Um back in the fall of 2020, the board approved a full weight for some of our other advanced um performing arts courses. Um and at the time we were just beginning to develop that advanced jazz jazz ensemble course. Um so the recommendation from the committee is that we um make that match the other similar courses that have those high levels of literature study and um college level work to have an additional weight as well. Then on the last two slides I really just wanted to or three slides I wanted to just highlight um our continual growth in dual credit. We've been working hard to continue to grow um the opportunities that we have for students to take dual credit courses and we have a um fantastic partnership that we have begun with Indiana State University. Um right now we've got courses lined up for our students that are in the early childhood education and education professions pathways.
That's the first mission of a school to be one that is a place where students feel comfortable and learn and um and grow. So um also the last part of this would be um community and engaging families and I take that very seriously because kids can't learn unless they have strong teachers and strong adults behind them. And again, as I would get to know people, there just so many types of forms that you can do that really bring in people that get get me excited and get um the community excited. And so these are some of the things like ideas, topics that I would consider doing. And uh like it basically mean the superintendent. Well, that's just it. It's just me um without a preconceived agenda at all. And um you know, if they're parent and caregiver kinds of forums too, you can look at what what's really challenging people.
So, we do thank you as a a school committee for um allowing us to add a behavior coach into the district. That has been extremely important particularly for us here at Potter. She has been a wonderful Oh, Lisa Gibson, shout out to her. She has been a wonderful resource to us. I know for myself personally to take a look at a different lens to help support behaviors. Sometimes we were in it so long, we have our certain way and um she she has brought some new ideas and fresh ideas. So we are excited to continue that partnership uh with her. So the next action step is related to utilizing our Swiss data. So if you don't know what Swiss data is, that's the behavior data that we collect that we receive from classroom teachers or from ourselves if we're if we're um working with students.
with the options um and just the teens and lemonades and options for them. I mean high school to high school you'll get a we do have you know a good following but strong bully is ours at the high school is our is our you know what I just opened uh we opened this last year strong we have good bakers at the high school so um uh so yeah most definitely the sal you know the salad bar maybe you know I don't know an option all but like that's one thing we have tacos that are building. Like we sometimes have sour cream, we always have cheese and lettuce and maybe tomatoes, but we don't ever have hot sauce or not salsa. I mean, like just those things are like the other day kids were like, "This is why don't we ever get to have cheeseburgers? We just always have plain hamburgers." And I'm like, "I'm not in charge of that." I mean, just those little things I think would make a big difference.
Um but they're on board they're on board with that if that's what we wanted to do. Um no I know now sorry. You know, the one the one thing I haven't done on this is um I really I really feel like I need to have I don't feel I know I need to have a conversation with Tim. Um and I just can't I I I'm not bothering him with this at this point because does Tim use that area? He does. Yeah. So that that is that garage area. He would still have his office. It could give us the opportunity to turn that garage area into a couple other offices and then we would use our suburban barn back here to host to put some of that in. Um, all the utilities as well are at the end of that hall. The power is right there and all the sewer and water's right there.
top of the salary ranges questions. I'm just thinking we possibly wait to find out what their salaries are going to be or so this is a placement schedule. So when people are looking for a job, they say if I come to work in Gino and I have this degree in this many years, this is what I can expect to make. But it doesn't they don't it doesn't have anything to do with how they advance once they're here. It's just initial placement. But we have to have a board approved way to assign them a salary when we hire them. So this is your way of saying this is the salary you can assign them. So, we do it equitably rather than, oh, we're gonna hire this person. We really liked him in the interview and we don't want to lose them, so we're going to give them more.
