Find your role in shaping Ashlin's future. Community shout out, the Boston Marathon runners. A huge cheer to all Ashlin participants in the 2025 Boston Marathon. Whether you're running or supporting, we're proud of the way our community comes together on this historic day. Thank you. How are you guys feeling? Amazing. Good. going to be real. Are you on the pace that you want to? And I got pneumonia four weeks ago, so there's no pace. Ah, okay. There you go. Exactly. We know we're going to finish, so we're here to have fun. Good. Well, thanks for running. Thanks for running for the town of Ashland. You're welcome. We're really glad we could do that. Yeah. Okay. Well, any last words before we let you finish? No. No. No. We got a long way to go, though. Okay. Well, enjoy and good luck. Bye, girls. Roses. Bye, Rose Girls.
Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. opposed communication reports donations. Before I ask Miss Little Boy, I want to uh just go over this. Um Mr. Hav is the treasurer who does 90% of the work when it comes to the alumni. Uh superintendent is president, I'm vice president and Mr. have him does an amazing job. He uh it says in your packet that he gave $9,000. We added $2500 to that. Am I right? The new price is $11,500 from the alumni association. Uh $500 for each sport, summer and winter. Um plus he threw in two for uh academic uh scholarships. Yes. for a total of 11,500. Um, most of this is from the uh golf outing. Our golf outing is going to be August 1st. Um, if anybody cares to join us, please do. Mr. Wood, I didn't mean to steal your thunder, but Mr.
That would be Miss Van Hook seconded. All those in favor I I motion carries four to zero. which is the superintendent one. Madam President, you should reconvene the uh board meeting, the regular board meeting. So move to reconvene the regular board meeting. I motion that we reconvene the board meeting. That would be Miss German seconded. All those in favor. I I motion carries. Four to zero. All right. This brings us to action item superintendent's performance-based pay for fiscal year 2024 2025.
It's one of our biggest clubs at Stevenson. Um, and it's just really nice for those students who are interested in the healthcare field to connect with healthcare professionals when they go on to nationals. Um, you know, they get networking opportunities that way. Many of them secure internships. So, it's just a great hands-on, you know, competitive environment for them. Then on the top left, we had our FBLA state competition. So, similar to HOSA, but for students who are involved in business, on the top left, we had 112 students compete and 51 as well qualified for nationals. So, similar to the healthcare field, the business field, we're we're well represented there as well. Um, and same thing with healthcare, right? They'll be able to get networking opportunities when they attend nationals. So, another huge club um for them. And then that national tournament or competition will be in Anaheim, California in the summer.
So, still kind of around. I mean, it went up a little bit, but yeah. Um, so there's a story there. I actually talk about this in our class just to kind of make it known of why that is. Does anybody know why by chance? 1984. Um, so we actually started having computers in the home now. So, personal computers. Apple had a ton way back in the 80s. You can look up the commercials on YouTube still, but they were all focused primarily on pushing it to for for boys. It was all boys marketing for boys. And so because of that, they were still focusing on majoring in computer science, but it kind of got viewed more as a boy thing. Computers were a boy thing, excuse me. And it kind of persists to this day if you think about tech pioneers, you know, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos, you name it, Steve Jobs.
The Sharp Creek Northspots are the only public school in Northern Indiana to earn a spot at the elementary VEX Robotics World Championships. This year's competition, Rapid Relay, is a fast-paced robotics challenge that uh uh resembles basketball requiring strategy, speed, and precision. The Blue Norspot stood out with their innovative engineering, including a custom-designed pneumatic flipper that transfers balls between a high goal and low goal shooter. No other team in Indiana has a design like it, and it was this originality and ingenuity that earned them the innovative award at the Indiana State Championship. one of only seven judged awards that secured a spot at Worlds. Out of over a thousand elementary teams in Indiana, all four Sharp Creek teams advanced to the state competition, placing them in the top 122 teams in the state. The Blue Norse spots went on to finish an impressive eighth place overall at state, capping off an already incredible season.
That's all for today's update. Stay tuned for more news and remember to participate in your community events. A thank you to town manager Michael Herbert and the entire town staff for their efforts in bringing us this informative newsletter. And thank you all for joining us today on WACA. My name is Halley Silver. Good night and go clockers.
