now we have students also who who will be four years on our campus and and not take a class uh or maybe not participate they do our own clubs you know so the beauty of this really is that there are so many opportunities for our kids to engage in different in different ways so yeah and I just want to really offer Kudos so I came from Columbus North High School in the high school intercurricular program which was very similar I think from what I'm understanding and the time spent on Dual credit and working with our partner organizations and being able to take that time out of school is only going to be very valuable to both of you and honestly it's been invaluable in my career experience so just kudos to you guys for providing that to them um first of all I want to reiterate what what Mike just said I think one of the really strong points of your school is that your students get the benefit of a small school and the benefit of a large school which is really a unique I don't know how many places in the country kids can do that I do have two questions one is do you know about what percent of the central CSA students stay in CSA for new tech and for those new people coming in like Tommy do you have to do you build anything into the curriculum to get them up to speed with the kids who have been doing PBO so 70 to 75 percent of the eighth graders is what I would anticipate are going to keep their spots this year uh and you know we we do some exit surveys to to find out if they if they choose to leave sometimes it's Athletics sometimes it's family uh sometimes they're they're leaving because uh they're leaving our district you know they're moving so uh that's that's the percentage that I would expect um we in terms of recruiting uh additional students to the program actually every single eighth grader in our district takes a tour of CSA new tech if they just drive by on 25th Street and they have no idea our curb appeal from 25th Street is is I mean we're working on it um Dr Roberts helped me get a great sign out there early on um but if if you've never been here and you only know that building as Hoosier Auto Parts Warehouse which is what it was when I was in high school you got to do yourself a favor and come in because we've created a revolutionary learning space those 8th graders come uh and then you know we get more applications in terms of onboarding new students um you know it is it is part of everything that we do with our freshmen when I say we teach those 21st century skills you can't just say that we want our kids to collaborate in 2008 when we opened I will I'll make this really short if I can we were sitting around the teacher room scratching our heads because projects were just going horribly and students were not and somebody had the wisdom to say maybe we ought to teach them how to collaborate and we partnered with Cummins engine company who sent Engineers to our building and they took on the same project we did Fishbowl protocols for them to watch and so we looked at our rubrics and said how do we teach a freshman to collaborate what does oral communication look like a good presentation for a sophomore so we're very intentional about teaching those skills yeah I have one other thing so this has been several years since this happened but but many years back I was I forget what you call them but the boards that that the students present their projects to I was invited to be on one of those I assume you still do that with some of the projects um are you talking about senior projects yes we absolutely loved it I would invite you to invite us to serve on those yeah yeah we absolutely love having community members come in and and be part of our assessment process because it it brings on another level of seriousness when they have to present to somebody from our community and not just to miss buckler again so and if I should add it was a it happened to be a geometry class so of course I loved it but but it was a good experience too thank you all right thank you so much for your time and I think you have it no I don't think we're done I don't think we're done I'm used to it so if you want some water I got some water here you guys have been talking for a long time so I'm going to do this real quick I'm actually going to ask you to pass the mic to the students so both Abby and Tommy um you guys are both going to graduate soon and as a graduate you're going to be an ambassador for the school you went to you're going to speak it up to all the friends that you have to have younger brothers or sisters that could go through this what is the real quick one experience that you would use in a very quick conversation to sell to other prospective students that this is the best experience for them um I would say house games it's something unique that we do with our advisories so uh our school is broken up into six houses kind of like Hogwarts houses we have uh Hydra Leo which is the best one uh Hercules Orion uh Draco and Dorado they're forgotten about but uh uh so house games is at the end of a nine weeks and at the end of a semester we come together and we play some games um we compete for house points which is a ranking of which uh which house has the highest amount of points throughout the year and then overall they'll become number one at the end of the year right um and really it's something that brings everyone together and you really feel that sense of community that you wouldn't feel at some other schools necessarily and you really get to see like and interact with your other students in a way that I feel like you wouldn't be able to experience anywhere else I'm slightly offended you forgot Dorado because that's my house and we're the reigning two-year in a row I believe house Champs right now so anyways the thing I would use to sell uh CSI is FICA so every once in a while in our houses our advisories we come together as a house so that's three advisories in each house and we have fika which I believe is Swedish for it together right so we all bring food and we all eat together and it's kind of just a nice way to collaborate and get to know the Freshman because coming into high school I was really scared because I actually graduated from San Bartholomew so it was a class of around 50 and I was going into any school bigger than that was going to be terrifying and so coming into CSA and having this thing called FICA got me allowed me to learn the upperclassmen and have those connections and I still actually talked to many of my upperclassmen because since I'm going to Purdue and marching band there and so I've reached out to several different alumni from CSA and I've been like Hey how do I do this how to do that and just FICO is a nice way to get to know everyone thank you same question yep sorry one more uh keeping track of the students as they progress it sounds like both Abby and Tommy joined uh as freshmen and and experienced project-based learning as a as an academic program that year the kids that started the students that started as kindergartners where where are they now have we have we had kindergartners yes spend all 13 years yeah last year I think was our first uh class of kindergartners who went all the way through yeah um yeah and uh actually two of those uh Emma Edwards and um brought burbrink finished in the top of their class so we were pretty proud of them great College Choice boiler up okay thank you all very much appreciate it [Applause] Christmas [Laughter] thank you thank you thank you very much [Laughter] um I actually was thinking I needed a sticker for my alarm okay we will move on to board commendations I don't leave things to chance I like to start on one side or the other so tonight it's going to be down there with Mr nellon do you have anything for board commendations accommendations to Sarah Rapp and Trisha burns from Central Middle School recently at least when I got this it was recent it's not quite as recent now but recently they organized a project where students collected over 1700 food items and raised over 200 in donations for various local food organizations student representatives from different groups in the school met with Bartholomew County food insecurity coalition to share out all of the work that they did so recommendations to Sarah wrapp and Trisha Burns uh accommodations to Brett Finley and the Husky family over at CSA Lincoln um they hosted me a couple weeks ago and I enjoyed learning their school history understanding the results that they come a long way in closing the academic achievement Gap and just seeing the school operations and they were very very hospitable you know walking us around to see students all the way through k-6 at their school and it's just nice to see the family that they've created and I mean they allowed me to ask a multitude of questions so I apologize to Brett in advance for all the bombardment and I did take away one thing that they did really well which was an annual theme and their theme this year was that all roads lead to Lincoln and they reinforced that theme in multiple areas through their academic but also through their extracurriculars even into their Sports so I could I just combinations to the Husky family for a good job I'll move quickly through about a half dozen here congratulations commendations to East girls varsity basketball coach Danny Brown for recently recording his 300th win at East and thanks also to Coach Brown for his 20 years his dedication in 20 years of coaching at East as he'll be retiring at the end of the year accommodations to all the Columbus robotics teams seems like they are very frequently in the news for any number of things from you know representing themselves well at competitions for hosting events and most recently for providing stem inspiration to others outside of our community congratulations commendations to the seven seniors that recently received scholarships from the local African-American pastors Alliance at the annual Martin Luther King Jr Day breakfast at the commons accommodations to Kristen Beck the director of Wellness for bcsc for so thoroughly promoting the district's new EAP program offering Google meets making herself available to answer questions and help explain the new program to employees and we can only hope that more take advantage of this new EAP program than has been in the past um accommodations to all those responsible for creating the weekly staff highlight in an attempt to recognize even more bcsc employees and the good work they do on a daily basis and lastly congratulations to the Columbus North girls bowling team who participated in Regional competition at Jasper on Saturday Junior Reagan Mathis finished second I had the second highest Regional score in junior Lexi Jones had the seventh highest score at the regional the team also posted uh scores great scores as they finished runner up to Jasper and the top three teams Advanced so the north girls bowling team will be competing next week in the uh at the same estate in Indianapolis thank you any other combinations sure I noticed in one of our newsletters recently that we have four classified staff named employees of the month I guess that's a regular thing this month January Kathy Gunn Larry Jones Scott Bay and Christine Baker so commendations to them for their exemplary behavior as pcsc staff members so I'm a talker so I want to try and do this as quick as I can but on Monday the 16th Logan and I visited Richards Elementary School in an effort to tour the schools and get to know some of the principals and staff in the different areas and the challenges that they're met with we were met by Mr sprung at the front office staff and there's a lot of smiles and positivity it was a great welcome we left his office area and we're met by one of the teachers Viviana Alvarez who does a lot of work with the student council was kind of kind of refreshing to talk to her because she had some ideas that were interesting that the students brought up the students actually thought it'd be really cool to meet the board someday and get to know what we go through since they're doing kind of the same thing at a much smaller level at the school they also had some ideas on how to make our Board website a little more kid-friendly I think the term spice it up was used so they were it was really cool to kind of hear that the kids are interested in those kind of things I think a lot of us probably when we were younger especially older people like myself hit 47 we didn't have an internet when I was in high school so a lot of this stuff is kind of cool to see the kids that are using the technology so we moved from there we walked around the halls we stopped in several classrooms to observe what was going on in the classrooms we talked a little bit about how the architecture in the building is set up to allow a lot of light in the room to give a lot of openness to space there were several rooms that did a good job with using color in the room just to kind of give a fresh feel it's not Battleship Gray so a lot of us probably grew up in in those School rooms that just didn't have all that color so it was kind of neat to see that it was nice to see some of the diversity that was in the school it was it was amazing to understand that Richards elementary school has 14 different countries represented in that school cool so we stop and think about diversity it was kind of neat to hear that it was uh let's see um see we had a good conversation with DaVita Hardin about stem DaVita is a stem coordinator for I think all bcsc I think is what we were told but luckily for Richard she's stationed there four out of five days a week so they get the benefit of having her there and and it helps the students learn a lot more we noticed that there were some new smart boards some of the older smart boards are hard to see because there's a lot more lighting that older technology isn't as good as the new technology so they shared with us one of the newer smart boards and that's something that they would really like to see more schools get access to so that's a something long-term for us to all consider we I felt I'm sure Logan would tell you too that we had a good visit we were welcomed by everyone we met we want to take the time now to thank the teachers the Tas the staff the janitors the kitchen crew and Mr sprong for giving us a little bit of their day on Monday from a sports perspective I think that both the boys and girls teams were undefeated if I remember right I know he said they were playing south side and I thought I'd heard they won but I did not confirm that so either way that was pretty cool and then we also while we were there we witnessed something that was kind of cool it was a virtual field trip and so I'd like to thank Mr strong for giving Mrs winsler some extra credit work for the next next uh best practice sharing um she was not happy about that but it's probably because I asked her to do it and she had my daughter long ago and so it's kind of paybacks um I also from a sports standpoint I know we talked about Coach Brown but also coach Humes and and Mr Hughes at East all are celebrating their retirement so I want to thank them for their years of service I'm done now okay any others no I'm just glad that my uh board member here turned 47.
that's pretty good I would think well I appreciate your comment um unfortunately we don't like being off by anything right um so this is the first time I've had to do this in 26 years so I'm not terribly excited about this agenda item and that was your point for indicating the switch in position so you think you'll correct and fix that next year I want to make sure we're starting off fresh both for myself as Treasurer and then the deputy Treasurer who was Treasurer last year get that just back to being being how it's supposed to be thank you thank you and just being in the finance background way back in the day a penny it seems like five thousand dollars at that point so I understand that at some point you spend more time trying to get it reconciled than than it's worth but our goal is always to get back to zero every month any other questions all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed motion carries 4-0 item 4.02 purchase audio and security equipment Mr Reese uh thank you Mr President members of the board the next four agenda items are all regarding the construction uh that's going on currently in the opening of school for the fall of 2023. all these items were asking for your approval on not this one motion but I'm just giving you a heads up what's coming with all four of the agenda items uh some of some lead time we want to make sure we get items in so we're ready to go in August with these obviously with some of the the supply chain issues we've been facing we just want to do everything we can to make sure we're ahead of schedule uh so with that tonight the first one we're approving a bid for audio and security systems for the new Middle School wheeler Middle School Eisenhower MacArthur Timothy ball and new Administration Building uh with that there is contract number one to try electronics for 452 637.
and then in December earlier in December you gave me permission to go ahead and do a last round of accounts payable to clear out 2022 so we could use any remaining Appropriations we've got a list here that stated December 28th did anyone have any questions about anything on that list no okay the total on that dated December 28 2022 was 137 thousand forty three dollars and one cent and then in your packet you've got a list of claims as stated for today um is there anyone have any questions about any publicist dated today January 23rd nope okay total claims data for today January 23rd 191 547.80 and then if we're ready to go ahead and move on to the fund report and finance report okay next in your packet you're going to see the fund report uh balance at the end of December 2022 in education fund was 3 million 59 000 to 61.74. and then the balance in operations that would be fund 300 was 1 million three eighty one three seventy six seventy two if you go to the very last page of the fund report and that would be page five you're going to see balance in all funds is 9 million 628 781.09 next in your packet you're going to see a bank to fund balance report and again this has been a little bit different than what we've done in the past um so really at the the end result is here is we want our grand total for funds to match our grand total for banks and you can see that and the last column there right there in the middle that are fund balance and our bank balances are in alignment I mean there's no difference there that's exactly where we need to be something that has not been where we need it to be our actual bank balances because of our migration and I'm very happy to tell you that all the banks are in Balance now so um so that's basically our depository statement as it has been in the past and I'm fine to go ahead and continue with this format or we can revert back to the previous format that shows you the total outstanding checks and that's something that we can you know we can talk about whether or not you would care to do that or if you would like to stick with this new format this is final it's fine with you okay well we'll just go ahead and we'll stick with that then and then next in your package you're going to see a fund transfer report this fund transfer report is probably going to be a little more lengthy than normal because we do have end-of-year transfers a couple of things on here that you'll see transfer from Bank two to bank 10.
