation,
- or other required support says something is supposed to occur, there should be a simple, auditable way
- of document
- documenting that it occurred. This isn't about assuming teachers are doing something wrong. It's about
- creating a system where nobody, parents, teachers, administrators, or the board has to rely solely on
- memory, verbal assurances, or conflicting accounts. And that brings me to the board's role. We aren't
- asking five board members to operate a special education classroom. We're asking to provide oversight.
- Ask how this program reached the beginning of the school year and the condition that it did.
- ask yourself whether the safeguards that are currently in place are adequate, ask yourself if the district
- verifies that the required supports are actually being delivered, and ask whether the solutions families
- have proposed can make this district safer and more accountable before an incident forces us to have
- a different conversation. We've met with administrators, we've written letters, we've proposed solutions,
- and when the district has made improvements, we've acknowledged them. We're here tonight because we
- believe the next step
- is board oversight. A camera can tell us what happened. Documentation can tell us what was provided.
- And oversight ensures someone is asking the right questions and seeing if the system is working. Our
- children deserve a system that doesn't simply respond when something goes wrong. They deserve one that
- was designed to prevent it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, is this a copy of what you
- emailed last week? That's one of the letters. Yeah, we've read that.
- I read the one that was emailed with some signatures on it. Okay. Thank you very much. Next we have
- our consent agenda and it would be for the approval of minutes. It would be for the July 8th, 2026 special
- board meeting, the July 21st,
- 2026 regular board meeting and the July 30th special board meeting would include the financial report,
- treasurer's report for July of 2026. And Mr. Durnall, the claims please. Thank you, Mr. President. For
- gross wages on July the 3rd, 2026 is $650,443.91. For gross wages, mini pay on July 16th, 2026 is $778.88.
- For gross wages on July 17th, 2026 is $588,990.22. For gross wages on July 31st, 2026 is $588,774.98.
- For total in that area, $3,882,987.99. For vouchers for claims pre-pays from 7-1-2026 to 7-31-2026,
- $627,436.13 for claims, regular vouchers, August 18th, 2026 is $910,639.87 for a grand total in that
- area, $4,538,076.00 for a grand total of $6,367,063.99. Thank you, sir.
- Next, we have personnel. We have resignations, retirements, non-remunerals, leaves, and terminations,
- C1 through 23. And we have appointments and transfers, D1 through 45. There are also some student
- employment for educational purposes. We don't list those because of student confidentiality. And so
- that is the consent agenda. Do we have a motion? Moved and seconded. Any comments? I'd like to comment
- on Ms. Coffey's retirement in a year. That's going to be big shoes to fill. And I appreciate her letter
- to the board
- maybe some of her thoughts and recommendations that we can maybe take a look at. So kudos to her. I
- know she's got another year to finish, but she's been a big part of what we've been doing here.
- So thank you. And I believe Dr. Sanders would like. Yes, I want to piggyback on what Brad said about
- Vicki Coffey. She'll be retiring at the end of this school year and that will make 26 years.
- as our Director of Nutrition Services. And Vicki is going to become a consultant. She's already formed
- a company called the Coffee Series. And Mrs. Coffee is known across the country. And so she's going
- to be very busy traveling and going
- schools all over the country. She's already been to Alaska and several other places and she has just
- transformed our nutrition services. And when you think about somebody who cares about the students,
- Vicki would be right at the top of the list. And she, they're her number one priority and
- making sure that we're providing healthy meals, not only to our students, but to the community. And
- I just really appreciate Vicki, I know we all do. Although she's not here tonight, just really wanted
- to recognize her and her efforts and her hard work over the years. We'd want to piggyback on that as
- well and just, you know, during
- COVID and other hard times, you know, being able to support all the community, not just the school,
- but all the community was a blessing that we were able to do that. And her diligent efforts in that
- we greatly appreciate. Vicki was one of the first appointments that I made as an I, the board major
- I came on as in August of 2020, I'm sorry, August of 2000.
- But that department was a quarter million dollars in debt at that time. I mean, it's just unbelievable
- how far in debt we were. And now she does everything for us, bought us a bus, and it's just fantastic
- what she's done for us. So I'm sure her business will work out quite well. Yeah, a quarter million dollars
- when you got on, that was a lot of money back then.
- That's when I was here. That's when Brad was here. That's when we had a contract with Chicago's Pizza.
- Prior to her coming here, we had breadsticks about three days a week and pizza, that was it. She's taken
- it a long way since then. You see her ass, yeah. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.
- Now we'll move to our construction update and for that we have Martin Truesdale with us tonight to walk
- us through.
- I appreciate the chance to talk to you about it. We've got several projects in the works right now.
- We've got the roofing project at the middle school and the two elementary schools. The two elementary
- schools, the roof membrane is completely done and we're working on the edge metal. At the junior high
- school, we still have some roof membrane to do.
- That's probably, we probably got about 10 days worth of actual work days. Now that means we've got to
- have 10 days when it doesn't rain. And those have been few and far between lately. We should be done
- with the membrane in the next two to three weeks out there. Then what we have to do is the edge metal
- and that's what you see from the ground.
- The edge metal, we've probably got close to a month of edge metal left to do. The good thing about the
- edge metal is it's not noisy at all, so there's no issue with working over classrooms. We're making
- sure that the contractor has all the people vetted and through the Safe Vendor Program to be on the
- roof now that kids are back in school. That's particularly important. We're behind where we would hope to be,
- We're getting there we have had a little bit of issues out there one probably the primary one is the
- water damage in the gymnasium We've talked to two different companies about replacing flooring in there
- and Dr. Sanders, I think we're moving forward We're moving forward with that at this time and should
- start on that sometime the
- first or second week of September. We also have, with that, the boiler replacements. The boilers at
- both the junior high and, did I say middle school before? Anyway, junior high and the high school are
- installed. The high school's a little bit ahead of the junior high. We have to order some flues. Once
- the boilers are in, you have to measure to order the flues.
- Those have been ordered. That shouldn't be a long lead time. And at the junior high, we've got a little
- more electrical work, plumbing work to get those in. We're getting pretty close to that and we should
- be in good shape by the time we actually hit heating season. The other one we're working on right now
- is the turf. We got a slow start on the turf.
- but at this point they came in in the last week and a half, excuse me. They came in at the last week
- and a half and got everything to grade. The next step we have to do is get in and get all the sub-field
- drainage in. The contractor, the field turf who's the contractor has sub-contractors. The sub-contractor
- for drainage
- has been out, they've verified the grade and they're ready to start. Once they start, that'll happen
- real fast. Our main goal is to make sure everything's done by the end of this year and the turf's in
- so you can have them for next year. And I don't see any issues with having that done. It'll be ready
- for the spring 2027. 2027, yes.
- On the junior high gym floor, Martin, I saw it last week and is it about a third of the floors rippled
- because of the water leak? Or more than that maybe? Yeah. Okay, and the bleachers won't come out, is
- that right? It's essentially from the basketball court east. You can't bring the bleachers out now because
- of the ripples? You can't? You can't. Okay, it looked like it was just tearing it up even worse. Can
- we try it on too? Yeah.
- Yeah, that's right. Okay, and that's what that's kind of what we're looking at is the drop down as we've
- got to be done. The contractor would like to start either the first or second week of September and
- their goal is to be done by the last day of October to do what? To repair the floor to repair it. What?
- And this is this.
- big chunk that's mitigated by the contractor, right, the roofing contractor? Time is of the essence.
- So the first goal is to get the job started and then work on the percentage, if not the company paying
- for all of it. But we have to get started on it now. We can't wait to negotiate
- Who's gonna pay what or we could be in this situation for a year? But we do have our legal counsels
- aware of this and we are we are going to get compensated We need to make sure it is their fault. Correct.
