WEBVTT

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- All of us move in order. Thank you for standing. Start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance

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- to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under

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- God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. Please be seated. I'd like

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- to welcome you to the

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- first school board meeting of the 2026-2027 regular school year, the school year, wow. So I thank you

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- all for being here for our meeting tonight for the Richland B. Boston Community School Corporation regular

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- meeting. And please let the record reflect that all board members are present this evening.

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- And do we have any visitors like to comment? Nicole O'Neill. We ask that you please come up to the podium.

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- Please note that the microphones are for the cats recording and so they do not project your voice. So

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- if you could project your voice. Well, my name is Nicole O'Neill.

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- and I'm the mother of a child in the Journeys program at EPS. Journeys is a self-contained special education

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- classroom serving students with some of the highest support needs in our district. Historically, families

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- have viewed the program as appropriately staffed and stable. That is why what we encountered at our

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- back-to-school night was so concerning. We were informed that approximately 14 to 15 students would

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- be placed in Journeys with only one teacher of record.

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- We also learned that much of the staff was not only new to my son, but to EPS. In other words, a high

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- needs program was beginning the year with limited staff and little continuity. Our seven-year-old son

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- is autistic, nonverbal, and has high support needs. He has no reliable way to communicate what happens

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- to him during a school day. And as his mother, that is terrifying. I cannot ask him what happened, whether

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- he is safe,

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- or whether his needs were met. We were also concerned by the relocation of the Journey's classroom.

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- The prior room had an in-class bathroom to support student needs, reflecting a significant district

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- investment that was just made a year before, that was just put in. The new classroom did not include

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- that feature, so there was no bathroom to the room that they were moved to.

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- We were told the former classroom was being used as an adult space, which was kind of an odd decision,

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- which raised further questions for families about how program decisions were being made. And at that

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- point, we organized as parents, multiple families independently raised concerns. I believe it was eight

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- children, parents of eight children were concerned. And we came together and submitted a joint letter

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- to district administration.

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- and the district did respond, a second teacher and additional classroom was ultimately provided and

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- we appreciate the corrective action. However, those changes occurred only after families escalated concerns.

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- Parents should not have to organize and advocate in order for a high needs program to be appropriately

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- staffed and supported at the start of the school year. Our children require consistent specialized support

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- and they deserve that from day one. While we recognize the district's response and the circumstances

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- at the beginning of the year have really impacted our family's trust. The question now is what systems,

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- oversight, and safeguards will be put in place to ensure this does not happen again and to restore that

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- trust going forward? Thank you.

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- Hi, I'm Samantha Parker, in part speaking in behalf on the SPED parent community within the RBP school

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- systems. I have a few concerns regarding documentation, parent notification and physical safeguards

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- for our children. Moreover, on topics including medical events, incidents and accountability. To begin,

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- I would like to acknowledge the district's commitment to document applicable health related matters

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- in harmony and email when appropriate.

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- We as SPED parents have further requested that the safeguards and documentation systems are broader

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- than health documentation alone. Our children, your students, require additional accommodations that

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- children in gen ed classes may not need such as routine, consistency, and additional security or reporting

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- of incidences and injuries. This for us may include but does not limit to aforementioned incidents and

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- injuries, medical or safety events,

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- required parent notifications, follow-up and corrective actions, and other defined safeguards, which

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- may require more physical tangent means. One major concern we immediately noticed and are still actively

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- addressing with the primary school are on staffing, coverage, and documenting relevance when noting

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- significant events. What constitutes per legal guarantee an incident requiring documentation? Who determines

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- whether parents are notified

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- and within what timeframe? How are these conflicting accounts of an incident involved and what actions

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- will be taken to prevent this feed of miscommunication moving forward? It is detrimental for us to have

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- you, the board, understand that informal safeguards are difficult for parents, staff members, administrators,

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- and the board to audit or verify. For example, my child, for whom I can directly advocate for,

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- like several children in the journeys class elopes. This means they run out. She's also nonverbal and

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- has other essential needs that she requires throughout the day. The previous year, 2025, 2026 journeys

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- classroom, as mentioned before, had a bathroom installed as well as alarms that set off if a student

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- runs from the class. The secondary classroom to my present knowledge does not have either safeguard

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- in place and likely will not unless we speak further approval.

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- Another question I myself have asked the assistant superintendent why we do not have fencing around

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- the perimeter of the elementary grounds, much like we see in MCCSE or local school systems. The answers

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- that were given to me are one, what would the defined perimeter be as it would two, affect the games

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- played in recess or during outdoor games or additionally during outdoor gym or field days and three,

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- that there are teachers who stand out by the edge of the playground

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- Please be mindful that if a student, the school knowingly elopes and may not listen to verbal efforts

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- to halt the child like stop may not be effective and cause further safety and liability strife. One

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- thing parents requested for the school to include cameras within the classrooms to have such review

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- in case safety event were to occur in the instance you are unaware some behaviors are just so big that

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- the child may need additional assistance by an aid or teacher

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- could result in accidental injury. Cameras could then provide a safeguard for teachers, aides, and students

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- to support a case in which this may apply and aid supporting the school's liability and of which applies

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- in this scenario. For every safeguard, the family's written proposal can the district identify whether

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- it accepts it, rejects it, or has an alternative and identify what system creates an auditable record

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- for the safeguards occurred. The same need for

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- Objective information is one reason families propose cameras. Thank you Jeremiah O'Neill My name is

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- Jeremiah O'Neill father of a student the EPS journeys room You've heard tonight

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- how we got here, and you've heard some of the specific safeguards families have requested. I want to

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- focus my time on one question. Do we want a system that reacts when something goes wrong or one that's

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- designed to prevent them? I want to acknowledge that the district has responded to some of our concerns.

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- Changes have been made, and we appreciate that. But those changes also raise an important question.

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- Why did families have to identify these problems and organize before significant action occurred? These

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- are children.

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- with some sort of, they need the highest support needs in our district. Some cannot reliably come home

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- and tell their parents what happened to school. That makes objective accountability more important,

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- not less. We've seen serious allegations involving special education students in Indiana schools. I

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- want to be very clear, I'm not suggesting that that's happening here, but it does happen. The point

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- is that safeguards shouldn't be created after something terrible happens.

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- any of us families want to see something happen to our kids. That's why families have proposed two forms

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- of objective accountability. The cameras, if there's an injury, behavioral event, allegation, or conflicting

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- account, an objective record can protect the student, the teacher, the aid, the administration, and

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- the district. Digital communication and documentation. If an IEP safety plan, medical need, accommodation,

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- or other required support says something is supposed to occur, there should be a simple, auditable way

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- of document

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- documenting that it occurred. This isn't about assuming teachers are doing something wrong. It's about

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- creating a system where nobody, parents, teachers, administrators, or the board has to rely solely on

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- memory, verbal assurances, or conflicting accounts. And that brings me to the board's role. We aren't

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- asking five board members to operate a special education classroom. We're asking to provide oversight.

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- Ask how this program reached the beginning of the school year and the condition that it did.

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- ask yourself whether the safeguards that are currently in place are adequate, ask yourself if the district

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- verifies that the required supports are actually being delivered, and ask whether the solutions families

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- have proposed can make this district safer and more accountable before an incident forces us to have

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- a different conversation. We've met with administrators, we've written letters, we've proposed solutions,

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- and when the district has made improvements, we've acknowledged them. We're here tonight because we

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- believe the next step

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- is board oversight. A camera can tell us what happened. Documentation can tell us what was provided.

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- And oversight ensures someone is asking the right questions and seeing if the system is working. Our

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- children deserve a system that doesn't simply respond when something goes wrong. They deserve one that

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- was designed to prevent it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, is this a copy of what you

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- emailed last week? That's one of the letters. Yeah, we've read that.

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- I read the one that was emailed with some signatures on it. Okay. Thank you very much. Next we have

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- our consent agenda and it would be for the approval of minutes. It would be for the July 8th, 2026 special

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- board meeting, the July 21st,

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- 2026 regular board meeting and the July 30th special board meeting would include the financial report,

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- treasurer's report for July of 2026. And Mr. Durnall, the claims please. Thank you, Mr. President. For

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- gross wages on July the 3rd, 2026 is $650,443.91. For gross wages, mini pay on July 16th, 2026 is $778.88.

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- For gross wages on July 17th, 2026 is $588,990.22. For gross wages on July 31st, 2026 is $588,774.98.

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- For total in that area, $3,882,987.99. For vouchers for claims pre-pays from 7-1-2026 to 7-31-2026,

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- $627,436.13 for claims, regular vouchers, August 18th, 2026 is $910,639.87 for a grand total in that

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- area, $4,538,076.00 for a grand total of $6,367,063.99. Thank you, sir.

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- Next, we have personnel. We have resignations, retirements, non-remunerals, leaves, and terminations,

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- C1 through 23. And we have appointments and transfers, D1 through 45. There are also some student

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- employment for educational purposes. We don't list those because of student confidentiality. And so

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- that is the consent agenda. Do we have a motion? Moved and seconded. Any comments? I'd like to comment

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- on Ms. Coffey's retirement in a year. That's going to be big shoes to fill. And I appreciate her letter

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- to the board

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- maybe some of her thoughts and recommendations that we can maybe take a look at. So kudos to her. I

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- know she's got another year to finish, but she's been a big part of what we've been doing here.

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- So thank you. And I believe Dr. Sanders would like. Yes, I want to piggyback on what Brad said about

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- Vicki Coffey. She'll be retiring at the end of this school year and that will make 26 years.

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- as our Director of Nutrition Services. And Vicki is going to become a consultant. She's already formed

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- a company called the Coffee Series. And Mrs. Coffee is known across the country. And so she's going

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- to be very busy traveling and going

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- schools all over the country. She's already been to Alaska and several other places and she has just

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- transformed our nutrition services. And when you think about somebody who cares about the students,

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- Vicki would be right at the top of the list. And she, they're her number one priority and

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- making sure that we're providing healthy meals, not only to our students, but to the community. And

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- I just really appreciate Vicki, I know we all do. Although she's not here tonight, just really wanted

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- to recognize her and her efforts and her hard work over the years. We'd want to piggyback on that as

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- well and just, you know, during

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- COVID and other hard times, you know, being able to support all the community, not just the school,

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- but all the community was a blessing that we were able to do that. And her diligent efforts in that

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- we greatly appreciate. Vicki was one of the first appointments that I made as an I, the board major

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- I came on as in August of 2020, I'm sorry, August of 2000.

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- But that department was a quarter million dollars in debt at that time. I mean, it's just unbelievable

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- how far in debt we were. And now she does everything for us, bought us a bus, and it's just fantastic

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- what she's done for us. So I'm sure her business will work out quite well. Yeah, a quarter million dollars

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- when you got on, that was a lot of money back then.

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- That's when I was here. That's when Brad was here. That's when we had a contract with Chicago's Pizza.

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- Prior to her coming here, we had breadsticks about three days a week and pizza, that was it. She's taken

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- it a long way since then. You see her ass, yeah. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

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- Now we'll move to our construction update and for that we have Martin Truesdale with us tonight to walk

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- us through.

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- I appreciate the chance to talk to you about it. We've got several projects in the works right now.

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- We've got the roofing project at the middle school and the two elementary schools. The two elementary

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- schools, the roof membrane is completely done and we're working on the edge metal. At the junior high

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- school, we still have some roof membrane to do.

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- That's probably, we probably got about 10 days worth of actual work days. Now that means we've got to

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- have 10 days when it doesn't rain. And those have been few and far between lately. We should be done

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- with the membrane in the next two to three weeks out there. Then what we have to do is the edge metal

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- and that's what you see from the ground.

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- The edge metal, we've probably got close to a month of edge metal left to do. The good thing about the

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- edge metal is it's not noisy at all, so there's no issue with working over classrooms. We're making

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- sure that the contractor has all the people vetted and through the Safe Vendor Program to be on the

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- roof now that kids are back in school. That's particularly important. We're behind where we would hope to be,

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- We're getting there we have had a little bit of issues out there one probably the primary one is the

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- water damage in the gymnasium We've talked to two different companies about replacing flooring in there

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- and Dr. Sanders, I think we're moving forward We're moving forward with that at this time and should

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- start on that sometime the

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- first or second week of September. We also have, with that, the boiler replacements. The boilers at

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- both the junior high and, did I say middle school before? Anyway, junior high and the high school are

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- installed. The high school's a little bit ahead of the junior high. We have to order some flues. Once

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- the boilers are in, you have to measure to order the flues.

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- Those have been ordered. That shouldn't be a long lead time. And at the junior high, we've got a little

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- more electrical work, plumbing work to get those in. We're getting pretty close to that and we should

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- be in good shape by the time we actually hit heating season. The other one we're working on right now

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- is the turf. We got a slow start on the turf.

