So, and I think the kids will show you they've designed um Aaron met with uh the class and Dr. Digs in here of what types of things to plant and where and they're going to show a visual here of some things they're thinking, but understanding that 20 foot is in place. So, we don't want that to be torn up later. So, you'll see that what their thoughts are on that shortly. Great question. Other questions for Joe or Aaron? They were intricate in this process before we have Mr. Park and the kids come up. Thank you, Joe. Aaron, before I come up, are we good? Good. I'd like to uh introduce Mr. Park and some of his students that'll come up here. And I know he doesn't want me to say this, but congratulations to our Huntington North teacher of the year. Uh for Mr. Park, very welld deserved.
Um this year we know the stakes are much higher our third graders um with the need to pass or possibly be retained. But we had a 72% pass rate at this point and we are hoping for a 78% pass rate once we take the May test again and then hopefully in summer school we'll have more pass. The I the I read skills that are tested now are more advanced than what they were in the past, but we still feel it's a fair test for the third graders. Our data-driven instruction has helped us know exactly what skills are needed. In the past, we used to look at standards. When Lindsay and I were in the classroom, we used to map our standards out and we'd, you know, have our little sheet papers and before computers and we would focus on those standards for remediation. We found that didn't get us what we needed.
Anyway, so normally he asked if this stuff was inspected, you know, but we will be we will be but that's that's a good question. So we coordinate in that way with with them. Wonderful. Thank you again for your wonderful partnership. Much appreciated. Very good. And uh thank you so much and thank you for your support. Yeah. Yes. Oh, go ahead. Oh, yes. I'm jumping way ahead. Yes. So I don't even know who I will direct this to, but as we are looking at our changes in diplomas, there's a portion of it for the honor sales plus where we have to have like 75 hours of work of uh workbased learning. Is that something a partnership to be able since we Yeah. You know, Miss Crystal, you remember we talked a little bit about it that I believe that there is a whole lot of opportunities and uh we had today a wonderful conversation with our program officer at the Lilian Endowment, TA, and we told her about our amazing relationship we have and I told her, you know, I could see a time where young people from this district could run the sharing place and get all kinds of opport opportunities in terms of their vocational pre-training and so on.
Um once I gathered all that information, that would be a wonderful opportunity to sort of form a committee and set the direction. Look at where you are in your strategic plan now, where we're going to go. um have a full committee um including parents, community members, school committee members, administrators, teachers, and students as well because we want to engage our older students in all of that and see what do they think they're living every single day in our school district. So what do they think about that? What are the changes that they would like to see in our strategic plan? Um further what I would do what I do presently is I do one-on- ones once a week with my central office staff and then I do um twice a month I meet with my entire leadership team. We do a variety of things from mentoring, professional development as well as really digging in deep with regards to what we need to do um for our students, for our schools, for our teachers as well.
I think that that's really important. Our job is to advocate for the students, not propose a budget which compromises their best interests. Our children should be our community's number one priority. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, seeing no one approaching the microphone, uh we're going to move out of public comment and into the approval of minutes. Uh chair will entertain a motion to approve the regular session minutes of March 24th, 2025. So moved. Second. Motion by Mrs. Amarall, second by Mr. Nunes on the motion. Any further discussion?
So, the request that we've made is consistent with the 1952 Supreme Court ruling and is supported by two Kansas Attorney General opinions allowing release time religious instruction for public school students during school hours provided the following are satisfied. Number one, it's off school property. Number two, it's privately funded. Number three, it's parent approved. Currently, there are over 500 thriving released time religious instruction programs serving over 50,000 public students across the nation. What I'd like to do today is briefly update the community regarding our request to be on tonight's board of education agenda, which has also included a request for the school district to consider a draft policy addressing release time religious instruction. In accordance with board policy BCBI, public participation at board meetings, we submitted a request to be on the April 14th, 2025 agenda, which is tonight's agenda. Included in our request was a draft policy for board consideration addressing released time religious instruction.
That's a really neat lesson that they learn right there in our own little community. And then our playday cookout May 12th. And I didn't finish the week, but that week I'll do that in May.