- Well, there are conversations going on now they have to obviously work through their insurance company
- absolutely and But like I said
- Just having those conversations could take several months, if not a year. So we need to get going on
- it and there is money in the project. Worst case scenario that the company doesn't contribute as much
- as we want, we can cover the costs. Well, I'm gonna make sure we stand firm because it was at the fault
- that it leaked and created the damage. Absolutely.
- I understand we can cover the damage, but that's not part of the project, the damage that they created.
- So I hope that we stay, keep our foot on the pedal there. You can't replace a quarter of a gym floor.
- I understand, I understand. And the gym floor that you're gonna get is, it's a BioStar, it's the same
- floor that you've got. I understand, but we weren't ready to replace it. It was expedient by their mistake,
- that's my point. You have plenty of years left in it.
- Okay. We'll be diligent. Okay, I just want to make sure I have the cost as we possibly can. And the
- contractors, they have contacted their insurance people and that ball is rolling. Okay. And right now
- that's mostly what we've got going. The next report will be
- more extensive because we've got a lot that's gonna start happening in the next two months. I saw the
- fencing along the drive behind the baseball field. It looked like they were working on maybe getting
- us a walkway through there. Yeah, what they've discovered, we put the fencing all the way out to the
- road because we've got that detention pond that we've got to dig. And then when they staked out the
- pond where they actually had to dig, we were able to move the
- fence back, I want to say five feet, which allows pedestrian traffic. I was worried there. We talked
- some about it. Oh, we were talking about striping the road. Yeah. Yeah. Glad to see there's something
- happening there because that was a concern. We just got a drone video of the different projects. So
- I'll send those out to you tomorrow. Yeah, those are fun to look at.
- Before you get too far away, next would be consideration to award bids for the junior high and high
- school construction additions and renovations. Dr. Hicks? Yes. I would like to just begin by letting
- the public know and all of you know that when we get to the point of bidding a project, a lot of work
- has gone into getting all that information
- to the contractors so they could bid appropriately. And so over the last year, we have been meeting
- with teachers, principals, and gathering as much information as we can, working with the architect,
- working with skill men to be able to just fine tune the project to a point where we can get it
- ready for an accurate bid. And so I just appreciate all the people who are part of that process. Lancer
- Architect is a very important part of that. Obviously our relationship with Skillman. We just work as
- a partner all the way through that process and we were able to have successful bids. And I'd like to
- invite Martin
- Back up to go over that if you could I Think you may have in your board package the yes bid recommendation,
- right? We had fairly good Participation from bidders in this project We did only have two
- general trades bidders, and we had one mechanical bidder, but the mechanical bidder was definitely one
- of the two that we wanted, so we're happy with that, and they also were in the right ballpark as far
- as our estimates. We have a total of 22,818,000. Couple nuances, Brad, just because you had asked the question,
- Plumbing in HVAC is a big part of the number. And just as a reminder, in the HVAC controls, that's at
- the elementary schools, and that's all there is to that. So there's no general construction component
- to that. So that's a big number, almost a million dollars, and it's all for controls. There's also embedded
- in the plumbing and HVAC number
- which is big category 12 on that list. There's about a million dollars of controls of the existing high
- school and middle school. So controls is, it's around 10% of this whole project. So the 1.2, that was
- the alternate bid, the HFI did for the controls? That's where I got confused. The 1.2 million for the,
- That was the alternate bid that they did that day. Yeah. That's right. I confused. Okay. So so between
- the two you've got about five million. Okay. Other than that we got good participation. Our numbers
- came in at twenty two eight and our original projection was in the twenty four range. So we're in pretty
- good shape.
- And with that, I guess I'll just entertain any questions. And one of the things that I am impressed,
- I imagine all construction managers maybe do this, but. Probably not. But nobody does it better than
- Skillman. And by the way, I want to introduce, you all know Victor Landfair, but I really liked how
- they once the bids
- Were were presented and we were able to identify the lowest bidders how they had pre-award meetings
- and And really drilled down with the contractors about what the job entails The bid that was made and
- it just gets you gets every the whole project off on a solid footing and
- And so I just was thinking about that, wanted to share that tonight. Yeah, we try to make sure, the
- first thing is just making sure the contractor's comfortable with the number. And in this case, everybody
- was. And one I would point out is the painting number came in way below where we would have expected,
- and that's Riggs Painting, whose, I guess his kids go to these schools.
- So he was very motivated. Yeah. He was very motivated to work. Who's that? Right. The painter,
- which is. No, it's Ross Riggs. He's a local kid. Yeah. Yeah. Class of 2004. And I asked him about three
- times, are you sure you're good with this number? Right. He said, yeah, he's good with it. I want to
- compliment Martin and Skillman. That was the hottest room I'd ever been in that day. This place was
- packed with all the contractors.
- So I wasn't happy with the HVAC guy that day who was in charge of the HVAC. I hope that with this contract
- with HFI, we also are in a service contract with them too, Dr. Sanders, correct? We do. And I hope we're
- getting good service from them because it's a good local company and hopefully they can take good care
- of us. That was our reason for doing the service contract. Yes, just recently we had an issue at the
- junior high
- And I contacted one of the presidents of the HFI, and he came over that day and talked to me about my
- concerns. And the boys and girls club is under control now? Yes, it's doing better, yes. Under control?
- Time will tell. All right, all right. It's always good to have a contractor that if you have a problem,
- you just drive over to his house, because it's local. And they did the work.
- All right. So the one with the alternate would be including the alternate. The one bid with the alternate,
- you'd be including the alternate. Yeah, we're including the alternate. I guess one nuance to that one
- is we had a separate bid for the two elementary schools, which was automated. They were low on that.
- And they will be the subcontractor
- The high school so you'll have automated logic throughout the system, which is Which is a good thing?
- Okay So we've definitely had HVAC, you know heating cooling issues throughout The last Well forever
- And so are we finally going to be to the point where when we walk into our buildings they're gonna
- be just comfortable and we're not going to be freezing or burning up or are we finally going to have
- nice conditioned buildings like you would expect when you go into other buildings? Am I going to guarantee
- it? You'll have automatic, automated logic. You will have the same system throughout everything and
- it'll be a new system. So it'll control all your existing
- mechanical units. It will still be the existing mechanical units, but you'll have new control. We put
- lots and lots of money in over the last number of bonds in HVAC, and I just don't felt that we've got
- anything accomplished or hadn't felt like it. I didn't stand up to make any guarantees, but I did want
- to address a couple things, two things in terms of the scope of the project.
- I think what happens a lot of times on HVC projects, it gets done incrementally, right? And so I think
- you have had over the years incremental improvements. And the challenge with that is that, you know,
- you're mixing old components with new components and you're being run by, these are all digital systems,
- right? So just like all our digital devices, you know, there's constant updates.
- This scope of this work is a comprehensive replacement of the most important part, if you will, your
- network that runs and operates all of your HVAC pieces of equipment throughout your building. So you
- may have variable ages and conditions of equipment, but you have a uniform platform in which all the
- equipment is controlled. It is the brains, and it is your access to that equipment. So that is the advantage
- of this project. We're going to uniformly
- It doesn't take away the fact that pieces of equipment break and they don't operate properly and all
- that. But because we are putting this uniform platform, we have to touch every piece of equipment and
- we have to go through kind of a commissioning verification. So there's a real advantage to sort of reset
- everything, if you will, to a certain level. So that's another advantage. The third advantage is the
- way in which we bid the project.
- Wanted to give you because you're doing comprehensive the opportunity to explore new manufacturers You're
- not trying to combine a new guy with the old guy. We're now getting one comprehensive uniform Manufacturer
- is a different one than you've had recently which you haven't had the best of luck So there were two
- new manufacturers specified We've been it to the point where we could get competition but also have
- the opportunity have uniformity it worked out really well and
- that they were low both on the alternate and low on the elementary primary school. So you're going to
- have a uniformity between all the systems, which I think is an advantage, and we think we've got the
- best price for that. Is this something that would be so proprietary that a year from now we're going
- to have to lock into high price maintenance agreements to be able to maintain the systems?