and what was happening before was worked with the flutes clarinets sit there work with the clarinets let's sit there we don't do that anymore so those 4 000 minutes are much better used than we can do that over three years so we're gaining so much time on learning with these students it just it seems to make sense the other thing is that the elementaries spaces there's only so much space in the classrooms and when you're playing instruments they're loud so we have to be in specific spots in the school just doesn't really work out so that was another thing that kind of played into it and the final part was with the elementary is it gives them flexibility they had to base their entire schedule off of an hour in the day when the music teachers could get into the building so the lunches had to be at a time and all the class changes had to be a specific time so we feel like this is going to be a not just a positive thing for the instrumental program in terms of retention but it's going to be great for the elementaries to give them more flexibility in what they do and really at the end it's about a better overall experience for our students you know by having them in small our classrooms with more Focus instead of 40 kids in a percussion class in sixth grade you know they can have 20 students in a regular side classroom we're able to just be more focused and more detail-oriented with each individual student and then final thing is you know in Dartmouth music is the fundamental thing right this is just what we do here so it's highly valued in the town of Dartmouth begins at the elementary level and without high quality music education at the Pre-K at a five level we would have nothing that we have here in the upper levels we're grateful for the support of all the administration teachers staff and members of our community now this is possible a total buy-in from all parties involved I feel that we provide a life-changing music opportunity for our students in Dartmouth and we'll continue to strive to be the model for high quality music education throughout our region thanks for having me here tonight and uh letting you know a little bit about what our Elementary music program is thank you Ian very nice questions comments Chris we'll go first thank you Ian for the presentation um it's great to see a little bit of background about the the elementary level and the music program both of my daughters went through the elementary school Sierra um and one of them is still a junior at the high school but you know certainly some things to think about as far as you talk about updating some of the um the instruments as well as one of the questions that I had was in our three elementary schools and I guess is it safe to say that our Cushman receives music does Cushman School receive any type of Music Services music teaching they do so Cameron's there on Fridays okay she's a full day Friday there to work with those students so I believe it's for 35 or 40 minutes uh on that's right on every level yeah so they have Pre-K all the Pre-K students have I don't have a class and there's a very specific curriculum for that okay you know like a lot of it has to do like they'll have like an art project that goes along with a song that they learn about you know you know Mozart mouse or whatever it is right exactly now very cool my last question is in regards to the elementary schools what do the spaces look like how are the how is music instruction being delivered to the students is it uh pushing into the classrooms or are there dedicated spaces in the elementary schools for for music classrooms there's three different versions of that right now this is part of the flexibility that I'm talking about is that um actually works out really well at the Mello um she has she's on a car so she's going classroom classroom but she's primarily a code eye teacher which works really well in that kind of environment okay because she's able to because it's mostly song based it's activity based but not like with the larger instruments that she has to drive around and at Quinn School it's a massive music classroom I mean it's it's used to be the middle school band room okay so she has all the space you could ever ask for and she is kind of a hybrid of the two things orphan kodai and then um Siegel's on the stage at Potter it's only a little overlap with lunch I think it's a 10 minute overlap um so it's a really minor and he's very instrument based so that works out for him that's great that they're able to be you're able to be that flexible yeah the teachers are flexible with it they're like this is what I have and they're very well versed at the different options great thank you thanks I'll you know I'll just say this is great um you know my kids were came up through the schools and when they brought their recorder home a testament to early Music Learning I ripped off a Hot Cross Buns right away all that muscle memory from elementary school right so early learning right um but I just really appreciate you know coming from outside this District to how well music education has integrated into our curriculum into our schools and so many districts that's been cut it isn't part of the curriculum and we know how good music is for helping children's brain development and for them to learn so I'm just really pleased with all the work that you've been doing to provide this for kids so thank you awesome thank you yeah and to expand on Shannon's Point too I just uh really grateful for the program for you and and and our instructors here in in town and in the program that we have uh because it really is also you know it's a brain development but it's also that bridge to inclusion it's also uh you know I have these wonderful photos of my son um who he he's not able to to speak but he he is one of his first well he had a few first time but I won't modifications of signs that don't look appropriate when I do them but but for music you know he was able to you know illustrate his love for music and I just know that um you know for I'm sure for many students like him it's it's a it's a place where where you can then Focus your passion and and and and and be more included and also just um you know it does something to to the students who really love that for all of the things that you described I'm not musically inclined but I do also have a seventh grade and I appreciate you explaining uh the the change in the model so I have a seventh grader who plays trumpet uh and um you know it was covid you know first it was we we don't have fourth grade talent I look at Mr Fair we don't have fourth grade talent show we don't have fifth grade this that the other thing and we don't March in the you know but uh and then parents were sort of you know uh of the buzz of like you said in your other school like fourth grade they were little teachers were like why how did you do this same thing here like parents are like we don't have fifth grade you know instrument but the way that you explained it I'm sold and and obviously the it you know the fruits of that labor are coming to fruition with like you said a strong program and what you mentioned about the brain development and you know the the older more focused and long-term players that's the right word but thank you for for overviewing that as well and uh you know we're really fortunate to have you um here in town yes so thank you Mr Flynn as as always as a wonderful presentation and again I was about to say to you this I'd like to see the flexibility with the elementary and it sounds like it's going to help make a much more robust program in the middle school and it is interesting to you know to see my own children at you know various experiences go through is that you can see that you know in so many cases when they have that you know early experience it might they might not get that aha moment until much later and I've seen that you know even like you know my son accessing the piano program that you have here so I think it's just uh you know again it's a testimony to you and your program and you know and also the families in this community who really support you know everything and prioritize music it's uh it's great that's such a foundation of this this district and you're such a part of that so thank you thanks Ian for for being here and uh truth be told I'm when we kind of had a workshop in the fall as to what we wanted for uh you know any special topics of that that type of deal uh my thought was we all know what the high school band does the chorus the orchestra the color guide that type of deal but what about the feta programs down the elementary and middle school and that and you know could Ian come and talk about those it's the same in Mr christopholi will be in later in the school year to talk about phys Ed and health because we all again all know what Athletics is like what's the other what's the other hat that he wears type of deal so that I thought it would be great for you know everyone me included to even though I'm very much involved with it to uh to see what's going on in that type of deal and I thank you for that and you know one of the things that Ian talked about as the continuity and you know I've said this to people outside and they wonder how we do so well and such and I told him in my opinion my opinion only is we have the continuity you know and if you're doing drums in fifth grade you have Mr ranks when you get into seventh grade you have Mr wrongs you get into the high school you have Mr ranks it's the same person everybody knows exactly what's going on and even the instructors you know that give our students the lessons are familiar with what we're doing and are able to to work you know I mean my grandson is doing wins this year and he took his music for wins to his lesson teacher his sax lesson teacher to help him get through you know work with it and everything else it was great so thank you sir yeah I would say like I'll just leave it with one thing I I'm only here today because of Holly Schnitzer my Elementary music teacher you know I grew up in a school district where music education was valued at the level that it was at Dartmouth I was fortunate and you know I didn't realize when I was in sixth grade that my Elementary music teacher was oh probably one of the best in the country and I would say she she kind of brainwashed us in a Little Love and Music there's a lot of people I graduated with 60 kids in my graduate class there's 10 of us that work in the music music profession I mean people that sing in the Metropolitan Opera College like professors like with doctorates 10 out of 60.
this report is simply to inform the board that the district has completed the reporting requirements and that the bonds are in compliance with federal tax rules good questions and as as dree noted this isn't an action item it's just a report that we must provide the board each year okay all right uh the next one is a action item up uh later on this evening uh this comes to the board every year about this time of the year uh this is the recommendation for uh what we would increase the teacher stipend for summer school over the year generally we follow CPI as the board is well aware CPI this year is far greater than what our cap is so our recommendation to the board is that the increase reflects the r capped five percent uh increase in that rate this is an action item this evening I will also note generally we bring you also the salary for the coordinator but that is rolled into Ryan's job so so we don't have a coordinator salary to bring you any questions from the board on this all right the next item is the proposed summer calendar this follows the traditional calendar we've been following for quite a while here a couple of new wrinkles uh well one old wrinkle and one new wrinkle this is the first year in which Juneteenth which is an Illinois and federal holiday falls during the summer school calendar so there's an adjustment that week for that and then this year the Independence Day holiday falls at the beginning of the week so we'll take the beginning days off in the beginning of that week and then shift to picking up school at the end of that week so our students that traditionally have four day summer school weeks we'll have three days but it'll be at the end of the week rather than the beginning of the week otherwise it's pretty standard the way it's been over the last several years questions on that one that's an action item this evening as well all right for the next presentation you get Ryan live in person this time thanks for dealing with the tech with me last time and it's much shorter this uh this time so uh with the survey um the survey that we gave in October we're in 2 337 students completed the survey because the last time we gave the athletic and activities survey had such a low response rate we had about 287 kids fill out the survey and so I rolled it into the survey where I knew they were in school going to take it and so I presented the questions um at in that survey so we have a much greater response rate I don't know if yeah okay um I'll be your clicker thank you uh so uh we asked the same questions uh each time except I added a new one and I'll I'll mention it when I get to it um so we ask students if they're interested in participating specifically in school sponsored Sports you can see that with freshmen it starts around 70 right they're eager to get involved um that they don't have a job yet um that uh they're still trying things out um to see who they're becoming um and so but gradually it drops off and so um seeing the survey results over the last couple of years and seeing that drop off it's pretty consistent about a 20 drop off from freshman year to senior year and so I added a third question asking if you are saying that you can't or are not participating why is that and so we'll see that um in a couple of slides I just wanted to point out too that there's there's more opportunity for the freshman and sophomores because you have the JV opportunities that don't exist in some of the sports by the time you get to senior Year yes absolutely right um and so um if you go to the next one I broke it down by school um they're pretty consistent right there's a slightly higher participation rate in athletics at north than at South but it's you know a pretty consistent number and even the no I'm not able to participate is a pretty consistent number 10 about 10.5 to 10.8 percent at both schools and then so that prompted me to ask the question uh why aren't you participating which is the next slide um and we broke it down by grade level so you can see that inverse right I work after school seven percent of our freshmen but 41 percent of our seniors at least of seniors who responded to the survey right um and taking care of a family member and club sports is interesting that most of our freshmen and sophomores that are saying that they're not participating are still participating in club sports right whether or not that's you know volleyball or dance or anything like that and then other is about 14 for our freshmen through nine percent for our seniors and those ranged from I've been at school all day I don't want to stay um my friends don't participate in that sport so I no longer participate in that Sport and so but otherwise most of it revolved around working taking care of a family member or participating in activities or Athletics outside of school sorry go ahead do we have any meaningful percentage of kids who just couldn't afford it um so with fee waivers if a student you know is wants to participate and they're on a fee waiver that they're I haven't asked the question of do you not participate due to finances usually um if we know that a student is struggling financially that they'll usually connect with their counselor and then we'll figure out a way in order to help that student participate right but I'm just wondering if we do anything to make sure students know that we offer that I could check with C Triple S on how we do that um like proactively because we've offered it for many many years that's a great question so I don't know how they know if the question had been asked and there was a higher number than there than expected then that would lead you to believe that that information isn't getting communicated like you like we like it to be communicated right so yeah I certainly can ask it the next time we give it sure thank you I had a question as well would it the uh one two the sixth one this question does not apply to me since I am involved in a school sponsor it's border activity which question in particular are they referring to um the question of the reasons that I'm not participating in an after school activity or Athletics that they that they it's a required choice and so they said no no like this I am participating so you ask me why I'm not participating does not matter to me so that's nice got it doesn't matter okay it's almost felt like yeah I was starting to read a double negative yeah that question would um uh go with uh you know like speech team and stuff like that they're participating in that but not a sport so they're so activities are going to be next I have the next three slides are on activities these are these are just Athletics yeah so I'm sorry so when you the other percentages like I participate in clubs or activities outside of school have you taken that 48 percent the question is not apply to me is that out of the denominator or is that in the denominator for the rest of it that's where I was yeah so this the number of students who chose that in this question is across the district and remember the kids could skip um skip the question um but some kids chose to answer the question okay um so uh I don't know if that represents every student like you it's not going to say well I didn't ask my question right okay and you calculated out the other percentages yes that includes that does that include that include things so that like so there's if there's you know 3 000 students that answered that 46 they had 1500 students is in there okay question thank you yeah it's just to give every student a spot to land as they take the survey but the other questions aren't mutually exclusive right you could have more than one answer you could have more than one answer yeah uh so the next one is participation activities um interestingly enough um there's not as much of a drop off in activities right um that as I have been walking the cafeterias talking with kids and getting their feedback um I have asked like you know what is it about the Athletics versus activities um a lot of it is you know commitment to being on a rostered Varsity Sport is much higher than it is to be participate um you can choose your level of participation and activity and so that response is some of the drop-off and also activities sometimes you can go to a meeting and then if you have to work you can miss and then you can go back whereas in an Athletics you can't so on the next slide again I break it down by school I have a question yeah sure was this these activities that other than Sports and it's in an in school and after school or just so these are all extracurricular activities um so uh once again there's a slight difference between the two schools at 70 versus 66 which was about five percent with Athletics as well and then you can see at the very bottom the eight percent versus the nine percent again it's a pretty consistent across both schools and then the last side I asked the question again because some students only respond or only participate in activities and non-athletics some participate in both and so the again the data is pretty consistent with why am I not participating it's either um you know I want to go home and hang out with my friends but work comes up taking care of family members comes up quite a bit and then again if you see that percentage of this doesn't apply to me because I'm participate I participate it's almost the same number so again it's the percentages are based on the kids who to um responded to the survey so there was a 770 freshmen so they're we had a higher response rate and our freshmen also was a longer survey and so this question received fewer responses because of the length of the survey and so but funnily enough the the Persona just came out almost identical even though the response rate went lower on this last question and then the last slide um is I asked for is there anything any clubs or sports that you are interested in if there were more than four responses um I included them uh so you know like if I think one student said like karate um or you know another student said like sailing um and so um there were more than four responses for these boys bowling actually is an ihsa sport um uh boys badminton is not some of them have uh like I believe a few students last year uh tried to start a debate club and they were real proponents of it at north um and then you know there lacked interest to start at the beginning of this year pickleball is huge a huge sport that's coming up um I imagine that as the you know the uh the stars and professional athletes that are doing it on TV with these specials playing pickleball I'm guessing that that's going to start to take off a little bit more and sign language club we always have a few students at both schools that are interested in Sign Language club and then specifically Ultimate Frisbee there's all those requests I think there are five or six that were specifically dgn so I gave all this information to Tom fryer and Denise Kavanaugh for athletics and to Mark and Jen for the our directors of activities so they could look through the data one change that we're thinking about making the next time we give it is also to collect the students email addresses that so that when we ask the question are you participating are are you interested in maybe participating in the future that we can start to look at those students and specifically reach out to them to get them to participate good good all right questions for Ryan um so I heard that we're providing this survey data to our athletic directors and then they're going to use this data how so um at least for athletics when we look at the students who may be interested in participating that you can start to forecast whether or not that we see dropping enrollment in athletics you know going over time or is there more kids who want to participate than are participating specifically with activities at least we are looking to strengthen the rostering of students within our student information system so we really know every student that's participating so they're looking at kids who are saying they're participating or are interested in participating and looking at the rosters and seeing like how close how accurate are those rosters which clubs do I need to reach out to because there's 70 kids who say they're participating in government Club but only 35 are on the roster why is that we need to check our rosters to make sure that all of our students who are participating are reflected in that and remember a part of State accountability moving forward is that College and Career Readiness indicator for a student one of the check boxes on that indicator is being involved in two or more Athletics or activities at school so this is part of Ryan's work and then ultimately it goes to our activity in athletic directors is making sure that our programming is attractive to students making sure that it meets their needs and making sure that we invite students that aren't involved in and to do so we need to make sure we have things that they would be interested in doing available to them so this is you know in the past this was like nice to know I think information for the board and this is becoming more of an accountability factor for schools across the state so it's hard to do benchmarking because the sample pool may change every time you send this out but do we have any idea if we're going up in participation or we're flooring and then so with uh oh yeah I know you absolutely so we oh go ahead it's hard to compare to the last couple of sets of data because the response rate was so low um it was given at the very end of the year it was sent to student email addresses and was sort of you know it's an optional survey so by placing it in Access this year and having all the students do it I'm likely going to include it in the fall survey again next year even though it's in every other year requirement so that I can start tracking that a little bit more um and then um but Trend even though the sample size was so small 287 versus 23 30 or 23 37.