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- but at this point they came in in the last week and a half, excuse me. They came in at the last week

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- and a half and got everything to grade. The next step we have to do is get in and get all the sub-field

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- drainage in. The contractor, the field turf who's the contractor has sub-contractors. The sub-contractor

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- for drainage

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- has been out, they've verified the grade and they're ready to start. Once they start, that'll happen

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- real fast. Our main goal is to make sure everything's done by the end of this year and the turf's in

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- so you can have them for next year. And I don't see any issues with having that done. It'll be ready

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- for the spring 2027. 2027, yes.

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- On the junior high gym floor, Martin, I saw it last week and is it about a third of the floors rippled

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- because of the water leak? Or more than that maybe? Yeah. Okay, and the bleachers won't come out, is

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- that right? It's essentially from the basketball court east. You can't bring the bleachers out now because

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- of the ripples? You can't? You can't. Okay, it looked like it was just tearing it up even worse. Can

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- we try it on too? Yeah.

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- 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

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- got to be done. The contractor would like to start either the first or second week of September and

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- their goal is to be done by the last day of October to do what? To repair the floor to repair it. What?

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- And this is this.

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- big chunk that's mitigated by the contractor, right, the roofing contractor? Time is of the essence.

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- So the first goal is to get the job started and then work on the percentage, if not the company paying

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- for all of it. But we have to get started on it now. We can't wait to negotiate

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- Who's gonna pay what or we could be in this situation for a year? But we do have our legal counsels

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- aware of this and we are we are going to get compensated We need to make sure it is their fault. Correct.

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- Well, there are conversations going on now they have to obviously work through their insurance company

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- absolutely and But like I said

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- Just having those conversations could take several months, if not a year. So we need to get going on

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- it and there is money in the project. Worst case scenario that the company doesn't contribute as much

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- as we want, we can cover the costs. Well, I'm gonna make sure we stand firm because it was at the fault

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- that it leaked and created the damage. Absolutely.

00:24:11.906 --> 00:24:18.533
- I understand we can cover the damage, but that's not part of the project, the damage that they created.

00:24:18.533 --> 00:24:25.032
- So I hope that we stay, keep our foot on the pedal there. You can't replace a quarter of a gym floor.

00:24:25.032 --> 00:24:31.531
- I understand, I understand. And the gym floor that you're gonna get is, it's a BioStar, it's the same

00:24:31.531 --> 00:24:38.413
- floor that you've got. I understand, but we weren't ready to replace it. It was expedient by their mistake,

00:24:38.413 --> 00:24:41.854
- that's my point. You have plenty of years left in it.

00:24:41.986 --> 00:24:52.024
- Okay. We'll be diligent. Okay, I just want to make sure I have the cost as we possibly can. And the

00:24:52.024 --> 00:25:02.263
- contractors, they have contacted their insurance people and that ball is rolling. Okay. And right now

00:25:02.263 --> 00:25:08.286
- that's mostly what we've got going. The next report will be

00:25:09.442 --> 00:25:15.787
- more extensive because we've got a lot that's gonna start happening in the next two months. I saw the

00:25:15.787 --> 00:25:22.070
- fencing along the drive behind the baseball field. It looked like they were working on maybe getting

00:25:22.070 --> 00:25:28.353
- us a walkway through there. Yeah, what they've discovered, we put the fencing all the way out to the

00:25:28.353 --> 00:25:34.573
- road because we've got that detention pond that we've got to dig. And then when they staked out the

00:25:34.573 --> 00:25:38.430
- pond where they actually had to dig, we were able to move the

00:25:39.490 --> 00:25:47.499
- fence back, I want to say five feet, which allows pedestrian traffic. I was worried there. We talked

00:25:47.499 --> 00:25:55.588
- some about it. Oh, we were talking about striping the road. Yeah. Yeah. Glad to see there's something

00:25:55.588 --> 00:26:03.518
- happening there because that was a concern. We just got a drone video of the different projects. So

00:26:03.518 --> 00:26:08.990
- I'll send those out to you tomorrow. Yeah, those are fun to look at.

00:26:14.242 --> 00:26:22.620
- Before you get too far away, next would be consideration to award bids for the junior high and high

00:26:22.620 --> 00:26:31.082
- school construction additions and renovations. Dr. Hicks? Yes. I would like to just begin by letting

00:26:31.082 --> 00:26:39.627
- the public know and all of you know that when we get to the point of bidding a project, a lot of work

00:26:39.627 --> 00:26:43.230
- has gone into getting all that information

00:26:43.330 --> 00:26:53.146
- to the contractors so they could bid appropriately. And so over the last year, we have been meeting

00:26:53.146 --> 00:27:02.961
- with teachers, principals, and gathering as much information as we can, working with the architect,

00:27:02.961 --> 00:27:12.286
- working with skill men to be able to just fine tune the project to a point where we can get it

00:27:12.418 --> 00:27:21.250
- ready for an accurate bid. And so I just appreciate all the people who are part of that process. Lancer

00:27:21.250 --> 00:27:29.912
- Architect is a very important part of that. Obviously our relationship with Skillman. We just work as

00:27:29.912 --> 00:27:38.489
- a partner all the way through that process and we were able to have successful bids. And I'd like to

00:27:38.489 --> 00:27:39.678
- invite Martin

00:27:39.778 --> 00:27:55.014
- Back up to go over that if you could I Think you may have in your board package the yes bid recommendation,

00:27:55.014 --> 00:28:07.710
- right? We had fairly good Participation from bidders in this project We did only have two

00:28:08.290 --> 00:28:17.885
- general trades bidders, and we had one mechanical bidder, but the mechanical bidder was definitely one

00:28:17.885 --> 00:28:27.293
- of the two that we wanted, so we're happy with that, and they also were in the right ballpark as far

00:28:27.293 --> 00:28:37.726
- as our estimates. We have a total of 22,818,000. Couple nuances, Brad, just because you had asked the question,

00:28:38.274 --> 00:28:47.088
- Plumbing in HVAC is a big part of the number. And just as a reminder, in the HVAC controls, that's at

00:28:47.088 --> 00:28:55.901
- the elementary schools, and that's all there is to that. So there's no general construction component

00:28:55.901 --> 00:29:05.233
- to that. So that's a big number, almost a million dollars, and it's all for controls. There's also embedded

00:29:05.233 --> 00:29:07.998
- in the plumbing and HVAC number

00:29:08.738 --> 00:29:18.182
- which is big category 12 on that list. There's about a million dollars of controls of the existing high

00:29:18.182 --> 00:29:27.445
- school and middle school. So controls is, it's around 10% of this whole project. So the 1.2, that was

00:29:27.445 --> 00:29:36.798
- the alternate bid, the HFI did for the controls? That's where I got confused. The 1.2 million for the,

00:29:37.090 --> 00:29:46.431
- That was the alternate bid that they did that day. Yeah. That's right. I confused. Okay. So so between

00:29:46.431 --> 00:29:55.500
- the two you've got about five million. Okay. Other than that we got good participation. Our numbers

00:29:55.500 --> 00:30:05.022
- came in at twenty two eight and our original projection was in the twenty four range. So we're in pretty

00:30:05.022 --> 00:30:06.110
- good shape.

00:30:08.610 --> 00:30:17.751
- And with that, I guess I'll just entertain any questions. And one of the things that I am impressed,

00:30:17.751 --> 00:30:26.892
- I imagine all construction managers maybe do this, but. Probably not. But nobody does it better than

00:30:26.892 --> 00:30:35.942
- Skillman. And by the way, I want to introduce, you all know Victor Landfair, but I really liked how

00:30:35.942 --> 00:30:37.662
- they once the bids

00:30:37.762 --> 00:30:48.140
- Were were presented and we were able to identify the lowest bidders how they had pre-award meetings

00:30:48.140 --> 00:30:58.726
- and And really drilled down with the contractors about what the job entails The bid that was made and

00:30:58.726 --> 00:31:06.302
- it just gets you gets every the whole project off on a solid footing and

00:31:06.882 --> 00:31:14.713
- And so I just was thinking about that, wanted to share that tonight. Yeah, we try to make sure, the

00:31:14.713 --> 00:31:23.013
- first thing is just making sure the contractor's comfortable with the number. And in this case, everybody

00:31:23.013 --> 00:31:31.000
- was. And one I would point out is the painting number came in way below where we would have expected,

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:36.638
- and that's Riggs Painting, whose, I guess his kids go to these schools.

00:31:36.802 --> 00:31:42.965
- So he was very motivated. Yeah. He was very motivated to work. Who's that? Right. The painter,

00:31:42.965 --> 00:31:49.713
- which is. No, it's Ross Riggs. He's a local kid. Yeah. Yeah. Class of 2004. And I asked him about three

00:31:49.713 --> 00:31:56.265
- times, are you sure you're good with this number? Right. He said, yeah, he's good with it. I want to

00:31:56.265 --> 00:32:02.753
- compliment Martin and Skillman. That was the hottest room I'd ever been in that day. This place was

00:32:02.753 --> 00:32:04.894
- packed with all the contractors.

00:32:05.314 --> 00:32:11.721
- So I wasn't happy with the HVAC guy that day who was in charge of the HVAC. I hope that with this contract

00:32:11.721 --> 00:32:18.008
- with HFI, we also are in a service contract with them too, Dr. Sanders, correct? We do. And I hope we're

00:32:18.008 --> 00:32:24.176
- getting good service from them because it's a good local company and hopefully they can take good care

00:32:24.176 --> 00:32:30.223
- of us. That was our reason for doing the service contract. Yes, just recently we had an issue at the

00:32:30.223 --> 00:32:30.942
- junior high

00:32:31.042 --> 00:32:38.573
- And I contacted one of the presidents of the HFI, and he came over that day and talked to me about my

00:32:38.573 --> 00:32:46.251
- concerns. And the boys and girls club is under control now? Yes, it's doing better, yes. Under control?

00:32:46.251 --> 00:32:53.929
- Time will tell. All right, all right. It's always good to have a contractor that if you have a problem,

00:32:53.929 --> 00:32:59.614
- you just drive over to his house, because it's local. And they did the work.

00:33:01.058 --> 00:33:10.029
- All right. So the one with the alternate would be including the alternate. The one bid with the alternate,

00:33:10.029 --> 00:33:18.580
- you'd be including the alternate. Yeah, we're including the alternate. I guess one nuance to that one

00:33:18.580 --> 00:33:27.048
- is we had a separate bid for the two elementary schools, which was automated. They were low on that.

00:33:27.048 --> 00:33:29.982
- And they will be the subcontractor

00:33:31.490 --> 00:33:40.934
- The high school so you'll have automated logic throughout the system, which is Which is a good thing?

00:33:40.934 --> 00:33:50.192
- Okay So we've definitely had HVAC, you know heating cooling issues throughout The last Well forever

00:33:50.192 --> 00:33:59.358
- And so are we finally going to be to the point where when we walk into our buildings they're gonna

00:34:00.450 --> 00:34:08.290
- be just comfortable and we're not going to be freezing or burning up or are we finally going to have

00:34:08.290 --> 00:34:16.597
- nice conditioned buildings like you would expect when you go into other buildings? Am I going to guarantee

00:34:16.597 --> 00:34:24.360
- it? You'll have automatic, automated logic. You will have the same system throughout everything and

00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:28.862
- it'll be a new system. So it'll control all your existing

00:34:29.634 --> 00:34:37.478
- mechanical units. It will still be the existing mechanical units, but you'll have new control. We put

00:34:37.478 --> 00:34:45.323
- lots and lots of money in over the last number of bonds in HVAC, and I just don't felt that we've got

00:34:45.323 --> 00:34:53.244
- anything accomplished or hadn't felt like it. I didn't stand up to make any guarantees, but I did want

00:34:53.244 --> 00:34:59.166
- to address a couple things, two things in terms of the scope of the project.

00:35:00.290 --> 00:35:07.608
- I think what happens a lot of times on HVC projects, it gets done incrementally, right? And so I think

00:35:07.608 --> 00:35:14.783
- you have had over the years incremental improvements. And the challenge with that is that, you know,

00:35:14.783 --> 00:35:22.243
- you're mixing old components with new components and you're being run by, these are all digital systems,

00:35:22.243 --> 00:35:27.998
- right? So just like all our digital devices, you know, there's constant updates.

00:35:28.866 --> 00:35:35.393
- This scope of this work is a comprehensive replacement of the most important part, if you will, your

00:35:35.393 --> 00:35:41.920
- network that runs and operates all of your HVAC pieces of equipment throughout your building. So you

00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:48.448
- may have variable ages and conditions of equipment, but you have a uniform platform in which all the

00:35:48.448 --> 00:35:55.492
- equipment is controlled. It is the brains, and it is your access to that equipment. So that is the advantage

00:35:55.492 --> 00:35:58.206
- of this project. We're going to uniformly

00:35:59.586 --> 00:36:05.866
- It doesn't take away the fact that pieces of equipment break and they don't operate properly and all

00:36:05.866 --> 00:36:12.209
- that. But because we are putting this uniform platform, we have to touch every piece of equipment and

00:36:12.209 --> 00:36:18.738
- we have to go through kind of a commissioning verification. So there's a real advantage to sort of reset

00:36:18.738 --> 00:36:25.018
- everything, if you will, to a certain level. So that's another advantage. The third advantage is the

00:36:25.018 --> 00:36:27.070
- way in which we bid the project.