- From our experience, there's sort of two tiers of control systems. There are the proprietary systems,
- which are often connected to certain manufacturers of equipment. Then there are, if you will, I don't
- want to call it independent, but a little bit more, less proprietary systems, and that's what the engineers
- specified here.
- There was automatic logic and what was the other one? Brand X. Brand X and brand Y. Those systems are
- disconnected from the equipment manufacturers which makes them a little more autonomous and a little
- more flexible and I think the engineer recommended it because now you're not connected, if you will, where
- You bought Apple, so you have to have Apple this and Apple that and Apple this. You bought something
- that you can plug in independent manufacturers into a uniform network. If that makes any sense at all.
- Yes, yes. That's what I was getting at. Because we've had that in the problem in the past where we only
- had one choice. Yes. On where we're at. It's a common problem. It is a common problem. You are not being
- picked on.
- Universal industry challenge that we have. Bart wanted me to mention the other piece of this is that
- we have to do what's called testing and balancing. So as we replace your nervous system, if you will,
- and verify things are working, we'll also have to go back and make sure that that piece of equipment
- has the right water flowing through it and the right air flowing through it.
- And so, again, trying to reset everything, if you will, to the factory preset. Because as you can imagine,
- over the years, with good intent or whatever, things get tweaked and changed to overcome problems. And
- then all of a sudden, that tweak or change lives there forever. This is kind of a way to reset everything,
- if you will, to the default factory setting. And we find that that improves problems that maybe have
- been lingering there for years.
- that we pulled that out of the contractor's contract. Just like we pull out the testing of the soil
- so we can control who hires when they come and how that inspection occurs, we're also going to do that
- with the test and balance. We're going to procure that inspector, if you will, independently. He'll
- be working for the district under our supervision so that we don't have the fox watching the hen house.
- And that's another part of our strategy to just try to make sure you get what you pay for and we make
- sure everybody's comfortable. It's hard to guarantee that we will, but I guess what I'm saying is we're
- trying to apply every tool in our toolbox to get to your goal. And with that testing balance and the
- existing pieces of equipment, we'll be operating as best as they can. I guess my final comment is,
- They typically take time to work through the bugs. And so I will proactively ask for your staff's patience
- as we work through some of these working out the bugs over the next year. I definitely appreciate that.
- I just glad to try to advance altogether now.
- and get a collective resolution because it's just been hard, you know, being up here and approving spending
- so much money and not feeling like you really accomplished much. I mean, you have because you've had
- to fix those things that were broke or that were going to break. But those still doesn't actually resolve
- problems. So, but this feels like a problem solver.
- And that feels good, so I appreciate that. I often use the analogy that sometimes we're just fixing
- the symptoms, not fixing the disease. And I feel like we're attacking the disease here, if you will.
- Well, unfortunately, we weren't even fixing the symptoms. Right. We were just fixing the pieces. I appreciate
- your questions. It's not the first time I've been asked. Yeah, OK. As far as you said, working out the
- bugs, at the Boys and Girls Club,
- Dr. Sanders, you might remember this. Was it a warranty issue with the new equipment? Has that been
- resolved at the Boys and Girls Club? Because nobody was taking control over who was doing what. Has
- it been resolved? Right. We've made a lot of progress over the last week. And it's just been an ongoing
- battle out at the Boys and Girls Club. But we've made a lot of progress. It's complicated.
- Victor and Martin have said it's not just one piece. The HVAC, there's a lot of complicated pieces.
- So some of it was new, kind of what Victor was saying about new equipment, trying to talk with old equipment
- and so. Right. I thought the problem at the Boys and Girls Club is they didn't do their job to the specs
- that you guys set forth. Is that correct?
- We weren't involved in that. Skillman wasn't involved with. The specs, I thought whoever did the job
- didn't do it to the specs that were laid forth and there was gonna be some culpability on their part.
- Yeah, that was with another company that before Matt left, he was working on that project. Has it been
- resolved? Because I thought it was resolved last year, but then I hear last week it's doing it again.
- Yes, but it's not the same problem. Okay, all right.
- And that's where we got Gabe involved or Gager. Gabe is very, with creative engineering has been a big
- help to us and working with the different contractors and they work together. The engineering group,
- the contractor, our folks work to address the different issues. And I've been out there several times
- myself trying to
- Of course, I don't know the dates back, but I try to go out there and try to learn what's going on.
- And I think we've got some momentum with that now. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, sorry about
- that. Approval award bids for
- Edgewood Junior High and Edgewood High School construction additions and renovations. Moved and seconded.
- I would like so that, because we have a list up here of 14 different bids, categories, descriptions,
- contractors. I know it's a long list, but we're talking about $22 million. And I would like if somebody
- would be willing to read those.
- into the record so the people, you know, on CATS can hear who it is that we're doing business with and
- for how much. I think that is important to take that time. So I'm not sure who. So there are 14 bid
- categories. The big category number one, general trades. The contractor is J.C. Rippberger for 3,188,
- The bid category two, which is earthwork paving site utilities is JR bowling for $1,616,000. For category
- three masonry is artisan masonry for $3,278,709.
- For big category number four, which is structural steel and miscellaneous metals as Geiger and Peters
- for $1,615,000. Category five, roofing is Steve's Roofing and Sheet Metal for $3,268,000. For category
- six, which is aluminum windows and storefronts is City Glass of Bloomington Incorporated.
- for $258,000. Category seven, metal studs, drywall and ceilings. Gibson Lewis of Indianapolis for $884,000.
- Big category number eight, flooring is Jack Laurie Floors LLC for $687,950. Category nine, painting
- and wall coverings is Riggs Painting.
- LLC for $86,250. 10 is Casework, Lee Company Incorporated for $253,200. 11 is Instrument Storage, and
- the winning bidder was Lee Company Incorporated for $153,230. Category 12, Plumbing and HVAC, Harold Fish,
- which also included alternative number one is $4,903,473. Category 13 HVAC controls is automated logic
- for $856,000 and category 14 is electrical and technology and Cassidy Electric was the winning
- contractor for $1,771,000 for a total of $22,818,812. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. Appreciate that. Mr. Kerr,
- I think number 13, correct me if I'm wrong, that automatic logic is for the elementary schools, correct?
- Number 13 is, yes, it's elementary schools. That's for the elementary schools, not the junior high or
- high school, correct?
- Okay, just wanna make sure we make note of that on item 13. Right, right, okay. Okay, any other comments
- or questions? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all
- so much. I mean, that's a lot of work went into that and we really appreciate it.
- I really appreciate how this project, these projects that we've been doing lately with you guys have
- been going. They've been going so well. We've been getting very good work done. We've been getting good
- prices in. And you guys have just done a fabulous job for us.
- Don't run into that many people that it would matter to, but for those I do, I tell them, so. Thank
- you so much. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the relationship. Okay, now we're going to look for permission
- to advertise the 2027 budget. Okay. Okay, and we have Debbie with us tonight.
- We currently plan to advertise around August 26th for the 27 budget. In preparing for the education
- budget, we expected to receive approximately $350,000 more in revenue. This is kind of based off of
- our February count if we continue to stay around where we were. We also increased
- are numbers on the education fund budget from 26 to 27, about 450,000. Those projections that we plugged
- in for the budget are also based off the state and what they had projected, what the student council
- would be. So we kind of pulled those numbers and wanted to make sure all of that matched up pretty accurately
- with them.
- As I mentioned before, the operations levy is changing from 4% to 6%, and that's supposed to help kind
- of offset that property tax cap that's going to take place. So those are some areas.
- that are included and I just gave you guys kind of a before what we planned in 2026 and what we're planning
- for 2027 and it's also based on what our debt payments and even our expected debt payments could be.