Um, they really are practicing kind of a mantra that I've um um been hitting and people are tired of hearing. That doesn't mean it's going away. um is we we always say all ores in the water. Um because one person not rowing well or in the appropriate direction screws up the entire ship and so all ores in the water. Um next slide please. Uh we have a variety of things for kids to do and and we love all of these. Obviously we have yearbook, obviously we have student government. Um we have a gardening club. You can see them meeting there. And uh we have some planter boxes. We're going to be putting more in this summer. Um, we have an active quilting club as does HMS. Um, we have an active cooking club as well. You can see it in the upper left there. Um, the aprons and hats for the cooking club were made by our quilting club.
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. But I'm trying to dig in and see which policies went forward. So, um I'm also taking a look for that PowerPoint. Um all right. So, all right. Anybody want to throw something out then about suggestions on how to approach this? because I got nothing. How to approach what? I'm so sorry. Well, well, we're I I I assume like what we're doing is going and updating the slide slide deck for community council and for the governing board. So, I would just duplicate the thing so we have two separate files so that we have one that we know we used previously and then a new one. And then I would probably use some of the same themes because I don't think we choose the same themes. I think we could just keep those the same. And then I think we would make new highlights based on what we did this year cuz those ones you just listed are all stuff we did last year.
So, they worked collaboratively with a partner and created a piece of artwork, not speaking at all, so they could put themselves in the shoes of the two characters. All the classes have done research this year using non-fiction texts from the library. The database provided by the state which allows access to ebooks, encyclopedias and online periodicals and then also our subscription to boundless which provides more books to um more titles to ebooks. Fourth grade started with an introduction using the book Cactus Queen which is um about Manurva Hoy and her role in establishing Joshua Tree as a national park. We then worked in groups to continue that research and learn what makes Joshua Tree National Park a special place. second grade, we started with a Monarch nominee book, Jackie and the Mona Lisa, which is um really just about Jackie bringing um art into the White House.
And as we prepare for the future, how should we address those future needs? all thinking about these ingredients at the same time and making them part of the conversation. Um size, for example, is a huge one. You know, ensuring that we're not overbuilding or underbuilding. We understand that, you know, construction has a square footage cost and we want to be mindful of that. And our approach is to with size, we're always benchmarking to various state standards, including ISBY with square foot per student for different types of learning spaces as well as other Midwestern states as well. um that really helps us kind of hone in on on what's the right fit for your district. But also, you know, a few other things here too. Um a lot of these elements are based in evidence-based design. You know, for example, views and natural light. We all know that has a huge impact on the learning environment and improves test scores and those are things that we're continually discussing about with your current buildings and as we prepare for, you know, new projects and and renovations and additions as well.
As of today, as existing general obligation debt matures on July 15, 2025, the capacity will grow to 126,000. I'm going to jump in here really quickly if you don't mind. So, just to clear up one thing, if you don't mind going back one slide. So if you look at footnote number two with as you as Cington makes its payment on June 30th for that July 15th payment that capacity increases to about 525,000. So you'll see in the coming slides the max parameter or the max bond issuance is proposed to be 660,000. So Cington will have the option if you pay your GEO bond pay a little bit early at the end of the year that means that increases that capacity to that 660,000 which a lot of schools throughout the state of Indiana do. If you have the cash to make that payment early you can increase that capacity.
and uh and it was an honor to sit in your uh recognition with the rest of the staff. Mr. Park and kids, thank you guys for being here tonight. There's a lot of things you could do. Looks like you might have just got out of practice, maybe one or two of you. So, it's not it is nice of Coach Brimberry to let you get here. That's super nice. Well, thank you. Go ahead uh and tell us a little bit about uh maybe what you hope this uh strip of land to become. Well, first of all, I'd like to thank a number of individuals. Um, Mr. Brimberry, Mr. Carl, Mr. Wy. This is a very popular acre of land we found out. And, um, so that all of you have just a little little piece of background. Um, our part of this started what, two, three months ago.