00:36:27.362 --> 00:36:33.860
- Wanted to give you because you're doing comprehensive the opportunity to explore new manufacturers You're

00:36:33.860 --> 00:36:40.419
- not trying to combine a new guy with the old guy. We're now getting one comprehensive uniform Manufacturer

00:36:40.419 --> 00:36:46.611
- is a different one than you've had recently which you haven't had the best of luck So there were two

00:36:46.611 --> 00:36:52.741
- new manufacturers specified We've been it to the point where we could get competition but also have

00:36:52.741 --> 00:36:56.542
- the opportunity have uniformity it worked out really well and

00:36:56.962 --> 00:37:03.770
- that they were low both on the alternate and low on the elementary primary school. So you're going to

00:37:03.770 --> 00:37:10.511
- have a uniformity between all the systems, which I think is an advantage, and we think we've got the

00:37:10.511 --> 00:37:17.252
- best price for that. Is this something that would be so proprietary that a year from now we're going

00:37:17.252 --> 00:37:23.326
- to have to lock into high price maintenance agreements to be able to maintain the systems?

00:37:23.906 --> 00:37:32.085
- From our experience, there's sort of two tiers of control systems. There are the proprietary systems,

00:37:32.085 --> 00:37:40.263
- which are often connected to certain manufacturers of equipment. Then there are, if you will, I don't

00:37:40.263 --> 00:37:48.923
- want to call it independent, but a little bit more, less proprietary systems, and that's what the engineers

00:37:48.923 --> 00:37:50.206
- specified here.

00:37:50.946 --> 00:37:59.063
- There was automatic logic and what was the other one? Brand X. Brand X and brand Y. Those systems are

00:37:59.063 --> 00:38:07.100
- disconnected from the equipment manufacturers which makes them a little more autonomous and a little

00:38:07.100 --> 00:38:15.614
- more flexible and I think the engineer recommended it because now you're not connected, if you will, where

00:38:15.906 --> 00:38:22.887
- You bought Apple, so you have to have Apple this and Apple that and Apple this. You bought something

00:38:22.887 --> 00:38:30.007
- that you can plug in independent manufacturers into a uniform network. If that makes any sense at all.

00:38:30.007 --> 00:38:37.196
- Yes, yes. That's what I was getting at. Because we've had that in the problem in the past where we only

00:38:37.196 --> 00:38:44.454
- had one choice. Yes. On where we're at. It's a common problem. It is a common problem. You are not being

00:38:44.454 --> 00:38:45.214
- picked on.

00:38:45.506 --> 00:38:52.393
- Universal industry challenge that we have. Bart wanted me to mention the other piece of this is that

00:38:52.393 --> 00:38:59.348
- we have to do what's called testing and balancing. So as we replace your nervous system, if you will,

00:38:59.348 --> 00:39:06.235
- and verify things are working, we'll also have to go back and make sure that that piece of equipment

00:39:06.235 --> 00:39:11.486
- has the right water flowing through it and the right air flowing through it.

00:39:11.938 --> 00:39:19.044
- And so, again, trying to reset everything, if you will, to the factory preset. Because as you can imagine,

00:39:19.044 --> 00:39:25.884
- over the years, with good intent or whatever, things get tweaked and changed to overcome problems. And

00:39:25.884 --> 00:39:32.990
- then all of a sudden, that tweak or change lives there forever. This is kind of a way to reset everything,

00:39:32.990 --> 00:39:39.697
- if you will, to the default factory setting. And we find that that improves problems that maybe have

00:39:39.697 --> 00:39:41.822
- been lingering there for years.

00:39:42.370 --> 00:39:49.587
- that we pulled that out of the contractor's contract. Just like we pull out the testing of the soil

00:39:49.587 --> 00:39:57.020
- so we can control who hires when they come and how that inspection occurs, we're also going to do that

00:39:57.020 --> 00:40:04.237
- with the test and balance. We're going to procure that inspector, if you will, independently. He'll

00:40:04.237 --> 00:40:11.742
- be working for the district under our supervision so that we don't have the fox watching the hen house.

00:40:11.842 --> 00:40:18.843
- And that's another part of our strategy to just try to make sure you get what you pay for and we make

00:40:18.843 --> 00:40:25.982
- sure everybody's comfortable. It's hard to guarantee that we will, but I guess what I'm saying is we're

00:40:25.982 --> 00:40:32.915
- trying to apply every tool in our toolbox to get to your goal. And with that testing balance and the

00:40:32.915 --> 00:40:39.710
- existing pieces of equipment, we'll be operating as best as they can. I guess my final comment is,

00:40:41.442 --> 00:40:53.764
- They typically take time to work through the bugs. And so I will proactively ask for your staff's patience

00:40:53.764 --> 00:41:05.741
- as we work through some of these working out the bugs over the next year. I definitely appreciate that.

00:41:05.741 --> 00:41:11.038
- I just glad to try to advance altogether now.

00:41:11.874 --> 00:41:20.197
- and get a collective resolution because it's just been hard, you know, being up here and approving spending

00:41:20.197 --> 00:41:27.981
- so much money and not feeling like you really accomplished much. I mean, you have because you've had

00:41:27.981 --> 00:41:36.150
- to fix those things that were broke or that were going to break. But those still doesn't actually resolve

00:41:36.150 --> 00:41:40.158
- problems. So, but this feels like a problem solver.

00:41:40.610 --> 00:41:46.931
- And that feels good, so I appreciate that. I often use the analogy that sometimes we're just fixing

00:41:46.931 --> 00:41:53.314
- the symptoms, not fixing the disease. And I feel like we're attacking the disease here, if you will.

00:41:53.314 --> 00:42:00.267
- Well, unfortunately, we weren't even fixing the symptoms. Right. We were just fixing the pieces. I appreciate

00:42:00.267 --> 00:42:06.777
- your questions. It's not the first time I've been asked. Yeah, OK. As far as you said, working out the

00:42:06.777 --> 00:42:08.926
- bugs, at the Boys and Girls Club,

00:42:09.698 --> 00:42:16.875
- Dr. Sanders, you might remember this. Was it a warranty issue with the new equipment? Has that been

00:42:16.875 --> 00:42:24.051
- resolved at the Boys and Girls Club? Because nobody was taking control over who was doing what. Has

00:42:24.051 --> 00:42:31.515
- it been resolved? Right. We've made a lot of progress over the last week. And it's just been an ongoing

00:42:31.515 --> 00:42:38.046
- battle out at the Boys and Girls Club. But we've made a lot of progress. It's complicated.

00:42:38.242 --> 00:42:45.612
- Victor and Martin have said it's not just one piece. The HVAC, there's a lot of complicated pieces.

00:42:45.612 --> 00:42:53.645
- So some of it was new, kind of what Victor was saying about new equipment, trying to talk with old equipment

00:42:53.645 --> 00:43:01.383
- and so. Right. I thought the problem at the Boys and Girls Club is they didn't do their job to the specs

00:43:01.383 --> 00:43:04.478
- that you guys set forth. Is that correct?

00:43:04.994 --> 00:43:11.366
- We weren't involved in that. Skillman wasn't involved with. The specs, I thought whoever did the job

00:43:11.366 --> 00:43:17.801
- didn't do it to the specs that were laid forth and there was gonna be some culpability on their part.

00:43:17.801 --> 00:43:24.299
- Yeah, that was with another company that before Matt left, he was working on that project. Has it been

00:43:24.299 --> 00:43:30.734
- resolved? Because I thought it was resolved last year, but then I hear last week it's doing it again.

00:43:30.734 --> 00:43:34.078
- Yes, but it's not the same problem. Okay, all right.

00:43:36.226 --> 00:43:45.623
- And that's where we got Gabe involved or Gager. Gabe is very, with creative engineering has been a big

00:43:45.623 --> 00:43:54.837
- help to us and working with the different contractors and they work together. The engineering group,

00:43:54.837 --> 00:44:04.143
- the contractor, our folks work to address the different issues. And I've been out there several times

00:44:04.143 --> 00:44:05.694
- myself trying to

00:44:05.986 --> 00:44:17.323
- Of course, I don't know the dates back, but I try to go out there and try to learn what's going on.

00:44:17.323 --> 00:44:28.661
- And I think we've got some momentum with that now. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, sorry about

00:44:28.661 --> 00:44:32.062
- that. Approval award bids for

00:44:32.354 --> 00:44:41.530
- Edgewood Junior High and Edgewood High School construction additions and renovations. Moved and seconded.

00:44:41.530 --> 00:44:50.273
- I would like so that, because we have a list up here of 14 different bids, categories, descriptions,

00:44:50.273 --> 00:44:59.276
- contractors. I know it's a long list, but we're talking about $22 million. And I would like if somebody

00:44:59.276 --> 00:45:02.046
- would be willing to read those.

00:45:02.402 --> 00:45:12.267
- into the record so the people, you know, on CATS can hear who it is that we're doing business with and

00:45:12.267 --> 00:45:21.845
- for how much. I think that is important to take that time. So I'm not sure who. So there are 14 bid

00:45:21.845 --> 00:45:31.614
- categories. The big category number one, general trades. The contractor is J.C. Rippberger for 3,188,

00:45:32.130 --> 00:45:48.825
- The bid category two, which is earthwork paving site utilities is JR bowling for $1,616,000. For category

00:45:48.825 --> 00:45:56.542
- three masonry is artisan masonry for $3,278,709.

00:45:57.314 --> 00:46:07.481
- For big category number four, which is structural steel and miscellaneous metals as Geiger and Peters

00:46:07.481 --> 00:46:17.747
- for $1,615,000. Category five, roofing is Steve's Roofing and Sheet Metal for $3,268,000. For category

00:46:17.747 --> 00:46:26.718
- six, which is aluminum windows and storefronts is City Glass of Bloomington Incorporated.

00:46:26.882 --> 00:46:39.257
- for $258,000. Category seven, metal studs, drywall and ceilings. Gibson Lewis of Indianapolis for $884,000.

00:46:39.257 --> 00:46:50.716
- Big category number eight, flooring is Jack Laurie Floors LLC for $687,950. Category nine, painting

00:46:50.716 --> 00:46:55.070
- and wall coverings is Riggs Painting.

00:46:55.298 --> 00:47:09.336
- LLC for $86,250. 10 is Casework, Lee Company Incorporated for $253,200. 11 is Instrument Storage, and

00:47:09.336 --> 00:47:24.062
- the winning bidder was Lee Company Incorporated for $153,230. Category 12, Plumbing and HVAC, Harold Fish,

00:47:24.802 --> 00:47:38.800
- which also included alternative number one is $4,903,473. Category 13 HVAC controls is automated logic

00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:51.710
- for $856,000 and category 14 is electrical and technology and Cassidy Electric was the winning

00:47:52.066 --> 00:48:00.847
- contractor for $1,771,000 for a total of $22,818,812. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. Appreciate that. Mr. Kerr,

00:48:00.847 --> 00:48:09.628
- I think number 13, correct me if I'm wrong, that automatic logic is for the elementary schools, correct?

00:48:09.628 --> 00:48:18.158
- Number 13 is, yes, it's elementary schools. That's for the elementary schools, not the junior high or

00:48:18.158 --> 00:48:19.998
- high school, correct?

00:48:21.858 --> 00:48:32.557
- Okay, just wanna make sure we make note of that on item 13. Right, right, okay. Okay, any other comments

00:48:32.557 --> 00:48:42.747
- or questions? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all

00:48:42.747 --> 00:48:51.102
- so much. I mean, that's a lot of work went into that and we really appreciate it.

00:48:52.322 --> 00:49:02.355
- I really appreciate how this project, these projects that we've been doing lately with you guys have

00:49:02.355 --> 00:49:12.687
- been going. They've been going so well. We've been getting very good work done. We've been getting good

00:49:12.687 --> 00:49:18.846
- prices in. And you guys have just done a fabulous job for us.

00:49:19.650 --> 00:49:29.135
- Don't run into that many people that it would matter to, but for those I do, I tell them, so. Thank

00:49:29.135 --> 00:49:39.000
- you so much. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the relationship. Okay, now we're going to look for permission

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:46.398
- to advertise the 2027 budget. Okay. Okay, and we have Debbie with us tonight.

00:49:47.074 --> 00:49:56.287
- We currently plan to advertise around August 26th for the 27 budget. In preparing for the education

00:49:56.287 --> 00:50:05.500
- budget, we expected to receive approximately $350,000 more in revenue. This is kind of based off of

00:50:05.500 --> 00:50:13.054
- our February count if we continue to stay around where we were. We also increased

00:50:13.250 --> 00:50:20.832
- are numbers on the education fund budget from 26 to 27, about 450,000. Those projections that we plugged

00:50:20.832 --> 00:50:28.125
- in for the budget are also based off the state and what they had projected, what the student council

00:50:28.125 --> 00:50:36.068
- would be. So we kind of pulled those numbers and wanted to make sure all of that matched up pretty accurately

00:50:36.068 --> 00:50:36.862
- with them.