- We put a little bit in there just in case we do take on some extra debt next year so we just kind of
- wanted to make sure that was included but these numbers can be adjusted
- In November if needed if we if the student count comes down or if anything changes we can adjust those
- numbers So this is just our permission. So and then I gave you guys a copy of the form three This is
- the notice that we are going to advertise basically We advertise it on Gateway
- And it tells the public when our public hearing dates are, which is the public hearing date is Tuesday,
- September 15th today, or next month, I'm sorry, 2026. And then the adoption meeting date is Tuesday,
- October 20th, 2026. And it kind of gives you again, the projections of what those totals are. So you
- have a copy of that. And again, that'll be available for the public.
- I gave you copies of our capital projects plan and our bus replacement plan. We did purchase two buses.
- We had encumbered the funds last year, but the actual payments took place in January of this year for
- the two buses that we purchased. So those were on there. At this time, I do not believe we're planning
- to purchase any buses next year, but
- If there are any we're not projecting to take those out of the operations fund if we do So those are
- just some things that we put in there and we've got those set aside just just in case But by statute
- with the state it requires us to update the bus replacement plan every year. So that's why we're providing
- it to you and then the capital project plan we actually
- We've changed our assets where anything over $10,000 is capital asset. And so basically, we've reduced
- this plan by 30% to 40% from last year. So we're really trying to scale back and cut back as much as
- we can and get really lean on those funds and just find creative ways to purchase things outside of
- operations at this time. And I think that's it.
- Do you guys have any questions? So the buses on this is just a requirement for 2027. Does that mean
- we're doing it? Yeah. OK. Yeah. And if they approve it, we can? Yeah. OK. I move to approve permission
- to advertise the 2027 budget. I'll sign it. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you.
- Next is consideration to approve the bus routes. Yes, I'm not sure what we would do if you guys turn
- this down or vote no, but this is an annual request for the board to approve the bus routes.
- First of all, I want to keep Audrey Myers and your thoughts and prayers.
- as her mother passed away this week. But Audrey works hard all summer to prepare the bus routes and
- she utilizes her knowledge of the roads. Nobody knows our area better than Audrey. She utilizes information
- from Harmony and our student transportation computer software program to develop the routes and then
- of course,
- Just as soon as she gets it all set, here come new students or students withdrawing and it's just a
- last minute deal, but she works really hard. So the routes that you saw in the board packet are the
- current routes that we are implementing across the corporation.
- Any discussion? Dr. Shanners, I had a question on route number 3HJPM. That's a joke. I'm joking. This
- is a great, that's a ton of work. I was just going to say. I hope this is filling in. I mean, this is
- a lot of stuff. This is a. Yeah, I was just going to say, I'll get back to you. Yeah, that's 80% of
- the board packet, these routes. It was amazing how many roads we cover every day and how safely they're
- getting these kids home and into school. So kudos to the board.
- to the bus and transportation crew. We have a great team in the transportation department. I say this
- all the time, but I wish I could capture the radio dialogue between bus drivers, especially if there's
- bad weather or if a bus breaks down and you have to help another driver. It's just a perfect example
- of collaboration and helping your teammates out.
- It's, of course, another good opportunity to remind everybody to be safe out there. At the bus stops
- and walking to school and those being dropped off. Also, our school resource officers are great monitoring
- that as well. We appreciate the Ellsville Police Department on 46, especially in other locations where
- It's quite dangerous. They look out for us, so we appreciate them. Anything further? All those in favor
- say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now it's consideration to approve the SCCAP Head Start Agreement,
- Dr. Sanders.
- This is an annual renewal of the agreement that we have with local Head Start program where we, our
- nutrition services department provides the meals for Head Start and in turn this helps us to be able
- to qualify for programs that essentially provide a free breakfast and lunch for our students.
- And so I just asked the board to approve this agreement with Head Start. I'll move approval of the SCCAP
- Head Start agreement. I second. Moved and second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
- Motion carries. Next is consideration to approve the adjunct permit for Kenneth Greil.
- Yeah, I'm sure you've heard about the great things that Ken does at the junior high with our media program.
- Ken is currently working on his workplace specialist license that will enable him to eventually have
- a full teacher contract. But at this point, in order to employ Ken as a teacher, we need to approve
- this adjunct teacher
- permit so that he can continue to do the awesome work that he does at the junior high. In fact, I'll
- just throw this out there too. You know, I do a podcast once a month. Well, the company, the gentleman
- who has done this podcast with us for years recently retired. And so I'm meeting with Mr. Gryle on Friday
- to work it out so his students can take over
- doing that, working with me on that podcast. And Mr. Grial actually, I was going that direction anyways,
- but he beat me to the punch and emailed me and wanted to know if they could do it, so. I move approval
- of the adjunct permit for Ken Grial. I'll second. Moved, seconded. Any discussion? Oh, just, not just
- hearing what
- Mr. Grail does, but also I've seen him in action and it is impressive. And that contracts for 48,500
- plus benefits. All those in favor say aye. Aye. The motion carries. Next is the consideration to approve
- a residential facility contract. And we'd like to have Noah with us tonight.
- Yeah, so this is a reoccurring contract that we've gone through approval for. In previous years, it's
- for a student of ours in our district with special needs who lives at a residential facility at the
- Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. The contract for this is for the 26, 27th school year.
- services are kind of aligned with what's in the IEP for this student. So that the contract basically
- aligns with the agreement for it as well as fees are paid for tuition as well as for her intensive needs,
- she requires one-on-one assistance for that. So the rates from what they have provided for this year
- as compared to last year, the tuition rate they do
- based off a daily rate of $1,080.15 for 365 days, which gives an annual price for the fiscal year for
- 27 of $394,254.04. The student also receives the one-on-one service for that price, which is at a rate
- of $47.36 an hour.
- For annual price of four hundred fourteen thousand eight hundred seventy three and sixty cents bring
- the total to eight hundred nine thousand one hundred twenty seven and sixty four cents for that Just
- a reminder for those prices we go through secret reimbursement from that. So that's a Government funds
- grants that comes to us we apply Essentially, it's it's a nice benefit from the state where they recognize
- They have a certain amount of money that they allocate to the highest needs, highest costs, students
- to be able to provide them with their free, appropriate public education. So that's one where once the
- contract that we're going forward with, we always reapply for that seat contract every year. That one
- comes up after the annual case review. So that one's at the end of this month. We reapply, goes to the
- IDOE, they then go through the process
- approval with that and then we begin reimbursement. So the total for how seek works is we just have
- to pay a minimum of the 30 around $31,000 and then the rest of it gets paid off from the secret. I move
- approval of the residential facility contract. Any discussion. Last year we had two students I believe in right.
- Yes, so we only have one now. Our second one, she graduated from school. So yeah, she's graduated and
- she's off living in the community. Yeah. That's the outcome we hope for. Yes, very much a big celebration.
- So Mr. Dix, I have a quick question. And thanks for your time on this yesterday.
- It's about $810,000 for this one student, and that's our obligation as a school corporation, because
- we live in our district. We're going to do the best we can for every kid. Do we cash flow this for so
- many months until we get our reimbursement, or does it happen immediately, the whole amount, or is it
- spread out over seven or eight months? I'm just curious about the financial side of it.
- So we get billed monthly on a monthly rate for that one. So we get those prices that come in. The approval
- process from when we apply that process can take up to a few months for how that goes. And so I would
- say last year it probably took three, four months to be able to do that. So we do pay up upfront there
- and then we get reimbursed back for those services.
- And this should be for any public school, even universal voucher schools should have to do this. But
- we have the cashflow to do it, so we're doing it, correct? Yes. Okay, and then that reimbursement of
- 31,000, our per student amounts about $7,200, Dr. Sanders, does that sound about right? So we're absorbing
- the 23 as a school corporation? Yes. Okay, and then what else does this placement provide for parents?
- Do they just don't see their kid for a whole year?