So now we hone down into a skill and what skills do the students need. And last year um if you remember we shared our data tracker with you at a board meeting and how we track our data over the year. We instruct and assess and we stay skills focused. What we feel has helped with academic success is that teachers still have common prep time and where they can meet daily and review their data with each other and with their interventionists. The teachers, the teacher groups meet with admin and our reading coach and we pour over this data and then we group students appropriately. Morning PD time and our win time which is what I need. It looks different for every every classroom and every child is being done with fidelity. Our skill groups are used for intervention and notice I said skill groups not standards groups.
If you if you really uh look at a a nonprofit like the sharing place, there are lots of different jobs and skills you can learn from food safety to logistics to, you know, customer relations to uh all kinds of things. And so I think we we're looking forward to explore something like that with you maybe through the summer. And uh I I remember our conversation. You were kind of fired up about this idea. My girls love the sharing place. Funny enough, they love the boxes. They like taking the shopping cart and packing up the boxes. And so just for teens and pre-teens to enjoy that. They love the atmosphere. And so yeah, it is. Yeah. Showing places near and dear to my heart. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay. Very good. Yes, we have. We We're very interested. Mr. Don't go away. just yet.
Um, we all know that uh there's more and more difficulty in finding teachers that have the license that we need to put in front of our students. So some of what we do is go out and make relationships with Bridgewater State College, Mass Community College, so that we're taking our pair of professionals and our teachers and we're collaborating with the university and colleges in order to make programs for them to attend so that we can help them and guide them along the way into getting their licenses. So really we talk a lot about that during those two meetings a month and they're usually a full um morning each month uh twice a month and some of it is a professional development. So for example, a lot of my administrators really needed to understand budgeting. You know, we work at the collaborative. We don't have a budget that we receive on July one like a school district does, but we have a profit and expense budget, which means it's like running a small business.
J hearing none. All in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries unanimously. Time chair will entertain a motion to approve the executive session minutes of March 24th, 2025. So moved, Mr. Chairman with the stipulation may be held until the matter for which they were intended is completed. Second. Motion by Mr. Nune, second by Miss Beckwith on the motion. Any further discussion? J.
This proposed policy was submitted in accordance with board policy BDA titled developing, adopting, amending, and repealing board policy which states individuals as groups individuals or groups may submit proposed changes in board policy. Our request to be on a board of education agenda was denied with the email denial response provided by the superintendent being silent regarding the proposed policy change that we submitted. Though denial of the the though denial of the request to be on a board of education agenda may technically comply with the BC BI policy wording as the superintendent did apparently speak with the board of education president. We believe that the spirit of the policy is not being satisfied regarding this significant communitydriven request. A request that where it has been adopted by other public schools provides an approach to building student character that has proven to be a highly effective complement to the school's effort to grow students into educated, responsible individuals.
So any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. Good evening. I guess after six o'clock, aren't we? So, not as quite as much going on at our school as what's going on at Jane School, but uh we do have a facult we did have a faculty meeting last week and we chatted a little bit about our upcoming events and some things that we'd like to see happen for next year. Um as we develop our calendar is just a little bit behind for us just because of all of the changes. There'll be another faculty meeting on the 16th. Then of course we have our no school this week. Um we are uh just about done with state testing. I think we just have one more group going through this week and we'll be all done. Have to make up testing, but all that's finished. Fast bridge will open the 22nd of April and we'll close on the 25th.
Um, and so um, for their efforts and occasionally a kid walks into my office with a hamburger or steak, it works out. Um, and um, our quilting club um, by the end of the year, I think we have six kids on track right now to finish a full quilt. um which is um one of them a bowler which I think is awesome. Um we have a chess club. Um we have um um a good news club. Um next year we're introducing with Austin Huffer and one of his compatriots as the coach we're introducing mountain biking. Um we through a um outside organization we are going to be able to provide 10 kids with mountain bikes for them to use on our trails which are adjacent to the the um um small teacher houses and our campus. We're also going to be introducing with Pearl Turley a knitting club next year.