Um just a history, it's a student led newspaper as a spectrum. This is a division of the newspaper. It's led by um Mr. Higgins who teaches a class at UMass. That's why he's not here. But it's really a conversation around daily lives impacting students both um at DHS internally and externally. Um as it started it was um four years ago it was really an experiment to improve interviewing skills and anyone I don't know if they're a podcast afficionados like me I really love them. It's just a great long conversation and I think they have modeled it really well and how they prepared and they um what they've worked on the last year is like that follow-up question. How do you follow up? you come with scripted questions, but someone pushed this little nugget out that you want to follow up and and go there. Um, it was initially designed to be internal just just um the daily lives of DHS and has branch into topics and people who are interested in getting to know each other.
Um, so on the 24th we are going to have around 180 students. Um, very excited. Like it started small, now it's like I said, we'll send them. It's amazing. Yeah. So situation, a volunteer situation. Well, then the nurse and I sat down with the five pages of allergies and beastings. We're like, "Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is bigger than me." Right. So, um, kids that opt to maybe stay out of the sun or stay out of the environment, um, they get to our commons area with the cookie cases and things like that, you know, maybe detail our cars. So, they'll stay around the store and do some fun things. Not our cars, our fleet. Did I bring my car? volunteering. Great. But yeah, just the logistics of um we have 29 projects out there identified. So I'm just excited for kids to get because that area has really kind of fallen down um and just, you know, just is not super usable anymore.
Um, you guys will have, uh, the opportunity to see that senior skip day. Um that will be next Wednesday. Um I put in there the athletic and activities report for just numbers for the spring activities. We have 30 in track, five going over for baseball, eight in forensics, which I know they started in um January, but I hadn't reported those numbers yet. Um powerlifting, I didn't get the number in there, but it was 24 um that we had participate on Saturday. Um we have five girls going over for softball. um 12 tennis players and um 30 high school track students. Um we hosted the junior high track at Ellenwood last week. Um we hosted powerlifting on Saturday. We had roughly 400 lifters from all over the state come in. Um everything went really well. It took forever. We didn't get out of here till after 5, but um it went really well and it was airond conditioned, you guys.
One is standing out at the um at the curb at parent drop off. Matt and I making sure kids get in and they see a welcome face and and know that it's a welcome and safe place to be.
So that's just my suggestion. Um, but whatever you guys want to do. But yeah, thematic slide overall was what we were going to be presenting for community council. Okay. And remind remind us like what what do you mean by thematic change? So, um I do think that it kind of um it got a little testy almost in community council, but a good example was last year it was like carceral language. Like that was a thematically like when we were going through we were taking out carceral language. Um and so I was thinking things like that. So um for instance with the search and seizure ones I think we added more about like students rights to that. So there might be like three policies that's like um a highlighting of students rights within this disciplinary measure and then we could just say like student searches uh I don't can't think of another policy or another one that might be like pretty common was um clarity of like what happens to little kids versus what happens to big kids.
And um Connor is in third grade. He's in Mrs. Dello's class. Mrs. Dello could not be here. She had a prior commitment, but she asked that I would read her nomination for Connor. So, I'm going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So, she nominated Connor for his outstanding demonstration of kindness and compassion within our school community. Connor consistently exemplifies the star expectations, showing respect and responsibility in everything he does. Connor is a wonderful student who always treats others with kindness and consideration. He goes out of his way to help classmates and supports those in need, creating a positive environment for everyone around him. His ability to lead by example inspires his peers to follow suit. In addition to his compassionate nature, Connor is always respectful to teachers and staff, making him a true leader in our classroom. His positive attitude and willingness to collaborate with others makes him a joy to have in our school.
We have a long track record of doing this type of work, serving communities just like yours. It's something that we're passionate about. It's something that all of us have uh dedicated our careers to, and we look forward to the opportunity to work with you.