- Do they get a chance to go see the kids or? No, we do. So we work with the families to support them
- to be able to travel out to the center, meet their child and go out. So we support them with travel,
- lodging, food mileage for those to be able to go out and see their kiddo out in whichever facility.
- Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
- Anything further? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And next is a contract with
- pro care therapy for school psychologists. Yes, so for this one, requesting consideration for a contract
- with pro care therapy. We had a school psychologist that left our school district last spring. We've
- had the position open since that time. We haven't been able to fill that position.
- knowing for our school district, we have two school psychologists. And so we have it worked into where
- they are balancing between the job duty of what the other school psychologist who left was.
- School psychologists, it's kind of one of those reasons we also have the SEEDS grant that we've been
- working through. We have those school psychs in training because it is a very, it's honestly a rare
- profession to be able to fill right now.
- And so we we've been searching for that but knowing too that our our schools need to be able to get
- that additional help where it's needed in the interim of being able to search. So with this contract
- we're looking at a part time school psychologist. Her name's Patricia Wade for their company.
- to work 19 and a half hours per week. The bill rate for the outside agency is $100 per hour, which I
- know is a lot. So we kind of look at from the budget that we have for the school psychologist position
- that would have been hired from there. We basically aligned the hours per week to then kind of match
- what that pay would be for someone if they were hired directly through us. But the school psychologists,
- they're fully licensed through the state.
- They'd be helping with educational evaluations, participating in case conferences, staffings to talk
- through any additional appropriate supports for students or needs. And the nice thing, kind of working
- through for this contract, the agreement in the contract allows for some flexibility to where, say if,
- as we continue to search for a school psychologist to be directly hired through us,
- The essential piece for the contract with them is it can be terminated at any time without really necessarily
- reason. We just give them 30 days notice. So if we have somebody that we hired, we can let know, hey,
- we have someone internally we're hiring, we're going to release from the contract, and then after 30 days,
- for those services, then we can transition out. So it still allows that flexibility for us as we look
- for the vacant school psych position, it allows us to get that temporary support where needed. The contract
- from Pro Care Therapy, that's one that I sent to Jessica Heiser from Imprint Legal Group. She reviewed
- it and she didn't have any concerns from what she had seen. I'm gonna approve the contract Pro Care Therapy.
- For the contract, we're not, the $100 out is a pretty high number, but we're not paying their health
- insurance either, correct? No, just the rate. And is this for, how many, is this, if we don't hire somebody,
- is it for the whole 52 weeks of the year, is it just for 36 weeks of the school year? It's just the
- services for the 36 weeks minus, by the time we're able to get her started from beginning of the school
- year, it'd be 32 weeks of service.
- and then from there it can end at the end of the school year and then we can decide do we want to renew
- or do we want to end from there. So we're paying about 70,000 for a halftime person, 20 hours a week,
- 19 hours. Around 70 miles the few weeks, so around mid 60s. Which had equates to what a full-time
- psychologist was before. If we doubled it, okay. Okay, and then these psychologists, the seeds grant,
- they're not allowed
- They have certain stipulations, they're all that, they're just in training right now, correct? They're
- in training, we're working through with IU, we're starting to have them be able to, as they, because
- they're in the early stages for school, and that typically takes up to like three years for them to
- be able to get their licensure for it, but they'll be able to, we're sorting through some of
- those obligations for them, because they'll be able to start supporting as they're doing like on-job
- training, they can start doing observations to support our school psych, so,
- We've had the balls rolling with Heather Ormiston over at IU along with our school psychs. Brittany
- Straw and I were kind of coordinating how we can support there too. So what are those four students
- in training doing right now until school starts? Are they helping in buildings in different ways? Yeah,
- so they're mainly, and Brittany you might be able to speak on it more, but essentially yeah, they're not doing
- School of Psychology, per se, have evaluation side things. They're supporting in the classrooms. Are
- there support? Yeah, they're doing a lot of SEL support right now. That's kind of the thing with School
- of Psychs in Indiana and other states, just because of caseload numbers and stuff. A School of Psychologist
- can do evaluations, but they can also do much more than that. They can do intervention groups. And so
- as they're kind of going through the SEEDS grant,
- They're mainly focused on the intervention side of things too. And then as their schooling is going
- through, then they'll be able to start doing a lot more observations, get some experience with evaluations,
- those pieces. Okay, okay. And then on a kind of a sidebar, did we have an unanticipated increase in
- kids in the journeys classroom this year? Yes. Over last year, I thought we had six or seven last year,
- but we had a big increase. Yeah, last year, are you referring
- primary school or just- Right, the primary. What prompted it? Some other programs shut down locally
- or? The journeys at the primary school, we had projected from what we had seen to who was transitioning
- to our intermediate school. We were projecting around seven or eight students for there with enrollments.
- We tried to anticipate who comes in. So we had a number of kiddos from kindergarten that were fresh
- to the school.
- They're coming in. We also have students that come from ABA clinics. So the applied behavioral analysis
- therapy for them. So the piece where they come in from ABA clinics, typically for students, if they
- haven't been in the school system before that, they don't have educational evaluations because ABAs,
- they're not focused on educational services. They're focused on therapeutic services.
- And so when we do have students that come in, and a lot of the time when we're kind of determining what's
- the appropriate placement for them, because they don't have an IEP, they don't have an evaluation from
- an educational side, we basically work to see what's gonna be the most appropriate placement. You could
- have a kiddo from an ABA clinic who, you know, with autism, who might have some limited functionality,
- but if we can have them in their least restrictive environment in the gen ed setting, we do that.
- But then we also look at, such as this year, if we have an influx of kiddos coming in who have higher,
- more significant needs, then we try to make sure they have the most appropriate setting, even if they
- don't have their evaluation on the educational side of things to start, and then we kind of backfill
- from there for them. So, yeah. Is there a clinic that actually shut down? Is that what happened? There's
- one clinic that closed down, and then we also have
- which we didn't know that was coming up, was that anticipated? Not that I was aware of, no. I know one
- conversation in my special education director committees we talked through is the ABA with insurance.
- So I know that's kind of been a tougher position for families. The school system, we don't dictate if
- a student does or
- doesn't go to ABA that's a parent's choice. So if we have a parent who goes to ABA we work with them
- they might come part time to school they might do full time ABA. So most of the time if we have a sometimes
- with insurance if ABA can't if they can no longer be supported at ABA then they transition into the
- school setting. We try to kind of
- recognize it's a transition, so we might start slow, but we also know if it's one where we need to do
- a full time movement into the school setting, we'll do that too and make it work. So yeah, so once we
- have that information coming in, along with enrollment numbers, that's where we as a group, we start
- to look through and see where our adjustments need made. Do we need instructional IAs? Do we need a
- new teacher, a new classroom? So that's kind of where for this year,
- It's kind of a storm of kind of different factors coming in to where then we are trying to, as a group,
- we started looking at that when enrollment came through and then seeing how we can fit the needs of
- those students, along with coordination with families as they were talking with us. All right, thank
- you guys for working with those families. Nothing further? All those in favor say aye. Aye.
- Motion carried. Our last action item is to approve an MOA with Melissa double consulting. Yes, so this
- kind of goes along with our journeys classrooms at the primary school. So kind of with the changing
- needs for them, we have our two journeys classrooms now. With there, we do have two new journeys teachers,
- along with new instructional aids for their
- So when we were kind of working through on the administration side things and then also working with
- the families We felt like it would make sense to Contract with Melissa Doobie to be able to provide
- Really evidence-based practices to support those students and kind of do on-the-job training for teachers
- and for our instructional aids specifically to so
- For this one with Melissa Dooby, she has 40 years of experience working in schools and at the Indiana
- Resource Center for Autism.
- Once she had retired, she created Melissa Duby Consulting LLC. And from there, she really focuses on
- that piece of supporting school districts and implementing those practices. So she came highly regarded
- from our primary school principals from Dr. Fishman and Dr. Robinson. So we've been coordinating with
- her to be able to set up. It would be more like periodic.
