My question on the grants is those that expire June 30th and balances do you have to spend those or do you have a leeway after that? So, so anything that expires June 30th, the grants end at all different kind of times. The grants are tough because they they are restricted funds. So, once you have a a grant plan, if something doesn't go to plan, um sometimes it's hard to spend every single dollar. We certainly make a grand effort to to to maximize every grant that we have, but it's not always possible. Um but for the most part, um you know, we stay on top of the revision process. There's deadlines for revisions. Um, and then you have you have to expend the money usually. Now, the way the state does it, they really switched the way that we do the grants, everything's on a reimbursement basis now.
And further, you can't do any evaluations of the superintendent. Um but yeah, you you know, there's other things you can do as a board member, but it is um you have to be mindful. And if you're not sure if your family member qualifies or your, you know, relative qualifies as um under this, just talk to your board attorney. So, collective bargaining is another um part of this. Uh and this chart shows the the different levels that you can you can participate in or not. If your family member or relative works in the district and is a member of the union, you can't be part of the negotiations and you can't u be part of the ratification vote. If it's yourself or your family member and they don't work in this district um but they are part of the same union, then you can't be part of negotiations.
It's uh my privilege to be here on on behalf of the Kar County Community Foundation to present uh the awards for this year to the class of 2025. And the foundation would like to acknowledge all of the accomplishments that you've achieved so far and all that you're going to achieve going forward in your life and career. Um we have several to go through this morning, so hang with me. Have a little smile. take a deep breath. Um, the total awards that the the foundation awarded this year was just shy of $300,000. And we're going to start out with the Decar County Community Foundation Scholars Award. There are three of those. Each recipient receives $6,000. 5,000 from the foundation with 1,000 from the Bill Smith family. Those recipients this year are Savannah Danforth, Christopher Mains, and Chase Dula. Next stop is the Decar County Community Foundation Mystery Donor Trade Scholarship for $500 each.
So, as you move into junior high and everything like that, look out for that 21st Century Scholar Program. Fill out that application. Jump through the the hoops. They're they're not too bad really and uh you know start focusing on that. But thank you all and uh we'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting. Thank you.
Yeah, this is I think the what's in the here is every single question. Okay, included. Okay, next one. I think Okay, so the next one um I have the neurodeiversity support for children which is page page 30 30. Um, and so this is a um they're using funding to support services that aren't covered by health insurance and it's a um they are just this is the second year of the nonprofit and this is the first year they're looking to give family grants. So basically the um they're not focused on Ashlin residents and they do say that you know they are um you know that they could put a question on their um on their rubric next time that talks about Ashlin, but it's not part of their their um process. So, I'm not I'm my personal perspective is I'm not sure what connection this organization has to Ashland and how it would benefit the Ashland community.
as an Awam starts up with the ball behind the net. Javanni with the ball behind the net. Good work by Kylie Marino. Ball gets thrown away. Kenna Marino will pick it up and she'll take off. Oh, ball's bouncing around and Kenna ends up with it. She's scorching down the field. She's looking for somebody because we know she's not selfish. She looked to try to get the ball to Lucy Parsons. pass doesn't doesn't make it. Grace Howard, good work by Grace Howard to knock the ball away and come up with it. You smell set up the offense over to Peliter to Howard to Parsons. Parsons gets knocked to the ground and she'll get herself an eight meter as Lorac gets called for cross check. Lucy Parson's on a tough eight meter. I'd like to see her run it in. She's got the speed. We'll see what Lucy does.
So Wendy um brought up having a discussion around AI in an upcoming meeting and Sarah brought up um AAT which is advanced algebra trigonometry which is well beyond my pay grade and that's about it and if anybody has any questions okay let's move then thank you Joy uh let's move to uh security task force okay um I'm not going to go into too much detail about this because the main you know discussion item is on the agenda for tonight. Um, so I think I'll just save it all for then. And but actually, do we happen to have like an image of the area that we're talking about? This is regarding fencing at CLES. Maybe like Eric can email. Well, I don't know if we have like a laptop over there, but um anyways, but this is this um meeting was to discuss fencing at CLES.
So, it made everything way more complicated. So, uh, you have to spend the money first and then you put in for the reimbursement. So, it kind of doubles the work on everything. Um, and you have to have everything encumbered, all your expenses encumbered by by mid June. So, then you can kind of draw down on on the grant, get final reimbursement. So, um there are there are some grants that just can't be spent. We we often have um you know things in in in obscure line items that are hard to spend. If something's in an instructional supply line, for example, that's very easy to spend because we can order things for the schools that do those very quickly. But when something is like in a tuition line or uh sometimes purchase services, it's a little harder to spend um depending on the grant rules and constraints.