48 in June okay thank you team um now School Board member reports I know we are making committee assignments tonight so it might be might be difficult for any of those to apply but for for people who maybe are carrying over are there any any member reports yep Mr Grimes um the school Foundation board just met January 10th Lots going on in the school Foundation just renewed a commitment with donors choose where teachers can submit projects and others who might want to help fund fun fund a project I would encourage those teachers or anybody who wants to help fund a project to check out what's still on there projects still needing to be funded that's at bcsf stars.org for any students parents that might watch the board meeting later on scholarships are now scholarship applications are now open so I would encourage you to get on the site and see what there is available thanks to Dr Bozeman for working with bcsf and and partnering with the visitors center where certain schools will be toured the first day tentatively April 29th and then also a fall date perhaps later on so whatever profits made from those visitations half will go to the school foundation and then lastly probably the biggest news from the school Foundation the biggest fundraiser of the year for the school Foundation the Harlem Wizards game that's set for Sunday March 5th at two o'clock at North the ticket link is up and running on the website again that's at BCS at B CSF stars.org and then secondly just kind of a quick legislative report from the school boards Association today marked the beginning of the third week for this session the bill filing deadline has passed the school boards Association had currently has 218 bills on its uh tracking list which is about one of every five bills that were submitted are somehow related to K-12 education and as you might imagine the the list of the topics of the bills kind of run the gamut everything from Pure EK immunization School Board elections tax incentives textbook fees mental health Child Protection teacher Recruitment and Retention and a lot of those topics have multiple bills that that are related to them and so you know things are still getting underway and as things heat up if you will during this session I would anticipate that list of 218 bills on the watch list to start to be whittled down by the School Board Association State House day on February 21st and then lastly I was able to attend a virtual third house session this morning with Senator Walker representative Lauer and representative Meltzer and you know one of the things that uh representative Lauer said as one of his priorities um is certainly uh continuing to fund the Columbus Learning Center the legislators fielded a lot of questions about partisan School Board elections so support for early learning House Bill 1406 which adds bcsc to a list of school corporations to Pilot the high school equivalency and then gosh I could go on and on but uh yeah there's um uh a couple other bills that um I'm sure going to be vetted and scrutinized and amended considerably in regards to providing more work or more emphasis on careers in in schools and then also school school choice so looking forward I suppose is the best way to put it to the remainder of this legislative session thank you thank you any others uh no I'll just say for those of us who are very much looking forward to Nexus Park becoming a reality I believe there is going to be a groundbreaking February 8th at 11.
contract two trial electronics for 358 512. the auditorium sound and contract number three for trial electronics for 337 616 contract five is ATN Technologies it's a partial award for the new Middle School at 95 549 and then contract six is for try Electronics also a partial award for the new Middle School in the admin building and those partial awards are simply because we want to make sure both of those new buildings have a system up and running in August and that amounts 209 900 for a total for these initial contracts of one million 454 214 will bring back the other options once we finalize uh reviewing them and going through them you've heard the recommendation from the administration for the approval of our audio and security equipment for Eisenhower Elementary in the car and MacArthur Elementary and Timothy ball and the new middle school for amount of 452 637 the contract 2 integrated audio systems for a total of 358 512.
that essentially as I've explained in the past is basically to transfer money from Bank two to bank 10 and I do that basically to cover checks for claims is what that is so it's not really a transfer from funds really but I have to show that in the fund transfer but that's just how this report works now and then of course you're going to see the school lunch 8400 to 800 transfer that you see every month and then we had some transfers from lit dollars to Debt Service dollars we could go into depth about that but we bore you unless you have questions about it and then of course we qualified for the circuit breaker for protected taxes so we went ahead and made that transfer and then finally we had the operations to rainy day transfer that we usually have at the end of the school year if we're in a position that we're able to do that and we were able to do that this year so lastly in your Finance packet you're going to see a summary of expenditures for Bond 2021 and bond 2022 Bond 2021 we had a balance forward or excuse me expenditures forward of 11 million 966 292.78 we had some new expenditures dated in December 2022 so our total expenditures in bond 2021 as of the end of December is 12 million 56 848.02 and then in bond 2022 we had expenditures forward of 61 000 to 54.89 we did not have any new expenditures in the month of December so that will be our total expenditures and bond 2022.
it's crazy statistic when you think about it you know I'm here and I'm just one of us you know and it's the reality that having that influence and having that early on and even the teachers the the you know the middle school and high school teachers they always said it's like well it was her it was all her like we could do anything with you because you would just be like yep we'll just do it because she was that influential and just just great people person right and so it's like telling the teachers you know it's all about Connections it's about getting the students to have this passion for it not every student's going to you know grow up to be a direct your music somewhere or whatever but if they have an appreciation walking out Elementary then who knows what's going to happen with the Middle School in high school and then later on for those people so you know I value it highly because I know the impact it had on my life um and I don't think honestly without her I would definitely not be a music teacher like this was not what would have been in my head when I was growing up but you know I just knew what how important it was so yeah thank you all right thank you sir thank you much appreciate it thank you foreign okay next that's all set old business superintendent search Mr kindly do you have anything I can just uh let you know that I followed up based on your comments at the last school committee meeting we made the changes to the brochure got those over to Mr hardy at masc the position was posted I believe on Friday it went up and the emails went out we saw you know I received one today so from masc so that's out there closes February 6th Mr hardy couldn't be here tonight he was scheduled to attend but yeah the weather up that neck of the woods is a lot worse than here he was Ill yeah family it's that time of the year that's going to happen all right thank you questions for people anybody have any questions we all got did everybody get an opportunity to look at the uh list that uh Miss Gunther thank you very much ma'am sent out and then was very helpful today by modifying it as to where they were that was great thank you I appreciate that and uh you know questions or comments on it think go ahead oh no sorry nope nope I apologize it's the intent of this committee to make the appointments this evening uh uh I hadn't gotten that far I'll be honest with you if you want to talk about this now you want to wait till our next meeting on the 13th and then they'll be ready to go for as was my schedule uh uh ready yeah ready to uh ready to go on the uh the 28th which is when the the uh Mr Heidi is going to have the training and all the paperwork signing for everyone that type of deal I don't okay if you go back and you look at yeah let me take a look here okay if you go back and take a look uh it's actually out a week early everywhere a little bit ahead which is fine the uh it says the list that we have that he provided to us that I have says February 13th membership of screening committee completed and then following week at school vacation and then the 28th is formation and training of screening committee completed uh uh March 2nd is when the applications close I'm not sure if that changed or if that's the same in the same ballpark that's changed yeah okay these dates are a little uh this is the old one all right that's what I had yeah right so that's what I have from December 12th I think it got updated no that's okay so one of the concerns was that in order to be able to you know be seen it in a timely fashion and get try and get ahead of there are a bunch of other postings right now obviously out there um so the intent was that we what we did was we moved up the application deadline date um to February 6th the semi-finalists would be selected so interview candidates would be selected on February 13th so you really you really should act regarding the screening committee semifinalist interviews would be the week of February 27th through March 6.
um believe it or not a lot of the percentages were pretty close um but the sample size was so small that I can't really trust that initial data set I've got a return to one to be very active or did it um you know kind of provocal behavior of not wanting to you know so that is done the end of the year report for the board for the last several years yeah I was going to jump in and just say that so through five Labs which um I appreciate Ryan's effort too when he mentioned you know we have to be getting the students registered and then enrolled into the e-school system which once that's accurate it pumps up to our five lab system and so our athletic direct uh direct directors and and our activities directors they have access to the activities page that we built um so that when you ask the question like what do we actually do we've added a feature where they can look at the students that are not inactivity and when you click on that it actually brings up all the students that are not enrolled in an activity right by grade level by demographics and so we're doing um so for example Lisa and I in special ed are doing a marketing campaign to freshmen that are chronically absent not inactivity and that's actually you know timely wise it's actually going out on Friday so we're trying to encourage them to get involved because we know the campaigns in the building about being belonging connected engaged right so five Labs will help our administrators and our staff look at that um and Ryan's obviously working with them with that so we're excited about that and then like hake mentioned we have the longitude data that are providing at the end of the year so you're seeing what Hank has been giving you I think it was the last two years I think it was a board kind of direction of saying we'd like to see you know what students involved and things like that so we have that data to be able to start you know really looking at are we where are we going with are we going up and down in terms of it for example we can look at low income and we can see how many students are participating or not and we can actually then Market to those students like Ryan said this is great to get the like actual reasons why people aren't participating because now we you know when I just wrote down even in my notes you know if we have 21 of our students said they're working well we can start to look at five Labs which I literally have open on my screen because I was looking at while we were talking like that 21 now you can start to look and be like okay that probably makes sense and how do we you might not get those students to participate because they're working right and that's a good thing I mean it's not a bad thing so we do have that data that we can like we said we shared at the end of the year and you know Ryan obviously is working with Pat closely so and I love the idea of marketing to the students to get involved because it's important yeah we're starting small right now but I mean I know the activities directors and you know Athletics sometimes to me is kind of a natural thing but like all the clubs we have it's great to make sure students know especially like the the sports one right the EA Sports yeah yeah I mean there's even college scholarships available for that sort of thing now yeah yeah so going forward it might it might um might be nice to be able to when you're giving the surveys in the future be able to point back to something to let the students know how the results of the survey have influenced something that's happened might encourage them to be more participatory in the survey knowing that it's we're not just collecting data for the data's sake that this is an opportunity we want to know what they have to say and we're going to use this information and here's how we used it oh yeah you know well I mean as I walk the cafeteria and ask kids for their feedback specifically around issues with the schedule a lot of them say like I had no idea someone was actually going to read this I will tell my friends to fill it out next time and to tell the truth Ryan understands a major part of his job is is we're moving forward you know he's the director of student experience for students to share with us what their true experience is they need to know that we're actually using that yes the influence of our Behavior as adults right so uh Ryan and I have this conversation quite often about feedback loops and how to be effective in what we're doing and a key part of that is our kids knowing that we're listening to them which is a board goal as well so scat's um uh comments here one minute ago got me you just got me thinking you know we have we have a good number of students who are working and are therefore don't have the time to be participating in an extracurricular activity but I mean work is isn't working extracurricular activity according to the USB accountability standard we can't use it that's too bad because I mean uh I think back to the jobs it counts for a different checkbox and if you get enough of these check boxes okay then you get there but it's not the same one as activities in athletics it's consecutive work experience so you get enough of these things you collect like enough check boxes to qualify as being College and Career ready so a student that's working actively it's going to be harder for them to get the activity or athletic kind of criteria met but they're going to get the work criteria met instead you collect enough of these things you're now College and Career ready now there's a lot of parents that feel that there's Great Value I'd be being one of them and having to work for somebody and be there on time and all those sorts of lessons remember a lot of our work is about students finding their own path forward and recognizing that each student's path is different right so it does lead credit credibility to that at the same time though we are having conversations we have a later start time you know maybe some of these activities are better served before school or maybe there's a before school chapter and an after school you know so as time moves forward um I think you're going to see some different opportunities in how we use our time and space where students schedule might play into what opportunities are available tonight thank you foreign requests and we've responded to them they're all available on our website under recently fulfilled foia requests okay okay we're gonna move on to the consent consent agenda before we if there's any member of the board who'd like to bring anything out of the consented agenda I'd just like to recognize three donations one thank you Mrs Beckman for the foundations uh very generous donation we also would have to say thank you to the wildermuth family who made a donation to the Downers Grove North I believe it was music department and a various generous donations from an anonymous family to our t99 yes students so thank you all was there also I have two things before we move on the agenda one is under the Personnel report for resignations retirements uh Monica shavonik is listed on there as a resignation but that agenda item was not heading was not posted as resignation certified only classified so we're going to remove that is removed now from your updated Personnel report it was on an earlier one um and that will come back next month with under the correct heading so it's just a little clerical thing and then also a recommendation from the administration tonight is to hire Dr Travis McGuire who is joining us this evening as our next assistant superintendent for learning resources is the board is well aware that is kind of through restructuring the replacement for Rod Rousseau who is our nationally recognized director of technology so assuming that the board approves all of the Personnel actions tonight Dr McGuire will join us as of July 1st and he'll be around after the board after the meeting if board members would like to to meet him so that's all that I have for eign very none will ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda the Personnel report appointment Administration appointment certified appointment classified leave of absence certified leave of absence classified transfer of position classified the Personnel report retirement certified resignations classified the financial Pages the approval of the annual comprehensive financial report the review of closed session minutes and verbatim recordings the Educational Tours and the acceptance of donation from The District 99 Education Foundation the acceptance of donation from the wildermuth family and the acceptance of donation from the net from an anonymous family for teenagers so moved uh Mike and Terry Mike Davenport aye Terry pavisich aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Christopher Espinoza aye shirelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye Nancy cupka aye the consent agenda carries we'll now move on to recommendations for action the first is a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2023 summer school compensation is presented so moved second okay Chris and Terry thank you Christopher Espinoza Terry pavisich aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye shirelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Nancy cupko hi uh motion curies and then we'll need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2023 summer school and summer calendar as presented second shirelle and Joanna thank you sure I'll Fuller aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Christopher Espinoza aye Jenny hagstrom aye Terry pavasich aye and Nancy cupka aye the motion carries we'll now move to the second reception of visitors this is the second reception of visitors which is intended for audience members to address the board on any topic pertaining to Community High School District 99.
