Comment shall be limited to three minutes. First up, we have Stephanie Schwall. Green. Hi. Hello. Good evening, everybody. My name is Stephanie Schwall. Um, I am up here tonight. I am a representative representative of the Kerry Basketball Association, also known as the CBA, and I wanted to express my opposition to the proposed fee increase for the gym facilities. Um, the CBA is the premier league in Kerry for kids to play basketball and also the only one. Uh, our park district doesn't offer basketball. So the CBA is a volunteer-run organization and we currently have close to 700 kids enrolled in the CBA. Most of them are Carrie and a lot of them are District 26. Um so that being said, if you could take a look at the little handout that I provided earlier, you could take a look at the pie chart there. The dark blue, which is about 50% of the pie chart, that represents the cost of gym rental for us.
I like that. Thanks for sharing that because I don't why would I know that what's going on in 2010 and the reason. So, I appreciate that. >> I know I know this board had the conversation about wanting to keep the class sizes lower because of the additional behaviors that our staff was seeing in the classrooms, etc., and making it more manageable for our staff. So, um that's my recollection of it since I've been here. So these ones that are at like 25 um over 25, this is the watch and wait and see if more kids enroll, Dr. Thomas. >> Right. Because in any grade level, you know, for example, I think, um I know Deer Path fifth grade is there. I believe there's a couple classes at Three Oaks that are right about that same spot. Um so those are ones we watch because we do have a lot of movement.
That actually goes away. So that's what it's going to change the whole traffic circulation. >> Yeah, that's what I was asking about that traffic because currently there I know that they're doing construction so there's traffic issues that are occurring there right now. just um having people stop and be one lane right there at Cabin Coffee where the storage facility is, imagination station. Um so it caused me to start thinking about how you would go in and out of the main entrance. Yeah. So in when it's completed, >> it will only be right in right out in the main thoroughfare. Is that what I understood you to say? >> No. So, so the main entrance, >> can you pull it up on here by chance? Does it show up on one? >> It wasn't on this slide. >> Maybe even if you show that north. >> There you go.
Then coming back on the third is teacher work day [clears throat and cough] with the fourth being the first day for students. Again, keeping Martin Luther King as a no school day as well as President's Day in February. Um making sure that we have those uh both included in our calendar. Um the the calendar recommendation for that's before you has the last week of March being spring break. Um, and then you'll notice that uh, Good Friday, Easter in 28 is really late and is the second week in April. So, Good Friday would still be a no school day on the 14th. This calendar then gives our students uh, their final day of school on the 26th of May, which is the Friday before Memorial Day weekend with teachers coming back on Tuesday the 30th. Uh, ending the second semester with 96 days. So 96 first semester 84 uh is is a close proximity there.
School security is not a plug-and-play sport. You just don't plug and play those things in. You have to think about how would this work when you introduce something new into your system. How does it change your system? How do you adapt that to deal with displacement of risks? What do you tr what are your tradeoffs? And then of course the financial piece and is there a better investment based upon your assessment and your data to put those resources somewhere else. >> Thank you. >> Like any consultant, there's no short answer. >> I have a question. Um you mentioned people failure from um instruction that's given and then the people fail. So my first question, I don't know who this would who would feel this. Uh how are our substitute teachers trained on emergency procedures? Because you said you talked about people failure. I would think that that would be a high-risk group maybe.
We have been good feedback from our buildings. Um, so obviously as you can see just with the year the year that we've uh experienced our goal is to add more snow makeup days built or build in more snow makeup days in the future best we can two or three. Um so my recommendation I actually approve uh option B um it's pretty similar uh to to this year's calendar um kind of on certain dates and end dates um of course includes three built-in built-in days um as well but you know important thing to remember is we always have a calendar to resolve part it's our goal all the best we can whereas the rest of the county schools are not one year in advance. So we do our best to communicate and collaborate on that. We that's kind of a little bit of background information kind of why we're in the in the lead on that.