But after the salary guise, the uh memorandum of agreement and the top compensation package has been agreed to, you can take part in the ratification vote and then if the relative district um and is not part of the uh the same teachers union, then you can participate in negotiations. Then there's a few opinions. this an ethics complaint decision and an advisory opinion about uh campaigning and endorsement by your local union. So in the first case um it's recommend you know if you received an endorsement from your local union um it's recommended that you not take part in negotiations your first year on the board um but thereafter it shouldn't be an issue. Uh, and then if you're endorsed by a um by a local union or the statewide union, um it's not necessarily a conflict, but um if you got an if the endorsement comes with a financial contribution with the implication that you're going to vote the way they want, um then you should not take part.
The two recipients this year are Jack McKenzie and Cody Case. I know. I know. Next is the Rose Deos family vocational scholarship for $1,569. Cody, don't sit down. Cody Case is the recipient of that. Next is the Steuart G. Pere Purdue University Engineering Scholarship for $1,97. The two recipients this year are Ashton Stroberg and Joseph Yake. [Applause] The Addie M. Austin Memorial Scholarship uh in the amount of $1,30.75 goes to the four recipients, Cody Casease, Tiffany Graman, Brooklyn Clark, and Jack McKenzie. the Meyer and Wilma Wilma Shriber Memorial for $1,265.80. That scholarship goes to Sai Miller. The Dorotha A. Running Scholarship for $1,22 goes to Catherine Schwar. [Music] The Joanie Bosik Memorial Pirate Spirit Award in the amount of $382 goes to Sailor Scripture. Also, while Sailor is up here, she received the Thelma E. Cur Indiana University Kelly School of Business Scholarship for $4,99.
And so, as much as I want to support all nonprofits, you know, ours is really the intention behind it is really to support efforts that are happening in Ashland. So, and and benefit a larger Ashland community. Yes. Where where are they located? I don't even have that information. That's not clear to me in the document where they're even located. If you want to hang on a second, I might be able to tell you though. I'm just curious to find out how they found out about the grant. I I do think that the current state of um let's just call it the environment of nonprofits. Sure. I think I think my feeling is that um nonprofits are are finding it harder to get funding in different ways. So I I don't think that's a feeling. I think I'm trying to be I'm trying to be No, but but yeah, I mean it's tough out there for nonprofits right now.
Nice fake by Parsons who gets the ball over to Howard. And Howard throws the ball just high. Good work by Morgado there to back the ball up. Ball gets into the crease. I think one of the Spartans stepped in the crease and Awan will start off with the ball. Goalie kicks the ball up to CrarAel. Crabel up the field to Good Row. Gets knocked away by Pettit. Petite. Good work by Petit to come up with it as she gets a penalty called against her. Petite with the ball. Awam looking to knock her out of bounds. De with the ball looking should get the ball to Kylie Marino. She does. Kylie Marino will get the ball over the restraining line. She goes in and out of one, two. Nice pass to Morgato. Morgado looking. Gets the ball temporarily displaced. Morato. Aguan ends up with it. Constantini with the ball.
Um, originally it was um going to serve dual purposes, both to um prevent like um playground balls from rolling down into like a ditch, but also um that area is very kind of primed for students who bolt um to get away from their um their teachers pretty quickly. So, it was going to kind of keep them a little bit more contained in the playground area. Um and so we talked about um the extent of of that fencing and we held this meeting just for this because you know the conversation from the previous meeting went um really long regarding this. Um so we did end up approving or approving the recommendation for um a fence that would if you if you can envision the um the play the prek playground that already is fully enclosed but that fencing is not connected to the building. Some fencing would then connect it to the building.
So, for the most part, we do a pretty good job spending that down. Um, but I tell you, this year was the first time we could really see very clearly on the back end of how things are being spent. There's a tremendous amount of coordination with the finance office, special ed, and my office, CRC, so that we're we don't leave any dollars on the table. We we spend those to the best of our ability um given the constraints that we have. But again, it's not perfect, but I this year I feel pretty good about that we had a pretty good plan and process. spent a lot of time looking at every dollar and every brand. So, we're preluded from just any excess to apply it against utilities and the operation%. It's very tricky and which is, you know, again what makes things a little bit more challenging for us is when you don't anything that's not in the general fund is it's like 10 times harder to spend that money.