00:50:37.282 --> 00:50:45.029
- As I mentioned before, the operations levy is changing from 4% to 6%, and that's supposed to help kind

00:50:45.029 --> 00:50:51.422
- of offset that property tax cap that's going to take place. So those are some areas.

00:50:51.554 --> 00:50:59.261
- that are included and I just gave you guys kind of a before what we planned in 2026 and what we're planning

00:50:59.261 --> 00:51:06.469
- for 2027 and it's also based on what our debt payments and even our expected debt payments could be.

00:51:06.469 --> 00:51:13.676
- We put a little bit in there just in case we do take on some extra debt next year so we just kind of

00:51:13.676 --> 00:51:18.814
- wanted to make sure that was included but these numbers can be adjusted

00:51:18.946 --> 00:51:27.284
- In November if needed if we if the student count comes down or if anything changes we can adjust those

00:51:27.284 --> 00:51:35.459
- numbers So this is just our permission. So and then I gave you guys a copy of the form three This is

00:51:35.459 --> 00:51:41.854
- the notice that we are going to advertise basically We advertise it on Gateway

00:51:42.082 --> 00:51:50.006
- And it tells the public when our public hearing dates are, which is the public hearing date is Tuesday,

00:51:50.006 --> 00:51:57.701
- September 15th today, or next month, I'm sorry, 2026. And then the adoption meeting date is Tuesday,

00:51:57.701 --> 00:52:05.397
- October 20th, 2026. And it kind of gives you again, the projections of what those totals are. So you

00:52:05.397 --> 00:52:10.654
- have a copy of that. And again, that'll be available for the public.

00:52:11.394 --> 00:52:19.905
- I gave you copies of our capital projects plan and our bus replacement plan. We did purchase two buses.

00:52:19.905 --> 00:52:28.253
- We had encumbered the funds last year, but the actual payments took place in January of this year for

00:52:28.253 --> 00:52:36.682
- the two buses that we purchased. So those were on there. At this time, I do not believe we're planning

00:52:36.682 --> 00:52:39.710
- to purchase any buses next year, but

00:52:39.810 --> 00:52:46.299
- If there are any we're not projecting to take those out of the operations fund if we do So those are

00:52:46.299 --> 00:52:52.789
- just some things that we put in there and we've got those set aside just just in case But by statute

00:52:52.789 --> 00:52:59.664
- with the state it requires us to update the bus replacement plan every year. So that's why we're providing

00:52:59.664 --> 00:53:03.262
- it to you and then the capital project plan we actually

00:53:04.706 --> 00:53:13.282
- We've changed our assets where anything over $10,000 is capital asset. And so basically, we've reduced

00:53:13.282 --> 00:53:21.691
- this plan by 30% to 40% from last year. So we're really trying to scale back and cut back as much as

00:53:21.691 --> 00:53:30.017
- we can and get really lean on those funds and just find creative ways to purchase things outside of

00:53:30.017 --> 00:53:34.014
- operations at this time. And I think that's it.

00:53:34.882 --> 00:53:43.086
- Do you guys have any questions? So the buses on this is just a requirement for 2027. Does that mean

00:53:43.086 --> 00:53:51.536
- we're doing it? Yeah. OK. Yeah. And if they approve it, we can? Yeah. OK. I move to approve permission

00:53:51.536 --> 00:53:59.904
- to advertise the 2027 budget. I'll sign it. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

00:53:59.904 --> 00:54:03.678
- Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you.

00:54:04.898 --> 00:54:15.416
- Next is consideration to approve the bus routes. Yes, I'm not sure what we would do if you guys turn

00:54:15.416 --> 00:54:25.100
- this down or vote no, but this is an annual request for the board to approve the bus routes.

00:54:25.100 --> 00:54:32.702
- First of all, I want to keep Audrey Myers and your thoughts and prayers.

00:54:32.930 --> 00:54:42.199
- as her mother passed away this week. But Audrey works hard all summer to prepare the bus routes and

00:54:42.199 --> 00:54:52.209
- she utilizes her knowledge of the roads. Nobody knows our area better than Audrey. She utilizes information

00:54:52.209 --> 00:55:01.570
- from Harmony and our student transportation computer software program to develop the routes and then

00:55:01.570 --> 00:55:02.590
- of course,

00:55:03.010 --> 00:55:12.802
- Just as soon as she gets it all set, here come new students or students withdrawing and it's just a

00:55:12.802 --> 00:55:22.595
- last minute deal, but she works really hard. So the routes that you saw in the board packet are the

00:55:22.595 --> 00:55:28.862
- current routes that we are implementing across the corporation.

00:55:32.130 --> 00:55:38.470
- Any discussion? Dr. Shanners, I had a question on route number 3HJPM. That's a joke. I'm joking. This

00:55:38.470 --> 00:55:44.811
- 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

00:55:44.811 --> 00:55:51.027
- 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

00:55:51.027 --> 00:55:57.492
- the board packet, these routes. It was amazing how many roads we cover every day and how safely they're

00:55:57.492 --> 00:56:01.470
- getting these kids home and into school. So kudos to the board.

00:56:01.890 --> 00:56:10.210
- to the bus and transportation crew. We have a great team in the transportation department. I say this

00:56:10.210 --> 00:56:18.611
- all the time, but I wish I could capture the radio dialogue between bus drivers, especially if there's

00:56:18.611 --> 00:56:26.849
- bad weather or if a bus breaks down and you have to help another driver. It's just a perfect example

00:56:26.849 --> 00:56:30.846
- of collaboration and helping your teammates out.

00:56:32.898 --> 00:56:42.104
- It's, of course, another good opportunity to remind everybody to be safe out there. At the bus stops

00:56:42.104 --> 00:56:51.857
- and walking to school and those being dropped off. Also, our school resource officers are great monitoring

00:56:51.857 --> 00:57:01.246
- that as well. We appreciate the Ellsville Police Department on 46, especially in other locations where

00:57:01.666 --> 00:57:10.704
- It's quite dangerous. They look out for us, so we appreciate them. Anything further? All those in favor

00:57:10.704 --> 00:57:19.828
- say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now it's consideration to approve the SCCAP Head Start Agreement,

00:57:19.828 --> 00:57:20.958
- Dr. Sanders.

00:57:21.058 --> 00:57:30.017
- This is an annual renewal of the agreement that we have with local Head Start program where we, our

00:57:30.017 --> 00:57:39.065
- nutrition services department provides the meals for Head Start and in turn this helps us to be able

00:57:39.065 --> 00:57:47.486
- to qualify for programs that essentially provide a free breakfast and lunch for our students.

00:57:47.586 --> 00:57:56.634
- And so I just asked the board to approve this agreement with Head Start. I'll move approval of the SCCAP

00:57:56.634 --> 00:58:05.941
- Head Start agreement. I second. Moved and second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

00:58:05.941 --> 00:58:13.438
- Motion carries. Next is consideration to approve the adjunct permit for Kenneth Greil.

00:58:14.050 --> 00:58:23.359
- Yeah, I'm sure you've heard about the great things that Ken does at the junior high with our media program.

00:58:23.359 --> 00:58:32.065
- Ken is currently working on his workplace specialist license that will enable him to eventually have

00:58:32.065 --> 00:58:40.684
- a full teacher contract. But at this point, in order to employ Ken as a teacher, we need to approve

00:58:40.684 --> 00:58:42.494
- this adjunct teacher

00:58:42.594 --> 00:58:51.051
- permit so that he can continue to do the awesome work that he does at the junior high. In fact, I'll

00:58:51.051 --> 00:58:59.675
- just throw this out there too. You know, I do a podcast once a month. Well, the company, the gentleman

00:58:59.675 --> 00:59:08.550
- who has done this podcast with us for years recently retired. And so I'm meeting with Mr. Gryle on Friday

00:59:08.550 --> 00:59:12.318
- to work it out so his students can take over

00:59:12.450 --> 00:59:21.062
- doing that, working with me on that podcast. And Mr. Grial actually, I was going that direction anyways,

00:59:21.062 --> 00:59:29.510
- but he beat me to the punch and emailed me and wanted to know if they could do it, so. I move approval

00:59:29.510 --> 00:59:37.876
- of the adjunct permit for Ken Grial. I'll second. Moved, seconded. Any discussion? Oh, just, not just

00:59:37.876 --> 00:59:38.942
- hearing what

00:59:39.394 --> 00:59:49.020
- Mr. Grail does, but also I've seen him in action and it is impressive. And that contracts for 48,500

00:59:49.020 --> 00:59:59.027
- plus benefits. All those in favor say aye. Aye. The motion carries. Next is the consideration to approve

00:59:59.027 --> 01:00:06.366
- a residential facility contract. And we'd like to have Noah with us tonight.

01:00:08.066 --> 01:00:15.600
- Yeah, so this is a reoccurring contract that we've gone through approval for. In previous years, it's

01:00:15.600 --> 01:00:22.987
- for a student of ours in our district with special needs who lives at a residential facility at the

01:00:22.987 --> 01:00:30.078
- Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. The contract for this is for the 26, 27th school year.

01:00:30.274 --> 01:00:38.537
- services are kind of aligned with what's in the IEP for this student. So that the contract basically

01:00:38.537 --> 01:00:47.210
- aligns with the agreement for it as well as fees are paid for tuition as well as for her intensive needs,

01:00:47.210 --> 01:00:55.473
- she requires one-on-one assistance for that. So the rates from what they have provided for this year

01:00:55.473 --> 01:00:59.646
- as compared to last year, the tuition rate they do

01:00:59.842 --> 01:01:12.838
- based off a daily rate of $1,080.15 for 365 days, which gives an annual price for the fiscal year for

01:01:12.838 --> 01:01:25.961
- 27 of $394,254.04. The student also receives the one-on-one service for that price, which is at a rate

01:01:25.961 --> 01:01:28.382
- of $47.36 an hour.

01:01:28.514 --> 01:01:35.118
- For annual price of four hundred fourteen thousand eight hundred seventy three and sixty cents bring

01:01:35.118 --> 01:01:41.722
- the total to eight hundred nine thousand one hundred twenty seven and sixty four cents for that Just

01:01:41.722 --> 01:01:48.457
- a reminder for those prices we go through secret reimbursement from that. So that's a Government funds

01:01:48.457 --> 01:01:55.454
- grants that comes to us we apply Essentially, it's it's a nice benefit from the state where they recognize

01:01:55.554 --> 01:02:02.219
- They have a certain amount of money that they allocate to the highest needs, highest costs, students

01:02:02.219 --> 01:02:09.016
- to be able to provide them with their free, appropriate public education. So that's one where once the

01:02:09.016 --> 01:02:15.747
- contract that we're going forward with, we always reapply for that seat contract every year. That one

01:02:15.747 --> 01:02:22.544
- comes up after the annual case review. So that one's at the end of this month. We reapply, goes to the

01:02:22.544 --> 01:02:25.118
- IDOE, they then go through the process

01:02:25.218 --> 01:02:33.716
- approval with that and then we begin reimbursement. So the total for how seek works is we just have

01:02:33.716 --> 01:02:42.555
- to pay a minimum of the 30 around $31,000 and then the rest of it gets paid off from the secret. I move

01:02:42.555 --> 01:02:52.158
- approval of the residential facility contract. Any discussion. Last year we had two students I believe in right.

01:02:52.450 --> 01:03:01.937
- Yes, so we only have one now. Our second one, she graduated from school. So yeah, she's graduated and

01:03:01.937 --> 01:03:11.888
- she's off living in the community. Yeah. That's the outcome we hope for. Yes, very much a big celebration.

01:03:11.888 --> 01:03:19.422
- So Mr. Dix, I have a quick question. And thanks for your time on this yesterday.

01:03:20.450 --> 01:03:25.893
- It's about $810,000 for this one student, and that's our obligation as a school corporation, because

01:03:25.893 --> 01:03:31.390
- we live in our district. We're going to do the best we can for every kid. Do we cash flow this for so

01:03:31.390 --> 01:03:36.887
- many months until we get our reimbursement, or does it happen immediately, the whole amount, or is it

01:03:36.887 --> 01:03:41.630
- spread out over seven or eight months? I'm just curious about the financial side of it.

01:03:41.890 --> 01:03:49.790
- So we get billed monthly on a monthly rate for that one. So we get those prices that come in. The approval

01:03:49.790 --> 01:03:57.322
- process from when we apply that process can take up to a few months for how that goes. And so I would

01:03:57.322 --> 01:04:04.927
- say last year it probably took three, four months to be able to do that. So we do pay up upfront there

01:04:04.927 --> 01:04:08.766
- and then we get reimbursed back for those services.

