Yeah, I remember it being very sparse. Oh, I don't think I have the the slideshow talking about the folder policy folder. [Music] Um, yeah, I found it under 242 policy edits. Okay. editing folder. It's all the way at the bottom. Well, for me, it's all the way at the bottom. See this discipline policy? Uh, I believe that's it. Is that it? Okay. Yeah. Discipline policy review. Okay. Perfect. Committer community. Um, so I mean it looks like it's just a timeline. Slide six is policy revisions, thematic change policies. This pertains to listed. What What does that mean? I didn't write thematic change so I don't know what that means. Anybody got any Do you have any I think she was talking about you know Can you guys put on your microphones please? Sorry. I think like the things that were similar was my understanding when she typed that like instead of saying each policy it would be like well one of the things we did was we looked for student safety and we edited those or we looked for restorative practices I think.
So, I wanted our students to find that every book has value as well and to do that we had to kind of re-imagine the library to make it accessible for our students. So, starting last summer, I think I touched every book in the library as I moved and shifted them around to create different genre areas. So, the students can clearly see the fiction compared to the non-fiction uh sections. There's a new graphic novel section, which is super popular. We have a biography section. Um, we have the Monarch and Blue STEM nominees pulled aside for the students as well. Every month I swap out some books to highlight different uh celebrations, different holidays, and then I think the favorite section is the new section where I have all the new books that I'm ordering and putting on display as well. Um in addition to those genre sections, we have designated areas for readalouds, whole class lessons, and group work.
So inclusivity and we're huge believers with the architecture that we do and designing of learning environments that that that is an opportunity to design a space that can truly support that. And these are just a few examples here that include different strategies to help promote that uh that sense of belonging through the architecture and the learning environments. Um, you could see examples here of uh in the center there with the glass windows is a high school steam lab where you're introducing transparency and you're putting learning on display for all to see. And it really starts to break down the walls of the school and um get away from that institutional feel and really have that that connection visually. Um, of course there's, you know, there's concerns there with safety and security and there's many different strategies that we could put in place to help mitigate that and and be sensitive to that.
Well, we've had already had one meeting that was open to the public. Actually, we had some community members who did join us as we walked some of the buildings and looked at some of the things that u pinpointed a number of things that needed to be taken care of. Um, we had some things at the elementary school, the middle school, the high school, the vocational annex, and within the junior high gym in the athletic complex. So, um, there's a number of things that are in dire need. And, um, as far as what the community looks for, I will put something out eventually to them letting them know exactly what we've taken care of so far and what other things we need to look into in the future. All right, we will now hear from Baker Tilly, Municipal Adviserss LLC, our municipal adviser, about how the proposed project will be financed, as well as information about the effect on the typical property taxpayer.
Those words quit claim mean exactly that they are quitting their claim on the access to the to the property. Uh once that's done, it will be uh entirely in the school corporation's name and we can do with it as we will except on the easternmost 20 ft of that property. Uh there is a utility easement for the water. There's a water line that runs from Viking Lane. And if you start at Viking Lane at the top and you go along the east 20 ft all the way down all the way through the green, there is a utility easement that is retained by the city. So since they're quitting their claim on the on the uh yellow part, we're going to in turn give them an a utility easement back. And that really is not an optional choice. Utilities always have priority and uh the right to uh to repair those lines.
Is there a motion to accept this as presented? So moved. Second. Any further discussion or comments? All those in favor signify by sign of I. I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Next is our presentation from the stadium at Landis Elementary. So, Lindsay, you're good. She came just to make sure. Welcome back. Oh, she was staring at us like that. I thought about making you sweat a little bit, but I held up. I would now shortly. Shortly. Yeah. I'll go ahead and introduce Patty Wolf to talk about Lisa's presentation tonight. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. and members of the board for allowing us the opportunity tonight to share our reflections on the changes and achievements of the past years and how we've worked to overcome the hurdles. I'm going to first speak to academic excellence and growth at Landis over the years. We recognize the changes and expectations that have been set forth by the Department of Education over the years.
So anyway, thank you. Thanks everybody. Really enjoy being part of you. Goodbye. Okay. Time for questions. Yes. Actually, would you like to stay up there, Mr. Um the board will if there are any questions um go ahead. It's done. First of all, these numbers are so incredibly impressive. Each board meeting we have the opportunity to review the documents prior to and the increase in the number of families that you are supporting is just absolutely spectacular. So just a couple of questions. Do you does the sharing place serve families in specific zip codes? Do they have to prove their um residency in a zip code? Yeah, you know, that was until a few weeks ago and there is I think a sentence in there in that report that uh some of the new federal guidelines basically mean that everybody somewhere from Indiana could stop by there.