Uh but the flip side of that is if we're at a place uh with the policies and the language now that something like that may not be in our may not be feasible, then I I guess I would question whether or not that should be a recommendation that we continue. I mean, if it's something that we're not at a point where we can do, then I I I don't know if it's a good idea to keep it in there. I don't Oh, go ahead, HR. Um, I was going to I think that it says you when you said it earlier, it was like it said something about like research like hate speech. I think we've done that and there is nothing. So if the governing board was to take that on, I I think it has to actually kind of come top down like, okay, then what do they what do they want to classify as hate speech and then give us that charge to like incorporate it into the policy?
So I would say nine months. It could go a month here or there but that's really kind of an average. And then um you divided up um I think it was the referendum portion where you've got the yes committee and then the administration side. Yes. Is that the is that the at the referendum phase? Yes. Okay. And do you help with that? Yeah, absolutely. Um for instance, in uh in Kan's most recently, um we helped the the administrative team create messaging and and media and support boards so they can go out and it just simply got the information out. They were very it it had to be informative. Uh it couldn't lean people into saying vote yes. On the flip side, um the yes committee, we're a little more hands-off because it it doesn't isn't tended to be self- serving, but we can put a framework for them so they're not starting in the dark.
So, we base that off of what our budget would have been last year, but we know there's going to be some tweaks to that. Um, and then once approved, we would get started as soon as we come back in July getting that grant items ordered.
Any questions, comments from the board? Thank you. All right, moving on to superintendent's comments. Mrs. Starky, just a couple things. Um hopefully you all got to see the story in the Ferris Tribune about um Wendy Matias Pablo who is Matt could talk all day about her. She's just a phenomenal student from Logos High School. So if you haven't read it, read the story. She's came with her parents from Guatemala. Um and she she tells a it's a very heartwarming story about her parents being illiterate. Anyway, Wendy was accepted to Yale and will be attending Yale coming this fall. So it's very exciting. Um and her story, like I said, is just amazing. Um today, um was good government day at Loganport High School, which is always a fun day. And um Sheriff Schroeder was the guest speaker, and I thought he gave a phenomenal message to the kids about what is government and why you should be a part of government.
Um it has been a a great start to that partnership and as you can see there 10 new dual credit courses um will be available to students in MSDLT as a result. Um, on the next two slides, you can see on the left side I've just listed the courses that have already been approved. Those are state courses that the board has already approved that we offer. And then on the right is the corresponding Indiana state course that our students now have access to. And that's again for our early childhood. And then on the next slide, you can see ed professions.
Is the homework challenging? Is you know, do they need, you know, some sort of help um learning the new math program? So what what what do we need to do together to make that happen? Okay. Um and in terms of operation and um physical systems review again I have already shared that I have been an interim director of facilities for six months. While I did my current position, um, and I did my current position, I really felt that while I already had the business lensure, that I really needed myself more handson experience crafting a budget. Okay. So in terms of that, I've built additional relationships and I have specifically crafted a financial budget um for the town. We worked with select boards, fin um and all the staff in the school um to get it a $25.7 million budget, which was very respectable. Okay. Um so that is my fun.
We take a look at that and and in the past we've looked again at students who may need a little extra support, a tier 2 support in a with a particular behavior or social emotional um concern that they may have. So, we've been doing that, but what I want to do is go to the next level by creating a progress monitoring schedule for that. Um just like we do for academic um data. So, you know, we always do progress monitoring for reading skills and math skills. Well, I'd like to, you know, implement something related to our behavior data and social emotional. So, we'll know that if we're putting a student on check-in checkout, for example, that that's actually giving us the benefits that we're hoping it it would. And the last one on this slide is to establish and implement a peer mentoring program to provide students with personalized social and emotional support through peer-to-peer interactions.
The other thing that we like to do is we like to get a lot of of student input. um and and our best directors get that on a monthly basis uh before we you know put those menus together. Uh and if administration wants to help sit in on that too uh we that that's a we do that in uh other districts as well. We have a wellness group at the middle school that has provided different pieces of feedback too. Um you know when we had chicken nuggets quite a bit that was one of the things is variation of sauces like hot sauce. Well, there's no calories in hot sauce. Let's get Let's do it. Agreed. So, what's our risk? Three years ago is having Jack 3 years ago when we did the feasibility study. That was when Diana Hes was retiring. Looked into it. At that point in time, Jack, we went through the numbers.