01:04:08.994 --> 01:04:15.408
- And this should be for any public school, even universal voucher schools should have to do this. But

01:04:15.408 --> 01:04:21.823
- we have the cashflow to do it, so we're doing it, correct? Yes. Okay, and then that reimbursement of

01:04:21.823 --> 01:04:28.618
- 31,000, our per student amounts about $7,200, Dr. Sanders, does that sound about right? So we're absorbing

01:04:28.618 --> 01:04:35.159
- the 23 as a school corporation? Yes. Okay, and then what else does this placement provide for parents?

01:04:35.159 --> 01:04:38.398
- Do they just don't see their kid for a whole year?

01:04:38.498 --> 01:04:45.627
- Do they get a chance to go see the kids or? No, we do. So we work with the families to support them

01:04:45.627 --> 01:04:52.828
- to be able to travel out to the center, meet their child and go out. So we support them with travel,

01:04:52.828 --> 01:04:59.958
- lodging, food mileage for those to be able to go out and see their kiddo out in whichever facility.

01:04:59.958 --> 01:05:03.166
- Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

01:05:06.978 --> 01:05:13.955
- Anything further? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And next is a contract with

01:05:13.955 --> 01:05:20.999
- pro care therapy for school psychologists. Yes, so for this one, requesting consideration for a contract

01:05:20.999 --> 01:05:27.774
- with pro care therapy. We had a school psychologist that left our school district last spring. We've

01:05:27.774 --> 01:05:33.342
- had the position open since that time. We haven't been able to fill that position.

01:05:33.474 --> 01:05:39.922
- knowing for our school district, we have two school psychologists. And so we have it worked into where

01:05:39.922 --> 01:05:45.681
- they are balancing between the job duty of what the other school psychologist who left was.

01:05:45.681 --> 01:05:52.003
- School psychologists, it's kind of one of those reasons we also have the SEEDS grant that we've been

01:05:52.003 --> 01:05:58.263
- working through. We have those school psychs in training because it is a very, it's honestly a rare

01:05:58.263 --> 01:06:00.830
- profession to be able to fill right now.

01:06:01.026 --> 01:06:07.631
- And so we we've been searching for that but knowing too that our our schools need to be able to get

01:06:07.631 --> 01:06:14.302
- that additional help where it's needed in the interim of being able to search. So with this contract

01:06:14.302 --> 01:06:20.510
- we're looking at a part time school psychologist. Her name's Patricia Wade for their company.

01:06:20.674 --> 01:06:27.337
- to work 19 and a half hours per week. The bill rate for the outside agency is $100 per hour, which I

01:06:27.337 --> 01:06:34.133
- know is a lot. So we kind of look at from the budget that we have for the school psychologist position

01:06:34.133 --> 01:06:40.796
- that would have been hired from there. We basically aligned the hours per week to then kind of match

01:06:40.796 --> 01:06:47.723
- what that pay would be for someone if they were hired directly through us. But the school psychologists,

01:06:47.723 --> 01:06:50.494
- they're fully licensed through the state.

01:06:51.106 --> 01:06:58.503
- They'd be helping with educational evaluations, participating in case conferences, staffings to talk

01:06:58.503 --> 01:07:06.047
- through any additional appropriate supports for students or needs. And the nice thing, kind of working

01:07:06.047 --> 01:07:13.590
- through for this contract, the agreement in the contract allows for some flexibility to where, say if,

01:07:13.590 --> 01:07:19.742
- as we continue to search for a school psychologist to be directly hired through us,

01:07:19.842 --> 01:07:26.892
- The essential piece for the contract with them is it can be terminated at any time without really necessarily

01:07:26.892 --> 01:07:33.429
- reason. We just give them 30 days notice. So if we have somebody that we hired, we can let know, hey,

01:07:33.429 --> 01:07:40.286
- we have someone internally we're hiring, we're going to release from the contract, and then after 30 days,

01:07:40.514 --> 01:07:47.381
- for those services, then we can transition out. So it still allows that flexibility for us as we look

01:07:47.381 --> 01:07:54.653
- for the vacant school psych position, it allows us to get that temporary support where needed. The contract

01:07:54.653 --> 01:08:01.587
- from Pro Care Therapy, that's one that I sent to Jessica Heiser from Imprint Legal Group. She reviewed

01:08:01.587 --> 01:08:08.926
- it and she didn't have any concerns from what she had seen. I'm gonna approve the contract Pro Care Therapy.

01:08:11.906 --> 01:08:18.527
- For the contract, we're not, the $100 out is a pretty high number, but we're not paying their health

01:08:18.527 --> 01:08:25.673
- insurance either, correct? No, just the rate. And is this for, how many, is this, if we don't hire somebody,

01:08:25.673 --> 01:08:32.229
- is it for the whole 52 weeks of the year, is it just for 36 weeks of the school year? It's just the

01:08:32.229 --> 01:08:39.047
- services for the 36 weeks minus, by the time we're able to get her started from beginning of the school

01:08:39.047 --> 01:08:41.342
- year, it'd be 32 weeks of service.

01:08:41.474 --> 01:08:47.676
- and then from there it can end at the end of the school year and then we can decide do we want to renew

01:08:47.676 --> 01:08:53.759
- or do we want to end from there. So we're paying about 70,000 for a halftime person, 20 hours a week,

01:08:53.759 --> 01:08:59.603
- 19 hours. Around 70 miles the few weeks, so around mid 60s. Which had equates to what a full-time

01:08:59.603 --> 01:09:05.685
- psychologist was before. If we doubled it, okay. Okay, and then these psychologists, the seeds grant,

01:09:05.685 --> 01:09:06.878
- they're not allowed

01:09:07.362 --> 01:09:12.560
- They have certain stipulations, they're all that, they're just in training right now, correct? They're

01:09:12.560 --> 01:09:17.658
- in training, we're working through with IU, we're starting to have them be able to, as they, because

01:09:17.658 --> 01:09:22.705
- they're in the early stages for school, and that typically takes up to like three years for them to

01:09:22.705 --> 01:09:27.398
- be able to get their licensure for it, but they'll be able to, we're sorting through some of

01:09:27.398 --> 01:09:32.496
- those obligations for them, because they'll be able to start supporting as they're doing like on-job

01:09:32.496 --> 01:09:36.382
- training, they can start doing observations to support our school psych, so,

01:09:36.482 --> 01:09:42.619
- We've had the balls rolling with Heather Ormiston over at IU along with our school psychs. Brittany

01:09:42.619 --> 01:09:48.756
- Straw and I were kind of coordinating how we can support there too. So what are those four students

01:09:48.756 --> 01:09:55.138
- in training doing right now until school starts? Are they helping in buildings in different ways? Yeah,

01:09:55.138 --> 01:10:01.950
- so they're mainly, and Brittany you might be able to speak on it more, but essentially yeah, they're not doing

01:10:03.202 --> 01:10:09.255
- School of Psychology, per se, have evaluation side things. They're supporting in the classrooms. Are

01:10:09.255 --> 01:10:15.488
- there support? Yeah, they're doing a lot of SEL support right now. That's kind of the thing with School

01:10:15.488 --> 01:10:21.960
- of Psychs in Indiana and other states, just because of caseload numbers and stuff. A School of Psychologist

01:10:21.960 --> 01:10:28.073
- can do evaluations, but they can also do much more than that. They can do intervention groups. And so

01:10:28.073 --> 01:10:31.070
- as they're kind of going through the SEEDS grant,

01:10:31.234 --> 01:10:37.471
- They're mainly focused on the intervention side of things too. And then as their schooling is going

01:10:37.471 --> 01:10:44.207
- through, then they'll be able to start doing a lot more observations, get some experience with evaluations,

01:10:44.207 --> 01:10:50.444
- those pieces. Okay, okay. And then on a kind of a sidebar, did we have an unanticipated increase in

01:10:50.444 --> 01:10:56.931
- kids in the journeys classroom this year? Yes. Over last year, I thought we had six or seven last year,

01:10:56.931 --> 01:11:00.798
- but we had a big increase. Yeah, last year, are you referring

01:11:00.898 --> 01:11:07.312
- primary school or just- Right, the primary. What prompted it? Some other programs shut down locally

01:11:07.312 --> 01:11:13.983
- or? The journeys at the primary school, we had projected from what we had seen to who was transitioning

01:11:13.983 --> 01:11:20.782
- to our intermediate school. We were projecting around seven or eight students for there with enrollments.

01:11:20.782 --> 01:11:27.196
- We tried to anticipate who comes in. So we had a number of kiddos from kindergarten that were fresh

01:11:27.196 --> 01:11:28.158
- to the school.

01:11:28.322 --> 01:11:35.743
- They're coming in. We also have students that come from ABA clinics. So the applied behavioral analysis

01:11:35.743 --> 01:11:42.879
- therapy for them. So the piece where they come in from ABA clinics, typically for students, if they

01:11:42.879 --> 01:11:50.085
- haven't been in the school system before that, they don't have educational evaluations because ABAs,

01:11:50.085 --> 01:11:56.222
- they're not focused on educational services. They're focused on therapeutic services.

01:11:56.610 --> 01:12:02.720
- And so when we do have students that come in, and a lot of the time when we're kind of determining what's

01:12:02.720 --> 01:12:08.657
- the appropriate placement for them, because they don't have an IEP, they don't have an evaluation from

01:12:08.657 --> 01:12:14.652
- an educational side, we basically work to see what's gonna be the most appropriate placement. You could

01:12:14.652 --> 01:12:20.589
- have a kiddo from an ABA clinic who, you know, with autism, who might have some limited functionality,

01:12:20.589 --> 01:12:26.238
- but if we can have them in their least restrictive environment in the gen ed setting, we do that.

01:12:26.402 --> 01:12:32.679
- But then we also look at, such as this year, if we have an influx of kiddos coming in who have higher,

01:12:32.679 --> 01:12:38.895
- more significant needs, then we try to make sure they have the most appropriate setting, even if they

01:12:38.895 --> 01:12:45.051
- don't have their evaluation on the educational side of things to start, and then we kind of backfill

01:12:45.051 --> 01:12:51.450
- from there for them. So, yeah. Is there a clinic that actually shut down? Is that what happened? There's

01:12:51.450 --> 01:12:54.558
- one clinic that closed down, and then we also have

01:12:54.658 --> 01:13:02.527
- which we didn't know that was coming up, was that anticipated? Not that I was aware of, no. I know one

01:13:02.527 --> 01:13:10.319
- conversation in my special education director committees we talked through is the ABA with insurance.

01:13:10.319 --> 01:13:18.111
- So I know that's kind of been a tougher position for families. The school system, we don't dictate if

01:13:18.111 --> 01:13:19.486
- a student does or

01:13:19.618 --> 01:13:26.882
- 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

01:13:26.882 --> 01:13:34.649
- they might come part time to school they might do full time ABA. So most of the time if we have a sometimes

01:13:34.649 --> 01:13:41.841
- with insurance if ABA can't if they can no longer be supported at ABA then they transition into the

01:13:41.841 --> 01:13:44.286
- school setting. We try to kind of

01:13:44.386 --> 01:13:50.727
- recognize it's a transition, so we might start slow, but we also know if it's one where we need to do

01:13:50.727 --> 01:13:57.068
- a full time movement into the school setting, we'll do that too and make it work. So yeah, so once we

01:13:57.068 --> 01:14:03.347
- have that information coming in, along with enrollment numbers, that's where we as a group, we start

01:14:03.347 --> 01:14:09.564
- to look through and see where our adjustments need made. Do we need instructional IAs? Do we need a

01:14:09.564 --> 01:14:13.854
- new teacher, a new classroom? So that's kind of where for this year,

01:14:14.050 --> 01:14:21.518
- It's kind of a storm of kind of different factors coming in to where then we are trying to, as a group,

01:14:21.518 --> 01:14:28.699
- we started looking at that when enrollment came through and then seeing how we can fit the needs of

01:14:28.699 --> 01:14:35.952
- those students, along with coordination with families as they were talking with us. All right, thank

01:14:35.952 --> 01:14:42.558
- you guys for working with those families. Nothing further? All those in favor say aye. Aye.

01:14:43.298 --> 01:14:51.444
- Motion carried. Our last action item is to approve an MOA with Melissa double consulting. Yes, so this

01:14:51.444 --> 01:14:59.352
- kind of goes along with our journeys classrooms at the primary school. So kind of with the changing

01:14:59.352 --> 01:15:07.814
- needs for them, we have our two journeys classrooms now. With there, we do have two new journeys teachers,

01:15:07.814 --> 01:15:11.294
- along with new instructional aids for their

01:15:11.394 --> 01:15:19.188
- So when we were kind of working through on the administration side things and then also working with

01:15:19.188 --> 01:15:26.904
- the families We felt like it would make sense to Contract with Melissa Doobie to be able to provide

01:15:26.904 --> 01:15:35.084
- Really evidence-based practices to support those students and kind of do on-the-job training for teachers

01:15:35.084 --> 01:15:38.942
- and for our instructional aids specifically to so

01:15:39.042 --> 01:15:47.601
- For this one with Melissa Dooby, she has 40 years of experience working in schools and at the Indiana

01:15:47.601 --> 01:15:49.950
- Resource Center for Autism.