H is near and dear to my heart. So Danny have is been the treasure alumni for 30 years now. Uh and uh at one point we had a we've never really had strong active alumni. At one time we had put alumni together and we had some active members of 12 people that were overseeing the alumni. we had some meetings and then people stopped coming and so then it ended up that uh Danny was actually the only one that was kind of still involved in the alumni and raising funds and the funds that are uh that that are raised through the golf tournament that happens every year the first week of August usually it's the first Friday of August there's a golf tournament um and so that brings in about 20 25,000 a year in to the alumni treasury and so uh typic uh Danny really uh will pretty much makes the decision because there is no real board for the alumni although we're reestablishing the alumni trying to reestablish alumni so we are going to be sending out some information to all the alumni that students who have graduated see who's interested in joining the alumni tonight where we uh submitting the IRS to get our nonprofit status reestablished.
Uh any questions or comments be from the board before I make the motion. I motion that the governing board approves the superintendent's performance-based pay in the amount of $6,000. Sarah German seconded. All those in favor? I I motion carries. 40 zero. Madam President, can we can we make a comment?
On the top right, members of our sports broadcasting club traveled to the Marquee Network studios at Wrigley Field to sort of look at what professional sports networks do and how they process and how they work to do what they do. Um, and so I think that was really nice for students who obviously we know what our broadcasting teams do here for all of our events. They do an impeccable job. This was nice for them to see on a larger scale what it's like to do it for a professional sporting event. Um and then so yeah, those are the main events that we've had. And then on the bottom left, we had our uh 80 students from our computer programming 2 class um travel to the Google headquarters to learn more about from the students and alumni what they do there. And so again, scale, we have 80 students involved in a computer programming 2.
Um, so it kind of persisted that stereotype. So that's why it kind of continued from there. And there's a lot of other factors, but that's the main uh factor with that. Um, so yeah, computer started entering the home. Um, to overcome this stereotype, what we started doing with BHS is just getting counselors more involved, talking to students. Um, the students themselves. That's why we have a student here that's going to talk about that, just promoting it. Um, the women in STEM club is a new club run by Susan Fricky at the high school. She kind of promotes that stuff as well, having guest speakers come in, talk about that. And then our own re uh our own research, our own outreach um, reputation of the program just kind of started building it. So, we're getting closer to that 50%. Um there was research done by Harvey Mud College.
During the regular season, under the expert guidance of coaches Kevin and Amber Bretzman and Joel Nestler, the Blue Northspots also brought home an array of awards. two-time teamwork champions, two-time build award winners, design award winner, skills champion, and judges award at a signature event which is a world qualifier. We commend these students not only for their accomplishments but for their dedication, sportsmanship, and creativity. Their success is a shining example of what students can achieve when they're challenged, supported, and inspired. Please join us in congratulating the Blue Northspots and wishing them continued success as they represent Sharp Creek in Northern Indiana on the world stage. Way to go, Blue Nor spots. We are so proud of you. So, excellent uh information and excellent job by that team and everybody else that competed at the at the state. I think they actually also got to apply to be flag bears for the opening ceremony.
So once that's done, we can have a an actual alumni with a board of board of trustees and leadership team. So, but anyways, he's u has in the past given substantial amount of money to the uh scholarship scholarships school for students who are graduating. This year, uh they decided to do something a little different for all the kids who had such great athletic teams this year. so many kids involved in athletics this year decided he decided that with after having conversation with Mike our athletic director to give each program dollars to fund anything that each program could utilize to support their program anything from a camp equipment to anything they typically can't get out of our equipment budget they're going to use utilize that So, um, he wanted him to come in tonight and be recognized, but he didn't want to do that. He's very, uh, I want to say quiet for the team and coach basketball team.
I just wanted to thank Miss Richards for her service um hanging in for another year. It uh it is it is appreciated by the staff and the people you work with and the community. You uh we appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to second that, Miss Richards. We are very grateful for the time that you have given us. Thank you. I'd like agree with that. All right. This brings us to consent agenda items. I motion to approve consent agenda items 6.1 through 6.11. Anna Van Hook seconded. All those in favor? I. I. Motion carries four to zero. Uh we would like to thank Higgley Booster Club, Higgley High School Choir Boosters, and PBLO Mechanical and Controls for their generous donations to the district. At this time, uh David is going to introduce our new IT director. That was just part of the consent agenda.