Um, but overall we stayed within our track. We still have a really healthy cash balance. Um, so that's for the education fund. Moving on to the debt service fund. Um, that one is just pretty straightforward um as it is. You know, it's um levy driven. Um, so we have that there where we covered all of our expenses in December. They are pay the money comes in in December and we pay that out in December for our bonds. Um, so right on target with that for the end of the year. Moving on to the operations fund and this is the one that gets a little trickier as they as time goes on and with SEA1 and all of that that we'll start to see a little more of a struggle with in the future. Um but for this month or year end actually it we still came out quite fine honestly.
Uh expenditures in January uh were a up a little this month. That's primarily because it's a three-pay month for us. Two times a month or two times a year, we will have a month that has three three pays. So those in those months, we adjust for that in our projections for our salaries and benefits. Uh the next slide, we'll have our transportation fund. Similarly, uh happy with where we're at one month in uh in transportation. You can see the uh the revenue comes in twice a year. Uh we won't get that until June. Um and then again at the end of the year in in December um our expenditures just a little under uh about a little over 100,000 uh under. So glad to see that and ending balance in a good place uh out of the gates at transportation. >> Thank you, Mr. Miles.
Our students enjoy this time because they have the opportunity to teach each other um and to test out of a skill and get to learn from another teacher. We are confident that our students are going to show mastery on their blind assessments that are coming up. They love tracking their mastery and seeing our classroom charts increase and the hallway numbers increasing. As we get closer to testing, we know that another important piece to us is involving our Hawk families. After we do our big ASA assembly, where our student council and administration pump our students up, we invite our families for breakfast. Following our theme of mission possible, our breakfast this year is coffee and confidential briefings. Our families have the opportunity to learn about ASA, understand why it's important for their student, and what the scores mean. Then they get to make inspirational posters that are hung up around campus and they can write letters to their students wishing them good luck before they take their test.
>> So, moving uh on Julie, any other slips come in while >> No, sir. >> Okay. >> All right. We have uh just a couple of items for the board this evening. Uh first one is health life safety improvements. Uh Travis has this one. I just chopped up your mouth and threw it in there. >> That's great. Yeah, that sounds good. So, um, a couple weeks ago, actually on February 9th, we had our bid opening. So, if you remember, uh, going back to, um, actually two summers ago, coming up on two summers ago, when White did their started with their survey, were required every 10 years to go through a, um, an inspection, if you will, by by an architect, and they go through and they identify areas that we need to address, and you have 10 years to get those done. Um so we've gone through and we've talked about a lot of these um already.
Well, we got get great people to do that that work, you know, um and we're trying to make sure that we have Well, there's there's a lot of different things that will help community will help us uh stay like you said um remind us of our >> yes even when we don't agree with each other we should at least agree on how to engage and how to move forward. >> So do we have a timeline for that? So the recommendation >> is to start not tonight but just to first bring up the idea >> and then not the March 9th board meeting but the following board meeting would be the first one and my understanding that it would be essentially three protocols would be read and then there'll be some discussion and then one board member would lead that. So we have a list that board members can sign up for to lead that particular conversation.
That is by far above and beyond the biggest expense of the CVA. Increasing gym space by even just a little bit is going to really impact our families. And our goal is to make sure that we provide a fun, safe, awesome youth sports program for everybody in our town at an affordable price for our families. Um, in fact, uh, one of my colleagues here, um, is able to negotiate other gym space based on district 26 prices. So, if there is an increase in district 26 prices, it's going to go up not just for the gym space cost here, but also in other facilities because we have so many kids that we have to spill over to other gyms in the area. Um, I think that it would be really beneficial um if the board chose not to increase the costs for our families. Um, right now I think the district is in pretty good financial shape.
We even sometimes have a lot of movement just over winter break. Um but into the summer we can be up and down a hundred different kids. Um so it just depends on which grades those kids are moving in and out of. It always seems to come in groups. You know we just had the largest group just blossom uh in first grade this year at Briergate. Other years um you know fifth grade at Briergate could go down seven kids in two weeks and we just don't know until we get a little further into the summer. >> Thank you Dr. Thomas. If there's no other questions, uh, we'll move on to the technology plan. Miss Rivera, Mr. Fitz Simmons. Mr. Fitz Simmons is going to walk us through the T plan for today. Um, it is essentially, you're going to see it's a mirror of what came last year.