01:15:50.050 --> 01:15:57.646
- Once she had retired, she created Melissa Duby Consulting LLC. And from there, she really focuses on

01:15:57.646 --> 01:16:05.468
- that piece of supporting school districts and implementing those practices. So she came highly regarded

01:16:05.468 --> 01:16:13.140
- from our primary school principals from Dr. Fishman and Dr. Robinson. So we've been coordinating with

01:16:13.140 --> 01:16:17.502
- her to be able to set up. It would be more like periodic.

01:16:18.210 --> 01:16:24.213
- consultative services to where we'd be looking at having her come in for about four days, just observe

01:16:24.213 --> 01:16:30.158
- the classroom, see if there's any pieces that any report she can pull from there. She'll give us some

01:16:30.158 --> 01:16:36.044
- suggestions, kind of work with the staff on how this can look, and then she'd be coming back after X

01:16:36.044 --> 01:16:41.873
- amount of weeks, give it some time for those to be implemented to where then she could kind of give

01:16:41.873 --> 01:16:46.302
- some feedback on how she's kind of seeing it being implemented in the room.

01:16:46.402 --> 01:16:54.826
- 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

01:16:54.826 --> 01:17:03.334
- a flat day rate of $1,200 for it. But we also know that that's a need in the classrooms over there to

01:17:03.334 --> 01:17:11.925
- be able to support. I did note in there for the MOA that she had, that one was pending. Jessica Heiser

01:17:11.925 --> 01:17:15.678
- from Imprint, she had reviewed the contract.

01:17:15.810 --> 01:17:22.321
- She had sent some revisions, mainly just updated legal language that is needed in all contracts. So

01:17:22.321 --> 01:17:29.093
- she had sent that over to Melissa Dubes for there, and then Melissa, I had in there as pending, I heard

01:17:29.093 --> 01:17:35.799
- back from Melissa actually a little bit before this board meeting saying she would go forward with the

01:17:35.799 --> 01:17:42.506
- revisions. So I'm working with Jessica, we're getting the revisions sent to her to then be able to put

01:17:42.506 --> 01:17:43.678
- in place for her.

01:17:46.434 --> 01:17:55.145
- approval of the MOA with Melissa Duby consulting. I'll second. It's been moved and second. Any discussion?

01:17:55.145 --> 01:18:03.286
- This is with the revised terms that was agreed upon before the meeting. Correct. Okay. All those in

01:18:03.286 --> 01:18:11.590
- favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. I just by the way talked about how

01:18:11.590 --> 01:18:14.846
- we were going to pay for Melissa Duby's

01:18:15.074 --> 01:18:20.911
- We're going to take about half of it out of Medicaid and the other half out of Title II so that the

01:18:20.911 --> 01:18:26.865
- education fund doesn't get hit with that. And as Noah said, this is a must-do to get those new people

01:18:26.865 --> 01:18:32.760
- trained that are in our two journeys classrooms, making sure that they understand the day in and day

01:18:32.760 --> 01:18:38.656
- out, how they respond to students' individual needs, things like that. So you wouldn't see this come

01:18:38.656 --> 01:18:44.318
- across education. We're going to fund that a different way to make sure we can make that happen.

01:18:44.898 --> 01:18:52.343
- Thank you. Thank you. And David Tate for our business manager's report. I've given you guys the current

01:18:52.343 --> 01:18:59.502
- totals for the education fund, the debt service, and the operations fund. For July, the amounts for

01:18:59.502 --> 01:19:07.233
- expenses were a little higher. We had a three-pay month, so that does show a little bit more of an increase

01:19:07.233 --> 01:19:13.246
- because of that reason. We are still on target with our projections at this moment.

01:19:13.346 --> 01:19:21.833
- And basically, the only other thing was we have, I have a breakdown of our debt payments that we made

01:19:21.833 --> 01:19:30.237
- in July. So you can see where those were all broken down and paid. And, you know, every time we make

01:19:30.237 --> 01:19:38.641
- these debt payments, it does put a deficit in that account, but it always gets positive by December.

01:19:38.641 --> 01:19:41.470
- So you can kind of see that flow.

01:19:41.570 --> 01:19:55.680
- listed at the bottom just to give you guys a reference to that. Do you guys have any questions? Thank

01:19:55.680 --> 01:20:10.206
- you so much. Thank you. And now on to our assistant superintendent's report. So we've started a year off

01:20:10.402 --> 01:20:16.577
- really strong across all the buildings. EPS, EIS, EJHS, they've already started their beginning of the

01:20:16.577 --> 01:20:22.572
- year reading screeners. We know that that's one of the biggest indicators that we need right at the

01:20:22.572 --> 01:20:28.747
- beginning of the year because we need to get those interventions up and running for reading yesterday.

01:20:28.747 --> 01:20:34.921
- So we have teams out there working on this every single day. You'll see this year that we're expanding

01:20:34.921 --> 01:20:38.878
- the reading screeners up in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

01:20:38.978 --> 01:20:44.699
- This is really important because those sixth, seventh and eighth graders did not experience science

01:20:44.699 --> 01:20:50.762
- of reading and the changes that we've made K through five back when they were in primary and intermediate

01:20:50.762 --> 01:20:56.483
- school. So we definitely have gaps in our reading foundation there that still need work before they

01:20:56.483 --> 01:21:02.547
- head into high school. So we're gonna be continuing those reading screeners for sixth, seventh and eighth

01:21:02.547 --> 01:21:08.382
- graders, as well as providing interventions to them at that junior high level. We are still on track.

01:21:08.770 --> 01:21:14.946
- And I, with sitting down here really close to Brad, I don't make any promises. And in fact, I'll scoot

01:21:14.946 --> 01:21:21.061
- down a little bit. But we are still on track for at least a $500,000 budget cut to the education fund

01:21:21.061 --> 01:21:27.117
- for fiscal year 2026. I'll explain this to you just a little bit where we're at. What you see in the

01:21:27.117 --> 01:21:31.134
- left column is the estimates that we made, the goals that we made.

01:21:31.234 --> 01:21:39.626
- $400,000 there in potential savings with retirements and natural attrition, $100,000 in cutting curriculum

01:21:39.626 --> 01:21:47.626
- costs, $40,000 in backfilling a retired teacher in the Title I grant, not backfilling an assistant in

01:21:47.626 --> 01:21:55.390
- the Title I grant, and then pulling one that was in education fund back over to the Title I grant.

01:21:55.522 --> 01:22:03.875
- Another $40,000, as Noah was saying, we're down to one kiddo who is out of state in a facility. So we

01:22:03.875 --> 01:22:12.228
- will not have the other students deductible this year. And the board voted to remove Memorial Day for

01:22:12.228 --> 01:22:20.254
- nine-month employees as a paid holiday. So our goal here was 587,000. I'm really thinking very...

01:22:20.450 --> 01:22:25.994
- On the low side when I say 500,000 is what we're on track for because if you look over to the right

01:22:25.994 --> 01:22:31.871
- hand side it'll give you an update on where we actually are with these numbers right now. We're currently

01:22:31.871 --> 01:22:37.582
- at 384,000 in savings with five more employees to choose their benefit packages. So it obviously makes

01:22:37.582 --> 01:22:43.902
- a difference for us whether or not they choose an individual plan, a family plan. Of course that's their options.

01:22:44.386 --> 01:22:52.787
- As they're choosing those, those numbers will get filled in and I'll have more exact numbers on exactly

01:22:52.787 --> 01:23:00.946
- how much that employee will cost us overall. The current status as of today is $449,000 that we have

01:23:00.946 --> 01:23:07.166
- spent in curriculum for fiscal year 2026. Our total 2025 spend was $655,000.

01:23:07.330 --> 01:23:14.634
- When I say that we're sitting at, my goal was 587,000 and I look at 100,000 was our goal in curriculum

01:23:14.634 --> 01:23:21.726
- and we're about a $200,000 difference there. Gracie and I have been writing POs left and right. Our

01:23:21.726 --> 01:23:28.889
- goal was to have everything done by August 1 because we did not want Paul and Debbie to see any cash

01:23:28.889 --> 01:23:32.222
- flows coming through on curriculum for August.

01:23:32.386 --> 01:23:38.418
- We did have some things that needed to be purchased in early August, so we do have some of those things

01:23:38.418 --> 01:23:44.219
- that are gonna keep rolling on through, but I think we are down to the last few POs. We will always

01:23:44.219 --> 01:23:50.135
- have things that will come through as the school year goes on, but we're not going to be surprised by

01:23:50.135 --> 01:23:56.052
- a $10,000 purchase with something. So it should be minor pieces that will come along where curriculum

01:23:56.052 --> 01:23:57.502
- requests are considered.

01:23:57.858 --> 01:24:05.531
- So I'm thinking conservatively that we are on track to hit that 500,000 budget. But when I look at this

01:24:05.531 --> 01:24:13.424
- carefully, I think we're going to be OK. And I'm excited. Paul and I were just saying today, we're excited

01:24:13.424 --> 01:24:21.023
- to get these cash flows in for August and September so that we really can have a good measure of where

01:24:21.023 --> 01:24:27.294
- we are and make sure that we're coming out on the other side of this OK. Down below.

01:24:28.130 --> 01:24:34.534
- We have the IDOE announcement that came out. Schools have received their 2026 I Learn summative assessment

01:24:34.534 --> 01:24:40.639
- scores. However, this data is still considered preliminary, and it should not be shared publicly yet.

01:24:40.639 --> 01:24:46.864
- It's not even final yet. We still have a report that's due to this data. It's called the Accountability

01:24:46.864 --> 01:24:52.909
- Report, where we have to go through every single one of our kiddos that we currently have an I Learn

01:24:52.909 --> 01:24:57.278
- score for. And if that kiddo did not attend school with us for 162 days,

01:24:57.378 --> 01:25:03.514
- Maybe it was a transfer student. Maybe it was a student that enrolled later in the year, left earlier

01:25:03.514 --> 01:25:09.709
- in the year, whatever that might be. If that student was not with us for 162 days, we can dispute that

01:25:09.709 --> 01:25:15.725
- student on the report. So Jenny will be going through that with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that

01:25:15.725 --> 01:25:19.454
- we don't have any kiddos on there who should not be reported.

01:25:19.522 --> 01:25:26.140
- And then in September, we will get those final scores. The reason that it's pushed back is because this

01:25:26.140 --> 01:25:32.631
- was a year that Indiana had to create new cut scores. And that's just a process that the state has to

01:25:32.631 --> 01:25:39.186
- go through. And so that pushes back the finalization of the summative assessment scores. So those will

01:25:39.186 --> 01:25:45.867
- get finalized in September. We don't have a date on that yet. I'm hopeful that I can bring a full update

01:25:45.867 --> 01:25:48.222
- to you in September of where we are.

01:25:48.354 --> 01:25:54.738
- Grades three through eight in those areas Right now I don't even have state scores to compare with so

01:25:54.738 --> 01:26:01.185
- I wanted to give you some highs and some other areas But until I have those state scores, I don't want

01:26:01.185 --> 01:26:07.444
- to really say You know that's that we've You know a sword in this area or that we have improvements

01:26:07.444 --> 01:26:13.765
- to make in this area because a lot of times when we see our school drop we see the state drop across

01:26:13.765 --> 01:26:15.518
- that area as well, so let's

01:26:15.746 --> 01:26:22.094
- We're going to stay positive with it and we'll see where we are after the state averages come out and

01:26:22.094 --> 01:26:28.691
- we give an update to everybody then. The last one I know Brad will be excited about we're writing another

01:26:28.691 --> 01:26:35.102
- grant and I say that positively because this one is one that we are looking at to potentially replace.

01:26:35.522 --> 01:26:41.761
- or compensate for our SMART grant. So SMART grant is going to be rolling off the books this year, and

01:26:41.761 --> 01:26:48.000
- we have a lot of amazing employees that are coming out of that grant that are doing incredible things

01:26:48.000 --> 01:26:54.117
- for our kids. This grant is called the Opportunity to Learn Project Grant. I gave you a copy of the

01:26:54.117 --> 01:27:00.478
- letter that we received. This is actually Lilly money, about $400 million of Lilly money that they have

01:27:00.546 --> 01:27:07.859
- They have poured into a new 501C3 called Indiana Lifelong Learning Projects, and these projects are

01:27:07.859 --> 01:27:15.391
- called Opportunity to Learn Projects. We are eligible to apply because we're outside of Monroe County,

01:27:15.391 --> 01:27:23.070
- and if you look at the backside of that, they've given us the numbers that we are eligible to apply for.