We have multiple computer programming classes. Students who are involved in engineering and enjoy programming and computer science love that opportunity to see a real world experience of that. So, continuing off more career-based or academic raced ones. Um, we had our table tennis team on the top right, which was more ac more athletic and academic a little bit. Um, they traveled, we had two members travel for the Illinois, they represented team Illinois against the state of Wisconsin. They were the only two players from Stevenson that represented Illinois. Um, and they finished with a perfect record. So, congratulations to them. Um, the not surprised. I know. everywhere we go. We're now going across state lines, too. Um, on the bottom left, we had our science reach team, which is one of our science related clubs in addition to the science olympia team here at Stevenson. Competed a regional fair at Wheeling where they took home best school or the top high school award.
So here's another gra. This is the last graph I promise. Um where it kind of shows like US average um for computer science majors. But then Harvey Mud started doing interventions kind of the same thing that I was talking about um before just um outreach uh focusing on more like collaboration rather than competition within computer science. Just making it more open to females. And they actually cut that into about 50%. If you look up there it says 48.8%. um toward the end of it, it's actually higher than 50% now. Again, that's the only graph I could find for that. Um so we're trying to mimic kind of that MUD model of what they did, Harvey Mud College, what they did. Um so sorry. Um and as parents and educators, um so why is this important? As parents and educators, we want our students to have options.
I don't know. I don't think they got it, but they were invited to apply. Not everybody got that invitation. Kind of like when they go to the Olympics, they do the same thing. So, I did ask uh Mrs. Bretzman about that and have not heard back. Did you hear I heard that? Wait, I'll ask again. So, at the time they hadn't heard anything back yet when I asked, but that was like during spring break, I believe. So that's all the membership at this time. All right, we'll move on to uh public comment on agenda items only. If not anything there, we'll move on to our agenda items.
He's quiet. He used to be our varsity basketball coach here once. Well, he was also a carpentry teacher, which I worked with him for about 25 years, 20 years. Basically, I worked with the best carpentry teacher together. So just wanted to give a real shout out to him for the commitment that he's made to the alumni on behalf of GTC because he loves the school. He loves kids that come here always. Yes, please. There there's something with the school property too. Is that part of the alumni or is that separate? Yeah. So, um there the other uh fundraiser they do is if you go out to the alumni field which is the baseball field there, the turf baseball field that's called alumni field. There's alumni circle that was designed uh it's the entrance of that field has a flag and has papers uh with some trees and flowers and stuff.
Board President Wade, members of the board, it's with my pleasure to announce and I'll have Robert I'm going to put you on the spot right here in the middle. Okay, not uncomfortable. There's no anything but my pleasure to announce that following a comprehensive interview process, Robert Shopee will begin as the director of IT effective July 1, 2025. If we can give Robert a round of applause. This is a true grow your own. Robert has been a member of our district for the past 17 years and counting. Uh he began his career in 2007 as a tech one at Coronado Elementary School. He later supported Gateway Point Elementary, Williamsfield High School before advancing to user support supervisor, IT manager, and most recently he was our assistant director of IT for the past eight years. We're very, very proud of Robert. Uh during this time, he uh he got a master's degree in cyber security, further supporting his commitment to protecting advancing the district's technology systems.
And then on the bottom right, our entrepreneurial tactic classes hosted sort of a showcase event for the Stevenson school. Um, it was a trade show that they hosted before break. And so 19 student groups presented their ideas and I guess pitched them to younger students who came by during I think it was the lunch periods. And so that's nice for students who take that class. Obviously this is something younger students a lot of freshman sophomores saw and so now they may be interested in taking that class when they were juniors and seniors. So that was a great event for them. Athletic wise, um we're kind of in the full swing of things when it comes to spring athletics now. Obviously our teams are up and running. Um, this will be kind of the last bout, if you will, of athletics that we have before we graduate.