I think there's going to be some public announcements it's out there in little bits and pieces so if people are really interested in that project um I encourage you to go out and show support okay check that one off us I think we will move on to Cabinet reports next so Mr Williams and Mr Burnett foreign good evening thank you for having us tonight uh for our annual technology department update and thank you to Dr Bozeman and his continued support of our department over the years so our our mission for the technology department is to create a flexible productive universally designed environment that responds to the needs and challenges of all stakeholders supporting a school system is a little different I think for most I.T because we do support business offices as well as our many thousands of staff and then you have 12 000 students who are close to that that are on devices every day as well so it is quite a challenge so this mission statement and visioner are more General in that sense and we want to inspire Innovative anytime anywhere accessible learning and productivity and again we've heard many examples tonight that I'll probably refer to throughout the presentation of just how much technology has an impact on our district and how much we're involved in all of that we do have a strategic plan aligned with the bcsc plan it is on the website if you want to see that in more detail but it is around cyber security Recruitment and Retention customer service support for everyone essential skills and project management and it's something that we took about the same process that Dr Roberts did or at least tried to mimic that with the district with our own department and stakeholders to create a plan that everybody buys into and moves us forward so our team is here today our leadership team um Brian trivett is the assistant director of Technology operations and sees about 27 team members Brittany Coomer up here as well is our assistant director of educational technology she oversees the student services but also has this wonderful team of tech Titans which are teachers in every building that helps support their buildings with educational technology initiatives and I'd say both have just grown immensely in their positions and our respected leaders in our district because of their communication the the process that they take to make decisions and really just their work so our infrastructure is vast and you can go through here and look at some of the statistics but it is always changing um as well so the Republic had a wonderful article today about Milo a robot that joined our ecosystem this summer and just again kind of seeing those stories is really inspiring to see how much these tools can help affect learning and the growth of students and then also we've had a new Esports team that popped up at East but just the the support of our our cabinet through those projects really makes a big difference in all of our systems and then collaboration is another big key for us you heard an example with uh Tommy and Abby up here going through that Ivy Tech program that has been uh just a great program for us to work with Ivy Tech and to make sure that they have the tools that they have at new tech for those students to be able to be successful and we're involved in about everything thankfully to help support the district moving forward we also have vital Partnerships with all of our vendors that really kind of helped us over the last couple of years and continue to help us and keep us on The Cutting Edge and then on top of being collaborative within the the uh the district we're very involved within the state and nationally as well these two leaders are also becoming leaders in the State uh as again they go through their careers and these are just some of the examples of organizations that we're involved with and can collaborate and find best practices around the state and country in terms of what they're doing with technology so that is kind of a transition into one of our new tools that is supported by not only us but more importantly our Communications coordinator Josh Burnett so I'm going to hand this off to him and he's going to walk you through this all right Dr Albert's board thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about parent Square um when I started my work with bcsc it was a very external facing things like social media video production websites and crisis Communications but really starting in the pandemic we noticed that we're using a lot of different tools and we needed a unified communication system for families and one that would allow for two-way language translation this is one of my favorite features so that I can send you know a text message to my students teacher that might want they might be talking in Spanish and then coming back they can write that in Spanish and I would get it in English not a great example because my kids teacher doesn't speak Spanish but our Elgato program definitely does but that's been a huge something that we'll talk about in a little bit with some of it's been a huge Plus for our families sending communication through text email or phone one of the things that we've noticed is that we are in a mobile first generation and through that we are able to have access quickly outside of a social media world that often is really based on algorithms and people's user their patterns but when we get into their text their email their phone we can communicate quickly efficiently and tell some great stories we can also send e-alerts this is really important especially for our high school students whether they're at CSA new tech and north or east that are traveling to and from or our County folks that come in and participate in C4 we can send critical information instantly to those who need it the most and you know it's it's very helpful to someone like myself self that might have to send an e-alert notice that you know four something in the morning that I know confidently that when we send a school is closed or there's a two hour delay or whatever the situation is that we're directly tied into our PowerSchool system that's a huge benefit so that our students and our staff can get that message quickly this was kind of where we were when I started and you know I worked with Nick Brenny and Brian and Dr Boseman we we assessed our current communication tools and we noticed that our website and text alerts were tied in with blackboard at a district level but several of our schools were using remind and then when you get into the classroom communication they were using s'more Google I believe that's publisher canva but then also Class Dojo seesaw remind blooms and so there's just all these different schools doing different things and while we believe it's really important to have autonomy when it comes to regular communication with families how can we find that one tool that will reach people effectively so that was former State and then now we're able to use one tool to do all of those things and these are just a couple of examples this is a smart alert and the really neat thing about this is that it can get very granular like this is a North High School attendance notice and so just checking in okay Delaney was absent from sixth period a day called this number to discuss this notice or click the link that you can send a note to explain cuts down on attendance time for our Frontline staff with our administrative assistants considerably and starting tomorrow all of our secondary schools will have parents wear attendance and that's going to be a great benefit to them but then you also see like Columbus East High School you know there were critical portions of of East that were without power and so we had to Pivot to e-learning and so we were able to send that through a text through email and even through an automated voice to get that message out quickly um here's an example actually to my student will from his teacher and they wanted to give an update and I know that several of our our teachers are sending regular message to and also receiving messages from families and then this direct message has allowed um really for my family a great way of communicating consistently with our students teachers and this was just a proactive message from Mrs Abney and it just it made you feel really good about your son's progress and things going on and it opened up that line of communication if there was something that needed to be improved and so we really appreciated that uh in addition every week I send out an e-newsletter and one of the things that we noticed before on s'more is that we were averaging about a thousand views one of the reasons was there were too many clicks that it took for our families to um to get into this and so very quickly when we started the parent Square newsletter sending out to a little over 22 000 different contacts our readership went from 1 000 to averaging over ten thousand and so we're able to see what they're clicking on and so I try to regularly look at that to see what people are most interested in but also keeping in mind that we're trying to hit our strategic plan and I will also say with the check mark I think every week am I hitting something with families am I hitting something for students celebrating staff am I talking about the community and so those are different ways that we try to incorporate that in our weekly e-newsletter um some other functions as I said the newsletters attendance alerts scheduling meetings asking for items or volunteers creating groups we're working on right now piloting that at the secondary level with extracurricular groups and and seeing some really good success all of those will be moving over into the fall and it's been well received 96 percent of our families are contactable and I'm not going to rest until we get to 100 but then we're going to have a change we're going to have to keep shooting towards that but that's why Northstar trying to get a hundred percent of our families contactable so that they can engage actively in their students learning experience but within that we're seeing a great participation as I look at this I see a lot of our elementary schools using this the most as far as numbers but that's also because at the secondary level there's a lot more of its learning coming into play and so we're very encouraged by these numbers let's see with posts I want to give a just a special shout out to Clifty Creek Elementary they were our our first semester highest user and specifically the Legato program was just doing an amazing job and you'll hear about that in a second but volunteers requested that's been something really neat to see families being engaged in that way and oftentimes our families they just don't know how to get involved and when we reach out those requests are being filled those items being requested it's been great to see a couple testimonials you can read these but I'll just highlight Sabrina Rollins this was a huge one Parkside used to they had a kind of an old school way of doing parent-teacher conferences and through parents where it's been able to take the secretary out of the teacher and it saves time and it went very smoothly and they they just can't say enough about that but then also think about our student service coordinator TJ here that the number of students submitted textbooks assistance for the school year was up over 400 students from the previous school year so we're getting people to support and help that they need and we're getting it to them quickly see a huge increase in parent turnout for different things going on at East Clifton Creek again parent square is beneficial because our school is able to share activities happening in the classroom helpful links for parents and the most important feature is that it all can be translated to any home language that's been amazing to see just the people the families getting engaged through this tool the ask for more items at South Side and then attendance notes much better than leaving bumbling voicemails we know we've all done that plus there's a record for it and so the weekly grade level update I want to hand this back over to Nick I know we went through a lot of different things we'd love to answer any questions you have a question yeah go ahead parent Square obviously you know I'd say it's you know obviously a good move how would you rate for a non-techy parents Guardians um how would you rate its user friendliness well um it's really hard to say universally because you know sometimes some of the best people on social media you know they might be an 80 year old grandmother that is just very actively engaged all in parent square or someone that might struggle might be that you know 25 year old dad but I will say that in the app it is very user friendly if you download the app but then I think once it started it's pretty intuitive one of the things that I notice with the other types of tools was that there's just a lot of set up and and this was an opt in so we it's tied into our information already through our sis and so through PowerSchool it syncs that yes I have to do some you know editing and changing but being able to contact 96 of our families you know we can we can get them up to speed pretty quickly say from a parent Mr Williams where would you say I am on the technology scale one I can't believe she opened her laptop today to 10.
the new middle new Middle School New middle school and Wheeler Middle School in the amount of 337 616 the admin Center High School New Middle School wheeler Middle School Eisenhower Elementary MacArthur Elementary and Timothy ballel muntry in the amount of ninety five thousand five Forty Nine and surveillance video system at the admin Center High School New Middle School wheeler Middle School Eisenhower Elementary MacArthur Elementary and Timothy ball in the amount of 209 900 for a total of these contracts of one million 454 214.
