So, we would need to go back through and kind of highlight the things that we worked on this year. Okay. I found I found the slide deck from last year and it is it's I'm sorry. It's 14 slides long. Does that align with what you're looking at, James? Um, well, this You found the community council one, Jay? No, I found the one from the board meeting. Oh, I feel like Nicole made the community council one, but I don't know if she also made the board one. Okay. Or if Adriana made them both. I also I don't recall now. Yeah. Is someone talking? Oh, there. I just I found the power that went to community council and it has just the policies that went for board approval and that's it. Well, there's several of them. Oh, okay. Um, do you want me to share it with you guys?
So, we took that story and came up with the research question, what stories do the rooms of the White House tell? And we worked all together as a whole group to investigate more and research more related to the White House. third grade did their research just a little bit different. Um, working with the third grade team, they wanted me to model the research skills and how to use different sources. They research inventions for their showcase. So, we took their third grade organizer that they use in their classrooms, modified it for the library. We read A Splash of Red, which is an illustrated biography about an artist named Horus Pippen. And then students were able to independently um use those skills that were modeled to research their inventor and they had a similar organizer. Um so it didn't feel so new to them. Um but all grades like I said did that research in the library.
Um, also acoustics and ventilation. You know, understanding that younger kids their ear, their ear canals aren't as developed as some older kids might have a hard time hearing. Well, what are the mechanical systems like? How noisy are those mechanical systems? Do they have a lot of ambient background noise? Those are all questions that we we dive into with teachers, staff, and community throughout the process. So you might ask how do we involve students, faculty, administrators, the community in this process? We really see that there's primary three primary mechanisms to do that. One is a site committee at each of the schools that represents that school made up of principal, director of operations and facilities, teachers, students, parents, neighbors, architect and construction manager. and their their function is to tell you what the needs of that school is and then to vet potential solutions to any issues that might occur at that site.
Sorry. As Brock said we prepared the financing information based on that 660,000. We have prepared two scenarios for you today. one being the quickest repayment and one being a five-year term repayment. Both scenarios are based on 5% interest rates and assume no AV growth. Both of these scenarios will keep your tax rate at the 2025 level. Quick reminder that, pardon me, quick reminder that the 5% interest rate that mentioned just a moment ago, those are based upon what are called tax exempt rates. So, school corporations throughout the the nation issue tax exempt bonds. That means that the the bond holders do not pay income tax on that interest. So, because of that, they can offer a little bit lower interest rate than perhaps what you get from down the street or bank on your on your own home mortgage. That's why the interest rates are typically less for a school bond than your own home mortgage.
And Mr. Brimberry said this is going to be a long process. Um, and it has been invaluable for our kids to see how the legal ease works, how the planning works, how you can cooperate and work with the city. Um, get the lawyers involved behind the scenes uh just so that um we hopefully can do the right thing. And so, thank you to all of you who participated in that. And I want to uh go on record as saying that I, you know, get the opportunity to sit back and watch these folks just kind of do their thing. Um, and Max is a good example of how he ran over, literally ran over from baseball. These are busy kids. Um, and uh, I appreciate all of their hard work that they put into that. I also want to recognize we have some other members um, all the way.
Everything is skill driven. We've become intentional in our scheduling with the master schedule and it's a beast, let me tell you, with as many sections of each grade level that we have and the size of our building, but it is working. And we tried not to interrupt our tier one instruction and leave that um for the general ed classroom. Our DI program at Landis is more fine-tuned than it ever has been. Our DI teachers have curriculum maps now like the general ed teachers do and they meet to go over and set the goals for where they are now, where they hope to be at the end of the year and then looking forward to the next school year. We have a solid curriculum um in place whereas eight or nine years ago we were just piecing things together because that was all we knew back then.
Not when I was going to tell you how grateful I am for the partnership that we have with the sharing place. Okay. And and how critically important it is for our families. I know the partnership with Miss Bush's department is very um is very tight. Um I'm just curious how if we have an estimate on how many uh Lawrence Township families are coming through the sharing place or I you may not be able to get that kind of granularity, but I'm I'm just curious. Yeah, it's it's kind of difficult a little bit difficult to say because under the federal rules and maybe all of this changes, you know. Yeah, you don't ask.