It's all main power right there. We wouldn't have to move anything from a utility standpoint. It's a pretty good situation. What about because I know with so what I was going to say was um I know with the other floor plans ideas for the ABCC they wanted to have a parking lot right there. What about even doing a parking lot off of the back of the music room so that you would the people who were going to park there would have to come in on that other road, right? but maybe accessible by that road and having that parking there which a lot of the teachers and stuff kind of park back there anyway. The other thing is the outdoor play area. So that area marked off there is estimated at at 50 by 100. So it would have to have an area back behind there that would be 75 square ft a student.
This is a make sure we're equitable with all our hiring. No, this is for any new employee. The person whose salary changes, she was hired within the last year. She was hired within the last year. It's not somebody that's been with us a long time. Yeah. because we don't want people to be able to quit, come back to work force tomorrow and make more work. No. And and we looked at all of the uh we looked at everyone's um SC salary to make sure that nobody a leap frog over somebody who's already here. [Music] It's just being fair. Yeah, that being fair. Yeah. Anything further that answer? Okay. Fantastic. All right. Again, this is an action item. A motion to approve the 2526 elementary and middle school counselor social worker salary placement schedule and the 2526 guidance counselor salary placement schedule in a second. I second it.
Um because that's where we got stuck. There isn't um and I think Katie might have even mentioned this that there isn't um like laws directly pertaining to speech in that way um if I remember correctly. So there's there's just like there's nothing to there's no precedent. That's what I'm trying to get at. That's right. I Yeah, I was trying to remember earlier before you were on the phone, Audriana, and I could not for the life of me remember where we landed, but I do recall now that you said all that because I do remember finding some of those maybe I had like Googled and found some policies from some other districts, but then they got challenged and there was some court cases pending. It seems like it's just hard to author. I don't know. It's hard to author a policy specifically on that. So, could the recommendation be if the governing board has a desire for a hate speech policy, uh, this committee would need specific guidance and direction on how to approach that?
And there's campaign um companies, there's there's specialists that you can also hire to really push that envelope even further. Um but we feel we give at least give them that uh foundation so they know what to do in week eight, seven, six going leading up to the election. um we find that anything prior to a week eight and and and further out tends to burn citizens advisor or a yes committee out. So um that's kind of the sweet spot, but um every districts will dip in and we'll tailor that to help them out. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. This is the Dan night. This is the Dan show. You need a breather or is it a breather coming all the way from the back of the room? Thanks again. No, thank you so much for your time.
So, are there any questions? Tiffany, this is a thank you for the update. Um, we are so proud of learning center and all the the improvements, the advancements. um question. How challenging is it to add a new class? Um is it about space? Is it about So when we talk about adding a new program, I look for three things. Um first I look at our students. Is it something that they want to learn? Um then I look at our community. Is it something that's going to be able to support our local economy? And then I look for a teacher. And it's kind of a trifecta, right? You've got to have those three things. Space is the last thing I worry about. We've always figured it out, right? Um but that's where I look at is student interest. I look at what the community needs and then what we can afford to staff.
Um Ed's always good to listen to. I think he does he does a really good job. Um he talked he talked a lot about you know um social media and in why you know why you shouldn't hide behind social media and just it was it was it was excellent I thought um we are I think ready to roll for summer school. Um it's it's going to be a little bit different this year because of the changes that the state's made, but I think the adjustments we've made to our programming will um continue to benefit our kids and and meet the needs that that we have moving forward. Um and then I would just say, you know, we had um well, two things. One, Brandy talked about IU Cooko tomorrow, and I I couldn't be um I don't know, was is it prouder or more proud, I don't know, of the of the program.