and pending any questions I'd like to submit for approval there's no questions I'll make a motion to accept that the syntagent agenda second okay motion the second all in favor aye all opposed thanks Kelly you're welcome next item on the agenda is reports foreign so when you're actually in your in your pile there um just wanted to provide just some year-end um updates for you so you can go to the second slide so one of the things that I that I do throughout the year is track our estimated Revenue versus the revenue that we receive whether it be our tuition support from the state miscellaneous revenue and the education fund and that would be things like student fees textbooks um summer school reimbursement those kinds of things and you can see that down at the bottom of the page or excuse me up at the top in yellow you saw what I was estimating um is also what was calculated for the 2022 budget versus what we actually received down at the bottom so we're always very conservative with our Revenue estimates because we don't want to predict that we'll take in more money and then spend more money and not have it so you can see at the bottom in the education fund that we took in more and obviously a big piece of that is the increase in funding from the legislature on top of student enrollment being pretty level if you look over the pension debt kind of the same same principle over the top what we're estimating when we were put into putting together 2022 budget versus what we received and overall it was very very positive if you flip to the next page X likely yep we have Debt Service fund and the operations fund and again very similar with that we receive our property tax settlements in June and December and you can see in yellow what we're estimating when we built the budget versus what we actually received and while we do have a few Reds at the bottom this doesn't greatly differ from years past we we know that we're not always going to collect what we receive but overall um if you flip back to your first page you can see the projected Revenue was just over 22 uh 0.1 million and we actually received 22.7 so took in just over half a million dollars more than what we had budgeted so overall um with the tuition support and our property tax funds um you know it wasn't it was a pretty good year parent of two years past and I think with with coven and coming out of covet I think at one time we were a little bit more concerned about that but you can see that at least for 2022 that things didn't end up too bad um next slide please so then just some generalizations here for the education fund provided you with the history just like I did last year going back all the way back to 2015 all the way up to 2022 and just some high level things um you can see the year-to-date Revenue increased by just over 850 thanks to increased by the legislature um and student enrollment remaining uh kind of level or plateauing year-to-date expenditures in the education fund increased by just over 550 000 obviously we knew that we gave out pretty sizable increases to staff we also know that some of those increases were not fully realized in 2022 but in 2023 we'll see a full year it's worth of that increase um end of your cash balance increase by 1.2 million dollars in part again those full additional costs haven't been fully realized within the budget we are also in 2022 we also paid for approximately four hundred thousand dollars of educational fund salaries out of the rainy day um so in 2023 and we've just started we've shifted those costs back into the education fund so that fully accurate picture without that the other one of the other notes to make is the education fund operations fund transfer so that 15 Mark of total revenue from education fund you want to stay below 15 and making that transfer we know that dating back a few years with the way school funding and and school budgeting was done they shifted some of those costs from the education fund to the operations fund so thus we have to transfer funds to carry those costs for things such as my salary as well as other other members in my office and we actually only transferred thirteen point eight five percent so um well below that 15 and actually almost a a full percent while almost three quarters of full percent below what we did last year so that would attribute to some additional Revenue um in the education fund so overall um in much better Financial shape than we were and just a few years ago so obviously we we ended in the black even with providing some of those additional increases and working to build up a healthier Reserve so we don't put ourselves in a bad spot um next slide please and then the operations fund some similar information there you know looking at the total total revenue year-to-date Revenue increased by 69 thousand dollars is just over sixty nine thousand dollars um we know that um our Levy we're able to love you more because we have the growth quotients with the rate for the operations fund so we're able to generate a little bit more Revenue we also have the higher assess valuation um but on the flip side here to date expenditures also increased by just over half a million dollars we also know that we gave some increases uh to staff we overspent Revenue by uh just over uh a quarter of a billion dollars um you know this is obviously something to that all monitor moving forwards but we did have a healthy reserve and healthy cash balance that was comfortable doing it with that we had several one-time expenditures um that we paid cash for um such as the uh well where they they weren't the laptops but they were um were the desktop so rather than financing out we made a chunk payment of just under a hundred thousand dollars um so overall we're we're in we're still in a healthy healthy spot there but that's not something that we want to do uh year to year um on top of that um in in impacting that we did make a 500 000 transfer from operations fund um to the rainy day fund so we have a we have a we've replenished our reserve of what we've been spending on uh staff salaries there so overall a very you know a good year as well um in operations funds and then the final slide I just shared with um with you again just a copy of the final 2023 budget order and in the bottom right hand corner you can see our rate um is 1.32.36 you can in the Box above it you can see the last year it was a dollar 31 11.
so if there was a reason tonight that you you know you needed more time to review the the search screening candidates you could do that um but there is a you know fairly tight timeline with uh finalists selected on March 6th you know the email date that that went out on without flow because I'm trying to find it with all the dates um it's in the brochure so if you if you want to look at the last last meeting um it was in the brochure it's the one thing I didn't print so February 6th application is due February 13th semifinal is selected okay February 27th through March 6th would be the first round of interviews so when was Mr Heidi Hardy's first yeah I have that here yep um but as far as the screening committee training them uh it would be sometime between [Music] um it would be sometime in before February 13th February 13th would be when semi-finalists are selected by the screening committee so okay that I reckon because I mean obviously you know these dates can be somewhat flexible if you folks need them to be something else but um that is what was published I think it would make I think it would make good sense to to get this settled this evening no I'm I'm good with the committee's and I miss this I'm going to be honest my fault the uh February 13th we have a school committee meeting so that that's going to be changed yeah well something has to change in there and okay because you've got I'm eating on the 13th no disrespect Tuesday is Valentine's Day all right and I'm not going there that's up to the committee I'm not going there I already got chewed out last 20 20 years ago for that we did that last year we met on Valentine's Day last year but I if I remember correctly I sat there and said what's your option people and so that would I would think that you would have to go Wednesday the 15th that's my only thought there yeah and you know I see any reason that that can't be flexible day you know that that type of deal so Kathleen I just have a question um that you I made the assumption but I just wanted to make sure that the selection criteria in the brochure is based off of the results of the survey right and Mr hardy had planned on being here tonight to share those results but obviously he was unable to he will be available on the 13th um and could share survey results with the group then well we could ask for some written information about the survey from him if we need it before then but yes it informed the brochure okay can he can he get that can you I can ask him for uh some sort of person some type of a reporter summary I will get to us so you can get it forwarded to us so we can take a look at it and just to be proactive if he I understand he is not well or personal reasons but if he's unable to travel if we could plan to have him at least zoom in at a minimum because I I feel like I would agree I'd like to see someone from masc here on the 14th the 13th oh yeah if it's not Jim it's Mr coot it's coach someone someone needs to be here in person or on Zoom yeah exactly now we're gonna have a major snowstorm on the 13th with an hour out of it don't say that I was a kid we had one so I'll leave it at that yeah so okay okay all right and it would be great Mr chair um Mr Kiley if we if he could provide us with some kind of summary like Kathleen said um prior to that meeting so we can at least have have a look over it before that's right that's what I said if we if if he can get that to us the sooner the better so that we at least have it to look at agreed you know per se you know no disrespect you know an email at five o'clock on February 13th isn't going to cut it if you know what I'm saying yep okay so that being said uh I still I still have my wonderful notes uh if you remember Miss Gunther uh sent us an email on the 29th of November with uh what the search committee looked like back in 2015.
comments are limited to three minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts in writing to the board secretary visitors addressing the board need to submit a common slip to the board secretary and will be invited to the microphone prior to addressing the board audience members should State their full name the proceedings are being tape recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes and are being Line Street Live streamed um the board's presiding officer reserves the right to modify these Protocols of circumstances warned audience surface excuse me audience observation of these protocols is appreciated all right our first uh slip this evening is from Eileen Briner good evening Eileen breiner at Downers Grove resident I'd like to address diversity Equity inclusion Equity means active discrimination of certain people Merit is not to be a determining Factor it is verboten Equity means everyone ends up in the same place to quote Kamal Harris do you not see the Marxism in this everyone should be at the lowest common denominator that's the only way to be fair in this ideology schools are doing well at equity scores are declining soon all will be at the lowest common denominator scores are still available because we still have testing testings on the chopping block though because it's considered racist so it has to go diversity achieved by Equity to produce inclusivity to a place no one wants to be is the goal please go back to promoting Excellence hard work and achievement just like in sports let's look at Dei applied to sports the fortball team would have to have equal white black Asian Latino and lgbtq players regardless of ability there'd be no rules for practice or requisites for training the dream team will be inclusive but no one on it will be happy because of the lack of discipline or the ability to perform and compete this is what's going what we're doing at d99 we need new leadership to begin to improve and stop following the crazy ideology of Dei it sounds good but it's destructive high scoring outcomes should be the goal and not social engineering our schools are diverse take it and treat students equally encourage and teach all students to grow and learn remember a rising tide lifts all boats regardless of size shape or color just a reminder to everyone d99 spends over twenty five thousand dollars per student that's a lot more than what private schools cost I suggest that parents be given a choice of where to take these dollars School vouchers would create freedom of choice in education and reduce costs to taxpayers but alas the teachers union will oppose this direct assault on their power base school choice would make schools competitive provide diversity of schools and put parents in control of schools not the teachers unions scores are low but don't despair the students will know how to have sex at least six different ways and be able to name 10 different genders wow the next slip is from Noel manly good evening my name is Noel manly and I'm resident of Darien Illinois yesterday I asked the question what is the Equity Dividend kick in this district has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on Equity related education training and materials for students faculty and staff and what is the result of all this spending well a review of the Illinois State Board of education's report card is the best place to begin in 2019 47.9 students out of 100 in this District could read a grade level by 2022 only 40.9 could read a grade level a 15 drop ping down into these numbers we find even more troubling news those students who identified as white in 2019 grade level reading proficiency was at 57.4 out of 100 students by 2022 the number fell 52.2 a drop of nine percent for those students identified as Hispanic in 2019.
she's a she's a savant I'm probably on the three scale as you say I'm not going to answer that yeah you shouldn't you shouldn't and I can use it Mr Grimes so I would say it's pretty pretty friendly yeah I noticed on the graph you don't have to go back to it but there's a huge difference between some schools usage and others I I don't know if you've done a survey or not to make sure that like in some of the schools where there's a very small number of people using the app are they getting what they need regularly just through other means or are they just not using because they don't know how we we have reached out to those in some of the data is skewed on that specifically because say for instance McDowell or C4 they're tied into the other schools and so they are using those other schools that was the thing that first stuck out to me was like okay what's going on here well that's because they're able to toggle and they're tied to a specific school on you know their responsibilities but at those different Elementary levels we have reached out and offered training as well as just ongoing assistance if needed I'll also say that those are just flat numbers so a school like Columbus North is going to have so many more users and then a Lincoln those aren't percents yeah and I I kind of acknowledge that you know it's a big difference between an elementary school and the high school so it just was it was just a curiosity to just understand that you guys are looking at it I do appreciate that you are and that you're trying to identify ways to engage with the parents that aren't maybe using that tool and then uh kind of a follow-up to that you've kind of mentioned a little bit about what the future looks like but what other features to this app do you think are going to help enhance that maybe cover some of those gaps that exist today that will be available for us in the future um one of my goals is to have all of our schools actively using the attendance alerts we know that when kids are in school they learn best and I believe that that will help in every way you know at the the family teacher communication piece that will help the students academic performance and so that's one of our goals I'd also like to see you know the asking for items or volunteers feature use because every time we ask people to step up they do and it's been really exciting to see our families finding ways to get engaged the biggest one though would be creating the groups for extracurricular activities we have such a wide variety of opportunities for our students and so we want to get all of those groups which they're already set up with their user accounts and then you know the more connected a person is in each of those groups it's it's to find what is already going on in their lives but it shows okay who are the people that are very connected and how can we also help others to get connected into groups where they're a part of those communities so I would say those would be the the big things that I see coming but we're always exploring and parent squared is improving all the time and one thing that we haven't mentioned here is that high school students are in here under a student Square so part of the need for this is that we have so many students traveling all day long as we've talked about today and being able to alert them in a timely manner for safety reasons I think is just a big plus for this that luckily we haven't had to use at this point but it is a tool now that we we have confidence in okay okay sure um first of all the two things that really stand out to me that I think are huge positives here um one is when I taught I know some people use remind and some people used other things and and the fact that you can unify this I think is very powerful and the other is that you mentioned a couple times the language translator is is just huge I have one clarifying question and then a challenge um I think Josh what you were saying is we didn't see anything up there for C4 because they show up under East and North is that correct exactly so it's not that it's not being used no no it's definitely being used yeah um so my Challenge and maybe it fits under here I think this is tremendous so this is in no way of criticism but but the four checks one of those is community so how do we do this kind of thing to people who don't have kids in school but are still part of our community yes you don't have to answer that tonight but no I'm I'm with you and it's something that you know as I spoke to earlier that was really the first part of my my job when I got to be a part of UCSC was that external Community facing one of the really cool things about this and I know it only speaks to social media but there is an ability for every school to post their Weekly Newsletter and to share that on social media that is a newer feature and not all of them yet have that it's another one of my goals for this semester so that we can get um you know Jana does a great job reporting you know each week for bcsc but they're there's so much good news that is going on and opportunities that we can connect I think it's an integration of both social media but also making those available on the school web sites and so that's something that I'm always up for the challenge so I appreciate it very good thing nope Mr Williams I'd like to take uh the question that Mr Majors asked to impose it for the broader technology in schools Arena where where do you see things going I mean we've come from every building had a computer lab and we were proud of that and then some of our students were one-to-one Computing and I think now that's is that everybody what's next what what will we be investing in so I think um I was prepared for this question but um the the things that we've really seen even just the last couple of months but including this year is the advancements in artificial intelligence and how quickly answers can be easily available and it will just Advance the phones to watches to everything else and how that impacts teaching and I think it really goes back to the importance of relationships that we build with students as technology just gets more and more combined with those instant answers um kind of those Jeopardy answers if you were but going to that higher level thinking project-based learning is fantastic in trying to utilize some of those tools and then like the the Milo robot is just mind-blowing we've we've done kind of demonstrations with it and everybody's like oh that's interesting but to see it work and make such a big impact I think we'll see more and more of those things come out that will help individual students and and hopefully we can be on The Cutting Edge moving forward thank you great job thank you all okay Mr Phillips tell us about the money we just usually jump right into that board action in a in a public notice but this time we had enough notice Chad just one second I think Nick is trying to it is I just turn it on I mean go up and