So we really need to go out and make our money. Um we have no entitlement grants, so we're very active in getting um competitive grants. But basically they needed to understand that and they needed to understand their budget. So really looking at what their needs are and fulfilling those needs as well. Next question uh was for Megan but Megan's not here tonight. So what are your greatest strengths and weaknesses as a leader? Okay. Um we all have them. We all know that. So I I think one of my greatest strengths if I thought about it would be um my tenacity. I really when I see a problem or I see something that I think needs to be done for example you know we needed license teaches what are we doing right how can we help with that situation it's really getting out there and problem solving collaborating and setting up a plan and action that we can um work together to get to the end of that um I would also say that um I'm a servant leader so I really look at um students needs parents needs, uh, staff needs, community needs.
Hearing none. All in favor? I I opposed abstensions. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. It's time. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Sabin Maguire. Spotlight on Kids Dartmouth High School. Oh, we have our student rep tonight. Oh, hello. And I had this right I had this right over here highlighted for me and I still missed it. Well, good evening Audrey. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Thank you. And at this time, if you'd like to uh provide us with your report. Thank you. Uh good evening. Uh my name is Audrey Kercher and I'm a senior at uh Dartmouth High School. Um so we, as many of you know, we just started quarter 4 at the high school and we are heading into April break. Um despite the current rain recently, our spring sports, they have started out very strong. Um which is very good, especially when looking at um our Dartmouth spirit.
Additionally, ignoring the request for a policy change appears to be a non-compliance with previously discussed board policy BDA. It appears that both the superintendent and school board president consider our request for the school district to develop a release time religious instruction program or policy as a closed item. However, we do not consider the request closed based on a board member discussion identifying they wanted to know more about Lifewise Academy when the topic was briefly discussed during the public comment period of the February 10th, 2025 board of education meeting. Unfortunately, five of the seven board members have been nonresponsive to our request to meet about release time religious instruction program. It disappoints me that the feedback that we've received from the superintendent and the board president regarding the release time religious instruction program include number one looks like a really good program. It's not just for us during the school day.
Um the 22nd is Earth Day. the 28th we'll have our um spring concert at six o'clock and that will include an art show that our teacher has put together. On April 30th um the fourth graders will be going to the Canonopoulos Lake uh Kronopoulos Field Day at the Canonopoulos Lake. That's a lot of words to put in at one time. I do apologize this late afternoon. And then sixth grade youth safety day will of course be happening in Elsewhere. Um our after school program has 24 students who are enrolled for uh full or part-time. We continue the reading groups have increased up to six per session which is really good. Our math groups are still on announced needed basis have been between five and 10 depending on the group how many were in the after school program that day. Um we did get an update today about our daycare and Bobby did she say we had nobody on our wait list now?
Um she has promised to knit me a tie. So I don't I don't even know how that would work. Yeah, really big one. Um, and our kids, our fifth graders in particular, are able to participate in sports over at the middle school as well. Uh, cross country, track, wrestling, basketball, archery. That's all middle school stuff with middle school coaches. And I think it's a great uh coordination. And they are so so gracious to host us. And it's also a great transition from fifth grade to sixth grade because those kids already know coaches, they already know the campus, they already know the teachers. Um, and this this is just a a snippet of what we have going on. In fact, right now, it's over now, but um we have um we have um today we have cooking and chess and quilting. This is the last week for quilting, so they're just finishing some stuff up.
I think I guess the question is, um, Adriana's recommendation was to start from the more complete board one and then pair it down. So, I don't know if you want to work from the community council one or the one from the board meeting on May 7th. Um, I'm fine either way. That was just her suggestions. the one from the board meeting. Is that is that different from the one from the community council? I have to assume so because it's 14 slides long and it sounds like the one from community council's it's 14 it's 14 slides. Oh well maybe they're the same then. They might be the same. Yeah, cuz this one I thought if I remember correctly at the last meeting we I thought it was I thought it was the same thing and we just like we just deleted slides. Yeah. Yeah, that would make sense.
Some fourth and fifth or sorry fourth and third grade then also continued it into the classroom as well. Um like Vinnie had mentioned our district collaboration. Um, I've been lucky to work with that consultant just for some personal guidance. I had ideas going left and right when I got the position last year. So, she really helped me create a priority list for this year and just to establish some future goals moving forward. Uh, working as a library team, we meet regularly just to um really work on that district alignment as well. and we have come up with some drafts for some different procedures including our collection development and our selection criteria and then also that weeding criteria and our weeding schedule. Um, another book by Stacy Abrams is Stacy's remarkable books which is all about her creating that reading community within her classroom. So, um I'm also continuing to build that reading community through monthly newsletters, uh providing lessons and activities to support classroom instruction, offering book recommendations, working with other staff members to create those reading activities and reading incentives, and then also collaborating with the public libraries and our PTO to ensure uh a success successful book fairs.