You should recuse yourself from that discussion. The other impact that um having a family member in the district has on a board member is um your committee assignments and these different um um advisory one's an advisory opinion and one's an ethics complaint. The difference is advisory opinions start with A and complaints start with C. Just so you know what the difference is. Um if you're a board president, you know, the board president selects um the committee chairs and the people to be on the committee. If a board president has a family member that works in the district, they can't select the committee chair or the com be on the committee or the committee members of any committee that would remotely touch the employment of their uh family member which is pretty straightforward. So if you know but but it does hamstring the super I'm sorry does hamstring the board president because there are things that they can't do.
The Robert E. Simmons Memorial Trade Scholarship for $500 uh goes to Jack McKenzie and Cody Casease. I say goes to I should say awarded to it is an award. So it's awarded to each one of you. The Arnold Ducanis MD $500 $54 scholarship is awarded to Elena Weber. And Savannah Dan Danforth receives the following two awards. The Holly Peters Nursing Scholarship for $1,60 and the Pat Smith and loving memory of Tracy Lynn Smeiser scholarship for $1,000. The Steve Hunter Memorial Scholarship for $735 uh is awarded to Olivia Grimes and Jack McKenzie. The Martha L. Frost Art Scholarship in the amount of $48 is awarded to Madison Morland. class of 1941 and 1942 scholarship for $794 was awarded to Olivia Grimes. Okay. And while you're up here, you've also been awarded the Delmer and Janet Kette Panley Memorial Scholarship for $1,760. The class of 1961 scholarship for $433 has been awarded to Ashton Stronger.
A lot of funding has been cut all the way around due to various reasons. So but I was just curious to find out like you know it's not immediate to me. I didn't see any kind of immediate connection to Ashland either. So, I was just wondering they are located in Ashland. 25 West Union Street. It doesn't say Ashland, but I I'm pretty certain they are. Okay. 25 West Union. We So, we gave them funding before. No, we Well, and and as I look at this, I'm like I understand that, you know, there as they're a business, but they're, you know, they're a non I mean, it's hard sometimes to understand that something can be a business and be a nonprofit and nonprofits are allowed to make money. Um, but the reasoning behind why they want the funds, I'm like, yeah, I don't know that that's a good reason.
She's got some speed. She got good work by Addie Jordan to knock it away as Constantini ends up with the ball again. She's met behind the back of the net by Pettit Patit. Sorry. Mahoney with the ball. She tries to feather it in. It gets displaced. Addy Jordan picks it up. Throws the ball back to Jenna Holly. And the Spartans will on defense. Defense tonight was led by Grace Howard, Jenna Holly, Kendall Reed, Kylie Marino, Clara Pettit, and Hannah Eddie. Marino making headway. She pulls the ball back, starts offense with 2 minutes and 30 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. Kender Marino over to Howard. Kylie Marino. Kenna Marino still with the ball setting everything up looking to play a little twoman. Gets the ball to Kremens. Kman goes behind the net. She turns around tries to get a pass gets displaced. She comes up with the ball again.
So then from inside to outside the littlest littlest ones would be completely enclosed, but then it would also add additional fencing from that area like around to the woods line. So it would it doesn't enclose anything the woods line, but it does prevent the ball issue and it does prevent um students from just you know aloping into um the woods right there at least at least the youngest ones. Um, we did talk about what the cost would be to go further around the back of the building. That would be another like 20 $25,000. Um, that's not in the security capital budget that we have. Um, there is about 67,000 left in those funds for security enhancements specifically, but some of those funds were supposed to go for extra radios and video cameras and things like that. Since then, there are um some new grants that are possible.
I this has nothing to do with anything on on the the statements, but I do recall hearing that there's a there was something that was in the works when you say legislatively that had to do with the excess cost of special education that may be coming back to districts. Is is am I correct on that? Or could you speak to that? Because what I'm getting at if if that is something that would affect us, you know, when would it affect us? What kind of money are we talking about? I'm trying to find the amount. Like was it three or 400,000? It was just under 400. Just under 400,000. We don't know exactly when we're going to get it, but that was part of the legislative process where um everyone was trying to get more back for the excess cost. And um I didn't I don't think we're maybe going to get it this year, but we are going to get an aotment this year.