01:27:23.266 --> 01:27:30.452
- With 2687 reported K through 12 people enrollment that puts us in the range for a seventy five thousand

01:27:30.452 --> 01:27:37.706
- dollar planning grant. We will be submitting that planning grant application next week and then assuming

01:27:37.706 --> 01:27:42.750
- that we receive that we'll start the work then of figuring out what does

01:27:42.850 --> 01:27:49.117
- Our competitive grant requests entail and that's up to about one point seven five million. Brittany

01:27:49.117 --> 01:27:55.823
- strong I sat down today we talked through a lot of pieces with this and we're trying to restrain ourselves

01:27:55.823 --> 01:27:56.638
- on thinking.

01:27:56.834 --> 01:28:04.331
- Too much about the competitive side of it because that really needs to be led by a group of people different

01:28:04.331 --> 01:28:11.415
- stakeholders across the organization and we don't want to influence that too much there. Obviously our

01:28:11.415 --> 01:28:15.198
- biggest priority is going to be maintaining our smart.

01:28:15.362 --> 01:28:20.941
- mental health providers, student services providers that we already pay for out of that smart grant.

01:28:20.941 --> 01:28:26.685
- So that'll be our first priority. And then I'm hopeful with some other things that we can do with that.

01:28:26.685 --> 01:28:29.502
- The whole point of this grant is prepping students

01:28:29.762 --> 01:28:36.654
- to be able to learn in the classroom. What do we do to make sure that our kids are ready to learn? So

01:28:36.654 --> 01:28:43.547
- it is all of those things. It's how do we get them to school? How do we keep them engaged? What do we

01:28:43.547 --> 01:28:50.372
- do to get them into ECAs so that they're not out causing problems for Chief Journal in the evenings,

01:28:50.372 --> 01:28:55.102
- but they're out playing an instrument, they're in a sport. How do we,

01:28:56.098 --> 01:29:01.422
- How do we take care of mental health needs? How do we take care of family needs? All of those things

01:29:01.422 --> 01:29:07.063
- are what we're going to be talking about with this grant. So it's an exciting one. We are going to partner

01:29:07.063 --> 01:29:12.334
- with Esolve Solutions. Esolve is a company out of Lagotia, Indiana that we've been working with for

01:29:12.334 --> 01:29:16.446
- a number of years. They are usually the evaluators on our big federal grants.

01:29:16.514 --> 01:29:23.567
- And they reached out to us knowing all of the work that we do here already with these programs and said

01:29:23.567 --> 01:29:30.485
- we would love to help you guys write this grant. So we met with them this week. We're gonna put their

01:29:30.485 --> 01:29:37.471
- fee, their writing fee into the planning grant itself. And then they are gonna work with us on all the

01:29:37.471 --> 01:29:40.862
- surveys, gathering data, all the historical data.

01:29:41.410 --> 01:29:49.821
- It's gonna be an exciting project. So hopefully early 2027, we'll be able to come back with great news

01:29:49.821 --> 01:29:58.069
- that this project is funded and have a really solid plan that doesn't involve education fund for our

01:29:58.069 --> 01:30:06.235
- smart employees. Yeah, thank you. I was a little bit excited. I saw it. Maybe they jumped the guns.

01:30:06.235 --> 01:30:08.766
- I saw schools around the area.

01:30:09.858 --> 01:30:16.548
- promoting all of our third graders 100% passed iLearn. I thought, I got excited, like where's our scores?

01:30:16.548 --> 01:30:22.859
- That's why I asked what was going on, but going down to Southern Indiana that's on their billboards

01:30:22.859 --> 01:30:29.233
- and everywhere else, so did they just jump the gun? I read or I learn? I learn. I read. I read, yes,

01:30:29.233 --> 01:30:35.607
- I read. Third graders is what I said. Yes, third graders, yes. Dr. Jenner sent out, there was a huge

01:30:35.607 --> 01:30:37.374
- announcement across Indiana

01:30:37.698 --> 01:30:40.670
- Last week, principals-ish.

01:30:40.802 --> 01:30:47.596
- Huge announcement across Indiana that we had the biggest increase across the entire state in I read

01:30:47.596 --> 01:30:54.662
- three scores in since COVID. And not only did we have the biggest increase from last year to this year,

01:30:54.662 --> 01:31:01.659
- but this is the first time that our overall passing rate in the state of Indiana is higher than it was

01:31:01.659 --> 01:31:07.774
- prior to COVID. So we're not just making up ground now since the pandemic, we're actually

01:31:08.098 --> 01:31:16.244
- getting ahead and gaining. So it's exciting news. And EPS and EIS, we are right there on that train.

01:31:16.244 --> 01:31:24.309
- Our goal is to close in on that 95%. Our goal is this year. We are so hopeful with this. One of the

01:31:24.309 --> 01:31:33.342
- biggest pieces with hitting that 95% is the intervention pieces for your students with special education needs.

01:31:33.442 --> 01:31:40.101
- Those kiddos are identified with a disability for a reason. When they go through an evaluation and we

01:31:40.101 --> 01:31:46.628
- look at all the ways that they process information, they're identified with a reading disability or

01:31:46.628 --> 01:31:53.483
- a math disability or whatever it is. But the state still holds schools to the same accountability system

01:31:53.483 --> 01:31:59.358
- that they have to pass Ivory 3 by the end of their third grade year. That's the 95% mark.

01:31:59.906 --> 01:32:05.743
- Now what I do love about the new scoring system with the state is that it continues to give credit to

01:32:05.743 --> 01:32:11.236
- schools when they pass in fourth grade and fifth grade and sixth grade. And I love that because

01:32:11.236 --> 01:32:17.188
- it acknowledges that kids continue to learn and that third grade, you know, one size fits all box isn't

01:32:17.188 --> 01:32:18.046
- for everybody.

01:32:18.370 --> 01:32:25.046
- but it doesn't change the accountability model that still says 95% by the end of third grade. So the

01:32:25.046 --> 01:32:32.052
- work that our special education and our Title I teams do at that Tier II and Tier III level is absolutely

01:32:32.052 --> 01:32:38.993
- critical to that mission, not to mention just the Tier I work that our gen ed teachers put in with Orton

01:32:38.993 --> 01:32:46.462
- Gillingham instruction. When they get up into EIS and its vocabulary and its morphology and all of those pieces,

01:32:47.554 --> 01:32:54.041
- There's not one set of teachers that could do it by themselves. It truly takes the entire team in order

01:32:54.041 --> 01:33:00.591
- to prepare those kiddos. And that population there is really that changing factor for a school district,

01:33:00.591 --> 01:33:06.829
- not just our school district, but any school district out there to get over that 95%. You've got to

01:33:06.829 --> 01:33:12.318
- unlock that to figure out how to increase those kiddos mastery of those reading skills.

01:33:17.570 --> 01:33:30.260
- You're welcome. All right, got 27 minutes ahead of me. My mother who lives in Kokomo is down visiting

01:33:30.260 --> 01:33:43.199
- and she was watching online, but just like everybody else, she left the room before I got to my report.

01:33:43.199 --> 01:33:45.438
- I just wanted to,

01:33:45.602 --> 01:33:54.627
- note that how nice our boardroom is looking with the graphics up on the wall. Some folks really worked

01:33:54.627 --> 01:34:03.476
- hard on that. Robin May, Susan Shockney, Gracie Turner. And there's some adjustments we want to make

01:34:03.476 --> 01:34:10.398
- to this, but it's looking pretty good. I was excited. This is my surprise that

01:34:10.498 --> 01:34:19.538
- As a board, I don't think knew about this today. So I wanted to surprise you a little bit. Before I

01:34:19.538 --> 01:34:29.393
- get into my report, I just wanted to say a little bit about, we had some parents from our journeys classroom

01:34:29.393 --> 01:34:38.433
- who spoke tonight and we always value the input of our parents. I learned that a long time ago that

01:34:38.433 --> 01:34:39.518
- parents are

01:34:39.618 --> 01:34:48.759
- partners in this education process. And we need to be good listeners to their concerns or ideas. And

01:34:48.759 --> 01:34:58.171
- so I appreciate those parents that we've met with the last two weeks and we're here tonight. I do wanna

01:34:58.171 --> 01:35:08.126
- add a little caveat in there in that we were already working on the idea of hiring a second journeys teacher.

01:35:08.226 --> 01:35:19.080
- At the beginning of any school year, we often get, have students enrolled at the last minute every year,

01:35:19.080 --> 01:35:29.520
- every school corporation does. And we try to be in touch with the number of students that are coming

01:35:29.520 --> 01:35:36.446
- in. And before the school year starts, we do our best to make sure

01:35:36.546 --> 01:35:45.294
- that we have the appropriate number of staff members, whether it be teachers or instructional assistants.

01:35:45.294 --> 01:35:53.877
- But from time to time, those numbers come in so late that we have to make some last minute adjustments.

01:35:53.877 --> 01:36:02.130
- And we try not to do that, but sometimes that you do, you do have to do that. So for example, we're

01:36:02.130 --> 01:36:06.174
- looking at our kindergarten first grade numbers.

01:36:06.850 --> 01:36:15.539
- and try to determine based on those numbers, do we add another kindergarten teacher? Do we move a first

01:36:15.539 --> 01:36:24.061
- grade teacher to kindergarten? And what are the financial consequences of that decision? We obviously

01:36:24.061 --> 01:36:32.416
- wanna do what's right for students, and that's our top priority, but we also have to make sure that

01:36:32.416 --> 01:36:35.006
- we're fiscally sound in making

01:36:35.106 --> 01:36:42.662
- good financial decisions. I've been there where we've hired a teacher at the last minute only to find

01:36:42.662 --> 01:36:50.366
- out that all the students we were expecting didn't come and we really shouldn't have done that. So it's

01:36:50.366 --> 01:36:58.440
- very challenging decision and the same thing happened with the journeys. We are already having conversations

01:36:58.440 --> 01:37:03.774
- along with that kindergarten first grade conversation we were trying to

01:37:03.874 --> 01:37:12.473
- talk about what we wanted to do with the journeys classroom and were we actually going to have all the

01:37:12.473 --> 01:37:20.905
- kids show up that we anticipated. And sometimes parents don't know the behind the scenes work that's

01:37:20.905 --> 01:37:27.166
- already going on. But we've had two really good meetings with our parents.

01:37:27.586 --> 01:37:37.088
- The Journey's parents and our new principal Lucy Fishman is doing an awesome job working with the parents,

01:37:37.088 --> 01:37:46.501
- communicating with them, being a good listener. And so I think we're definitely headed in a more positive

01:37:46.501 --> 01:37:50.142
- direction with our Journey's classrooms.

01:37:50.370 --> 01:37:59.268
- I wanted to just share, I always hesitate to share our enrollment numbers because we always hear about

01:37:59.268 --> 01:38:08.425
- the students who are coming, but sometimes students who have withdrawn, we don't always get the paperwork

01:38:08.425 --> 01:38:16.286
- in a timely fashion from other school corporations. So we might have students on our books

01:38:16.482 --> 01:38:23.662
- haven't shown up and we don't know if they're still coming or if they've moved somewhere else.

01:38:23.662 --> 01:38:31.219
- So these are, except for the preschool, the K-12 numbers are preliminary, although we've been doing

01:38:31.219 --> 01:38:38.777
- a lot better job this year in terms of accounting for students who physically have not shown up for

01:38:38.777 --> 01:38:43.614
- school yet. But you'll see the preschool numbers, which are up,

01:38:44.066 --> 01:38:57.201
- from last year, 29 children in the daycare compared to 17 last year, 173 in preschool compared to 161

01:38:57.201 --> 01:39:09.950
- last year for a total of 202 compared to 178 last year. K-12, you'll look at this and in the past,

01:39:10.050 --> 01:39:17.888
- I would have given you some preliminary numbers that probably would have been higher. They might have

01:39:17.888 --> 01:39:25.956
- looked good, but they might not have been as accurate for the reasons I just mentioned to you. But we've

01:39:25.956 --> 01:39:33.794
- really, thanks to Jenny Johnson and our secretaries, our attendance clerks, we have a little bit more

01:39:33.794 --> 01:39:38.942
- better, more accurate picture. We still have six students from EPS

01:39:39.266 --> 01:39:46.681
- that we are expecting to withdraw, but we haven't received the paperwork from the other schools. EIS

01:39:46.681 --> 01:39:54.462
- has got all their students accounted for, so that's great. We're still looking, trying to find two junior

01:39:54.462 --> 01:40:01.950
- high students and four high school students. Of course, we still are having some new enrollments show

01:40:01.950 --> 01:40:08.190
- up too, and that's good. Now, just looking at the corporation total, you'll see that

01:40:08.322 --> 01:40:17.198
- that it looks like we might be down a little bit. But when I bring back the final report, when we have

01:40:17.198 --> 01:40:25.988
- our count day in October, I'll bring back some more detailed information and analysis of what went on

01:40:25.988 --> 01:40:31.934
- with students withdrawing and enrolling. I'll bring to you the chart

01:40:32.354 --> 01:40:41.690
- that shows numbers clear back to 2018. And you'll notice that I remember that graph that I show every

01:40:41.690 --> 01:40:51.210
- year. It just kind of goes up and down, up and down, up and down. And that's kind of typical. You don't

01:40:51.210 --> 01:41:00.638
- want to see a big jump, but sometimes the numbers do go down because of birth rates and other factors.