check test one two okay so we have an opportunity to refund an old bond issue from 2013 and save some significant dollars for the district We'll be asking you to take action and we'll have a public hearing at the next board meeting and so today's information is just for you to digest and ask any questions that you have so in 2013 we issued bonds for about twenty two and a half million dollars lots of projects across the district but the primary purpose of that was Secure entries following the Sandy the Sandy Hook event back in that time frame and so most of our schools had those vestibules added and secure dual locked doors that debt is scheduled to roll off the books in 2032 but as is usually the case with our longer term bonds we do those are callable here in July of this year and so Dr Roberts if you could sorry I should go over there briefly um we have about 15 and a half million dollars remaining on those bonds um with a rate of just under five percent and we can refund those at just under three percent two point seven one percent saving us over the life of the remaining bond issue uh almost 1.6 million dollars in debt payments um and that should then add additional capacity for us to be able to uh issue a Geo Bond probably later this fall to move to the next Elementary School on our list as we are currently as many of you know and saw recently at Parkside in full-blown renovation mode moving on to Schmidt and fall so this helps us be able to do that um with a lesser impact or at least remaining is still tax neutral impact on the tax rate okay we will post a public notice in the Republic probably this week of a hearing have that hearing at the next meeting and then you can see the rest of the time there line there closing on those refunded Bonds in April happy to answer any questions you might have this evening any questions on those savings Slide the refunding estimates slide I notice it says estimated net savings describe what goes into the netting process where are we net of like legal fees and advisors fees those kinds of things correct we will um it's basically the remaining debt payments um what they would have been before refunding what they are after refunding and then net of we will have we will have three large cost of issuance one of them anytime we do a bond issue into this this large even if it's a refunding we do uh we're rated by one of the bond rating agencies standard reports and we had a financial advisor fees and then Bond Council fees so those are the three cost of issuance and the savings are incredible correct correct they're estimated and they always estimate high I'll probably come in the savings will come in a little bit better than what we've advertised but they round up on all the cost of issuance any other questions no thank you Mr Phillips okay and then last we have some policy revisions dude these are always fun and interesting a lot of reading that you have to do I hopefully you had a chance to get that started at least so um just a reminder to everybody that we do contract with Neola in e-o-l-a as a company that is um we use that company to help us stay on top of changes and so as you get a list of policies to review uh it's just not a random list those policies have been looked at by Neola based upon changes in legislation so we will get another set of change policies after this session of the Indiana legislature for example as we we see different things that are going to maybe become law on July 1st or change sometime during the calendar year or it could be a Supreme Court case or some other case law situation where we have more information and Neola takes that information and changes the policy so they give us those various uh policies to look at and revise I always start with taking the ones that we need to look at and comparing it to what the previous policy was and then send those edits out potential edits out to a cabinet and then to you to begin to reviewing tonight is only a first reading a first opportunity to look at this and then we'll need to either approve them at the February 6 or March 6th meeting I say that in just that the February 6th one is two weeks away I want to make sure you all have had time to completely digest those and ask all of your questions and then I see Amy sitting back there there are a set of those not every single one of those but some of those certainly play into from a staff standpoint need to be reviewed and talked about discussed with the Educators Association so we just want to make sure all that time is allowed so I'll just walk through the ones that at least we're reviewing right now and taking a look at and this first one is just a bylaw zero one forty two point three and it refers to vacancies and just the process that you as a board could go through if you find a vacancy so all of a sudden something happens and there's a vacancy on the board what is the process for going through that so that board that that policy speaks to that um this next one is in regards to staff and student relations um and there are three different policies and just for everybody's sake particularly three of you brand new to this oftentimes we'll have a policy that's getting changed in three different places it would be perhaps certified staff classified staff and then administration because in our policy manual we have uh chapters of policies based upon three different employee groups most of the time there are similar changes there may be different ones with the teachers sometimes it's because of collective bargaining law and state statute with our certified staff but on this one it's just talking about how do we specifically address staff student relations that may constitute criminal conduct child abuse or neglect and then inappropriate boundary invasions or other conduct Unbecoming so because of some case law situations it was suggested that there are a few other things we might wish to add that would lead to discipline of a staff member Beyond just criminal conduct and things that we might say is okay that's inappropriate boundary invasions for example so that one hits those three different policies hit that kind of same area mandatory curriculum so as you're all well aware the state of Indiana has a lot of very specific topics we have to cover from a curriculum standpoint and so the only change here is reflecting uh some statutory language where in Indiana code now AIDS has been replaced with HIV in this new course requirements around that so it's just recognizing that uh Indiana code reads differently than perhaps it did at one time uh these three get to school accountability we're in three different places in our policy we have the words ISTEP plus well it's been a while actually since ISTEP plus we moved to iLearn and recognizing that it seems like on a relatively routine basis we take a look at that standardized test and we may change the name as so we're not coming back to you all of the time each time the legislature thinks about changing the name of the test to just State mandated testing program it seems safe to say that the state of Indiana will always have a state mandated testing program so that's just some simple wording changes there on those three policies this one is just a technical correction so 53 40.01 is on student concussions and sudden Cardiac Arrest it's just taking the term Sheehy and replacing with the student throughout that document whatever that was most of the policies have been kind of updated from that anyway this one had not so it's a technical correction nothing from a Content standpoint policy 5460 is on on graduation requirements starting with this graduating class actually of 2023 there are graduation Pathways have been specified that the that students have to maneuver their way through for graduation so we're just catching up with that language again it is statutory or Indiana code language that we are following With The Changes there 5511 is on dress and grooming and it's just making sure that our language is stated in a way that's non-discriminatory in uniform so there's an attempt here to make sure we're complying with Title IX and this comes from case law so again things will pop up with case law maybe across the state whether it's a staff or a student and we'll we'll be asked to look at policy and potentially revised policy based upon that so that's where some warning would be in that one a school-sponsored student Publications and Productions only a technical correction again there were just some drafting errors in the last release and so you will see in your documents some changes attempted on those so no content changes necessarily a grant funds because of um uh Esser and gear and other things tied to coveted relief these policies are attempting to review changes to Edgar which is the education Department's General administrative regulations and build those into specific requirements around how we're spending Esser and gear dollars so it's Grant funds was one way before it was 6110 but that was before all these other grants were available to us and they have different management or administrative regulations surrounding them and so trying to build that into the language of policy that's similar here with cost principles and how we spend federal funds funds and then the procurement of federal grants and funds those different Esser gear again federal dollars are provided to us and gets into some some different pieces there in terms of prohibitions regarding costs incurred for telecommunications video surveillance Services Etc and then we get into food service program and this was just again some case law pieces and we make sure that the policy includes prohibition against discrimination on any protected class and make sure that there's a specific complaint procedure available as required by federal law and then we get into school visitors and school visitors here it has been revised to prohibit persons who are entered in the state sex and violent offender registry or the equivalent Federal registry and then other persons who meet the definition of serious sex offender and and having that built into whether or not they're able to access school grounds so some additional pieces there and that is it at this point in time there were some other ones that were in this particular volume but because of of what we're looking at we've pulled for now so for example later on in the meeting we're hoping to approve a subcommittee on public engagement and so public comment it always is one of those things that we're looking to maintain with at least Indiana code or or state statute and as you look at that we didn't want to bring a new policy to you without that subcommittee having a chance to look at that and give some ideas to us about how we're going to further engage uh engage the public so we left that one out a year for now as as you as a board look at that one with the subcommittee so I know you had um dozens is probably the right word of pages to look through there and wherever you might be on that uh certainly can take any questions you might have see if we can run back through things and answer those quickly otherwise please reach out to me with suggestions on on policy revisions things that you you think still have opportunities for improvement we'll be engaging the Teachers Association with the continued dialogue and that's why I'm indicating that maybe not February 6th is the second reading but March 6 which gives us just a four additional weeks to make sure that you've digested these and we we get them right whenever you you have it for the final approval it was 110 pages so that's at least dozens yeah okay do we have any questions tonight or do we maybe need a minute to review and come later sure so I mean my understanding of these policies is that before and after they're made available to the public are we making the changes proposed available to the public so that we can get any back from the public regarding any of these changes yeah so we have not uh Mr Schultz necessarily just put them out on website or whatever but um the the the revisions are available uh so if somebody requests to take a look at what we have we can make those available because now that they've went through you for a first reading they are public documents and can be accessed for for review okay so I it wasn't overwhelming amount of reading um so I I have lots of not lots I do have specific questions but I I guess my question tonight is about the process so are you saying we would email you about questions that we have specifics um are we okay getting feedback from um from Amy and cea about some of these I assume that she she has seen it so so we will meet with um with through our discussions process which is the bcsc administration team and and Amy's team we'll get together and talk about specific ones that they they believe that specifically affect you know staff so staff student relations would have been one probably a staff dress and grooming um maybe things that involve funds and Grant funds because that's usually involved with spending money on students so we'll have that specific dialogue from your standpoint what I like for them to get from you or any specific questions you have about maybe why or how we arrived at that recommendation and or suggestions for improvement and you certainly are welcome to reach out to your constituents stakeholders with questions or thoughts regarding those policies what's interesting with Viola it's a little bit confusing is that as they make a change in it may be um one word that's changed in the policy but we have to go back to the prior one and see what was even the policy before and kind of recheck those boxes so anything that was kind of an option before maybe there were three options to choose as a corporation with any of them any of those options would satisfy requirements or legal uh recommendations or advice and so we always go back to check to see what did we do before assume that that's still appropriate unless somebody tells us differently but when you see them you don't necessarily know and I'm not sure of a good way to tell you that this was already that was there before and really in this document that had three pages there was only you know one thing that really was it should be different so you're seeing everything in terms of uh what what they have and what we're crossing out and adding so the red Parts is you know what's being deleted or taken out the green those those new additions and so please please reach out and maybe I have you talk to somebody else if it's food service for example we have a team that works on that food service policy and could give you you know more background in into that but I too read these in depth before sending them to the cabinet the cabinet members read those and send things back Amy's team will have the policies they need to take a look at it and so that's that's where we are to so I would just add to that some of my concerns are around the student-teacher relationships sure we're about relationships but we're about appropriate relationships it's not inappropriate and some of these I read and I I it some of them sound like they could be very appropriate right and they could also be done inappropriately yes I mean yeah there's things about hugging and if you go to graduation you're going to see a lot of kids hug a lot of teachers yeah so so it's little things like that could I have been fired when I did that right yeah yeah there were a variety of options there that we we may or may not choose the criminal ones easily enough right and I think you know just thinking about that policy there was one about you know whether or not a a teacher or it should be providing guidance you know it might kind of guidance counselor kind of stuff and that's walking a fine line we certainly want that you know that student relationship with teachers we want that trust adult so how do we word that appropriately uh to maintain proper boundaries but also have that trust and respect between staff and students that we're asking we have many unique situations right yeah I don't know should I turn myself in here I had a student live with us for the last six months of his High School career yeah yeah and it was it was important for him and for us needed to do that yeah I violated several opinions okay yeah yeah in terms of how those are written or yeah so we could talk about those we haven't graduated yeah and I know that I think Amy you know we are a little bit of our correspondence that was in one and that was I believing a few of those down toward the bottom of that we want to take a look at to see what what needs to be checked or not and just just from our process so as you're collecting feedback from board members Amy others you will send revisions if you felt like there's a there's been a need for me yeah so any any changes that will be made to a given policy uh Sherry will get those back out to you for review and so it'll be a constant kind of back and forth with for you to note that new changes have been made and you'd be pondering those as we prepare for a an export meeting so one of the things from a process standpoint that I'm not sure how we manage through this but you know if if we all right now there's no committee that I know of that is policy Review Committee and so if we don't have a policy Review Committee and we're sending you and only you because we can't send it to everybody our questions what if we all seven have the same question it's going to drive you crazy at some point responding separately is there is there a way that we can at least put questions that everybody has in one place so we can see what other people are thinking because this is my struggle with this is the conversational side of this discussion right and how we go through there's just so everybody understands Nikki said 110 Pages all right I've got three pages here of questions and it may not be what there's there's there's one question about Davis bacon we put that up here a minute ago right I have no clue what that is I know who Kevin Bacon is but I don't know anything about Davis bacon and from putting that into a policy we kind of talked about this earlier there's probably an audit or a certification or effort that people are going to put into to make sure that we're under compliance and so just having the bigger broader picture of how some of those things impact might be good to have a policy committee where we can all talk about it together yep I appreciate that suggestion Mr major the something where it encourages additional conversation is probably going to have to be necessary because I wish we could use the technology to kind of gather that you know Google doc we all listen questions and stuff seems like it'd be effective too but we're probably starting to border on a meeting right we're all of a sudden seven people are adding to a document we're kind of having a conversation behind the scenes so that wouldn't meet the the Open Access or Public Access so perhaps Mike Mr McIver we could have a conversation is what a proper you know process would be to either gather the information or have a subcommittee or even create another Jason you and I are before the meeting we're talking about do we have a separate meeting just where it is the seven of you talking about the policies and instead of all this business meeting and all the other things we've talked about so far we just concentrate on policy and we focus on that particular piece so maybe that's an answer too with that gap of time we have between February 6th and March 6th so let's have a conversation we'll come back with you some with some recommendations and see where the other team might be thank you hey just another idea food for thought sometimes when you get a question Dr Roberts from one board member you'll let us all hear the answer which is helpful to me yeah so if somebody asks hey what about this on this page and then you develop an answer if I have the chance to see that answer the question probably never would have occurred to me right not that bright but I can learn by reading the answer yeah so and part of that would be Mr stinner so as we have revisions or make revisions based upon input that you've had or questions you make we'll send that out with a memo to all of you but as as we've talked before we don't we don't expect a reply all we don't get into a conversation or a back and forth in terms of electronically but certainly can send a memo out to you indicating what these changes are based on the question that has been been asked very good thank you for those questions dialogue appreciate that okay uh we will move on to public comments I see we have none tonight so we will now move on to board appointments four committees my name next to it okay I can help you out with that that would be fantastic so I think the best way to do these um a reminder to to all that we did not appoint committees this last time because we didn't really have officers in place