Yeah. >> Um, yeah, that'll work for me. So, >> okay. Yeah. >> Here. So, this is the main entrance here. >> Yeah. >> So, this road comes out and where it connects to 36, that will be a traffic light. >> That's going to be the light. Yes. Okay. >> And this road here >> and that's where right now you would go to Washington Township Park if you >> That's where you would go if you were going to Washington Township Park. Exactly. So it's this is right across the street from Washington Township Park. >> So that entrance where it lines up with Washington Township Park is where the new traffic signal will be. >> Okay. >> This traffic signal back here. >> Yes. >> By cabin coffee is going to go away. >> Yes. >> That's going to be the one that turns into a right in right out.
Looking at the other um opportunity here for a later start would be August 16th um for teachers, August 18th for kids. Uh again with the full week of fall break in October, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Um one of the things that we would do as well keep Christmas break the same. Um and therefore it would give us an end of first semester um would be 79 days where in the other one we had actually had 84 days. Um part of the issue with this is you can see rolling Christmas break is really challenging um with where Christmas falls on the 25th on a Saturday of that year. Um Martin Luther King Day, President Day again. Um no school on those days. Looking again at the week of fall break at the end of March. Um then going into April, still Good Friday is there. Now with Memorial Day being there, the problem that that presents is then it moves.
So how would how would our substitute teachers be trained on emergency procedures and our procedures that we're adopting? >> Yeah. So I can start. I don't know if you I don't know if part of the process is to talk to substitute teachers, but um their training involves the different types of lockdown protocols that we have and protocols for natural disasters in addition to some training on um classroom management um managing student behaviors. Alice training is part of their their onboarding as well. Then there's also some school specific things like teaching them where to look for things they need to make sure they know about when they get there. School maps specific procedures for that building, dismissal procedures for elementary schools, really important. So beyond the general everyone needs this, there's some school specific look force that they're given. And to piggyback on superintendent's comments, uh, answers, one of the thing, that's one of the standard questions we ask at at each building.
Um but we don't we don't typically make a lot of major changes still ends before Memorial Day. There's a little bit of a window for graduation. Graduated on Friday night I've been here and I think for for quite some time. So I feel like it it blends the best it can while getting in, you know, 180 student days and 184 student days. >> Any question? >> I don't have questions. I just I just wanted to kind of put forth that I really appreciate trying to balance the first semester with the second semester so that the days are fairly uh aligned. I like that both do that. I like the second one much better because of the built-in snow days. I like the fact that it's keeping graduation on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. We have done that forever. And I think as as Megan pointed out earlier, the the first calendar has graduation on the same weekend as depos graduation and that is not not a good thing.
Uh 91% of our total revenues projected some of that is because of that circuit breaker. Um when you hit that circuit breaker that levy that you're anticipated to receive you will not receive um just because that's just how it's set up. Um and then for the expenditures we were at 82.63%. Um, and then you can see there we have the transfer and up in the revenue section that was over on the other report for the education fund. Um, and then, um, again, we're coming in pretty strong here, staying within our budget. Um, and I feel like it's a positive year end for the rainy day fund. You will see that there is just the budget, what was budgeted and what was being expended for the year. And that closes that out for the year. Moving on to the education fund historical comparison. If you go down to December on that one, you can see that we are at 15 million156,145.
Board, any questions or comments on the financial update? >> Yes, sir. Dr. Smith. >> Mr. Miles, we forgot to remind the board. They already know, but the public needs to know what our tax rate. >> We have one of the lowest tax rates in Marian County. Is that correct? >> We certainly are. Our total tax rate is and now just over a$18. And I'm going to get it exactly here. $1877 is our total tax rate. Uh down from A12. >> One of the lowest tax. >> One of the lowest in Marian County. Absolutely. us and that will change as a referendum. I won't say the district is not a basketball game. >> That that that lack of operating a referendum um really helps us tremendously to keep our tax rate down. >> So we'll be probably one of the lowest tax rate until we decide to do a referendum.
Students reading positive notes before testing is very impactful to their performance. So we ensure all students get one. Thank you for letting us share how we ensure our Hawks demonstrate mastery of their grade level standards by showing growth and proficiency on state assessments.