The second piece of that is the community group and in this process we invite anyone in the community to to participate in that process and we have had in Geneva when we did this in mid 2000 2005 we had over 200 people participating in those community meetings. um and we break them up into small groups so that we can get their input throughout that process. Um but we see that as being representatives of all aspects of the community. We often tell you that you should invite those people who are the leaders of the opposition as well as the leaders of the pros to both participate in that process because getting them together and on board with a single direction ultimately is the way you need to do this to get to a successful referendum. And then the third piece is really a district task force.
In this slide, you can see scenario one with the repayment being in two years. the that first payment is a little higher than usual due to the required spendown of the debt service fund cash balance. Um the tax rate remains the same as 2025. In the next slide is scenario two. We had we kept the 2026 payment the same and redistributed the rest of the payments throughout the additional years. So, the board will not have to make a decision tonight on the structure of it. Just know the max parameters allow for either a two or a five-year repayment. And we'll make that decision later into the calendar year as the general assembly ends its work. We we analyze what the impact is for whatever bills and laws passed downtown and determine whichever tax rate you want to target going into the sale most likely most likely in the fall.
uh we've got um every grade level represented now because one of the one of the concerns that we had at the beginning as you know in one of our meetings was uh the sustainability of it. Yep. Um and so our goal was to to recruit and recruit and recruit because we want to keep getting uh new members involved in that. And so um let me start by saying that um we're aware of uh the the 20T marker and uh Mr. Carl um did a uh did a did did a great job of filling us in on some of those options and opportunities that we have with that. Uh certainly certainly not a hindrance. Um and also uh what you're going to see is probably a uh 2 to 10year results uh up here on the screen. And going forward uh after uh the acquisition on the 28th, our goal is to um we feel like we we have the funding right now um to put down a what we what we're calling the base.
And now Landis is a showcase for other pro or for other schools to come and visit. And then our growth expansion over the years with our academic teams. Some of our teams compete against the intermediate school. For example, the battle of the book. So it's no longer just elementary with elementary. We expanded to include third grade where in the past it was just fourth and fifth. So now we get our third graders involved. We have a robotics club this year which we've not had for several years. And then we have the boys and girls club again this year which gives students an opportunity after school. We also have teacher growth. Now the required 80 hours of additional training in the science of reading for early literacy endorsement is required to renew their license. Teachers must be CPR trained to renew their license and they have safety modules that they must complete.
It's a kind of we we cannot ask really any questions and uh but we estimate that a lot of the folks here are connected with your school corporation and on all levels of uh so many kids know about the sharing place and especially those that come with their parents. Sometimes these uh little kids are the translators for their parents and I think you you of course you know about that and so it's u but it's a I I would sometimes like to know but I have to tell you be rest assured there are very few people from Fort Wayne and other places that are coming common coming there you know even despite the fact that it's everyone's favorite country. Yeah. Um that's really wonderful. Uh so so thank you for all the work that you do and I just I I think this represents a really um important linkage between the community and our school district and how critical it is to continue to foster those relationships.
Um, how can I help? What skills do I have that I can apply to bring resolution and solve some of the problems or issues or celebrate all of the good things that we're doing because we certainly do a lot of the things that we don't want to lose and we want to make sure people know that. And how are we advertising that um, as well to our community so they do understand where their tax dollars are going. So, I love that work and I love doing that. I love mentoring people. Um, I've mentored any number of um teachers to become administrators, whether it be principal or um special education director and superintendent. So, that's something that I find beneficial with regards to um like I said, leadership. As far as my weaknesses go, I I think one of my weaknesses can be um because I am very um oriented on getting the job done and what are we doing and how are we achieving it that I really have high standards for myself and I really like deadlines and I like people to hit their mark and you know when we have our strategic plan and we're looking at what our initiatives are for the year I have my team create um a half for the year and this is probably my engineering um background coming in but uh we do a map and we work back it's like where do we need to be at all the different places in order to hit our mark at the end so one thing that can sometimes frustrate me that I have to think about how can we work on is if somebody's you know not meeting their deadlines and they're falling behind and really sitting down and having those conversations with them what do you need how can we help you um what do we need to take off your plate So really looking at it that way, but I'm very deadline oriented and projectoriented and I want to get things done for kids and for the community.