01:41:00.866 --> 01:41:12.068
- If you look at over the trend over the years since 2018, you'll still see a positive trend of our enrollment.

01:41:12.068 --> 01:41:22.557
- And so I always, every year I wanna get up to that 3000 mark. And so we'll keep plugging away at that.

01:41:22.557 --> 01:41:30.398
- I mean, I'd love to get to 3000, 2700 is what I try to reach for every year.

01:41:30.594 --> 01:41:38.943
- So a couple other things, Edgewood Showcase, please get that on your calendar, September 24th from five

01:41:38.943 --> 01:41:47.212
- to 730. That's a big deal for our school campus. And we're excited to show off all of our students and

01:41:47.212 --> 01:41:55.241
- their great talents and our awesome facilities. And the whole community is involved, invited to the

01:41:55.241 --> 01:41:56.766
- Edgewood Showcase.

01:41:57.346 --> 01:42:05.555
- And then something new I'm trying this year. It's called Ask, Share, Celebrate with Your Friendly

01:42:05.555 --> 01:42:13.931
- Superintendent. And I sent this letter that's, I cheated, Jimmy. I put a sheet on the back here. So

01:42:13.931 --> 01:42:22.391
- it's a little bit more than one page. But you see the letter that I sent out. And what I'm trying to

01:42:22.391 --> 01:42:27.166
- get across is that I want to be available for our staffs

01:42:27.458 --> 01:42:36.509
- just come and talk with me. It's always good for me to be in touch with what's going on in our schools.

01:42:36.509 --> 01:42:45.559
- My intent is to do more listening than talking and to start off or make sure that I can live up to this

01:42:45.559 --> 01:42:54.261
- promise. I'm just promising to do this twice each semester and we'll see how that goes. But you see

01:42:54.261 --> 01:42:56.350
- the dates, August 31st,

01:42:56.802 --> 01:43:05.036
- at the high school, September 1st at the junior high, September 2nd at EIS, and then on September 3rd

01:43:05.036 --> 01:43:13.190
- I'll be at the preschool in the morning and the EPS in the afternoon. And hopefully some people will

01:43:13.190 --> 01:43:21.425
- want to come talk to me and share their thoughts and insights and then that'll guide us to continuous

01:43:21.425 --> 01:43:26.430
- improvement across the corporation. Any questions? Thank you.

01:43:27.074 --> 01:43:35.668
- With our Kindergarten 243, we now have bump years in sixth grade, third grade, and kindergarten. These

01:43:35.668 --> 01:43:43.427
- classes are 230-ish kids. So we are looking at 10 teachers per grade level in those classes.

01:43:43.427 --> 01:43:51.770
- So it's crazy. We're not quite sure what's happening every three years around here, but there seems

01:43:51.770 --> 01:43:53.022
- to be a trend.

01:43:53.410 --> 01:44:06.069
- Yeah, take a look at sixth grade, third grade and kindergarten. Those are our bump years. So it was

01:44:06.069 --> 01:44:18.855
- interesting to see kindergarten come in again every third year. We'll see if it maintains like that.

01:44:18.855 --> 01:44:22.526
- I just want to start out by,

01:44:22.690 --> 01:44:31.674
- recognizing my counterpart Brandy Abel who has had what can only be described as a series of cosmic

01:44:31.674 --> 01:44:40.748
- bad luck occur to her and she is hoping to get back in the classroom next week and be with us at the

01:44:40.748 --> 01:44:45.150
- school board meeting by September so I have been

01:44:45.314 --> 01:44:54.852
- unbelievably impressed with her ability to still help out with the association despite being sidetracked.

01:44:54.852 --> 01:45:04.210
- And so I just wanted to start there. This is my 10th year of teaching. And I student taught at Edgewood

01:45:04.210 --> 01:45:13.298
- before that. And while I was doing that, I knew that this was a place that I really wanted to be and

01:45:13.298 --> 01:45:14.558
- be a part of.

01:45:15.298 --> 01:45:24.038
- given that opportunity a few years after that. And I think this year has a lot of excitement and potential,

01:45:24.038 --> 01:45:32.453
- and it's not just things that have happened that are not just happening right now. It's an effort, it's

01:45:32.453 --> 01:45:40.222
- a collective effort that's been happening with years and years of sustained hard work, but just

01:45:40.322 --> 01:45:49.297
- Being at the high school right now, I think there's a sense of excitement with Mr. Boltinghouse being

01:45:49.297 --> 01:45:58.183
- there and I don't know, just all of the, I had a wonderful thing prepared and now I'm stumbling over

01:45:58.183 --> 01:46:07.070
- 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,

01:46:07.490 --> 01:46:16.340
- The association is looking forward to working with you all this year as every year. And I know that

01:46:16.340 --> 01:46:25.456
- often we get dealt not the best cards, but I feel and know from my time working here and just with the

01:46:25.456 --> 01:46:34.661
- past year of working with the association that a good association and good administration is reciprocal

01:46:34.661 --> 01:46:36.254
- and symbiotic and

01:46:39.426 --> 01:46:48.241
- I appreciate being in a place that takes care of us so well. So thank you very much and yeah, look forward

01:46:48.241 --> 01:46:56.726
- to working this year. Well, thank you very much. Awesome. Board member comments, we'll start with Mrs.

01:46:56.726 --> 01:47:05.047
- Jacobs. Well, I wanna really, I know that the families had left about the journeys classroom. That's

01:47:05.047 --> 01:47:06.942
- something that's very,

01:47:07.042 --> 01:47:14.566
- Near to my heart, Devin and Kinsey, both my children spent their high school years with the journeys

01:47:14.566 --> 01:47:22.239
- classes in high school and absolutely loved it. And I hear the desperation in the parents' voices when

01:47:22.239 --> 01:47:29.689
- they're coming and approaching us about things that they need us to do. And I know that we're gonna

01:47:29.689 --> 01:47:36.766
- do the best that we can for those students. I have no doubt for that, but I do appreciate them

01:47:37.058 --> 01:47:44.448
- being here and talking with us, coming up with ideas, strategies. Sometimes they know more strategies

01:47:44.448 --> 01:47:51.838
- of what they can do and how they can teach us to help their own child because they're with them every

01:47:51.838 --> 01:47:59.372
- day. So I'm really glad that we're working with them and hearing them out and giving the best for them.

01:47:59.372 --> 01:48:06.110
- I am saddened to see that Vicki's going to retire, but I'm excited for her next career move.

01:48:06.626 --> 01:48:17.490
- She, like you said, she has been such an instrumental part of our lives. And she has absolutely poured

01:48:17.490 --> 01:48:28.144
- her heart and soul out to our corporation. So I just wanna thank her as well. And happy new year for

01:48:28.144 --> 01:48:35.422
- the school year. Mr. Tucker. Thanks for the parents sharing tonight.

01:48:35.746 --> 01:48:42.080
- And I appreciate the letter they sent to the board members. We do listen and we put that responsibility

01:48:42.080 --> 01:48:48.170
- in the administrators and they do a good job of communicating with parents and I greatly appreciate

01:48:48.170 --> 01:48:54.443
- that. And hopefully things will get ironed out and we can work the best we can with each of those kids

01:48:54.443 --> 01:49:00.533
- because we're gonna work with every student that's in our school corporation. We're gonna take them

01:49:00.533 --> 01:49:04.126
- all, we're gonna work with them and try to be good adults.

01:49:04.802 --> 01:49:11.290
- continue to go through all the testing of all the state requires us. So I stole Dr. Sanders. Rick, if

01:49:11.290 --> 01:49:17.650
- you see that Dr. Sanders in the buildings, I borrowed his card, his cue card to get into buildings.

01:49:17.650 --> 01:49:24.011
- And they're beautiful. I mean, everything was clean. Sorry, Rick, I broke protocol. They were super

01:49:24.011 --> 01:49:26.046
- clean to start the school year.

01:49:26.242 --> 01:49:31.432
- And it was, I really want to hats off to all the staff to put in the effort to clean the buildings this

01:49:31.432 --> 01:49:36.671
- year. I'm disappointed with what happened at the gym floor at the junior high, but hopefully we're gonna

01:49:36.671 --> 01:49:41.761
- get that rectified. And again, kudos to the bus drivers. That was an, that wore me out looking at all

01:49:41.761 --> 01:49:46.751
- those lists. I did not look at every route. I'm not gonna lie to you, but that's a lot of work that

01:49:46.751 --> 01:49:51.841
- goes into it. And you don't realize how much effort goes into getting kids to and from school safely.

01:49:51.841 --> 01:49:55.134
- So I greatly appreciate that. And they'll work with the SROs too.

01:49:55.778 --> 01:50:03.964
- Looking forward to a good 26, 27. Thank you, sir. I reiterate what Ms. Jacobs said about Vicki and of

01:50:03.964 --> 01:50:11.989
- course Audrey Myers lost her mother when we be thinking about her. Thank you to Debbie and Paul for

01:50:11.989 --> 01:50:20.175
- your work on the budget. Jennifer, thank you for your deductions. We worked so hard over the years to

01:50:20.175 --> 01:50:24.990
- build everything up and now we're going down the other way.

01:50:26.818 --> 01:50:33.756
- He left and he promised me that I would use it. I promised him that I would use it. I should say It

01:50:33.756 --> 01:50:40.693
- took some time to get used to that. Oh, yeah, we're trying I know you are and thank you for all the

01:50:40.693 --> 01:50:47.908
- administrators of common department heads appreciate that and Jerry Appreciate your work as well. Thank

01:50:47.908 --> 01:50:54.846
- you I also appreciate the concerns that the families brought to us this evening and promise we will

01:50:54.846 --> 01:50:55.678
- follow up I

01:50:56.098 --> 01:51:06.671
- want to, I guess, thank Ty for telling me it's been 10 years since he student taught, because that's

01:51:06.671 --> 01:51:17.454
- a shock. But I saw a Facebook post from his next door classroom neighbor of a poster that had McGinnis

01:51:17.454 --> 01:51:21.118
- and Axiom and the whole group that

01:51:21.250 --> 01:51:27.765
- were staying where they were and they all had an arrow pointing up. And I thought that was so appropriate

01:51:27.765 --> 01:51:33.912
- because I was at the open house of the high school and it does feel very positive, very strong. I'm

01:51:33.912 --> 01:51:40.304
- thrilled with what I'm seeing going into this new school year. And I mean, there's always some hiccups,

01:51:40.304 --> 01:51:46.819
- but it's just been really positive. So thanks for your nice words too. And I think the enrollment numbers

01:51:46.819 --> 01:51:50.814
- that Dr. Sanders shared with us do give a little credence to the

01:51:51.298 --> 01:52:01.201
- Demographic study that we had that yeah, I mean we're we're gonna be very consistent Slow growth that's

01:52:01.201 --> 01:52:10.914
- what we're looking for. So thank you. Thank you Yeah We do like to keep a close eye on the enrollment

01:52:10.914 --> 01:52:19.198
- numbers because of course that has so much to do with what our budget is and As far as

01:52:19.522 --> 01:52:31.543
- when you administer the school system. And it also means so much what each one of those numbers represent.

01:52:31.543 --> 01:52:42.778
- So it's greatly important that way as well. So we do wanna keep track of them as individuals and as

01:52:42.778 --> 01:52:49.182
- collectively. I too, like the others tonight, appreciate

01:52:49.282 --> 01:52:58.140
- the folks coming in and talking to us and giving our concerns. I really appreciate the way they did

01:52:58.140 --> 01:53:07.175
- it as well. I thought it was really good. I thought they talked about the concerns. They talked about

01:53:07.175 --> 01:53:16.830
- how they appreciated the steps taken so far. They talked about steps that they'd like to see continue taken.

01:53:17.602 --> 01:53:27.205
- but it was all on how we can move forward. And I was really appreciative of that. That's the kind of

01:53:27.205 --> 01:53:36.808
- parents we need, so I appreciate that. I'm glad that the school year is going well at the beginning.

01:53:36.808 --> 01:53:44.510
- I think that hearing the band out there and I think there is a lot of excitement

01:53:44.674 --> 01:53:53.561
- 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

01:53:53.561 --> 01:54:02.448
- all working together to do the best things we can. I'm so glad that our building projects, the bids

01:54:02.448 --> 01:54:06.270
- came in under. I mean, that's always good.

01:54:06.466 --> 01:54:12.851
- beginning to wonder, are they just telling us high estimates? So they're always coming under? Or are

01:54:12.851 --> 01:54:19.172
- we really doing that good? So I want to think that we're really doing that good, but we are getting

01:54:19.172 --> 01:54:25.557
- some really great things done. And I just love to see these things continue. And I want to thank all

01:54:25.557 --> 01:54:31.879
- of you for being here tonight and all that had left earlier for them showing up earlier. So you all

01:54:31.879 --> 01:54:35.166
- have a great evening and this meeting is adjourned.