Project resolution is required when school is planning to spend more than $1 million per building. We're in a conservative area, but uh we'll talk about that anyway. Contains the estimated hard and soft construction costs and the cost of issuance and establishes the total project cost. It also contains the estimated tax impact. So, at this time, could I have a motion and a second to adopt the project resolution? I'll make a motion to adopt the project resolution. I'll second. I have a first and a second. All in favor? I none opposed. That next part there. The preliminary bond resolution contains the project cost for the pro project, maximum interest rate and other financial terms such as first internet payment date, interest payment date, excuse me, and maturity dates of the bonds. So, at this time, could I have a motion and a second to adopt the preliminary bond resolution?
That's fine. Um, so I created these just on an app, very, very cheap. It was a free app that I used. Um, so basically what it is, you have a path down the middle. The where the trees are at is not the exact place they'll be. I kind of just put it up there in a way that looked good. It's not exactly where they're going to be. So where the easement is, it may not be where that is. I couldn't um measure it out very well just doing it digitally. I'll have to do that in person once we get that far. But we have a couple different stages that we're wanting. Obviously, Mr. Park and Isaac touched on this first was year one do the ry grass or in the fall I should say and then maybe next time or next year in the spring or the fall we plant wild flowers in one strip the it's 82 feet long and 532 82 feet wide 532 feet long so you can do like 12 to 15 foot sections of whatever you want you can do a path wild flowers perennials um oak trees down the middle of where there or like white oaks or another version of trees that's really good to soak up water in the middle I don't know where that all will work.
Another part that stuck out to me was that um as well as showing difficulties possibly with ADHD and dyslexia. Um this slide is showing some of the data that I've been tracking this year. After I started adding those o um two other approaches in in October, I saw a really good spike across here. So, this is a kindergarten student, one kindergarten student. Then here is another. And then here is my monthly data I was tracking. Um the red was less than 80%, the yellow was 80% or better, and the green was they mastered all that. So this shows that I have two kindergarten students yet to hit the 100% for my goal. Um and obviously this isn't just my work. The admin, classroom teachers, instructional assistants title, we all work together for this goal, and I'm excited to see where we start next school year with where we're at now.
They're working on some uh uh concrete inserts on the southwest corner. Again, outside work continues. Interior first floor. Uh finished work is going on. Carpets going in, ceiling being laid, and finishing network runs. The boardroom, main lobby, uh big space, uh coming together. Still a lot of work to do. And again, uh the the one on the left is the entryway coming in. And then the one on the right is the balcony looking over the lobby area. Craig phase two. You'll see a lot of lifts and out out and about in the shoot. We're prepping and starting phase two on Craig and they're doing some tuck point and uh seal work on the outside and the chute is ready for demo of the second floor. A lot of materials have been uh staged at four different buildings. Uh Crest View, Harrison Hill, Indie Creek, and Sky Test.
So, we have to do that through Jessie. But, um, so it was good stuff. So, we went out, we um achieved some competitive grants for both of those areas. So, we received almost $2 million in competitive grants in order to fund all of that. But, we really took a step back and thought about teaches and and said, "What do we need to do to make you feel comfortable?" Because the first thing you hear is, "Well, we've never done that before. We've never had to teach the general curriculum." You're right, but you didn't have these students or, you know, we didn't have these issues before. So, really working with them and having a lot of training sessions in regards to um they were shifting with the students that they were working with. So, we really needed to bring professional development in to talk about um what does a student who has trauma look like and how do we respond?
Um, and they've had three hosts over the um the last four years. So, I had to edit that this morning because or this afternoon because I was told two this morning and um luckily Anakah um corrected me as we went over this yesterday this afternoon. Um just some interesting details. There was a famous DYA interview that somehow never ran because of a recording error, but um I don't know if you know this, but our students, even our high school, our top athletes still love playing like dia sports and it was really just how they're passionate about it and what the the league offers for them. So there's I guess there's an internal joke about how they lost this beautiful podcast. Um they use Spotify to help with the editing tools. It's free. It's um been really supportive of them. It's crazy how they turn around.
And so I'm excited to have kids get out and give back to the community. And we're going to um refurbish those trails out there so that the public can use them. So I'm excited for that day. was my third year here and I didn't know it existed. So, I'm really excited how many kids might not know and our adults in our building to get out there. Um, and then we're committing two days. Um, we're going to commit one in the fall and one the spring and because, you know, with the new 2028 requirements, um, meeting community service hours is is one way they can do that for their graduation assets. So, it's not fair to ask them if they if we're not also offering some of those availability. So, um get the kids out in the fresh air and um you know, anytime they say free food or whatever that we're going to feed them and the and the the welding class has already gone out to the silo and gotten the gate um take took the gate down.