- consultative services to where we'd be looking at having her come in for about four days, just observe
- the classroom, see if there's any pieces that any report she can pull from there. She'll give us some
- suggestions, kind of work with the staff on how this can look, and then she'd be coming back after X
- amount of weeks, give it some time for those to be implemented to where then she could kind of give
- some feedback on how she's kind of seeing it being implemented in the room.
- I did note in there, too, for her. She has in her MOA, it's a day rate that is paid for her. So it's
- a flat day rate of $1,200 for it. But we also know that that's a need in the classrooms over there to
- be able to support. I did note in there for the MOA that she had, that one was pending. Jessica Heiser
- from Imprint, she had reviewed the contract.
- She had sent some revisions, mainly just updated legal language that is needed in all contracts. So
- she had sent that over to Melissa Dubes for there, and then Melissa, I had in there as pending, I heard
- back from Melissa actually a little bit before this board meeting saying she would go forward with the
- revisions. So I'm working with Jessica, we're getting the revisions sent to her to then be able to put
- in place for her.
- approval of the MOA with Melissa Duby consulting. I'll second. It's been moved and second. Any discussion?
- This is with the revised terms that was agreed upon before the meeting. Correct. Okay. All those in
- favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. I just by the way talked about how
- we were going to pay for Melissa Duby's
- We're going to take about half of it out of Medicaid and the other half out of Title II so that the
- education fund doesn't get hit with that. And as Noah said, this is a must-do to get those new people
- trained that are in our two journeys classrooms, making sure that they understand the day in and day
- out, how they respond to students' individual needs, things like that. So you wouldn't see this come
- across education. We're going to fund that a different way to make sure we can make that happen.
- Thank you. Thank you. And David Tate for our business manager's report. I've given you guys the current
- totals for the education fund, the debt service, and the operations fund. For July, the amounts for
- expenses were a little higher. We had a three-pay month, so that does show a little bit more of an increase
- because of that reason. We are still on target with our projections at this moment.
- And basically, the only other thing was we have, I have a breakdown of our debt payments that we made
- in July. So you can see where those were all broken down and paid. And, you know, every time we make
- these debt payments, it does put a deficit in that account, but it always gets positive by December.
- So you can kind of see that flow.
- listed at the bottom just to give you guys a reference to that. Do you guys have any questions? Thank
- you so much. Thank you. And now on to our assistant superintendent's report. So we've started a year off
- really strong across all the buildings. EPS, EIS, EJHS, they've already started their beginning of the
- year reading screeners. We know that that's one of the biggest indicators that we need right at the
- beginning of the year because we need to get those interventions up and running for reading yesterday.
- So we have teams out there working on this every single day. You'll see this year that we're expanding
- the reading screeners up in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
- This is really important because those sixth, seventh and eighth graders did not experience science
- of reading and the changes that we've made K through five back when they were in primary and intermediate
- school. So we definitely have gaps in our reading foundation there that still need work before they
- head into high school. So we're gonna be continuing those reading screeners for sixth, seventh and eighth
- graders, as well as providing interventions to them at that junior high level. We are still on track.
- And I, with sitting down here really close to Brad, I don't make any promises. And in fact, I'll scoot
- down a little bit. But we are still on track for at least a $500,000 budget cut to the education fund
- for fiscal year 2026. I'll explain this to you just a little bit where we're at. What you see in the
- left column is the estimates that we made, the goals that we made.
- $400,000 there in potential savings with retirements and natural attrition, $100,000 in cutting curriculum
- costs, $40,000 in backfilling a retired teacher in the Title I grant, not backfilling an assistant in
- the Title I grant, and then pulling one that was in education fund back over to the Title I grant.
- Another $40,000, as Noah was saying, we're down to one kiddo who is out of state in a facility. So we
- will not have the other students deductible this year. And the board voted to remove Memorial Day for
- nine-month employees as a paid holiday. So our goal here was 587,000. I'm really thinking very...
- On the low side when I say 500,000 is what we're on track for because if you look over to the right
- hand side it'll give you an update on where we actually are with these numbers right now. We're currently
- at 384,000 in savings with five more employees to choose their benefit packages. So it obviously makes
- a difference for us whether or not they choose an individual plan, a family plan. Of course that's their options.
- As they're choosing those, those numbers will get filled in and I'll have more exact numbers on exactly
- how much that employee will cost us overall. The current status as of today is $449,000 that we have
- spent in curriculum for fiscal year 2026. Our total 2025 spend was $655,000.
- When I say that we're sitting at, my goal was 587,000 and I look at 100,000 was our goal in curriculum
- and we're about a $200,000 difference there. Gracie and I have been writing POs left and right. Our
- goal was to have everything done by August 1 because we did not want Paul and Debbie to see any cash
- flows coming through on curriculum for August.
- We did have some things that needed to be purchased in early August, so we do have some of those things
- that are gonna keep rolling on through, but I think we are down to the last few POs. We will always
- have things that will come through as the school year goes on, but we're not going to be surprised by
- a $10,000 purchase with something. So it should be minor pieces that will come along where curriculum
- requests are considered.
- So I'm thinking conservatively that we are on track to hit that 500,000 budget. But when I look at this
- carefully, I think we're going to be OK. And I'm excited. Paul and I were just saying today, we're excited
- to get these cash flows in for August and September so that we really can have a good measure of where
- we are and make sure that we're coming out on the other side of this OK. Down below.
- We have the IDOE announcement that came out. Schools have received their 2026 I Learn summative assessment
- scores. However, this data is still considered preliminary, and it should not be shared publicly yet.
- It's not even final yet. We still have a report that's due to this data. It's called the Accountability
- Report, where we have to go through every single one of our kiddos that we currently have an I Learn
- score for. And if that kiddo did not attend school with us for 162 days,
- Maybe it was a transfer student. Maybe it was a student that enrolled later in the year, left earlier
- in the year, whatever that might be. If that student was not with us for 162 days, we can dispute that
- student on the report. So Jenny will be going through that with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that
- we don't have any kiddos on there who should not be reported.
- And then in September, we will get those final scores. The reason that it's pushed back is because this
- was a year that Indiana had to create new cut scores. And that's just a process that the state has to
- go through. And so that pushes back the finalization of the summative assessment scores. So those will
- get finalized in September. We don't have a date on that yet. I'm hopeful that I can bring a full update
- to you in September of where we are.
- Grades three through eight in those areas Right now I don't even have state scores to compare with so
- I wanted to give you some highs and some other areas But until I have those state scores, I don't want
- to really say You know that's that we've You know a sword in this area or that we have improvements
- to make in this area because a lot of times when we see our school drop we see the state drop across
- that area as well, so let's
- We're going to stay positive with it and we'll see where we are after the state averages come out and
- we give an update to everybody then. The last one I know Brad will be excited about we're writing another
- grant and I say that positively because this one is one that we are looking at to potentially replace.
- or compensate for our SMART grant. So SMART grant is going to be rolling off the books this year, and
- we have a lot of amazing employees that are coming out of that grant that are doing incredible things
- for our kids. This grant is called the Opportunity to Learn Project Grant. I gave you a copy of the
- letter that we received. This is actually Lilly money, about $400 million of Lilly money that they have
- They have poured into a new 501C3 called Indiana Lifelong Learning Projects, and these projects are
- called Opportunity to Learn Projects. We are eligible to apply because we're outside of Monroe County,
- and if you look at the backside of that, they've given us the numbers that we are eligible to apply for.
- With 2687 reported K through 12 people enrollment that puts us in the range for a seventy five thousand
- dollar planning grant. We will be submitting that planning grant application next week and then assuming
- that we receive that we'll start the work then of figuring out what does
- Our competitive grant requests entail and that's up to about one point seven five million. Brittany
- strong I sat down today we talked through a lot of pieces with this and we're trying to restrain ourselves
- on thinking.