to try to get committees organized before and it is by policy that the President appoints to those committees is which is why Mrs wilden's name is there and so she has went back and forth and tried to to work with all of you to figure out interests and um you have been given board members have been given a description of those committees and and opportunities and and maybe even a time commitment in regards to those and when those meet and and baseball all of that we have some recommendations uh here and so um I I believe uh given the information you had beforehand it makes sense to do these as a consent unless there's you know one of you would want to pull one of these out for for some reason but I think a recommendation for these four which would be the bcsc Health Trust with Mr major the district and Facilities committee with Mr stinner the diversity Leadership Council with Mrs Wilden and the business advisory council with Mr stinner these four all kind of grouped together because they're very internal they meet at least quarterly on a routine basis to help the corporation make specific decisions and so these four are kind of grouped that way whereas the next group or more Community minded so I would I would recommend that that we have a motion for these four and then take it from there okay very good do I have a motion to prove items three a through D on committee assignments I move that we approve number three letters a through d as as presented thank you Mr Grimes do you have a second okay thank you Miss Brent all in favor say aye aye aye all opposed okay thank you for that the next one is then similar a few more committees this is an approval of board members serving as Liaisons with district and Community advisory boards and committees so there are some district one here the district one's here but also there are some community-minded Ones high ability broad-based committee we have Mr nalin that is a statutory requirement that every corporation has that committee the Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation Mr Grimes he spoke to that one earlier served in that role a year ago the corporation continuous Improvement Council ccic that one is actually another one that meets at least quarterly with the corporation and we're asking that Mr Schultz serve on that one the education Hall of Fame committee which we're going to be celebrating that one in a couple of weeks we're asking that Mr Schultz serve on that one the Indiana school boards Association or isba there are two pieces here there's a delegate assembly where in the fall at the annual meeting delegates meet we're asking for Mr Grimes the other isba one and Mr Grimes spoke to this earlier is just being a legislative plate of liaison for the board as the legislative process works its way through this spring The iupuc Advisory Board they ask for a person from the board that's Mr nallen or a request for Mr nallen classified employee Roundtable Mr Bryant the counselor for Youth Development a council that that tries to meet the needs of Youth here in our community and partners with us on a lot of stuff is Mr nallen the district Wellness Council Mr Bryant and then we have two Redevelopment commissions here in the community one is the Bartholomew County one and that's Mrs Wilden and the other one is the city of Columbus one and that's Mr major and I believe that is all of those so I would ask for recommendations uh those are my recommendations items four through a through l you very much do I have a motion to approve items 4 a through L for board appointments yeah I'll make a motion to approve them as written thank you do I have a second second thank you very much all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed motion approved thank you if possible on those I'd like to just ask one question sure how do we get the invites today the mystery it's a mystery so now it's your name is attached to those those leaders of that will be reaching out to you quickly and we'll get all of your contact information from Mrs Chrisman and you'll be invited soon looking at those in terms of meetings coming up fast let's see um Health Trust will be in February district and Facilities committee meeting coming up soon I think Dr Bozeman diversity Leadership Council February 15th I believe so most of these are coming up in February meetings would be happening Mr nellon asked the same thing and I said they will find you okay don't don't worry yeah they will all right the next one is is uh kind of a new one and based upon the feedback you all gave at the last board meeting so there was a lot of dialogue or again in regard to a few topics uh the two that I think we heard from your conversation was around public engagement and what does that look like and so um because we could have three of you make up a subcommittee it's that's not a quorum and you could find different times to meet if you want to have breakfast somewhere and and talk over coffee or whatever the case might be you can do that and so public engagement uh Rich Stenner Dale nalin and Logan Schultz as the ones looking at that and then the meeting agenda you talked a lot about commendations and just the flow of meetings and where things might fall and how we might do each of those so just looking at the meeting agenda itself Todd Grimes Pat Bryant and Jason major uh would be the ones that we're looking for there so I'm asking we're asking for approval of appointments to the subcommittee so we can begin work on those and then after after perhaps approval we can talk about some expectations in in going through the next few meetings and starting to get an understanding of flow and process and get some deadlines perhaps assigned to recommendations that would come from those subcommittees so as we start looking at some changes perhaps in the function or at least the way the board the processes and function goes good okay do I have an emotion to approve item 5A and B I moved to approve board member appointments to subcommittees as presented Mr grams do you have a second second thank you Mr major all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion approved thank you and Miss Wilton maybe you'd speak to we at least a little conversation on what might be a timeline we can have further dialogue with the individual groups but yeah I think we're discussing we'd like to in July have have everything set by July so really in June we would like in June start to get the recommendations in so we could process those and the conversation was around having a flow of meetings just to to get a feel for for how they are going um experience them and then based upon that experience is then be able to make recommendations from what we are feeling seeing hearing and if we can start having recommendations come in in May your process those in June and then our July board meeting any changes we would have in place to start the new school year and in July we always look as that's the start of the next school year and that'd be a good time maybe to work those in and uh and I would call that a deadline however if the team is a highly effective team and can can make a recommendation earlier I'd always say and I'm sure they was happy to hear that okay clarification Our intention tonight is to get these subcommittees up and going in in a sense they're ad hoc we wouldn't expect that one of these committees would still be here 10 years from now like the Health Trust will still be here 10 years that's I I think that's right created out of questions concerns need to take a look at a few topics that were on people's minds so yep yep yep and I think Miss Roberts has offered to stay connected and I will obviously also stay connected with the team members and the chairs throughout the process to make sure we're we're working working at a reasonable pace and can answer any questions yes and and so uh and then even attendance at a meeting if there are questions or whatever I can be flexible to to do that Nikki has a little bit more difficult time because if she shows up she's a fourth board member so we just have to keep that in mind okay very good where are we at I think we are at my request for approval my typical lists in a through ACE e is indeed the ones no I take that back a through D are ones that are usually on here so we have minutes of our last board meeting which was on January 9th our reorganization meeting we have supplemental contracts we have some field trips and professional leaves we have our claims and payroll claims for today's date January 23rd is about a million dollars just under our payroll was about 2.9 Million Dollars and it covered the check dates of 113.23 for the work period 12 19 through 1-1 it includes administrator increases just so nobody gets excited on that those administrator increases have been approved back in the summertime but our contracts don't change until January 1st so any any changes in pay when most peoples are changing in July with the beginning of the school years ours do not and so they did take back effect at the beginning of January 1st and so those were included in there and then the remainder of these are a little bit different e is the resolution to a final transfer from the education fund to the operations fund and that's kind of a reconciling of the Year where we just have to look at the expenditures we have and get dollars from one to the other Dr Boseman has a recommendation for three lawn care and Landscape contracts to take care of the many acres properties that we have to take care of and then we have conflict of interest statements for Mr stinner and for Mr major that arose out of uh last meeting when they saw a need to abstain and looking at those needs we decided to do conflict of interest forms for for them so you have those as well okay do I have a motion to approve um item six a through H as presented this evening so real quick can we ask questions do we ask questions before I've been doing this wrong Mike haven't I okay so I'm supposed to get a motion a second and then I ask for input which I've not done but I will if we get to that point this time yep thank you do I have a motion true proof I move that we approve uh number six letters a through H as presented thank you Mr Grimes do I have a second second thank you Mr Bryant now do we have any questions yeah I just had a question about the lawn care contracts I noticed that uh there were three different um companies we were going to work with one had 11 properties one had five one had two and they were all varying costs and it was just I didn't know what the difference in acreage or it defined work but one of them was I guess significant significantly higher if you look at a buy property cost and I just don't know enough about the difference in what work is being done to know if it makes sense yeah thanks for the question um and it's a it's a fair question so um all of our properties with the exception of this property were publicly bid um and as you can see um some of those the the cost per property very greatly so for example um our Johnson Pre-K Center there's very little landscape in there to maintain versus a Clifty Creek which has more than 30 Acres of property that's that's maintained and varying landscape beds and that sort of thing so generally speaking um that's those contracts cover all services related to lawn care and Landscaping with the exception of um weed application weed control on grasses we do those kind of separately but the reason that there's so much variation in the the um the what you see on the contracts is just because of the amount of space that's covered for each of those properties do you have a question yeah this one's actually and Mr Phillips I know you told us at the last board meeting the the amount that um percent of funds being transferred from you know within this Corporation and then you told us I think also a percentage that kind of throws up a red flag to the state and would you mind just refreshing my memory on those percentages no problem the threshold set by the legislature was 15 so they don't want districts to transfer more than 15 percent of their education fund budget to the operations fund to cover those costs that moved when they made the change in law we after this transfer will be just a tick under 11 percent we've never come we've never come close to the 15 threshold thank you you're welcome any other questions no okay all those in favor say aye aye as opposed great motion approved and then last but not least Dr pleake I request approval of the HR recommendations as presented this evening thank you do we have a motion to approve our HR recommendations thank you Mr Bryant do you have a second second thank you any questions yeah on on this one I know that we can see what's happening obviously reasons the public can't see would it be possible in the future maybe to look at giving like a list of the things that are there so maybe you have a this time you have a retirement or a maternity leave no names but just so that people understand when they see this it it's when I sat out there it really wasn't clear to me what was being looked at in when you look at it from our perspective in the board packet it's it's easy to vote Yes for these but it's hard for them to understand why so I didn't know if that's something that maybe we could just say this this time we had three maternity leaves two retirements and we hired four teachers I think that's a really good suggestion for maybe the subcommittee focused on agenda to to debate I think it's a good suggestion if I could ask that maybe that team review the recommendation and provide that as an alternative yep that's good thank you because I can't think again as that team looks at some things and thinks about how we can make sure we're showing things to the public what additional improvements to the presentation slides those kinds of things I appreciate the categorical maybe look at that yeah high level perfect okay we already approved no we had a second great all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed motion carries thank you yep okay now we move to board input and review since I started down there I'll start down with Mr Bryant it's time okay yeah I talked a lot earlier I think uh just again I appreciate the openness that allow us to visit the different facilities the different schools um you know I think Mr strong again for for Richard's uh in the welcoming that we got and I look forward to Future visits to other schools thank you I especially appreciated the presentation this evening best practices presentation from our new Tech High School CSI high school and not to drop names or anything but I have played melophone next to Abby shoot who's better Mr Stenner slightly better okay um I will I will just say my heart breaks for the family of Ariel Roberts and um for all of the teachers and staff I know their counselors on site very quickly I just think this Corporation responded really really well to support our kids and our teachers so I pray for her family and thank you all for taking care of each other thanks again to Mr Reed Ms buckler Abby and Tommy from CSA and uh for a great presentation uh thanks also to Mr Jensen director of secondary education Mr Newell the East principal who Who provided a uh in in Friday notes a very thorough breakdown examination of of graduation rates and uh the rather obvious role that covet had and continues to play in that in that shift and then also uh best wishes to C4 for a successful open house Wednesday evening at Columbus North yeah I do want to thank the CSA new tech for the presentation and for CSA Lincoln for hosting me uh last week I think and been making what Mr Grimes mentioned about the graduation rates I think just given the amount of talk I've heard from the public being able to present those in a presentable format to the public I think would at least Open the Eyes to everyone of what mitigation and what steps we're taking to improve those would be very helpful as well I I want to extend appreciation to the cabinet and to principals as we move into this apparently new Venture of visiting schools they they have been open and welcoming to the whole idea and also thank you to our board president who did the daunting task of assigning us to committees thank you you're welcome I'm a very good delegator Mr nellid no problem okay with that I think our next board meeting is on February 6th 6 30 in this room we have an education Hall of Fame of word reception at 6 PM which I am personally looking forward to my first time being on the board we get to have a real party for that's right yeah so real quick on that Mrs Wilden the reminder we have said this I think publicly before but uh Dr John quick who was the superintendent of our school corporation for 13 years and served in other roles in the in the corporation is one of two and we also have Peggy Myers a special education teacher at Columbus East which I think Peggy's received a few different Awards teachers of the year and whatnot in this community in the school corporation so it'll be great to celebrate them here with a reception six o'clock regular board meeting at 6 30 and then a formal introduction of them during the board meeting uh again down here in the terrorist room very good okay with that meeting adjourned have a nice evening
may I have a motion motion by Mr Smith second by Miss Basin question to discussion Mr Reese I'm familiar with trial Electronics as a vendor as we've done business with them before ATN technologies have we had a past relationship with them as well Mr Gill yes they they're primarily our Defender for our first control systems great thank you what what about the old equipment try Electronics also put a lot of that in are they taking any of that back do you know of I'm I'm not sure exactly what they're doing a lot of what you're approving tonight is the equipment that's new for the new buildings so there's not much of the old equipment I don't believe in in these contracts okay and then uh cameras particularly for new buildings are the outdoor outside cameras do you know if those are color cameras or black and white because I know Colonel wheeler the mistake was made to make those outside cameras color s how is that picking up then Mr Gill outside in the darkness doesn't it okay how's that different from the cameras that were initially installed Colonel wheeler in particular I know that firsthand okay based cameras thank you any other questions all those in favor please signify by saying hi who was opposed motion carries 4-0 4.0 through 4.03 Crown Point High School weight room equipment project Mr Reese thank you Mr President members of the board we accepted bids for the high school New weight room equipment that's going into the the addition of the new field house there on the south west corner of the building with that Direct Fitness was the low bidder at 302 885 and we're recommending approval of that contract you've heard the recommendation from the administration for the approval of the contract for the weight room project with Direct Fitness Solutions in the amount of 302 885 dollars may I have a motion second motion by Miss Basin second by Mr Vassar question or discussion again this is this is new equipment and this is this is for classroom use as well as Athletics use that's correct okay thank you any other questions all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed motion carries 4-0 4.04 Taft Middle School water main extension project Mr Reese thank you Mr President members of the board this will take a little bit more explanation so with this we need to provide water service to the new Taft middle school with that we require a 12 inch pipe to come in to the building for our purposes and the water pipe being run however the the American Water who is going to be providing that water the new Taft Middle School is requiring a 20 inch pipe coming in so the way to identify what the additional cost was going from the 12 inch pipe to the 20 inch pipe was to set aside an alternate for a 20 inch pipe and do the base bit at 12 inches with that the base bid for this came in at one million 337 045 dollars the additional markup for the 20 inch pipe is 774 479 while the contract you'll approve is for the 2 million 151 524 for the 20 inch pipe we'll be seeking reimbursement from American Water for that difference between the 12 inch pipe to the 20 inch pipe so that's why American water then will reimburse us that 774 479. our budget for this project was 1.5 million and with that our net cost to the district is the 1 million 337 and 45 dollars which is underneath the budget and with that we're recommending the contract to Austin equipment for two million 151 524 for the new water pipe to new Taft you've heard the recommendation from the administration for the approval of the contract for the new water main project at the new Taft Middle School to Austin equipment in the amount of two million 151 dollars and 524 dollars two million 151 524.