So really, you know, the play of all of that and knowing what the community's needs are and understanding the community and the culture and being able to be a part of all of that, it's um it's exciting to me. All right. Thank you. Uh Lisa, would you like to ask the next question, please? Sure. How do you build strong relationships with parents, teachers, your admin team, counsel board, um finance committee, capital committee, and the school committee, just a handful of people. Um so I would obviously start with an entry plan. I would um define what the questions would be that I would want to ask people so that I could quickly get up to speed on what the town initiatives are, the school's initiatives, and then I would schedule certainly one-on- ones with each of you. So I could ask you what are your dreams, hopes, what do you see for the future of the school, the weaknesses that you would want to um work on, as well as what you're proud of most about both school and your towns of Brooklyn and Boilston.
Um if you wish to speak on anything relating to, uh the agenda, we ask you to please approach the microphone, uh state your name, and please limit your comments to around three minutes. Thank you. Good evening, uh, Nathan Silva, and I'm not about to break my streak now, so I'm here to talk about the budget. Um, but what I want to say is that is that I'm pleased, right? I'm pleased that um of the plan that was presented at the last school committee meeting uh to reduce our reliance on the savings account uh to fund our operating expenses, right? I think it's a a smart plan and uh one that has minimal impact on the overall finances of the town. Uh so I want to publicly say that I'm pleased with that as well as encourage the select board and the f uh finance committee to endorse that plan and for town meeting to pass it.
The Kansas Beef Council with their beef certificate program. The Kansas Soybean Commission with soybeans of food program. King Arthur Baking Company as in the bake for good program. The Devil Institute with the Love Notes program for healthy relationships. That curriculum is right over there. The Public or excuse me, the Sweet Granada in Emporia, Kansas for a culinary business industry tour. Public at the Brickyard in Witchah, Kansas for culinary industry tours. Kate research an extension with the Coffee County Office, Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom, and the Coffee County Hospital. In August 2024, I founded Crochet Cats, a power hour club dedicated to teaching VHS students how to crochet. I secured donations of hooks and yarn and hosted meetings in my classroom nearly every week in the first semester and bi-weekly in the second semester. Students made hats, Christmas ornaments, blankets, granny squares, and various other projects, plus friendships among their peers.
We made $7,947 on that silly raffle. So it was awesome. Um farm safety poster winners first and second grade division. First place was Logan Kerr. Second Clay Martin and third Max Ingram. And then in fifth and sixth grade division, first place Hartland Zinc, second place Kendall Leel, third place Lily Zinc, and then Dory RP um a fourth grader won the Kansas Arbor Day poster contest and her classmates and she will be getting some prizes from them as well. They'll donate a tree that we'll find a place to plant on our playground area somewhere. April 17th, kindergarten field trip to the Great Van Zoo in sixth grade will come to the Clavlin Community Center and the Legion. Easter break already. April 23rd, the Cosmosphere will be coming out and presenting the solar system to fifth and sixth grade. And that same day, our high school FFA kids will come and do a in the classroom for preK through 2nd.
Um we and they're also called L2 language two learners. Um we have an active student government which is part of it. Um and the the kind of central theme to what we're doing on our campus is cultivating good citizenship. And I would welcome several of you have come to our campus and wandered around. I've even seen Cindy Daniels there once or twice. Um, and um, I would I would hope that if you do come to our campus, one of the things that you see and is blaringly obvious is kids opening doors to you, saying thank you and and uh, you know, picking up trash when and where they can. And I may or may not have been known to wrap trash around dollar bills to promote kids picking up garbage, but they're like, well, there's a dollar in here. I'm like, really? That's crazy. Um, and now they just wanted, can I go pick up garbage?
Oh okay. Is that kind of going along with uh uh uh what I remember last year we were talking about looking uh for ways to approach this to make it more u the only way I can describe it is less mean-spirited. There were things that were in the policies that were uh very punitive and not restorative in some factor is could be. So that would be like we like the theme of like phrasing things positively. Uh like the one where it said like something about I can't remember the one we did a couple weeks ago about uh drugs and alcohol was like you cannot participate in but we rephrased it to say something about I don't know. I can't remember. I do know what you're talking about. Um well I mean I I know in like slide nine here too it was uh recommendations moving forward.