- Too much about the competitive side of it because that really needs to be led by a group of people different
- stakeholders across the organization and we don't want to influence that too much there. Obviously our
- biggest priority is going to be maintaining our smart.
- mental health providers, student services providers that we already pay for out of that smart grant.
- So that'll be our first priority. And then I'm hopeful with some other things that we can do with that.
- The whole point of this grant is prepping students
- to be able to learn in the classroom. What do we do to make sure that our kids are ready to learn? So
- it is all of those things. It's how do we get them to school? How do we keep them engaged? What do we
- do to get them into ECAs so that they're not out causing problems for Chief Journal in the evenings,
- but they're out playing an instrument, they're in a sport. How do we,
- How do we take care of mental health needs? How do we take care of family needs? All of those things
- are what we're going to be talking about with this grant. So it's an exciting one. We are going to partner
- with Esolve Solutions. Esolve is a company out of Lagotia, Indiana that we've been working with for
- a number of years. They are usually the evaluators on our big federal grants.
- And they reached out to us knowing all of the work that we do here already with these programs and said
- we would love to help you guys write this grant. So we met with them this week. We're gonna put their
- fee, their writing fee into the planning grant itself. And then they are gonna work with us on all the
- surveys, gathering data, all the historical data.
- It's gonna be an exciting project. So hopefully early 2027, we'll be able to come back with great news
- that this project is funded and have a really solid plan that doesn't involve education fund for our
- smart employees. Yeah, thank you. I was a little bit excited. I saw it. Maybe they jumped the guns.
- I saw schools around the area.
- promoting all of our third graders 100% passed iLearn. I thought, I got excited, like where's our scores?
- That's why I asked what was going on, but going down to Southern Indiana that's on their billboards
- and everywhere else, so did they just jump the gun? I read or I learn? I learn. I read. I read, yes,
- I read. Third graders is what I said. Yes, third graders, yes. Dr. Jenner sent out, there was a huge
- announcement across Indiana
- Last week, principals-ish.
- Huge announcement across Indiana that we had the biggest increase across the entire state in I read
- three scores in since COVID. And not only did we have the biggest increase from last year to this year,
- but this is the first time that our overall passing rate in the state of Indiana is higher than it was
- prior to COVID. So we're not just making up ground now since the pandemic, we're actually
- getting ahead and gaining. So it's exciting news. And EPS and EIS, we are right there on that train.
- Our goal is to close in on that 95%. Our goal is this year. We are so hopeful with this. One of the
- biggest pieces with hitting that 95% is the intervention pieces for your students with special education needs.
- Those kiddos are identified with a disability for a reason. When they go through an evaluation and we
- look at all the ways that they process information, they're identified with a reading disability or
- a math disability or whatever it is. But the state still holds schools to the same accountability system
- that they have to pass Ivory 3 by the end of their third grade year. That's the 95% mark.
- Now what I do love about the new scoring system with the state is that it continues to give credit to
- schools when they pass in fourth grade and fifth grade and sixth grade. And I love that because
- it acknowledges that kids continue to learn and that third grade, you know, one size fits all box isn't
- for everybody.
- but it doesn't change the accountability model that still says 95% by the end of third grade. So the
- work that our special education and our Title I teams do at that Tier II and Tier III level is absolutely
- critical to that mission, not to mention just the Tier I work that our gen ed teachers put in with Orton
- Gillingham instruction. When they get up into EIS and its vocabulary and its morphology and all of those pieces,
- There's not one set of teachers that could do it by themselves. It truly takes the entire team in order
- to prepare those kiddos. And that population there is really that changing factor for a school district,
- not just our school district, but any school district out there to get over that 95%. You've got to
- unlock that to figure out how to increase those kiddos mastery of those reading skills.
- You're welcome. All right, got 27 minutes ahead of me. My mother who lives in Kokomo is down visiting
- and she was watching online, but just like everybody else, she left the room before I got to my report.
- I just wanted to,
- note that how nice our boardroom is looking with the graphics up on the wall. Some folks really worked
- hard on that. Robin May, Susan Shockney, Gracie Turner. And there's some adjustments we want to make
- to this, but it's looking pretty good. I was excited. This is my surprise that
- As a board, I don't think knew about this today. So I wanted to surprise you a little bit. Before I
- get into my report, I just wanted to say a little bit about, we had some parents from our journeys classroom
- who spoke tonight and we always value the input of our parents. I learned that a long time ago that
- parents are
- partners in this education process. And we need to be good listeners to their concerns or ideas. And
- so I appreciate those parents that we've met with the last two weeks and we're here tonight. I do wanna
- add a little caveat in there in that we were already working on the idea of hiring a second journeys teacher.
- At the beginning of any school year, we often get, have students enrolled at the last minute every year,
- every school corporation does. And we try to be in touch with the number of students that are coming
- in. And before the school year starts, we do our best to make sure
- that we have the appropriate number of staff members, whether it be teachers or instructional assistants.
- But from time to time, those numbers come in so late that we have to make some last minute adjustments.
- And we try not to do that, but sometimes that you do, you do have to do that. So for example, we're
- looking at our kindergarten first grade numbers.
- and try to determine based on those numbers, do we add another kindergarten teacher? Do we move a first
- grade teacher to kindergarten? And what are the financial consequences of that decision? We obviously
- wanna do what's right for students, and that's our top priority, but we also have to make sure that
- we're fiscally sound in making
- good financial decisions. I've been there where we've hired a teacher at the last minute only to find
- out that all the students we were expecting didn't come and we really shouldn't have done that. So it's
- very challenging decision and the same thing happened with the journeys. We are already having conversations
- along with that kindergarten first grade conversation we were trying to
- talk about what we wanted to do with the journeys classroom and were we actually going to have all the
- kids show up that we anticipated. And sometimes parents don't know the behind the scenes work that's
- already going on. But we've had two really good meetings with our parents.
- The Journey's parents and our new principal Lucy Fishman is doing an awesome job working with the parents,
- communicating with them, being a good listener. And so I think we're definitely headed in a more positive
- direction with our Journey's classrooms.
- I wanted to just share, I always hesitate to share our enrollment numbers because we always hear about
- the students who are coming, but sometimes students who have withdrawn, we don't always get the paperwork
- in a timely fashion from other school corporations. So we might have students on our books
- haven't shown up and we don't know if they're still coming or if they've moved somewhere else.
- So these are, except for the preschool, the K-12 numbers are preliminary, although we've been doing
- a lot better job this year in terms of accounting for students who physically have not shown up for
- school yet. But you'll see the preschool numbers, which are up,
- from last year, 29 children in the daycare compared to 17 last year, 173 in preschool compared to 161
- last year for a total of 202 compared to 178 last year. K-12, you'll look at this and in the past,
- I would have given you some preliminary numbers that probably would have been higher. They might have
- looked good, but they might not have been as accurate for the reasons I just mentioned to you. But we've
- really, thanks to Jenny Johnson and our secretaries, our attendance clerks, we have a little bit more
- better, more accurate picture. We still have six students from EPS
- that we are expecting to withdraw, but we haven't received the paperwork from the other schools. EIS
- has got all their students accounted for, so that's great. We're still looking, trying to find two junior
- high students and four high school students. Of course, we still are having some new enrollments show
- up too, and that's good. Now, just looking at the corporation total, you'll see that
- that it looks like we might be down a little bit. But when I bring back the final report, when we have
- our count day in October, I'll bring back some more detailed information and analysis of what went on
- with students withdrawing and enrolling. I'll bring to you the chart
- that shows numbers clear back to 2018. And you'll notice that I remember that graph that I show every
- year. It just kind of goes up and down, up and down, up and down. And that's kind of typical. You don't
- want to see a big jump, but sometimes the numbers do go down because of birth rates and other factors.
- If you look at over the trend over the years since 2018, you'll still see a positive trend of our enrollment.