um and um you know again not not much change there obviously there was a little bit of growth and assessed valuation but at the same time with Debt Service um we kept our rate um you know one of the things when we began the building project we wanted to be Debt Service tax rate neutral and going back to the time and when we issued or were planning to issue those bonds we made sure our rate held true to that as well so just a little bit of information there with looking kind of Shifting Focus now to 20 thank you okay great thanks anybody have any questions always better than red so what's that Green's always better than right okay next item on the agenda is old business we have no old business so moving on the new business first item is an approval request to cancel outstanding checks for two years and older with the middle school and high school ECA Treasurer and our Corporation director yep so this is a customary as usual and so a list of those checks two years and older outstanding are listed in your board packet and so I would recommend that the board allow us to cancel those outstanding checks to thank them for their donation and let's cancel it for checks Mr David has been one of them hey I like to donate too and I will say you have a motion in a second all in favor all right all opposed motion passes the next item is an approval request for permission to pay late arriving February 2023 invoices yeah so with February kind of being an already uh short month and Mrs Romer is going to be going on to be on vacation and not wanting to hold up Haven on some invoices we're just seeking approval to essentially pay any remaining outstanding February invoices and then report those back to the board at our March meeting similar to how we handle the December to January before I see no problem I make the motion I'll take a minute okay you have a motion in a second all in favor aye motion passes next item on the agenda is the approval request of the superintendent's contract addendum yep which is basically just contracts starting July 1st 2023.
okay and just so that everybody at home in our audiences it had two Central administrators two school committee members one curriculum director three principles Middle High School and one Elementary three teachers a union designee slash teacher two parents and a retired administrator uh we had some discussions at our last meeting about having like a maintenance a custodian secretary Food Service person on that so that answers Gene's question to replace the retired administrator replace the tire retired administrator the other change was the curriculum director was going to be a related services provider right because that would be Central yeah yeah so so my only question is there's no Community have we so from the uh emails or from the drive that uh scanthers uh included us all on I did not see any um parents right I did nor did I okay okay so I thought one Community member which would be Miss Brooks She's Not a parent but she's a Community member she also fought even though we took it out she falls under that uh retired and retired administrator type of deal my thought was asking the building administrators you know to reach out to their PTO presidents or something and see if there's someone who is interested I mean this is a time commitment okay that type of deal so this is you know this is this is not a 12 to 1 meeting type of deal when you have you know specifically with the finalists that I read on Chris you've done it it you know however many you have in a day they're usually 45 minutes to one hour type of deal so you have three or four of them so you're talking you know a four or five hour you know over a couple you know a couple of days so that's that's my recollection of you know when we've done it when I've done it so so do we want to just go right down the line and start discussing our our choices yeah so yeah I guess what I'm looking at here from the FY uh the 2015 superintendent search committee info so you have a two central office administrators we did receive some uh several we have uh they're with me here for a second we've got uh Miss Gunther and we have Miss Miss paveo troll office I mean because we did have the director of nutrition Ms Sheridan who really is a district-based sort of right that's what I I don't know the answer to this question I'm I'm looking personally I'm looking at Miss Sheridan as on into the maintenance custodian Secretary of food service that's that's where I was looking at her that's my my thought and again I'm only me yeah I guess when I was nominating that um that for that slot I really sort of envisioned um someone who's not a director someone who has that to be frank I don't mean this in an insulting way but at the lower end of the pay scale and has more in tune with those sorts of issues a front-line custodial staff a TA in the classroom a food service worker in the cafeteria right I think we need more representation from the lower end of the pay scale as opposed to the higher end of the pay scale just my two cents well I I think the problem you have there Shannon is is the fact that with all due respect we didn't get anybody from maintenance a custodian or a secretary you know the one quote and unquote cafeteria worker we got was the director there is a teaching assistant yes I and I was looking at her as being one of the teachers I specifically said teaching assistant when I made that point and that's in the minutes okay that slot so secretarial teaching assistant custodial food service or maintenance staff all right in a race I didn't write ta though yeah okay yeah I mean and so then that's it so I don't know the answers to these questions the categories are not entirely clear your drawing Venn diagrams there's some overlap here yeah so I mean if you in but go back to what you just said secretary Kate's Kate's the secretary correct or she could be considered Central Administration she could how fine do you know this how fine do you want to split this you know and I'm not trying to all I'm trying to get is Clarity I don't understand who falls into what category it is not clear to me what do we mean by central office someone who works out of central office or an administrator I think right I don't know that's what I'm asking okay Chris I'm going to go back to you because it was you and miss the goth do you remember who was central office when we hired Dr Gifford okay let's see that's right no I don't yeah do you remember you're on the committee as well yeah Michelle Michelle and the Mystery yeah she was the curriculum person then Michelle Tracy and and yeah and Jim okay yep okay thank you thank you Renee again I wasn't part and parcel of that so I I am Flying Blind with this as far as that one goes so thank you so that's what we again that's what was central office okay so So based on based on this list if I may yeah based on this list I'd like to do are we gonna do we need to make motions here to appoint these people to appoint your staff I would yeah I'm just trying to you know I'm not trying to one two three I mean how I'm trying to make it a lot easier but I think we're probably going to need to do that we'll take it one you know make it one second one one category at a time yeah that sounds good yeah no no that's fine thank you well I'd like to make a motion that we appoint for central office uh this is Catherine paveo as well as really um Mrs Gunther those are my two one second that that was gonna be my choice for central office okay so we've got a motion and a second for uh miss paveo and miss Gunther for central office and Central administrators any other anybody else everybody good with that all in favor aye aye aye opposed unanimous okay that takes care of that one thank you thank you okay two school committee members well there were only two that applied Mr Oliver and Dr Jenkins Mr Oliver and Dr Jenkins okay don't mind me I'm just trying to make notes here so I can big star yeah there we go thank you very much any okay so we got a motion by Dr Jenkins and I think it's yeah that's right second by Miss wait and the other volunteers no all in favor aye aye aye opposed carries unanimously thank you for doing this thank you I'm sorry I didn't say Miss paveo thank you yes thank you thank you thank you thank you yeah she's hiding I got that all right that takes care of that okay the curriculum director we talked about we have our curriculum yeah we thought it's going to be it was a discussion about related service provider okay uh so defer to Mrs Amaral we get a we're reading reading reading yeah reading specialist on the tech specialist we haven't Uhl teacher instructional technology specialist a reading specialist and a special education teacher I got I got a reading I got I got a reading specialist thank you specialist because I couldn't read that either I was going to separate them into I got two reading specialists no SLP or no not that I saw thank you you got an ell oh you were good yeah huh yeah I'm looking at no disrespect I'm looking at Kelly Dua uh has she's an ell system teacher another business who's a special education teacher go ahead or I mean I I I I miss Lynch is wonder I mean they're it's this is hard right I think they would all equally be um valuable members yeah so I mean I don't know I'm not here to break a tie I don't know they're I don't care no there's not a matter of defer to you because you go go ahead you know I I really I I this is hard yeah listen nobody said it was going to be easy this is why we get the big bucks yeah okay and so the ell is Kelly Dua yeah yeah okay oh you can't do it I'll do it since we have the Jeopardy theme song I mean I I know you don't want to um all right that's fine I'll make a motion that we appoint Mary Lynch as the um related Services person that was really tough I said I did it I'm good with that not have that type of deal all right so we have a motion and a second for Mary Lynch from the middle school as the reading specialist anyone else all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Ms Lynch okay uh three principles High School Middle and an elementary so we have Mr Shea from the high school Mr Rossi from the Middle School to be principal by the time this really starts to to work out we have Mr granfield MS from Quinn and uh it's a quarter no Mr did Mr I didn't see Mr Porter's name today yeah I have it here that was past the deadline because I asked for these to be in by Friday with all due respect and then I got Miss Javier who's the associate principal here at the high school so those are those are those are what we got Shannon I'd like to make a motion to apply Mr Shea Mr Rossi and Mr Porter bye let's second that can I ask a question though sure do you just say that Mr Porter's though came in too late like yeah I thought I thought we had said that we were going to have everything in for last Saturday last Friday was there a posting um a date was that in the minutes wow if it was in the minutes I'm done I think we should abide by that but to send in an email to miss Gunther by January 20th 2023.
grade level reading proficiency was 23.6 out of 100 students by 2022 this number fell to 13.8 a 42 percent drop for those students identified as Asian in 2019 grade level proficiency was 58 out of 100 students by 2022 this dropped to 51.7 and 11 drop in most alarming of all for those students who identified as African-American 2019. grade level reading proficiency was at 17.4 out of 100 students by 2022 this number fell to 6.6 students out of 100 a 62 percent drop what could be the cause of this dramatic shift of all demographic groups in District 99. it's interesting to note that the 2020 d99 Equity audit shows that these numbers have been in steady decline since 2015. well of course the easy answer is covid this is the go-to answer by bureaucrats and administrators to explain poor student performance over the past several years and there's some truth to that lockdowns and masking were a terrible way to treat these children during this time however what is not as discussed are the policies that have contributed to this decline these policies include replacing the F letter grade with an incomplete grade awarding any student 50 for doing absolutely nothing not grading homework allowing for optional testing or testing do-overs and the lack of discipline in class due to restorative justice policies and there's absolutely nothing teachers can do about this because their hands are tied because of these absurd policies so if the goal of equity in District 99 thank you Mr Manley your time was expired Miss hoist you're up next thank you good evening I'm Laura hoyce I'm a Downers Grove resident and my topic is parents rights and education for two years we've been asking District 99 to restore and improve academic Excellence instead this board and superintendent have dutifully followed State and National orders to disregard academic Merit and promote d-e-i-s-e-l sexualization and radical Marxist activism District 99 has expanded its social programs Foster gender Pride messaging allowed boys to enter girls locker rooms and installed tampon dispensers in the boys bathrooms at Downers Grove North and South all of these woke initiatives have caused student math and reading scores to plummet certainly it's contributed to the fall providing safe spaces and gender clothing closets does not prepare students for the real world what are you doing and why are you doing it we have you have told us you have to comply with state and federal law your priority should and must be to improve math and reading scores and all Merit scores in this District where is your pushback against CDC guidelines and mandates your job is to educate not indoctrinate raced and sex-based agendas are harming our children first The Masks then the school closings then vaccine clinics now graduating kids kids who cannot read at grade level parents of students in District 99 must know their rights raise their voices and protect their children the first step would be to opt out of the inappropriate sexual messaging taught in sex ed Second Step opt out of state mandated surveys that data mine our students students for private family information third exercise parental rights to access all information for your child from the school parents have the authority to permit the release of child's a child's personally identical identifiable information acting now will ensure that your values are put in place not the schools we must not let this board interfere with the parents right to direct the upbringing of their children we can't trust the schools to handle it for us keep an eye on what's going on in your child's classroom for the upcoming April 4th election pay attention to who the school board candidates are and what they stand for look behind their messaging which may sound good but may be deceptive seek out the truth don't let the union-backed candidates fool you if the candidates support the status quo vote them out a quality education for all students must come first thank you all right that completes our visitor slips okay we'll move on to Communications and announcements uh do we have anything to report on lend no our meeting is Friday it's Friday and then we do have oh that the February 1st February 1st division meeting which is at South so has everybody gotten back to Julie yeah please make sure if you haven't registered yet and you let Julie know tonight that you intend on going today okay uh 99 Foundation yes we met some of us by Zoom um but uh really we were doing more housekeeping than we were much of anything else we went over the budget which took us quite a bit of time um uh so uh we will we will take um any donations that anyone would have because uh with the way our budget looks and and things we want to do for our students um we could use the the funds and you can go right to um District 99 and then follow it to our website and you can donate right on the website so it's we've made it very easy and it is very easy to donate yes to donate and um so that's about all for my commercial and don't forget to donate it would be a nice spring thing the foundation Education Foundation The District 99 Education Foundation we provide grants for our teachers and and faculty to do things extra not extracurricular but extra things for our students that would not be covered under the normal budget the normal budget yes a donation was made tonight and which we accepted yes yes and that was one of them and um we do a lot of wonderful things we do we put smart boards in our schools initially and now it's a pretty much a um a normal part of a classroom so we we try to do Innovative things and right now we're we're also doing things with the um uh incubator classes and those are very interesting where our students are entrepreneurs and so it's Carrie if somebody was went to the website they'd be able to see see all of this stuff so you can see it on the website more than having me explain it how terrible at it is not coming eventually we'll talk more yeah if you'd like to speak more about the foundation afterwards typically we don't dialogue during a board meeting you can catch Terry after the meeting and she'll fill you in yeah how much has the Education Foundation donated to our students over the years the idea well it it's over a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars over the last 30 years that the foundation has existed it's about three hundred thousand dollars I thought it was a few hundred yeah so we've done a lot of good good work a lot of good things there's never an end to the need though no no in our and our next uh uh group of asks let's say from our teachers uh is April 1st so um they're right now compiling things that they may be needing uh maybe not this year but for the fall uh for their students to do okay I think the best way that I thought that the foundation funds have been used is like seed projects like experimental something to try out see if it gets traction and if it does then the district then picks that up and that's where we came in with the smart boards yeah you know we we started out in like two or three classes 3D printers a lot of technology and Innovative programs that have yeah started from the foundation that then made their way into it a lot of times it's it's a it's a teacher's initiative right um I like to do this extra thing I think the students would find interesting and this is a way to see that and and if it works out it's something that may might get some traction and makes its way and we've done we we oh God sorry we're not going into that um just that uh a lot of our funds have been uh used in t99 to help our students um move on yeah yeah so okay upcoming board meetings we'll have a meeting the next meeting is the February 6th meeting which will be 6 30 here it's a workshop meeting and then the next the following meeting will be February 27th again here at the ASC at 6 30.