And then also just areas for them to read independently. Uh this data is showing um from last year May 7th, 2024 compared to just before spring break when I ran the data March 21st, 2025. So in red you can see that our average age of our collection jumped from 2003 to 2007. Um, so the reason that happened is just a lot of time spent weeding out those old and damaged books and replacing them with more predominantly newer publications from the last five years. Um, another visual just to show you again from May of 2024, 70% of our collection was considered aged compared to um, March of this year, 59% is considered aged. So over the next couple years hopefully we'll continue to decrease that number so we'll have less aged titles and you can see the increase from 2019 or 2020 has increased from 6% to 11%.
Make sure that students and teachers they're we're easing their anxieties too because you want to you you want to be relaxed to really focus and learn. Um few other strategies here too is uh also thinking about neurodiverse students and understanding that a lot of students they they learn differently and that's okay and there's nothing wrong with that and designing spaces that truly support that you want to have flexible spaces so variety of furniture. If a kid needs to fidget in a chair they're able to have that type of chair to fidget and be able to focus and self-regulate themselves. Um, other examples too are just flexible spaces, different scale spaces. Kids that want to be part of a larger group, they're sitting off to the back, maybe in a little nook area like you can see on some of these photos here. But just really bringing in that that variety into the learning environment is very important.
We have Brock and Edgar here with us this evening. Thank you, President Herszog, Mr. Janeski, members of the board. It's good to be back here this evening. Uh, for those who may not remember me, as President Herszog mentioned, I'm Brock Bernilli. We serve as municipal advis advisor min or financial adviser used synonymous with one another. So we assist the school district with financings as well as many many school districts around state of Indiana. So it's great to be back here this evening. Um with me this evening is Edgar Rudya and it's going to be his first presentation now that he's about a year into his term at Baker Tilly. So go easy on him. But he'll do a great job and he will not forget Coington anytime soon since it will be his first. So he'll walk through three main things. Walk through outstanding debt of Coington as of today.
We hope they never have to be repaired, but in the event they do, um they have to have access to that. And I think Mr. Park's plan is aware of that. And so they're not going to be planting big oak trees or big retaining walls or anything like that that would could be potentially disturbed. So that's it in a nutshell. I I know you're more interested in the the uh what the project's going to look like, but from the legal side of it, it's it's uh the city quit claiming the yellow to us and then we will have full title, us giving an easement back then over the east 20 ft. One more thing uh actually right now because it's a part of the bond the lease bond purple is actually in the name of the building corporation. Again this is very very technical but that's that's the the school corporation.
it seems like it's ever changing and about the time we say well we're going to do it this way then we get a memo or something from the DOE so we know it's everchanging and back in 2019 we switched from I step to I learn and it was it was different for our students and for our teachers but we've embraced the challenge by changing the way that we instruct and the way we assess our students some of the changes um that we've seen is IEP used to be primarily a short or I'm sorry, a multiple choice uh question uh test. Now we're seeing short answers. Students are being encouraged to think deeper, infer, and to follow up with a short written response. They're being asked to compare two articles and critically engage with them. There might be a video or with a response and students are being asked to summarize the main points, analyze, and respond to a reflective question.
You know, we have sometimes some transient people that come and travel through our community. But in general, it was the zip codes of the MSD plus two zip codes, 46218 and 46219 that were over on the um west side from your district where our sharing place was in the past and we didn't want to cut people off. So we said you know if you want to come over there uh and they do you know but it's uh it's basically uh no restriction uh on uh do you know in in the past we just had people maybe bring a uh you know their bill from the electricity or driver's license or somewhere but you know there's a lot of people that don't have much documentation at all and so we try to you know try to work with that. That's wonderful. And then I think the thank you for sharing about sharing place silverbox home delivery because that was news.
Um, I would do the same in meeting with u my admin team, central office team and the principles. I would want to meet with each of them oneonone, really kind of get a way of knowing them. Um, see what their needs are. I've noticed in your um the strategic plan that you're ending now that you really have a lot of initiatives in a short period of time. So, I wonder the impact of that on the principles and on the teachers. all good things because we want our students to have positive outcomes, right? We're all here for the sake of our students and their future and they can't do it without us. But, you know, what does that mean for our staff and how can we help them to continue to be more successful? Um, I would also meet with teacher groups as well. I would want to meet with the union president and understand what they're doing.