- And so I always, every year I wanna get up to that 3000 mark. And so we'll keep plugging away at that.
- I mean, I'd love to get to 3000, 2700 is what I try to reach for every year.
- So a couple other things, Edgewood Showcase, please get that on your calendar, September 24th from five
- to 730. That's a big deal for our school campus. And we're excited to show off all of our students and
- their great talents and our awesome facilities. And the whole community is involved, invited to the
- Edgewood Showcase.
- And then something new I'm trying this year. It's called Ask, Share, Celebrate with Your Friendly
- Superintendent. And I sent this letter that's, I cheated, Jimmy. I put a sheet on the back here. So
- it's a little bit more than one page. But you see the letter that I sent out. And what I'm trying to
- get across is that I want to be available for our staffs
- just come and talk with me. It's always good for me to be in touch with what's going on in our schools.
- My intent is to do more listening than talking and to start off or make sure that I can live up to this
- promise. I'm just promising to do this twice each semester and we'll see how that goes. But you see
- the dates, August 31st,
- at the high school, September 1st at the junior high, September 2nd at EIS, and then on September 3rd
- I'll be at the preschool in the morning and the EPS in the afternoon. And hopefully some people will
- want to come talk to me and share their thoughts and insights and then that'll guide us to continuous
- improvement across the corporation. Any questions? Thank you.
- With our Kindergarten 243, we now have bump years in sixth grade, third grade, and kindergarten. These
- classes are 230-ish kids. So we are looking at 10 teachers per grade level in those classes.
- So it's crazy. We're not quite sure what's happening every three years around here, but there seems
- to be a trend.
- Yeah, take a look at sixth grade, third grade and kindergarten. Those are our bump years. So it was
- interesting to see kindergarten come in again every third year. We'll see if it maintains like that.
- I just want to start out by,
- recognizing my counterpart Brandy Abel who has had what can only be described as a series of cosmic
- bad luck occur to her and she is hoping to get back in the classroom next week and be with us at the
- school board meeting by September so I have been
- unbelievably impressed with her ability to still help out with the association despite being sidetracked.
- And so I just wanted to start there. This is my 10th year of teaching. And I student taught at Edgewood
- before that. And while I was doing that, I knew that this was a place that I really wanted to be and
- be a part of.
- given that opportunity a few years after that. And I think this year has a lot of excitement and potential,
- and it's not just things that have happened that are not just happening right now. It's an effort, it's
- a collective effort that's been happening with years and years of sustained hard work, but just
- Being at the high school right now, I think there's a sense of excitement with Mr. Boltinghouse being
- there and I don't know, just all of the, I had a wonderful thing prepared and now I'm stumbling over
- my words, but it's just a really electric time to be a part of it and I'm happy to be here and it's,
- The association is looking forward to working with you all this year as every year. And I know that
- often we get dealt not the best cards, but I feel and know from my time working here and just with the
- past year of working with the association that a good association and good administration is reciprocal
- and symbiotic and
- I appreciate being in a place that takes care of us so well. So thank you very much and yeah, look forward
- to working this year. Well, thank you very much. Awesome. Board member comments, we'll start with Mrs.
- Jacobs. Well, I wanna really, I know that the families had left about the journeys classroom. That's
- something that's very,
- Near to my heart, Devin and Kinsey, both my children spent their high school years with the journeys
- classes in high school and absolutely loved it. And I hear the desperation in the parents' voices when
- they're coming and approaching us about things that they need us to do. And I know that we're gonna
- do the best that we can for those students. I have no doubt for that, but I do appreciate them
- being here and talking with us, coming up with ideas, strategies. Sometimes they know more strategies
- of what they can do and how they can teach us to help their own child because they're with them every
- day. So I'm really glad that we're working with them and hearing them out and giving the best for them.
- I am saddened to see that Vicki's going to retire, but I'm excited for her next career move.
- She, like you said, she has been such an instrumental part of our lives. And she has absolutely poured
- her heart and soul out to our corporation. So I just wanna thank her as well. And happy new year for
- the school year. Mr. Tucker. Thanks for the parents sharing tonight.
- And I appreciate the letter they sent to the board members. We do listen and we put that responsibility
- in the administrators and they do a good job of communicating with parents and I greatly appreciate
- that. And hopefully things will get ironed out and we can work the best we can with each of those kids
- because we're gonna work with every student that's in our school corporation. We're gonna take them
- all, we're gonna work with them and try to be good adults.
- continue to go through all the testing of all the state requires us. So I stole Dr. Sanders. Rick, if
- you see that Dr. Sanders in the buildings, I borrowed his card, his cue card to get into buildings.
- And they're beautiful. I mean, everything was clean. Sorry, Rick, I broke protocol. They were super
- clean to start the school year.
- And it was, I really want to hats off to all the staff to put in the effort to clean the buildings this
- year. I'm disappointed with what happened at the gym floor at the junior high, but hopefully we're gonna
- get that rectified. And again, kudos to the bus drivers. That was an, that wore me out looking at all
- those lists. I did not look at every route. I'm not gonna lie to you, but that's a lot of work that
- goes into it. And you don't realize how much effort goes into getting kids to and from school safely.
- So I greatly appreciate that. And they'll work with the SROs too.
- Looking forward to a good 26, 27. Thank you, sir. I reiterate what Ms. Jacobs said about Vicki and of
- course Audrey Myers lost her mother when we be thinking about her. Thank you to Debbie and Paul for
- your work on the budget. Jennifer, thank you for your deductions. We worked so hard over the years to
- build everything up and now we're going down the other way.
- He left and he promised me that I would use it. I promised him that I would use it. I should say It
- took some time to get used to that. Oh, yeah, we're trying I know you are and thank you for all the
- administrators of common department heads appreciate that and Jerry Appreciate your work as well. Thank
- you I also appreciate the concerns that the families brought to us this evening and promise we will
- follow up I
- want to, I guess, thank Ty for telling me it's been 10 years since he student taught, because that's
- a shock. But I saw a Facebook post from his next door classroom neighbor of a poster that had McGinnis
- and Axiom and the whole group that
- were staying where they were and they all had an arrow pointing up. And I thought that was so appropriate
- because I was at the open house of the high school and it does feel very positive, very strong. I'm
- thrilled with what I'm seeing going into this new school year. And I mean, there's always some hiccups,
- but it's just been really positive. So thanks for your nice words too. And I think the enrollment numbers
- that Dr. Sanders shared with us do give a little credence to the
- Demographic study that we had that yeah, I mean we're we're gonna be very consistent Slow growth that's
- what we're looking for. So thank you. Thank you Yeah We do like to keep a close eye on the enrollment
- numbers because of course that has so much to do with what our budget is and As far as
- when you administer the school system. And it also means so much what each one of those numbers represent.
- So it's greatly important that way as well. So we do wanna keep track of them as individuals and as
- collectively. I too, like the others tonight, appreciate
- the folks coming in and talking to us and giving our concerns. I really appreciate the way they did
- it as well. I thought it was really good. I thought they talked about the concerns. They talked about
- how they appreciated the steps taken so far. They talked about steps that they'd like to see continue taken.
- but it was all on how we can move forward. And I was really appreciative of that. That's the kind of
- parents we need, so I appreciate that. I'm glad that the school year is going well at the beginning.
- I think that hearing the band out there and I think there is a lot of excitement
- And I'm just glad that we're getting a good start. And we've got a great system. And I'm glad we're
- all working together to do the best things we can. I'm so glad that our building projects, the bids
- came in under. I mean, that's always good.
- beginning to wonder, are they just telling us high estimates? So they're always coming under? Or are
- we really doing that good? So I want to think that we're really doing that good, but we are getting
- some really great things done. And I just love to see these things continue. And I want to thank all
- of you for being here tonight and all that had left earlier for them showing up earlier. So you all
- have a great evening and this meeting is adjourned.