It was great. So, um good report there. I mis typed this in. We hosted the regional forensics festival on Saturday here as well. It wasn't state. I'm sorry about that. Um and our our students did extremely well. Um came away with a lot of ones from that. Uh for the counselor's report, um several students have signed up to participate in college exploration days. Um Corey took several students today to Fort Hayes. We had a trip planned on Wednesday. Um but we will have to um not be able to go to that. We'll find something else for those students to be able to participate in. It was a build your future event that Salina puts on and it was for like construction and like building things. Um, so we'll try to find something as an alternative for those students to be able to participate in that.
Um and um two is the pledge of allegiance right after that before we release kids and they happen one right after another. So there's obviously Officer Matt and me standing out actually about a week ago. Um and um I love that kid. He comes up and he goes Levi goes hey um I got a shirt that says what you say. And I'm like that could go south. And then he opened up his jacket and there there it was. It's good. It's a good day to have a good day. Please, I'm being timed. Um a large portion of why um we're in a school is the Thank you. is the um e program. Um um we have a full-time, as does everyone, a full-time e uh teacher and aid. Um, and here they are practicing their their um, obviously facial expressions, but reading it and they have to say it and then um, they're saying it in Spanish as well.
So like um clarity of like delineation for behaviors. I'm just making these up right now, but that's what I was thinking. If we went through each policy and kind of decided like what were the big things from that, we could see patterns. But that's what I mean by thematic changes. Okay. So, we should have one slide per policy still. I I think we're going to end up needing it anyways when we present to the governing board. Um, and I I think that's how we can like almost like draft out what we want to say at community council. Okay. everybody. And that being said, like I I I wasn't thinking we were going to be like um J L K E A J LK C. Like those wouldn't be separate slides. It would just be like I just made those letters up. JLK and then like um we could put like and and exhibits blah blah blah blah to that and that would be what the changes would be.
For these reasons, Mrs. Dello believes Connor Julian truly deserves recognition for his exemplary behavior and contributions to our school community. So, congratulations, Connor. Congrats, Connor. Mr. Cornwell. All right, the middle school student of the month is Jace Glover. Jace, come on up, please. Uh, Mrs. Mcdana nominated Jayce since she was not able to be here this evening, but she asked me to read what she had to say about him. She is overjoyed to nominate Jace Glover for middle school student of the month. Jace has demonstrated remarkable growth and progress throughout the past few months, and I believe his improvement deserves recognition. He has improved his self-control, focus, work completion, and decision-making, consistently meeting the goals he sets for himself. Jace takes ownership of his learning and behavior and now applies the tools he's learned to the school setting. Teachers and other staff have noticed a drastic change in Jace and are so happy to celebrate his successes.
Any questions? So, um, at the beginning you mentioned something about, um, community engagement and referendum support and you I I I heard something about like you you think that the referendum support should be somebody else, but then I heard a lot of stuff uh that seems to be supportive of referendum. So, can you explain? We do referend support in that we create materials that the district can utilize to explain to people what the referendum is all about. But we think strongly that having architect out there as the leader in the community telling people this is the right thing leading that process is the wrong message because it seems very self-serving for the architect to be out there. We think that somebody who is a professional in public relations and can do community polling, community surveys, who is gathering that kind of data on a continuous basis throughout the process is best working with the district to lead that process.
Make a motion to adopt the preliminary bond resolution. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I none opposed. The next resolution is a reimbursement resolution relating to the financing of the construction project. The resolution permits the school corporation to reimburse itself from bond proceeds for any cash which it might spend on the project prior to the closing of the on the bonds. It is required by federal tax law in order to res preserve the school corporation's ability to reimburse itself. So at this time, could I have a motion, a second to adopt the reimbursement resolution? I'll make a motion to adopt the reimbursement resolution. I'll second it. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I none opposed. All right. At this time, we'll adjourn that portion of the meeting. If you guys want to take off, you can take off.